Ros is different, and how. The others have cleared this space around her, like they think themselves unworthy of her company or they’re intimidated by her originality. That’s the price you pay for beauty and intelligence, I guess. But it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. With the end of term approaching, I may never get a chance as promising as this again. So I wander up to her in what I think is called a nonchalant fashion, hands in pockets, taking a grand survey of the sports field, the running track and all those chodes actually using trainers for training and track suits for the track. Then it’s like my gaze takes her in only accidentally – like I hadn’t known she was there at all.
‘Oh, hi, it’s you,’ I say. ‘Cool day, isn’t it? Not cool, like cold, because it’s really warm, in fact I’m a bit sweaty, but…’
While she’s digesting this, I sit down beside her and draw up my knees. She’s still staring out towards the track somewhere and I’m not entirely sure she’s heard me. If Ros has one fault, and it’s a really little one, a peccadillo, it’s that I never see her without her headphones in. I’d be interested to know what she’s listening to. Probably something ice-cool and super-intelligent. I raise my voice, anyway.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ I tell her, fixing my attention on the lone runner coming off the track and doubling over with exhaustion. ‘It’s amazing – I’ve discovered you and I share the same taste in literature. Almost exactly the same in fact. Crazy, isn’t it? You read Kafka and Kerouac, right? Well, so do I! What are the chances? I read Ken Kesey, too, and Dean R. Koontz.’
There’s still no reaction. I wish she would take out her earphones, just this once. I have to talk louder still. ‘I’m reading Kierkegaard,’ I tell her, and everyone else on the mound.
I begin to recite everything I can remember from the Wikipedia entry for the ultra-boring but clearly girl-impressing Søren Kierkegaard, dressing it up so it appears that these are original observations of my own. I throw in a few jokes too. I stand up and try to amuse her with my ready wit. An old song title and another philosopher’s name produces ‘Hegel, don’t bother me,’ which I think is exceptionally funny and laugh myself hoarse, wiping my eyes, only to see that she hasn’t batted a single purple eyelid. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it,’ I try, desperately.
‘No.’ That’s the voiced opinion of several of the recumbent bodies around me.
‘I’ve been reading Keats too,’ I tell her, just as loudly.
‘Poof,’ says one of my other listeners.
‘What about you? What are you reading now?’
I turn and look at her and am surprised to see she’s not actually wearing her headphones today. I needn’t have shouted. ‘Ros?’ I say, and am puzzled that there’s not a flicker of a reaction. Strange, I think. I try ‘Rosalind?’ with the same result. I consider the possibility that she has recently been struck deaf, perhaps in that lightning storm we had the other night. Hard to tell whether her clothes are singed or not. The other possibility is that she is ignoring me, cutting me dead, as they say in some of the older books I’ve dipped into recently. This is a terrible thought and I rack my brain for how I might have offended her. Did she think I was taking the piss when I said I was a vegan? Was it the behaviour of my so-called friends, Clive and Faruk at the dinner table, was it that ketchuppy sausage landing on her plate? I feel the need to speak plainly.
‘Look,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to have done, but I just want you to understand that I’m very sorry, okay?’
I realise that I’m as close to Ros as I will probably ever get and that it’s now or never.
‘I don’t know what is going on here,’ I say. ‘But you might as well know that I respect you, Rosalind.’ I don’t notice that the hubbub of conversation has suddenly died. ‘In fact, I think you are the most wonderful girl in the school.’ I’m not really registering the barely-suppressed giggling and one or two ironical Aaahs. I blunder on. ‘I admire you for the depth of your reading, your brilliant mind, the way you dress, the way you walk and probably the way you talk, too. Whether or not you want me, Rosalind, I’m telling you here and now that I LOVE YOU.’
And now I can hear the noise around me, the almighty cheer, the clapping, the wolf-whistles and the coarse and suggestive comments from Dave Fletcher and his dumb mates. I stand there, awaiting Rosalind’s response. It’s like waiting to hear my fate.
I stand there what seems like an hour, but is probably ten seconds. The noise has subsided, like everyone else is awaiting her answer too. But amazingly, Rosalind Chandler is oblivious not only to my presence but to that of everyone else on The Grassy Knoll, to everyone else in the world, for all I know. She just sits there, with her knees pulled up a little tighter, maybe, and stares towards the track, where the lone runner is nowhere to be seen, not, that is, until she appears directly in front of me, a red faced, freely perspiring and very angry Teresa Davenport, who is saying, ‘How could you do this, after everything I told you about Ros? How could you?’ And she’s helping Ros to her feet and Ros is still saying nothing as Teresa, dressed fetchingly, I’m ashamed to notice, in a sweat-dampened track top and tight blue shorts, helps Ros down from The Knoll and towards the Brian Johnson-free zone of the school itself.
You can imagine how I am feeling. Actually, no, you really can’t.
Teresa Davenport stops play – again. I think about her close relationship with Ros as I follow the pair back to school, bathed in humiliation. What is it with her? Why is it TD who gets to spend so much time with Ros and not me? It’s not natural, I think, then the thought flashes through my mind that maybe I have a rival. Maybe Ros is mistaking Teresa’s attentions as friendship when Teresa has something very much more personal in mind. Teresa doesn’t look like a lesbian, at least not like the ones I’ve Googled, but who knows? Maybe you get pretty ones too?
The end of term exams are over.
Most of mine seemed to go okay, but I’ve said that before, when I produced results which had my Dad ranting and raving and tearing out his remaining hair. The terrible thing is, you never know, with exams. Chance and fate always seem to be involved somehow. But they are over at last and though we still have to go into school, part of the time, anyway, it’s all much more relaxed. People are bunking off on the flimsiest pretexts and there’s no real teaching going on, not for us, at least. Everyone’s thoughts are turned towards what they’ll do with the imminent summer holidays, like which festivals they’re getting tickets for, where they’re going on holiday and what summer jobs they’ll be taking to fund their various recreational and shopping habits.
Dad is planning to take Mum off for a few days in Edgebaston, but there’s to be no party at mine. Not after The Party to End All Parties. In fact it doesn’t look like we’ll be having a party anywhere. Diesel’s is right out, now that he’s steaming towards a wife and 2.4 children, poor bugger. Faruk’s family’s flat is always so crowded with friends and relatives that a party would get lost amongst them all. And Roger won’t hear of it, despite it being his idea and him being so desperate for Clive to ‘dip his wick’, which he is so certain will immediately cure his son of any untoward tendencies.
Roger won’t have it at his because he and Clive have finally got the bungalow’s interior just the way they want it. It is spectacular, I have to say, with linen blinds and potted palms offering a sultry, tropical vibe in Roger’s bedroom and a new ethnic thing going on in Clive’s. The scrap business has obviously been doing well, as Roger has upgraded the floor coverings in several rooms and Clive’s latest choice of designer knick-knacks looks on the expensive side. But it’s not, I can understand, a place where either of them would want a lot of chodes in dirty boots dancing on the Persian rugs and doing the other party stuff in the boutique bedrooms and smart bathroom.
So instead of a party, we’re going to have a weekend away, somewhere there’s something going on. And because Roger is a mate, sort of, and because he looks like he just might be a dangerous m
ate, we’ll have to try and get Clive laid. After we’ve got ourselves laid, ideally. I’m not sure which is the more unlikely eventuality, but all sounds good right now. Cornwall could be a rocking venue: there’s ravers and surf girls at Newquay, or posh kids with money down at Rock. We thought about Brighton, but getting Clive laid in the nation’s gay capital might be making work for ourselves. The point is that we’ll go somewhere, have a brilliant time and I’ll be able to avoid thinking about Nana for a while, and also about how I have, apparently, completely distressed Rosalind, the one and only love of my life.
On days like this I think my top-end mobile phone has been worth every pound of the money Mum paid for it. It’s got the usual roster of features I’ll never use, plus a touch-screen, multi-mega pixel camera and an unusually detailed call log, which for today lists the following activity:
Friday. Outgoing calls
8.25 am. Violet Johnson: I call Mum from my bed, tell her I’m not feeling well and ask her to phone me in sick at school. I also tell her I’m quite hungry and could do a bacon sandwich, if there is one in the offing and hang up before Mum can reply.
8.45 am. St Saviour’s School: I ring in sick, citing suspected appendicitis. Miss Eliot in the office says she’d tell my form teacher, Mr Lodge and hopes I’ll get better soon.
8.25 am. Diesel: I call the Big D to ask if he’s doing anything Saturday. Tell him Faruk is otherwise engaged. Diesel says he’ll come over mine early on Saturday and we’ll have some fun.
Incoming calls
8.27 am. Violet Johnson: Mum calls to tell me that if I am going to skive school I can do the phoning in for myself. She also enquires what my last servant died of.
9.05 am. Bernard Lodge: My form teacher calls to tell me that according to his records, I had my appendix removed last summer holidays. He remembers it well, he says, as my recovery extended three days into the new term. He wishes me a miraculous recovery and says that he is very much looking forward to seeing me tomorrow.
11.17 am. Faruk: FA reminds me that he won’t be around on Saturday as he’s been roped into a five-a-side with his mates from the mosque.
11.49 am. Diesel: Says he can’t make Saturday after all as he’s already booked for another shopping expedition with Lauren. Wants to know if I knew the price of cots and strollers these days?
And then:
Voicemail from: Teresa Davenport
Hello, Brian? Listen, Ros is not so good, She’s in her room, refusing to see anyone. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Not all of it. But we need to do something. (Pause.) Look, you may act like a cretin sometimes, but I know you care about her, like I do. So call me. We need to talk.
Saturday. Outgoing texts, late pm:
To: Teresa Davenport.
Sorry, only picked up your message today. Phone lost in sofa. How is Ros? Would have called or come over but it all kicked off at Clive’s. Will explain when I see you. Talk very soon.
CHAPTER 15
Please Mr Postman
There was a time, Clive says, when Roger Dyson, or Nutter Dyson, as he answered to then, would spend his Saturday afternoons with his friends, Frank Mad Dog Pemble, Hammer Harry Piercey and Les Stanley McGregor, in and around the leafy suburb of Peckham, South London. This, I’m told, is necessary background if I’m to understand what caused the disturbance at 13, Laurel Gardens earlier this afternoon. The one which resulted in two lost teeth, one fractured pelvis and a broken nose; the destruction of various pieces of quite expensive designer furniture, and one of Roger’s Rottweilers shitting itself in fright all over the Persian rug.
In South London, Roger was a keen supporter of Millwall F.C. and liked to take his three pals down The Shed, where they would meet other like-minded pals, and, on a good day, watch his favourite team trounce the visiting side. Many of Roger’s friends weren’t actually Millwall supporters. They didn’t much like football, even. They wore the Millwall shirts and scarves the way an army wears a uniform, to differentiate between friend and foe in the confusion of battle.
Because what Roger’s friends liked more than anything, was a good scrap. A big set-to, with iron bars, broken bottles and knuckle-dusters was their idea of healthy, vigorous exercise. In the periods just before and after the match itself, pockets of enemy fans might be lured into secluded dead-end streets and taught that trespassing on Millwall turf was a dangerous idea. Not that Roger and his mates actually wanted to deter the other supporters from coming. Without them, Saturdays would have been very much duller.
But after a few years of this, Roger’s mates started to grow up, have kids, get jobs – good jobs, some of them. You couldn’t spend your weekdays as a City trader and your Saturdays trying to beat the living shit out of Chelsea supporters. Their numbers dropped off and simultaneously, the whole ethos of the game changed. The clubs themselves changed. There was seating in the stands, where a safe family atmosphere was promoted and good old boys with lumps of wood were looked upon as dinosaurs rather than heroes. And now, when Roger and his much diminished crew did find a rumble, they were often outnumbered and, Roger told his son, ‘given a proper kicking’.
The time had come to move on. Roger tried to wind things down; better to watch the footie and go for a pint. But other firms still came mob-handed, looking to settle old scores and take scalps like Roger’s. And the police still regarded him as a menace and circulated his details to pubs and football clubs, and to border agencies whenever there was a fixture on the Continent. And on top of that, Erica Dyson, Clive’s mum, was giving him a right old earful every time he got into trouble. Things were getting too warm for Nutter. The opportunity to move up North and take on his Great Auntie Ethel’s bungalow could hardly have come at a better time.
The lads were sorry to see him go, of course, and he had a memorable send off in a pub down the Old Kent Road, with a lock-in and a finger buffet. Everyone ‘got ratted’ and the whole affair ended with a huge bar fight for old times’ sake – and with Roger extending an open invitation to any Southern jesses who wanted to experience the man’s life of the North, first hand. It was a little joke which had gone down very well but one which had been loaded with unforeseen consequences.
I knew nothing about all this. I didn’t know that Roger had been a notorious football hooligan, or that he had three friends who would, after these intervening years, look exactly like the three suspicious characters who tossed a tin of Tennent’s over our front garden hedge at 2.20 this afternoon. From my bedroom window I’d seen a big shaven-headed bloke wearing a camel Crombie, a small, fat man in denim jacket, denim jeans and brown Doc Marten’s and a middling-sized man with a scarred cheek who wore thick-framed glasses and an ill-fitting suit and looked like Michael Caine with a bad haircut. These were the descriptions I was going to supply to the police, should anyone’s house get turned over that afternoon.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Earlier that day, according to Clive, he and Roger had donned matching blue fleeces and had gone to an antiques fair to put in a spot of practise for a projected appearance on TV’s mid-day antiques game, Bargain Search. The fleeces were worn partly to get into character and partly to get over the shock of having to appear in such unfashionable items of apparel on TV. Because by this time, Clive had extended his father’s interest in life’s finer things to his wardrobe and Roger was rarely seen without his Armani jeans and his Prada lightweight nylon jacket, funded, like the interior makeover, by the deceased ancient relative who hadn’t set eyes on him since he was a ‘darling little boy’ in shorts. Roger had had a fit when Clive told him that he’d signed them both up as contestants on Bargain Search. ‘I’m not wearing a fucking fleece,’ he’d told his son. ‘End of.’
But Clive had been very persuasive. Clive said he’d be bound to land a bird if they saw him on the show. He didn’t say that being on telly might sell his dad too. By Clive’s reckoning, there must be thousands of single women sitting on their sofas in the middle of the day just waiting for someone like Roger to give
them a purpose in life (like doing the cooking and cleaning and providing a gossipy female friend for Clive himself). But the application had been made months ago and though they both were looking forward to it as a bit of a laugh, Clive had since been visited by an idea for sorting out his dad which was much more certain of success.
This morning, Clive tells me, after a successful visit to the antiques fair, where Roger had bought a Victorian swordstick and Clive had bagged a Lalique bowl, they had returned home to find a large envelope bearing an illegible foreign postmark waiting on the doorstep. Still wearing their matching blue fleeces, they had thrown themselves down on their bright new Conran sofa, torn open the packet and begun to devour the pages of the July issue of Asian Bride magazine.
It was several weeks since he had first mooted the idea to his father.
‘Do wot?’ Roger had said. ‘A fooking mail order bride?’
By then, Roger had got a handle on the Northern tongue. You had to, if you used the boozers he did. Fooking, not fackin’, bath as in Kath (not sarth, like in Sarth London). Grass rhymed with ass, but arse was the same north and south of the Watford Gap. Not that nuances of the English language were uppermost in his mind just then.
‘What are you suggesting? That I get one off Amazon or leave a bid on eBay? Or maybe wait ‘til the new Argos catalogue comes out and choose one from there? Fuck me, Clive, have you thought this through? Who are these people you’ve been writing to without my say so? I don’t even know what these birds are like.’
Clive noticed that at no point did he reject the idea out of hand and proceeded to explain to his father the benefits, as he saw them, of using the simple expedient of ordering his next wife online or through a catalogue. ‘I’m not sure about this, Cly,’ Roger had said at first. ‘Is it like ordering other mail order goods? I mean, can I send her back if she doesn’t fit? If she isn’t fit for purpose, I mean?’ Roger had a thousand and one questions. How would he know she’d make a good wife? How would he know if she was good in bed? Could he try her on approval? Would she speak English? Would she know how to cook a decent meat and potato pie? Would she be able to drive, at least as far as his local boozer? Would she appreciate all that he, as a connoisseur of fine living, had to offer?
Losing It Page 18