Yabbies - a novel

Steve's diary (November 2)

2 November, for what it's worth

I want her. I'll start with that. I bloody want her. I've always wanted her. I'd say I need her, but she'd probably say that ain't the same thing. But what bloody difference does it make? – I still want her, but don't have her.

And I can't. Can't have her. Simple as that.

And it bloody hurts.

She says write it all down, get it out of my system – that's what all this is about it, ain't it, though I doubt it'll help. So here goes, dear effing diary. Start from the top. Or somewhere.

Okay. I'm Steve. I can manage that bit. Steve Hallam, for what it's worth. Twenty-eight years old, and still living with me bloody parents, here in bloody Bolton. Guess they'd say I'm the failure of the family: me sister's followed me mum into teaching, and me brother's gone one better than dad and got his full engineer's ticket from uni, and me, all I've got is a fitter-and-welder cert from the tech and a dead-end job at Hobart's like the half the other scrags in this dead-end town. Least I'm better than production-line, cos that really would drive me mad.

Dead-end town. Dead-end job. Dead-end life. Certainly feels that bloody way.

And – no, can't even write her name in here, even that hurts too bloody much right now – Anyway, she and I grew up together. Always liked her. Then a lot more than just liked her. And she always liked me too, I know that. She still does – I know that now too. That's what bloody hurts. We never did get it together – having mum in the same school was bad enough, but she was our class teacher every bloody year through that school, so that screwed any chance I might have had with any of the birds there. Let alone with her. And the only other birds I've known are into it just for what they can get for themselves and nothing more, take a guy to the bloody cleaners and never give nothing back, and I seen too many of my mates get ripped to shreds that way. So I got into drinking with the lads as the only bloody thing I could do, and walking the hills when I wasn't drinking, and she got into studying and drawing and singing and all that stuff, and then she was gone.

Till last month, when I saw her back in town. With a kid on one arm, and a guy on the other. A Traveller, by the look of him, and she looked it too. Travellers, making a few quid here and there, singing at pubs and that, and then always moving on afore someone gets pissed off with them and trashes all their gear. She sees me, recognises me, comes running over, gives me a great big kiss – and yeah, that brings it all back. Even writing that brings it all back.

The baby's still a squeaker, but she introduces her guy, name of Rouge or something like that, decent enough lad which makes it a bit better, I suppose, but of course I hate him just because he's where I've always wanted to be. With her. Jealous ain't easy. And we talk a bit, the usual crap about the time of day and such, and then she waves, and he waves, and even the squeaker waves, and they're gone.

And we meet up again a week later at my usual, the Monmouth, where they've got a gig. I've been playing a bit of keyboards there too – feels like it's the only bloody thing I can do now other than drinking – bluesy stuff, a bit of casso and such, nothing much but at least it keeps me sane and off the booze a bit when I'm there. So we get a chance to talk a bit while her guy's up on stage with the rest of their crew. Doesn't make it any better – just reminds me what I ain't got – but I agree to meet up with her again at some kind of gathering they've got at one of the old places down south.

Which we did, a couple of nights back. Can't remember the name of the place, a tiddly little village with just the one pub, in the middle of a bloody great circular ditch and some huge old stones like up the back end of the Peaks. We talk some more, but that's it, really. I want her, and she wants me, but I dunno that's good to know that at last, because it ain't going to change. They ain't got much, those Travellers, but they not far off own each other, those two, and the kid owns her, there's no doubt about that at all. I don't figure in that equation.

And she's a Traveller, for god's sake, she's got the life she wants. Best I could offer her is a two-up-two-down box in the scrag end of Bolton with the cops' sirens howling all the bloody time and the kids having to scram out the way afore they get flattened by the heavies and the drug-heads. She'd be gone in a week, or be a strait-jacket job in two.

So I want what I can't have. Story of my bloody life, really.

I'm going to have to get out of here. Have to get out of here. I can't face seeing her in the street again. And even if I do push off out of Bolton, chance is that I'll bump into her on the streets of Edinburgh, or Solihull, or bloody Milton Keynes or wherever.

Feel like I'm bloody possessed by this.

But what the hell can I do? Where the bloody hell can I go?