Chapter 34 — The Drunken Night Visitors

The time on the Sunday must have been no more than three in the afternoon when a knock hit the door followed by another in succession.

As I opened the door, the woman smiled and said, 'Hi,' and with two children casually walked past me and into the living room with kids in tow. You have to remember, I was eighteen, and here was a woman in her late twenties with two children around the age of six or seven, a mixed-race child and a white one.

'We thought we'd come and see how you are, Karl. I've told the kids about the park you take your dogs to, and they want to go and see the lake. Get your coat, and you can take us all there.'

I was dumbfounded and without thinking got my jacket, and like one big, happy family set off to the park with the kids and dogs.

It was excruciating, and I hated every minute of it, and the longer the walk lasted, the more determined I was to get this family onto a bus and be gone, which I did, as soon as we got to the nearest bus stop.

The phone for the next couple of days kept ringing, but I told our Mick and Paul, who lodged with us, not to answer it. They found the whole episode hilarious, but I certainly didn't.

By Thursday, the phone had quietened down, and there were only a couple of calls earlier in the day. The day had been uneventful when I went to bed, and even our Mick and Paul had retired early.

It must have been three in the morning when all three dogs went ballistic, and there was a crashing at the door, and women's high-pitched voices could be heard screaming.

I ran downstairs and opened the door. And right there before the threshold of that door was the woman with some pregnant friend of a similar age who had the biggest belly to show for it too, both pissed, and both staggering and swaying. They didn't wait to be invited and fairly fell through the door.

I felt like turfing both of them out, but thought better of it, as these two weren't going to give up without doing some damage to a window or two, and I thought it better to let them fall asleep somewhere.

I made it clear to the woman that I'd been with that there was no chance of her sleeping with me, that I didn't want anything to do with her and that she had better sleep on the sofa. She became tearful, but of the drunken, slobberish kind, but I was steel hardened by this time, and I left the two women downstairs as I went back to bed.

A couple of minutes passed, and I could hear someone struggling to get up the steps. A couple of sounds on the landing, and then the door of the bedroom slowly opened, and the pregnant one appeared.

'Karl, won't you let her sleep up here, as she's upset, and I don't want her to be.'

I've had to add some clarity to what she actually uttered because, on account the woman was that drunk, it was mostly incomprehensible what left her mouth.

'No, and you can get out of here as well.'

She didn't, but fell onto the bed, and she began pleading, but making gestures as well and trying to get herself into the bed.

'Whoa, what yer doing? She's certainly not sleeping in here, and you're definitely not.'

The pregnant woman with the big belly tried a little, but she finally gave up, and she must have realised even in her drunkenness that she wasn't getting into the bed.

'Who's in the other bedrooms?' she slobbered, and I knew our Mick and Paul were laughing their heads off in each of their rooms.

'Go on; off you go.'

She slowly left, and the door closed, but I didn't hear her go down the steps, and I was feeling a little nervous when I suddenly recalled how drunk and how pregnant she was and the danger of those steps. I was just about to go out and see her downstairs when I heard her tapping at Paul's bedroom door.

'Pauli, Pauli, are you in there?' and the door could be heard opening.

'Oh, you're in bed, Pauli? Can I get in?'

Paul was younger than us, and you could almost feel his fear as this woman, who must have been thirty, began to tread towards him.

'Er...er...you can't come in here...I'm asleep...and I have to get up for work in the morning,' and with further effort he finally got her out of the room.

Another knocking was heard, and this time it was at our Mick's bedroom door across the landing. She began opening his door, but she stopped when she heard, 'Fuck off.'

I had to get out of bed, as I knew she had no other man options, or teenagers for that matter, as none of us were older than eighteen, and the only option left was to get her down those stairs which was nigh on impossible for her.

With effort we reached the bottom of the stairs and into the living room. The other woman was completely out of it on the sofa, and the pregnant one wasn't too far behind her when she collapsed on the sofa.

When we awoke in the morning, the two women had already left, and I never saw them again, until that day in the car park outside SupaSnooker.

On Monday, I told John about my recollections, and all events concurred with what he knew about her, her children, her mate, etc. The following day he said he'd asked Julie about it, and she denied ever knowing me. On the Wednesday, though, he told how Julie had admitted that it all was true, and that she was embarrassed, and that was why she'd denied it.

The strangest part of this tale, though, which I find most intriguing, is how Anna knew almost instantaneously, when I didn't – and it had been me that had lived through the experience and not Anna. What is it with a woman who knows in her mind, without the slightest doubt, in the flash of a moment, what truth is. How perspicacious is the mind of a woman.