by John King
I ring the bell and go downstairs, stand on the platform with warm air rubbing my face, kicking the pole and feeling it shake in my hand. There’s a lorry right behind and the driver is swearing his head off as the bus slows down, indicating right to overtake. I jump off before we stop, wait to cross the road, then stand on the central reservation as cars whizz past. One mistake and I’m a goner. I watch the traffic till it thins, go down the lane leading to the orchard, past football pitches on one side and nice detached houses on the other, trimmed plants growing up the bricks, windows sectioned by strips of lead. There’s a bird singing and a squirrel scratching, jaw chewing and eyes blinking. I keep going, the houses set back from the road, and it must get lonely living down here. In a terrace you feel safe somehow, hearing people next door, the laughing as well as the arguments. At night I can hear everyone breathing, snoring, tossing and turning, getting up for a piss, put a pillow over my head when Mum and Dad are on the job. We’re all together. No loony could break in and kill you without being heard, but out here nobody would know. It would be alright during the day, in the summer, I’d love that, have a massive garden and everything, but at night and in the winter you’d be the only person in the world. Being alone is fine, as long as there’s people nearby, things going on so you can join in if you want.
I turn left at the first lane and go in the farm, grab a couple of boxes from the shed, more a corrugated-iron barn really, go to the cherry orchard and get lost in the trees. There’s three sparrows hanging upside down on a wire fence, feet tied with string, eyes wide open. Last year there was a bloke going round hunting birds, and he shot one in the tree I was in. It was a tiny little thing, and he picked it up and bashed its head on a trunk, feathers spraying everywhere. He looked at the crushed brain and threw it away like an old crisp packet. I shouted down to him, said he could’ve killed me, and he looked into the branches till he found where I was, and said maybe next time, walked off laughing. I climbed down and had a look at the bird, saw the face all broken up with bits of skull sticking out. The rest of the summer I imagined having a gun, nicking his and blowing his legs off. I’d never do it, but it’s one of those daydreams that make you feel better. It’s the same with Willis.
The smell of the grass and bark takes me back to last year, and it was David Bowie all the way for us lot, with Diamond Dogs, Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane. It’s a chance to get away from things down here, and even though it can take a while to fill a box I get the same rate as everyone else, instead of being ripped off for the same work just because I’m younger. There’s no taxes and if you work hard you can make decent money. I haven’t really cracked it yet, but it’s up to me to speed up. There’s a ladder by the side of the path and I carry it further into the orchard, right over near the back fence, find a tree that’s loaded with ripe cherries and wedge it into the trunk. I take my jacket off and climb the moss-covered rungs, balance a box between the top of the ladder and the tree, get stuck in. I’m soon back in the swing of things, eating as many cherries as I pick, climbing along the branches and getting used to how much weight they can hold, always tempted to push my luck and stretch another inch or two. I’m moving, quickly fill the first box, start on the second. I’m getting ready to climb down with this when a voice makes me jump.
–You getting rich up there?
I see two feet but not the rest of the body, move forward for a better view, see it’s Roy from last year. He must be forty or so, a huge gypsy in thick-soled boots. He travels around the south of England, parks on the Denham roundabout when he’s working here, or over in Burnham where his brother lives. He makes a living doing all sorts, a jack of all trades, a friendly man who always has time to talk. Wouldn’t think he’d bother with the likes of me, but he doesn’t put people in the normal blocks. Suppose he’s a bit of a loner, his own boss, does what he wants when he wants, has this freedom I wouldn’t mind having one day. It’s a different life, but he grew up in a house and doesn’t have a caravan, just a car. I lug my box down the ladder, making sure I hit the rungs, moss slippery from the dew, the leaves of the tree keeping the sun off. By the time I reach the ground Roy has flattened a patch of grass and is sitting against a stump, tobacco tin open as he works on a roll-up. He doesn’t look at me trying not to spill the cherries, too busy trying not to spill his tobacco.
–What happened to your hair? he asks, when I sit on another stump and help myself to a handful of cherries.
–Didn’t recognise you coming in from the lane, picking up your boxes without saying hello. I was over in the strawberries talking to the ladies, wondering who the new boy was. Then I guessed it was you from last year.
I tell him I got rid of the Ziggy Stardust cut, except it wasn’t the proper job, no dye, just the shape. There was a kid three years ahead of us who had the works. Red hair and pale white skin, as if he was painted or something, fresh out of A Clockwork Orange. He was a proper Bowie freak, a nutter as well. One day he picked up a fork in the dinner queue and stabbed this other kid in the bollocks. He was expelled, and the boy ended up one ball short, same as Hitler during the war. But things change. I tell Roy we’re listening to punk rock now, that all the other music is shit. He nods and scratches his head.
–You still look like a bog brush. New boots as well. You must be doing well. Where’s the safety pins then?
We’re not dressing much different to how we’ve always dressed, just shorter hair and straight-legs. Suppose there’s kids with safety pins, but that’s more fashion. No, it’s the music that’s changed, become tougher and more to do with everyday life. I never understand the stuff they write in the papers about punk being nothing more than loud noise that doesn’t mean anything. The best bands have a lot to say, and at least they don’t spend their time singing about love non stop. I hate that long-hair hippy music and emptyhead disco. Never trust a hippy. Load of bollocks, dressing up in psychedelic clothes and playing hours of feedback, getting excited over Genesis and Yes. Punk has changed things for ever. Same goes for the Beatles, all that horrible tinny sixties wank. I ask Roy what he’s been doing for the last year.
–Moving around, same as usual. Making a living. I went across to Ireland for six months. I’ve got friends there and stayed with them for Christmas. They live outside Galway and I worked behind the bar in their mate’s pub, a quiet boozer in the country. It’s proper countryside as well, not like you get in England. Real wild land, same as Scotland. It’s a hard life. Six months was enough. There’s more going on over here.
I offer Roy some cherries and he takes a load, pulls the stems off one by one, popping them in his mouth. It’s good to be working back here. It’s not proper countryside, but it’s good enough. You only need a small strip of green to feel different.
–Life’s no easier over there, he says. People make life hard wherever you go. They’ve got the priests and we’ve got the politicians. They’re all laying down laws and telling us how to behave.
If everyone saw things through the other person’s eyes, there wouldn’t be any arguments.
–That’s the secret, but it won’t ever happen. If everyone always saw the other person’s view, we’d all end up acting the same, turn into machines. Same customs, food, music, everything. It’s differences that make life interesting, and there’s always going to be some organisation trying to make things the same. Doesn’t matter if it’s religion, politics, big business, royalty. They’re all at it. A bit of friction keeps you on your toes, but I know what you mean, and it’s true when it comes to people. You can have both. Differences and respect.
The cherries taste good. Nice and ripe. He smokes his roll-up not saying much else as he enjoys the flavour, then goes off to the apple trees. Roy’s like that, slow and easy. I go back up the ladder and start filling the box again, lean into the branches and pick cherries for the rest of the day, glad I’m on my own. Every time I take my boxes back to the shed I look over at the rows of strawberries. Must be thirty people working there,
mostly women and kids. It’s supposed to be harder work, and you’re out in the sun more with no shade, but I’ll give it a go one day. Right now the cherries are fine and I’ve always liked being alone, doing things when I want. I’m not one of these people who has to have company the whole time, talking non-stop, walking the streets for hours on end. And I’ve got that first-day energy, glad I’m away from Willis and the bailer, the shelves and price gun, the tins and flickering lights. If I can concentrate hard enough I could crack this. I know I could.
The time passes quick, as it always does when you’re busy, or interested in what you’re doing. I fill six boxes and earn three quid. The farmer comes down and dishes out the money, the woman who counts the boxes during the day handing him the book she keeps. I look around for Roy but don’t see him. The farmer just grunts as he gives me my cash, nods and moves on. I stand outside the shed, next to his tractor, and he’s left the shotgun where anyone could stroll along and nick it, get lost before he knows what’s happened. I try and see how much the strawberry pickers earn, and the first woman collects well over double what I’ve got. But I’ve done alright, and walking back up the lane I’m feeling pleased with myself, even though my arms and legs ache. My DMs are dirty and need a polish, clothes covered in green burns, stains off the bark.
Thing is, like Gran says, you have to count your blessings, and I know I’m lucky, feel sorry for the people stuck in the shop, missing the summer as they build tin pyramids and shift boxes in the warehouse. I think back to the time when I marked the carrots up wrong, did them as baked beans. I got a bollocking for that, and had to peel every single label off, then start again. Worst of all was Willis slagging me off in front of Carol, one of the full-time girls who works on the till, her boyfriend this Cockney Red who showed us the scar he got outside Ninian Park before the game with Cardiff, a line of stitches binding his gut together. She’s alright Carol, a nice girl, and good looking as well. She could be a model I reckon, if she had the connections. She was good as gold, didn’t laugh at Willis’s piss-taking, just stared at him as he tried to make me look stupid in front of her, showing off. She didn’t say a word, and in the end he got the message, saw the hate in her eyes, shut up and walked off.
I reach the main road in time to see my bus flash past. There’s no one at the stop and so it isn’t slowing down. I see the driver’s face, a square head man in his mid-twenties, a bulldog jaw and red cheeks. I’m tired and want to get home for my tea, stick my hand out hoping he’ll pull over and wait for me to catch up, but he looks straight back with this big happy smile and slowly shakes his head side to side. It’s the same bloke from this morning and he’s well chuffed. The bus roars past the stop and keeps going, disappears round the bend. This is London Country, so we only get a part-time service. Nobody gives a toss about us lot out here. I stand by the side of the dual carriageway, thumb out for a few minutes, give up and sit down against the bus stop, Martens stretched out on the gravel, dig in for a long wait.
Debbie comes back into my head, and I don’t know why really. It’s not even the sex, more like this sad feeling when I think about her. She said she loved me but I know she doesn’t mean it, not really, wants to get engaged soon as we leave school. She has to get married and settle down, have a home, but same as Tracy Mercer she ends up getting called a slag. Last time I saw her was a week ago, bunking off school, her mum and dad at work, the room orange from the curtains, boiling hot indoors, and she’s on the bed with her pencil skirt up round her waist, rubbing her fanny, acting the adult, giggling like a kid, silver rings and black stockings. She wants to have it off in time to one of the records I’ve brought round, the flip side of ‘Anarchy In The UK’, a great song, ‘I Wanna Be Me’. She was going on about Fisher doing it to the Rolling Stones. This pissed me off, and she starts sulking, thought I didn’t like her any more. Her dad came home and I had to jump out of the window, run like the clappers. It doesn’t matter now.
There’s the sound of a car horn and I look up, see a Cortina in the lay-by, motor revving. This bloke leans out and asks if I want a ride. At first I think it’s a bum boy or something, look closer and see Smiles’s brother on the other side, behind the steering wheel. I get in and Tony pulls away, burning rubber and spitting up gravel.
–You working in the orchard again? he asks.
The passenger passes me a bottle of cider and I have a drink, a big bloke with very short hair.
–Gary should be going down there instead of working with the old man. He’s been acting funny lately. Don’t know what’s wrong. You should have a word with him.
If Tony’s ever out of work he could have a go as a racing driver, and I sit back, half listening to the news on the radio, this posh voice raving on about law and order, how our police are the greatest in the world, the country on the verge of anarchy, punk rockers, muggers and football hooligans laughing in the face of authority, unions and socialists conning people with their lies. We race down the outside lane, a few minutes later back in Slough, stopping at the lights. There’s some sort of discussion going on in radio land, and unwed mothers, drugs and under-age sex are mentioned. I don’t take much notice. It’s nothing to do with me, leave all that stuff to Dad talking to the telly after work. I’ll be seeing Smiles on Wednesday, listen to Tony and Billy laughing about when they went up to Wolves for the promotion game. The lights change and right now I’m hoping Mum’s made something nice for tea. Tony drops me off and I go in, smell the sausages cooking and hope we’re having mash as well.
We keep our voices down, me and Smiles sitting in the bus-station cafe, concentrating hard, dealing with a serious matter. The place is nearly empty, a lot different to when we come in here after school, when the tables are packed with kids nursing mugs of tea and coffee. There’s two mums nearby, eating egg and chips, telling their kids not to play with the food. Three men sit by the door, their boiler suits specked with creosote, talking quietly, heads low over their plates, laughing and looking over at the women to make sure they can’t hear. One of the mums catches the bald man’s eye and blushes, starts making a fuss of her son. The man goes back to his food, putting pie on his fork, working his way back into the story, adding beans, quickly looking at the woman, a puff-faced blonde with a shaggy perm and pushchair, plastic white sandals and red nails.
Today was my third day in the orchard and I’m feeling fitter and stronger. There’s cakes lined up along the counter, going cheap, but Smiles isn’t looking for a bargain. He’s off his food, got other things on his mind right now, like how he’s gone and made this girl Linda pregnant. He got off with her at a party two months back, and now she’s turned up and told him she’s in the club. She’s found out where he lives and ambushed him in the street. She’s not hysterical or anything, but wants to know what to do, needs to share the problem, which is only right. Smiles isn’t smiling any more. It’s the first time he’s got his leg over and, typical for him, she’s expecting. That’s Smiles all over. Doesn’t get the luck. If something is going to go wrong, then it’ll go wrong for him. Drop a piece of toast, and it’ll land butter-side down. Poor old Smiles.
–She told me she was on the pill, he says, leaning over an empty cup, dropping his voice even lower so I can hardly hear what he’s saying. I was going to use a johnny, but she said it was okay.
He looks bad, water in his eyes, but still remembers to lift the empty mug to his lips so the miserable cow running the cafe doesn’t come over and tell us to buy another one or get out. The tea in here is weak and tastes the same as hot water, and I’m not wasting my hard-earned cash on another one. It’s a place to sit, nothing more, built into the station, without much character, more a canteen than a proper bacon-and-eggs cafe. It stays open later than most places, and works out cheaper than a pub.
–She could’ve been lying, or maybe she just forgot to take it, I don’t know. What would she go and lie about it for? It’s not as if she wants a kid. She’s only fifteen, same as me. What am I going to do? We don�
��t even know each other. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s a fucking nightmare.
Smiles is looking at me as if I know something he doesn’t, but the thing is, I don’t have a clue. You never think of sex and babies going together. It was different when our mums and dads were young. They didn’t have the pill in those days, and VD could kill you. Imagine being able to die from having sex. Things have moved on. None of this helps Smiles. He’s been caught out.
–She says it’s definitely mine. She doesn’t want to get rid of it, doesn’t want to have an abortion. Reckons they suck the baby out with a hoover and stick it in a bucket, turn its brain to mush with an injection or something. Do you think that’s true?
Never thought about it, just imagined they did abortions with a tablet, made the body vanish. All that stuff is for when you get older. They never tell you about hoovers and injections at school. I keep my mouth shut, wait to see what happens next, if an answer will suddenly come out of nowhere. I’m trying hard to think, but nothing’s happening.
–Two minutes of sex and she’s in the club. Why me?
Smiles got off with Linda at this party in Langley. Took his chance after a slow dance to Bryan Ferry, something he felt bad about next day. Not that he minds Roxy Music or Bryan Ferry, but dancing is for wankers, and we were taking the piss out of him, doing a poof routine, selling out so he could get his leg over. It was the dance that helped him shag her, and the dance that’s got him in trouble. Never danced in my life, except at a couple of weddings, when Gran forced me to join in the hokey-cokey—left foot in, left foot out, in out, in out, shake it all about—but that doesn’t count. Like Smiles says, it’s not fair. You get these studs who go round knobbing everything that moves and nothing ever happens to them, they never get caught out. Maybe their spunk’s no good, duff-quality duff, but it’s not that, not really. They’re more professional and less romantic. Suppose you hear the stories and believe the lies, start thinking life’s all roses. Smiles is going to have to come up with a plan.