by Wade, Calvin
“I am not an animal”, he’d say,
“Still, at least I’m better looking than Jim!”
I think Jim’s borderline tubbyness was due to boredom, in that he stuffed his face with crisps and chocolate (“Starbars” were his favourite and “Worcester Sauce” crisps) when he had nothing much else to do.
He did have a very small, select band of friends. Two in total! They were Warren Walker and Russell Jones. Both “rectangles” (ie. odd shaped squares). Jim rarely saw them out of school though, as all three of them seemed to retreat to the privacy of their own rooms out of school hours. They took boring existences to a new level.
“Jim, how much money have you got, mate?”
I never called Jim, mate, but if he had the potential to lend Caroline and I some money, he was my temporary mate now.
“Loads, thank you!”
“Can you lend us twenty quid then, please?”
“What for? Are you paying someone to take that crap out of your hair?”
Luckily for him, I needed the money. Otherwise, I’d have jumped on top of him on that bed and punched his lights out. Jim was stocky but still a crap fighter. He still threw punches like a girl throws a tennis ball. Caroline joined in.
“We are going to a party, James. My car won’t start. We need to get a taxi.”
“Where’s the party?”
“At Nick’s in Halsall.”
“It won’t cost twenty quid to get a taxi to Halsall!”
Jim must have guessed this. As an anti-social animal, I am sure he had not been in a taxi in his life. Jim lecturing us on taxi fares was like the Pope lecturing us on sexual technique. I kept calm as I needed his money.
“No, you’re right, Jim, it won’t cost twenty quid but I want to buy a few beers and we’ll have to get a taxi back too.”
“OK then.”
Jim started looking for his wallet. Something smelt vaginaery. Jim being decent and helpful was not normality. There must be a catch.
“I’ll lend you twenty quid on one condition.”
There was a catch!
“Which is?”
“I come too.”
I wasn’t impressed.
“What would you want to go to Nick Birch’s party for?”
“It might be interesting.”
“Warren and Russell won’t be there.”
I don’t know why I said that! I’m sure at no stage during negotiations would Jim have ever thought that his two odd ball chums would be going to Nick Birch’s party. I was just trying anything to put him off.
“I know that. I’ve just never been to a party other than children’s birthday parties. I’d like to sample a wild party for myself ”.
Caroline, despite her own wild nature, thought it was necessary to be Jim’s surrogate Mother.
“If you come, James. You’re not drinking.”
“I wouldn’t want to drink. I’m fifteen. I act my age, I don’t act younger by trying to act older.”
This was a pop at me. Jim had perfected this art.
“And you may see things you’ve never seen before”, I added.
I meant like glue sniffing and pot smoking not breasts and naked women. If there were any of them about, I was confident Jim would not be sampling their wares.
“That would be a good thing!” James replied with a smile.
Damn!
“I’m not sure this would be a good idea, Jim”.
Caroline pulled rank and made the decision.
“Ok, James. You can come. Be careful though. No pot. No beer. No smart arse comments and if there’s any sign of trouble, get out of the way fast!”
“No problem.”
My memories of Park Pool 1982 came flooding back.
“And Jim…”
“Yes, Richie.”
“If you mention to anyone, anyone, that I wet my bed until I was ten, I swear I’ll kill you.
Jemma
The Birch’s house wasn’t massive. It was a reasonable sized semi, but if everyone at school who said they were going to this party had turned up, in addition to Joey’s older brothers mates, we’d have been like sardines in a tin (without the brine and the tomato ketchup). Everyone didn’t turn up though. Whether it was the bad weather or parents banning them or kids talking the talk but not walking the walk, I don’t know. It turned out there were only about fifty people there, probably about forty lads and ten girls, including Amy, Kelly and myself.
Going into that house felt like how I would imagine it would feel if you were a singer on “Top of The Pops”, as you had to wade through a massive cloud of smoke, only difference being that the BBC had smoke machines whilst the Birch party had massive spliffs. Pot was fairly rife around our way, but the dealers must have made a tidy sum from the Birch’s and their invited guests, as there was more weed there, than in the garden of a derelict stately home. I’m not kidding you, the fire brigade probably inhaled less smoke on a busy shift than Amy, Kelly and I inhaled in our first two minutes at Chez Birch. Everyone just seemed to be rolling up, smoking pot or giving the impression they had had too much already. Of the three of us, Kelly looked the least shocked as we surveyed the downstairs rooms for signs of sobriety. We didn’t find it. The only sober people we came across, were those who arrived after us and the majority of them were stoned before you could say “wacky baccy”!
We found Joey Birch sat at the kitchen table, spliff in one hand, can of lager in the other. There were several other D-Gas lads gathered around the table with him, they were all singing along to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” or at least they were singing it, there was no music to accompany them. Joey looked the least ill, which wasn’t saying much as he looked wrecked! He stood up uneasily, in an attempt to greet us. He looked like he had just twizzed round in circles twenty times at full pelt.
“Hello Amy! Hello Jemma!”
He was puzzled by Kelly, a think bubble came out of the top of his head which said, “I know you from somewhere but I am too wrecked to work out where!”
So he just mumbled,
“Hello thingermebobby!”
Joey then allowed himself an embarrassed giggle.
I explained.
“Joey, this is Kelly, my sister…Kelly, this is Joey. He’s normally not quite so off his head!”
“Hi Joey!”
“Yes, I’m high! Very, very high! Can you tell?”
It wasn’t hard to tell, his eyes were pink like someone had been using them as pallets to mix their red and white paint. His speech was slow and slurry. Amy looked concerned.
“Joey, sit back down! Take it easy!”
He was embarrassing! He tried to make two peace signs, one with each hand, but as he did it, he dropped his can of lager and his spliff
onto the kitchen floor and then got down on all fours as he retrieved the spliff from the pool of lager. When he shakily stood back up, moving like Trevor Berbick at the end of his bout with Mike Tyson, Joey’s jeans had two large, wet, circular patches around the knees. He berated himself jovially.
“Man, I’m gone!”
I didn’t tolerate potheads and pissheads well. Perhaps its because of a childhood spent having to deal with Vomit Breath and her alcoholic mis-adventures. I didn’t have the appetite to make small talk with drunks and druggies. I hadn’t written six hundred lines and helped Kelly escape arrest to giggle uncontrollably about pigeons. As Amy transformed into Florence Nightingale, collecting up abandoned half-full cans, pouring their contents down the sink then pouring a glass of water for Joey and dabbing his forehead with some damp kitchen roll, I slipped out the kitchen, pulling Kelly out with me. The lounge looked more inviting.
There were more familiar faces in there, but these lot were Sixth Form “Groovy Gangers”, the type who would smoke pot but not inhale and drink just a few cans rather than a D-Gas member who would drink until it returned as projectile vomit. Thus, the “Groovy Gangers” looked relatively sober in comparison with the D-Gas kitchen boys.
>
There were about a dozen people all told in the lounge, about seven or eight were sprawled out on the Birch’s two settees and the rest sat cross legged on the floor with the exception of Eddie Garland, an Upper Sixth Form mate of Billy McGregor’s who was stood up, centre of attention, finishing some crude joke about golf, prostitutes and business men on a trip to Japan.
“What do you mean, wrong hole?”
Half the lads laughed, the other’s smiled and the two girls in there, Sally Park and Jane Makerfield from Lower Sixth, looked at each other like they didn’t understand but would rather not ask for an explanation.
Eddie Garland was from Billy McGregor’s card school gang. Equally cocky, equally good looking and to-night reeking of Kouros. His hair was petrol black and slicked back with Brylcreem like Bono’s on the front of “The Joshua Tree” CD. To still look good with a hairstyle like that, said a lot. If everyone was an animal and their height was based on their levels of arrogance, Eddie Garland would be a giraffe.
“Wonderful to see you, ladies. John, Max, budge up on that sofa and let Jemma and her mate sit down.”
I was concerned the vultures would swoop if the “Groovy Gangers” thought Kelly was my mate.
“She’s not my mate, she’s my little sister. You don’t have to budge up, we’re fine on the floor.”
Kelly whispered, “Thanks a lot, Jem!”
We sat on the floor. My backside and particularly my thighs immediately felt wet. Eddie smirked.
“You’d have been better on the sofa! Everyone else on that floor has been like a cow protecting a dry patch! I’ve lost count of how many drinks have been spilt on there!”
“Thanks for telling us after we sat down, Eddie!”
Eddie ran his hand through his hair.
”Don’t blame me! I told you to sit on the settee! If you want anyone to dry your arse, Jemma, let me know!”
I smiled at him sarcastically,
“I thought you only kissed Billy’s arse, Eddie!”
There was a collective, “OOOOHHH!”
Eddie ignored my retaliatory attack.
“Right…who’s got any good jokes to tell?”
Eddie Garland and his modesty-challenged mates then preceded to bore us senseless for the next three quarters of an hour with some appalling jokes. Amy briefly popped her head in, a couple of times, to pass me a glass of wine and Kelly a coke in a plastic beaker, so at least I could drown my sorrows as Eddie told countless tacky jokes about penises, periods and “puppies” (breasts). I felt like that 19th Century woman on the postcard being bored to tears by some bloke, with a caption saying, “Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder”. A pint of absinthe at that stage would have gone down a treat!
Through boredom and the re-emergence of a slight light headache, I stood up, no longer caring if my backside was wet ,my leather skirt had protected me to some degree and wandered into the study. Kelly said she was going back in the kitchen to see Amy, so I left her to her own devices, knowing she was in capable hands. In my mind, Joey Birch’s house was like a full-sized version of a Cluedo board and I suppose, sub-consciously I was searching for someone, not a murderer though, just a good looking lad. I had been in the kitchen, then the lounge (is there a lounge in Cluedo? I’m not sure) so next stop was the study. From the shouts and laughs that were filtering down the stairs, there were evidently a fair few people upstairs, but I wanted to check all the downstairs rooms out first before venturing up there. So, I went through a third door downstairs into Joey’s Dad’s study. The study was compact. It was crammed full of people, the majority of them standing. I had to wait for a couple of people to move out, before I could squeeze in to see for myself, what was going on in there. The room itself looked like it normally contained little more than a desk with a computer on, a chair, a few framed photos of the Birch children looking innocent, well before they were gripped by motorbikes and marijuana, and a drinks cabinet. After the karaoke Pink Floyd in the kitchen and the Bernard Manning gags in the lounge, it was surreal that the entertainment in the study was being provided by a game of chess. Sitting around the desk were four people I recognised, James, Richie and Caroline Billingham and Joey’s brother, Nick Birch. Paul Murphy from Upper Sixth, an overweight boy with dark greasy hair and eczema, was stood next to the Birch’s drink cabinet, mixing various drinks from the cabinet into a large glass.
“What’s going on?” I asked Paul, who was trying to look like Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) in Cocktail but with his hefty frame and glasses, looked more like a younger version of Fred from Coronation Street.
“Its “Killer Chess”, loser has to drink this! James Billingham is beating everyone that takes him on! Nick’s taking him on now but he’s getting stuffed! He’ll have to down this in one in a minute!”
He pointed at the glass which was a frothy mix of Pernod, Baileys, whisky, vodka and brandy. Paul Murphy seemed incredibly excited by something incredibly unexciting.
“What if he refuses to drink it?”
Paul Murphy looked at me as though I was the bastard child of Adolf Hitler.
“There is no ”what if ?” He just has to! It’s the rules! The reason everyone is staggering around here looking totally battered is because Jim Billingham is like one of those Russian or American Grandmasters! Joey Birch fancied himself as a bit of a chess player but Jim has beaten him three times already! You should have seen Joey, he took his forfeits like a man! Stick around and in a couple of minutes you’ll get the chance to see Nick following in his brother’s footsteps!”
That explained a lot. It explained why Joey was smashed out of his skull and it explained why Caroline Billingham had a very concerned look on her face. Nick Birch and Caroline Billingham were boyfriend and girlfriend. Nick was one of Joey’s two older brothers, along with Mike. I didn’t really know Nick, but I knew Joey idolised him and Joey’s motorbike obsession stemmed from Nick and Michael’s interest in bikes. I knew Nick was a heavy metal fan and I remember a rumour went round school once that he masturbated in the smoking carriage of the Ormskirk-Liverpool train, when he was going to see Slayer at the Royal Court and he fired the sperm onto the ceiling, but I don’t know if that was true. Probably not.
I thought Caroline Billingham was pretty cool. Given 99% of the girls in Sixth Form were so annoying, I’d have liked to have thrown them all into the Mersey in a massive rock filled sack, this was some achievement. The reason I liked her was that she didn’t try to conform to any stereotypes, she just did as she pleased. Of all the girls I knew, if I could have been like anyone it would have been Caroline Billingham. Not too hip. Not too square. Not too swotty. Not a complete layabout.
I was aware that the older of her two brother’s, Richie, was in our year at school. The year before Miss Caldicott inflicted Jane Eyre upon us, we had a great English teacher called Mrs. Illingworth. We read “Pride and Prejudice” which was pretty alright really, especially when you compare it with Jane Eyre. The male hero was Mr.Darcy. The reason I am telling you this, was because Richie Billingham reminded me of Mr. Darcy. He was a strong, silent type. His hair had gone really blond (probably dyed), he had a stud earring in one of his ears and was tall and muscular.
Richie wasn’t a Billy McGregor or Eddie Garland type though, full of his own self-importance, he was pretty humble, modest and unassuming. Most of the girls in our year and Fourth Year, had a crush on him, but because he was so quiet, no-one really made a move on him as they didn’t know what to say. I thought he was too young for me, but thought that if he got a bit of confidence and came out of his shell, then maybe in the future something might happen.
Richie’s younger brother, James, however was ODD with a capital everything! He was sarcastic. He was greasy. He was a bit whiffy. He talked to everyone like they were intellectual inferiors. Odd, odd, odd, odd, odd. What he was doing at a party in the first place was anyone’s guess, as he would have been more at home in his bedroom listening to depressing music like The Smiths and Spear of Destiny and d
rinking a cup of tea out of a pot with a self-knitted tea cosy. The fact that he was at the Birch’s party was surreal (he would never have been there if Caroline hadn’t been with Nick) but the fact that he was at the Birch’s party playing chess with Nick Birch, a biker pothead, was even more bizarre.
I knew enough about chess to see Nick was in serious trouble. He was blacks and he had a King and two pawns left, James had a queen, a castle, two bishops, a knight and several pawns, one of which was about to be crowned and his King. Nick was just moving his king around the table buying time like a rabbit in a snake’s cage.
“Who’s up next?” I asked Paul.
“No-one, he’s beaten everyone who can play and most of them are now too pissed and stoned to play again!”
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“I’ll play him then!”
Paul looked at me like I had just announced I was third in line for the throne.
“Can you play?”
“Of course I can. That one with the cross on its head, is that the prawn?”
“That’s the King! The prawn! Did you hear that, Caroline, Jemma called the King, the prawn! Do you not know anything?” Caroline gave Paul a richly deserved condescending look.
“She’s joking, Paul!”
Paul looked hurt. Idiot.
“No she wasn’t! Were you?”
“What do you think?”
It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Paul answered anyway.
“I think you said it by accident!”
“Suit yourself. Maybe I did.”
There must have been an unwritten law somewhere that said if you were a lad at Ormskirk Grammar School, when you went into Sixth Form, you had to do a large turd, your brain must then be removed and the turd must slot into the void where the brain once was. I reckon the teachers then probably did a test, whereby they sliced off the top of your head until there was a small hole at the top, dipped their fingers into the brain, took it out and smelt it and if it didn’t smell of crap, you were sent to King George V College in Southport! This had to be the case as every single boy in Ormskirk Grammar School’s Sixth Form had shit for brains! I was just reflecting on this when James Billingham spoke.