Burning Desires Part One

Frank Parkinson a forty two year old Painter and Decorator and father of two, stood moodily staring into his pint of beer. Not every day does a man receive the information that his daughter is a lesbian. Luckily, at this time in the afternoon, Tilsden Working Men's Club was practically empty. The club steward Bill Clegg, faced him across the bar.  His life long friends Jim Hesketh a builder and Norman Seabrook an electrician, were by his side.  His twenty year old son Mark stood facing him, his face white with shock.  Marks pregnant girl friend, Susan, frantically chewing gum, played   a solitary game of pool.

Bill Clegg spread his hands on the bar, 'We can't have it Frank.  They came in here canoodling and carrying on, then the kissing started.  I stood it as long as I could but people started complaining, so I chucked them out.  I couldn't believe your Carol would carry on like that.'

'Were there many in?' Mark asked apprehensively.

'About a dozen.'

Mark groaned.

Jim Hesketh said, 'I blame your Jean.  It's her fancy idea's that have got Carol like this.  Too much Guardian reading.  They don't call it the Dykes Diary for nothing.'

'I blame Mum too,' Mark said heatedly.  'Why can't she be a normal mother like every body else’s?'

Frank said, 'Shut up Mark, your mother's fine.'

An elderly man entered the club, Joe Hills, local councillor, ex Mayor and President of Tilsden Working Men's Club going back over many years.  He was not in the best of health, overweight and breathing heavily.  He lowered himself onto a bar stool and placed his trilby hat on the bar.

'What will you have Joe?' Bill Clegg asked.

The old man shook his head, 'I've had complaints from the college,' he said. 'These are licensed premises.  You can't show prejudice to homosexuals, racial minorities, people of different religions or anybody else.'

'We don't.' Bill replied.

'You do,' Joe retorted, 'and it's got to stop.  Not only is prejudice wrong, but you are putting the club out of business.  There  isn't enough people coming in to make it viable.  If we have a quiet Christmas this club will close in January, unless you all come to the A.G.M. And come up with some ideas.  What is wrong with a few gay folk doing a bit of line dancing  or an Asian wedding come to that.  Look into it, think about it.

There was silence.  They were mostly inveterate labour voters but they had watched the Blair government’s attitude to immigration and sexual freedom with some scepticism.

Bill was truculent, Paki’s don’t drink and Pouff’s don’t drink enough.’

Joe groaned, ‘We don’t use  language  like that anymore Bill. Does it ever occur to you that that kind of talk puts young  people  off  and that’s why they don’t  come in.’  He went on, ‘The Afro- Caribbean folk and the immigrants’ from Europe have their own clubs. You stand looking at that door  waiting for loads of new members to come in; Well they are not there. The factories and the mills are shut. Nobody is coming.’

'If people are misbehaving, I have the right to throw them out,' Bill responded sullenly.

'Right, but you can't throw them out because they don't behave exactly as you behave.  It's a question of judgement.  Things have got a bit complicated.'  Joe Hills stood up preparatory to leaving. ‘Listen to what I’m saying. This club will shut in January unless you come up with a plan to make it viable.’

From the pool table Susan shouted, 'So that's it then.  The white working class lads goosed again. They can have nothing.'

Joe sighed, 'When I was your age young lady, that pool table was in the games room, a place that women were not allowed into.  That was wrong and people fought to get you treated fairly... as an equal.'

Susan watched the old man put his hat on and leave the club.  Mark complimented his girl friend, 'Well said Sue.'

Irritated Susan replied, 'Well somebody has to speak up for you, you haven't the gumption to speak up for yourselves.'  She bent over the pool table, took aim and volleyed a ball into the centre pocket  with a force that made Mark wince.

Norman Seabrook said, 'That's where it all started to go wrong for us, giving the women too much freedom.'  The moment he had spoken he realised he had made a mistake.  He glanced sheepishly at his friends.  On a club trip to Haydock Park Races, he had gone on to a nightclub with friends and there struck up a relationship with a Polish lap dancer called Kiki.  They started an affair.  He told her that he owned his own electrical business and lavished two thousand pounds on her in six weeks, however, when he was exhausted and penniless he had tried to end the affair.  Kiki, furious, rang Norman's wife, Amy, and told her everything.  As a result Norman was thrown out of his home and was going through the process of divorce.  He was now living in a small flat with only his angina to keep him occupied.  Norman Seabrook’s affair with a polish lap dancer had been the talk of Tilsden.

At home that evening, Frank sat and gazed into the fire. What a mess, His son Mark living with his pregnant, scatterbrained girl friend whom he had no intention of marrying.  He faced the prospect of the first illegitimate Parkinson anybody could remember.  His daughter was a lesbian, his wife Jean so busy with her nursing career that she was never at home and now the club was shutting.

Frank had served his time apprenticed to his father as had his father before him but Mark had declined to become a painter and decorator and had become a plasterer instead.  Frank looked at two framed photographs facing him from the alcove by the fireplace.  One was of Mohamed Ali in whom Frank had an obsessional interest, the other was of the family pet now dead, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Spike.  At that moment he heard his wife come in and after some preliminary activity in the kitchen, she entered the room with a tray of food.  'Everything O.K?' she asked.  Frank shook his head.

'Not  really, no.  Apparently our Carol's a lesbian, she's been thrown out of the club.    Did you know?'

Jean sat down.  'Sort of',' she shrugged.  'It's none of our business.  It could be just a phase.  Am I getting the blame?'

'Well our Mark blames you and Jim Hesketh thinks it's something to do with the papers you read.'

'Right,' Jean replied.  'Is nobody blaming the foreign people.  They get blamed for most things.'

Frank shrugged, foreign workers didn't really bother him.  The third generation of Parkinsons Painters And Decorators, he had a settled if ageing clientèle, however, he did not like having so many foreigners around.  'It's not my England any more,' He observed.

Jean nodded sympathetically.

They had been together since childhood.  As they moved into their teenage years Frank looked no further than Jean, no other woman interested him.  Jean started work as a nursing cadet at the local hospital.  There she met and started an affair with a local minor sporting hero.  Enthused, she had poured out her overwhelming feelings to him and was hurt beyond measure when she came upon him regaling a group of friends with an account of all that she had said.  She had gone into a kind of seclusion but when she came out of it Frank was waiting and they married as soon as Frank finished his apprenticeship.

That was over twenty years ago. Frank Parkinson had remained the same.  Every Friday and Saturday night they went to the club along with Jim Hesketh and Marjorie and Norman Seabrook and Amy.  They sat in the same seats and went through the same ritual, Bingo, Guest act and then dancing, invariably to the same songs; Moon River, On the street where you live, Stay Just As You Are and a bit of jiving to Blue Suede Shoes.  Later they all went to Majorca together and managed to stay in hotels where the entertainment was exactly the same as Tilsden Working Men's Club. 

Jean, however, had changed.  She had five years out of nursing when the children were little and then, with her parents' help, she returned to work, throwing herself into her career.  Promotion came quickly and she was soon a Ward Sister.  She studied for further qualifications and did a course at the Open University which gave her a whole new circle of friends and new interests.  Now working in the Hospital Management Team, she was a totally different person to the girl who had married Frank Parkinson and yet she was still locked into the same life rituals.  She found Friday and, Saturday nights boring and debilitating beyond measure and to get out of as many of them as she could she threw herself into hospital charity work.  She was now a member of a quiz team raising money for a paraplegic bus.  They called themselves The Paraplegic Bus Babies.

The back door slammed and Mark walked in, 'What do you think of the news then?' He demanded of his mother. 

'About Carol?' Jean Queried.  'That's her business isn’t it Mark?'

Mark said, 'No it's our business and it's all your fault.  You were never around when we needed you, too busy with your charity work, getting your picture in the Tilsden Advertiser while your son was spark out on the rec. full of cider and cannabis and your daughter was traipsing about learning how to be a lesbian.'

Jean put her plate down.  'I got up every morning and made you a breakfast before I went to work and prepared an evening meal for you if I knew I wouldn't be home. I did my best for you all.'

'Oh yeah,' Mark replied, 'and you wouldn't let us have another dog when Spike died.'

'Grow up Mark,' Jean groaned.  'You have just got that girl pregnant.  You are about to become a father.'

The back door slammed again.  Carol was home.  'I'm off,' Mark said fearfully. He headed for the front door.

They heard their daughter briefly preparing food in the kitchen before trudging upstairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut.  Frank and Jean exchanged glances and then lapsed into their own thoughts.  Frank never understood his daughter. As a little girl Carol had been fine but with puberty came this snarling vixen for whom they could do nothing right.

'I wish we did have a dog,' Frank said, 'I would take it for a long walk tonight.'

'You don't need a dog,' Jean replied.  'If you want to go out for a walk, just go.'

'You can't walk round a park at night without a dog,' Frank grumbled.  'People will think you are a pervert.'

'That bloody dog, Jean thought.  Frank and the children had loved it.  Jean hated it.   Apart from being plug ugly, she found the animal menacing.  It would allow itself to be dragged off the settee by any member of the family but her.  As he got into old age, flatulence and incontinence became a problem along with canker of the ears so bad that when he shook his head his ears rattled.  Jean shuddered at the thought.  The dog's death had been a merciful relief and she had said, 'No more dogs.'

For the rest of the family, the animals demise had been traumatic.  In fact Jean credited the event with triggering Carol's creativity.  She had written a poem about cradling her dying pets head on her  lap and watching the involuntary twitch of it's ears as her tears fell on them.

The poem had won a prize at school and now Carol had finished her A levels and wanted to study the Performing Arts at a college in London.  Jean had not yet told Frank, that it would cost thousands of pounds and they would probably have to re mortgage.

For Mark too, Spikes death had been cathartic.  He had gone moist eyed and emotional on hearing Carol's poem and sister like, Carol capitalised on the reaction.  Whenever Mark would not give her what she wanted, or if she wished to embarrass him, she would start singing 'Old Shep.'  For years this resulted in Mark fleeing the room.

Tomorrow was Friday.  'All right for the club tomorrow night?' Frank asked.  Jean nodded resignedly.

It started out as the usual Friday night in the club.  Norman Seabrook was complaining about the loneliness of his life in his small flat. 'Make your mind up, you said you liked it,' Jim Hesketh reasoned.

His wife Marjorie was more understanding.  'It must get you down Norm, being away from your Family, all on your own.'

'It does,' Norman responded emotionally.  'I must get back with Amy, I don't want her to divorce me.' He went on, 'It's her birthday on Monday and I want to buy her a really nice present.  Has anybody got any ideas?'

'How about a stainless steel pole,' Mark suggested.

Jean glared at her son.

The evening wore on.  Frank was settling an argument between two men about his hero Mohamed Ali.  'No!' He said authoritatively, 'In 1971 Joe Frasier did not win by a knock out. He put Ali down but it was a win on points.'

Jean glanced at her watch.  At least another two hours of this.  Suddenly she noticed Norman was having trouble with his breathing.

'Are you alright Norman,?' she asked.

Norman shook his head.  'I can't get my breath Jean, it hurts my chest.'

Concerned, Jean noted the blue tinge to his face and lips.  He is having a heart attack, she thought She called over to Bill Clegg, 'Ring 999 Bill, Norman needs an ambulance.'

The comedian was in full flow, 'This chap walked into a bar and went ouch.... It was an iron bar,' but the audience were realising something was amiss and diverting their attention to Norman. Suddenly Normans complexion darkened.  He clutched his chest and slumped forward.

'Heart attack?' Frank asked.

Jean nodded, get him on the floor flat on his back. Jean checked for a pulse. His hearts stopped she said.'  Then the ambulance crew burst on the scene.

'This guy was born under a lucky star,' the ambulance driver remarked. 'We were literally just passing the door.'

It was a miracle.  They revived Norman, loaded him into the ambulance and left.  Everybody congratulated Jean.  She went behind the bar and rang Norman's home.  His son answered.

'Josh?'

'Yes.'

'It's Jean Parkinson.'

'Hiya Jean!'

'I'm in the club.  Your Dad's just had a heart attack, He's been taken to hospital.  He will be

in intensive care when you get there.'

'Oh come on Jean, more attention seeking,' Josh replied dismissively

'His heart stopped Josh!'

'You’re telling me he's dead?'

'No, the ambulance crew revived him.'

'There you go then.  He's O.K.  See you Jean.'  The phone went dead.

The club returned to normal.  The comedian re commenced his act, 'All the women in our family are into politics.  My Grandma was one of them Suffering Gets.'

Jean looked wearily at Frank, 'Can we call it day?'

Frank nodded.

On Monday morning they all breakfasted early.  Carol had an important interview and Jean was paying particular attention to her appearance as she was chairing a seminar on risk management.  Frank left the house first.  He was obsessional about arriving at a client's premises bang on eight thirty a.m.  He did so this morning and was surprised to see a police car outside the Malinson's house.  When he entered he found two police officers, one male, the other female in the living room.  Edna Malinson, a woman in her seventies was clearly distressed, She had a livid bruise on her forehead.  'Oh Frank!' she cried.

The police officers spun round.

Shocked, Frank asked, 'What's happened?'

'I'm afraid you can't come in here sir, it's a scene of crime,' the police officer said.  He steered Frank outside and explained that the Malinsons had confronted an intruder in the small hours of the morning,  He had attacked them, causing Tom Malinson to sustain a broken pelvis and Edna the facial bruise, before making his escape with Tom's wallet and Edna's handbag.  'It's happening a lot,' the police officer said.  'We think it's a gang from out of town, and they are a pretty rough lot.  Don't tangle with them is my advice.'

'I'd like to tangle with them,' Frank replied angrily. After a few more questions it was agreed that Frank would return to finish his work in a weeks time.  He was allowed to go and speak to Edna who hugged him tearfully.  She asked,.'What's the world coming to Frank?'

Frank overwrought, could not answer.