Bev

Bev

Sometimes, if I am in a reckless mood, I ask myself “What is Love?” The answer is never conclusive, always relative. I search for clues in my own experiences. I try to piece together memories, puzzling through what might have been, what was imagined and what was. But the most obvious recollections aren't always the most illuminating.

Right now, I'm thinking out of the box. Back to the summer of 2001. I was 20 years old, and I certainly didn't know the answer. George W. Bush had been in office for less than a year. My bottomless hatred for him and everything he stood for was still peppered with the quite realistic hope that his ineptitude would see him soon removed from office.

Back then, although I thought I hated it, actually I loved talking politics. That must be why I tried it as an icebreaker on my new colleagues. I gave them a little taste of my university conditioned opinions as they were reading the Sun newspaper on the bus to work.

But they wouldn't have any of it. “Who cares about all that shit?” my supervisor, Bev, said wretchedly. Almost the first thing she said to me. It was proceeded by “Are you sure you've come to the right place?” and followed within minutes by “Why the fuck did they have to send me someone like you?”.

It was a building site, and I had temporarily joined a band of cleaners of which the indomitable Welsh Bev was the leader. She was accompanied by a small clan of extended family from South Wales. Bev was a short, stocky, shades wearing woman in her forties with the look of a street fighter cum bar brawler. She effected a mild butchness, and doctored her bushy black hair into a lesbian short cut. Then there was Scott, her spotty, troublesome and estranged Man Utd shirt wearing teenage son. Finally there was Kelly, niece to Bev and cousin to Scott. A good natured, quiet, nineteen year old drop out. A nice looking blond in scrappy cleaners overalls who I took pains to ignore for my ineptitudes.

We ate bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast in the on site greasy spoon, a small kitchen ran by an old couple in a portacabin. Since our first meeting there had been a kind of silence of cross-cultural incomprehension which even my talk of G.Dubbya could not melt away.

After an uncomfortably long time spent in silence, watching me like I was from another planet, Bev asked the question. “So Oliver, what university do you go to?”

“Yes Oliver, do tell.” Echoed Scott, emphasising poshness and attempting an Etonian accent that is completely non-existent in my speech. He heavily enunciates every syllable of my name as if I am a Lord. Has he never met anyone called Oliver before?

“York.” I reply.

“And what do you study up there? You do study don't you?” Says Bev, chuckling at something to herself.

I know what's going to come but I feel have no choice but to answer her honestly.

“Philosophy and politics.”

Bev could not have laughed more heartily. Finally she takes off her dark shades, appraising me with surprised disbelief.

“Philosophy and politics? What's that? Are you going to be Prime Minister?”

Scott follows her lead.

“Prime Minister Oliver. I'd never vote for you.”

And they laugh together like hyenas. Mother and son. All except Kelly who makes a vague attempt to defend me, giving them looks of approbation. I am lame and just take it like I deserve it. Yes how silly of me for studying such things. In self-defeating logic, my study of politics and the working classes actually justifies their ridicule to me. It seems reasonable enough.

“I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want to be a politician. I just thought it sounded interesting.” I don't smile when I say this. I am not a proud person. In truth I have lost any coherent idea I may have had as to why I am studying these things. What is the use of Socrates and Kant and Sartre and all that except to confuse and give me headaches in the library, understanding everything and nothing, not even able to string enough words together to get some action with the many sexy girls who sit dotted around on tables everywhere I look.

Abruptly she laughs, only to quieten solemnly, perhaps considering the reality of the next few months which we are scheduled to spend together. She brushes her brow and hair back with both hands and sighs wearily.

“Why the fuck did Dave have to send me someone like you?” She asks no-one in particular, staring up at the grubby ceiling of the portacabin and lighting up a Benson and Hedges. Finally she tilts her head down towards me.

“Well Oliver,” I am about to be introduced to the famous Bev sense of humour. “Have you got a small cock by any chance?”

A few twisted days pass. In lonely moments I preoccupied myself with thoughts of courses I had taken the previous term. The philosophy of bioethics, the history of political thought, and Socrates sprang to mind. Almost completely useless topics, I thought to myself. Without a girl to give it all a bit of a spring.

And how my bioethics tutor humiliated me. An ex-doctor asking me, in front of everyone, to describe the philosophical difference between a foetus and an embryo. “Well”, I told him in complete seriousness, “they're either really the same, or really different.” He smiled at me and replied with self conscious wit, “Hmmm, and your comments are either really deep, or really shallow”.

Then my computer crashed the day before a bioethics deadline. I was raring to prove that I was really deep, spending all weekend writing a top quality essay. And it got lost in the crash. I explained it to him, and handed in an even better re-write two days later. Possibly my most coherent philosophy essay to date. Noted, he marked it. Simply noted. Thoughts of it took away all respect I had for the man.

And so time passed on the building site filled with such memories. Either that or with teasing, mild bullying, mockery, and smutty jokes from Welsh Bev and her son. Peppered with the guiltless laughter it warranted. Bev emerged for my eyes a controversial master of the dirty and the wild, preferably packaged in sudden outbursts. She lacked any shyness or humility in front of me, or indeed anyone. She was totally unchained, brightening otherwise dull days by slamming co-workers “wankers” “fuckers” “cunts” “cocklovers” or “shitheads” with loud bluster. Most people at the site either tolerated it or enjoyed it, returning hand signs and sewer language. “Ah Bev, she's a one.” They would say to themselves. I mostly got away with ignoring it, dreaming myself back to university.

I was thus lulled into thinking such jokes, such virility and baseness meant there couldn't possibly be any more, relaxing me somewhat. But I was wrong to place any limits on her. There was no normal. Boundaries existed which I had not even known existed. She illuminated them by crossing them.

One afternoon, we were unusually working together in the same room. Scratching windows meticulously, looking for errant paint drops. It approached 3 O-clock, and we were all bored and clock watching. There were some chairs lying about which Bev, Scott and Kelly spontaneously arranged in the likeness of a two front, two back car.

They enter the “vehicle”. Bev is in the “driving seat”. She checks the “mirrors” with Scott, while Kelly spreads out in the back. Bev honks the “horn” and beckons to me. “Come on, get in!” Their faces are smiling eagerly, urging me on, but I make no movement, in shock. The only coherent thought that comes to mind is whether this is some kind of Welsh familial ritual I am not aware of, and whether the toilet is a valid excuse to opt out at this precise moment. So they drive on. “Honk honk!” she shouts, “get out of the way you pedestrian fuckers!”

I experience mental paralysis, frozen like a statue by the abrupt strangeness of it.

They take no notice of me. Scott makes swooshing and zooming noises as if the car is screeching round corners at 70 mph. Kelly is waving out the window at me, shouting “hey there, hey there!” while Bev is commentating on their journey like a drunken football hooligan.

“Here we come you little bastards! Around the corner. LEFT! Watch out or I'll run over your cock, you funking WANKERS!” She takes immeasurable delight in the act of profanity.

This scene goes on far too long. It is as if I am trapped in a daytime TV dream. They know quite how uncomfortable I feel and they simply drink it up. Eventually I decide it is a good thing. I have been let in. They couldn't help themselves, and now I know. Definitively. And it gave me power. They were all mad. Perhaps even more that me.

Unfortunately, powerful knowledge of their insanity was small comfort next to the never-ending nature of my predicament, the summer still only days expired and with many weeks ahead. We took a bus downtown together after work. Bev, Scott, Kelly and I. By now Bev was unstoppable.

We sat top back, and within minutes the bus stopped to pick up a trio of delinquent looking fourteen year olds. Caps, baggy jeans, Fubu, B&H, “yeah mate” cockiness. They blaze their way up the winding steps to claim the top-front as their territory. She zoned in on them instantly.

“Who the fuck are you? Bet you think you've got big dicks you little mamas boys. Where are you going? To play see saw in the park with your spotty cocks. You little pricks. Go on, show us your little pricks!”

She bellowed the words out. Her cheeks were red with it. She turned to face us and I saw the sheer pleasure on her face. She was unleashed, untamed. She simply loved it. We could hear the three victims muttering to themselves, trying to embolden each other into action. Bev heard and glanced back over at them. More was coming. Scott laughed uncontrollably, Kelly told Bev to give it a rest, and I was immune to shock, the car did that for me, so I was simply intrigued to see how it would end.

“What you gonna do? You fucking rat bags. I bet you'll go home and have a jolly good wank that's what. Hahahahah!” She gave graphic actions with her right hand.

“Oy!” One of them said, enraged by the insult to his masculinity. “Who do you think you're talking to you old bitch!”

“I'm talking to you you little shithead. What are you going to do?” She moved her head back and forth violently, exposing her bloodshot eyes. Scott laughed even harder and Bev joined him.

The bold one stood up, looking straight at us like he was going to come over and show us his tattoos. Yes get a look at this one it took 5 hours, see the skulls and the blood, that means I can torture you all if I want to. Then his mates stood up too. It seemed that a showdown was rapidly approaching. I wondered what I would do if they tried to use violence. Or what Bev and Scott would do. But then it was over as they calmly walked down the stairs and exited the bus in silence. I wasn't sure if it was their stop or they just wanted to get away from Bev. And there were no tattoos in sight except for Bev's george cross.

We saw them walking despondently on the street as the bus drove away. Bev opened the window and threw a lit cigarette at them.

“Yeah! Fuck off you little cockfaces!”

“Sorry about my aunt.” It was Kelly, looking very forlorn. I was surprised to find myself laughing.

Eventually I reached my first building site Friday, and after the car and bus incidents, I was starting to feel accepted. I felt I could take any level of lunacy. It was almost refreshing, I thought, after the taste of working class Yorkshire I had been given at university. Not that I'd been given much of an authentic taste in the halls of York University, but I did despise my landlord somewhat. The cheeky oddjobman thought he could spin a few quid from us poor students. Gave me a cheap bed that broke easily, and then accused me of jumping up and down on it. Charged me seventy pounds I really didn't have, with the quite ridiculous implication that I had been overusing my bed. Did he really think I had been entertaining that many ladies? Me? The deep philosophy and politics student? If only he'd known the barren year I'd had.

Thoughts of impossible revenge crossed my mind. At least I would never have to pay the man rent again. I was hovering in the corner of a long hall way, dusting. Then Scott came over and out of nowhere said “So Oliver, when are you going to ask my cousin out?”

At first I wondered who he was referring to.

“You could take her to the cinema. She likes movies.”

Did he mean Kelly? I wondered. The girl who I had tried so hard to hardly notice but for her plainness, which I invented in my head for she was had a simple beauty, and lack of conversation in the face of Bev, which was completely understandable. He hit a nerve, because it had been far too long since I had any meaningful contact with the opposite sex. It grated me as I'm sure he had calculated it would. I weighed up the least dangerous response.

“Actually, I wasn't going to ask out her.”

He pounds instantly. “Why?! My cousin not good enough for you? Do you think you're too good for her Oliver?” It seemed he was playing some kind of working class card again. I knew Marx, and I would die before I knowingly morphed into a bourgeoisie. But I couldn't credit him with such deviousness. Such tactics. Something wasn't right.

“Look, it's not that. She very nice and everything. I just don't think we'd be good for each other.”

“Well I'll have to tell her you said she's not good enough. You are so cold Oliver. She'll be very disappointed. She really likes you.”

I scratched my head, and my insecurities took over. As far as I was aware we'd hardly spoken the whole time. Even if she did like me, I reasoned, she was definitely not my type. But did I really have a type? And how well did I know the girl? How would I ask her out? What would we talk about? Did I really think she wasn't good enough for me? Too proletariat for my modern intelligentsia. How could I think that? Was I a cold bastard? Was that my problem?

Scott sensed my inner hesitations, and took charge reassuringly, like he was my big brother.

“Look, I'll give you her number. You can call her later. Just take her to the cinema or something. She'd be dead chuffed, I mean it.”

He handed me the small scrap of paper with her number on it.

Saturday afternoon arrived. I was relaxing at home with my family, watching the football scores fly in on grandstand. I was trying to not think about Kelly, so I thought about how wrong I'd been about football. It was no opiate of the masses, oh no. It was far from your standard TV dross that kept people from question things. It was a beautiful game. Winning, losing, drawing, relegation, promotion. The drama. It was life.

I looked over at my parents, sitting quietly ignoring each other. Before I met these Welsh crazies, I had thought my family was strange. The car and bus incidents eased me into the safe thought that if there was a league of family oddness, my family would be mid table. But the more I thought about it, in an odd way the car only reconfirmed how strange my own family was. I was certain my family had never had so much fun doing something so completely crazy together. We were cold and dysfunctional compared to the antics I witnessed at work. The worst or best it got with us was charades at Christmas and dad's dodgy Russian accent.

I managed just so for short whiles, but I was kidding myself if I seriously thought such ruminations could shake me free of my dominating preoccupation. The phone number was burning a hole in my pocket. I knew I needed to be more proactive with the ladies, and I really had no other meaningful possibilities. I also knew it was against my better judgement, but I decided to call anyway. I found a private room to go and do the grim business.

“Um, hello? Who's that?” Answered Kelly.

“It's Oliver, you know, from work?”

“Oh Oliver, I was wondering when you'd call.”

“Really? Oh. Well I was just wondering...” It is so difficult to get the words out, and I am interrupted mid-sentence.

“So when are you going to come over to my place?” Well and truly thrown.

“Your place? I just thought maybe, if you wanted to, we could go and see a...”Again the deadly interruption.

“I thought you were going to come round here and tell me something.” Now I was simply flummoxed.

“Tell you something? I don't think there's much to tell yet.”

“Yes, you were going to tell me how much you want me. And I was going to show you my room. My panties.” Shock.

“What?”

“And you can come and show me your cock. That's what you really want, isn't it. Come on over, I want to play with it!” Oh my God, it hits me. I should have realised as soon as she picked up the phone.

My voice is filled with an indignant outrage far above my years. “Bev! How can you do this? What the hell?!”

But she keeps on talking, and however much I accuse her of being Bev, she ignores me, keeping up the oversexed Kelly pretence. The hyena laughter in the background eventually can't keep itself quiet, spreading inevitably to its source of comedy that laughs hideously down the rattled phone line. I can feel the blood circulating round my face, the room spins. It is as if I've travelled back in time. The clock has turned back to Stanford Junior School, Bev the prankster in the year above. I say goodbye with far too much politeness, and put the phone down with a sigh. I was back to being the joke.

To my surprise, there was no noticeable hangover from the phone call the next week at the building site. I kept my head down, pausing only to give Bev a serious warning that I was upset at what she'd done, and for her to drop the Kelly thing. I was definitely not interested in her. Bev seemed to take this the way I wanted, and she left it alone.

Indeed, there was relative silence for a few days. Our work was treated more seriously. Whereas before it had all just been a big joke, Bev now gave me extended training sessions without a single wisecrack. I found I was working alone more and more of the time, even given responsibility, as much as a cleaner ever has it. If I was working with someone, it would be Scott, who was meticulously surly towards me.

I found it more difficult to ruminate about university, although I did manage to get myself a little worked up about George Dubbya. It emerged that he was taking more holiday time than any US President in history. Damn him. I knew it was little wonder that Gore had lost, he was such a terrible communicator. If only the neo-cons hadn't cheated and played so dirty at the end. If only Bush had won fair and square I wouldn't feel so bad about the whole thing. My blood ran cold knowing democracy had been stolen. So I thought of Tony Blair. A ubiquitous leader, there simply was no alternative. Even if the truck drivers thought petrol was too expensive. You just had to look at William Hague, he was the most comic party leader to come along since Michael Foot. I liked to think about him in those terms, but actually got it from a university lecturer. I was far too young to remember Michael Foot. Even with these thoughts, I began to miss the exuberant jokes, and the unrivalled silliness.

The professionalism didn't outlast Wednesday. It was morning and I was dusting staircases. There were four in total, and each one was time consuming and tiring. Bev was hoovering a long hallway which traversed my staircases. She whistled for my attention, and explained that she was going to wet clean the hallway.

“I'm gonna put my mobile here, I don't want it getting wet.” She placed her Nokia on a shelf in the wall. “Keep an eye on it for me would you, you never know who's looking in a place like this.” I said sure. I wanted to be treated like one of the gang.

I got back to work, and daydreamed about my summer travels on the trains of Europe. I was going to save up enough money to visit Italy for a few weeks. I loved Italian food. I cooked pasta almost every day at university. When I'd finished the stairs, I checked my watch. It was almost time for lunch and the greasy spoon. I gave myself a cigarette break, and then, remembering Bev's mobile, I walked up the stairs to fetch it. The shelf was still there, but the phone was gone.