‘Well, could you borrow a camcorder from somewhere?’
‘No problem. The school’s got one. The headmaster lent it to me last year when I was doing a project on polygonal turrets.’
‘On what? No, never mind. Look, borrow the camcorder and we’ll do a bit of filming. Then send it off to the programme.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ I answered evasively. I wanted to see if Moan really did have a sense of humour.
DIARY A
June 21st, Monday
There is no time to practise the clarinet at the moment because we are spring cleaning. Aunt Joan hasn’t got time to cook either. We are eating quick foods and things out of the freezer.
DIARY B
June 21st, Monday
I’ve discovered something about Wesley that is AMAZING. It’s so incredible, I can’t even risk writing it here in Diary B.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Amazing Wesley
I made my discovery about Wesley because of Moan’s spring cleaning. She said that Wesley and I got in the way of her work, so we were to leave the house straight after tea.
‘Can it be before tea?’ I asked hopefully. Moan’s meals were becoming stranger and stranger, which was really saying something.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You must have some food inside you if you’re going out into the fresh air. Go for a walk along the seafront,’ she told us. ‘That’s what I’d do if I didn’t have to stay in and make things nice and clean. So eat up your porridge. It’s almost defrosted.’
I didn’t fancy walking along the seafront with Wesley in his suit and red velvet waistcoat, so I muttered something about going to the library. Actually I had decided to take my clarinet out with me to look for somewhere to practise.
Wesley didn’t seem keen to be with me either. He mumbled his own excuse and slunk out of the house.
Ten minutes later I left too and wandered towards the seafront with my clarinet case in my hand.
It was a windy dull day. I was walking past a long row of beach huts when I heard a very familiar sound – Cherokee playing his clarinet. The Calumets were touring Germany, so I was baffled. I rushed towards the music.
There, in one of the huts, miming to a cassette tape of Cherokee’s music, fingers playing on an imaginary clarinet, stood my cousin.
‘Wesley!’ I gasped.
He turned the cassette player off quickly, ‘Please don’t tell my mum, she’ll mangle me if she knows I’m into music!’
To the surprise of discovering that Wesley liked music was added the shock that he thought I would sneak on him. I sat down on a rickety wooden chair while I thought of something to say.
‘You like my grandfather’s music,’ I said. It was the wrong thing to say.
‘I like my grandfather’s music,’ Wesley answered. ‘Cherokee’s my grandfather too.’
Wesley had a mother, but, like me, he didn’t have a father. I had asked Paddy once what had happened to Uncle Harry and he simply answered, ‘He jumped ship.’ For ages I had this picture in my mind of Uncle Harry jumping off the QE2, but eventually Red explained to me that Uncle Harry had just left Moan. I didn’t have to ask why. But I never realised that Wesley could need Cherokee too.
I didn’t know what to say. I opened up my clarinet case and put the five pieces together. I checked the reed, put it to my lips and played. By the time I’d finished Wesley was laughing. I’d played ‘I Want To Be Happy’. He obviously knew the words:
I want to be happy
But I can’t be happy
Till I make you happy too ...
‘Could I ...?’ Wesley began. He looked nervous. ‘Could I try your clarinet?’ he asked.
I hesitated. But not because I was being selfish. I just know how difficult it is to get a note out of a clarinet at first. It’s more likely to squeak or screech.
‘Please,’ he begged.
‘Well, okay,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t be discouraged if you don’t do it right straight away.’ Cherokee often said this to me.
Wesley picked up the clarinet carefully and put the mouthpiece to his lips. A clear fresh note sounded out.
‘Wesley – that’s brilliant!’ I gasped. ‘You managed a better note than I did when I first started.’
I looked around the walls of the beach hut. One had a shelf with a cassette player and some tapes and books on it. Another was covered by a huge poster of the Calumets. Cherokee was smiling at us both.
‘How did you get this place together?’ I asked.
‘I rent it from the Council,’ Wesley answered. ‘It costs me .45 a year. That’s half my pocket money. They don’t know I’m only fourteen.’
‘You lied about your age?’
‘Not exactly. When I filled in the application form I called myself “Reverend Wesley Smythe”.’
I laughed. I was beginning to like Wesley.
‘If Mum found out about this place, I don’t know what she’d do,’ said Wesley, looking concerned. His voice trailed off.
‘I won’t tell her,’ I assured him. Then a brilliant idea occurred to me. ‘Wesley,’ I said, ‘would you like me to give you clarinet lessons?’
He looked stunned. ‘You mean – you’d let me use your clarinet? You’d teach me to play properly?’
‘I’ll show you what Cherokee’s shown me. We’ll have to come down here, of course.’ I looked around at the bleak hut. Outside, strong winds were hammering at the door. It wasn’t comfortable, but somehow I liked the place.
Wesley read my thoughts. ‘It’s not bad,’ he said. ‘At least it’s not nice and clean!’
CHAPTER NINE
Moan is Suspicious
Wesley and I sneaked off to the beach hut so often after that that Moan soon wanted to know where we were going.
‘Just out,’ we tried.
‘Out where?‘ she demanded.
‘Oh, we’ll probably stroll along the seafront,’ I said, trying to sound casual.
‘There better not be anything going on, Gene,’ Moan warned.
Luckily she was so distracted by her spring cleaning that we managed to get away at least once a day. I had given Wesley finger exercises for the clarinet and as a beginner he needed at least twenty minutes’ practice every day. He was learning fast. He was a good pupil because he listened, but then I suppose he had had a lot of practice at that.
Plans for my revenge on Moan were coming along nicely. Wes had borrowed the camcorder from the headmaster. I suggested we get filming.
‘But what are we going to film?’ Wes asked. ‘Mum isn’t going to do a song and dance act.’
‘You know those bits of film they put to music?’ I asked. ‘Like cats jumping trying to catch goldfish and they play “What’s New Pussycat?” – that sort of thing?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, we could do that. Film your mum spring cleaning and then ...’ I whistled ‘Whistle While You Work’. It’s a light cheerful tune, which was exactly the impression I wanted to create.
Wes looked thoughtful. ‘Well, okay,’ he agreed. ‘It doesn’t sound hilariously funny, but –’
‘It’s better if we film her without saying anything. A camera only makes people nervous, unless they’re used to it, like Cherokee.’
‘Okay,’ said Wes. ‘But we won’t do any sneaky shots?’
‘Like what?’ I asked innocently.
‘Like her sitting on the loo.’
I looked shocked. ‘Please!’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. The theme will be ...’ And here I managed to be truthful yet totally misleading, ‘Housework, how to do it with real muscle.’
‘Right, then,’ said Wes. ‘Let’s do it!’ I was satisfied. Inside my head a tune was humming and it wasn’t ‘Whistle While You Work’.
DIARY B
June 27th, Sunday
The filming’s done. We managed to video Moan while she was scrubbing the bath, washing the wallpaper, dusting, polishing and cleaning the kitchen floor. So I’ve got the bit I
want: there’s five whole minutes of Moan down on her hands and knees cleaning those tiles – all filmed from the rear, with the emphasis on rear. The last time I saw a rear end that size it was on an endangered species in Botswana.
One day Moan called us into the kitchen for lunch.
‘Don’t make a mess in here,’ she warned. ‘I’m just about to start scrubbing the sittingroom ceiling.’ But I was staring at the table with disgust.
‘Someone’s been sick into this mug!’ complained.
Moan tut-tutted. ‘That’s vegetable Mug-A-Soup,’ she told me. ‘It’s your lunch.’
Wesley came into the kitchen and stared at his lunch with horror. I was beginning to understand why he was so thin.
‘Mum’s got a black belt in cooking,’ he whispered. ‘She can kill with a single chop.’
I grinned. ‘Er – I’m not hungry. How about you, Wes?’ I asked. ‘Do you feel like a walk?’
There was a chip shop on the seafront called Grimaldi’s where they made the best fish and chips in the world. Most of the fifteen euro Cherokee had given me was going on fish and chips to keep Wesley and me alive.
Wesley quickly agreed.
‘Well, if you’re going out, you won’t need that thing, will you?’ said Moan.
‘What thing, Auntie?’ I asked innocently.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘That musical thingamajig.’ And she pointed at my clarinet case. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word ‘clarinet’.
DIARY A
June 29th, Tuesday
Wesley and I had another long walk today. We have decided to diet. We know Aunt Joan will be pleased because she will have more time for the summer spring cleaning. Then she might have a gap before she has to start on the autumn spring cleaning.
DIARY B
June 29th, Tuesday
Wesley and I have decided to leave my clarinet at the beach hut. That way Moan won’t be able to stop us taking it out of the house. It should be safe, as there’s a good lock on the hut door, but I still feel strange leaving it there. It sounds silly, but I miss it.
CHAPTER TEN
Trouble
DIARY B
July 1st, Thursday
I was sitting in the beach hut listening to Wesley play my clarinet when I realised that he has great talent. He was playing ‘I Got Rhythm’. And he has got rhythm. His tone is great too; it reminds me of Cherokee’s.
I’m beginning to understand Wes better now, like when he’s watching TV. Red calls watching TV ‘the best way of doing damn all ever invented’ but Wes really uses his brain when he watches. There was a sitcom on about a snobbish actor living next door to a daft woman and her daughter which the Radio Times said ‘leads to hilarious results’. Well, we’d been watching for twenty minutes without so much as a smile when Wes suddenly started to laugh really loudly.
Daughter loses her shoe – wild laughter!
Boyfriend finds shoe in rose bush – shrieks!
Then I realised what he was doing. He was imitating the canned laughter they’d recorded onto the sound track.
I started to join in.
Actor finds boyfriend holding shoe. We all fall about with hysterical laughter.
Moan poked her head in the door to see what was happening. She sniffed and said, ‘I hope this is suitable viewing.’
‘They’re trying to make us think it’s funny,’ replied Wes.
Moan’s head disappeared again as she went back to her scrubbing.
‘I’ve never seen Aunt Joan laugh,’ I said. ‘I reckon she hasn’t got a sense of humour.’
Wesley rose to his mother’s defence. ‘Oh yes she has! Once I planted some begonia corms upside down and she laughed for ages.’
‘Boy plants begonias – with hilarious results,’ I said sarcastically. ‘The BBC could make a whole series out of that!’
‘Anyway, “Life’s a Laf” is on tomorrow,’ said Wes. ‘I wonder if they’ll use any of our tape?’
‘What?’ A chill ran through me. I’d posted a tape with just five minutes on it – five minutes of Moan’s enormous bum moving, like two marmosets fighting in a sack, to the rhythm of Cherokee singing ‘All That Meat And No Potatoes’.
I tried to recall why I’d done it. It was just a Laf! No, it wasn’t. It was to get back at Moan. And I hadn’t thought of Wesley as a friend then. I’d tricked him.
Abruptly, I changed the subject. ‘Wes, where’s your dad?’ In all the years I’d been visiting Zig Zag Road, neither Wesley or Moan had ever mentioned him.
‘Oh ...’ Wesley looked sad, ‘he’s never had anything to do with us.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, would you if you had a choice?’ He had a point there.
‘I would now, now I’ve got to know you,’ I said, trying to be comforting.
‘You’ve been coming here for twelve years,’ Wesley pointed out. ‘My father, wherever he is, gave it twelve months. He left Mum before their first anniversary, before I was born!’
‘At least that shows it wasn’t you he didn’t like,’ I said, but I was thinking, He’s worse off than I am. My mum and dad died. They didn’t want to leave me.
‘That wasn’t long before Mum’s brother, your dad, was killed,’ Wes added, linking in with my thoughts. ‘So it was just one shock on top of another, after an unhappy childhood.’ I was feeling worse and worse about ‘Life’s a Laf’.
‘Why was her childhood unhappy? She’s Cherokee’s daughter, isn’t she? She must have had a great time.’
‘But Cherokee didn’t live with Mum and your dad.’
I was startled. ‘You mean he ...’ the phrase ‘jumped ship’ came back to me, reminding me of what Wesley’s father had done. ‘You mean Cherokee abandoned his family? That’s impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because ... because ... he wouldn’t do something like that! Because he’s ... “legendary”.’
I thought of the last programme of ‘Guess What?’ we had watched. One woman had to guess what her husband wanted for Christmas. It turned out he wanted a pet alligator to live in their bungalow.
‘People are weird,’ I said. ‘Aunt Joan probably just told you that Cherokee abandoned his family.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Life’s A Laf!
‘Time for “Life’s a Laf”,’ announced Wes cheerfully the next evening. He settled down in an armchair with the contented look of someone with thirty minutes grade A entertainment ahead of him. I tried hard to look pleased. Luckily Moan was out.
Well, it is only thirty minutes, I told myself. They must have thousands of videos to choose from, the chances of them using mine are tiny.
But I knew I’d done a good job of the editing. I’d synchronised the movement of those buttocks to the music brilliantly.
To my relief the programme began with one of its usual people falling off/breaking things features. There were some reminders of my tape. A huge granny who thought a little kiddies’ swing could take her weight; a man who didn’t seem to realise that if he stepped into this side of the boat then that side was going to shoot up and capsize the craft.
And then I heard the first three notes of the next piece. It was enough. My tune!
Aunt Moan’s backside came into view. Wes, a look of amazement on his face, leaned forward and turned the volume up.
Grampa’s gravelly voice was singing:
Yes, I look in the pot,
I’m fit to fight,
‘Cos, woman, you know that mess
ain’t right ...
And all the time Moan’s behind was moving across the screen. Brilliant piano, Dave, I couldn’t help thinking.
The studio audience were in fits of laughter, and so was the presenter. What’s the embarrassment of one person compared to the entertainment of millions?
The ads came on. Wes turned the sound down and stared accusingly at me. Neither of us was Lafing.
The front door slammed. Moan had returned.
‘Wesle
y! Gene! In here now!’
I gulped. My guilty conscience was making me nervous, but I consoled myself with the thought that she couldn’t have seen the programme. Scouring the shops for the worst-tasting food in town took time. She’d been out for hours. And nobody was going to tell her. Wes, I knew, wouldn’t let on. If I apologised to him we could, well, put the incident behind us.
But one look at Moan’s expression told me she already knew. She was purple with anger, hardly able to get the words out.
‘I was in the High Street ...’ she began, dumping her shopping bag on the table and unpacking as she spoke.
Worried though I was, I couldn’t resist checking what she’d bought for us to eat.
‘... when I saw a group of people ...’ Tinned pilchards clattered down.
‘... some of whom I know ...’ A turnip rolled onto the table.
‘... watching the television sets in Dixon’s window ...’ I stopped checking the food.
‘... ten sets each showing my ... me ...’
There was no point denying it. ‘But, Aunt Joan, nobody’d recognise your ...’ I said, trying to sound confident. ‘There must be thousands of, well, hundreds anyway ...’
I knew I was digging a hole for myself, so I was relieved when the telephone rang. Moan just took time to snarl, ‘The people in the High Street had no difficulty making an identification!’ before pounding into the hall to answer the phone. ‘Hello, Mrs Walmsley ...’
‘Yes, I have,’ fiercely.
‘Yes, I am,’ more fiercely.
‘Yes, I certainly shall. Thank you.’
The receiver was replaced with force and Moan came striding back. ‘Mrs Walmsley was also watching the programme.’ Now that was a surprise. I’d have thought adaptations of Dickens’s novels were more her taste. Bleak House, for instance.
I tried a little attack. ‘Well, I think a social worker’d have better things to do than –’
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