by Duff, Alan
“And don’t forget who’s taking you home, and in whose arms you’re gonna be. So darling —” Stopping in mid-pace to make an appealing gesture of outstretched arms to the girlfriend — Becky Royal — in his mind. “Save the last dance for me.”
Grinning self-consciously, yet pleased with himself. And he pictured, too, his parents singing the same song together, as they only rarely did.
He was so engrossed in singing another song, this one of hotdogs and French fries and under a boardwalk that Americans must have cos New Zealand doesn’t, he failed to hear the outer door opening, was smackdab in the middle of one of his theatrical gestures of handing a hotdog to the girl in his mind when the cell door sprang open.
And there was Mr Dekka. Giving Charlie, caught and embarrassed, an amused look. Like being discovered having a crap.
“So, we like to sing, do we?”
What to say to that? Charlie went red, turned his embarrassment to the wall adjacent.
“Eyes, don’t forget, Charles Wilson,” came the voice in warning tone.
Charlie forced himself to look back at the housemaster. But he couldn’t hold it, for the blue eyes seemed to be boring into him even though the mouth was fixed in a brilliant white smile. He found Mr Dekka’s highly polished, clumpy brown shoes.
“I must say, you Maoris have very good singing voices.” The tone seemingly genuine. Till he added, “But you all waste it. Hardly any of you go on to make best use of your natural voices.”
“Shyness, sir,” Charlie found himself naturally coming out with.
But Mr Dekka shook his head. “No, not shyness. Something lacking.” With steel in his voice, and his eyes.
Anyway, its meaning missed Charlie. Then Mr Dekka handed Charlie folded pyjamas which had, to Charlie’s astonishment, a pair of slippers on top. For me? he wondered, a bit guarded.
“Tomorrow you might even get a dressing gown. How does that sound?”
He nodded appreciation as he took the pyjamas and slippers, placed them on his bed. (Now what?) Mr Dekka looked as if he wanted to say something, the way he kept staring at Charlie. But then he shrugged. “Oh, well, I guess Mr Davis will take a shine to you with a singing voice like you have.”
Yet he positively glared at Charlie, as though jealous. And Charlie blushed furiously at the backhanded compliment; he’d only ever had his close friends say nice things about his singing voice.
Mr Dekka paused in the doorway, looking outward for some little time, then he turned. “Sleep tight, Charles.” Paused, and Charlie saw colour flush over his face. Then he added, “And try not to dream of the girls, huh?” Chuckling. “Like most of the boys in here, yes?” (Yes? What’s he talking about?) “You are all at that age, hmmm.” The door closed.
Charlie thought he might have misheard — did Mr Dekka say something about being “horny young men?”
Thirteen, eh, and I’m here. In a cell. Charlie slowly walking his circuit, taking in the smaller details. Initials and dates carved into the thick paint, speckled green and white. He wondered what other boys could have used to etch their initials since the cutlery was plastic. The dates went back to 3/3/60 J.D. There weren’t a lot, not considering the most recent one Charlie could find said a Chow had been here on the seventeenth of the third, 1967, only a few months ago. “Chow?” What, as in Chinaman? Charlie pulled the skin beside his eyes, and did a shuffle-walk to go with it. “Ning nong ye-yi-yo!” he laughed.
There was a triumphant message proclaiming: “Yippee! Borstal here I come!” Date 9/11/65. Borstal, eh, Charlie giving that some thought; remembering a couple of older kids from his neighbourhood who’d been to Borstal, how tough they were — or seemed — how they’d come home and all the kids surrounded them to gaze at their tattoos, the boob dots under the right eye. The letters: B.O.B., abbreviation for “Borstal Old Boy.” Like an old boys’ rugby team of a certain school. Remembering the status it gave them. How some of the girls were really impressed by them, and the kids said it was a sure way of getting a girl’s pants off, even when the kids hardly knew what they were talking about. Still, sounded pretty neat. And now a boy knew a little more about these things … Well, maybe he could understand why that kid who’d been right here back in sixty-five was looking forward to going to Borstal. Though other stories Charlie had heard about Borstals were they were hard places and only for the hardest of fullas. He wasn’t sure he was that hard. Or even if he wanted to be. Grinning to himself and thinking, “But if I tattooed the B.O.B. on my hand I might still get the girls.” Laughing. And pacing. And finding things.
A name kept cropping up. “George.” No dates. Just George. Charlie even found the name etched into the black-painted metal support frames underneath the bed where he’d decided to explore, just in case. In case I find me an escape key, hahahaha!
Instead he found the name George carved several times on both metal angle bar and grooved into the wooden slats. Kid must’ve lain under here on his back to do it. But what if he’d got caught? What would he say?
Charlie found something this ubiquitous George had to say other than his oft-repeated name. It said, “Kehua come.” Followed by a laboriously etched 6 and a 7. As if the carver of wooden bed slats had a struggling knowledge of numbers.
Doesn’t kehua mean ghost in Maori …? The realisation sent Charlie’s blood cold. He rolled quickly out from under the bed. Got to his feet and adopted a “There’s no such thing as ghosts” stance. Though the cell had got suddenly chilly. So he dived into bed, still in his clothes but with the slippers replacing his shoes. Then he leapt out at the thought of Mr Dekka catching him in bed in his clothes when he’d been kind enough to bring Charlie not only pyjamas but nice warm slippers, too.
He changed into the pyjamas. The feel so unfamiliar and nice he almost forgot what had brought him to change in the first place. He just stood there, turning, twisting his body this way and that to get the tingle of fluffiness and warmth against his skin; the aroma of cleanliness, nice-scented washing stuff still lingering in the blue-striped garments. Ahhh.
In bed, and snuggled doubly up in the luxury of pyjamas and several blankets, a kid actually felt, you know, not so bad. Considering. He turned inwards, facing the wall, so to close this feeling, this little world of unexpected comfort, further into himself. Just me and my P-jammies, boy. Smiling away. Life wasn’t so bad after all.
When he opened his eyes he got the reminder then. George. George had been here in this very spot, looking at this very point on the green and white blobbed wall, before carving his name here. Charlie stared at it. Then he noticed faintly beside it another name. It said, Hori. So Charlie thinking again; of the ghost which must have been George’s bad dream sometime in this same year. But what Hori meant Charlie had no idea, except it was an ill-meant reference to anyone of Maori blood at school, as he recalled. Though come to think of it, it could also be used as a term without nastiness. Or why else would the Two Lakes representative men’s rugby team have a mascot with the name “Hori”? So maybe this George was referring to the same rugby symbol?
Sleep took Charlie before he could give matters much more thought. And when he woke it was morning because light was striped on the concrete ceiling from the barred window down the end of his bed. The first word that came to him was “Kehua”. But this time, in the security of daylight and having survived his first night away from home — if you could call it that — it didn’t break him out in the chills.
Then, by habit, he was going over his dreams of the night; trying to see inside them, what they meant. And still no sign of understanding.
Out of bed — Woo! Too cold! Back in to bed. Ahh. Could stay here my whole life. Hands up under his head, a ceiling with interesting change of light to contemplate. Thirteen, eh? And here, in a cell. I could be a gangster, a teenage gangster in the making. Going through his imaginary paces, as always. (Cos that’s how I am. Dunno why. Just am. One minute I’m in the real world. Next I’m somewhere else.)
So when he
first heard the voice, he wasn’t sure if he’d heard it for real or not. He stopped breathing.
“Hey, new kid? What’s your name?” the voice from right outside the high window. Charlie sat up.
“What?”
“Ya deaf? Ya got wax in ya ears, boy? I’ll give you waxy ears when ya get out. I’ll box your bloody ears!”
If it wasn’t for the stifled giggles Charlie might have got alarmed at the apparent threat. Charlie jumped out of bed, then climbed back on to it, standing on tiptoe.
“What’s this place like?” He heard his voice more nervous than he expected.
The voice took a long time in answering. “Boy, it’s — hey, I gotta go. Housemaster’s coming. See ya.”
Left Charlie Wilson standing there staring at the shaft of bar-striped light angling itself on the ceiling. And the boy’s voice echoing in his mind, the tone, the timbre, the pitch. He’d remember it.
The click of the outer door sounded. Charlie was sat on the edge of his bed when the cell door opened and another kid entered, this one a white boy who looked about eleven, carrying the tray Mr Dekka had taken out with him last night. Behind the shy youngster stood a broadly smiling woman.
“Morning. I’m Miss Eccles.”
Charlie thinking she looked old enough to be someone’s grandmother. And a kindly one at that. So again thinking this was maybe not going to be so bad after all.
3
GEORGE?
Miss Eccles didn’t stay long. Though she did ask if Charlie was all right; and with a face seemingly full of concern. Maybe even guilt. And it was guilt, Charlie realised, when she closed the door after her, saying, “It’s dreadful. Just dreadful that they can do this to little boys.”
Though when he was sure she was gone, Charlie said to himself, “Who’s a little boy? I ain’t a little boy.” Smiling secretly, even to himself. “Hardly,” he added. Then he thought about Miss Eccles’ concern.
Yet it wasn’t that bad. Not with the pyjamas and slippers, and the food was pretty good — better’n home: half the time nothing to eat. Parents gone and drunk it all, spent the money on beer. But here, even if it was a cell, a kid had got a plate of porridge — admittedly not much sugar — two bits of toast and a boiled egg in a cup. Hard, just like I like it. Breakfast at home, now let me see now, seems so long ago and yet only yesterday morning I was having it — oh, I know. Weetbix. One. One each. Cos that’s all was left in the whole house, that’s if you take into account Roger and Kevin got three each cos they were the oldest, and toughest. Not even a few bits of stale bread to toast in the oven. Yeah, that was my brekky yesterday: a Weetbix. Dry. Cos Rog and Kev used up all the milk, too. Oh, but not that they’re selfish, Charlie’s eyes stinging with emotion just at the thought of his two older brothers. But the rules are, the biggest gets the best and the most. That’s how life goes in big families.
Same with Paul and Graeme and Lillia, younger than Charlie. He ruled them. Though Lil, even if she is only eight, no one rules her or not unless she feels like it. Bitch’s gotta temper on her worst of all the Wilsons. S’pose she has to, Charlie had figured it a while ago; she’s the only girl.
He sat on his bed and closed his eyes better to picture what his family would be doing. Mum’d still be in bed, she don’t get up till nearly lunchtime. She’s always tired. Her eyes’re always sad, and her mouth droops. Sometimes she’s cut up around her face from when Dad gives her a hiding. But no big deal, happens all the time round where we live. Might even do it myself when I grow up and my wife doesn’t do as she’s told, hahahaha.
Dad’ll be at work, painting houses, but more like himself the amount of paint he comes home covered in. Every night he comes home from the pub, carrying his two flagons, starting off happy and ending up wild, every time. Every bloody time, boy. Shit, I could kill ’im sometimes. Punches anything’t walks near him when he’s like that. Dunno why. Though a couple of months back when he gave Rog one around the ear, Rog stuck him against the wall and said no more, Dad. Ya touch me ever again and I’ll kill ya. And, oh, how good it felt, for all the kids, to be witness to that, to him — the shit — being shown up by his own eldest son, only eighteen. Dad yelling at Rog he could pack his bloody bags then, and don’t come back. And yelling that if he wasn’t so sick from the paint fumes of all these years, he’d a handled Rog like having a shit. Though everyone knew he couldn’t, not with how tough Rog’d grown up to be. As for the fumes, Rog’d laughed about it to the kids after, the old man means the beer fumes, that’s what’s made him useless.
Rog’d be at work, the butchers in town, down the end of the main street, where Rog’d gone soon as he left school. Good pay too; what Charlie was gonna do soon as he got to fifteen. Well, that was the plan till yesterday. It hit him again, but this time it hurt. I’m in a cell. Thirteen and I’m in a cell. Deeply.
Thinking of his form three classmates, what they’d be thinking of his being sent here. Charlie filled at first with pride, toughness, at how very different his life’d ended up to theirs. Then he got sad because he did like his rugby, and he didn’t mind school so much. Just that a kid was confused, mixed up; more and more in the last year he’d suddenly seemed to head this funny way in his life. His emotions. All jumbled up inside.
Form two teachers last year said it was rebellion. And insolence. And just plain bad.
“Like your older brothers before you.” It wasn’t what they said it was, yet how to explain?
Becky Royal, her face came floating into Charlie’s mind. He felt weak all over. His gut suddenly knotted. His heart beat rapidly. (Oh, Beck. I wish you and me was married and living far away from here, from Two Lakes. Up in Auckland, where no one’d know us, or our age), thinking of his classmate, how he’d loved her for over a year. Not that he said anything much to her. Couldn’t. Too shy. She might say no. Or worse, she might laugh. So loving her from a distance. And so sometimes doing really stupid things in front of her to impress. But she never smiled, and a few times she’d even said, “Oh, grow up Wilson.” Not Charlie, even Charles’d’ve been better than Wilson. Yet she gave, over the last year, enough little signals, little smiles, eye messages, for a boy to keep loving her. If only though, eh?
He went through the names of every classmate. Counted them while he was at it: thirty. Counting me thirty-one. He imagined the gap his absence would make. Then he imagined how they wouldn’t miss him. But only for a moment because it hurt too much, that thought of not one person in his class missing him, let alone really getting into their heads and picturing — or trying to. For which of them could imagine this? Or maybe even shed a quiet tear or two for him, and he saw his own tears drop on to his hands.
Thirteen.
The hours went by. All the faces swarmed in Charlie’s head and, seemingly, every big incident and event he knew from his life. Not a few tears fell, too. But he felt quite a bit better after the few hours, or whatever time it was.
He heard activity outside. Cocked his ears. Sounded like boys getting ready for a game of footie. He stood up on the bed, even though the window was still too high to see out of. He could pick an adult male voice issuing orders, calling out names. Heard the familiar boomph of a football being kicked. Wished he was out there with them. I’d show ’em how to play footie. But then again, the thought immediately occurred: maybe these kids’re so tough, so old, they’ll be showing me. And he grew a little afraid, in dread of the day when he’d be let out of here maybe to an even worse fate.
He strained ears the more, trying to discern the ages of the kids as they shouted to each other as they must be having warm-up passing and running; with that lovely sound of air-filled leather against boot, like music. Music.
The game started because he heard a whistle and a cheer went up. Charlie gave bright-eyed attention to the game, drawing his own pictures of it in his mind.
“And here comes Wilson with the ball … he’s beaten one tackler, two, three tacklers, and still he’s going!” Laughing, and checking the eyebal
l in the door for any darkening that might indicate a real eye the other side. Back to the game. “Wilson’s sidestepped — brilliant sidestep! Now he’s fended off another — a prop too — and there’s only the fullback to beat.” Heart pounding. Snatches of cheer from the real game which he was able to claim for himself, his own brilliant playing.
“And Wilson is going to make a race of this one!” The commentary from himself growing louder with his excitement, the style from the radio commentaries he’d grown up with like every boy had. But just as he was winning the race the cheering outside erupted in a roar — well, a pretty loud yelling at any rate — and took Charlie Wilson’s try right out of existence, as he heard them screaming to a kid, “GO! GO! GO! GO, GEORGE!”
And Charlie staring right at the centre bar of the five covering the window. “George” it said. Just as a whole lot of youthful voices were yelling the same. And jealousy, and a massive curiosity, seeped into Charlie’s heart, his mind. George. George? Who is George?
The game went on for ever, not that Charlie minded. It was company. It was fun pretending he was scoring tries, making tackles. Being cheered. He heard George being cheered frequently throughout the game. A couple of other names figured prominently, too. Sonny was one. Hepa another, and as much as they cheered and screamed for George. Maybe more so, Charlie assessed with his sharper than sharp ears. Hepa.