I don’t know what this had to do with the coal miners but it worked. When she realised the television wasn’t coming back on, she pushed the chair lever forward, the leg rest dropped down, the back of the chair shot forward and lifted her body off the seat into a standing position. As soon as she’d gone I climbed back into the cupboard and switched the electricity back on.
Keith then went upstairs to fetch his little brown suitcase, which is the one he uses to keep his money in. He told me that when he’d filled it to the top he was going to buy an aeroplane ticket to America and go and live there for ever. I hoped he wouldn’t, as I really like having him around. He now has two jobs to help him make enough money to fill the suitcase. The first is doing the lights for a musical called The Rocky Horror Show. He took me to see it one night, and I got to sit next to him at a big table up on a balcony with loads of switches that he uses to turn the different lights on and off on the stage. It was a very peculiar show, with everyone walking around in their knickers and bras. Every five minutes or so Keith has to jump up and grab a big spotlight, which he points at someone on the stage.
In the middle of the table is a big switch with a label underneath that says ‘Fuck Light’. I pointed to it and asked what it did. Keith didn’t explain but said he would let me work the switch when the time was right. About half-way through the show he suddenly switched off all the lights on the stage and everything went dark. He turned to me and whispered, ‘OK, after three, flick that switch.’ The music started, and he counted down and I hit the switch. At that very moment a bright light came on behind a giant screen on the stage. On it was an enormous shadow of a naked man lying on top of a naked woman on a table. He was moving up and down on her in a funny way and kind of moaning. ‘There you go, that’s the Fuck Light!’ Keith said. I think I got it, but as far as I could see the shadow of the man on top was trying to kill the shadow of the girl underneath him, but Keith said it was something else. I’m sure Mum and Dad have never seen The Rocky Horror Show, as I don’t think they would have let me go if they’d known what it was like. It was definitely a show for grown-ups.
14
MOVING ON
My final term at Primrose Hill School went faster than any I could remember, and I wanted to enjoy every last minute of it, such as a big project on the Romans, which included a school trip to Northumberland so we could see how the Romans really lived in Britain. We did a school play about the Romans where at least the horrid Miss Crosby didn’t make me dress up as a woman. Having already got into the secondary school I wanted to go to, there were no more exams or interviews to worry about. At home things were about to change too. Our nanny and housekeeper, Marina González, decided it was time to return to Spain. She told Mum that a man called Franco was going to die soon, and that was the reason she wanted to go home. Mum and Dad decided not to find another live-in nanny, which would free up our top floor for separate bedrooms for me, Tom, Kate and Jeanie. With everything else going on, Dad was spending his summer in Sussex at the Glyndebourne opera, where he was doing a production called The Cunning Little Vixen. He was staying in the main house at Glyndebourne with the Christie family, and we got to spend weekends with him there and go horse riding with the Christies’ children.
Throughout all of this I felt an excitement that my life was about to change with my move to secondary school in September. It’s a big and proper change which I thought would never happen, but I think I am ready for it now. Of course I am nervous about leaving Primrose Hill Primary as it’s always felt protected, and being only a short walk from home, it was so much part of growing up in and around Gloucester Crescent.
Tom and the Roeber triplets have been at secondary school for two years, and they seem very different now. Tom went to Acland Burghley in Tufnell Park, which is so rough someone punched him in the face and broke his nose just because he looked at them. The Roebers’ mum thought, as triplets, it would be a good time to split them up, so they’ve been sent to Pimlico, Hampstead and Haverstock schools. Hanging out with them isn’t like hanging out with the children from Primrose Hill Primary. They know real stuff and are doing real subjects that will get them ready for life. They do science and have Bunsen burners in their classrooms, and do maths that I don’t understand but hope to when I’m at secondary school. I really liked learning about the Romans with their togas and underfloor heating, but Tom has been doing the Second World War and now knows about Hitler and the Nazis, which is so much more interesting and the way he’s been taught seems less frightening than when Dad tells us about it. Tom and the Roebers now travel to school on their own, on public transport, and come back and tell us about all the things they’ve done and seen. Tom has even started reading Mum and Dad’s copy of The Times and, as far as I can tell, understands it. When Tom and the Roebers get together, they talk about the news and politics, and they didn’t do that before.
Most of the boys and girls in my year at Primrose Hill are going on to Haverstock, which is up the road in Chalk Farm. The really brainy ones are going to William Ellis, which is a grammar school. I don’t know why, but Mum and Dad didn’t even think about William Ellis for me. I wish they had because it seems like a good school and I would quite like to be somewhere for brainy kids so I can talk to Dad about things like science and evolution and maybe go on to do the kind of job he would approve of.
One of Mum and Dad’s friends told them that the best comprehensive in London is Pimlico School, which is big and in a massive glass and concrete building near the River Thames and is famous for its music. Because it’s not a local school, the only way I could go there was to get a music scholarship. I went for an interview in January and had to play my violin and oboe to a man in a really small room. The heating was on full blast, and the man was sweating so much he smelled like those old suits you get in a charity shop. I got in, which really surprised me as I didn’t think I was any good at either the violin or the oboe. So that’s where I’m going, along with three other boys who got music scholarships as well – Conrad, Simon Elms and Neal Halling, whose dad works in the Post Office.
One of the other things I had to do before the end of term was go with Mum to John Lewis to buy my new uniform for Pimlico. She took me out of school for the day, so I got her all to myself, which made it feel like a special day out. After we bought the uniform she took me for lunch in the café at the top of the department store and we got to chat properly about school and all the things I was looking forward to. Mum said I was likely to grow over the summer, so everything we bought was a size too big, which made me look like my body had shrunk in the wash. She looked so proud when I came out of the dressing room and even cried a little when she said I looked so grown up. She got me to put it on again that night to show Dad and Alan when they were having supper. I’d never worn flannel trousers, a tie or a nice jacket before, but I loved all of it because it felt so special being dressed smartly for once. I felt like my days of looking like a ragamuffin were finally over.
On the weekend before school broke up, James Roeber took me and Conrad up to the top of Primrose Hill so we could see how much of London we would have to travel across to get to school. James, who had already been at Pimlico for two years, got us to find Westminster Cathedral and then the four chimneys of Battersea Power Station, and said that the school was somewhere between the two.
I’d been looking forward to taking the bus to school: travelling without grown-ups would feel like a big adventure. This was before our walk up Primrose Hill with James, when he told us about a family called the Frasers who lived on an estate near Pimlico. According to James, they’d all been expelled from the school, including the oldest, who was now in prison for putting an axe through a man’s back. The youngest Fraser, called Kevin, who was too young to go to prison, enjoyed beating up anyone from Pimlico who looked weak or he didn’t like. At the top of his list were posh boys from Pimlico and then anyone black or Pakistani. Thanks to our uniforms, Kevin would know exactly who we were and was likely
to come for us first. I realised that the big colourful logo on our blazers, which I’d liked so much, now just screamed ‘Hello Kevin, I’m at Pimlico, come and kill me!’ James said the best thing to do was hide your blazer when you got on the bus and sit downstairs, where the conductor could keep an eye on you.
Up until now it had never crossed my mind that a school might be a dangerous and frightening place, or that something terrible could happen on the journey there. Primrose Hill was so easy to get to and had always felt safe. The excitement I’d felt about finally going to big school was now overshadowed by this new information from James. It found a place in my head where it would pop up every now and then to remind me just how unfamiliar and scary everything was about to be. It was also a reminder that I really didn’t know much about what went on in the streets and areas beyond the safety of Gloucester Crescent and Primrose Hill.
The summer term soon came to an end and, even with the worries I now had about the Frasers, I left Primrose Hill School excited about closing a door on a whole part of my childhood that I would never see again. I’ve been very lucky so far and have had a life that’s felt safe and at times even magical, but now things are going to be very different and that’s something to look forward to, even if there are people that are starting to worry me.
Within hours of finishing school, we were at Kensington Olympia Station. The summer holidays had started, and as I climbed into my bunk on the sleeper train I slipped in to a deep sleep, dreaming about my first day at Pimlico, my new school uniform and an angry boy called Kevin Fraser.
15
SUMMER VISITORS, 1975
There is now a new person over at the Ayers’. His name is Hylan, and he’s been around, on and off, for some time. Everyone says he’s Dee’s boyfriend, which I didn’t really understand at first as she’s still married to Freddie. Hylan makes Dee happy, and since he turned up things over at the Ayers’ have rather changed. Unlike with Freddie, Dee seems to do everything with Hylan; they go out to the theatre and parties, they cook meals together and even take Nick on holiday with them. Now, when Freddie goes to Oxford on a Tuesday morning, Hylan turns up as soon as he’s gone and stays. Then, when Freddie comes back on Thursday, Hylan leaves. When Freddie’s around, it’s as if nothing has changed. Dee puts his lunch on the table like she’s always done, and he sits at his desk, smoking and writing as he plays with his silver chain. Hylan is much younger than Freddie. I heard Mum telling some friends that she thought he was ‘really quite handsome’. Like Dee, Hylan is an American, except he’s tall and black and has a moustache. He’s a fashion designer for women and he wears really fancy clothes which make him look like a film star. Nick likes him, so when he’s around everyone seems happier, the house comes alive and Gully has someone else to flirt with. He has a daughter too, called Alex, who is 13 and sometimes comes with him to hang out with Nick.
Hylan Booker with Antonia Fraser
Many years ago the Ayers bought a house in the south of France, which they go to for their holidays. Like we do with Scotland, they pack up their car and head to France for the whole summer. This has all changed since Hylan turned up. Freddie has a girlfriend as well, but she never comes to Regent’s Park Terrace. She’s called Vanessa Lawson and has four children of her own. The deal now is that Dee and Nick go to France with Hylan for the first part of the summer and Freddie stays in London with Vanessa. Then, in the middle of the holiday, Freddie arrives with Vanessa and three of her children, Nigella, Horatia and Thomasina. Everyone spends the day together, and then Dee and Hylan get on the train and go home, leaving Nick to spend the rest of the summer with his dad.
This summer Dee took Tom with them to France, so he wasn’t with us in Scotland for the first half of the holiday. Keith came to stay with us, which I had a feeling might be his last time. Before we left for Scotland, he called me over to Alan’s house to have a look at the suitcase he keeps his money in. It was now pretty full, and I knew straight away that it meant he had the money he needed to go to America. He told me he was going to buy a one-way ticket to New York and then go on to Los Angeles and Hollywood. There was enough money in his suitcase for the tickets and for him to live off before he had to get a job, which would give him time to work out what he really wanted to do in America.
Since Keith was keen not to spend any of this money, he decided to hitch-hike all the way from London to Archiestown. He didn’t tell us he was coming, and then one evening in the middle of supper there was a knock at the front door and there he was. Keith likes surprises, and this was a big one. Everyone was so pleased to see him, especially me – I’d really wanted him to come and stay as I needed his advice about girls. He’d had quite a few girlfriends and he talks about them a lot, so asking him about girls seemed like a good start. It would be better than asking Dad, who I know would have felt incredibly uncomfortable talking about it. I don’t think he dated any girls when he was my age, so I’m not sure he would have had much to say on the matter.
The thing was, I’d been having these thoughts about girls since my last term at Primrose Hill Primary. They were thoughts that seemed more grown up, and having them made me feel like I was growing up. Before this, I hadn’t really thought about girls – everyone I have ever loved or wanted to marry was a proper grown-up, like Sue, Miss Laing and even Margery. I’d wanted to marry them for some time, but after a while they just seemed like fantasies that would never come true. Then, in my last term, I found it was quite nice talking to girls my own age.
Whenever we went to the local town, Keith started pointing out girls I might like. I was embarrassed at first, but also worried that he might be teasing me and was trying to get me to say things for a laugh. Either way, it made me realise that there were loads of nice girls my own age who I just hadn’t noticed in that way before. He also explained that some girls were not just nice to look at but could also be sexy. Since I’d only just worked out what being sexy was, I hadn’t ever thought about girls like that before. I’d always thought they were pretty or sweet and would be nice to be married to. Keith explained that it meant something very different. The first time he showed me this was when we went to buy lemonade for supper from the saloon bar in the village hotel.
I’d been to the saloon bar a few times with Dad to buy lemonade, and I really didn’t like it. The men in the village go there every night except Sundays and stand at the bar in their distillery work clothes shouting at each other. The inside of the bar was never meant to be cosy and is painted a cold and shiny blue, with a row of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. I hadn’t ever noticed before, but on one wall is a big calendar for Tennent’s Lager with a half-naked girl on it. It was this calendar that Keith pointed to when we went to get the lemonade. He nudged me and asked what I thought of the blonde girl on the page for August, who was dressed in a see-through nightie. I could see quite a lot of her breasts, and she seemed to be looking straight at me from the calendar. One of the men at the bar turned and grinned at me. He pointed to the calendar and said, ‘Aye aye, Wully, that’ll be Shona. She’s our “August Lovely”.’ She was lovely, and what’s more, she was properly sexy. I also liked the way her eyes followed me as I looked over my shoulder when leaving the bar.
The next day Keith took me to the village shop. While I was looking through the penny sweet tray, he asked the lady behind the counter if she had any cans of Tennent’s Lager. She went into the back and returned with a big box, which she placed on the counter. Keith took his time as he carefully selected several cans from the box. I’d always thought a can of Tennent’s was like any other can of Tennent’s, but it turned out they weren’t at all. When we got home Keith showed me why he had gone to so much trouble as he set the cans out on the table. There, printed on each can, was a different picture of a girl, dressed in the same way as Shona was in the saloon bar calendar. They had names like Heather, Sally, Lee and Sylvia, and each one was looking at me in that same sexy way. Of all of them Heather was my favourite. She was more l
ike the kind of girl you might marry one day, but she also had that new sexy thing that I was starting to like. She was wearing a very tight shirt and you could see quite a lot of her breasts in her half-opened shirt. At that moment Dad came into the kitchen and picked up the can. Looking at Heather, he shook his head and said, ‘trollop’ and walked off. I think it was Dad being so rude about Heather that made me like her even more.
The lager can girls
Keith stayed for the rest of the summer, and Dad went back to London a few weeks before the end of the holiday. A neighbour had been checking on the house and feeding Kate’s budgie, Chippie. Now Dad was going back to London, Kate gave him very strict instructions on how to feed Chippie. He’d flown into our back garden one day and Tom managed to catch him with a fishing net. He had a ring on one leg, so Mum thought he might have escaped from London Zoo. Dad bought him a big white cage, and he’d been living in it quite happily in Kate’s bedroom for over a year. Back in London and getting on with his work, Dad completely forgot about Chippie. He remembered eventually, but it wasn’t until the day before we were coming home and, fearing the worst, he raced upstairs to see if Chippie was all right. He wasn’t – he was lying on his back with his little legs in the air.
People often tell me that Dad is one of the cleverest men in the world, but the Chippie incident wasn’t Dad at his best. Thinking he was being clever, he put Chippie in a box and went straight to Palmers pet shop on Parkway. He opened the box and showed it to the lady behind the counter and told her he needed to replace the dead budgie with an exact lookalike. The thing is, Chippie was a handsome bird with smart blue feathers with neat white dashes across them. Between Dad and the lady in the shop they managed to choose one that might have looked like Chippie had he been blue and then dropped in white paint and shaken very hard. Clearly being a bit smarter than Dad about these things, the lady pointed out that Chippie had a ring on his leg. Everybody knew about this ring because they always pointed to it whenever Kate took anyone to look at Chippie. There was no way Dad could get away with the new budgie not having a ring on its leg. Dad smiled at the lady but ‘No’ was her answer when he asked her nicely if she’d remove it for him. She told him to try Buckingham’s the jewellers on the high street. So Chippie went back in his box and Dad took him down to Camden High Street. The man at Buckingham’s scratched his head and told him the easiest thing to do was simply cut the leg off and remove the ring. He could then open the ring and Palmers could put it on the new bird. So off came Chippie’s leg along with the ring and Dad ran back to Palmers so the lady could put the ring onto the new budgie with the splodgy feathers.
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