Life isn't all roses and winning bets, as we know. Sometimes it's that sad montage in the film 'Up' as well. The smallest things are the worst as well as the best.
I could've applied that metaphor to the Cheltenham game last Saturday. I certainly felt like crying as I walked to meet Tel outside Sir Alf just as the final whistle went. He put a braver face on it. In fact, he was frankly a bit annoying. I'd just watched the bloody game. The last thing I needed was telling where we'd gone wrong in it. "Fought they might've bleedin' scored dan your bleedin' end" he muttered as we pegged it for the 5.09. He didn't fancy a drink for the road in Manningtree but I convinced him anyway. The cab would be easier to order once the rush from the station had subsided, I argued. We stayed til 10pm in the end. They had both footy games on Sky.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of sad news in these notes but I feel I should share it with you anyway. Tel announced that they've found a house in Great Bardfield, nearer to Braintree and Tony and Sandy. Their bungalow in Dovercourt now sports a 'For Sale' sign. It went on the market last week. They've knocked 40k off the original estimate for a quick sale. They've had four viewers already (and there was me thinking everyone was skint). Of the four, two were, according to Tel, "deffoes". I like to think he meant definites and not that they were hard of hearing. It wouldn't suit the hard of hearing. It'd be like living permanently in that film "A Quiet Place".
To add insult to injury or even more salt to the sore as my mum says, they're still spending Christmas in Braintree. You'd have thought they'd have wanted a final hurrah up here. We'd have cancelled Paula's Mum and my parents for a jolly old knees up with them at Xmas, perhaps getting riotously, vomitously drunk on all the dregs of the bottles he keeps at the back of his drinks cupboard, and playing Twister nude and stuff. But no. Mrs Tel is apparently still delicate and besides "we've told Tone'n'Sandy now, be daft ter cancel" as Tel put it at the pre-match drinks on Saturday.
So this looks like it. He tried to interest me in the details of the new house they've found, but as he scrolled through the pictures of the modern bungalow with its herringbone drive and double garage, I found it difficult to be enthused. "Six 'undred grand well spent that is" he said proudly, as though mentally holding the keys already. I sighed and nodded. He's thinking of having a pool put in. He's got a two acre garden with it. Blah blah blah. It was like the late Ian Dury doing 'Escape to the Country'. "Well, 'ere yer are. Nice patio that. You could 'ave an orgy wiv six tubby birds an' the neighbours'd never see yer".
He came to the Cheltenham game with the same air you suspect Alexander the Great had on first encountering Achaemenid Persia; a sort of 'doin' you a favour by cummin' ter watch this toot' attitude that saddened and angered me in equal measure. He actually said down the pub he hoped the Town would be going up so they showed more games on the telly. This could well be his last ever Town home game. He can't make the Boxing Day clash with Oxford and he wasn't interested in the Fleetwood Friday one.
So it ends like this. Well, probably. A friendship forged in the smudged inky fingers on a bakery sausage bap and a few betting slips and a Coke fridge that gathered dust and made a funny noise when the door opened. Of course, he doesn't see it like that. He's already talking as though we'll be down at weekends, trying local curry houses and local hostelries. But he wasn't convinced by the faux jollity of his own statement and the side glances he sneaked at me when he thought I wasn't looking said much. If it's not adieu, it's certainly ta-ta for now.
Of course, he'll say I've got Paula, and he'd be right. I have. I don't really know for how much longer. We go through more bad spells than Ron Weasley at the moment. I get the distinct impression that the honeymoon period has worn away like Walton coastline before we're even married. We still make love, but it's beginning to annoy her when I linger. She's talking more about Blake in rosy wistful tones at that. I pretend I'm just hearing things but she's started hiding her phone in her handbag, which is not a good sign whichever way you try to ignore it.
She wants to move as well by the way. We're back to that old chestnut. She can't actually moan too much because I own the only meaningful capital we could put into a new property. She can't get a bank loan (poor credit) and she earns half what I earn. It irritates her beyond measure, that. So she's stuck. And I, in my crueller inner thoughts, have sometimes wondered why I'm bothered or even why I'm bothering? But then the kinder angel whispers and I feel ashamed. But, as Alison Moyet once sang, is this Love?
So Tel's my bulwark. And selfishly, I'm not ready to relinquish that yet. But I must. So I smile and carry on and feel more Charles Hawtrey than Sid James, even though I'd love to be Peter Butterworth and just perve and squeeze arses and leer. So we're making plans for the World Cup, half-arsed plans to watch the England games, even though I'm working for two of them, and Tel continues to drain our joint betting pool in pursuit of the famous Xmas pay day, which seems unlikely considering we've got £650 between us and, of that pisspoor pot, we've already tied up a ton on horses that never win and football bets that one team lets us down consistently on.
I asked Paula what she'd like for Christmas the other day. She hummed and hawwed, and then said a new wool coat and a leather purse. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd said a new house. I'd have been even less surprised if she'd said a new relationship. Still, she didn't. And that, I guess, is something eh? |  |
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