There But For Fortune ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 56 )

What makes us think we have any control over our lives? If we are lucky do we put it down to our determination, our skill, or craft? And what of those that have no luck, do we blame them for where they are, what they do not have? The line is very fine between success, if that’s what you think it is, and failure, and some people are in no way to blame for where they are; but we’d be better people for offering them a hand, should they need it.

Most lives are subject to fate’s bagatelle, a game of chance, and one wonders for whom the game is an entertainment?. Anyone but the Dawsons in our village, who always seem to ‘come up trumps’, will recognise the serendipity, and misfortune, that most lives are subject to.

One morning in our village shop, ahead of me in the queue was a character I knew only slightly. After serving this person Paul our shopkeeper shook his head, and I raised an eyebrow, 

‘Terry,’ he said and nodded in the direction of the person who had just left, ‘if it weren’t for his bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all’

I’d seen ‘Terry’ around the village. He always kept his head down, seldom looked up, so kept himself to himself. 

Terry, full name Terry Cotter, had rejoiced in the nickname ‘Potty’, for obvious reasons. Paul told me a little more of what he knew. He rented a room at the the old forge and has done ever since he returned from Bristol to our village where he grew up. Apparently he’d made a poor marriage, had two children both with issues. He had split up with a long term partner who moved to Swanage where she had died. There didn’t seem to be much in Terry’s life about which to rejoice. You can’t live in a small village without learning something about someone, even if you don’t want to. 

One evening seeing Terry making a half last as long as possible I asked him if I could buy him a pint. He refused as he couldn’t buy one back. I bought him one anyway and told him I didn’t like drinking on my own so if I could join him that would more than repay the favour. I didn’t want him to know he was the focus of my curiosity. Human nature interests me as much, if not more, as anything that perches, crawls or grows in my garden. The advantage is with humans is you can ask them about themselves, and if you’re lucky, they might tell you. So far that’s not worked with anything else, though dogs will look at me with as much bewilderment as I too look at creatures whose behaviour I find inexplicable. 

Sitting at the same table, the silence began to weigh heavy. Being British our first refuge was that day’s weather. The second was the weather at the same time the year before, and the third was the forecast for the coming week. The weather exhausted, I mentioned I once had a shop in Bristol and that I sometimes regretted leaving that city. I hoped Terry would pick up the thread. He did, saying he’d lived and worked in Bristol which I pretended not to know. The change in his demeanour was extraordinary as he recalled his years in boatbuilding. His head lifted and his face brightened. Then a shadow fell on him, and he returned to his previous self, downcast and quiet. I asked him what brought him to the village? He said he’d never planned to stay, he’d been made a promise but  . . He gritted his teeth and would say no more. 

Terry is wiry in stature and below average height, as hard as nails. I could tell just by looking that events over the years had brought him to his knees both physically and mentally. There was a desperation in his eyes and behind them a mistrust of people and a fear of whatever life was going to throw at him next.

I left Terry to himself a couple of times, just nodding until standing next to me in the Drum he asked me whereabouts my shop was. I told him Clifton, and thought it had become a nail bar. I asked him where he’d lived and he told me Hot Wells where he first worked on the boats, then afterwards hire boats. He’d been married and had a child but the relationship was violent and he moved out. He moved back later and another child arrived. When she was a toddler she was a passenger in a car accident, injuring her head, only just survived but would always have problems, and may never be able to work. His other daughter had become a problem, playing truant and regularly suspended for bullying. Eventually he and his wife parted, the boats finished and he’d worked on a small holding, living in a garden shed, always in debt, always trying to help his daughters. He’d been lent a van which was reported stolen by the owner’s wife, he was arrested, not charged but made to move on. Nothing ever seem to work out.

On another occasion he told me about the long term relationship he’d had. He thought life had turned around until she was diagnosed with cancer. Every few months the prognosis swung one way then the other, a torment for both. She had a son who blamed him for everything, and he insisted that she would only recover if she lived with him near the coast where they’d lived before. The move was heartbreaking for Terry but in her state he could hardly object. Terry spent six months renovating the house they’d lived in so it could be sold, and when Terry’s promised share would be enough to buy a small place of his own, where they could be reunited. When it was finished he rented the room in our village, which was nearer to the coast for visits, but the son disapproved and the gaps between visits grew longer until Terry received the news that she had died. He was begrudgingly invited to the funeral where the son took pleasure in telling Terry that the property had not been sold but let and Terry would not be getting a penny. 

I struggled to find blame in anything that Terry told me, and this is a fraction of the whole story. At every cross roads, at every junction or fork that had confronted him, in the same situation, at the same time, I would have made exactly the same choice. In hindsight you might blame his generosity, and maybe his naivety but Terry never turned to alcohol or drugs to solve his problems, but remained stalwart against things that would have beaten most of us.

I heard one evening that Terry had lost it one night in the Drum screaming and shouting and I wondered if this was a side of Terry that explained it all.

I went to see him and initially he wouldn’t let me in. I could see he was ashamed and in a crisis. Through tears and frustration he told me he’d borrowed money for his daughter’s birthday from a payday lending service on the promise of some work. The job was cancelled and he’d been unable to keep up the payments. The amount he owed had trebled and he had run out of time. I told him not to worry, I’d pay it. Foolish? Some might think so, but it was an amount I could afford to lose, but he couldn’t afford to do without. The change in him was worth it, yes the money and the removal of that pressure, but someone having faith in him, just trust.

Constance, my neighbour, had been complaining about the state of her porch and I thought the chance of me getting my money back would be increased if I got Terry some work. I’m not stupid. I called into the Old Forge and left a message for Terry that my neighbour needed help, for which she was prepared to pay. I was disappointed not to hear anything for a week or two then Terry called one morning. Sheepishly he admitted having sold all of his tools. I lent him some of mine, but also give him others I felt I could do without. 

Whilst he was repairing the porch, Paul at the shop asked him if he could he do the shop sign which was hardly legible. What Paul hadn’t told me was that while Terry was on the boats, he’d been a sign writer.

Not only did Terry pay in dribs and drabs what I’d lent him, he gave me a bottle of wine as a thank you. We swapped it at the pub for a couple of beers while he told me about the jobs he had lined up. It doesn’t take much to help someone back onto their feet, some trust and a little ‘unconditional positive regard’, or UPR as Sally Pemberton, a counsellor, puts it.

It’s flattery to think we are masters of our own destiny, in this bagatelle it’s often down to luck rather than design so when we meet a Terry Cotter, on their knees, as Sally says, ‘there but for fortune go you and I.’ 

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.