Naturally, I kept schtum about the dodgy goings-on back at the gaff. There’s no sense in upsetting the patient before she’s even back on her feet; she might have some kind of relapse. I don’t let on about the comings and goings, the clandestine meetings, the entourage of the sad and the lonely, giggling Elisabuff . . .
We leave my mother there. My father bites down and we walk out. Getting back, we didn’t take any chances, we kept strictly to the wall. Re-tracing our steps, keeping a weather eye open for our cabby. We zig-zagged about in the dark for half an hour, then the old man spots him pulling away, he’s given up on us. The old man leaps off the verge into the headlamps, waving his brolly in one hand and his natty little titfer in the other. His beard sparkles in the glare, and his little gold watch chain, intricate, precise, disappearing into his waistcoat pocket. I stand on the verge, almost proud of him.
‘The Royal Victoria Bull Hotel, driver! I haven’t eaten since luncheon! Rochester High Street!’
We take the main track out of there: Aylesford, Eccles. We circumnavigate Burham by way of the river, Wouldham, I think it’s called, then up under the motorway bridge and into Borstal. That’s pretty straightforward, the other lanes are dead-ends, petering out into swamps and chalk pits. Or even worse, straight into the Medway. The old man sits in the front, playing with his signet ring . . . I watch his ears in the street lamps.
We pull up outside, he extracts his wallet and tips the driver double the fare. That’s his style, humbling all beneath his staggering generosity. A tinkle of silver, a superior smile, his hand goes to his wallet, buying his way with cash. The copper penny, speaking a million words! A thousand tongues! He dips in, he faffs around, keeping his man in suspense, then extracts his hand like a conjuror’s glove. And brand new bank notes, mind! He pauses for full effect, then counts them out one at a time, building on the suspense. The cabby licks his lips and looks admiringly into the old man’s mug, the eyes dead above the bags. I’ve watched this game a thousand times, a game to be played ’til the end of time: the charade of the tip!
My father has debased his man and now he must eat! We disappear in under the arch, the Royal Victoria Bull Hotel.
‘The coaches used to come in under here!’ my father explains to me.
I look around. ‘With real live horses?’
Well, there you are, that must have been more like fun, none of your stinking cars, real live animals.
‘With nose-bags? Like at the circus?’
These are questions, but there are no answers.
He sits staring into the flock wallpaper, sucking on his brandy.
‘What do you think daddy should do, Steven? Do you think daddy should become a trendy?’ That’s the old man talking, one gargle of the grape and he’s off! ‘Do you think daddy should become a trendy, Steven?’ He looks at me cross-eyed and lurches over the table, his bow-tie drooping in his soup. Then he sways round in a wide arc, holding onto the table in front of him, his ears burning red. ‘Does Stevie-wevie think that daddy-waddy should become a twendy-wendy? Ah! Aah! Do you like your snacky-wacky? I feel kind of drunk, that’s funny . . .’
He holds up his finger, white bone, knotted in the middle, perfectly scrubbed, the cuticles perfect. Unquestionably beautiful - blue under the nails, purplish at the knuckle but otherwise pure white. Virginal, long, yellowish, little scales, intricate wrinkles . . .
‘I haven’t had a drink! It must be the flu! Waitress! Waitress! Come here, my child! Oh, my sweet child, come and sit on Jonathan’s knee . . . you see? Look, I haven’t. . . have I? I haven’t had one all day, haven’t touched a drop! Only that much!’ He revolves his finger under her nose . . . ‘Not even that much! Have you got an aspro my child? It’s the flu, you see . . . And my wife, that’s his mother, she’s got TB . . . Do you think I should become a trendy, my child?’
He paws at her apron, she unclasps his hands and breaks away.
‘That’s it, now run along and get uncle Jonathan an insie-winsie little glass of brandy, and an aspro . . . Will you do that for him? Because I feel kind of . . . woozy . . . I’m woozy! You’re all going sideways, do you know that?’
He picks up his titfer and sends it spinning out across the tables. He hurls it double hard, with both fists. He flings it away from him with utter contempt.
‘Yes, a trendy! I shall become a trendy!’
26. CHRISTIAN JUSTICE
We single file into assembly . . . coughing and stamping our feet . . . we won’t shut up whistling . . . Then Old Boyce, the head of RE, jams his gut behind the lectern and shushes us, mopping at his face . . . Gradually we quit whooping and look at him, we stare at a piece of bubblegum stuck next to his thumb. He clears his throat and mutters into his collar . . . He lifts his head and tries again.
‘I’m afraid I have some very sad news for you this morning, boys.’ He grabs hold of the lectern to steady his gut, dabbing at his damp face with his handkerchief . . . The room grows hushed. ‘One of the little boys . . . In my school days . . .’ he mumbles. We listen through the gloom . . . ‘A brain haemorrhage, in the middle of the night! No other details! Right through the head!’ My heart rises . . . ‘His mother, his family . . . our sympathies . . .’ I almost laugh out loud. I’m too scared to breath. I put my fist in my mouth and gag. I have to stop myself: I look round kind of scared.
From what I can make out over the din, it seems that Crowsfeet’s little lackey has copped it . . . He got a headache in the night, so his mother puts him to bed, and then when she goes to wake him in the morning he’s dead. That’s about the sum of it. He entered our lives, ate his egg and chips, watched telly, then he made his exit.
Old Boyce announces it in assembly, and I go into a sort of glad sweat. Boyce opens his cake hole, sprays the audience, and then we have to pray, we have to pray for his stinking soul. The room grows hushed, the teacher leads us through it, and even him a non-believer . . .
We put our hands together and stare down, shamed. I bite my lips to concentrate . . . I try to imagine his dead face; I flex my retinas behind my eye lids, but nothing . . . I pretend it’s Crowsfeet or my brother who’s dead, or that I’m an orphan and they’re all dead . . . I raise as much pity for myself as I can muster. Anything to wring out one miserly tear! I pray for the death of my brother, my father and Crowsfeet. I pray so hard my eyeballs ache . . . I peep between my fingers. Boyce stands there, head bowed, neck merging into his face, a pink mess . . . So, our little bastard’s gone to meet his maker? I can scarcely believe my ears. I unplug them with my fingers; I make the sound go off and on.
‘Stop fiddling with yourself, that boy!’ I hear him intermittently, he glares at me. ‘Take your fingers out of your ears, this instant!’ I look behind me, does he mean me? ‘Yes, you, boy! You can stay behind in detention . . . Four o’clock, my room! Now, if I can just have your undivided attention for five minutes, I will explain to you that when I tell you that the school field is strictly out of bounds, then that is exactly what it is! Got it?’
‘Death means nothing, for ever and ever.’ That’s what Caroline said. Norman’s face half-chewed, an eyeball missing, his belly full of slugs. I prayed regularly every night before I got into bed. I became a religious zealot.
My father kneels by a shrub in the back garden . . . he picks about at some fallen leaves . . . I stand at my bedroom window, staring into the back of his head, willing him to drop dead, for his heart to cease . . . He stands, turns and looks up at the sky . . . I move back behind the curtain and watch as he fetches his wheelbarrow.
One death had to be enough. The living just kept on living; another belch, another fart, a clip round the lug-hole and life goes on. We’re left stupid and dumb — a lot more talk about nothing and a punch up the bracket, that’s what we’ll all get.
That fat little git preaching his way through the assembly -Mister Boyce. Holding onto his lectern, droning on about Crowsfeet’s little lackey, our kid, the dead one. He mops at the moisture, a bucket of sweat; the
whole thing’s just a sham, a stinking act. Us kids stifling our yawns.
There’s no doubt that as far as schools go, it’s the religious teachers who get it in the neck. The kids just aren’t interested in their useless subject. Their religion’s just one mighty flop from start to finish. And no matter how hard they harp on about Christ and his idiotic cross, they can’t even begin to inspire interest. They sweat and they stammer and that’s when the brats take advantage: thirty-five to one, total disorder! Anarchy and chaos! Walderslade secondary school, 1972. You weren’t there? You wouldn’t know!
Well, that old Boyce, he kept me in detention just for the hell of it, just to make an example of me. For his money, I was an anti-Christ, a subversive and a dirty Bolshevik. He points me to my desk and then starts laying down the law, his mouth going like a sponge, like two halves of an eclair. It foams round the edges, he squirts cream, and his cheeks like luncheon meat, blending into this neck, garrotted by his tie. Some picture, a real nativity. That makes me smirk, then Biff! He punches me right on the nose for my cheek and insolence, Biff! Right up the bracket, that’s the noise it makes, Doink! And there’s real blood! I stand back and cup my nose in my handkerchief . . . There’s Christian justice for you: ‘turn the other cheek’ and the ‘just’ war . . .
He was quite a tough boy, just that once, after school, when nobody was looking. He adjusts his dick and walks out rolling his arse. I’ve seen him since, I remember his face, like an eclair, and I’ll confront him later, when the time is ripe.
27. GREEN JAW
I’ve got a face that invites wrath. I antagonise people by just being here, by having the audacity to smile and to breathe. And there’s no denying that my teeth were a mess, rotted right through, gum boils, some blood and the stink! That’s what got up people’s noses, my refusal to care.
For my brother’s money, I brought all my miseries on myself. I didn’t get anything less than what I’d been asking for, he saw to that. Christ, what a stinking, bed-pissing little piece of shit I was! My mother and brother backed each other up to the hilt; they wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t all my own fault, that I hadn’t been asking for far worse since the age dot!
It got to the point that my brother was even ashamed to bring his cuties back round the house, in case they saw what he was related to. He put on a whole show for them, curling his lip, a lovely little pout, perfected in front of the mirror, a real Brigitte Bardot with balls.
He didn’t miss any opportunity to humiliate me; he made loud comments about my bed-wetting and the certainty of my impending acne attack . . .
‘The thicko can’t even read or write yet, can you, Steven? How old are you, eleven? And your pimples, they’re coming on nicely!’ He smeared little dabs of paint onto his school trousers and always carried three or four 2B pencils in his blazer pocket. . . He ordered me to sit still — he was furious with everything, especially the pencils. I had to be drawn, regardless of my flaws . . . He draws my nose, then my eyes. He shouts at me because I’m doing it all wrong; he throws his rubber across the room and kicks at me . . .
I vowed to do everything humanly possible to be more like him. I grew my hair and walked around the house swearing at the furniture. It made me out to be more of an idiot than I already was, in fact it got me nowhere — it got me beaten up, that’s where it got me . . .
My long hair antagonised Crowsfeet; he thought I was getting way too big for my boots, a little too provocative. His eyes twisted in their sockets, my golden locks drove him to new depths of spite. He punched me so hard that my jaw turned from green to purple, the teeth that didn’t fall out went septic. They stuck out at odd angles; people got to notice, raised voices in public, whispered comments.
But it hasn’t always been my fault, what with all those socks to the mouth. Unasked for? I should say so, an innocent abroad. What people can’t seem to understand, what they refuse to get into their fat skulls, is that things can just happen to you. If somebody doesn’t quite like the cut of your jib, then, Smack! And that’s reason enough in this bitter world of ours. Bewildering, unfathomable, and totally unjust. Just kids, unable to grasp hold of our own sorry little existences, abused and buggered, floating in some kind of half-arsed dream world, inhabited by ghosts and half-men.
You’d think that the dentist would be a trifle more sympathetic, see that a kid’s taken a beating, that he didn’t bring the whole show down upon himself. But the truth of the matter is that bastard single-handedly did more damage to my mug than all the bullies put together, and that’s saying something.
I walk up the stairs to the smell of disinfectant and the sound of the drill. The receptionist cracks a smile; the old girl gives her my details . . . Then we sit there raking through the heap of mouldy mags looking for a comic . . . I look up at all the posters and kick my chair. I hang around ’til doomsday, hoping the place will close down, and I can quietly slip from my chair and run.
He dives in, sticks his dirty great index in there, and gives it a tug. I smell his stink, and feel the texture, little tufts of hair on the back of his fingers.
‘You need to brush properly! Once in the morning, when you get up! And once in the evening before you go to bed! Occlusal!’ He tut-tuts me, he re-dives . . . ‘Occlusal!’ . . . that was his catch-phrase. He repeats it, mumbling through his bad breath. ‘Occlusal!’ He says it again, he repeats himself, then he gets his needles out.
I suck on his thumb, a really big one, it takes up nearly the whole of my gob. Then he jams his other hand back in there as well — a plug, that was the effect. All those fingers, sausagey, two or three of them, I can scarcely breathe.
‘Occlusal!’
He says it again, just to remind himself. And the girl crosses her legs and writes it all down. Pink nail varnish, and she hasn’t dyed her roots . . . The drill screams. He slips, he brings it home, my feet twitching. I grip onto the chair . . . a little blood . . . some drool . . . I’ve got a mouthful of powder. And the jolts, he leans his weight onto it . . . He’s drilling out the root, heading for the heart of the abscess.
‘This won’t take long! I’ve just. . . got to drill down, yes . . . to drain it, you see . . . the pus . . . on its own accord. Just don’t let any food get down those holes, keep them clean, there’s a good little chap. Now, just one more to go . . .’
He re-seals the holes, slapping the plaster in, mercury and lead, right up to the top. He pats it down with his little trowel, one last prod, and a check with his mirror on a stick.
‘That’s it! All done, off home with you now!’
He grins and shows me the door. I cup my jaw, nursy helps me from the chair. I stumble out onto the stairway. I don’t need telling twice, I jump up and scarper . . .
‘Suck,’ she tells me, but I’m passing out with the pain, everything turns purple . . . My whole chin starts brewing up, a moon effect, like two little beer barrels, bubbling . . . and two special types of pain. It juts out in front of me like a delicate prow, I bang into things . . . the world goes fizzy . . . I can feel my mouth boiling over. I scream quietly, low down, between my teeth. You see, I can’t get my mouth open wide enough, it’s too stopped up with pus. My mother swabs away great strings of the stuff, with cotton wool soaked in whisky.
‘Suck,’ she tells me.
I crawl on my hands and knees, I get my head stuck under the bed, my jaw trapped in amongst the springs. My mother tries to pry me loose, but I’m hopelessly tangled. I curl up where I am . . . cradling my chin . . . I beat the floor with my fists.
The wind blows in the trees and the old man floats up the garden path. He rolls in drunk and stares down his nose at me. I wade around in front of him, paddling in my little pool of pus. He bristles his whiskers. I can’t see him squarely because of the swelling, but I recognise the stink — brandy and Cologne. He gets down on his hands and knees and looks me over.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the shitty-arse, Juny! The little bastard’s drunk, that’s all! that’s his only pr
oblem . . . Why, the stinker’s been at my whisky!’
He defies her, he holds out my head for inspection.
‘There’s nothing wrong with this child, he’s drunk, that’s all! I said you’re drunk, Steven! You’ve raised a stinking wino, Juny! A juice head!’ That’s his diagnosis. He pushes me away from him . . . ‘Send him to bed, let him sleep it off! There’s no use molly-coddling him. He’s just taking advantage, greater and greater liberties! So, he’s as drunk as a skunk as well as a thief! Bah!’ He marches into the wardrobe and pisses himself.
There’s no words I can say. I can’t even begin to defend myself, my mouth’s too stopped up. I can’t really talk at all; I have to speak by semaphore. I wave my arms around, I make smoke signals. My teeth sticking out at ten different angles, like tusks, that makes me laugh. ‘Tee-hee-hee! Ouch!’
Boyce! That was his name! Mister Boyce, the Religious Education teacher, Walderslade Secondary School. Boyce, the brave pugilist, the man of the cloth, who punched me square on the chin after lessons. Walderslade Secondary, 1972. Sock! Right on the button, unwinding, Christian and precise. Him and his gentle Jesus. Bam! It all comes back to me now, a flood of memories. Old Mister Boyce, head of Religious Education.
Say, he was quite a toughie, just that once, after school, with nobody watching, without witnesses. He kept me back after lessons, then set on me. He thought he could push me about, but now I pay him back, and double! The pen is mightier than the sword, Boyce! Oh ye of little faith! I remember your fat mug . . . a face with a price on it, a face that will have to pay, by Christ, for no other reason than I say so! On your knees, Christian! You, who would strike one of your own flock! Yes, it’s you I’m talking to, you by the surname of Boyce! Got it?
Arrr, it gladdens my heart to know you’re still out there, Boyce. That at last justice will be done. That this great writer has exposed you in all your low-down glory. Well, Boyce, I might even choose to forgive you, if the mood so takes me, yes, I repeat that, if you can humble yourself. If you can still bend in the middle, you slug!
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