2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  But what’s more interesting is the St Gregory’s lot Robbie doesn’t know, because most of them come from the Bottom scheme, and it’s mental as fuck down there. Robbie’s big brothers have got pals from that end of the town—and enemies. And to give you an idea, folk from Braeview call you a snob for living in a bought house; but folk from the Bottom scheme call you a snob for living in Braeview.

  Check that one there: big, tall bastard. Robbie thinks he’s seen him about the town, all dressed in punk stuff: chains hanging off the trousers, ripped T-shirt and leather jacket. Looks hard as fuck. Robbie’s not sure, but he thinks that might be Kenny Langton, who he’s heard mentioned as the best fighter at St Gregory’s. Jai Burns might have something to say about that, but the one time they did get into it, Robbie heard it was stopped by the teachers. Jai tells folk he was winning, but that’s not what everybody says. Whoever he is, he’s definitely the scariest-looking guy in the place, even in his uniform: Docs up to his chin and big long legs for swinging them. Aye, there’ll be cunts looking at their class name-lists and fuckin praying his isn’t one of them.

  Robbie’s never liked school before, but St Grace’s is going to be fuckin yes.

  Changing

  It’s Wednesday, double period between interval and lunchtime. You call it interval at St Grace’s, or the break, not playtime. Jesus Christ, not playtime. Can you imagine it? They’ll find plenty to nail you for; don’t go tossing them freebies.

  They’re in the changing room, which is why Martin is feeling that wee bit more tense. Actually, the tension level has been at a pretty high minimum since he started at St Grace’s on Monday, spiking wee peaks throughout each day: class allocation, first interval, first lunchtime, first venture into the bogs and first period with each new teacher. This is the second PE session, and it’s causing as much of a spike as the first, though for different reasons.

  Martin was really pleased when he looked at the timetable and saw that you get PE twice a week, two whole double periods, guaranteed. You were meant to get it once a week at primary, but you were lucky if it was once a month because the teachers could seldom be bothered, with O’Connor particularly remiss. She’d use any excuse to ditch it: ‘You were all talking too much, so PE’s cancelled as punishment’; ‘There’s a virus going around and exercise tires you out and makes you vulnerable to infection.’ Utter shite like that. At St Grace’s, it’s down there in black and white, and it’s real, structured sports with proper kit, not rubbishy ‘music and movement’ tapes or a shambolic game of rounders. The first module is hockey, with even all the proper leg-pads and face-masks for the keepers. But this also means proper sweat and proper showers, requiring a full change of clothes, including socks and underwear.

  He knows some boys are very uncomfortable about the idea of the showers, because you have to go in there in the buff along with everybody else. The closest they had come to that before was the occasional St Lizzie’s trip to the baths, where you keep your trunks on in the showers, and there are cubicles to get dried and changed in. Martin doesn’t feel particularly awkward about being naked in front of the other boys, though he is a little more self-conscious having seen that some of them have got pubes and far more developed tackle. The showers held only one terror for him yesterday during his first bout of post-PE group-scuddiness, and that was the fear of getting a stauner. This fear wasn’t born of likelihood or precedent, but simply through contemplating the sheer enormity of its consequences should it happen. In the event, as he should have anticipated, fear itself made sure it was a physiological impossibility, having roughly the same shrivelling effect as had the water been ice cold.

  That accounted for some of the first PE spike, along with the rumours that the male PE teachers were super-strict bad bastards and ninth-dan experts at giving the belt. (Or ‘the lash’, as it is officially known in St Grace’s Secondary argot. Further to be noted is that ‘gut laugh’ is now as square and thoroughly poofy as flares and cords. Anything funny is now a ‘deck laugh’, or merely ‘a pure deck’; and, verb-wise, you now deck yourself laughing. ‘Gemmie’ would also appear to be on the road out among means of expressing approval, with ‘gallus’ the new preferred term of the cognoscenti. They should give out Roneo bulletin sheets, appoint an editor.)

  Their teacher is actually all right. Better than all right, though nobody would be in a hurry to mess with him. Mr Blake, his name is. When he came into the changing room yesterday, he did this sergeant-major act, getting them all to their feet, chins up, hands behind their backs, told them they would be starting off with a five-mile ‘yomp’ through the nearby farm and woodland, and anyone who didn’t manage it in less than an hour was getting six of the belt before being made to do it again. “Or we could have a wee game of hockey.” He’d then made a few jokes and taken the piss out of people, which made everybody relax.

  Martin—in common with most of his classmates—has never had a male teacher before this week, apart from Momo, and he’s not sure that counts as he was just the heidie, and taught nobody much beyond Advanced Pensioner Carriageway Perambulation. He’d thus feared that they would be a truly intimidating breed, but had, he realises, reckoned without the long-term effects of three years under O’Connor. After her, every male teacher he’s encountered so far has been like a favourite uncle. There’s another male PE teacher, Mr Cook, who looks like a gorilla: all hair and muscles and a glowering demeanour, but 1S1 and 1S2 got him yesterday and Gary said he was a good laugh, too.

  However, Gary said something else that was a match for Martin’s PE experience, and that is the source of his current unease. Yesterday, it took Martin less than a couple of minutes to change into his shorts, T-shirt and trainers, but as Gary also reported from his class, it was close to fifteen minutes before the teacher showed up to lead them outside.

  Further confirmation comes from Tam Mclntosh, sitting three places down the bench. “The PE teachers have a cuppa tea thegither while we’re gettin changed. It’s ayeways the same, ma big brer tellt us. They know fine it takes us two minutes tae get ready, but they sit oan their erses for a good quarter ay an hour. They only come up if it gets dead noisy, an that’s just because it makes it harder tae concentrate on readin the fuckin paper.”

  “That’s what I heard as well,” agrees someone else.

  Yesterday there was an uncertainty about it, the inhibiting effect of thinking that the teacher could walk into the changing room at any moment. But today Martin—and everybody else—can be sure that adult supervision is, at this moment, finitely but effectively suspended. The PE teachers’ ‘base’ is at the far end of the corridor, thirty or forty yards away, with one boys’ and two girls’ changing rooms between there and here.

  Since Monday, few to none of the fears surrounding the move to the big school have proven to have foundation. In the final few weeks of primary, you’d have got the impression it was going to be heid-flushing by rota throughout every break. Consequently, there were a lot of full bladders on Monday, with most people finally breaking at some point over lunch, but their visits to the boys’ bogs proved incident-free. Predictions of small-scale civil war between factions hailing from different primary schools have proven to be complete mince, or in the case of some, mere wishful thinking. However, it’s fair to say that so far, on the whole, people have tended to stick with who they know during the intervals.

  Here, in this dressing room, is a crucible, a melting pot like nothing his childhood has known. Stripped literally naked, they are all thrown together, ungoverned, without the playground’s scope for keeping your distance or flat-out running away. Here, in this dressing room, a different law will prevail: mob rule, the law of the jungle, the devil take the hindmost, Martin can’t say which yet. All he knows for certain is that none of them tend to work out too well for the wee timid guy. He also knows that mobs don’t rule themselves, that every jungle has its king, and that the devil needs an advocate.

  It was a mere matter of arithmetic probability, in
combining the pupils from three primary schools and dividing by six, that each first-year class would have a proven hard-case in its number. Therefore, you would have thought it fifty-fifty that any particular class would find itself with just one of those schools’ acknowledged Best Fighters. But not 1S5. Not Martin’s class. No. Despite those odds, they had ended up with Kenny Langton and Chick Dunlop: the respective heavyweight title-holders of St Gregory’s and St Margaret’s—and, outside of Momo, the two biggest, scariest guys Martin had ever shared a classroom with. In fact, they were probably bigger than Momo; certainly taller than a few of the teachers Martin had encountered so far.

  He has heard it speculated that it is inevitable the pair of them will fight, most probably sooner rather than later, in order to stake their claim for the currently vacant First Year overall combined Best Fighter title and all that it will bring. This definitely sounds like wishful thinking, Martin reckons, as he is sure it would take something a lot more important than bragging rights to make either of these monsters decide to take their chances with the other. So far, they are showing every sign of becoming big buddies and thus forming a formidable alliance. Martin would have to admit to being among those wishing they would fight, if only because if they did have a battle, there’d at least be scope to keep in with one in order to get protection from the other. His other wish would be that the fight happen on a day when Robbie is off sick, as to that wee shite it would be like missing the World Cup Final. Martin’s been split up from his pals Scot and Coco, which was a big disappointment, but getting rid of Robbie is a brammer of a silver lining.

  §

  Aldo Dawson, the guy three pegs down from Colin, has his cock out and is having a wank in full view of everyone in the changing room.

  The rules have changed.

  He’s never seen one anything like as big. Actually, come to think of it, he’s never seen another one in anything but its resting state, which adds to the shock value, as when his own gets stiff, it merely sticks up. It doesn’t grow like that. Jesus Christ, it’s huge. The guy’s got his whole hand around it, jerking it up and down. Now he understands the ‘wanker’ gesture, as a closed fist around his own would totally envelop the thing and have a couple of fingers to spare.

  In Primary Six, Stephen Brogan was having a pee at the far end of the urinal when Janny Johnny came in and wedged the door right to the wall, intending to mop the floor. This had the result that Zoe Lawson saw inside as she was walking past. She saw him from the back, that’s all, but she saw him having a pee, so that was that, pure slagging for Stephen.

  The rules have definitely changed.

  “Heh, Micky-boy, you might want tae think aboot movin seats,” says Davie Keenan to Michael McGhee, who is sitting directly opposite Aldo, on the bench against the far wall.

  Micky shifts uneasily and slides along the bench closer to Craig Finnegan, who playfully pushes him back towards the imaginary line of fire.

  “Micky’s just feart he gets a wash,” says Liam Paterson.

  “Aye, very good,” Micky retorts. “Just cause you managed tae sneak oot wi the family towel this mornin, ya black bastart.”

  Lots of them laugh, but Colin doesn’t. For one thing, he doesn’t consider it safe, as those who laughed all know each other from St Gregory’s; and for another, he’s still confused and catching up. It used to be that you were fair game if you were considered too posh, from a ‘boat hoose’, too soft, too smartly turned-out, too clean. At St Grace’s, those rules have been turned on their heads and most of the terms of abuse seem to centre upon lax personal hygiene and domestic poverty. You get slagged for being poor. You get slagged for being dirty, or ‘black’ as the preferred term has it. He can’t quite get his head around it, not least because he’s seldom observed these exchanges from any position of security against becoming the target.

  “Yous don’t have a clue,” says Aldo, still giving his wrist a steady-paced workout. “Yous aw think it’s gaunny go shootin across the room like a fireman’s hose or hit the ceilin or some-thin. Shows you don’t have spunk or you’d know. It’s no like pish. Just a wee dribble compared tae pish.”

  “Ten CC,” says Craig.

  “Whit?”

  “That’s how much. That’s why that band’s called Ten CC. It’s the amount of spunk that comes oot.”

  “Is that right?” Aldo asks, fair tickled by it.

  “Aye. I read aboot it. There was a band called the Lovin’ Spoonful, too—that’s what that meant as well.”

  “Wonder if we can ask Miss Coleman aboot it when we get tae Section Six?” Aldo says. “Please, miss, how much spunk comes oot your knob when you shoot your load?”

  Everyone is decking themselves. Colin finds it particularly funny, which is perhaps why he ventures a response before his natural caution can restrain him.

  “Well, Allan,” he says, putting on a female teacher’s voice, “the best scientific method would be to have a ham-shank into this test-tube, and then we can measure it precisely.”

  Aldo laughs, though none of the others had until he started. Colin notes that Robbie has been looking on with interest. He’ll be disappointed Aldo reacted well to the joke; more so that Colin has made a positive impact.

  “You’re a cheeky bastart, Coco,” Aldo says, but he’s smiling, thank fuck. “Fuckin test-tube? A beaker more like.”

  Folk have been calling him Coco since Primary Seven. He can’t remember how or when it started, or even who said it first. It’s good to have a nickname, and he could have done worse, but he can’t help feeling that somehow Coco is always going to be a wee guy’s name. He’s noticed that of all the boys called James, it’s always the bigger, stronger, harder ones who get called Jai, and it’s a name that needs to be conferred by others. If Noodsy decided to start calling himself Jai, he’d be the only one doing it.

  “Liam would just need one of those pipettes,” says Mick.

  “You can talk,” Liam retorts. “Knob like a knot in a hanky.”

  “Whit’s Section Six?” asks Craig.

  “You never seen it yesterday?” asks Mick.

  “Woa-ho-ho,” says Aldo delightedly, still leisurely chugging.

  Colin assumes Craig must have been sleeping or something. It was the first page everybody turned to as soon as they got their science textbooks, if only to confirm that what they had heard was true. It wasn’t up to much, right enough: just line-drawn diagrams, and the woman never even had any fanny-hair. Big disappointment, really, but the laugh was just in seeing sex stuff written down in a school textbook.

  “That’s the bit where they dae sex education,” Mick tells Craig. “It looks a pure laugh. The teacher has tae tell ye aboot cocks gettin up fannies an aw that.”

  “Looks shite tae me,” Colin ventures, buoyed by his previous success. “Be better with a scud-book.” He’s winging it a bit on this one, as the most he has seen of a scud-book was a fragment of a ripped page his cousin found down the park once. It was sun-bleached and wrinkled from damp, but he’d been able to make out that the photo was of a naked woman with her legs open, though the weathering effect was like looking at it through net curtains.

  “Aye,” says Robbie eagerly, making his first contribution. “Ma brers fun wan doon the Craigy Park.”

  Aldo laughs, which is a response Robbie was neither wanting nor expecting.

  “How come folk ayeways find scud-books doon the Craigy or up the Carnockside? You never hear somebody sayin their big brer bought wan oot a shop or they fun it in their uncle’s hoose. They aye find it at the park. Maybe scud-books grow in parks, like fuckin mushrooms or somethin.”

  They all laugh. Robbie joins in. Colin knew he would, even if inside he was raging. Robbie always laughs when the big men crack a joke, no matter if it’s on him.

  “They did, but,” Robbie insists. “I got a look at it. The fannies never looked like the picture in Section Six, but.”

  Liam leans across, suddenly curious. “Could you see their baws?” he ask
s.

  “Whit?” responds just about everybody.

  “Lassies don’t have baws,” a few of them splutteringly point out, barely able to believe their luck that a classmate could have laid himself open like this.

  “Well, that’s what I thought, but that’s what it fuckin says in Section Six. Christ, I had to look for the tits to be sure which diagram was the wummin.”

  The hilarity grows, but Colin suspects he’s not the only one trying to remember details from a diagram that they only got to glimpse before Miss Coleman called the class to order.

  “Fuck’s sake, Liam,” says Aldo. “You’ve a wee sister. Have you no seen her in the scud?”

  “Aye, but she’s fuckin nine. Lassies’ fannies change when they get aulder.”

  “Aye, they get gammon flaps. They don’t grow baws.”

  “I know that. They don’t grow baws baws. But they get some-thin. The book says they’re called ogaries. I was just wonderin if Robbie saw them in his brers’ scud-book.”

  Robbie looks a wee bit put-upon now, like he’s not sure how to answer this one. Colin wonders if this means he was making it up about the scud-book.

  “It was mostly just hair you could see,” he says, a bit of a climbdown. “That’s what I meant aboot different fae Section Six.” He attempts to climb back up again by adding: “But ma brers say ye get these scud-books fae Denmark that show ye pure everythin.”

  “Are they from parks in Denmark?” Colin asks.

  They all deck themselves, but he can tell Robbie didn’t like this. He’s aware Robbie could decide to get nasty about this later but feels strangely safe amid his new classmates’ laughter.

  “Only wan way tae settle this,” Aldo decides. “We get Caroline McLaughlin in fae the lassies’ changin room and get her scants doon. If any ay them’s got a hairy fanny an a set ay ogaries, it’s gaunny be her.”