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CHAPTER TWO

Wilds Boys

I never went home again. That night I stayed in John’s apartment, and three months later I knew that I was going to have his baby.

But I lost that baby at five months, and soon I went back to finish my training as a nurse. Four years later, I had another baby, and this one was born all right. Now I’m twenty-nine, and I have three small kids.

But I’m not really happy. John is a good-looking man, a wonderful lover, but. . . I’m not his only woman. I know he has two other girlfriends, and both of them have babies. Maybe there are more.

Sometimes I don’t see him for weeks, and then he comes back and smiles and tries to be nice to me, but I still get angry. He doesn’t have a real job and we have very little money.

I work as a nurse in a hospital, but I don’t get much for that. And I have to pay half of it to someone to look after my kids while I’m at work.

Dad died four years ago. Al told me about it. ‘Dad had a heart attack,’ he said. ‘He was really angry about John, so he began running to try to get stronger. But he didn’t stop drinking. Then one day he drank half a bottle of whisky, went for a run, came home, and fell down dead on the floor!’

Al laughed. How strange, I thought. Dad loved Al, but when he died, Al laughed. Perhaps men are just animals, really, not people like us.

When Dad was dead, I saw Al more often. I didn’t like him much, but he was my only family. Sometimes we went swimming together with the kids, or out for a pizza. John didn’t like me to talk to other men, but Al was OK, because he was my brother.

When Al was eighteen, he began a rock band, “Wild Boys”. He sang, and played guitar. At first they played in small restaurants, and then they made a record. Lots of people bought it.

The band began to play in front of thousands of people. They made three more records, and travelled all over the world. It was wonderful. By the time he was twenty, my little brother Al was famous, and rich.

He was very, very rich. He bought a yellow Rolls-Royce, a Jaguar, a Porsche, and a house in the best part of Los Angeles with fifteen bedrooms, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and a view over the sea. And he gave me our parents’ house.

That was nice, but it wasn’t very nice. I mean, our parents’ house is very old. It has three small bedrooms, a small garden, and is in a noisy, dirty street. It’s better than my old apartment, but still.

I went to see Al often. He gave me a key, to get in and out of his house. And I cooked for him when he had big parties there. I enjoyed the parties. John came too. There were famous people, wonderful food and music, lots of drink and drugs.

Drugs. Yes, well, the drugs were a bad thing. Al got much too interested in drugs. A lot of his friends took drugs - and my John did, too. And when they were on drugs, they often didn’t know what day it was.

They did crazy things. I remember one party when they went for a midnight swim down at the beach. The boys took all John’s clothes away while he was still in the sea, and drove away with them.

So John had to walk back through the streets in the middle of the night, all wet from the sea, while we laughed at him from the car. He was so angry! I thought that was really funny, but John didn’t talk to me for a week!

But Al and his friends took more and more drugs, and the music began to get worse. Sometimes Al was still in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon.

And when he did get up, he looked very sick. He was thin, his face was white, and he didn’t want to eat anything. He asked me to help him.

‘You’re a nurse, Ellen,’ he said. ‘I feel sick. Give me some medicine or something! Help me!’

‘You don’t need medicine,’ I said. ‘You need a lot of good food, swimming, and no more drugs!’

‘Who do you think you are, Ellen?’ he said. ‘My mother or something?’

‘No, but I am your sister, and a nurse,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. I’m going to get you some medicine to help you stop the drugs, and I’m going to cook you a good meal every day.

But you must stop the drugs. Try it, Al! It works - I know it does!’

He did try it, and it helped. After two or three months Al was stronger and happier, and he began to play good music again. He was pleased; he trusted me.

Sometimes, in the evenings, he took me and my kids to the beach. We had a meal and drank and went swimming together, and had a good time. Those few months with my brother were a good time in my life.

‘Now, at last,’ I thought, ‘my brother likes me. He’s happy and healthy because of me. Maybe he can help me - give me money, buy me a new car and a nice house, take me to Europe with him.’

But of course I was wrong. No one ever gives me anything.