8: War Baby
UNDERSTANDING what had happened over the last few weeks struck me with the force of a ten-ton truck. I knew why I'd not been able to tear myself away, why I felt like so empty when he'd gone – I was in love with him. My chest prickled at the thought.
I had wanted him to hold me in his arms. I had wanted him to kiss me.
To kiss me.
Oh God.
To kiss me.
With his tongue.
Like Claire had kissed me.
And when he hadn't, I'd been so disappointed and that's why I'd felt like crying.
But it was worse.
I wanted to touch his cock. I wanted to kiss his cock, to… oh no, no, NO!
And what if he put it inside me? You know? Like in my arse? You know?
If he wanted to, he could. He could do anything he wanted, anything, 'cos I loved him so much… and I would have him in me, becoming part of me, inside me… oh God… yes.
Wilson and Gray said Ali was 'queer'. My Concise Oxford Dictionary, the blue hardback where I'd written my name and form in spidery blue-black writing down the closed pages, J. Peters 2W, said on page 1007 that meant 'strange, odd, eccentric; of questionable character, shady, suspect.' Well, Ali wasn't any of those. He was perfectly normal. Like me. We even liked the same things. Then I'd seen the H word. You know the one. It's on page 583. 'HOMOSEXUAL: a. & n. Having a sexual propensity for persons of one's own sex.' What the fuck was 'propensity'? I looked up 'GAY' on page 507 and learned it meant, along with 'light-hearted, sportive, airy, offhand,' that it also meant 'dissolute, immoral, living by prostitution.' Well, fuck me, but I wasn't any of those either. This was the Oxford dictionary edited by Fowler and Fowler. I mean, this stuff wasn't anything I understood. What was 'propensity' again? My parents' Collins dictionary told me (page 620) 'sexually attracted.'
I stared, transfixed, at the words on the page.
Sexually attracted.
Meaning you wanted to have sex with them.
Was that I wanted? What he wanted? Sex? His cock up my arse, right? 'Cos that was sex, right? Cocks going in places. But I didn't have a vagina… so…
No fucking way. I'd flambé and eat my own tonsils with tomato sauce and a nice Beaujolly before I'd let someone bum me.
Anyway, it was all, like, total bullshit, yeah? Like I said before, neither of us were 'homosexuals.' Homosexuals I had seen on television. They minced. They had limp wrists, camp voices, effeminate gestures and said 'Have a gay day', 'I'm free', and 'Shut that door.' They wore their mother's dresses and carried handbags. Surely Ali didn't do that. I certainly didn't. Tim Wilson was talking bollocks. Ali wasn't homosexual, and neither was I. I liked sport, for God's sake. Also I wasn't a man yet? I was, like, still a boy. Boys couldn't be homosexual. There were laws against that kind of thing. I snuffled into my thick white duvet and switched off the bedside light.
I spent Sunday catching up with the chores I hadn't done on Saturday, like mopping the bathroom floor and washing the car then, pushing my feet into green Dunlop wellies, I followed Dad into the garden where the leaves were turning a buttery yellow. Dad wanted me to hold these four-foot overlapping panels so he could like pin them to the posts but, whilst Gruntpa could literally construct a potting-shed from lollipop-sticks in under an hour and creosote it beautifully, without smears, runs, faint patches or leaving bristles from the brush behind, Dad was the least handy handyman in the whole universe. Most of his DIY projects wound up recycled as something radically different from their original purpose. For instance, this bookcase he'd tried to build me became some sort of cold-frame whilst a tiled splash-back over the cooker transmuted into some kind of weird Romanesque mosaic and there were like these strange hand-prints all over the living-room window-sill where he'd painted it? Without his six-inch nails and a hot-glue gun, he would've been lost. As it was, I suspected that without my assistance, he might kind of staple his cardy to the fence-panel? Anyway, the less said about the time he'd change a washer under the sink and flooded the kitchen the better, and when he'd got stuck in the Venetian blinds, Mum and I still got the shudders. Do-It-Yourself? More like Bodge-It-Yourself, we said. Dad claimed his spirit-level 'ran off' at strange angles.
''Did you get these from B & Q?'' I asked. AKA Bodge-It-Quickly.
''Wickes, I think,'' he grunted, firing a nail into the earth and narrowly missing his shoe. ''Bugger. I forgot that was loaded.''
Of course, as Mum'd pointed out, he wouldn't have to replace the panel at all if I hadn't like kicked the last one to bits by booting my football against it and then scrambling through the holes to retrieve said ball from next door's rockery when it went sailing over. Still, it was better than being in church with Mum, Tim Wilson and that cloth-head Hilly waving my arms in the air to the tambourine-and-maraca version of 'Jesus is my Superhero.' Nonetheless, I remained preoccupied. About The Gay Thing. I did not want to be gay. It was just too hard.
I had, after that party, when I first thought I might be, gone back to the sex ed. notes from school. Not surprisingly, they were shit. Officially, our sex education had been with Mr Chapman, last year's Biology teacher, and set firmly within the context of heterosexual reproduction. My Bio book defined Reproduction, as 'an increase in numbers of one species and of individuals' and classified into sexual and asexual. Since we'd done it at the end of last year, most of us were like fifteen already and masturbating for England. Perhaps Chappers figured there was little to teach us. Anyway, in my angularly rounded blue-black handwriting:
'Sexual Reproduction
This must involve two phases.
a) Reduction divisions (meiosis) to form half cells or gametes
b) Fusion of gametes to form a zygote.
Formation of Gametes
Male
Male gametes or spermatozoa are formed by meiotic divisions of the germinal epithelium lining the seminiferous tubules of the testes. The testes are located in the scrotal sacks sacs which are extensions of the abdominal cavity.'
So far so unsexy, right? Even the drawing of the male reproductive system I'd done, in coloured pencils and labelled 'prostate gland,' 'sperm duct,' 'penis' etc., was like drily medical. Curiously, we hadn't done a drawing of the female reproductive system. Didn't need to. Too racy, yeah? Anyway, Chappers clearly felt the woman was merely a baby-incubator and the less we knew about 'women's issues', as he termed them, the better.
'The spermatozoa are carried passively in the fluid towards the collecting duct or epididymis. They are stored here before being removed via the vas deferens.' Crikey. It wasn't going to give us a stiffy, was it? Maybe that's why he didn't get us to draw vaginas.
The next paragraph in my notebook described what happened ‘meanwhile back in the ovary’ when the male gamete and female gamete fused into a zygote. There was no mention of how the one actually reached the other. The words 'erection,' 'penetration' and 'ejaculation' were utterly absent. As indeed was any mention of homosexuality. This came in the other strand of official sex education, in Lower Fifth RE with Wingnut and in the context of healthy, i.e. heterosexual relationships leading to marriage and the shared blessing of children, because sex was a supremely special expression of romantic love and otherwise was just selfish and evil, like masturbation and oral sex, because you only thought about your own pleasure and sex outside a loving marriage would lead only to disease, loneliness and despair because it was not fulfilling. Homosexuals (cue embarrassed sniggering) were the worst of all because sex was for the procreation of children, and they couldn't. Which was why they were so bitterly angry. They couldn't love. Instead they groped children in public toilets and cut off their cocks for revenge and that's why you should NEVER go in one, boys, 'cos they're full of queers who cut off your cock with a breadknife. Anyway, all queers die of AIDS, which you get for defying God and nature and it serves them damned right for being perverts.
''I once saw someone who knew someone who met a fairy,'' said Wingnut. ''He shot his mother then
put on her knickers and bra and hanged himself. That's what it's like, boys. Absolute misery.'' So my school's advice to gay kids was a very simple 'don't be.'
Someone, smirking Seymour, I think, asked about anal sex. Wingnut, scraping his throat in embarrassment, just said ''We don't recommend that, boys.'' And we all laughed, saying how would he know? And could you imagine how much a right bumming would hurt? Getting it up the arse, you know? But maybe it wouldn't. It would depend who was doing it.
I considered talking to Mum. We'd always been close. But then I recalled a recent news item about a gay-bashing downtown. She'd grunted 'serves them right'. Yikes.
Maybe Dad?
No way. He'd simply shift awkwardly, clear his throat, gaze uncomfortably at his slippers and suggest I talk to my mother.
Talking to a teacher was like totally AND insanely out of the question. I squirmed with embarrassment at the very idea. Bunny already thought me a turnip-brained twat. If he thought I was a poofter as well... God Almighty… but there was always Wheezy Wally.
I had this real bond with the Chaplain. Exceptionally scary, Reverend Crawford could walk into a roomful of 200 yelling boys and have instant silence just by standing in the doorway. He was ancient, I mean like super-ancient. He'd fought in WW2 with some kick-ass regiment like the Paratroopers or the Commandoes or someone and had, like 'Union Jack' Jackson in Warlord, literally killed Japs with his bare hands. He'd even won the Military Cross, you know? He had this fine, silver-white hair and spoke in this soft wheeze 'cos he'd taken a slug in the lung somewhere in Burma, hence his nickname Wheezy Wally, but he had degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and a doctorate in Divinity from Durham. An exceptional Bible scholar, he had taken me under his wing in those dark, early days.
I got into this fight when 'Blubber-Belly' Brudenall and 'Spud-Face' Seymour called me a 'jumped-up back-street brat' who did not belong at their school. Along with a full scholarship, you see, I got these free school dinners and uniform vouchers, pink papers Mum exchanged in the school shop for two rugby shirts, one green, one white, a green PE vest, white shorts, navy shorts, green socks, the blazer, grey trousers, grey sweater and school tie, all plastic-wrapped and brand-new. Mrs Locke, the school secretary, told Mum I'd be fine.
''I've seen his scores on the entrance exam,'' she'd confided, ''And I typed the recommendation for the Governors. They love him, Mrs Peters. They love him.''
''You fucking leech,'' Seymour had said. ''My Dad pays for you, you fucking leech.''
''This is why the school's going to the dogs,'' Brudenall had sneered, ''Letting in charity cases like you.''
''And why are you so thin?'' Seymour had demanded. ''You look like you live in Belsen.'' Hence the nickname. ''What the hell does your mother feed you? Kitchen-scraps?''
''Gruel,'' Brudenall had suggested. ''It's what they eat in the work-houses, unless it's the shit they like scrape off other people's shoes.''
I punched him in the face several times, chipping a tooth and bloodying his nose. According to Gray, I went 'absolutely mental'. Crawford was the one who broke it up.
''You're for it now, Belsen Boy,'' Seymour had hissed. ''Nice knowing you. Give our regards to the slums, haw haw.''
Sitting me down in his office, Crawford had listened while I poured out my unhappiness, that maybe I should leave 'cos I didn't fit in, my father being a bus-driver and Seymour's being a bank-manager, that I didn't understand anything, and the school was so big and there were so many rules and standing up when the masters came in and Latin grace at lunch and the Latin school-song and invenire et intelligite and serve the Sixth Form first and pass the gravy to the left, not the right, you ignorant gimp…
He'd steepled his fingers and said ''Jonathan,'' (the first person to use my Christian name), ''You are here because you passed an exam and an interview and won a scholarship. They are here because their fathers have money. Who do you think deserves to be here most? The rich and stupid or the clever and talented?'' He'd smiled kindly. ''Do you remember your interview? I asked where you would go if you had a time-machine.''
''And I said Shakespeare's Globe for the world première of Hamlet.'' I couldn't help smiling too. ''Sir, you must've thought me so precocious.''
''You said your hobby was writing stories,'' said Crawford, ''And you loved cricket but didn't know how to join a club because your parents didn't have the right connections. Jonathan, this school was founded for boys like you, with great talent but no opportunities. This school exists to give you those opportunities.''
''But it's so confusing,'' I'd said, ''And everyone's so horrible to me.''
''They're young,'' said Crawford, ''They're tribal and they fear the outsider. You are new. You're unknown. You've shaken their world. For example, Andrew Paulus and Robin Keighley were the best musicians. You are better than both of them. Adam Austen was the best actor. You are better than him, even though his father's the Playhouse director. You are a threat to them and their tribe but just be true to yourself and in time they'll accept you.''
And most of them did. So Wheezy was on my side, always had been. He was sympathetic, a good listener, and had been through a War. But he was so old. He probably hadn't had sex since the War. Same with Frank Gallagher. Like him though I did, I didn't really want my private stuff on a school file. Besides, I reckoned the school would tell my Mum, and my life would be like totally over.
Thing is, I didn't know anyone gay. I mean, we all joked about Poorly Paulus getting bummed by Fred Perry, but I didn't really know what it meant, and I really liked Paulus. We'd been friends for years. When I was thirteen I'd melted when he played this Bach Sarabande in the house music competition, just him hugging his 'cello, so beautiful, so limpid, and then he'd sung Purcell's 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly' so meltingly it sent this tingle down my spine. With his soft blond curls and triangular face, he looked like an angel. I guess I kind of fancied him a bit but I didn't want him to know in case he tried to bum me in the showers.
After that party, I'd cycled down the city centre to find a book, either in the Central Library or in Waterstone's. I found nothing, no novels, no advice for teenagers, nothing. There were no books for or even about gay teenagers. The X-Y Toolkit for Boys had three pages on homosexuality from one hundred and forty-one. Dealing with 'coming out' as gay rather than finding out if you are gay, it implied being homosexual was so disappointing for everyone that you just shouldn't bother. Another (American) book, aimed at parents, also had three pages (out of 158!) which said, in summary, 'just hope your kid grows out of it. It's way too difficult for them. Everyone hates them, they have miserable lives and end up in therapy, with AIDS or killing themselves.' There was more on drugs and body-piercing than on understanding your emotions. Same with Newsbeat's guide to growing up. It was like these writers didn't want to deal with the topic or, more sinisterly, didn't want their teenage readers to know about it. I decided the latter. They didn't want us to know about 'it'. Better for all concerned if you just grow out of it, eh? But what if you didn't? Surely there must be someone who wrote about people like us, who published information for people like us.
I was wrong. Gay Men's Press had closed down and Waterstone's had scrapped their Gay and Lesbian section altogether.
There weren't even any gay characters for us to identify with, not in any teenage book I ever read. Why the hell wasn't there something for us? Today. All we had was Maurice, Brideshead Revisited and Dorian Bloody Gray. It'd be nice to have something like not set in Oxbridge in the 19-bloody-20s. The Teens section was even worse, crammed with shit about vampires, zombies and X-Men. Yes, I so got the metaphor of the outsider? It was sooo bloody obvious, you know? But I didn't want metaphors. I wanted books about me, not the Walking fucking Dead. I wasn't Walking fucking Dead. I was alive with my difference, so why were there no books about kids like me?
Anyway, in the end and in despair I bought Biggles and the Plot that Failed, in which Biggles flew off to the Sahara to rescue an archaeologist and
find a Pharaoh's tomb, and Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, in which the Doctor and Jamie visit a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas and battle with fur-covered robot Yeti, and cycled home.
I wondered if I could talk to Michael Crooks. He was kind and generous and we'd shared several intimate moments. But I was terrified he might tell someone else, like Gray or Collins, and I would literally die if my best friends found out. Tim, obviously, was a total no-go. Maybe Ali himself? If I worded it properly, perhaps drop a heavy hint or two, he might grasp that it was me. Unfortunately, when I phoned him, the actual conversation went:
''Ali, can I talk to you about something?''
''Course you can. Ask me anything. Is it about the play?''
''I have this friend who thinks he might be… well… you know… possibly… be, well…'' My voice vanished into a squeak and my face sizzled like bacon on a grill. ''Gay?''
''Oh,'' said Ali, ''Andy Paulus. Anyone can tell he's a bender. Just look at him.''
''Yes.'' I snatched that life-line. ''Paulus. Right fucking bender. Anyway, he doesn't know what to do. He thinks he's in love with this Sixth Former… says he can't stop thinking about him. He thinks he's in love.''
''Bah,'' snorted Alistair. ''Age-difference is a killer. No-one would allow it. They'd send him to jail, Jonny. Paedos and all that shit? Fuck's sake. You know how hard it is? Being different, I mean? Everyone's against you, and I mean everyone.''
Yes, I kind of gathered that.
''But should he tell this guy how he feels?'' I persisted. Then, taking a chance, added ''What would you do, Ali? If it were you.''
''Keep my bloody mouth shut. Unless he's got a death-wish. Anyway, how's the Berceuse coming on?''
In the middle of the night, I woke, sticky, wet and distraught from another sex-dream.
I'd been lying in bed when Paulus came in. He was wearing a white, buttonless, short-sleeved shirt and white Bermuda shorts and was carrying a violin. He sat on the edge of my bed and played Paganini, resting his right ankle on his left knee. I noticed his legs were completely hairless. Reaching out a hand, I stroked his thigh then hugged him, and we kissed. His clothes were on the floor and the room was a mess. I woke up spurting.
Sweat dampened my hair and my shorts stuck stickily to my skin. Stiffly I swung my legs from under the white sheet, peeled off the clammily clinging T-shirt then the sperm-soaked shorts and sat in the dark listening to the rain pattering gently against the window-pane. I parted the yellow curtains slightly to see what was happening out in the back garden but everything was still, calm and black and the house behind ours was obscured by a row of thick-trunked elm trees. Everyone was asleep, except the guilty, and I was so bloody guilty. I had wet-dreamed about another boy. Again. Talk about shame. I mean, just fucking shoot me.
The bedside clock told me it was 4.05. When I was younger, I'd found sleeping difficult, especially after a really boring day. My brain never seemed to stop buzzing, and when it wasn't communicating, it was racing away in like hyperdrive, you know? I tended to switch lines of thought, heading off on tangents without proper development. People said my writing was like that. In fact that everything was like that. Creative thinker but not a finisher, a butterfly mind with the attention span of a gnat, Mr Hutchinson had once said. I suppose I get quickly bored with the same-old, same-old. Anyway, now my sleep-patterns were becoming increasingly disrupted by dreams I didn't like, because I'd dreamed about Paulus like tons of times. That's what worried me. Once I'd dreamed that I was shut in an understairs cupboard, gasping with asthma and shouting for help, although my voice wouldn't work. Paulus, in a navy blue sailor suit, had like opened the door, burrowed in beside me, whispered 'shush' and kissed my mouth. I cried after that dream.
Most dreams repaid analysis. They came, I'd read, from your subconscious, about subjects, issues or people in your thoughts or heart. I'd also heard that dreams were a form of wish-fulfilment or a reflection of your fears. Obviously my dream about Paulus was the latter. Obviously. 'Cos he like fancied me and was a poof, and I wasn't, you know?
I wondered if I should write something on dreams for the school magazine, establish myself as an agony-uncle perhaps. After all, I couldn't do worse than the numpties on the radio. They reflected a very narrow understanding of humanity. I'd read a letter recently in my mum's Woman's Weekly, which, I would point out, I read only for Russell Grant's predictions for Gemini's week ahead, hoping I was going to win the lottery and/or meet a tall, dark, sexy lady, but I never managed either. Anyway, the letter basically said ''Help, I think my son's a homosexual, what shall I do?'' Part of me scoffed dismissively at the unlucky sap and part of me read the reply with a mix of dread, delight, shame, fear and excitement.
''Discovering you're gay can be both frightening and confusing,'' said the agony-aunt, ''And can bring feelings of loneliness, isolation and shame. Many teenagers fear rejection or even punishment, so it's very important that parents provide support, not judgement. Gay children need to feel secure, to know they are still loved despite being different.''
Good luck with that, I'd snorted, turning instead to the England football captain's reflections in on yet another early exit from the European Championship in the latest Shoot! I reckoned we were bloody lucky to have qualified, given the total bollocks England pretended was football. Boot the ball very hard and run like fuck seemed the tactic. Anyway, that was before the dream. And before I kissed Michael Crooks.
Miserably I sat on my bed cuddling Pickles, watching the rain in the darkness outside, and croakily singing my new favourite song several times, 'Waterfalls' from Paul's McCartney II album I'd got for my birthday: 'And I need love, yeah, I need love, Like a second needs an hour, like a raindrop needs a shower, Yeah, I need love every minute of the day, And it wouldn't be the same if you ever should decide to go away.'
Drained, I touched the crucifix on its thin gold chain and resolved to put this sickness behind me by avoiding everyone on Monday I'd had sexy dreams about, so I gave Choral Society a miss. They were only doing some chorales, Number 9, 'Thy will, o God, be always done,' Number 20, 'Peter, with his faithless lies, thrice denied the Saviour' and Number 21, which opens Part 2, 'Christ, whose life was as the light, by his friends forsaken,' which were really easy. I also skipped the play rehearsals 'cos I didn't think I could look at Ali, or Leo, or Andy, without like totally burning up with embarrassment, you know? So I marvelled at the Canadian Grand Prix with Maxton and Fosbrook - there'd been this utterly spectacular 7-car pile-up on the first bend of the first lap when Jones and Piquet touched wheels – immersed myself in clarinet practice with Mr Angus, mainly scales and the Lutoslawski, and played Across Suez, the Battle of Chinese Farm from the 1973 Arab-Israeli War at Wargames Club with Adam Rubenstein from U5B, my violinist friend with the straight jet-black hair, warm brown eyes, sallow skin and beaky nose, as short as me but stockier. I was the Egyptians trying to cross the Suez Canal and retake the Sinai Peninsula from Adam, playing as the Israelis. I kind of joked that, being Jewish, he should switch and play as the Arabs, just to get a different perspective. He didn't laugh, just loosened his yellow Brearley tie, bombed my amphibious vehicles to bits and whipped my arse back to the desert. Anyway, I kind of got through the next few days unscathed and on Friday, joined a bunch of others flopping around in the park.
While Lower Schoolers weren't allowed out of the school during lunch, we Upper Fifths could go to the park across the road and the parade of shops housing Sweaty Betty's chip shop, and the Sixth, lucky bastards, could go into town so long as they stayed out of the pubs. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, too warm for footie, we just flaked out and watched these scanty white clouds rolling across the high blue sky. Collins was describing this fat lass called Emma who apparently had the hots for him to an appreciative audience of Lewis, Arnold and Brudenall. Shirt sleeves were rolled up, collars unfastened and tie-knots loosened as I sat cross-legged on the grass watching these Painted Ladies flit round these purple Michaelmas daisies and y
ellow Rudbekia I thought my dad might have planted.
''She was all over you, man,'' Lewis was saying, ''And she came with that lass Hannah, from the swim-team. God, she was so hammered she could hardly walk.''
This was Arnie's birthday party, to which I, not being hearty enough, had not been invited.
''Yeah, but she was a great shag,'' said Brudenall. ''She's just split up with Graeme Vesey. Nothing better than a bird on the rebound. Sucked me dry, man. You should've let Emma jump aboard, Collie. Fat birds go like trains. Image issues or some such bollocks.''
''Problem is,'' Collins mused, ''She's so fat you could use her knickers as a hang-glider. She's got a figure like a hippo an' a face like a pickled bloody walnut.''
''Plus a fanny like a horse's collar,'' I chipped in. ''Be like fingering a toilet seat.''
''Like you'd fucking know, JP,'' jeered Brudenall. ''Bet you've never even seen a fanny outside Razzle, let alone fingered one.''
''Fuck off, Graham,'' I countered angrily. ''I fingered Claire Ashton.'' There was like this shouted chorus of disbelief. ''I fucking have! I fingered her last week, got three right up inside her. Man, she loved it. Juice every-fucking-where, man.''
''You fingered Claire Ashton?'' jeered Lewis. ''Where was this?''
''In his head,'' scoffed Brudenall, ''While he was wanking. Right, Peters?''
Cheeks glowing like a workman's brazier, I just tore at some blades of grass while Lewis howled derision and Brudenall licked his fingertip, touched his cheek and went 'Tssss.'
''Emma's mum's all right,'' Arnold told Collins. ''Do her instead.''
''Oh aye,'' said Collins, ''But the old man's a nutter. He'd tear my head off and feed it to his dogs. Got these ruddy great Rottweilers to keep the rozzers away from these stolen ciggies he stores in his garage.''
''You could do the dogs instead,'' Arnold suggested. ''Put 'em in a good mood.''
''Your mum's foxy, JP,'' said Lewis. ''I'd like to get my hands on her puppies.''
''Oh aye,'' said Collins again. ''I'd give your mum one any day, Jonny. Great figure for a woman of forty. Tits like fucking grapefruit. Firm but squeezy, eh?''
''Bet she bangs like a door in a storm,'' added Brudenall. ''You'd want her on top, wouldn't you, Andy? Let her ride you like a fucking stallion, eh? Like that girl in the toilet at Cinderella's last week. Woah, she was bloody good, though the blowjob was even better.''
''Yeah,'' said Collins dreamily. ''I'd love it if your mum blew me, Jonny.''
Open-mouthed, I stared at him, at his thick blond hair, blue eyes, arrogantly handsome face with its high, sculpted cheekbones, broad chest and shoulders of a rugby-playing swimmer. God, he wanted my mother to suck his cheesy great knob. My mother! I threw the grass at his head and told him to shut the fuck up.
Collins grunted. ''You can do mine if you like, if you wanna like do a swap. She's had five kids. Knockers to her knees, man. Like punctured balloons after a fucking party.''
I said I'd rather shag the sheep on his farm. He said he guessed that already. The others started baaing in chorus. Jumping on Collins, I wrestled with him on the grass while Lewis chucked torn-up grass blades at us, then Brudenall dived in and we rolled around trying to tickle each other, laughing and calling each other 'sheep-shagger, sheep-shagger' until our sides hurt and the bell rang for afternoon school.
German was in the language-laboratory on the top floor of the New Building. I sat in the front row between Paulus and Gray, headphones round my neck, ready to start.
''A little later we'll listen to this wonderful tape from Heute Direkt. It's about sport and leisure, so you'll hear some oom-pah music and plenty of stories about hiking in the mountains.'' Beaky glanced around uncertainly. ''Er, can you switch this infernal machine on, er… Herr Seymour? I can't figure it out.'' In fact he usually ended up recording his own voice stammering 'how do you turn this thing off?' over some other poor sod's material.
''I am a very keen cyclist, you know, just like Herr Gray, who wrote about it in his essay. Like him, I cycle to school but, unlike him, I must set off very early to be here for half-past eight. I can't oversleep like you boys because I have Upper Six P to register so I wave farewell to Frau Phillips and Fräulein Phillips on the doorstep as the clock strikes eight…''
''Hang on, sir,'' said Gray. ''You live twenty miles away. You'd be pushing it to get here in thirty minutes.''
''I once did sixty miles an hour on my rickety old bike when I was living in Switzerland,'' Beaky said haughtily
''Aye, and uphill too,'' I added to general laughter.
''I was renowned for my sporting prowess, Herr Peters,'' he continued, ''Especially on skis. Do you know how to get up a mountain on skis, Herr Collins? I'll bet you don't.''
''As a matter of fact,'' said Collins, ''I do. You take your skis off and get a cable-car.''
I burst out laughing.
''You do no such thing,'' said Beaky. ''You tie sealskins to the underside so the hair acts as a brake and provides some grip. There. Now you've learned something. There's nothing better than standing atop some lofty summit with the landscape sprawling before you, the mountain breezes ruffling your hair… have you ever been in the Alps, Herr Lewis?''
''No, sir.''
''Crystal waterfalls cascade into deep green pools of icy nectar. Springs bubble forth from rocks. Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering through ice-built arches radiant with the rainbows of Heaven, I strode across the roof of Europe, Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony ringing in my ears. Do you know Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Herr Brudenall?''
''No, sir.''
''I do,'' I chirped.
''You would, you lick,'' scowled Herr Brudenall.
''Is there anything you don't know?'' growled Herr Lewis. I just waved two fingers.
''In my time, I've done the Matterhorn (snigger from Brudenall) and the Jungfrau (snort from Seymour). In fact, I met Frau Phillips whilst she was a Jungfrau, ha ha.''
''Did you wear lederhosen, sir?'' asked Fosbrook cheekily.
''I certainly did. I still have a pair. I may wear them on Open Day.''
''I wouldn't wear them open on Open Day, sir,'' said Collins. ''You'll get had up.''
I burst out laughing again. Beaky peered over the top of his little wire-framed glasses.
''You're in a merry mood, Herr Peters. Perhaps it's because of your little story. I have to say it was exceptionally good. Frau Phillips and I read it together and both agreed it was worth ten out of ten. You should submit it for the school magazine.''
Yay! Result. I preened a little as he passed over a bar of Galaxy and flicked two fingers surreptitiously at Brudenall who was mouthing 'lick.' Of course the first square made me sneeze twice – bloody allergies – but then I almost choked when Beaky said he was gonna read it the class and started ''Es war der schönste Tag in meinem Leben, dem Tag, als ich fiel verliebt, Hals über Kopf…''
''No, sir,'' I cried desperately. ''Don't. Please.'' I felt my face burning like coals in a builder's brazier.
He peered at me again, then back at the paper, then back at me. ''But why not, Herr Peters? It's an excellent piece of writing.''
''Go on, Jonny,'' said Arnold. ''You're a really good writer.''
I had in fact won last year's Lower Fifth creative writing prize for my end-of-year exam essay. The task was to write a story either starting or finishing with the lines 'When I looked up, the beach was empty' so I wrote a story about a private detective, you know the sort, a hard-boiled, fast-talking, mac-wearing gumshoe, and crammed in every fishy pun I could think of, from the relatively simple 'Good Cod' to 'you're a dab hand at this' to 'I'm sorry, I'm hard of herring' to 'you should learn your plaice'. When Willie, grading it forty-eight out of fifty, read it to the class, they laughed, clapped and whistled and Burridge surrendered his crown. Now they were expecting more of the same, and they weren't going to get it.
''It's too… personal,'' I said.
''Well, now you've got to read it,'' said Co
llins, ''If it's about Claire.''
There was a chorus of 'oooh,' a raucous yelp from that bloody ferret Fosbrook and 'Claire, the moment I met you I swear...' sung by Lewis and Arnold. My ears glowed crimson. I heard Brudenall go 'Tssss' again. Then the rest of the class sizzled and I shrank unhappily into my shoulders, eyes fixed on the grey Formica table-top, while Beaky silently pondered me for a moment. My life would be so like over if he read that story out, yeah?
''If he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to,'' said Beaky, handing me the paper with the 10 and 'ausgezeichnet, sehr romantisch' scribbled in red. ''I'll read Herr Paulus' instead.''
''Oh God,'' cried Arnold. ''It'll just be about how many hours of 'cello practice he did.''
''You think I'm so one-dimensional, don't you?'' said Paulus indignantly. ''You'd be surprised. I don't just play the 'cello, you know.''
''No, you play the piano too,'' said Arnold.
Just then there was a light knock on the door and Alistair Rose entered.
''Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I'm showing some prospective parents around and I wondered if I could bring them in here.''
As I turned in my seat, he flashed this utterly dazzling smile at me. My blood tingled and my heart melted. Again. Paulus, the gay twat, nudged me suggestively.
''Fuck off, you gay twat,'' I snarled.
''Just a minute, Rose,'' hissed Beaky. ''You lot, put your headphones on and look like you're working.'' He let flow this stream of guttural German which I could barely follow concluding with ''Und so müssen wir etwas machen.''
Resting my chin in my palms, I gazed admiringly at Ali while he introduced the parents to Beaky and explained the facilities. God, he had such long, soft eyelashes, you know? He was so handsome. But after class, when I was packing up my books, Beaky took me to the front of the room, waited till everyone had gone then said, very quietly, ''I really did enjoy your story, Jonathan, but it isn't true, is it? It was just a fantasy?''
''Of course, sir.'' The edited version had been romantic, not steamy.
''This Alison.'' He removed his spectacles. ''Would it be, by any chance, Alistair Rose?''
I went cold all over. ''Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?''
''The way you looked at him this afternoon.''
Something was blocking my throat.
''It is not uncommon for schoolboys to develop crushes on other schoolboys,'' he continued, ''Especially at an all-boys' school. The hothouse atmosphere and so on. Boys are incredibly romantic creatures. You know that yourself. It's fully expressed in your story. Most of these crushes are perfectly harmless, and may involve some degree of fantasy, but some develop unhealthily, into inappropriately physical relationships. Do you know what I mean?''
''Yes, sir,'' I muttered. ''You mean sex.''
''Enjoy being in love with Rose, if you are,'' He raised a hand to stem my protest, ''But be careful. Don't let things get out of control.'' He replaced his glasses. ''I like you, Jonathan. I respect and admire you. I don't want to see your life ruined because you chose poorly.''
Yikes. It was so obvious everyone was beginning to see it. What the hell would I do? How could I conceal it, especially when Ali was around? But what if it wasn't? Love, I meant. What if was just a schoolboy crush that I would grow out? I mean, what exactly is love? How did you know when you found it?
But I already knew. I touched my cross.
Love is thinking about him all the time. Love is struggling to breathe when he is near. Love is when his smile lights up your entire world. Love is the blood singing in your ears when he looks at you. Love is wanting to cry when he says goodbye. Love is the tingle down your spine when he touches your hand. Love is standing at the edge of forever.
God, I thought. I sounded like a soppy adolescent. But then again, I was a soppy adolescent and, sorry, Beaky, I was in love, absolutely, totally head-over-heels. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted his lips against mine. I wanted his chest pressed to mine. I wanted him. I wanted him so much. So I guessed that did make me gay, and I'd rather like boil and eat my own intestines, you know? With mashed swede and a nice rosé than be gay? I mean, someone might as well shoot me 'cos my life was so, like, over, you know? Hmm. Maybe a life as myself, my true self, was about to begin.
Out: A Schoolboy's Tale Page 8