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I fail.
So I get up, head to the van, and come back with a pipe cutter, a junior hacksaw, a half-round file, some steel wool and—well, in the end I say fuck it and just grab the whole toolbox.
Tracking down the burst pipe is simple enough—and it’s under the sink right by the stopcock which makes it nice and easy to work with. I drain what’s left of the water out the system, thenI lie down, cut through the bit that’s burst, sand off the edges on what’s left and attach a bit of pipe coupling. Once that’s done I tighten everything up, give it a polish, turn the water back on and job’s a good 'un.
In the eight seconds after I’m done, I go through this weird, plumbing-related emotional wringer, where I start off feeling all satisfied and that because I’ve done something useful and I’ve got a lot of good memories associated with plumbing. Except good memories can be really hard sometimes, which is sort of why I’ve not done much of this kind of work in a while. Only they’re…they’re not. Not now. And that’s great until I remember how badly I fucked things up with Jonathan. And then I’m right back to lying on somebody else’s lino with the one person whose opinion I give a fuck about thinking I’m a lying piece of shit.
Worse, Gollum’s apparently decided that he likes Jonathan more than me and that Jonathan’s parents smell more like Jonathan than I do, so he’s gone to sleep in Les and Wendy’s room.
Making a mental note to give the bed a once-over with the lint roller before I go, I leave him to it.
But I don’t have a very good night.
CHAPTER 34
On christmas eve I get up early, wrangle Gollum back into his case, and head out into the cold, grey, really fucking windy as it happens, Croydon dawn. And I drive.
Leaving London is always hard. Not emotionally—emotionally London can get fucked. But practically. I’m in the south and I want to get north, but I still have to drive south for about twenty minutes to get on the M25, thenaroundthe M25 for the best part of an hour before I can even begin to get away from the fucking city.
I’d like to say that when I do I feel something like release. That the part of my life that had Jonathan and the Christmas party and the whole complicated business with actually having a concussion and not actually having amnesia and wanting to do right by everyone and not doing right by anyone and it all going to total, absolute shit right at the last possible minute fades into the distance as I speed past Watford Gap. But it doesn’t. Everything just continues to suck.
Since I’ve left early—too early probably, because I’ve not slept well and am probably only borderline safe to drive—I get back to Sheffield only slightly after noon and find myself in the middle of town on Christmas Eve with no idea where to go or what I’m meant to be doing.
I go home first, to get Gollum settled in, though he’s been away so long it’s like getting him used to a new place all over again. Thinking about it, maybe I should have swiped one of Jonathan’s T-shirts to calm him down with.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him as he makes a very determined effort to squeeze himself into the gap behind the fridge. “I know you liked him better, but you’re stuck with me now.”
He looks back at me, uncomprehending, or possibly just peeved—it’s hard to tell with any cat, but especially one with a face like Gollum’s.
What with him being so antsy, I feel a bit bad leaving him, but it gets to where I can’t not. Being shut up in an empty-but-for-cat flat from now until—I don’t know, until I get a job, die, or have to go to the shops I suppose—feels like a particularly cold, damp flavour of hell. Besides, cats aren’t pack animals; he’ll only notice I’m gone if he wants something.
Not being what my mum would call a fashion plate, I’ve only got one jacket, and that jacket is currently in a basement in Shoreditch, or maybe in a lost-and-found box at a venue in Shoreditch, or if I’m very, very lucky being transported back to Sheffield by one of my team members who might have recognised it and forgotten that they don’t really have any way to get it back to me on account of my not working with them anymore. Either way, it makes my walk through the town centre incredibly fucking bitter, which I find bleakly appropriate. For a while I just put up with it out of a misplaced sense of penance, but in the end I say fuck it and grab myself an olive colour block padded jacket from George at Asda.
Between the cold, the sad, and the nothing, the whole day slips away, until I get to the point I realise I’ve not eaten since last night and I should probably do something about that. I’m not sure what fit of masochistic despair sends me back to Uncle Sams. I think onthe way I tell myself that I just really want a burger, then when I’m there I tell myself that it’s too late to go anywhere else even though there’s at least three other restaurants I’ve gone past on the way.
Finally I admit I’m being pathetic.
I get myself seated and order a burger.
“I like your jacket,” says the waitress when she’s brought my order. “Is it new?”
“Aye,” I say, and then immediately add, “twenty-three quid, Asda George.”
If it wasn’t for the whole bit where it tastes of ash and misery, it’d be a pretty decent burger. But it does. Still, I tip generous-ish and then finally mooch my way home.
Since I’ve got nothing to do with the rest of my evening or, for that matter, the rest of my life, I whack on the TV, and I’m just navigating by instinct toPointlesswhen I realise thateven thatis going to remind me of Jonathan now.
But fuck it, I’m in a wallowing mood. So I set myself up for a good long wallow. I turn offPointless, download UKTV Play and stick onAuf Wiedersehen, Pet.
I’m all of two episodes in before I start crying for no fucking reason.
It’s Christmas day, and I’ve got nothing to do and nobody to do it with, so I go visit the family.
One of the tricky things about the north, especially when you’ve let yourself get all Londonified by a scowly man with hairy arms and heavy eyebrows, is that you start thinking of it like it’s all one place like, when it’s actually fucking enormous. Well, enormous by England standards—I understand Americans see it differently.
Either way, the trip from my cold, empty, miserable flat to thecold, empty, slightly less miserable place my parents are at is a bit over two hours in good traffic.
And there they are. Right where I left them.
