What I got out of our partnership, apart from a gloriously unfair cut of cornflake tart come Friday at half past twelve, was protection from being called a Pakistani.
'Oi! Shut yer cakehole!' Stacey's shoulders brisded if anyone suggested it. 'Andrea's half Maltese and half Italian, yer spasmo! Definitely not one bit Paid.'
She was known to yank V-necks out of shape when her words didn't get across first time, pulling noses right up to hers so that their owners didn't dare breathe: 'All right?'
'Malteser!' The yard landed on a nickname that kept us all happy, scoring a joke about my chocolatey skin colour, but making the point that I was not Pakistani. 'Oi! Malteser! What colour knickers you got on under that tent, then, eh?'
'It's all that foreign blood, in't it?' Lads scrabbled to explain
why a French accent happened on to my tongue when Mr Warburton asked me to stand up and pronounce bits of vocabulary for the benefit of the class. The words hummed off my lips, although I knew I would never see the country they came from. French was a cinch compared to the languages you had to leap into the second the bell rang for break. One for the lips, one for the legs. Strolling down the corridor without swaggering, you had to speak as if you were chewing gum, slurring all the usual words, tossing a few filthy ones in.
While Stacey's broadcasts saved me from having to explain about my skin, I still felt the need to lock myself in the school toilets from time to time. By the end of the dinner hour, my face was dying for time off.
'Wot, no titties?' I had to laugh rather than cry when lads rubbed my bee-sting breasts, after reaching to ping my bra strap and discovering that I hadn't grown out of my vest.
'You starting?' Hard girls shoved their chests against mine.
'Oh aye!' I squared my shoulders too, shuffling in sweaty circles while keeping up a smile.
The worst strain was on Wednesday afternoons, when you had to put on a brave face to get through the games period. Badminton sessions were the most scary: if you got beaten, you'd shoot to the top of the list for bullying; if you beat the girl on the other side of the net, she would be tempted to clonk you one afterwards, to get even and save face. Often, someone would be tempted to clonk you one anyway, if they didn't like the look of you. When the pretty but miserable Michelle gave me the thump she'd been saving since she first saw me, I had to hit her back straight away, grip her in a choking hug, and wrestle her flat on the tarmac, before I could get up and walk away. Kids droned like flies while we threshed on the ground - arms locked, wriggling legs - looking more like lovers than enemies.
'You want to watchit!' Thugs mingled with cowards, joking
about the strength lurking behind my smile and in my scrawny limbs. 'She can be mad 'ard when she wants to be, that one!'
After the fight, I had to go and hide in the loo, where I sat tight until I could be sure that all the red blotches had drained from my cheeks, that the dew had dried off my eyelashes. Then I flushed the bowl and breezed out, wearing the same grin as went in.
My mother spotted the maroon leather singed black in the scuffle. 'What happened to your new shoes?'
I looked down at the scar as if it was news to me, what went on around my toes.
'It must be from when I slipped this morning, running for the bus.'
My mother shook her head at the sight of my knee-length socks, shoved down to sag around the ankles, the way all the tough girls wore theirs at school.
'You'll watch where you're going in ftiture,' she gave me one of her glares, 'if you know what's good for you.'
I glanced both ways along the corridor, then pulled my socks back up to my knees to show respect, before passing through double doors engraved to demand silence. The library was more awesome than church, and unless you had a gold merit badge, awarded for lOO merit marks, borrowing books was not allowed.
AVIATION. I eased out the book, and squatted in the aisle. Curious clock faces within clock faces, endless switches, levers and dials ticked and flashed between the covers. Seven years, the print predicted, at least seven years it would take to train your brain to remember what every one of them did. I eased the book back into its dusty gap.
I would have reclining seats installed next to the cockpit, for Laurie, Sarah and Mum - not forgetting a see-through floor so that they could contemplate the ocean - after I had framed the pilot school certificates and launched my high-flying career.
In the middle of my fourth maths lesson, something marvellous occurred. Answers began to slide straight into my skull. I knew what it must feel like to sit in the front row, shooting your hand in the air to declare everything you happened to know.
'Two X plus y, going to three x minus two y,' Mr Butcher's breath panted, while his arm flourished chalky magic.
In a flash, without unpacking the formulae on the page, the solution zinged to my lips.
It was all I could do not to blurt it out. Trapping my fingers under my thighs, I sat on both hands until the urge died down.
Next lesson, I couldn't resist.
'Five x plus three y. Sir.'
Up shot my hand, out flew the words. No hisses from the back row.
'Seven x minus two y.'
Once could be passed off as an accident. Twice was something else.
'Three x plus y.'
A column of mustard and milky necks twisted to throw frowns over their shoulders from the flummoxed front row.
My eyebrows did a little waltz.
'Ras!' A wave of rasping and clucking washed across the back rows. 'Da bitch knows how to stick it!'
Our Humanities teacher, Miss Craig, rattled in a dinosaur of a telly on wheels, married to a mean-looking machine - a video - designed to record educational programmes off BBC2 and play them back at any time. Bending over in her men's slacks to plug this bit into that, her bottom presented its width to the world. Miss Craig was so far from pretty that you left her class brooding over what you would do if you woke up one morning to find that you looked like that too. But when she spoke, facts and figures poured out from across the universe, putting you in awe of her magical mind. The video whirred, splashing salmon after salmon upstream to lay millions of gungy eggs. Crashing against the current, these creatures would go to lengths that might seem insane. Miss Craig explained, sometimes killing themselves in the struggle to protect their species from extinction.
After the salmon, the lady from the family planning clinic came in. A few things to do with the birds and the bees were about to be made clear, she joked in a shaky voice. Then the screen sprang to life, and teemed with the naked bodies - the completely naked bodies - of plump and skinny girls and boys holding hands around a pool. Our faces burned in the dark, having to watch them standing there starkers for what seemed like light years. Eventually, they all sploshed in together. In the middle of a satiny bed, a man with a beard stroked the bare shoulders of a lady with a big nose while the word love popped up in the corner, prompting a burst of hisses and boos. The screen blinked to produce an expectant mother, rubbing a huge belly beneath a huge smile. My hairs stood on end when a bloody head began to squidge its way out between legs spread across the screen.
Sperm and egg. Penis, vagina, womb. We broke out of class to go our separate ways, more than usually grateftil for the end
of the day. The film had injected X-ray vision: it was impossible to look at your schoolmates without seeing straight through their clothes. From the top deck of the bus on the way home, I gazed through the grimy windows at people scurrying along the streets. It seemed a wonder our own species had not become extinct, considering what had to be put where in order to keep it going.
Beverley was the bionic black girl everyone was scared of, having witnessed her tossing javelins and putting the shot on Wednesday afternoons. She strode like a god across the schoolyard, her brown frown scattering kids like the parting of the sea. Even teachers looked the other way while she conducted her break-time business, selling single cigarettes.
'Mash ya face!' She t
ook a shine to my high cheekbones, giving them a good pinch.
I got used to having my face tweaked so that my eyes watered. Tall girls hit me with friendly filthy names, in Rasta lilts that slipped when they got flustered, flat Mancunian falling out instead. 'Ras ya cunt,' they might be laughing and clicking their fingers, until some lad landed them a thump, and 'Oi wanker!' shot up firom deep down. I learnt to cuss in different colours, before stiffening to match the polite voice I put back on to talk to teachers and dinner ladies.
Blacks were ready to like me and whites were ready to like me, because they saw me as in between. I found myself walking a tightrope, balancing in both worlds as long as both would have me. Only on the way home, when the bus dropped me at the junction, did any fiinny stuff flare up.
'Fuckin' stinkin' Paki!' White girls in gold and brown uniforms pelted pebbles at my head. I had to walk face down, aching to break into a run, pretending not to notice the
stones and jeers. Across the zebra crossing, and my face was saved.
Socks, cats and cold lard greeted me at the door. Piccadilly Radio provided company for Auntie Jackie in the kitchen, John Craven's Newsround bored on in the back room. Laurie and Sarah were discussing John Craven's jumper, and looking out for rhinos and pandas that sometimes turned up at the end of the programme.
Locking myself in the bathroom, I peered into the mirror over the sink. I tugged and tugged at the cord to persuade the lightbulb to glow in spite of the dodgy connection where wires spilled and flakes of plaster fell like dandruff from the loose fitting in the ceiling. I strained to stand on tiptoe. The mirror was rusted and warped. The light kept flickering and dying. A fishy stare loomed in the gloom.
I took the stairs two at a time, to find my mother in bed in our attic, where the curtains had been pulled tight.
'Mum.' I burst in and clicked on the light. 'Tell me the truth: do I look Pakistani?'
Slumped under the covers in her camp bed, her eyes were a world away.
'Don't be mard, Andy.'
I lifi:ed her hand off^the bedspread. 'I do, don't I?'
But she hardly responded. Her fingers sagged, a bag of bones in my palm. 'Are you all right. Mum?' Rubbing her knuckles between my fingers: 'Are you poorly? Is it to do with money?'
Auntie Jackie had begun to let out gusty sighs, pining for more notes to cover the rent, on Friday pay nights.
'I just need a bit of sleep.' My mother shrank under the blankets. 'Stop fretting, will you?'
Something sour in her voice kept me from reaching out to
trace the hairs along her eyebrows, mussed up against the pillow.
'Put the light out, there's a love.' I switched off the light, but crouched by her side in the dark. By the time I had worked up enough courage to kiss her hands or stroke her face, my mother's chest was heaving to its own, unfathomable lullaby.
Our mother lost her job while she was under the weather. The doctor typed a certificate to explain her nervous condition, but the geriatrics' home couldn't wait for her to get better. Sick note or no sick note - while she was snoring under sweaty covers, old folks were in bed too, dying for someone full of life to come along and feed them, to sponge their bums, change their knickers and tease out their teeth at night.
'I feel as ancient as that lot,' our mother moaned. Auntie Jackie tried to jolly her along, reminding her she had not even hit thirty-two. Was thirty-two young or old? I wondered. All I knew was that my mother's eyes were dull and the springiness had gone fi^om her hair.
'I'm no use to anyone.' She sank into her pillow. 'Not fit for human consumption.'
I thought about the letter that she slept on, inside her pillow case. Our stepfather had written it outside the door one windy night, after driving all the way from Bramhall to see his lawfiil wedded wife. When Auntie Jackie wouldn't let him in, he sat on the step and scribbled. Laurie and I peeked fi^om an upstairs window to watch him grimacing over the scrap of paper and chewed-up biro that Auntie Jackie shoved into his hands. It was the first letter we had ever seen our stepfather write. He slipped it into the letter box before growling away in his van. Our mother read it to herself in front of us, shuddered noiseless tears, then buried it under her pillow and never mentioned it again.
*Go on downstairs.' She shook off our stroking hands and shrivelled under our kisses. 'Go on now, and leave me in peace.'
'What is it?' I asked Auntie Jackie when she and I were alone, peeling potatoes.
Ter mam's a bit depressed.' She turned down the radio to explain. 'But the doctor's prescribed her some tablets, like, and she'll be right as rain in no time.'
'Just with the tablets?'
'Aye, and plenty of shut-eye and tea.' Auntie Jackie chop-chopped at the potatoes.
'D'you think she's missing him?' I whispered.
'What? Yer dad?' She sneered under her specs. 'If that silly arse tries any of his famous bloody performances, he'll have me to answer to.'
I breathed in, savouring the suet of Auntie Jackie's skin, while she flourished the kitchen knife.
'He's waltzed his last waltz, that one.'
Silver flashed, swooped and sliced through raw spuds.
Dance, ah-doo-doo-ah-dance!' Auntie Jackie set our mother's favourite record, Boogie Wonderland, blaring across the room, making everything shake. Ornaments shivered in time with the music, as if they were itching to dance.
Our mother swished down the stairs on silvery high-heels, wearing a silky red dress whose skirt slinked over each step. Laurie and I had dug her old disco sandals out of our suitcase, then mended the wrinkles and cracks in the plastic straps using clear nail varnish. Auntie Jackie had sent for the dress out of her catalogue, so that our mother could look lovely now and pay later.
'Do I look all right?' Our mother bent to kiss us.
'Scrumptious,' Laurie breathed: 'Truly scrumptious, you look.'
'Do I?' She kept glancing from us to her reflection above the sideboard, plucking cat hairs out of nowhere. 'Do I, Jackie?'
'Stop faffing!' Auntie Jackie stuck a cigarette between our mother's lips, rasped a match and held the flame against the tip of her fag until it burst to life. 'You look the business, Lolly.'
A car honked a tune from the street.
'That'll be your blind date!' Auntie Jackie grinned.
Wavering in front of her reflection, our mother stole a last glimpse. 'I don't think I should go.' She frowned at the lady in the mirror, as if she didn't deserve to look so lovely.
'You're going out for a bleedin' good time, Lolly.' Auntie Jackie shoved our mother's tired blue handbag under her arm: 'And that's the end of that.'
Getting home from school lost itis gas-fire magic; our mother would be preoccupied, getting ready to go out on dates that Auntie Jackie had set up. On school nights we ate burgers and tinned spaghetti, sat through Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street, then padded up to bed. Stray honks in the street or the squeak of the front gate catapulted us to the window in our nighties, squashing our noses against glass to take in the top of strange men's heads. Faces got lost in the dark, but we peered closely to watch the way the man walked. Laurie and I liked him to open the door and help our mother like a lady into his car, while she hung on to her handbag and swept up her skirt. One horrible night, her red dress got caught in the slam of a strange car door and she rumbled off without a clue. We slumped back to our mattress, knowing sleep would be slow to come.
'Medicinal' was how Auntie Jackie described our mother's nights out. Something was certainly making her feel better, after all those days when she had been sagging in bed with tired hair, looking hopeless and wrinkly around the eyes.
Now that she was back in the land of the living, she took to margarining our toast again. My importance shrank overnight: I gave up all the jobs I had secredy enjoyed while she had been ill in bed - taking charge of the marmalade, skimming it over each round of toast, nagging Laurie and Sarah to straighten their socks and lace up their shoes for school. But it was worth it, because now
my sisters and I got out of bed with a bounce, instead of shivering and wishing we could stay under the
covers, close to our mother, all day. She would be up and about, looking gorgeous in spite of her shabby pink housecoat, fussing around the kitchen, singing along to the latest songs on the radio. We felt spoiled when she paused between the tunes, turning to call us by old nicknames like Kiddlywinkles and Angelbabes, even making up new ones just for the heck of it.
'Off you pop, then, my Sugar Puffs.' She stood on the front step, clutching the neck of her housecoat against the cold, waving to my sisters and me as we went our separate ways.
'Now we are trees,' the PE mistress declared. Arms sprouted into branches that swayed above our heads to the airy lilts of Simon and Garfunkel. Tree, tree, tree: I strained my shoulders, elbows and wrists, imagining bark in the place of my skin.
'Now, slowly, lose yourselves in the song.' Miss Halliwell turned up the cassette recorder and left us to it.
'I Am A Rock'. Crouching to meet the pong of my pumps, I closed my eyes and wrapped my legs in my arms. The song swept over me - all about a rock feeling no pain - until titters let me know that my navy knickers were on show for all the lads at the back.
The knickers flashed again on Fridays, when PE was in the gymnasium and we had to hurtle over the leather horse or try to scramble up the ropes. My legs let me down when I tried working my way to the top and they were seized by stabbing pains. I slammed back to the stinking blue mat, then heaved on the rope again, eventually snailing all the way up using the muscles inside my thighs. Dangling in my own world, close to the cobwebby ceiling, I looked down on all the others buzzing
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