I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey

by Stephen K Amos

  But I have been in love. It struck like lightning, spun me out on a whirlwind of intensity, and then spat me out like the dried-up husk of a blood-drained corpse by a vampiress who ruined my life and tore my heart to shreds. BITCH!

  Anyway, my love story starts in a branch of an Olympus Sports shoe shop based in Tooting. I had just turned eighteen and was doing part-time work in the evenings and at weekends to make a bit of extra cash and to get me out of the house. I had always taken part-time jobs ever since I was legally allowed to because if I stayed at home I was forced to work around the house for free. The money at Olympus was not really good and Mum and Dad always took most of it anyway to help them pay for bills and food, but it was better than nothing. I remember once asking Mum to let me have the whole pay cheque and she said, ‘Don’t talk like that to me, I brought you into this world and I will take you out of it!’ while holding up a frying pan just to make her intentions totally clear.

  The best thing about the job was that Dustin or other school friends could come and hang around in the shop with me. Plus, I could get a good discount for everyone on cool trainers. I was in heaven in that shop, because my parents thought that when it came to shoes or trainers practicality always won over fashion. They thought it was a waste of money buying name brand trainers. I remember one time my mate got a fantastic new pair of Nikes and I went home and told Dad. The next day he bought me a pair of shoes from the market. They were called Abibas and they cost £3. They only had one stripe. I said, ‘Dad, you can’t send me to school like this. I need two more stripes.’

  ‘You want more stripes? Then paint them on!’

  And the kids had been cruel to me. They’d see my Green Flash plimsolls and come up to me in the playground singing, ‘Let us go to Tesco’s, where Stephen buys his best clothes. De la la la.’ Plus Green Flash made my feet look really big. They looked like clown shoes on me. To be honest, I do have totally massive feet and was sporting size thirteen shoes by the time I was twelve. I was so embarrassed about my huge feet that for two years I wore shoes four sizes too small and later on in life, guess what? I have a crooked cock. So let that be a lesson to you.

  The work was not really interesting as few people came into the shop to actually buy anything. In that particular area of South London most of the locals were too busy concentrating on benefit fraud to worry about footwear. One Saturday, I was working in the shop when, completely out of the blue, this stunning blonde bombshell walked into the store with her parents. As they browsed around the shop, she kept looking at me furtively over the displays. I figured that she must like me, but with her parents in the shop we couldn’t do much more than steal glances at each other. There was an animal magnetism at work whenever we made embarrassed eye contact. It was that slightly creepy teenage behaviour when you’re trying to show that you like someone while resisting the hormonal urge to run headlong into each other’s arms and start copulating wildly in front of the shoe polish section.

  Her parents came up to the desk and bought her a pair of the newest Nike Air trainers. My heart was thumping when I took the shoe box from her. I thought I’d try to sound professional and stylish to impress her and so I entered into the sales pitch. ‘Oh. These come with a free pair of shoe deodorizing insoles.’ I realized suddenly what I was saying. ‘They just slip into the shoe every night and stop any … y’know … bad smells … from … staying in the shoe … not that you have any need for them … They don’t even work anyway. Just a gimmick really.’ Oh please God! Let the world open up beneath my feet and swallow me whole. The girl went bright red and sort of laughed as her dad handed over the cash and they left. She gave me a little backward glance on her way out of the shop, though. Well, you fucked that one up, Stevie, I thought to myself.

  The next day as I waited at the bus stop for school I was still daydreaming about that girl and imagining all of the impressive things that I should have said to her instead of offering her a cut-price remedy to smelly feet. I was so busy daydreaming that I barely noticed the really fit girl wearing a hot school uniform standing and looking at the bus schedule, until I saw that she was wearing the newest Nike Air trainers. Oh shit! It was her. What do I do? I should talk to her but what to say? ‘Hi there. Did I see you last night at Olympus Sports?’

  ‘Oh my God. It’s you.’ She had an amazing accent. The she looked me up and down in my school uniform (replete with my Dunlop Green Flash trainers). ‘You go to school? I thought you must be older.’ I smiled broadly at that. It’s odd that a phrase works as a brilliant compliment when you’re eighteen but when you’re twenty-eight it would get you a slap. The same principle works in reverse as well. Tell an eighteen-year-old boy he’s cute and you won’t get very far. Tell me that I’m cute now and it’s different story – and you can find me on Facebook if you want to try.

  ‘Yeah. People often say I look older. I’ve always been pretty mature for my age.’ An awkward silence descended as I played nervously with the lunch money in my pocket. ‘Those shoes are looking pretty fly.’ She looked confused. ‘They look really good on you, I mean. Where are you from?’

  ‘I’m Hungarian.’

  ‘Wow. I’ve never met a Hungarian before. What brings you to the Big Smoke?’ Bollocks! Even I knew that was lame. ‘I mean what brings you to London?’

  ‘My dad’s got a job here. I didn’t want to come. Look at what they have me dressed as. I look like a little kid. In my country you don’t have to wear uniforms. That’s why I asked them to at least get me some fly shoes.’ She smiled.

  ‘Well you look great to me.’ Was that pervy and weird? Probably. ‘I don’t like wearing school uniform either, but at least it’s my final year and I’ll be out of there by summer. I can’t wait.’ That was better. ‘Yep. Out into the world on my own.’

  She was warming up to this. ‘Me too. My parents want me to go to university but I just want to get a job like you and move out of home.’

  ‘Yeah. In six months’ time my mum and dad won’t see me for dust. I’ll just be … blowing in the wind.’ I didn’t know what I was talking about.

  ‘Wow. So you’re a free spirit. Just like me.’ I was really falling for this girl.

  ‘Yeah. You can count on it. Signed, sealed and delivered.’ Wait a minute. Was I really saying this?

  ‘Yeah, me too. I just need to pass the final exams.’

  ‘Don’t you worry ’bout a thing.’

  ‘Hold on. Are you just quoting Stevie Wonder lyrics at me?’

  ‘No! Stevie Wonder? Who’s he?’ My foot tasted bitter in my mouth.

  ‘Maybe I can play you some of his songs sometime.’

  ‘I’d like that a lot. You could always come back to the store.’

  ‘OK, maybe I will. I like the shoes. It’s just that I don’t like the laces. They’re boring. Maybe I should come round to your shop again and see if you have anything that is a bit more … funky.’ If you’ve never heard someone with a Hungarian accent say the word ‘funky’ then you should find one and get them to say it to you right now. Either that or I was delirious with desire. She could probably have said, ‘I have some really funky navel fluff,’ and I would have still been completely bowled over.

  ‘Yeah. We’ve got loads of laces. I work there pretty much every day after school. And at weekends.’

  ‘All right. I’m coming to see you after school today.’ The bus crested the hill and sped towards us. When it arrived she got on, but I told her that I had to wait for a different bus, which was a lie but I didn’t want to screw it all up by continuing my weird and awkward conversation. She’d said she might come round to see me! That was enough of a result for me to actually float to school. Plus, considering the state I was in and the nonsense I was talking, another ten minutes in her company might have seen the potential for a date in the future be replaced with the potential for a restraining order.

  All day at school I just wasn’t myself. I had all of these strange new feelings. How do you know if you’re in love? Y
ou can’t concentrate. Your palms are sweaty. Butterflies in the stomach. You can’t eat. Is that love? Or is that malaria? Well, whatever it was, I had it bad.

  After school, I ran to the shop and for the next four hours my face was glued to the front door, but she didn’t arrive. I was totally gutted. She didn’t come in the next day either and by the end of the week the fantasies I’d had of our amazing first date, subsequent marriage and children were shattered. Other fantasies involving her persisted for a bit longer but I felt sure that we would never meet again.

  I’d almost forgotten about her by the following week and was working as normal when the door rang and she entered. I don’t want to sound bitter about it but there is a difference between the way that boys and girls flirt and date. When a guy says he’ll come around and see you after school he either does what he says or he doesn’t and you never see him again. Girls are different. They get you all worked up and excited to see them. Then they don’t turn up and it’s only after the whole thing has blown over and you’re getting back to normal – then they turn up and throw you for six again. She sauntered up to the cashier’s desk.

  ‘Remember me?’ she said suggestively.

  ‘Of course I remember you. I didn’t think you were going to come.’

  ‘Sorry. I was busy for the last few days.’ Yeah, right, of course you were. Vixen who had my heartstrings twirled around your little finger. ‘So what colour laces do you think I should go for?’

  I looked at the laces display and just said the first colour I saw. ‘How about green?’ Green. The colour of bogeys and mould.

  ‘Do you think I’d look good in green?’ She looked unsure and I corrected myself.

  ‘How about a nice pair of red laces? I’ll even do them up for you.’ It worked. The next thing you know I was in very close proximity to this lovely sexy girl, lacing up her shoes. Before I knew it, the conversation unfroze and we were chatting away very happily on those teeny-tiny stools that shoe shops and children’s libraries seem to have the monopoly on.

  She said her name was Viola Kovach. We chatted about the snooty English girls she had to go to school with and how she missed her friends back home. Talking to her, I suddenly felt very proud and grown up. I played the worldly wise man to this girl and quietly forgot that I still had a curfew at home and shared a bedroom with my younger brother Chris. I went for broke.

  ‘So. Would you like to go out with me sometime? I could show you around the area.’

  ‘That would be great.’ She paused a moment. ‘How about this weekend? Saturday after you finish working here?’

  ‘Yes, great. I get off at five. Come around here and we’ll do something fun.’

  ‘It’s a date!’ The magic words at last. She offered to pay for the laces but I said they were on me and she was out the door.

  I couldn’t believe how easy that had been! A date for Amos! By Saturday I was psyched beyond belief. She turned up on cue at five o’clock and it was on. I changed out of my work clothes and together Viola and I stepped out onto Tooting High Street. Now I have to point out that I was only eighteen and not a very worldly eighteen-year-old at that. Not knowing any better I decided to take her out to McDonald’s. A pathetic date nowadays but back in the late eighties people still thought of McDonald’s as a treat. Who am I kidding? It was a rubbish choice. But there were slim pickings to choose from in those days in Tooting. It probably should have badly backfired but it just so happened that there was still no McDonald’s in Hungary at the time and so Viola was actually a little bit impressed.

  ‘A quarter pounder with cheese meal for the lady and for me. Hmm. Chicken nuggets. Six or nine nuggets?’ I was completely broke but tried to style it out. ‘You know, I had a really big lunch. Maybe – can I get just get three nuggets?’

  Viola laughed. ‘Hey! I’m from communist Hungary, remember. Back home the guy doesn’t always have to buy the girl dinner. I’ve got this one.’ And she produced a tenner. After we’d munched our way through the food, she suggested that we go and have a drink. Again, I had to plead no money and so we bought a few beers and went to sit in the park together. We got a bit tipsy and, as it began to rain, she huddled up with me under my big jacket. Just as I was about to suggest that we head home, she kissed me right there in the middle of the park.

  There’s something about a first kiss that is even more memorable and amazing than the first time you have sex. I think it’s because before you full-on lose your virginity you do a bunch of other things that aren’t quite sex but that feel pretty close. But your first kiss is the first time you have any sexual contact with anyone and it is completely mind-blowing. I remember meeting Viola in that park pretty much every day for the rest of the week and all we did was kiss. That was sort of a relief because when you’re an eighteen-year-old conversations run a bit like this:

  ‘God, I hate school so much. It’s such a drag,’ I’d say.

  ‘Yeah, me too. I’m totally going to fail all of my A levels,’ Viola would reply.

  ‘You know I haven’t even picked up a book yet,’ I’d say.

  ‘I don’t even own any of the books,’ Viola would reply.

  ‘Tell me about it. I don’t even know how to read … Erm, wait a minute.’ When I’d say something really stupid Viola would just pretend I hadn’t and kiss me. It was probably the most hassle-free relationship I’ve ever had.

  By the beginning of the spring term at school, we were hopelessly, disgustingly, in love with each other. We’d go to the cinema together and sit at the back giggling and being shushed by everyone. We’d hold hands and moon at each other. OK, it was pretty sickening, but when you’re young and in love for the first time you don’t have much of a frame of reference for how to behave. She said she wanted to meet my family and that she wanted me to meet hers. Obviously, it was totally out of the question for her to come to my place, but I was happy to go around and see hers.

  Before I knew it, I was going around to her house for dinner often and I was on first-name terms with her mum and dad. Viola was an only child and so dinnertime at their house was a lot less hectic than at mine where you had to get in there quick or be left with an empty plate. Everyone took their time and they had conversations at the table while drinking wine and beer. Her parents were really permissive and they would make a lot of public displays of affection to one another. Actually her mum was a bit creepy when she met me at the door. She would kiss me on the cheek and give me a hug, which would linger for a bit too long. But I wasn’t complaining and just figured that Europeans were flirtier than Brits. One night they even offered to let me stay round at their house over the weekend. I couldn’t really believe what I was hearing. ‘Where would I stay?’

  ‘With Viola, of course.’ Now this was so completely exciting that I almost spat out my soup.

  I probably said, ‘That would be GREAT!’ a little bit too eagerly.

  The next day I visited Albert to get some advice. He’d moved out of the family home, was staying in university halls in central London and had always been a rock of stability in the maelstrom of our family. Ever since those days back in Nigeria, Albert was the kind of guy who had never had any problem getting girls even though he was a student of chemistry. How could a guy who wore protector specs and a lab coat all day be such a magnet for the ladies? I didn’t understand it. I asked him straight out: ‘Albert. I’ve got a serious date. What do I do?’

  ‘How serious, Stephen?’

  ‘She’s asked me to stay round at her place for the night! What do I tell Mum and Dad?’ He punched me on the arm and gave me a huge hug of congratulations. He said that I could tell them I was staying with him over the weekend and I was virtually floored by the next thing he offered. He told me that I could borrow his car so that I could take her out for a drive on Saturday. I’d passed my driving test about a week after my seventeenth birthday, but in spite of my regular pleadings my dad had never ever let me use his clapped-out old Citroen. Albert even gave me sixty quid to spen
d!

  When the weekend came around, I picked up Albert’s car and virtually flew to Viola’s house. I was drooling all night long and I can tell you that it wasn’t the dodgy Hungarian goulash that they served for dinner. Viola’s parents were being especially touchy-feely with each other that night and so when dinner was over we were pleased to be excused from the table and I went with their daughter up to her room.

  We played music for a bit and started to play around. I can tell you I had never been so horny in my young life as I was that night. Just when things were getting very hot, we started to hear a weird sound. A kind of rhythmic beating sound, which at first I attributed to the music. Then we started to hear sounds that were definitely not on the Prince album I’d brought over that night (this was the Purple Rain period, before he turned into Satan’s tiny sex doll with the New Power Generation). After a few minutes, it sounded like there was a full-on brass band playing next door. There’s something about the thought of your girlfriend’s parents screwing like Swedish pigs next door that can take the meat out of your bacon. Sadly, nothing happened that night.

  It was a pretty uncomfortable breakfast with her mum and dad gliding around the kitchen like they’d been up all night experimenting with the Kama Sutra extended edition. It was a horrible feeling knowing that your mojo had been stolen by a couple of wrinkly oldies and so I was thankful when the object of my affection suggested that we go out for a drive. I jumped at the chance and the minute we were in the car together the atmosphere relaxed. I pushed play on the tape deck and Gary fucking Numan came on. A huge star in the late seventies, Gary Numan had had three number ones including the hit song ‘Cars’ and he’d introduced electronic synthesizers into the pop mainstream. He was Albert’s favourite singer (how did he get so many girlfriends?) and the speakers pumped out: ‘Here in my car, I feel safest of all. I can lock all my doors. It’s the only way to live. In cars.’ Lyrically, it’s somewhere between what a special child and a hobo might say, if they were talking under water. Viola saved the day by producing a Stevie Wonder cassette and we sat back and relaxed to the beats of Stevie. Things were really beginning to look up.