Episode 11
One night in Jenny’s living room after she and Harold had gone to bed, James put on some records; he and Ruth were both sitting on the pristine cream carpet.
A drop of vinyl of an evening doesn’t do anyone any harm does it? Betty thought she might have a little dance but James wasn’t into that. He chose a few punk classics that they both liked.
He put on Bob Dylan, not a favorite of Ruth’s but hey. Ruth listened, hoping he might put on a choice of hers instead until he began to go on about Joey Deacon and began singing at her, a sneer across his face.
Now she can’t recall the lyrics of the song, the song “ Joey" She expects like much of Bob Dylan to her ear; the lyrics are probably well crafted and clever but the content a shade bitter and the delivery bloody awful!
She can call to mind, quite vividly James' sneer ad his mocking little snigger as she looked at him a little pained. ‘Oh” she thought this is supposed to be a fucking joke isn’t it”
He started going on about “spackie" this and “smazmo” that as the song continued.
Now, from when Ruth was born a large part of her life was dominated by a disability. She has hemiplegic cerebral palsy or some such thing, affecting her right side. This in itself was not as huge a problem as it seems on first appearances. She knows no other way. She gets round most things ad visits consultants and physiotherapists when she can’t.
Having said that, a big part of Ruth’s psyche to that point, had been devoted to unraveling the sneers, condescension, rudeness and downright callousness of the general populace towards her condition.
The hideous bullying she received from her peers as an adolescent in school. Ruth had hated it and she had told James about it in the first days of them being together. He had never mentioned her disability before that or after it in any real context, till that night. Now not so many people remember Joey Deacon. Just a particular generation of people who watched British children’s TV in 1981. Joey was a quite beautiful old man who had quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy and had lived the majority of his life in Institutions. His story was quite epic and in it’s full of pathos and true friendship that was lost on the bunch of scruffy 5-16 year old Herberts across the country who watched the programme.
Whatever the BBC’s intention had been to educate the masses. The day after his story was broadcast a long and protracted wave a teasing, haranguing, bothering and nasty hate fuelled bullying occurred throughout playgrounds across the land. Ruth became the target of a fair proportion of it. “JOEY” “JOEY” “JOEY” like a football chant. Young people who had been her friends, her peers, her seniors, and the school prefects from all ages. As she walked past the classroom, into the shop, across the road…. anywhere, anytime, anyplace, someone had a little pop.
James stood there in the lounge and took up the chant again that night...
It was the same behaviour she faced in school, it was the same playground taunt and she asked James to stop.
He didn’t, James proceeded to sing the chorus Name over and again. He played it again, going on about spackie this and spazmo that. Ruth began to cry and asked him several times to stop. He just got up, picked up the stylus and played it over for a third time, laughing at her tears and staring, sneering at her, she saw his eyes, again.
Ruth was utterly confounded!! She had, before that night, she had definitely told James and his sister about the bullying she received at school and how awful it had been for her to lose friends she had once had as they seemingly turned and took up the chant alongside the rest of her class.
He knew it would hurt her, he knew it was a way to hurt her.
Within the next week or so of that evening, James and his mum hatched a scheme that involved getting Ruth to ask her mum to buy Ruth a house. They were so jolly and James played with Ruth’s hair. He was bright and cheerful he kissed Ruth on the cheek and began to touch her. Ruth said she didn’t want him to and Jenny and they both sighed. Looking at Ruth with something that looked like pity, James ruffled Ruth’s hair.
It is a horrible truth that James had hurt and offended Ruth so much that Ruth simply did not like him anymore and love was not in her mind. She felt Her Rage come back but Ruth dismissed her.
Betty was waiting at her side as well but Ruth ignored her. Later that evening when Jenny and Harold had gone to bed James touched her again, Betty quite clearly said she didn’t want to. James pressed on. Betty hated him; Betty thought he was a true and utter wanker. Ruth sat still as still as she might. As he began to touch her, he kissed her mouth, she stayed still and silent, thinking it was the best way to protect them all. James guided her into the lounge and sat her down at which point she said I don’t want to for the third time. As he touched her more she conceded.
It could be argued that this was making up sex? You know when you want to repair and reestablish your bond with someone you love after you've had an argument. Betty thinks making up sex is a load of old shit!!
If you argue, bicker fight! constantly! You should not be together!
Betty will concede again that there was a part of her that wanted the intimacy back that she had once shared with James but she wasn't actually ready to make up and didn't think she should. It was not a nice thing to taunt her, they had not had an ‘ argument' ( an issue they disagreed on and were at loggerheads over) he had been ‘ cruel’ to her with no apparent intent but to hurt her and she was unhappy with him.
In retrospect Ruth remembers clearly her saying NO three times and that should have been enough.
. Ruth has only one or two clear memories until the Christmas time, a clear three months after.
All she knows is by the time September was half way through, the plans for buying Ruth a house were in motion. Her mum paid for it with the money from Ruth’s granddad’s inheritance, except it wasn’t a house it was a repossessed studio flat.
Ruth can recall that, she visited her dad, Gran and step mum for a week around that time and James was there too.
She knows that her Gran had the measure of James and said so as well . She asked him his surname and whn he replied she took a drag onher cigarette, exhaled and pronounced… “hmm As in Pound of flesh I presume’
Betty knows James lied to her dad and step mum’s faces about who he was, what he thought , what he was about and what he thought about them.
She knows her mum left for Australia shortly after which means she must’ve had the next disastrous fight about something before the latter end of the year. As a result of it, she had dyed her hair in a fit of pique and then instantly regretted it knowing she would meet something nasty , some critique when he saw it bright red again. She had cried/sobbed in her mum’s arms asking her to bleach it quickly before he came home!
And then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas she and James settled into the 16 x 16 room . She can recall that she read Watership Down and did some sketches of her new home. They spent Christmas with The Pounds . They bought each other gifts, nice gifts!
She knows she starting earnestly looking for a job and she knows she developed a strange tic of twisting her tongue against the back of her front teeth.
