Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 4 (3/4) By Rich Mills

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4), Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

I imagined that sometimes after we had sex she would go in the bathroom and scrub herself clean, not wanting any traces of me left in or on her body. I knew deep down that my wife didn't love me, and she certainly wasn't attracted to me. Not that I am perfect by any means, no not at all. I mean for fuck's sake, I was the one stood in the doorway of a smokers lounge in a residential centre for people with psycho-social disorders. However, I felt that I carried the burden for both of us to some extent on this one. We couldn't both lose the plot, so I'd done it big time for the both of us, such self- sacrifice I felt should have been commended.

A little something in the Queen's birthday honours list maybe. Obviously as an anarchist I would have to refuse such an offer. But it's the thought that counts, acknowledgment for a job well done.

I realised I'd been stood contemplating all this mad shit going on inside my head for a while. I wasn't sure how long, but I was sure it was long enough for the room to become slightly uncomfortable. I quickly found myself a seat at the end of a long sofa and sat down. That felt so good, just to sit down. I felt much of the weight I'd been carrying around melt away. This was a good place, full of good people. For the first time in a long time I felt there was really hope. I didn't know what the future had in store for me, but at least now I had a sense that I had a future.

What had directly or indirectly led me to be sitting here in a smokers lounge of a Mental Health Crisis Residential Centre on a Thursday evening in late June was now of lesser consequence than it had ever been. Just the mere fact that I was here was now all that mattered. A new chapter had begun and there was no point in trawling through the previous chapters looking for reasons. Re-reading over and over again, looking for clues that may not even be there. I mean the very point of being here was to review such things with my counsellor in the days to come.

Right now I just felt tired and drained to my very core. I was just contented to sit here on a comfy sofa watching the TV.

That was more than I could have hoped for earlier in the day. Earlier in the day sleeping on a park bench was the best I could have hoped for. So at least I had already improved my lot, because I really hadn't fancied the idea of spending the night under the stars, although that is what I had expected to be doing that evening. My fellow inmates, or should I say volunteer residents, greeted me each individually once Laura had left the room and gone back to sit by the Crisis Line phone, to wait for anymore unfortunates that called out for help that evening.

"What was your name? John?" Came the first question from the small old man sat quite quietly at the other end of the long sofa to me. "I'm Mike!" He said.

"Rich," I said smiling in what I hoped came across as my best friendly-put-people-at-their-ease smile. "All right Rich? I'm Steph," said a large squat girl of about seventeen or eighteen sat across the room on another equally long sofa to the one I found myself on. Her accent struck me as not being from Hull, it was most definitely East Riding in tone. West of the city towards Goole or maybe nearer, Brough perhaps. It wasn't an East side of the city accent, no she wasn't a baby eater! She caught my eye even before she spoke.

She'd wriggled down into the corner of the sofa before she had spoken, as if preparing to recoil into her shell at the slightest threat. Between us was a long beech-wood coffee table scattered with magazines, a fruit bowl, an ash tray and a number of mugs. She wriggled again.

Continued ...next page(4/4),

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