The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

  My Dad kissed my Mam and said not to worry. Because he’d finally found the instrument which would change all our fortunes and as soon as he’d cracked it (the tuning, the fingering, the picking and that) people would pay good money just to listen, then he’d get my Mam more than a plain patch of grass; he’d give her a lawn that ran down to a river, with big handsome stripes crisscrossing it all; my Mam would be living in marmalade and clover with all the nice things that she’d always deserved. And my Dad said the sun would shine down upon them and he’d make the long-necked, five-string banjo sing.

  My Mam didn’t shout, she didn’t start yelling (she said she was far too weary for that). She just opened the door. And said, ‘Tarar, Johnny! I’ll pack up your bags an’ send ’em round to y’ mam’s.’

  My Dad stood there frowning, his face all a puzzle. But my Mam’s mind was made up, there was no going back. My Mam said her heart was too tired to be broken, as the truth of the matter finally dawned on my Dad; and he started to plead and seek explanations and ask my Mam why, but my Mam shook her head. And said not a word because words would be wasted like words had been wasted so much in the past. And my Dad, mild of manner, mountains of melody still locked in his heart, just started to nod. And all that he said was, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Tell the lad I’m sorry.’ Then he picked up the banjo and crept out of the door.

  My Mam said she cried for a very long time after she’d thrown my Dad out. But I don’t remember any of that because I was just the baby in the pram when all that happened.

  Look though, Morrissey, I don’t want you thinking that I hold any sort of a grudge against my Dad for disappearing like he did. He wasn’t bad, my Dad, or owt like that. He wasn’t like Tony Perroni’s dad who ran off with the Littlewoods catalogue woman and left Mrs Perroni destitute, having to bring up their Tony and all the other Perroni progeny on no maintenance money; and Mrs Perroni went around telling everybody she was taking Littlewoods to court on account of one of their agents had appropriated her husband. But in the end they sent Tony’s mam a dinner service and a microwave oven with their compliments. And Mrs Perroni abandoned her litigious leanings, and said you’ve never tasted pork till you’ve tasted it done in a microwave. Everybody was glad that Mrs Perroni seemed to be all right after that. But whenever his name came up, everybody agreed he was a bastard, Mr Perroni, running off with the catalogue woman and leaving his wife with all those kids.

  But it was never like that with my Dad because my Dad never walked out on anybody and it had been my Mam’s decision. And although they all liked my Dad they could see it had been a trial for my Mam, putting up with all those instruments and never having a decent bit of lawn. But that’s about the worst that anybody ever said about my Dad (apart from my Uncle Bastard Jason!). And there were even some as would just shake their heads in sympathy at the mere mention of my Dad’s name. Like my Gran always did. And even though she was my Mam’s mam and not my Dad’s mam, my Gran always used to say, ‘Agh, God love him. Poor Johnny. He had all the goodness of sun-ripened oranges about him. But still, I often wondered if he was even of this Earth.’

  Which wasn’t the same thing at all as saying that my Dad was mentally defective! Which is what my Uncle Bastard Jason always used to infer, making out that my Dad was two tracks short of a full CD and that was the reason that I’d turned out the way I had. But it was nowt to do with my Dad and I don’t blame him for anything that happened to me because it wasn’t my Dad’s fault, none of it. My Mam always said it was better for us and better for my Dad that we’d gone our separate ways. And I never even really missed my Dad or got deprived or neglected or nowt like that because I had my Mam and I had my Gran and before I started school I didn’t even realise that I was supposed to have a dad. Then even when I did start school there were loads of other kids like me and like Tony Perroni who didn’t have dads and so it never really mattered. Until after the canal.

  That was when my Mam first started saying that perhaps it would have been better after all if she hadn’t thrown my Dad out. That’s when she started to say that maybe all the trouble wouldn’t have happened if there’d been a man around when I was growing up. She said that she blamed it all on herself for throwing my Dad out and leaving me without the benefit of a masculine role model. She even said that it might not be too late and that perhaps she should make the effort and go out more to pubs and clubs and places where she might meet a good man and get married again and then at least I’d have a stepfather. I started crying when my Mam said that because I didn’t want her to go out to pubs and clubs and bring home a stepfather for me. I didn’t want a stepfather.

  But I couldn’t say nowt because that was the day of the canal, the day I became the fallen hero, the day my Mam’s supervisor in KwikSave had appeared at my Mam’s check-out terminal and told her that she had to get down to the school immediately. That was the day my Mam was ushered into the Headmaster’s office where she found herself facing the New Headmaster and Mrs Bradwick, both of whom sat there and stared solemnly at my Mam until she frowned and nervously asked of them, ‘What is it?’

  And that’s when the Headmaster stood up and cleared his throat and informed my Mam that I was being suspended from school with immediate effect. That was when my Mam, perplexed and uncomprehending, frowned even more deeply as the New Headmaster advised my Mam that in his opinion she should seek professional help. Mrs Bradwick agreed with the Headmaster and said that with the right sort of therapy it might be possible to arrest the problem at an early age and avoid what could be even graver consequences in the future.

  And my Mam, increasingly worried but still perplexed and uncomprehending, asked the Headmaster, ‘What is it he’s done?’

  The New Headmaster lifted a sheet of paper off his desk then and said to my Mam, ‘In anticipation of that question, Mrs Marks, I’ve prepared a brief report which I’d like you to read. When you do, I’m sure you’ll appreciate my reluctance to offend either your sensibilities or, indeed, my own or Madam Chairman’s by putting into spoken word the appalling nature of what’s gone on today.’

  And the Hideous Headmaster sat behind his desk and watched as my Mam lowered her head and read the brief report in which her own son had exerted his guile and influence over less knowing and largely innocent lads who had stupidly (but, it must be said, naively) allowed themselves to become enmeshed in a web of sexual malpractice including exhibitionism, group masturbation, sado-bestiality and going out of bounds during the school dinner hour.

  And my Mam just started shaking her head as she vacantly murmured, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I just don’t … I can’t … I don’t … But … it can’t be true.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Marks,’ the Headmaster interrupted, ‘but I don’t deal in falsehoods. There are fourteen boys, Mrs Marks, fourteen of them who one way and another were drawn into this … farrago of filth. Fourteen! And each and every one of them testifies that the filth that’s been going on at that canal is a filth that originated in the mind of one boy, Raymond James Marks! Your son!’

  The Headmaster glared at my Mam. And all my Mam could do was stare at the foot of the Headmaster’s desk and slowly, slowly shake her head.

  ‘And it’s because’, the Headmaster said, ‘he did at least admit to his responsibility in being the ringleader that I have prevailed upon Madam Chairman and the other school governors to exercise a degree of leniency in this matter. As you might expect, Mrs Marks, such a grave and grossly offensive business would normally warrant nothing less than expulsion. But, taking into account his admission of guilt and having regard for the problems you already face as a single parent, it has been decided that Raymond shall be suspended rather than expelled.’

  My Mam, whose brain had become a ball of cotton wool, just mumbled some sort of a thank you.

  ‘Effectively, however,’ the Headmaster explained, ‘with only two weeks until the end of term it means that we shall not be seeing Raymond James Marks back here at this scho
ol. Let us all hope that the disgraceful and disturbed behaviour he has exhibited in this school will be corrected before he starts at the comprehensive.’

  My Mam started to mumble again but the Headmaster got up from behind his desk and told her, ‘He’s waiting in the deputy head’s office, Mrs Marks. I’d be grateful if you’d collect him now and remove him from the school premises without further delay.’

  And my Mam did collect me. She walked into the deputy head’s office where I’d been sat crying and waiting for my Mam. And now there she was still in her check-out clothes, stood in the doorway, looking at me like I was something strange and frightening. And I couldn’t look back at my Mam.

  ‘Is it true?’ she said. ‘What I’ve just been told, is it true?’

  And I didn’t know what to say because parts of it were true but none of it was true like the Hideous Headmaster had said. The Hideous Headmaster had made it sound wicked and dirty and disgusting. I wanted to explain it all to my Mam and make her understand that it was all right and I hadn’t really been any of those things. But the Hideous Headmaster had already taken charge of the truth and he’d tangled it all up in badness and being dirty and disgusting goings-on. And even though I knew what the real truth was, he’d made me feel that I was dirty and wicked and disgusting. And I was only eleven and far too young to know how hard it is to rescue the truth when the truth’s been tied up and tangled and turned into something that makes you burn with shame. So I didn’t say anything. And finally my Mam just looked at the floor and said, ‘Come on! I’ve got to take you away from here.’

  And as me and my Mam left the school, the New Headmaster and Mrs Bradwick watched from the office window as my Mam and me walked across the empty playground, neither one of us saying a word. The New Headmaster and Mrs Bradwick glanced at each other as they saw me, my Mam and all their problems disappearing through the school gate.

  But on the other side of that gate, my problems and my Mam’s problems were only just beginning. Outside the school gate were Mrs Duckworth and Mrs Goldberg and Mrs Cowley and all the mothers of all the innocent children who’d been lured and led and corrupted.

  And they shouted, the mothers, and called my Mam names and said that if I came anywhere near their children again they’d fuckin’ well swing for me! But it was like my Mam was in some kind of trance because she just stared straight ahead and walked and said nowt.

  It was only when we were halfway up the street and we’d left the shouting mothers behind that my Mam finally spoke. She didn’t look at me, she still kept staring ahead, and she asked me again, ‘Is it true?’

  She stopped now and turned and looked at me and said, ‘I want you to tell me, Raymond, is it true?’

  I’d never told lies to my Mam. And I didn’t want to start telling her lies. But I didn’t want my Mam to think that I was dirty and disgusting and from the way she looked at me I knew that she was looking at me like I was somebody she didn’t know any more.

  And I said to my Mam, ‘It is true but it isn’t true!’

  Then my Mam started shouting and she said, ‘Don’t you dare! Don’t you start, with your words. You’re not talking to your Grandmother now!’ And she pointed at me and she said, ‘It’s a simple question. Now you just give me a simple answer! Is it true?’

  I said, ‘I was just playing, that’s all.’

  But my Mam didn’t understand because she shouted again and said, ‘I know you were bloody well playing! Playing with yourself in broad bloody daylight, I know that! And that’s bad enough, but what’s all this about bloody flies?’

  ‘It was only a game!’ I said, shouting like my Mam was shouting. ‘It was just a game.’

  And my Mam closed her eyes then and shook her head. Then she looked at me and she sighed and she said, ‘A game? A game!’ And now she was looking at me like she was seeing me for the first time. ‘You get expelled from school,’ she said, ‘and you’re telling me it was just a game!’

  My Mam shook her head again. And then she turned and told me, ‘Come on!’ and I just stood there watching as my Mam started walking off up the road. And I wanted her to turn round and look at me and tell me it was all right and to get a move on so that we’d be in time for Blockbusters and we could sit there on the settee, me and my Mam, eating toast and drinking milky coffee and shouting out the answers at the telly as Unbearable Bob and the Embarrassing Blockbusters carried on being unbearable and embarrassing and perfectly predictable and comforting and reassuringly ordinary; and a six-letter word, beginning with N, which means conventional and commonplace. Which is what I wanted to be, as I watched my Mam disappearing up the road. Normal. I wanted to go back to being normal again. I didn’t want to be the boy who’d done bad things at the canal. I didn’t want to be the boy who’d been turned out of his school. I didn’t even want to be the hero no more or even Rosemary Rainford’s boyfriend. I just wanted to be normal again, to be the ordinary, normal, commonplace boy I’d always been.

  And I walked home dead slowly, just hoping that by the time I got there, somehow, everything would be all right and back to normal. But when I did get in, my Mam was just sat there, at the table, staring out the window. And the air in the house was cold and empty of toasty smells or coffee smells. But I wanted everything to be normal. So I went through to the kitchen and I did the toast and made the milky coffee and tried to do it exactly like my Mam did so that it would be perfectly normal. But when I brought it through, my Mam was still sat there staring at the window. I put her coffee and plate of toast on the table but she didn’t even look at it. So I switched on the telly and Bob was there as usual with the Blockbusters, all of them doing what they always did, being reassuringly unbearable.

  And I said to my Mam, ‘Mam, it’s Blockbusters.’

  But my Mam didn’t answer me. So I sat there on the settee and tried to be normal by myself. I even shouted out some of the answers, hoping that my Mam would join in. I even got some of the answers deliberately wrong, thinking it might nudge my Mam to come up with the right answer and then she’d start being normal again. But my Mam just sat there. And from start to finish she never shouted out a single answer. So I switched off the telly. And it was Cubs that night. So I carried on being normal and I went up to my bedroom and put my uniform on. And I went downstairs again. And I asked my Mam if I could have my two pound fifty, for subscriptions and summer camp. But my Mam just kept staring out the window. And I asked her again but then there was a knock at our back door and I went to answer it. But as I did, my Gran walked in, all normal like she always was, and just for a minute I forgot all about the canal and I was dead glad to see my Gran.

  ‘Hiya love, how are y’?’ she said. ‘Are y’ just off to your Cubs?’

  But my Mam, still staring out the window, said, ‘Of course he’s not going to the bloody Cubs.’

  I looked at my Gran and she pulled a face at me as if to say, what’s the matter? And my Grandma said, ‘Agh, Shelagh, what’s he done? Don’t stop him going to the Cubs.’

  My Mam turned from the window then and said, ‘What’s he done? What’s he done? Why don’t you ask him yourself, Mother?’ Then my Mam looked at me and she said, ‘Go on! Tell your Gran, tell her what you’ve been doing. See if she still thinks you should be going to Cubs when she’s heard what you’ve been up to.’

  She got up from the table then, my Mam, and she said, ‘Go on, Mother, you ask him yourself. He’s always been the apple of your eye, hasn’t he? Well, he was the apple of my eye once! But that’s when I thought he was a nice boy, Mother. But he’s not a nice boy any more! Apple of my eye? I can barely bloody bring myself to look at him any more.’

  I turned and I looked at my Gran who was staring at me with big puzzled creases in her forehead.

  And I felt all my face just crumple up as a big, wailing, terrified sob came up from somewhere deep within me and drowned me in the fear that my Mam would never love me no more. My Mam was shouting at me again and my Gran tried to calm her down but it onl
y made my Mam worse and she screamed at me to get up them bloody stairs and get out of her sight. And I just ran out, screaming as my Mam shouted after me, ‘And don’t you worry! Even your Gran won’t be sticking up for you when I tell her what you’ve been up to.’

  I couldn’t bear the thought of my Mam telling my Gran what it was I’d been doing and I lay there on my bed, crying into my pillow, with my hands over my ears so that I wouldn’t hear the voices downstairs. And I must have been lying there for ages because when I finally took my hands away from my ears there was no more shouting going on downstairs and all I could hear was voices quietly murmuring. I crept out of my bedroom and sat at the top of the stairs and I knew, as soon as I heard my Gran, that even now she was still sticking up for me.

  I heard her quietly telling my Mam, ‘Shelagh, come on! So he was being a bit mucky. He’s a lad! They’re all mucky little beggars.’

  ‘Mucky!’ my Mam said. ‘He’s been expelled, Mother! They don’t expel a lad just for being mucky. It was an orgy, that’s what the report said, “an orgy of mutual masturbation”! That’s not just “mucky”. “Mucky” is what a lad might get up to under the sheets on his own. But fifteen of them, Mother, fifteen! All doing it together! That’s not “mucky”, that’s unnatural!’

  It went quiet for a minute then and all I heard was my Gran as she sighed. And then my Mam said, ‘And there was coercion. I don’t know how, but the Headmaster reckoned he had some kind of a hold over the rest of those lads. Every one of them, every single one of them testified that it was our Raymond who led them into it.’

  ‘But what else would y’ expect, Shelagh?’ my Gran said. ‘It’s very convenient for them, isn’t it, putting all the blame onto our Raymond. What do y’ mean, “some kind of hold over them”? What the hell’s he supposed to have done, hypnotised them all, led them off to the canal like the Pied Piper of Hamelin and commanded them all to whip out their equipment an’ start—’