By August, things were at an all-time low.
Okie:
I’ve been away for a while and just got home. I’ve seen the letter you sent but yet to study it.
Just a little reminder of the promise to paint the house – not yet done. You also mentioned you will bring an electric jug/kettle yet done. You said you will do these two both in the month of May.
If you could talk to Peter and Jason, it would be helpful. Their bad drinking habits has turned the house, especially the kitchen, passages and toilet to a garbage. Please come and look at the house as soon as possible.
Adrian:
Hi Okie. My mother was very ill then died which meant things slipped. I will come to house Monday afternoon to inspect. Will bring kettle then.
Okie:
I’m just seeing this. My deepest, deepest condolences on your mother’s demise.May her gentle soul rest in perfect peace. Amen.
Then, at 5pm on the 6th of August (Hiroshima Day), I was sitting enjoying a latte in Starbucks, when Adrian ‘phoned:
‘I need you to come home now! We’ve got to go to Hill View straight away. Peter is smashing windows.’ Jason had rung with this information.
'That's just great,' I thought. 'I wonder how many he’s smashed.’ Each double-glazed unit costs at least £200 to replace and I had just upped the insurance excess to £1,000 to save money on the annual premium.
As I got in my car to drive home was seething; until I remembered that his mother was his guarantor, so I felt better. We'd have to work out how to handle it; even guarantors are very reluctant to pay up. I was home in ten minutes, got into Adrian's car and we dashed up to the house.
'Stay under 50,' I warned Adrian. We didn’t want a speeding fine and points on top of everything else. I'd grabbed a camera so we could photograph the damage. Another 15 minutes later and we were pulling up outside the house. There were no smashed windows at the front, which was good, as if we couldn’t get them boarded up immediately at least passers-by, including opportunist burglars, wouldn’t be aware of them. We then clambered around the side of the house – as usual Jason had put some broken old sofa and bits of wood right across the path and down the steps leading to the back garden, making the journey hazardous. A few months earlier, Adrian had taken away car-loads of his rubbish and now it was piling up again.
There were no windows smashed at the side or back of the house, either, so Jason had clearly been exaggerating. When we got back up to the front of the house, Peter suddenly appeared out of nowhere, seeming to emerge from the next door neighbour’s garden. There was blood all down his face and arm and a big gash on his forehead.
‘Oh Peter, what’s been happening?’ Adrian said, sympathetically. Peter mumbled something incoherent. He was in a daze and seemed to have been drinking.
‘Come inside and we’ll sort you out,’ Adrian said, taking him in and sitting him at the bottom of the stairs inside. Jason started shouting out incoherent things from his room about three feet away.
‘I’d better get an ambulance,’ I said to Adrian and I ‘phoned ‘999.’ I explained to the operator about the gash on Peter's forehead, answering a whole list of questions:
‘What’s the address? What’s his name? How old is he? What exactly happened? Was it self-harm? Was it a suicide attempt? Is he coherent? Is he violent? Does he have a weapon?’
I explained that it was unclear what had happened and whether it was accidental or deliberate. By now, Adrian had popped downstairs to discover that it was an internal door between the living room and bathroom that had been smashed; two large panes of glass on a door with three panels. Jason was shouting all the while:
‘Yes it was accidental. It’s easy to smash two panes of glass at the same time, accidentally.’
‘Shut up! Leave me alone!’ Peter was crying back in an anguished voice, trying to get up and head for Jason’s door.
‘No, Peter. Ignore him,’ we kept saying and I called to Jason:
‘Shut your door and stop talking, Jason! You’re not helping. You’re making things worse,' I warned.