The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

  But my Gran never got to finish because my Mam suddenly yelled, ‘Mother, I don’t want to hear it! D’ y’ understand, I don’t want to hear! I know very well what he did. And I know that it was disgusting. You’ve not even heard the worst of it … something about flies … dead flies!’

  There was a long pause. Then my Gran said, ‘Dead flies? What do you mean, dead flies?’

  And my Mam sighed a big sigh and said, ‘I don’t know! And I don’t care about the bloody details.’

  I heard a sob in my Mam’s voice then. And she was crying as she said, ‘I just know that he disgusts me!’

  That made me start crying again and I thought I’d have to go back into my bedroom so that they wouldn’t know I was sat there listening. But then I heard my Gran and her voice was all tender towards my Mam and I knew she must have her arm around her as she said, ‘Shelagh, sweetheart, come on. Just listen to yourself. It’s your own son you’re talking about.’

  But my Mam was still crying and said, ‘Yes! My son. And you should have heard what those mothers were saying about my son as I walked out that sodding school. You think it’ll stop there? I won’t be able to walk down the street now without hearing the whispers and seeing the finger-pointing.’

  ‘But Shelagh, Shelagh,’ my Gran implored, ‘when the hell did you start tryin’ to live your life according to the values of your neighbours? Sod them, Shelagh. They’re just idle-tongued skitter merchants who’ve suddenly got something to chew on. Neighbours! Don’t be taken in by them. For all their cars and their conservatories and their foreign holidays in continental parts there’s barely more than a modern light bulb between them and the dark ages.’

  My Mam was marginally mollified at that but then there was another knocking at the door and it was apparent that news of what went on at the canal had started to spread faster than a shoe full of dog-shit, because our Cub-master walked in then, wearing his full regalia and looking apprehensive but resolute.

  My Mam, all flustered and dabbing at her eyes with a hanky, thought he’d come to see where I was. And she said, ‘I’m sorry, Akela, but … well we’ve had a bit of … well, it’s a bit unfortunate but our Raymond can’t come to Cubs tonight. I’m hoping he will be back next week but …’

  And that’s when Akela started to shake his head and said, ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Marks. Not next week. Or the week after. Or even …’

  Akela said he hoped my Mam would appreciate and understand that it was not particularly pleasant to be the bearer of such news and that in a Scouting career spanning two decades this was the first and only occasion on which he’d had to inform a Tenderfoot that he no longer commanded the respect and the trust of the Pack. And that accordingly Raymond would no longer be welcome at the Cubs.

  My Mam started crying again then. But my Gran didn’t cry. My Gran just narrowed up her eyes and puckered her lips and said to the Akela, ‘You what? You what? You’re expelling our Raymond? You’re expellin’ my grandson, a slip of a lad, just because of a bit of business at the canal?’

  And Akela, visibly wincing at the mere mention of the word ‘canal’, told my Gran, ‘Forgive me, madam, but I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the implications here.’

  ‘And you forgive me,’ my Gran interrupted, ‘but I’ve been six decades on this Earth. And I am not about to put up with being patronised by a pillock in a pointed hat and a neckscarf!’

  ‘Mother!’ my Mam admonished.

  And for my Mam’s sake, my Gran momentarily reined in her wrath and just glared at Akela as he said, ‘As their leader I am charged with responsibility for the moral well-being of my Cub Scouts. And, no matter how regretful, it has nevertheless become painfully apparent that I could no longer guarantee the moral welfare of the Pack if Raymond were to remain within the organisation.’

  ‘Well, that takes the Garibaldi, that does,’ my Gran declared. ‘That takes the full bloody box!’ And all her feathers ruffled now, she told the Cub-master, ‘Akela? Akela! You’re not worthy of the bloody name. Rudyard Kipling, he must be turning in his grave to think a spineless little gobshite like you could bear the name of the intrepid wolf, Akela!’

  My Mam admonished my Gran again but Akela was already headed for the door declaring that he’d no longer tolerate such verbal venom, not to mention mockery of the Scouting regalia. But my Gran was up in arms now and impervious to protests and admonishments, she followed Akela to the door telling him, ‘Moral welfare! I’ll not heed no lessons in moral welfare from the representative of an organisation whose founder was a five-foot-nothing paedophile with crypto-fascist tendencies!’

  That apparently got beneath the skin of the retreating Akela because he turned back then, faced my Gran and told her that the former Chief Scout and Founder of the Movement had led a life of impeccable propriety and that slanderous slurs such as my Gran had just uttered were merely the product of an irresponsible and malevolent media which was bent upon tarnishing the reputation of a great and gifted man.

  My Gran just told him to piss off though. And warned him there’d be no more bob-a-jobbing at her house and from now on she’d be giving her money to the glue-sniffers and joyriders and the intravenous drug users, who might be the scum of society but at least they weren’t spineless hypocrites in neckscarves.

  And then my Gran slammed the door on him and it all went quiet.

  And I just sat there, at the top of the stairs where I’d been listening to it all, where I’d learned that they didn’t want me in the Cubs no more. And when all my friends went bob-a-jobbing and going to camp and playing their parts in the Gang Show I wouldn’t be going with them no more; they’d be bob-a-jobbin’ without me now and sleeping in tents without me now and having farting competitions without me now. All of them, they’d all still be riding along on a crest of a wave. And I’d just be stuck there on the shore, watching them from a distance.

  I didn’t want my Mam to hear me crying and know that I’d been listening on the stairs. So I went through to my bedroom. And I pulled off my Cub shirt. And I just held it in my hand and looked at all the badges, so many that you couldn’t see any of the khaki shirt for all the badges that were there: Firefighter, Friend to the Elderly, Cycling Proficiency, Lifesaver …

  And then I heard a noise and I turned round and my Gran was stood there in the doorway. And when she asked me was I all right I nodded. But I couldn’t hold the crying back and my Gran came into my bedroom and sat on my bed and said, ‘Come here.’

  And she folded me into the big downy pillows of her bosom and kissed me on the hair of my head. And my Gran thought I was crying because of the Cubs but I told her that it was because my Mam said she didn’t like me no more.

  And my Gran even started crying then and hugged me harder and told me, ‘Of course your Mam likes y’. She loves y’ like I love y’ and we’ll always love y’, Raymond son.’

  And we just sat there then, on the bed, until the sobbing subsided. And my Gran said, ‘Now listen. Take no notice of what your Mam said. She’s upset at the minute but she didn’t mean it. All sorts of things get said, Raymond, all sorts of utterings occur when a person’s upset. And your Mam is upset. Any mother would be upset, getting called out of work and having to go down to the school and face what she had to face.’

  I just nodded, because I knew how awful it had been for my Mam. And that made it all even worse.

  ‘And don’t forget,’ my Gran said, ‘your Mam’s had it hard, y’ know. Not like her brother; God forgive me but our Jason, he’s as thick as a box of Mars bars. But that’s been his blessing, y’ see. He’s just breezed through life, our Jason. And if he ever met a problem it never bothered him because he was so bloody thick he never saw the problem in the first place. But your Mam, she was always a good deal brighter than your Uncle Jason. She feels things, Raymond. She worries, y’ Mam does. And she tries to do her best. She’s never had it easy. He tried to be good to her, in his own way, your Dad. And he was as mild-mannered a man as you’d ever wish
to meet. But for all the mildness of his manners and the goodness in his heart, Johnny would have tested the patience of a Mahatma Gandhi. And your mother tried her best, Raymond; but Mahatma Gandhi she was not and so she had to do what she had to do and bring you up on her own.’

  My Gran took hold of my face and held it in her hands then, smiling at me as she said, ‘And despite today and the goings-on down at that canal, I reckon your Mam’s done a pretty good job so far.’

  My Gran kissed me then and told me that she had to be getting off now or she’d be late for the Positive Pensioners’ Party Night.

  ‘And we’re doin’ philosophy this week,’ my Gran said. ‘Wittgenstein! Oh I’m lookin’ forward to it. He was a very great thinker. And do you know what he said, son?’

  I shook my head and my Gran pulled me to her. And whispered, ‘ “Boys with beautiful hair are just as important as philosophers!” ’

  My Gran nodded, and kissed me and said, ‘Now come on, son, you get yourself into bed. Get yourself a good night’s sleep and mark my words, everything’ll look brighter in the morning.’

  And even though it was still light and dead early I did what my Gran said and got into bed and my Gran tucked me in and whispered, ‘There’s nowt that tidies up like time. Just give it a couple of weeks, a month at the most and it’ll all be forgotten. You’ll be back in them Cubs and doing your reef knots and your dib-dib-dobs and your gooly-gooly-gan-gan-goos.’

  My Gran kissed me goodnight then. And said, ‘Don’t you worry; it’ll all blow over in the end.’

  And it even seemed like it was starting to blow over. Because after my Gran left, my Mam came up to my bedroom and asked me if I wanted some milky coffee. I got out of bed, went downstairs with my Mam and sat on the settee while she was boiling the milk. But my Mam kept looking at me from the kitchen and she was still looking at me like she didn’t know who I was any more. And I wanted to tell her and make her understand about everything. But I was only eleven and I didn’t know how to explain it or what words to use or how I could make my Mam see that the badness wasn’t half as bad as the badness she believed it to be. So I just sat there on the settee, not even aware that I’d started crying again. Then, suddenly, my Mam was there, hugging me to her. And we just sat there clinging hold of each other and crying together, with my Mam saying it was all her fault and if she hadn’t kicked my dad out and become a single parent she wouldn’t have had to be at work all the time and could have kept an eye on me.

  In the end my Mam made me look at her and asked me if I could promise her that I’d never ever never do nothing again like I’d done down at the canal. I crossed my heart and told her that I promised. And my Mam managed a bit of a smile and said she’d finish making the milky coffee. And when she said did I want some toast as well with mushroom tasty topper on the top I started to feel that it would be all right now and that me and my Mam could go back to being normal. I sat there on the settee with her, drinking milky coffee, and watching Blankety Blank. I hated Blankety Blank. But I liked it that night when I sat in my pyjamas at the side of my Mam, drinking milky coffee and eating toast, that night when I heard my Mam start laughing at Les Dawson, that night when I thought my Gran had been right and that time had started to do its job and tidy up all the awful mess.

  Only my Gran had got it all wrong. Sometimes time doesn’t tidy up at all. Sometimes time just carries on making more of a mess. But my Gran didn’t know that and so I don’t blame her. Because my Gran didn’t know and I didn’t know and none of us knew that the mess had only just started.

  Yours sincerely,

  Raymond Marks

  P.S. But listen, Morrissey, I want you to know that I don’t regret any of it. Because regrets are no good to anybody, that’s what my Gran said. She said the road to self-pity is paved with regrets. And self-pity never did nowt for nobody; that’s what my Gran said. ‘Self-pity, Raymond,’ she said, ‘self-pity never peeled a potato.’

  And I always remembered that, Morrissey, always refused to walk down the street that is paved with regrets and leads up a cul-de-sac and into a place called self-pity. I know that you’ll understand me, Morrissey, because, like me, I know that there was a day in your life when everything fell apart and you suddenly found that you’d got no friends. I know how hard it must have been for you when The Smiths just suddenly broke up like that and you and Johnny Marr weren’t friends any more. Although you’ve said very little about it in the press, I do know that privately it must have been a particularly traumatic time and the cause of much grief. One minute you’re part of a group and even though you might not like everybody in that group you’ve still all shared things together, grown together and developed together. And even if sometimes you probably all hated each other and wanted to strangle each other, it doesn’t alter the fact that amongst you all there exists a shared history. And I know that that night, when The Smiths suddenly broke up, it meant that a significant part of your own history got broken up as well. I know that all the fans were devastated and heartbroken. But no matter how much they loved The Smiths it could never be the same for them as it must have been for you. Because no matter how much they adored and mourned the passing of The Smiths, it wasn’t their personal history that was being rent asunder. I know that I’ve never been in a group, Morrissey, and so you might think that I’m being presumptuous. But I know what it’s like when all your personal history gets blown up and you have to start all over again. And I’m just so glad that you did that, Morrissey; I’m just so glad that you didn’t sit there amidst the rubble of your own adversity, enfeebled and shell-shocked and absently picking through the broken bricks and mortar of your rudely blitzed recent history. I’m just so glad that you picked yourself up, walked away and left it all there, behind you. By the time I knew about The Smiths and the break-up, my Gran had already gone. But if she’d still been here I would have told her about it, Morrissey, and all about you and how you picked yourself up and carried on despite the shock of it all and the hurt you must have been feeling and all the snide things that got said and the sniping that started. And I know what my Gran would have said. She would have said, ‘Good for him! Good for Morrissey. I’ve always admired a man with the kind of moral fibre it takes to resist the temptress of self-pity. Because all the self-pity in the world never peeled a bag of spuds. So good for Morrissey. And if you’re talking to him, Raymond, you just tell him from me, tell Morrissey, your Gran said if he ever feels the need for a cup of tea and a talk about Oscar Wilde he’ll be welcome at our house any time he likes.’

  So I’m just passing that on, Morrissey. Because even though my Gran isn’t here any more and so she can’t invite you round for tea I know that she would have liked to do that. And I know that you would have liked my Gran. Just like I liked her.

  Gibbet Street Coach Station,

  Huddersfield,

  West Yorks

  Dear Morrissey,

  So! Here I am, with all the other unfortunate refugees awaiting deportation and permanent exile to Gulag Grimsby. And I just hope that my Uncle Bastard Jason’s pleased with his pigging self! I bet he never would have worked it so that his own kids got deported and exiled to the bleak and arid wastes of northern Lincolnshire. He said it would be good for me, going to Grimsby; my hideous, horrible, sewer-minded, green-eyed slimeball of a two-faced, felonious bastard of an uncle. But he wouldn’t be saying that if it was their Moronic Mark or their Sickening Sonia who was being forced to flee from Failsworth and become a slave labourer in Gulag gobbing Grimsby! That would never happen though; because he’d never do to his own appalling progeny what he’s done to me. He never liked me, my Uncle Bastard Jason. Even when I was little he never liked me because he knew that I was always my Gran’s favourite and my Gran could never abide their Mark and Sonia. My Gran said Mark and Sonia were the sort of children who’d make a paedophile eat his own sweets. She said the pair of them were too frivolous by half and always acted like children. And that’s why she never took them out to
any of her special places. My Gran said they had no gravity to them and of all her three grandchildren there was only me who had the appropriate temperament and the suitable sombreness of tone for such places as cemeteries and libraries and other such shrines to the dead. I loved it when my Gran used to take me to the library. She used to tell me dead interesting things about people like Thomas Hardy – the master of misery – and George Bernard Shaw and Daphne du Maurier.

  But my Gran never took Mark and Sonia to the library or told them dead interesting things about Thomas Hardy. She said she did try it once, taking them to the library in the hope that the pair of them might be suitably moved by the palpable aura that prevailed in the majestic cathedral of words. But Moronic Mark kept saying he was bored and Sickening Sonia said it smelt in the library and it was a pooey horrible smell that made her feel sick and why couldn’t they go to the My Little Pony shop instead. But my Gran persevered, telling the appalling pair of them about Robert Louis Stevenson who still managed to write his books even though his lungs were turning into slime and jelly because of the tuberculosis; and Karl Marx who never had no money and lived in a room that was barely a broom cupboard with his wife and all his children and every one of them died, one by one.

  But Simpering Sonia said she still felt sick and Moronic Mark said why couldn’t they go to the pictures instead! So my Gran tried to tell them all about the Brontë sisters who never got married and they all had spectacularly tragic early deaths because the pipe for the drinking water ran through the churchyard where all the bodies were buried so whenever they had a cup of tea or a glass of home-made gooseberry wine, the unsuspecting Brontë sisters were drinking bits of decomposing bodies. But Sonia and Mark remained resolutely unimpressed and Sonia wandered off down the aisles of books as my Gran tried to tell Moronic Mark all the dead interesting stuff about Branwell Brontë being a drug addict and a drunkard and Mark might not think it but all sorts of writers were drunkards and drug addicts and all. But before she could get around to other substance abusers such as Robert Burns and Lord Byron my Gran heard the sound of vomiting and looked up to see Sickening Sonia being sick in the non-fiction section. And my Gran had to go rushing down the aisles saying, ‘For God’s sake, child, look at what you’re doing all over The Origin of Species!’