Boys & Girls

by Paul Burston

  BOYS & girls

  Edited by Paul Burston

  CONTENTS

  FOLDING KITS

  DAVID LLEWELLYN

  THE UNBEARABLE BEAR

  PAUL BURSTON

  BLOOM

  JOE STOREY-SCOTT

  LISTENING OUT FOR THE SEA

  KEITH JARRETT

  EXIT THROUGH THE WOUND

  NORTH MORGAN

  DYING, AND OTHER SUPERPOWERS

  KRISTIAN JOHNS

  MALICHI

  THE ALBERT KENNEDY TRUST

  INDEX OF CONTRIBUTORS

  FOLDING KITS

  DAVID LLEWELLYN

  They were out there now, on the field, even as the snow came in. The rugby club was a good mile from the laundrette, but he could see them; the players little more than specks of colour moving around on the muddy turf, boxed in on all sides by a meagre crowd of parents and friends.

  The snow itself came rolling down the valley like a thunderhead of smoke, as if the grey sky had been dragged into the cleft between the mountains. It swallowed up the details in its wake; first the chimney stack in the old brickworks, then the pump house at the roadside, and finally the field. When the blizzard reached the town the snowflakes looked like flecks of falling ash against the sky.

  ‘Shut that fucking door, will you?’ Said his Dad, ‘’S’fucking freezing.’ And Darren got up from the bench and did as he was told.

  He hadn’t minded the cold breeze coming in. Even in the winter months it was a relief to taste cold fresh air, or to hear the sounds from outside; the cars and the people, kids playing in the street, a hopelessly out-of-season ice cream van trundling along to the tune of ‘O Sole Mio’. With the door shut the only sounds were the machines and the radio. The washers with their low and mournful drone, and rising in pitch with every spin cycle to become a howl. The driers never changing in pitch or tempo, just the hum and the thud-thud-thud of clothes tumbling inside the drums. The radio playing the same chart hits, on an hourly rotation.

  It was February now, but it had been this way for seven months. Darren had left school with a clutch of failed or barely passed exams, and while most of his friends made the three mile journey to the job centre and the dole queue, Darren joined his Dad in the laundrette. There had been little question of him working elsewhere. One night, when he was in his bedroom, playing Sonic on the Megadrive, he’d listened to his Mum and Dad talking about it. He paused the game and sat perfectly still, and listened to their raised voices.

  ‘He’s got no skills,’ his Dad had said. ‘He’s no good with his hands, and he’s not exactly brains of Britain, now, is he?’

  And Darren wanted to believe that they thought he couldn’t hear them.

  The arrangement wasn’t ideal, not even to his Dad. Though the laundrette was always busy – many of the people on the estate couldn’t afford washing machines or driers, or lived in flats too small to accommodate either – it was a small business and would never make a fortune. His Dad had not given him the job in the ambitious hope that the business would one day pass on, father to son, the beginnings of a dynasty. He had given him the job to avoid the shame of his son signing on like all the other kids from the estate. Signing on, claiming benefits, was the greatest shame his Dad could think of, having spent a whole year jobless when the factories had shut and the money had left the valley, like so much rainwater in so many streams and rivers.

  The town itself was like a fortress, something built to defend against marauding invaders. Row after row of identikit, flat-roofed houses rising up on the mountainside, and maybe there was a time when their minimalist, functional design seemed modern and adventurous, the lifestyle of the future, but that time had long since passed. Now, when Darren looked at the town from the valley below he wondered if it was meant to keep outsiders out, or the inhabitants in.

  The driers were stopping now, all six of them, one by one in sequence. Inside, the rugby kits fell lazily into coloured piles in the bottom of each drum. Darren’s Dad looked up from his copy of The Sun.

  ‘You can start folding them, now,’ he said.

  Darren nodded, and he picked up a plastic laundry basket from behind the wooden counter where his father sat. As he set about throwing the kits into the basket, the door opened, letting in an icy breeze. Wilf, one of their regular customers, closed the door behind him and folded his umbrella, stamping his feet three times to shake the slush from his boots.

  ‘Alright, Wilf?’ said Darren’s Dad.

  ‘Not bad, Steve. Not bad. Alright, Darren?’

  Darren looked over at Wilf and nodded his reply without saying a word.

  ‘Taking over the business from your old man, is it?’ said Wilf, with a dry and chesty laugh. He said it every time he came in, without fail, his voice made hoarse by a lifetime of smoking, and he always laughed, as if deep down he knew the idea was ridiculous.

  The old man crossed the laundrette and dropped a plastic bin-bag full of clothes onto the counter.

  ‘I see the boys are playing down the club,’ he said. ‘And in this weather. It’s starting to stick, and all. Shops’ll have sold out of bread and milk if it carries on like this.’

  Wilf and Darren’s father looked out through the windows. Sure enough, the snow was falling heavily now, the rooftops of the cars outside coated in a thin, crisp layer of white. They could no longer see the valley or the rugby club.

  ‘Still,’ said Wilf, ‘we had worse when I was playing. Nineteen forty seven… Now that was a bad winter, but we still played Treherbert. And we won. What about you, Darren? You ever thought of playing?’

  Darren’s Dad didn’t give him chance to answer. ‘You’re bloody kidding, Wilf,’ he said. ‘He can’t throw, catch or run. They wouldn’t let him on the bloody netball team.’

  Darren smiled weakly. He could have sulked, and sometimes he did, but never in front of the customers. They could think what they liked about him, about his ability, or inability, to throw, run and catch, but he wouldn’t give his Dad the satisfaction. Instead, he set about folding the kits.

  This was the one part of the job that gave him pleasure. Folding the kits. Every week, Sandra Lewis, whose husband Dave managed and coached the team, came in with three big bags full of muddy kits. The practise kits, they called them; old yellow jerseys with frayed collars and cuffs, and white shorts smudged with grass stains that just wouldn’t come out, even in a boil wash. She dropped them off on the Friday, and they’d be cleaned, dried and folded by Saturday afternoon, ready for next week’s training.

  Darren always did the folding because his Dad, despite being the owner of a laundrette, had never learned the art of it. Even so, despite the care and attention Darren paid to the task, there were never compliments. It was just his job; the thing he did; but still he took pride in it. The trick was in folding the sleeves, flattening each one out, getting the angles just right, so that you were left with an almost perfect square topped off by the collar. Then they could be stacked, one on top of the other, until they made a cube of sorts, each one five jerseys thick.

  The kits were all the same, of course. At first glance they were indistinguishable; twenty yellow jerseys and twenty white pairs of shorts. Twenty pairs of yellow and black socks. Only somebody who had handled each one with such care could tell the difference, could identify a certain kit without even seeing the number on its back.

  Darren knew the number 9 kit by the missing button in its collar and the loose stitching in its side. When he saw the loose threads where the button should be, and the vague opening, not yet big enough to be called a hole, he knew it was number 9 without having to turn it over.

  This was the kit worn by Lloyd Lewis, the team’s scrum half. Lloyd Lewis, son of Sandra, who dropped off the bags full of
kit, and Dave, the coach. Lloyd Lewis, apprentice builder, and the reason his father’s vans had been repainted with the logo ‘Dave Lewis & Son’ last summer.

  That summer had been different to the many that went before. It was the summer when they left school and got jobs; both of them with their fathers. There was no time for idling, for wasting away whole days and weeks. They were grownups now, young adults, expected to pay their way, to earn their crust.

  The summers before had seen them walking out beyond the town, past the pump house and the brickworks and the chimney. They would walk the snaking road that wound its way around the mountain like a coil, and trace their way along the pebbled path, where once there had been train tracks. There, further along the line, was the shell of a building with just the empty frames of a door and two windows. A small brick shed that had served a purpose once, but which was now derelict; its floor littered with crushed cans and bits of broken bottle, the fragments of weathered glass like gemstones. The vague scent of old smoke and stale piss. The inside walls a kaleidoscope of graffiti; names, dates, and declarations scrawled in marker pen and spray paint.

  In this place they felt cut off from the world. The open, empty windows and doorframes might look out onto the valley and the town, but it was as if the world could not see in. This was their place, a whole universe within four brick walls. A place that sheltered them from summer storms and prying eyes.

  The things that happened inside the small brick shed were never spoken of outside; neither on the journey there, nor during the walk back. Even when they were there, hidden from view, they barely spoke, and when they did it was in euphemisms.

  ‘So … do you want to do stuff?’

  That was always the question, asked by either Darren or Lloyd. If any more was said, it was a game of language, a subterfuge of words. They talked of girls from their school in lustful details, and though those girls might not have been there, they imagined out loud that they were, as if their imaginary presence gave license to each act.

  The summer before had been the end of that. At first, Darren thought they might meet up on weekends, on Sundays, perhaps, and walk along the line again, but they didn’t. Lloyd had learned to drive and bought himself a car. He’d discovered pubs, and older friends who drank in them. He had neither the time nor the need to walk along the line with Darren. They had barely spoken to one another in the seven months since they finished school.

  Of course, Darren could have gone to the pubs, done his best to ingratiate himself with Lloyd’s new friends, but he didn’t. He had no wish to. His eyes were on the city. At night he would look out from his bedroom window, and though they were black against the night sky, the mountains stood out as silhouettes, the canopy above them an infernal shade of orange lit up by the city lights beyond.

  He would save his money, he decided. A little every week. No new games for the Megadrive. No new music. No new clothes. He would save his money and then, when summer came, he would go out in the city. He would go by himself, if needs be. Catch the bus and then the train and go out in the city that lay on the other side of the dark mountains.

  And he thought about that now as he took the number 9 jersey, tucking in the sleeves just so, folding it into a near-perfect square. His finger brushed the loose stitching in its side and the hanging thread where a button should be, and then he placed it with the others in a neat and perfect pile.

  ‘Anyway, Steve, I’d best be off,’ said Wilf. ‘I’ll be round Monday to pick ‘em up.’

  ‘Tara, Wilf,’ said Darren’s Dad.

  Wilf shuffled off across the laundrette, pausing to look out at the snow. ‘Still bloody snowing,’ he said. ‘Can’t even see the rugby club no more.’

  Then he pulled open the door, and stepped out into the street, and Darren watched him walk away before returning his attention to the kits.

  ‘You wanna get a bloody move on with that, too,’ said his Dad. ‘Sandra’ll be round any minute. It’s not like you’re working in fuckin’ Harrods, now, is it? They’ll all get chucked in the back of the car anyway.’

  But Darren carried on as he had done before, folding each remaining kit with the same care and attention, taking pride in the precision of his work. Each kit, he imagined, was another penny earned, and another penny saved, and soon enough the snows would melt, the skies would clear, and it would be summer again.

  THE UNBEARABLE BEAR

  PAUL BURSTON

  The bear isn’t a morning person. ‘Please don’t speak to me in the morning,’ he growls, then proceeds to make half a dozen calls on his mobile phone while I sit quietly sipping my coffee. I find myself wondering how six telephone conversations can be less taxing than one face to face communication, but I don’t say anything. It’s his place, his rules, and I’m crap at confrontation. If I was any kind of animal, I’d probably be a chicken.

  The bear comes alive in the afternoon, when he goes to the local gay beach and has sex with strangers. He hopes today’s stranger will be tomorrow’s live-in boyfriend, and is confused and angry when things don’t work out the way he planned. I remember reading somewhere that grizzly bears spend a few days getting to know one another before mating finally occurs. Perhaps the bear would have greater success at finding a mate if he exercised similar restraint? Then again, I also read that the bond between grizzly bears usually lasts for several days or a couple of weeks at most, so maybe they’re not the best role models.

  The bear and I have known each for a few years, but it’s the first time I’ve observed him in his natural habitat. The last time he visited me, he complained bitterly about some mutual friends who’d recently stayed with him and drunk all the alcohol in his house. Since the bear doesn’t drink, and is constantly urging me to finish off the bottles of vodka left by previous guests, I’m beginning to wonder if our mutual friends were really so badly behaved or were simply following orders.

  The bear is fond of giving orders. Several times a day he reminds me to lock the door when I go out, to answer the phone in case he calls while I’m in, or to stack the dishes in the dish washer and take out the garbage. I arrived in Barcelona three days ago as a house guest. Now I’m starting to feel more like a housekeeper.

  The bear used to be the kind of person who could afford a housekeeper. He was once a bountiful bear who made lots of money and had lots of friends. Now times are tight and he has less money and fewer friends. His closest friend is a woman who bears a startling resemblance to Donatella Versace. Like the bear, she is currently single.

  It was she who came up with the nickname ‘The Unbearable Bear’. I think it may have started off as a term of endearment, but now the cracks are starting to show and tempers are frayed. She and the bear squabble like an old married couple. Sometimes when she phones he pretends he isn’t home. Then she’ll try another number, and another.

  The bear has several phones. There’s the landline that he rarely answers but expects me to pick up on the off chance that it might be him calling and not some total stranger talking in a language I don’t understand. There’s the work mobile which he uses to call home or send texts urging me to pick up the phone. And there’s the iPhone which he uses for everything from photographing men at the beach to sending messages on Facebook to other men he finds attractive.

  Today, one of the bear’s Facebook friends is flying in from the Middle East on his way to Sitges. The bear is very excited about this. As soon as he’s finished making his phone calls and drinking his coffee, he calls me over to look at pictures of his friend on the computer. The man in the photograph is certainly handsome, but I can’t help wondering if his expectations of today’s rendezvous are anything like the bear’s.

  As tactfully as I can, I suggest that Facebook might not be the best place to go looking for a boyfriend. Especially one who lives thousands of miles away.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the bear says. ‘We met already. We were together in Mykonos.’

  Of course. How silly of me. Last month the bear
was in Mykonos, where he made a lot of new friends and posted their photos on Facebook. I hadn’t realised that this was one of those new friends.

  ‘So what happened?’ I ask cautiously, thinking of all those men on the beach and all the great love affairs that failed to blossom.

  ‘We kissed,’ the bear says proudly. He doesn’t elaborate any further, so I’m left to work out for myself if this was simply a friendly kiss or one that held the promise of something more passionate.

  ‘Great,’ I reply. ‘Good for you. Shall I make us some more coffee?’

  ‘I don’t have time,’ the bear sighs. ‘I have some appointments and then I have to go to the supermarket and then to the airport.’

  ‘Why don’t I go to the supermarket for you?’ I suggest. ‘You can write me a list.’

  The bear considers this for a moment. ‘No,’ he says finally. ‘It’s better if I go. You can stay and tidy up the apartment.’

  So the bear goes to take a shower and get dressed and I start clearing up the breakfast things and loading them into the dishwasher. Before he leaves, the bear suggests a list of chores that might help me pass the time until he returns home. These range from taking out the garbage and tidying up the sun deck to cleaning the oven and vacuuming the floor. Which are exactly the sorts of things you want to be doing when you’re on holiday and it’s thirty degrees outside.

  ‘I want everything to be nice for them,’ he stresses.

  ‘Them?’ I say. ‘I thought it was the man from Mykonos?’

  The bear looks at me the way a frustrated teacher might look at a particularly dim-witted child. ‘He is travelling with friends,’ he sighs. ‘Two boys and a girl. So there will be four people. Now I must go.’

  I decide to tackle the oven first. I can’t find any oven cleaner, so I make do with an old scourer and some washing up liquid. I scrub and scrub, but it soon becomes apparent that this oven hasn’t been cleaned in quite a while. By the time I’m ready to give up it’s almost noon, so I tell myself that I really shouldn’t go out in the mid-day sun and turn my attention to the vacuuming. Afterwards I jump into the shower and cover myself in sun lotion before venturing out onto the sun deck. It’s a beautiful day and I make short work of tidying up the bar area and hosing down the deck before collapsing on a sun lounger with a book by Marian Keyes. The book is called This Charming Man. The irony isn’t lost on me.