"My life with Davedax" Chapter 5
by
...continues from "My life with Davedax (ch.4)" - click here to start there...
For all of you who are still not bored to tears by my remembrances of
my lovely, lovely late husband, here's a remarkable little tale that I
was fortunate enough to witness.
Dave always considered himself to be an ordinary man, nothing special,
he didn't consider bring up three girls by himself, keeping down one of
the most dangerous jobs in the world and living an extraordinary double
life to be anything but ordinary.
When I first met him, it was his eyes that I was drawn to, remember the
late Steve McQueen? well Dave's eyes were every bit as bright as his
were, they were an attraction that I couldn't ignore.
I've told you in an earlier story about the first time we became
lovers, well that night was the time when I noticed his arms, they were
dotted with zillions of scars, some big, long slashes and others, just
tiny dots of lighter skin.
I asked him about them and he told me they were birth marks!
"You lying old bugger" I laughed and we made love again,
I knew little about him then except that he told me about a little
problem he said he had with his eyes, that was all he said about it
until one day he rang me up and said that he had to go away for a
couple of days.
Well that wasn't enough for me, I was already in love with the old fart
although I hadn't said so and there was no way he was going anywhere
without me, or at least telling me!
I realized that I was being pushy, which he hated, but all I knew was
the man and I wanted to know much, much more about him, so I went round
to his flat where he lived alone and found him packing his few clothes,
I was devastated,
"Is that it then?" I asked, "You've just decided that I'm not the one,
so you're going to sod off are you, hadn't you got the guts to tell me
straight out?
(Dave's readers will know that he mentioned the Canary Isles in some of
his stories, that's because the woman he went out with before me became
pushier and pushier, he was too nice a man just to dump her, so one
Christmas, he took her to Gran Canaria and told her that it was over,
she hit the roof and became the nasty little vixen that I later got to
know and dislike, Dave's response was to wait until she was asleep, get
a taxi to the airport and go home without her!)
His reaction to my outburst was the complete opposite, he sat me down,
calmed me down and told me about what he called his little problem,
Belfast at it's worst.
There were twelve of them, three units each of four men, all vastly
experienced police officers and Dave was always quite proud of the fact
that he was by far the scruffiest of them all, he told me once about
how he was summoned to a house where some other officers wanted him to
identify a suspect, there was a uniformed constable outside, a sterling
sub machine gun under his arm and he looked really nervous as this
scruffy, long haired, bearded, downright dirty old bugger approached
the tape.
"Hey" he shouted at Dave, "Where the hell do you think you're going? A
detective came out then and told Dave to bugger off,
"And who'd be telling me that?" Dave asked and the detective produced a
wallet containing his warrant card, Dave looked at it, looked at both
policemen, took his own wallet out and said,
"I've got one like that, only mine says fucking sergeant!"
They let him in!
Anyway back to the tale, as ever in Ulster, there'd been a tip off,
even a rough area had been named, hence the twelve scruffy men lounging
about or sweeping the roads, one or two were sipping at cans of lager
as befitted the run down area, technology then was not what it is now,
so when the two men came into the precinct from opposite ends and each
one stopped to light a cigarette, nothing untoward was suspected by
anyone except Dave's partner who tried furiously to attract Dave's
attention, Dave looked up and saw the expression on Pete's face, he
knew something was going off and moved towards the man nearest to him,
the man began running but Pete was quicker and tripped him up, as quick
as a flash Pet tapped his colt revolver under the man's chin and
explained that there were two ways to do it.
Dave nodded at his friend and partner and turned back towards where the
guy had left his brief case, at the very second that he looked at it,
he said for a millionth of a second, it seemed to bulge and Dave
actually saw the flash as it exploded, he was dropping backwards with
his arms up over his face and that was the last he knew until he awoke
to darkness.
Hence the marks on his arms.
He was blind for four days and he told me later that when the bandages
finally came off, he cried.
He was told that both retinas were damaged and ordered to return to
Belfast for treatment if he started to see floaters in his eyes, those
of you who have had eye problems will know what he meant. Well he'd
been seeing floaters for some time then and he gave me what he thought
would be the hardest choice of my young life.
"You can come with me Jack and wait while I have the op and then piss
off when you see I'm blind, or you can wait here for me to phone you,
or you can sod off and find somebody your own age who is young, fit,
healthy and doesn't have a million fucking problems, either way kid I'm
on the 18.55 flight from East Midlands to Belfast"
I went mad at him and we had our first fight, I kicked him, tried to
hit him, I threw things at him and do you know what the bastard did? He
bloody well laughed and then hugged me until I stopped crying!
He made me cry when we landed at Aldergrove airport just outside
Belfast, there was a long line of business men returning from whatever
and wherever they'd been, but when he reached the tarmac at the bottom
of the steps, he stopped, knelt down and touched the hard concrete, he
never did explain that one, but I never thought it needed any
explanations!
I just wish that I loved a place as much as Dave loved Ireland, I'm
sure many of you are familiar with the old Irish song, "Forty shades of
Green" but honestly, until you've seen Ireland from the air and seen
all the many different shades, you can't possibly realize how
stunningly beautiful the place really is!
They operated the following afternoon and told me he would be out for
at least twelve hours, I asked if the op had been a success but the
nurse shook her head,
"I honestly don't know" she said, "But before he went under, we had a
chat, I remember your old man from when he was here before, one half of
me groaned because I thought he might create mayhem like he did the
last time, but my old heart was singing 'cos he's a lovely, lovely man,
was he after telling you what happened when he was here?"
I shook my head and pressed her, but she wouldn't budge,
"He'll likely tell you himself" she smiled, kissed my cheek and left,
Ten minutes later she returned and told me that her husband was waiting
in the car park for me,
"He'll be out all night Jackie, I've never done this before but you
look shattered, come on and we can offer you a hot meal, a bath and our
daughter's bed, she's away at college" she told me proudly, "It's my
day off tomorrow but I'll bring you in and we can check how much booze
he's had in the night"
That confused me more than just a bit until she told me that the R.U.C.
had a habit of looking in on their fellow officers, even their ex
fellow officers as Dave was, but Belfast, although a city, is really
more like a village,
"He'll not go short of visitors Jackie, believe me"
I did believe her and I spent a really restful night with that
delightful lady and her equally nice husband, two people, who if there
were more like them would make the world a better place!
It broke my heart when we arrived back at the hospital the following
morning, he was sitting up in his bed eating his breakfast, but the
bandages round his eyes told their own story and for a split second I
questioned my commitment, I noticed one of the officers around him
nudge him and whisper something, he looked up, sniffed and grinned,
"What about ye Jack?" the dam broke and I scattered his breakfast as I
threw myself on his bed, the tears fell in bucket loads, I held him
tightly and breathed in his scent, his odour,
"I don't care Dave, I'm here and I'll look after you, we'll be okay
baby trust me"
"Jackie?"
I just cried against his chest,
"Jackie?"
I refused to look at anyone, I knew they were his friends, I could
never share with him what they had, but he was my man and I was going
to look after him, not them, me!
"Jackie, the doctor hasn't been round yet sweetheart, the bandages will
be off when he arrives"
"Stupid?" Stupid doesn't even begin to describe how I felt,
"Oh"
The next two hours were the longest of my life, but finally the doctor
arrived, a lovely little Indian guy who greeted me as if I was royalty
and gave me some idea of the esteem those brave men of the R.UC. are
held in by the vast majority of the population of Ulster.
It seemed to take an age for him to take the bandages off, he left the
last layer on and told Dave to open his eyes as there was only one
layer of bandage between him seeing and total blindness.
Incredible though it may sound, I could hardly believe what happened
next, he lay back down on the pillow, held my hand and promptly fell
asleep,
I thought he'd died, how the bloody hell could someone sleep in such a
situation?
He told me later that he was actually scared, my big, bad bear afraid?
He only slept for ten minutes or so but I had to be restrained from
strangling the bugger, there he was in dreamland while I was completely
distraught, was I going to be nursing a blind man or would I get my
Dave back?
He sat up and the doctor asked him to close his eyes,
"Fucking hell" I thought, "The old sod will fall asleep again"
He closed his eyes and the doctor slowly unwound the last of the
bandage.
"Right David" he'd switched the lights off, "Open them slowly, if it
hurts, tell me and close them immediately"
The silence was horrible, I gripped his hand although I'd rather have
gripped his neck, I swear he was doing it deliberately, I could see
that his eyes were stuck, but the doctor wiped them gently with some
solution or other and I held my breath.
Slowly he opened his eyes, one at a time and turned his head to look at
me, but his eyes were focused somewhere above my head, I sobbed and
gripped his hand even tighter, I wanted to say that it didn't matter, I
loved him anyway, but slowly his eyes looked up and found mine, they
were no longer the piercing, bright blue that they'd been a few hours
ago and I choked back a sob,
"I love you Dave" I could hardly get the words out.
"If you really loved me" he said slowly, "You wouldn't wear that bloody
awful tee shirt"
It took a couple of seconds for it to sink in, but then he added, "Mind
you Jack, I love the way it shows your nipples"
I squealed, screamed, hugged the nurses, kissed the doctor and then
started crying,
Oh my God the relief, I'd got him back again in one piece, I'm sure
everyone in the ward could see my knickers as I did my best to smother
him, but I really didn't care, I'd got my Dave back!
The doctor wanted me to leave him alone for a while, whilst his eyes
got used to functioning again, Kathleen, the nurse took me into the
canteen for a coffee, but we diverted to the ladies on the way where I
spent a good ten minutes crying out my relief, why did I love this old
bugger so much, why had I followed him to Ireland, why the hell was I
bothering?
Kathleen told me why over a coffee.
I've told you about when he was shot and about how he spent eighteen
months in hospital afterwards, that in itself is easy to say, but can
you imagine the pain, the suffering and the agony that he went through
when his bitch of a wife calmly phoned him and said she was leaving
him?
I'm only four feet eleven and three quarters of an inch tall, whilst
his wife was about twelve feet nine inches (she was a lot taller than
me anyway) and even before I met her, I hated her, no I bloody well
detested her and I still do.
Time went on and slowly Dave's health improved and almost eighteen
months to the day that he was taken in, unconscious and losing a lot of
blood, he was discharged, I actually cried when Kathleen told me about
that day, they were transferring him to a hospital at a place called
Bretby, near to Derby, but apart from his girls, he didn't really know
anyone there, she said that for the first time since she'd known him,
she realized that Dave was afraid!
"My old heart went out to him Jackie" she said. "The old sod had got
awards for his bravery, but he was afraid to go home"
In the middle of the afternoon, he was visited by one of his
colleagues, they disappeared and came back about three hours later half
pissed and carrying about two hundred pounds worth of booze, which
wasn't bad for Dave as he was still on crutches.
The upshot was that he was so well liked in that wonderful, wonderful
place, that hardly anyone went home on time after their shift, most
staggered out half cut and she swore that if there had been a major
trauma in Belfast that night, they would never, for the first time in
their history, been able to cope!
In the few weeks since Dave's death, Maureen and I have visited the
hospital and all of the old staff who remembered him, almost without
exception shed a tear with us, I think I've said enough about my Dave,
although as long as I live I'll know that nobody else will ever come up
to the same standard as him.
I remember someone saying to me that if you can remember somebody with
a smile, you had a good life with them, well all I can say is that, I'm
laughing, "God bless you all for your letters, I will not write any
more about Dave.
Dave Barton, 1946-2005. R.I.P. my darling.
...continues in " My life with Davedax (ch.6)" - click here to continue...
[Note: this story is protected by international copyright law,
all rights not expressly waived are reserved by its author.]
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