The Queen of Bloody Everything

by Joanna Nadin

  Third Year at Malory Towers

  September 1983

  Of all the hierarchies I have had to fathom, to find my place in, fumble my way slowly up, there is none so complicated, so all-consuming, as the one that dictates your rank at secondary school.

  Forget primary. Primary is a game of kick-can in the park compared to this; its pigtail-pulling and name-calling rounds of You smell, No, you smell just line-writing practice for bigger and badder things. Secondary school is where it really starts. A battlefield in ballet flats; an Edith Wharton world in which conspicuousness passes for distinction, and the wrong shoes can buy you a ticket to seven years of, at best, obscurity, and, at worst, daily humiliation. A decision as seemingly simple as where you sit in the canteen can dictate your social ranking for your entire school life. Yes, your stock might rise if you get pixie boots from Chelsea Girl, or persuade your mother to let you get your hair cut into a rat’s tail. Or fall if you let David Stainton put his fingers in your knickers at the lower-school disco. But, in short, you are the sum of your dumbest utterings and your most unflattering outfits.

  You were right, Edie. It is Lord of the bloody Flies.

  And me? I am Piggy.

  Somehow I had managed to negotiate primary in spite of myself. Or maybe because of myself. There, my strangeness was alluring, my ability to swear held in the highest esteem, and my ready access to biscuits hard currency in the playground swapsies regime. For one single packet of pink wafers I managed to acquire a pair of Sindy shoes, seven Panini dinosaur stickers and a Matchbox digger. Besides, when you’re eight, nine, ten, who cares where your clothes come from or where you come from when there’s hopscotch to be played or handstands to be compared for straightness and duration?

  But here, in the vast teenage wasteland of legs, lipstick, and Lady Di cuts, nothing about me fits. And while Harry slips seamlessly into her new position as third-prettiest girl in the year – beaten only by Dawn Heaton and Julie Gilhoolie, and only because both of them have older sisters and bigger bras – I am relegated to the bottom of the league. Admittedly, there are others worse off than me: Maria Costain who wears a head brace, Jeanette Pledger who has some kind of skin disorder, and the entire remedial class. But even with Harry to lift my stock, my place is set: I am an oddball, a weirdo, a girl least likely.

  And you? You only conspire to make it worse.

  I am thirteen and awkward; aware, suddenly, of every cell in my body, every ounce of flesh, every spot, every poorly executed hairdo, or poorly thought-out sock choice. I wear the same market-bought rah-rah skirts as the others, hock the same blue eyeliner from Woolworths on a Saturday, declare I am on the same diet of carrot sticks and orange juice that will not only shed half a stone but make my skin as tanned as George Michael’s. Because where you strive to be different, beg the world to see you, acknowledge you, I wish for nothing more than to pass through life unnoticed, unremarked upon. To slip, golem-like, down corridors and into classrooms without comment, to be left alone in the sanctuary of the library so I can indulge my lingering addiction to Blyton’s school stories, imagining a world with strict uniform, come-uppance, and, best of all, a swimming pool in the cliffs.

  But I am foiled, damned from the start. Because, it seems, if I am not prepared to stand up and be counted, you will do it for me.

  In later years I learned to lie, to hide the school’s notes about uniform abuses, or class visits from our Conservative MP, or to a pet food factory. Or, better, to forge your spidery signature. But in the first week of my third year, I was still naive enough, green enough, optimistic enough to think you’d scrawl your name on the dotted line and be done. I even pick a moment when you are suitably distracted – a canvas propped on the stand at the attic window, the beginnings of a distorted figure beginning to take form. You are experimenting again, trying to find – or refind – your subject and your medium, but it appears to be neither still life nor oil.

  ‘That’s good,’ I say, though I have no idea what is good about it, art not being one of my accomplishments, along with geography (for of what interest is an oxbow lake compared to the landscape of Middle Earth?) and netball.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ you reply. ‘It’s sixth-form bollocks. Bloody awful.’

  I shrug, my current preferred means of communication. Besides, I am as clueless as ever. Sixth form, to me, is the pinnacle of achievement and kudos, promising a common room, coffee, and the right to call the drama teacher Dave, while demanding nothing in return but sneering condescension and a wardrobe of band T-shirts. I have never heard of it being used as an insult.

  You drop your brush, disgusted with yourself, sending a spatter of crow-black across your own bare toes, then light a cigarette, eyeing my galumphing presence – all slumped shoulders and toes turned in – with suspicion. ‘What’s that you’ve got there, then?’ you ask, nodding at my hands, which are contorted behind my back.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’ You hold your hand out, expectant. ‘Come on, dish.’

  Reluctantly, I do, offering you a crumpled sheet, sticky with KitKat stains. ‘It’s for electives,’ I explain. ‘We get to choose two, instead of having just PE.’

  You scan the list, looking for my ‘X’ marked neatly in the boxes.

  ‘Drama.’ You nod with approval, and I feel the spring coiled tight in my stomach relax an increment. But too soon. ‘Book club? What’s that?’

  ‘We . . . read books?’

  ‘But you do that anyway. That’s all you bloody do. What about art? Or—’ You scan the list again, grasp at something, anything. ‘Woodwork. You could do woodwork.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Why not? It’d be good for you. Create something. You could make a bloody bookcase. Ha!’ You laugh at your ingenuity, at the perfection of your plan.

  But there’s a flaw.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m not allowed,’ I say, hoping this explanation will suffice.

  You look blankly at me. ‘And why might that be? Have you attempted blue murder on Mr Whateverhisnameis?’

  I feel the spring tighten. ‘No,’ I say, stammer. ‘It’s— it’s because— it’s because it’s for boys.’

  I say the word with as much trepidation and reverence I would give to fuck or fascist. The response it elicits is proportionate, and terrifying.

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?’

  To your credit, your opening shot is measured, calm even, by your standards: a letter to Mr Collins, our dough-faced and entirely ineffectual headmaster, fat liver spots dotting his hands and forehead, and his sparse hair like persistent wisps of Caramac. On a single page of violet Basildon Bond, you demand to know why he is operating a system of effective apartheid, likening him to P. W. Botha and thus, by insinuation, yourself or me, maybe, to a beleaguered Mandela. You end with a demand that he immediately allow me to take both woodwork and metalwork, along with any other girls who desire it, while also questioning why they would even offer home economics and needlework, which only encourage drudgery and domesticity, two things I suspect Mr Collins lives for.

  ‘But I don’t want to do metalwork,’ I protest. ‘Or woodwork. They’re boring. And hard.’

  ‘Not the bloody point,’ you reply. ‘This isn’t about lessons, this is about penises.’ It is always about penises. ‘Why should you be excluded from anything because you don’t have one?’

  ‘They’re excluded from needlework,’ I remind you.

  ‘Everyone should be excluded from that,’ you counter. ‘Besides, half the world’s haute couture is made by men. Givenchy. Dior . . .’ You flap a hand, grasping for another name. ‘That bald one. Penises don’t stop them sewing. Penises—’

  ‘All right!’ I interrupt, desperate for you not to say the ‘p’ word a single time more. ‘Here, I’ll post it now.’

  ‘I’m not wasting a stamp on him,’ you reply. ‘Besides.’ You smile. ‘You’ll probably try to sabotage
it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I lie.

  But you clearly don’t believe me, though I have no idea why, because sabotage is your field really, another one I’ve never shown any talent for.

  ‘No.’ Your mind is made up. ‘I’ll hand it over myself in the morning.’

  And with a lick of glue, if not a loving kiss, my fate as lower-school laughing stock is sealed.

  Harry, of course, is delighted, ambling easily by your side as she recounts what an ‘utter fucker’ each of the boys we pass is.

  ‘Adrian Boyle. Utter fucker. He once unclipped my bra through my shirt in chemistry.’

  ‘Utter fucker,’ you agree.

  Then, a minute later, ‘Paul Mull. Utter fucker. He dumped Kirsty Coogan’s tampons in the tadpole tank.’

  ‘Utter fucker,’ you agree. ‘What about him?’ You point to Lee Sweet, who is, that very moment, twisting Gary Bower’s head in an armlock as he tries to push him into a pile of dog poo.

  ‘Fucker,’ Harry proclaims. ‘Utter. He once tried to stick his hand up Dido’s skirt in assembly.’

  ‘You never told me that,’ you complain.

  ‘I forgot,’ I lie. And I shoot Harry a look I hope would fell a colossus, but only succeed in making her eyes roll.

  ‘You could report him,’ you say. ‘Maybe I’ll report him.’

  As I am about to plead mercy, or pray for the ground to swallow me, Harry finally comes to my rescue. ‘You’d have to report the whole school,’ she points out.

  ‘True,’ Edie says. ‘Utter fuckers. I blame penises.’

  And with that word ringing in my ears, and dancing on the tongues of several first years milling around the gates still unsure of their place, or route to it, you finally, mercifully, abandon us, abiding as I insist you do by the rule that dictates parents must use the upper staff entrance.

  ‘God, bloody rules, Di,’ you say. ‘Don’t step on the cracks, don’t colour outside the lines. You sound like your grandmother.’

  I smart, knowing this is the worst kind of insult possible, but cling still to the idea of boundaries. Because I like rules. Rules make sense of things. Rules make things safe. Harry’s house is full of rules and I know them all, and stick to them, earning if not a gold star, then at least an appreciative smile from Angela.

  ‘You just . . . can’t come this way,’ I insist.

  ‘Fine,’ you relent. ‘I’ll see you later.’ To my joy you don’t attempt to hug me, just stalk up the hill in an inky blue-black ballgown, a blot on the landscape, a thorn in my side.

  I spend the day on tenterhooks, fidgeting at my desk, my stomach a restless, churning sea, half expecting to be hauled out of chemistry by the lemon-sharp school secretary Miss Loach and frogmarched to the office to explain myself, and you.

  But the day passes in its habitual march of clock-tocking, desk-scrawling, toe-tapping tedium, the only nod to your presence on school property an assertion from a fourth year alleged to have a penis as thin as a Peperami, that he would do you. To which Harry trumps him with an in your dreams, with what?

  But this is nothing, child’s play, sticks and stones; the real humiliation is being saved for second course.

  ‘What happened?’ Harry calls into the kitchen, as we fling ourselves down in the front room, me on an uncomfortable, hair-ridden armchair clearly once reserved for a cat, she on the worn chaise longue – your spot.

  ‘Collins?’ You glide in, two glasses of Coke in your hand, complete with cocktail umbrellas. ‘Oh, he said no.’

  Relief washes through me, a cold shower on your towering inferno of intent. But it is brief, and ill-placed.

  ‘So,’ you continue, ‘I wrote to the paper instead.’

  That ghost of a cat takes hold of my tongue. I am unable to speak.

  ‘Which one?’ Harry demands.

  ‘The Walden Weekly. Not that they’ll publish it. Bunch of bloody fascists. But one has to fight the good fight, regardless. Next stop Fleet Street.’

  ‘Cool,’ drawls Harry.

  The cat loosens its grip, or I become more determined. ‘What, exactly, did you say?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ You wave a hand dismissively. ‘Sexist whatever. I can’t remember the exact words.’

  Please don’t have used the ‘p’ word, I think. Please don’t have mentioned me.

  But you did, both. I know this because the ‘bloody fascists’ published the letter in full two days later, though at least with the ‘p’ word redacted. To protect the sensibilities of its small-minded readers, you say, who are in denial about the existence of many ‘p’ things, from penises to police brutality. Though perverts, they believe, are lurking around every corner.

  ‘Exceptional,’ you declare, dropping the copy amid the clutter of the kitchen table. ‘They’ve even spelled our names right.’

  ‘Exceptional,’ I mutter, and stamp up to my bedroom to drown my defeat in Vimto and the vicarious thrill of Tolkien. But not even Bilbo can protect me from the rounds of abuse and ridicule the orcs fling at me the following morning.

  ‘Lezzer.’

  ‘Commie.’

  ‘I bet she’s got a bloody penis.’

  ‘Ignore them,’ Harry says. ‘They’re only saying it because they’ve got minuscule ones. It’s women’s rights,’ she shouts back at Lee Sweet.

  ‘Since when have you cared about women’s rights?’ I ask.

  ‘Since forever,’ she insists. ‘Edie says . . .’ But I don’t get to hear what you’ve said because it’s blocked out by another shout of ‘gayer’ from Michael Marshall, a boy whose sole achievement, as far as I can tell, is to have a head the size of a motorbike helmet.

  But worse is to come. A week later, after a record eighty-nine complaints, Mr Collins decides that the school must move with the times, nay, pioneer a new attitude, and possession of a penis is no longer allowed to be a deciding factor for participation in any lesson (bar netball, because there is no precedent, still less demand, and basketball is similar enough).

  You are victorious, of course: you have stood up, been counted, and any pillorying, any name-calling has been worth it.

  Me? I am forced to imagine what wonders will be discussed at book club, what worlds entered, what stories conjured, all the while watching Paul Mull weld his watch to the table, and listening to Adrian Boyle tell mildly racist jokes. That, Edie, is where breaking rules got me. The only girl in a sea of penises, because Harry of course failed to follow her ideals into practice, or failed to secure Angela’s signature, and opted instead for home economics.

  What Katy Did

  December 1983

  You were already a chameleon when we came to this town, or so the photos tell me, shifting allegiance as swiftly, expertly, and frequently as you changed your sleeping arrangements; sloughing off your self and slipping into a new one whenever you tired of the current incarnation, or when someone else tired of you. But Great-Aunt Nina’s wardrobe extended your repertoire in both volume and eccentricity, so that I never knew which Edie was going to emerge each day: Monroe or Dietrich or Daisy Buchanan; happy-go-lucky Edie or the hard-done-by one; the Edie who threw tantrums and toys from her pram, or the one who thought to herself ‘what a wonderful world’. But whichever version I got, you pulled it off with aplomb, word-perfect, the lines of fact and fiction blurring seamlessly on your spare frame. Though, disappointingly, you were never the mothers I plucked from the pages of Ransome or Nesbit – stoic, sensible, strict. The kind who never swear, who are always there, and who know what a nutritious meal comprises.

  In my head I am other people too: I am all heroes and all villains; I am Dorothy in her red shoes and the Wicked Witch of the West as well; I am Sandra Fayne in The Swish of the Curtain and poor, poor Patsy from Break in the Sun. But these are flights of fancy, you understand, daydreams. I don’t act them out, just mouth their words silently, and imagine having their bravery, their tragedy, their clothes.

  Because I appear to lack your sleight of hand, your conjuring trick
s, your daring; the real me seems stolid, inescapable, locked as it is in my still-awkward body and bound by my ever-awkward name.

  What did you think was going to happen to me with a name like Dido? In Manchester, or in the squat, where everyone was foreshortened, or rechristened, or filthily nicknamed, the name was nothing, light as a puffball, just another offbeat moniker in a roll call that included a Juno, a Psychic Petra, and not one but two Govindas (one born Deborah Hastings, one born Steve).

  But here, at an Essex high school in, at best, suburbia, there are four Sharons, five Tracys (and two Traceys and one Tracie), six Emmas, seven Karens and at least seventeen Sarahs.

  But there is only one Dido.

  Or, more commonly, Dodo. Or sometimes Doodoo, as in dog shit. And, increasingly, as us girls allegedly mature, and boys slip the other way, Dildo. And that is the name that takes, a gift of a shitty stick for our year’s most talented bullies: Tracey One and Tracey Two.

  ‘Oi, Dildo,’ Tracey One shouts down B corridor at break. ‘Up yourself much?’

  ‘Dildo,’ snickers Tracey Two. ‘Closest you’ll get to a cock looking like that.’

  I feel humiliation wash through me, feel the prick of tears threatening to fall.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Harry says, pushing her arm through mine.

  But it’s all right for her. She’s protected by the invisible force field afforded by thinness, a boob tube, and a ‘wing attack’ tabard. Plus, she’s called Harry, which is not only vaguely normal, but has the added kudos of being unisex.

  So is it any surprise that when you dangle the shiny golden bauble of becoming someone else by deed poll, I snatch it?

  We’re in our kitchen – you, me, and Harry. You, at the centre, holding court; Harry watching and learning, absorbing every inflection, every gesture for the time when she inherits that position, all eyes on her at the corner table in the Duke as she recounts her latest mishap or mistake, or someone else’s.

  But for now, it is you who are still the star. And you are revelling in it.