I’d forgotten to put the handbrake on and it had rolled into a convertible BMW, denting the back end. I apologised to the owner of the car but he said, ‘That’s OK, sweetheart. My motor’s only an old peace of shit. No real harm done.’ Flash git, I thought to myself. A motor worth £25,000 and he’s calling it a ‘piece of shit’.
When we once had 500 cases of lager in the van, a friend and I were driving home and all of a sudden there was a massive crashing noise. I had fallen asleep. We had veered out of our lane and hit road cones in the middle of a section of road works – and thank God we did because, if we had stayed in our lane, we would havedriven into the stationary traffic ahead and probably been killed. Instead, we were in the works lane smashing cones all over the motorway. We were suddenly wide awake and I couldn’t get out of the works lane because there were cones stuck under the van and everyone was looking. I just looked at my friend and drove right through them. It did us a favour really because we missed all the traffic and got off the motorway. But it was scary too. When we got home, we still had a cone under the van but I was so exhausted that I just went to bed.
I could only think that the Billy wasn’t working as well it had, as there is only so much your body can take before it needs rest. I was working constantly and battling through the exhaustion. It wasn’t just the money. By now people were relying on me to get their orders in. We were lucky we hadn’t died that night but the Billy took those thoughts away and it was all about getting the job done.
On the next trip the van decided to break down on the way home. It was fully loaded, we were on the M20 on a steep hill and the van was doing about five miles an hour before it died on us. We were nearly at the top of the hill on the hard shoulder when it overheated for the last time. The journey was just getting too much for the old vehicle. So we let it cool down a bit. We kept trying to start it again but it wasn’t having it. I stuck it in reverse, took my foot off the brake and let it roll backwards down the hill. Wewere going backwards on the hard shoulder of the M20 at about 50 miles an hour, fully loaded. It was flying – but in the wrong direction. There were lorries flying past us with drivers just gawping in amazement at how fast a Transit van could go in reverse down a hill. But we were terrified and those drivers must have been too, seeing us heading in their direction at breakneck speed. I mean, we could have veered across into their path at any second. We were in big trouble. If I couldn’t keep it in a straight line, we were dead. But, amazingly, I got it to bottom of the hill and we rolled to a stop. I tried to start it again but the engine was still dead. We could see a petrol station in the far distance across fields and hills.
I said we had to get to the garage to get some water for the radiator but my mate replied, ‘Leave it out, Jane. I’m knackered and it looks miles away.’
I told her to stop being a baby. ‘You’re a soldier tonight, girl. We’ve got a dodgy load of booze so we’ve got to get this van started and get home or we could end up being nicked.’ We climbed the barrier into the fields, walked through a forest, got to the garage and she had been right. It was a lot further than it looked. Even then we had to wait two hours for it to open. We bought loads of bottles of water and went back to the van and poured the water into the radiator. And, thank God, it started and we headed home.
What a life we were having. It was hard work andscary when we broke down in the middle of the night. But we were earning and we were surviving. That’s life, I thought to myself as we got back to Essex.
7
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
So that is how I met my Matt – doing a drug deal for quarter of a kilo of Billy in the Kent countryside.
I hardly know where to begin telling you about Matt. It sounds like a
When we once had 500 cases of lager in the van, a friend and I were driving home and all of a sudden there was a massive crashing noise. I had fallen asleep. We had veered out of our lane and hit road cones in the middle of a section of road works – and thank God we did because, if we had stayed in our lane, we would havedriven into the stationary traffic ahead and probably been killed. Instead, we were in the works lane smashing cones all over the motorway. We were suddenly wide awake and I couldn’t get out of the works lane because there were cones stuck under the van and everyone was looking. I just looked at my friend and drove right through them. It did us a favour really because we missed all the traffic and got off the motorway. But it was scary too. When we got home, we still had a cone under the van but I was so exhausted that I just went to bed.
I could only think that the Billy wasn’t working as well it had, as there is only so much your body can take before it needs rest. I was working constantly and battling through the exhaustion. It wasn’t just the money. By now people were relying on me to get their orders in. We were lucky we hadn’t died that night but the Billy took those thoughts away and it was all about getting the job done.
On the next trip the van decided to break down on the way home. It was fully loaded, we were on the M20 on a steep hill and the van was doing about five miles an hour before it died on us. We were nearly at the top of the hill on the hard shoulder when it overheated for the last time. The journey was just getting too much for the old vehicle. So we let it cool down a bit. We kept trying to start it again but it wasn’t having it. I stuck it in reverse, took my foot off the brake and let it roll backwards down the hill. Wewere going backwards on the hard shoulder of the M20 at about 50 miles an hour, fully loaded. It was flying – but in the wrong direction. There were lorries flying past us with drivers just gawping in amazement at how fast a Transit van could go in reverse down a hill. But we were terrified and those drivers must have been too, seeing us heading in their direction at breakneck speed. I mean, we could have veered across into their path at any second. We were in big trouble. If I couldn’t keep it in a straight line, we were dead. But, amazingly, I got it to bottom of the hill and we rolled to a stop. I tried to start it again but the engine was still dead. We could see a petrol station in the far distance across fields and hills.
I said we had to get to the garage to get some water for the radiator but my mate replied, ‘Leave it out, Jane. I’m knackered and it looks miles away.’
I told her to stop being a baby. ‘You’re a soldier tonight, girl. We’ve got a dodgy load of booze so we’ve got to get this van started and get home or we could end up being nicked.’ We climbed the barrier into the fields, walked through a forest, got to the garage and she had been right. It was a lot further than it looked. Even then we had to wait two hours for it to open. We bought loads of bottles of water and went back to the van and poured the water into the radiator. And, thank God, it started and we headed home.
What a life we were having. It was hard work andscary when we broke down in the middle of the night. But we were earning and we were surviving. That’s life, I thought to myself as we got back to Essex.
7
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
So that is how I met my Matt – doing a drug deal for quarter of a kilo of Billy in the Kent countryside.
I hardly know where to begin telling you about Matt. It sounds like a
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