Out: A Schoolboy's Tale
Page 22
22: I don't care
MORE deeply in love than ever, I now entered this crazy week where I was doing my clarinet exam on the same Thursday as the Individual Music Competition in which I was playing the Chopin Berceuse and the Brahms clarinet sonata and accompanying Leo in the Fauré in the 12-14 woodwind class and Paulus in Saint-Saens' Allegro Appassionato Op 43 and Ben Finch, the fourth-form double-bassist in more Saint-Saens, this time from The Carnival of Animals AND a bunch of Lower School scrapers and tooters that Fred couldn't be bothered with, mainly because they were shit. I mean, have you heard a 12 year old play the violin? Talk about cat-strangling. Anyway, by Thursday, anticipating cramming a dozen performances into a few hours on two different instruments and in several different roles, I was like a caged tiger, especially since I'd sacrificed every break and lunchtime to rehearse these pieces and was now bored stupid by them.
When I got to school at 8.30, Gardiner was playing table-tennis with Stewart. Watching disinterestedly from a desk, I practised scales on an invisible clarinet. F sharp minor, especially the harmonic version, had given me problems. I was pretty secure on the pieces but scales were boring on any instrument. Gray and Maxton were chewing over last night's England victory over Switzerland. We'd won 2-1 but it'd taken a Swiss own-goal to edge it and we'd been hanging on desperately by the end. I'd listened on the radio after The Goodies freaked me out with bearded Bill Oddie dressed as a baby sitting in a pram. I mean, ticket to Creepsville, or what?
''Fuck it!'' Stewart, losing yet another point, hurled the bat across the room. I dived sideways as it clattered into the lockers.
''Fuck's sake, Bob,'' I stormed. ''You just missed my head, you spaz.''
''See what a bad shot I am,'' he joked.
''It's not bloody funny!'' I yelled, leaping from the table to grab his sleeve.
''Take it easy, Jonny,'' said Maxton but, incensed, I twisted Stewart's arm behind him and smacked his head with the heel of my hand. Suddenly we were being pulled apart.
''Stop it,'' Lewis ordered sharply.
''We don't fight in this class,'' said Collins angrily. ''We stick together.''
''We settle our differences through dialogue,'' added Seymour, a trifle pompously.
''You, Stewpot, apologise,'' said Arnold, ''And you, JP, shake his hand.''
Stewart, wringing his wrist, was glaring at me sulkily.
''I didn't do it on purpose,'' he muttered defiantly.
''Well, fuck off then,'' I spat, flouncing out of the room.
''Time of the month, Jenny?'' he called. ''Cock-sucking little queer.''
Stopping in my tracks, I turned, my temper rising again.
''What did you say, you fucking bastard? What did you say?'' Arnold and Collins were hustling me into the corridor and I was struggling against them shouting ''What the fuck does he mean? Fucking cunt. I'll rip his fucking throat out, the cunt!''
Somehow I hit Arnold in his zippy face and got an elbow into Collins's stomach but they wouldn't release me, despite my oaths and threats, not till the anger had passed, and even after, while Bunny was doing the register, I felt it seething and surging through me. Robert 'Stewpot' Stewart was a dead man walking. I'd bust his chapped, scabby lips for him, the melon-headed spaz.
Double Chemistry was my only lesson today. Leaving school at half-ten for the City Music College with Wilf, I'd miss German and most of Maths then, with the competition starting at about twelve, I'd miss History playing for the gimps and then be involved all afternoon with the Upper School classes missing both RE and French. Most teachers simply accepted it. Not Bunny. He remarked that school wasn't some part-time hobby and that I, of all people, could ill-afford to miss any Maths lessons.
''I can do the last twenty minutes, sir,'' I said helpfully.
''Don't bother, Peters, just don't bother,'' he said wearily. ''You do what you like. That's what you do best.''
In Barney's lab, I sat with Crooks and Paulus, ignoring Stewart, who, having joined forces with Maxton, was still winding me up with hilarious cracks like 'What does Peters shout at the football? Up my Arse-nal, ha ha' and 'Backs to the wall, boys. Poofter Peters is coming.' It didn't help that Paulus kept telling me to 'lighten up.'
''How would you like it if he was saying that about you?'' I snapped.
''He does say it about me,'' he answered icily, ''And so do you, and I'm straight.''
''Like fuck you are,'' I replied angrily. ''You're as bent as me. Even benter.''
We were doing something with Bunsen burners and boiling water and, in my fury, I managed to knock the asbestos mat so the water slopped over my hand. Swearing viciously, I screamed with frustration. Stewart said loudly that I should be used to hot liquid splashing my hand and half the class laughed, though Collins shook his head disapprovingly.
''Fucking queers,'' Fosbrook said suddenly, scratching the eczema outbreak on the inside of his wrist. ''Shoot the bloody lot, eh, sir?''
''I've got an exam in an hour,'' I yelled. ''I should be practising, not pissing about in some fucking Chemistry lab with you losers.''
Crooks knocked the test-tube rack off the bench. Flash of lightning, I caught it in my left hand, an inch off the floor, without dislodging any of the six or spilling any of the liquid. I earned an appreciative round of applause and a comment from Collins that I should field at slip in the summer. Snarling something rude, I slammed the rack back on the bench.
''I'm going to see Mr Reid,'' I said brusquely, ripping off the lab-coat and stomping out to a chorus of 'oooohs' and Barney's feeble 'Come back, Peters. I demand you come back.'
Fuck off, you Barney Rubble lookalike twat and all you arse-wipes in Upper Five H.
I stormed out of the Jessup Wing and dived into the toilets to splash cold water on my face, comb my hair, and kick the waste-bin so hard it bounced off the urinal and bent out of shape. Rescue Remedy under my tongue, lavender oil on my lapel, calm calm calm. Regular breathing OK.
I felt the familiar tightness in my chest that signalled an oncoming asthma attack. I'd done a clarinet exam with asthma before. It was no fun, I can tell you. Staring myself in the eye, I told myself I'd done this like a zillion times before, it was a piece of piss and Stewart was a wanker then, suffering under Bunny's withering glare and his Sixth Form Maths set's collective snigger, I collected my clarinet from locker 17 and headed for the powder-blue Lupton Building as Bunny cracked some lame joke about my tooting someone else's flute. Now I was worried. Who was talking about me? Who knew? No-one, except Crooks and Paulus. And Leo. Blabbermouth fucking Trent. Oh shit.
Wilf bounced enthusiastically out of the second-floor Staff Room, clapped me hard on the shoulder and led me down the fire escape to the car park and this battered blue Escort. He had this mad yellow and brown bow-tie on which reminded me of a banoffee pie. It clashed wildly with his blue velveteen jacket and pink shirt. His beard seemed more piratical than ever.
''You'll have to shift the baby-seat,'' he said, tossing a rattle, a pale pink sock, a bag of mangled sweets and a dog-eared copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar into the back.
Somewhat gingerly, I got in the passenger-seat. I'd noticed some sick-stains on the upholstery and the dashboard was plastered with sticky finger-marks.
''How old's your baby?'' I asked, as he eased the car into the traffic.
''Fifteen months,'' he said. She was called Helen, Ellen, something involving a 'len'.
I told him about Stewart and the table-tennis bat.
''Stewart's an idiot,'' he remarked. ''You're bound to be nervous. Even you, with all your experience, must occasionally get stage-fright. You're only human.'' Teeth flashed in his bushy beard as he added ''I think.'' Peering over his blue-rimmed specs at the gunmetal stream of traffic crawling sluggishly along like a lethargic snake, he let the silence seep in as I lost myself in mental preparation but, despite the traffic, we were ten minutes early. I hated waiting. It stretched my nerves to such a pitch of tension it left a hollow, sick feeling in the pit of m
y stomach and an ache in my chest. I puffed twice on my Ventolin inhaler.
Arriving at the music college (founded 1873), we entered a vast, light, airy hallway with a sea-green marble floor, busts of Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert and Bach, huge potted plants and a massive marble staircase in the centre under an immense crystal chandelier. We were shown into this dingy room with several wooden chairs, a brightly glowing gas-fire and a view through a grubby window of a moth-eaten rose-bush and a patch of overlong, untended grass. It was far too hot. I found myself sweating and removed my grey jumper whilst Wilf turned the fire down. My white shirt was damp already. First greasing the corks, I assembled the clarinet and, rolling it in my hands, held it to the fire to warm the polished wood whilst soaking the Barre Mec reed in a mouthful of spit. I wanted it damp all the way through so it was flexible but not so wet I couldn't control the tone. The logo of Boosey and Hawkes of London, stamped in gold on the black bell, revolved in my perspiring fingers.
Four minutes to eleven.
The silence was broken by the soft ticking of a clock on the window-sill. It matched the metronomic beats of my heart.
Three and half minutes to go.
I glanced at the music in my lap, at Martin Angus's blue and red pencil-marks, at my own notes, flexed my fingers, wiggling them in the air.
Three minutes to go.
The door opened. My heart jumped into my mouth.
It was a pig-tailed, brace-wearing girl of about thirteen and her plain, dowdy mother.
Flashing them a grim smile, I tried to relax. It reminded me of the dentist's.
Two minutes.
This must be what awaiting execution felt like.
One and a half minutes.
This was ridiculous. I'd done this a dozen times before.
One minute to go.
Next time the door opened, it was for me.
I was now very nervous indeed. Wishing I could stop sweating, I wiped my palms down my trousers, took the clarinet and music and followed the usher to a large white door.
''Good luck,'' said the girl's mother.
''Thanks,'' I said in a strangled squeak. ''You too.'' I wished Ali were here.
The examination room was dominated by this grand piano with the lid up and a large window which commanded a view of the street beyond. In the corner, seated behind a desk, was this white-haired lady whose half-moon specs perched on an ice-cream cone-like nose.
''Jonathan Peters? Clarinet Grade Eight?'' She glanced up from her papers, ''Hello, Geoff. How are you? How's Eleanor?''
That was a good start, Wilf and the examiner knowing each other.
''I'm Mrs Jessop,'' she said. ''You're Martin Angus's pupil, I think.''
You think right.
Wilf struck B flat and I played C, all four fingers and the thumb of my left hand covering holes. I twisted the clarinet slightly to ease the joints, unscrewing the reed a little to get more play, tuned again, listening to the tone with a frown as I played a couple of C major arpeggios and a quick A minor scale, flicking all the keys to open each hole. Mrs Jessop watched with interest, smiling slightly as I placed fluffy red-and-white Ozzie the Owl on the music-stand.
''Do you play in an orchestra, Jonathan?'' she asked.
''What?'' I jumped. My mind was focussed on the sound of the clarinet. ''Sorry. Yes. Mr Reid's chamber orchestra. First clarinet. And I'm in the choir. Baritone.''
''When he turns up,'' Wilf said kindly. ''He's very busy. I know Mr Perry wants him as the Choral Society's répétiteur next year when Mark Williams leaves.''
''Oh,'' said Mrs Jessop, ''You play the piano too? What grade are you?''
''I finished,'' I said. ''I did Grade Eight last year. Got a distinction.''
Now she was impressed, especially when I added that I was Barbara Lennox's pupil.
''That's where I've seen you before,'' she said, face softening into warm affection. ''I've seen you play at her musical evenings. Didn't you play Debussy in July?''
''Yes,'' I said, ''The two arabesques.''
''Marvellous,'' she said, ''Especially the first. You gave it this really dreamy quality. My husband lectures on twentieth century French music and he said it was a beautiful interpretation.'' My nervousness had dissipated altogether. ''You must have done Grade Five Theory.'' She ticked a box.
''I've done Grade Eight Theory,'' I said, frowning at the memory. In the exam, I had filled in the oboe and violin parts of a Handel trio sonata, completed the outline of a Webern piano piece, composed a 12-bar melody for unaccompanied trombone, where you're given the first 3 bars and asked to continue in the same style – the one I picked was in 3 flats and 3/2 time, forte, maestoso. The fourth task was a series of questions on the structure of a printed extract from the first movement of Debussy's String Quartet. I had to identify root-position chords, melodic intervals (diatonic semitone followed by chromatic semitone), and keys, and translate the directions ('un peu retenu', doux and '1er Mouvt') from French into English. Finally facing Weber's Overture to Der Freischütz, more identification ('chord of the supertonic 7th in first inversion', and, also in the string parts, 'a diminished 7th chord which resolves onto a dominant 7th'), then transposition of clarinet parts from bars 9-15 and the French horns (bars 1-4) into concert pitch and some questions about how Weber had created 'a mysterious atmosphere' (pizzicato, muted timps and horns, tremolando effects). Challenging was an understatement.
''And yet he's wasting his time with GCSE,'' said Wilf.
''I want the music history,'' I said. ''Besides, from the other options, Art or Materials, I can't draw and I'm rubbish at Woodwork. My tea-tray warped into something more like a skateboard and the veneer peeled off like an old scab, and in Metalwork I kept imagining I was Siegfried re-forging Notung.'' I'd even sung 'Hey, Mime, du Schmied… so schneidet Siegfried's Schwert!' at poor Mark Gray for hours, till Mr Rutherford shut me up.
''Wagnerian, eh?'' said Mrs Jessop.
''Love it,'' I smiled, ''Especially The Ring.''
''Well, what are you going to play for me?'' She pushed her glasses up her nose.
''I'm going to start with the Brahms,'' I said, nodding at Wilf. I licked my lips nervously, touched the cross under my shirt, placed my fingers over the holes, counted the 3-4 time of the opening four bars, listening to the parallel octaves Fred said I couldn't write, then hit the minim D in the fifth as forte as I dared. I was away, and blitzing the triplet arpeggios in bar 28 and the bar 100 key-change into C sharp minor. I counted furiously in my head, especially the rests (6 bars from 225 to 231), but I was ecstatic about my control of the dynamics. This Brahms movement, in 7 ½ minutes, went from pp to ff, with hairpin crescendo/diminuendo in single bars, and a really quiet, sotto voce ending in F major. Allegro appassionato indeed. I loved playing it. The two Lutoslawski dance preludes were so much shorter and less intense than the Brahms, but No 3 had all these tied grace-notes, staccato markings, fortissimo trills and changes in tempo and, though perky, was quite difficult. Allegro giocoso, with crotchet = 180, Wilf and I had agreed to take down to 140 in a lunchtime practice. It was still good fun and Wilf beamed through his beard.
The B minor étude from page 39 of the Demnitz book was a tricky allegro con fuoco with a load of runs, accents and sforzandos and a change into B major (like five bloody sharps, you know?) for this nice, slow central passage. It wasn't too bad, though it could've been better. Annoyingly I lost the rhythm slightly somewhere among the mass of black spots.
Harmonic scale of E major, legato, 3 octaves, then F sharp major, tongued, 2 octaves, then a chromatic scale starting on F, 3 octaves of arpeggios of the dominant 7th of A flat, and diminished 7th starting on F (3 octaves), as on page 23 of the purple Associated Board syllabus booklet, a near-perfect sight-reading and it was finished.
Mrs Jessop peered over her notes. ''Will you be playing in today's music competition?'' She seemed remarkably well informed.
''I'm playing the Brahms again,'' I said, ''And Chopin's Berceuse.''
I'd had such trouble with this. In the last lesson I'd strayed off into wrong notes, wrong fingering and rhythmic meltdown and, at Bar 36 where I needed to play triplet semiquaver triads in 5 flats, I'd crashed out several frustrated discords yelling ''I can't play it. I just can't play it! My hands aren't big enough!'' and lost these running trills in Bar 43, shouting ''It's bloody impossible!'' until Mrs Lennox calmed me down, helped me regroup.
''I'm also doing a load of accompaniments, Fauré's Sicilienne with a flautist and two Saint-Saens' pieces with a 'cellist and a double-bassist. Also, anyone Fred and Wilf, sorry, Mr Perry and Mr Reid don't want gets dumped on me.'' She laughed aloud and asked why Mr Reid was called Wilf. I said I'd heard someone said he talked like Wilfred Pickles, some Yorkshireman from the war I'd actually never heard of but the Grunters liked.
Smiling warmly now, she wished me luck and said she looked forward to meeting me again at Barbara's next soirée. I thought it'd gone well, and so did Wilf, who said it'd been a privilege to play for me. Although he drove back in like record time, I decided to skip the last half-hour of Maths. I couldn't face Bunny's jibes, Stewart's wind-ups or any other immature bullshit. I'd just spent 40 minutes doing what I do best, playing great music and playing it well, and that's what I was gonna do for the rest of the day, so fuck 'em, eh? Fucking losers.
I went to the Purcell Practice Room to play Debussy on some rubbish upright, ate my lunch, a wholegrain Ryvita, a chunk of Cheddar, a celery stick, 2 carrots and an apple then went with a so-called hot chocolate from a machine in the Lupton Building to the Beckwith Hall where some bespectacled gimp was murdering a Tchaikovsky waltz.
Ali, writing notes, was sitting on the Rises, one row below the balcony rail and conferring with Mike Holt, the magazine's music editor. Stalking up the wooden steps two at a time, I nodded at Fred behind the Headmaster's table with the adjudicator, a kind, creased man in his mid-fifties from Bristol, Brighton, somewhere Down South beginning with 'B'. Fred gave me this weak half-smile. The gimps, bunched together in the front row, were a knot of green faces and fear. But fear not, ye gimps and Mr Oakes. Jonathan Peters had arrived.
Ali had a plastic lunchbox on the seat beside him. As well as a film-wrapped luncheon meat sandwich and a can of orange Fanta, there was a bag of prawn cocktail crisps and a Mint Aero. Yay! Result! As he moved the lunchbox so I could sit down, I scooped up the crisps, popped open the bag, took a fistful which I crammed into my mouth, then offered him the open packet saying ''Hey, Alistair, wanna crisp?'' Crunching them up, I added ''I don't like prawn cocktail. Couldn't you get cheese and onion instead? Can I have some Fanta?'' I slurped a mouthful out of the can, feeling the fizz on my tongue. Ali's slap, hard on my thigh, made me yelp and brought a fierce 'hush' from Fred. God, I wanted to kiss him. Ali, I mean. I whispered that into his ear. He hissed back we'd find somewhere later. The Purcell Practice Room, I whispered back, where, during the break he could shag me ragged. He turned the colour of a cricket ball and stared at his luncheon meat sandwich.
''Hey,'' I whispered, ''What do policemen have in their sandwiches?'' Pause. ''Truncheon meat, ha ha.''
''Shhhhh,'' goes Fred.
''You're sooo lame,'' goes Ali.
''Where are we?'' I whispered when the tiny kid finally ground to a halt.
''Gimp-Class Piano,'' said Holt, putting his finger halfway down the programme. ''You're lucky you missed the brass. Two French horns and five trumpets. Boy, it's going to be hard to write something positive about those lads.''
''Birthing hippo springs to mind,'' Ali suggested.
I snorted hot chocolate through my nose.
''Shh.'' Perry flapped a hand at us.
''How was the exam?''
''Great,'' I said, adding ''Grade Eight clarinet'' for Holt's benefit. ''Reckon I'll pass.''
''Of course you'll pass. You're a genius,'' said Ali.
''So are you,'' I said, looping my arm round his waist. He'd been awesome in yesterday's debating semi-final against Tetley House. Rising to his feet, arm aloft like a gladiator to salute his Sixth and Fourth Form fan-base, he had carefully, sorrowfully declared the 'sudden, tragic death of a dear friend and companion, brutally, ruthlessly murdered, bludgeoned to death by something thick, blunt and heavy. Madame Chair, I see the murder weapon… Mr Simon Dell, the proposer of this ridiculous motion, that television is destructive of family life' and reached the peak of his popularity.
''Remember the programmes of yesteryear?'' he'd said, ''Andy Pandy, The Woodentops,'' waving a hand over the Tetley team, ''Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, whose dialogue makes as much sense as that of the honourable gentlemen opposite, because these gentlemen believe Little Weed is destructive of family life…'' He had to wave down the laughter. ''What they would make of The Herbs, with its delicate use of pot-plants…or The Magic Roundabout with its addictions to huge piles of white sugar and large, smokable carrots, and weird tomato-faced, moustachioed colonel ordering little girls 'to bed' I cannot conceive… they'll be telling us there's something dodgy about Captain Pugwash and his friends Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin-Boy. Honestly, Madam Chair, these people are sick! Nothing is so descriptive of family life!'' He had swept into quiz shows: ''The English Department's favourite, QI, the Maths Department's favourite, 3-2-1, the History Department's favourite, Blankety Blank… these are designed to provide hard-working families, yes, families, with relaxation, and how we need relaxation at the end of a long, hard day on our bikes looking for work. I have heard it said, Madam Chairman, that Match of the Day is to blame for falling birth-rates. I'm sorry, but can one really hold Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen responsible for a lack of bed-action on the part of straight English couples? Slow-motion wrist-action maybe… but if Match of the Day were banned, if Gazza, Alan and Lawro were banished to the outer reaches of the imagination, would there be a sudden and massive population explosion, a sudden increase in sex, more broken bed-springs, copulation in the very streets?''
As he swept us into the final for the first time in a hundred years, he was riding a heroic wave. This afternoon I would join him in the pantheon of school gods and icons. Again.
The four squares of Aero he gave me made me sneeze. I mean, chocolate and mint? With my allergies? He laughed affectionately and told Holt I always sneezed when I had chocolate. Holt grinned. Fred hissed at me. The adjudicator frowned. His face kind of said 'who's this loser?' Rest easy, Mr Voakes. Very soon I'm gonna blow you away.
Kevin Seymour's little brother (Gary? George? George) won the class with a spirited performance of Anthony Hedges' Concert Piece which earned him 93 points from 100. He seemed overwhelmed to see us applauding him generously. Grinning, I gave him a thumbs-up which flustered him completely, especially when we said how much we'd enjoyed it.
''But,'' I said, ''Keep your wrists up. You've a tendency to let them drop.''
''That's what my teacher says,'' he replied mournfully, resembling a very sad bulldog.
''You don't want to play with limp wrists,'' I added, then blushed as Alistair, the cheeky sod, sputtered out laughing and said I should know all about limp wrists.
For the Lower School Strings, followed by the Woodwind, the piano accompaniments were evenly distributed between Fred, Wilf and me, although Beaky Phillips showed up to accompany this honking oboist called Livesey. Gravely he noted me sitting with Ali but didn't say anything. I felt a keen rivalry with the music teachers. If I could get all my people to win, it'd be a satisfying statement, especially since Perry was an excellent accompanist. The light gleamed off his shiny pink scalp as he trotted through another mangled Grade 3 piece. No wonder he got so bored. He'd worked with Benjamin Britten, for God's sake.
The swarthy clarinettist I accompanied in Gordon Jacob's Valse Ingénue, a Grade 4 piece, played very sensitively. I hadn't ever really got his name, Simpson, Stimpson, Timpson or something including an 'imp'. Now I thought I should've. He was good, winning with a score of 92. Grinning excitedly, he pumped my hand. Turned out hi
s name was Sumner. Whatever. Unfortunately my violinist strangled his Telemann Gavotte completely and, despite my efforts to bring him back to the score, his nerve broke and he was placed last.
''Bad luck,'' I murmured sympathetically as he gulped back some tears. Perry shot me a fiendish victory-grin as his fiddler took first place with a Corelli Sonata.
So that's how it was gonna be. Game on then, Mr P. I twisted the knobs on the piano-stool to raise the height so he'd have to lower it again to accommodate his great big backside more comfortably. I told Ali, whose laugh sounded like an exploding bomb.
''Shhh,'' said Perry irritably.
Strings 14-16 featured Ben Finch who was really small with wild curly hair and a face like a startled hamster. He was dwarfed by the double-bass. Holt and Ali thought it hilarious as he struggled on-stage with it.
''Imagine him trying to get that on a bus,'' chortled Ali.
''I bet he would fit in the case,'' chuckled Holt.
''He could use it instead of the bus,'' chirruped Ali, ''Slide down those hills.''
''Give him a break,'' I muttered, trotting down to give him a hand.
Sitting at the piano again, and noting Perry had lowered the stool again, I shot him a cocky grin - his 'cellist had been pretty rubbish – and waited for Ben to give me a nod, then played the lumbering opening bars of Saint-Saens' parody of Berlioz's 'Dance of the Sylphs' known as L'éléphante, from his Carnival of the Animals. Ben's entry was spot-on perfect and the humour of the piece drew appreciative laughs from the dozen or so spectators and a wry grin from the adjudicator. I allowed the final cadence to resound slightly then hit the damper, raised the stool really high and acknowledged Ben's grateful smile with one of my own.
''Very good,'' I said, shaking his hand. ''That was really very good. Well done.''
Beat that, Fred.
He couldn't. Paul 'Goes Like A' Train had a nightmare with Elgar's Chanson de Matin which he just couldn't get singing (ha ha) so Finch won with 95, and warm words from the adjudicator. Two-one to me, I chalked up mentally, with one to Wilf.
''Train's really good,'' I said. ''I've heard him play that before. He'll be devastated.''
''Perry's protégé goes down again,'' Holt laughed merrily.
''I have no idea what you mean, Mike,'' grinned Ali.
''Can I write it in the review, Ali? Can I? Go on. It'd be so funny.''
''You'd get me sued,'' said Ali.
When he whispered what it meant, I slapped his shoulder in mock-disgust, then said, round-eyed, ''Perry and Train? You're joking. Perry? And Train? Train's fourteen. But Perry! Ew! He's so old! And bald.''
''Get it where you can, eh, Jailbait?'' Ali remarked.
''I love you two together,'' said Holt. ''You crack me up.''
''Oh, honey,'' Ali squeezed my hand. ''Mike's one of us, aren't you, Mike?''
''Oh, regular dancing queen, me,'' said Holt. ''Welcome to the Good Ship Suck My Lollipop, Jen.''
''Ali,'' I said suddenly, ''I think someone knows about us. Bunny made this awful joke.''
''About you tooting somebody else's flute,'' said Holt. ''I was there. Man, so funny I thought I was gonna puke.''
''Course he doesn't know,'' Ali scoffed. ''Nobody knows. Except Sonning, Mike and Simon Ayres and none of them's going to tell anyone. Why should they?''
''But Bunny's joke! And Chris Crooks in your meeting, and Bob Stewart called me a cock-sucking queer!'' I was getting agitated. ''What about Leo? What if Leo said something? You know what he's like.''
''Screaming queen,'' said Holt.
''No, a fucking blabbermouth. Can't keep a secret.''
''He's one seriously pretty little airhead,'' sighed Ali.
''Shut up,'' I said jealously.
''It isn't him,'' said Ali, ''I don't think it's anyone. Just playground banter. Chill out, Jenny. It doesn't matter.''
''Stop calling me Jenny,'' I said petulantly, ''And Jailbait. I don't like it.''
Thankfully Andrew Paulus slid into the seat beside me with some luscious gossip from the so-called real world. Apparently Stewart, Maxton and Fosbrook had been set upon in Sweaty Betty's by a gang of 'hoolies' from a nearby estate.
''They'd gone to play Space Invaders.'' he explained ghoulishly, ''And were just settling into a game when these yobbos came up.''
Yobbos? I almost pissed myself. Public schoolboys' definitions of 'yobbo' usually did.
Maxton had won this free game and was about to play when half a dozen 'big lads' pushed them aside and took over the machine. When Stewart protested, the hoolies threatened to 'duff him up' and, to reinforce the point, shoved Fosbrook up against one grease-smeared wall. Some reports said there were three, others five, still others eight, but all agreed they were each 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide, with legs like tree-trunks, biceps like girders and chests like brick outhouses. 18 years old, possibly 20, real Borstal boys with punky haircuts, leather jackets, razor blades up their sleeves and knuckle-dusters in their pockets. The leader's name was Chopper, though whether that referred to his choice of weapon or to its size, ha ha, no-one was sure, though, in my experience, the bigger the boy, the smaller the lad, if you like get my point, ha ha.
''What did Betty say?'' I interrupted. ''They should've complained to her. She's big enough to face down a couple of weedy retards from the estate. I mean, instead of a christening, she had a launch-party. She has two watches, one for each time-zone she's in.''
Ali smiled softly. ''She wouldn't put herself out for any of us. All our guys do is use her Space Invaders machine. They never actually buy anything.''
I clicked my tongue irritably. ''So what happened in this non-event of the year?''
''Nothing,'' said Paulus. ''Max and the others just left them to it.''
''Pathetic,'' I said. ''They should've stood up for themselves. I would've.''
''Yeah, right,'' said Ali.
''I would!'' I started screwing my clarinet together again.
''You'd've drawn yourself up to your full height,'' said Ali, ''And head-butted the leader in the knee. Supermite, the Bionic Midget.''
''You could've hit them with your handbag,'' said Paulus.
''Fuck off, both of you,'' I said, smoothing grease onto one corked end. ''I would've played the free game while the others fought them off. That way it wouldn't have been wasted.'' I placed the reed on my tongue. ''So shut your faces.'' It sounded so weird.
''You're sooo gay, Jonathan,'' giggled Paulus, ''A proper little poofter.''
''That is so un-PC,'' I huffed.
''Yes, but it's true,'' he giggled again, ''Henry Hoover.''
And then Leo minced in.
''Afternoon, ladies.'' He plumped down beside Paulus complaining that I hadn't played with him since the weekend.
''I made you a tape of the piano part,'' I said indignantly. ''Didn't you use it?'' It'd had taken ages on some portable Tandy machine with this TDK C-60 cassette.
''I'd rather you played with me,'' he said archly. ''You finger my keyboard so tenderly.''
Holt spurted coffee out of his nose. Again. Queen's Fucking Corner, this, I thought. Might as well hang a massive sign round our necks reading HOMO BOYZ 'Я' US and prove Bunny, Stewart and the others right.
A bustling rustle told us Fred and Oakes were back in the hall along with a bunch of boys somewhere behind the rail, several teachers opting for an easy last period by bringing their classes to see their friends. Wheezy brought U5S and Wingnut U5H, Phillips brought his German class, Willie brought some third formers, Benjy a bunch of second formers and pretty soon the hall contained about 300 people. Ash-tray, Frank and Hellfire also arrived. Arnold, Lewis, Gray, Keighley, Maxton, Driver, Lees, others, gathered around us, united in music.
''They’ve come to hear you, darling.'' Ali pecked my cheek. '' 'Cos you're the best there's ever been.''
So no pressure then.
I kissed Alistair, then Leo, who whooped and sang 'I don't build my world round one single man', and stood up.
> Adrenaline pumped through my blood-stream again and my stomach kind of swooped. I loved this moment. Let them think what they liked. Let them say what they would. This was when I came alive. Now, in this moment.
Flicking open the keys, I took a deep breath, touched my cross and stepped down into the spotlight.