Chapter 14

"Comin' out tonight, Si?" John asked his friend.

"Yeah, sure," Simon answered, not really paying attention. "Yeah ... what? Oh, sorry, John. Um, yes, I can go out tonight. Nothing keeping me in..."

They were leaving the station, coming off-shift. John Tierney pulled his friend to one side.

"Simon, this has got to stop. You're hardly paying attention to anything outside work, and I'm worried that your attitude will spill over there as well. That would get dangerous for you, and for your colleagues who depend on you."

"I've not —"

"No, you haven't, yet. But I warn you, if I see it, I'll call it, Simon. There's no room for it. Now, pull yourself together and cheer up, and come for a bloody drink!"

Mute, Simon simply did as he was told. Well, he made some effort, anyway.

John and his girlfriend Patty persuaded Simon to come out with them after the pub. They went to 'Sundowners', and while John and Patty had fun on the dance floor Simon found himself chatting to a very young blonde. He took her home that evening, but though she gave him her phone number, he didn't bother to call her again. He promptly forgot the girl's name.

A week later, he did the same thing, this time with a curvy brunette in her mid-twenties. Jeannie said she wasn't expecting anything more than a fun night, and he took her at her word. This time, he hooked up with her again the following week, but still there was no real intimacy, each was knowingly using the other to scratch a physical itch, no more.

A week after that, Jeannie was with another guy, and Simon was shrugging his shoulders and climbing into another drink.

He missed out for a while, then hooked up with a petite redhead. Camille and he stayed together for three weeks and it looked as though they were getting on well — then Simon pulled the plug on the relationship. He told John that she was, "getting far too heavy too quickly."

Through all of this, John was being the best friend he knew how to be. He told Simon, "Look, mate, it's not really my business, but when you've broken up with a girl you got close to like you obviously did, you need to get over it. All right, I grant you that you've got your head back on at work, but afterwards — you're still going to hurt someone. Not physically, but some of the girls you've been out with since then have been really nice, and you've been acting like a bad'un."

Simon shrugged. "I just don't want to get involved again, John. I just want to have fun."

"Yeah, well if you call it that, how come you go around with a face like a sack of spuds? A regular mister potato head you are, these days. Put it behind you please, Simon?"

With a sigh, Simon acquiesced. "I'll try, John. It's not easy, though."

John play-punched him on the arm, like young men do. "That's the spirit. Now, you go and do whatever it is you do when you're not coming out with me and leave me to look after Patty!"

John wasn't the only one to notice that all was not well with Simon. Both his mother and his father did too.

One evening, on a day when Simon wasn't on duty, he was fiddling with his hair in an unsuccessful attempt to bring order to chaos when his mother came into the hall from the kitchen.

"Off out tonight again, Simon?" she asked.

"Yup." Simon answered. Monosyllables had become his stock in trade.

But his mother wasn't going to let him get away with it this time. She pursued him, asking, "Why do you find it necessary to find a different girl every time you go out, Simon? What are you running away from?"

"Nothin'," he answered, turning to go out of the door.

"Not so fast, Simon!" his mother called, but he was already moving away.

"Can't stop!" he called over his shoulder, walking quickly away.

Simon knew he wouldn't get away with that, however. His mother wouldn't be so easily put off once she'd decided to 'talk about' something.

Sure enough, the following morning he was nursing a hangover over a breakfast of a slice of toast and a cup of coffee when, as if called by magic, it happened. But it wasn't his mother.

"Morning Simon!" came a bright, masculine voice from the kitchen doorway. Simon looked up and saw his father and wondered where he'd learned to be such a sadist.

"Morning." he grunted.

His father sat down next to him. Simon kept his head down and concentrated on his toast and coffee. After a somewhat painful silence, the older man cleared his throat. Simon looked up, and his father held his gaze.

"Simon, a long time ago, when you first started showing an interest in girls, your Mum and I decided we wouldn't interfere with you. We felt it was important for us to be here if you wanted to talk, but that you had to make your own mistakes — that there was little point in us telling you what to do or more importantly what not to do. You'd resent that and pay no attention. So, beyond the obvious stuff like 'Don't get her pregnant!' we let you get on with it.

"That hasn't changed. But the sullen, miserable little s.o.b. act you're pulling recently isn't very nice for us to live with."

Unable to meet his eyes Simon looked away.

"This all started when you broke up with Marianne. You feel guilty, don't you?" he asked him. He looked back at him in surprise, then slowly nodded.

"No surprise. But you don't have to. She broke up with you, after all. But I don't think that's the main source of the guilt, either. Something happened between you and her sister, your mother and I think. I don't know what, your mother doesn't know what, and frankly I think it's better that way. But if you're going to have a career where other people's lives are in your hands, I think a little maturity would be a good thing.

"If you made a mistake over Marianne, you need to stop moping about it and either fix it or, if it's not fixable, move on. Acting like you are, is making the atmosphere in this house unbearable." He fixed him with a stern, steady gaze, ensuring Simon's full attention. "No matter how old you are, or what you do, you're my son and I love you. But this sullenness stops."

With that, William Cook stood up and looked down at his son, who was now staring at him.

"I'm proud of you, son. I'm proud of the way you've turned out, dedicating yourself to helping others in the way that you have. But you're not quite a finished product yet, after all. Fix it, or move on. Now, did you see that goal that Billy Bonds scored the other night? Brilliant, it was!"

Simon scrambled to let his brain catch up with his father's abrupt change of subject. He filed away his father's speech and tried to be enthusiastic about his father's beloved West Ham United. But afterwards he thought about what his father had said.

It was obviously something the older man had rehearsed, probably line-by-line with his mother. Simon felt guilty once more, realising that he'd upset his mother by his boorish behaviour at home, and resolved not to let his mood darken that way so much.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Over the next weeks he'd still sometimes turn bad-tempered or morose, particularly after a night out on the booze, or after what he heard John calling a 'bad day at the office'. This would be especially true if lives were lost. He knew that he and his colleagues were doing everything they could possibly do, but still he was always depressed at such times, sure that there was something he'd missed, something that could have been done to prevent injury and worse.

One night at the 'Cross Keys' John and Patty introduced him to another friend of theirs, a girl two years his junior named Michelle.

"She's just back from a trip around Europe," Patty told him, leaning close to his ear. "She'll be going back to Liverpool soon — she's studying there."

Michelle was a tall, slim, raven haired girl with a button nose and a ready smile. Simon soon found out that she had a good sense of humour and a razor-sharp mind.

"What are you studying?" he asked her, trying to make conversation.

"Journalism," she replied, "I want to go into radio, work for the BBC. What do you do?"

"I'm a fireman," he replied. He couldn't help letting a little prideful defiance creep into his voice.

"Oh! Interesting. Where do you stand on the pay and conditions issue — do you think there'll be a strike?"

Simon recalled Phil, the hard-bitten, experienced fireman who was the representative for the Fire Brigade's Union at the station, telling everyone that some sort of industrial action might be necessary to "bring about a successful conclusion to their dispute," as he'd put it. Simon had paid little attention. Being single and living at home meant he had few immediate money worries.

"Er — to be honest, I haven't a clue," he told Michelle after a short pause while he thought about it. "There's some talk, but then there often is, isn't there?"

"So you're not really involved in the Union, I guess? There goes my hope of an in-depth interview for the university radio!" she laughed. 'That laugh is so contagious, ' he thought.

He laughed with her. "No, but I know someone you could talk to, if you're serious," he replied. He gave her Phil's name and told her he'd ask if he wanted to give an interview to a young up-and-coming journalist. She smiled at him.

"Thank you, Simon. Much appreciated."

Simon found her easy to talk to, and before he knew it, it was getting on for eleven o'clock.

"Michelle," he asked, "Do you fancy meeting up again tomorrow night?" Then he mentally kicked himself. "Sorry, that would have to be the night after, I'm on duty tomorrow night."

"That'd be great, Simon. I look forward to it — I've enjoyed myself tonight."

"I'll walk you home," he offered, and with a nod of her head she agreed.

On the way to her parent's home nearby, Simon found himself once more studying the girl beside him. She was almost as tall as he was. Her neck was hidden by the sleek, black hair, and she had a small, button nose that he'd noted before. When she turned and asked him a casual question he was fascinated by her smile, even though he couldn't see her face perfectly in the dark.

They reached the house and she said, "Thanks, Simon. I had a good time," before giving him a fleeting touch of her lips on his cheek and dancing out of reach.

On the walk home, it came to Simon that he'd relaxed with Michelle, enjoying himself in the here-and-now rather than worrying about the past, and what he could have done differently. It was a very pleasant feeling.

For the next several weeks Simon and Michelle were almost inseparable, going out most evenings when he was off-duty and spending many of the nights together.

Simon did introduce Michelle to Phil, and she came away from the meeting full of zest. "Phil thinks there'll be trouble, maybe not now, but soon. He thinks there'll be enough from the Government to stop there being a strike, though, but there'll be lots of posturing first. What do you think, Simon?"

"I told you, I don't know, I haven't a clue about that sort of stuff. I just get on with the job."

"Yes, Simon, but if you just follow blindly you could come unstuck in a big way one day. You ought to keep yourself informed."

"Yeah, I suppose,", Simon replied, but in truth it wasn't something he was likely to pay much attention to. His job, as he saw it, was to go out and fight the fires he was directed to, not to worry about top-level policy. Except, he could always do with more money. Maybe he ought to pay attention after all?

With nudges like this, Michelle encouraged Simon to lift up his head and look at what was happening around him. Her company lifted his soul, too. His family and friends found Simon much easier to live with, something they all appreciated.