Who Knew Felix Marr? Page 7

  I had been doing my ‘office work’ for nearly a month when one day as I had an hour for my lunch, I took a walk into town as I was trying to get something for Emily as her birthday was due within a few days and someone tapped me on the shoulder, but said nothing. However it was when I turned round to see who this was, I was stunned to see that it was my old ‘boss’ from the gang, Angus. I could recognise him immediately but his hair had gown shorter and he didn’t have a moustache, but the eyes convinced me who was near me and I wasn’t happy. He smiled and I could see that two of his teeth were missing, but that smile reminded me of the last time I had seen it when the bastard blew me a kiss and waited for a reply... which he never got.

  I wanted to walk away but he held my arms and started to speak

  “I hope you haven’t forgotten your old mates,” he said and as he was speaking two woman stepped out from behind him. He was just as fat and as ugly as he once was and it was easy for TWO women to step out from behind him... I think even three could have done it just as well, but I could only recognise one and that was a girl who was a member of the gang called Ady. I couldn’t think what the other one was called and when I looked at her she grinned and told me that her name was Ellie and that she was sure I had remembered her as I had tried to kiss and cuddle her on more than one occasion and I thought this girl had a brilliant imagination and she should take to writing fiction novels as there was no way, even if I wanted to kiss and cuddle a girl it would have been this one. She was as ugly as sin, but I am sure she never thought that about herself. I could smell the B.O from where I stood and she kept grinning.

  “I hear you have got married since we saw you last,” said Angus as he studied his finger nails with a pride that only he could understand and I stood well back from where he was standing as I didn’t want a repeat of his last ‘Bye Bye’. It was Ellie who butted into the conversation at this moment and Angus raised his eyes to heaven as though he had been insulted in his peroration and he had so many other questions that had to be asked.

  “Is she pretty This dame wot you ‘ave got yerself married to?” asked Ellie as she pulled her forefinger from her nose and in disgust, I ignored her question and waited until she had stuck her forefinger into her mouth before I replied.

  “There are no words to describe the lady I have married,” I said and both Angus and Ellie started to snigger and Angus screwed his face up to show me that he had just farted.

  I excused myself telling the pair that I had to return to work and this made Angus even more inquisitive as he looked totally surprised and asked me if I was WORKING in a bank now, instead of just buggerin’ around, but I thought the best reply to this was to tell him that I didn’t work in a bank and where I DID work, there was no way he could have a cut in my wages as the tax man was the only person interested and he snarled.

  “You’ll be inviting us back to your place for lunch, I’m sure,” said Angus and Ellie rubbed her hands in glee as she stared at me in hopeful anticipation and I used an expression I would never have used if Emily had been with me, “Fuck off,” I shouted and they both roared laughing as I was about to turn the corner and head back to my job at the office when suddenly I heard another faint voice calling after me as I went.

  “Don’t pay any attention to those two bastards and I hope you and your wife are happy together.”

  I turned round and I could see the other girl who had been in the gang and in that moment her name came clear to me again. It was Ady and I remembered her telling me that Ady stood for ADORABLE. I smiled my thanks to her and she smiled back.

  “Yes thank you Ady,” I said, “My lovely wife and I are very happy indeed. It is so nice of you to be so kind and I hope you too are well.”

  “I am now that I have left that bloody lot. I don’t know what came over me to even THINK of joining that lot, but that’s life, I suppose. Yes, I am much happier now and engaged to a nice young man.”

  Ady was about to leave me again when I called out after her to keep in touch and she nodded as she went her way.

  As I sat down again at my desk, the telephone rang and it was Emily who said she had been trying to phone me all afternoon and had got worried as she had no reply and I thought again of the time I had wasted with those two sods from my past, but the message was to tell me that Adrian, her brother had arrived back from Cornwall and he wasn’t alone. He had a young lady with him and Emily wanted me to meet her as she thought the meeting of Adrian with a lady named Stella could be serious. I told her I would be home at the usual time and that I was pleased to hear the news and hoped that Adrian was as happy as I was. Emily blew a kiss into the telephone and as I put it down another call followed but this was a pure business one and somebody wanted to tell me how happy and pleased they were with the builder who had just finished his work very satisfactorily with them and I knew that would please Freddie.

  When I did get home that afternoon, I had a little note left for me by Emily to say that she had gone on to her father’s house to greet Adrian and she asked me to follow where dinner would be waiting for me when I arrived. Adrian looked great when I saw him with a deep tan and he could have been in India for a holiday and not in Cornwall, but the young lady he brought with him was introduced to us all as Stella and she reminded me sadly to say, unhappily as she looked very much like the girl from the library when I had been arrested for the Post Office robbery and the death of Mrs. Madden, however Stella made everyone laugh with her jokes and threw her arms around everyone including Everard who came into the lounge and introduced himself not as Everard, but as Steven and as I was about to ask why this was being done, Alfie told me that before his children were born, he and his wife had another little boy before they got married, but who sadly died when he was only a few weeks old and they would have called him Steven. It was Emily who told me that it was her mother who liked the name Everard and her father Always agreed with anything his wife wanted, so Everard it was and would have remained had it not been for the arrival of Stella who would have treated the name Everard as a great joke... we All felt sure.

  Adrian kept blushing at almost everything Stella said or did and when I asked him about this in the kitchen when we were on our own, he told me that he wasn’t sure but he thought Stella could well be pregnant as they had been living together in Cornwall for more than four weeks and he didn’t want to tell Alfie, his father until they were more certain.

  When I spoke to Emily about what I had seen she smiled and told me to be a ‘big boy’ and I couldn’t understand what she meant by that. I felt at last I was a man and I had a big enough prick to prove it but what she meant was that I should realize that Stella was indeed pregnant and that she and Adrian had decided to tell everyone their ‘secret’ in their own time, which Emily thought was perfectly natural however their ‘secret’ was known to everyone around the following day when Stella announced that she was nearly five months pregnant and that she would like to return to Cornwall for her marriage to Adrian. The reason being was that she missed her parents terribly and she felt they were getting on in years and would find it difficult to travel to Scotland... however regretfully Stella’s dream or whatever she had about being pregnant fell through. She had a miscarriage just a week before she had decided to travel to Cornwall, and from Adrian’s reactions, I could never be sure if he was happy with the unfortunate event or if he accused himself of having the low sperm count that he had... or was led to believe that he had that brought on the miscarriage... or so he believed. I don’t know what made Adrian think as he did about his sexual prowess or otherwise, but I thought I had heard some other member of the family talk in this way.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Adrian was a little disappointed to know that his marriage would be in Cornwall and not in Scotland and even so that all his family would have to travel down south, but as it was Stella’s wish, we all knew that wish would be granted, but Adrian insisted in being m
arried in the kilt and Stella happily agreed to that. The only member of the family who was not on the list for the visit to Cornwall was Gerard and I understood he had been called away to do with something concerning his job or his business, but I didn’t like to enquire as it seemed to be a rather urgent matter and I knew I would hear of it in good time during our visit to Cornwall.

  As arranged the journey was set for us all to go to Cornwall and as Stella’s parents lived in Barnstable, that was where the wedding was going to take place and Stella soon spent a long time getting a suitable white dress with a very long veil that seemed to go back as far as two yards behind her on the ground and I could hear Emily hoping that it didn’t rain on our special day, but it was fine when we arrived and everything was set for a church wedding with a suitable bridegroom.

  The ceremony lasted just over an hour and then we all set off to a hotel where the breakfast had been arranged and very nice it was too, however I couldn’t help but notice that Steven looked a bit dull during the service and even afterwards when we had sat down to eat, he looked to me as though he had some worry on his mind and I decided to watch him carefully in the event that he might take a stroll into the garden or else leave the lounge to go to the toilet and then I would follow him and ask him what was troubling him.

  I didn’t have long to wait and I saw Steven rise from the table and excuse himself from the others as he headed for the garden and I followed. We sat down together in a garden seat near the pool and he looked at me as if he wanted to be on his own and he would have preferred if I left him and returned to the gathering, but I wasn’t going to be put off.

  “What’s the matter, old chap?” I asked and he turned away from me for a moment. “I know you have something on your mind and if I can help, I am sitting her beside you waiting... ”

  Steven coughed as he turned to face me and I could see that he was blushing a bright red colour.

  “I am in serious trouble Felix”... he replied and I thought he might be in the same situation as he was when he had been sent to prison for his indiscretion, but when I asked him if that was the case, he shook his head. “No Felix, nothing like that. Quite the opposite in fact. I think I am in love with a girl and she is not at all like Anna. I would not need to rape this girl Felix. She would oblige me freely in whatever I want, but I am truly in love with her and my respect is showing much to my bloody annoyance.”

  I was literally stunned to hear Steven talk as he did as I was sure because of the way he was speaking that he did rape this girl Anna or if he didn’t he had that intention and yet now he was the same Steven that I knew and he had ‘cooled off’ but he shook his head when he could see what I was thinking and he went on to explain.

  “Felix, before I went to prison, I was a ‘big head’ and I thought that sex was everything in life and that any girl should roll over and oblige, but now Felix, I am IN LOVE, and I think for the first time ever in my life. This girl that I know is a nurse in our local hospital and I know that she would ‘oblige ’if I insisted, but I’m not like that anymore Felix. I want love... You can get sex anywhere, but I want LOVE and somehow I feel that this girl has a past that I would like to know more about, but I am too embarrassed to ask her.”

  I sat still for a moment, thinking that this Steven was certainly different from the Steven or Smokey I had known in prison and I wanted to help him in any way I could and it seemed that his time in prison had made him more attentive to matters concerning sex and love.

  “Where did you meet her and what’s her name?” I asked and Steven seemed to brighten up a little when he replied.

  “At the hospital. I told you she was a nurse, didn’t I? Her name is Celine and I went to the hospital to visit my friend Roger. .. Roger Walemsley who had been hurt in a road accident. Roger was at school with me. ”

  “That’s nice Steven. I always wanted to have a nice school friend but I never ever went to school. That’s why you helped me to read and write when we were on the nick.”

  As soon as I mentioned that to Steven he started to touch his chin as if he was thinking something.

  “Felix I have invited Celine to have dinner with me at the Royal Hotel. Would you like to come and bring Emily with you? I think that would be nice if you could and then I could introduce you to Celine and you can tell me what you think of her, eh?”

  I heartily agreed to come to dinner with Steven and his ‘lovebird’ and of course I was sure that Emily would be happy to come too, so Steven told me it would be at 7.30 on the following Monday evening after we got back to Scotland and I made a note in my diary and Steven and I returned to the wedding party to enjoy a cognac and some champagne.

  I would have done anything for Steven as he was the person who gave me such appraisal and concern when Emily went to visit him in prison. I would never have met Emily if it hadn’t been for Smokey (as I knew Steven in prison) and what would my life be like now if I had never met the true love of my life and I hoped that when I would meet this Celine girl that I would be sure to think, without a doubt that she was the one for Steven, just as I was sue that Emily was the one for me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The journey back to Scotland was uneventful as we were all feeling drowsy from the excess of booze that is always inevitable at a wedding, except for the discussion about Gerard which was the main subject of Alfie Southdown, his father as of All the children that Alfie, was the father to, his special favourite was Gerard. I knew this was something that could not be avoided and that every parent has one child who is more favoured than the others and there was nothing you could do about that, but the conversation regarding Gerard made me sit up with concern, as I too considered Gerard to be a very nice and hospitable guy and there were many moments when I was with Gerard on my own, which was rather infrequent, and when I would wish that he, like Adrian and Emily would meet someone ‘special’ to fulfil his dreams and give him the life that I knew I had, and perhaps even now in his absence Gerard had met the ‘love of his life’ and could well be enjoying the company of such a person at that very moment, but there was a silence ensuing for some time and I looked at Emily in the event that she would know why there was such a sudden hush, but she looked at me with what I have always described as her Old Fashioned Looks... and this look told me to behave myself and ask no further questions, so I remained silent but I could not avoid being inquisitive, especially as it seemed to be something that I should not be involved with and this annoyed me being the awful bloody nosey person that I am, but I waited and it was when we arrived back in Glasgow that Emily told me that Gerard was a homosexual and that he had found the love of his life in a young doctor who strangely enough worked in the same hospital as Celine

  “Have you ever heard of a girl by the name of Celine?” I asked Emily but she had never heard of such a name except somewhere out in Holywood there was an actress by that name, but she seemed pleased to be invited to dinner with Steven and Celine, thinking that at last, Steven had found a companion.

  When the evening arrived at we came into the Royal Hotel, it was Steven who called out to us and invited us to his table, but I got the surprise of my life when he introduced me to Celine. I looked at her and blinked and then I looked again, This was no Celine... This was Ady my ex-gang member who told me that her name Ady was an abbreviation for ADORABLE and in that time I thought she imagined she was something or someone very specific; someone very, very special, but as Steven pulled up a couple of chairs for us to sit down, I realized that this Ady had indeed got two sides to her nature as I remembered how kind and thoughtful she was when she met me recently in the streets of Glasgow when Angus and Ellie had been so cruel in their attitude to me when she told me to ignore the bastards.

  The following day I went to meet Celine at the back entrance to the town hall at one o clock as she had suggested in a little note that she left me under my side plate on our table.

 
She was there in time, not a moment late and I was pleased to see her hoping she might be able to throw some more light on the Ada, Celine and she did... She addressed me by my name and I knew that she knew who I was and then she told me that her parents had died when she was a toddler, but that she had been christened Celine... and she had to go and live with an uncle who was the brother of her mother, but this uncle did not care for her and his only interest was in other women as he had been divorced from his wife and his wife had remarried another man. She became worried about how her life was going to be and what she would be when she became a teenager and would have to look for work and then a friend who came to her uncle’s house told her that she would introduce her to someone who would be able to get her a job and this was ANGUS, but Celine did not understand that she would have to join a gang to get a job and from there on, she had changed her name to Ad. because that was what Angus wanted and in order to comply with his wishes she was put in charge of the gang with a reward of ten pounds per week, but there was a catch. She Allowed Angus to touch her improperly until finally he had full sex with her and she was so confused that she didn’t know what to do about this situation. Could she go to the police... and if so, would she lose her job and the situation continued until in the end Celine broke away from the gang and tried to apply for a nursing post at the local hospital which proved successful and she was permitted to live in the Nurses Home and received a salary of £35 per month in her training.

  I listened to everything that Celine told me and I could understand her predicament from my own experiences of gangs and I took her for a coffee before she had to return to the hospital as she had spent her dinner hour talking to me.