by Terry Ronald
‘I’m a rude girl now,’ she’d announced to us during Sapphire and Steel a couple of weeks back, wearing bright-pink lips and a low-cut T-shirt.
Mum had just tutted and gone back to her Family Circle, but Nan, who had popped in for a visit, said to her, ‘You ought to be wearing something a little less revealing, young lady. It’s not that long since they blew up Lord Mountbatten, you know.’
Chrissy didn’t give much of a fig what anyone thought, anyway. As far as she was concerned, she and Squirrel were something approaching the Bonnie and Clyde of East Dulwich: untamed free spirits who could do pretty much as they pleased, as long as our dad didn’t find out.
‘Your hair looks ever so nice today, Moira!’ Chrissy shouts over, with a mouthful of Special K.
Moira spins around at the sink.
‘Do you like it?’ she beams, fingering the blue-black curls about her shoulders. ‘I got it from a Paki shop in Penge!’
Chrissy and I both gasp in horror at the same time.
‘We don’t say Paki, Moira,’ I scold, and I point at the Anti Nazi League badge on my blazer lapel. Chrissy is shaking her head.
‘It’s Pakistani!’ she says. ‘Not Paki.’
‘It’s Pakistani if the person in question comes from Pakistan, Chrissy,’ I correct. ‘They might come from India or Mauritius, or Bradford.’
Moira laughs nervously, her eyes blazing.
‘Oh! I don’t mean nothin’ by it,’ she says. ‘I’m not a racialist, I can promise you that – I used to go out with one meself.’
‘One what?’ Chrissy asks.
‘An Indian fella! I dated him for quite some months, as it goes, till all the drug-taking fucked it up.’
We’re intrigued.
‘Drugs?’ I say.
‘He was taking drugs?’ Chrissy gasps.
Moira looks misty-eyed.
‘No, I was,’ she says. ‘Oh, he was gorgeous, though – beautiful wavy ’air and green eyes – and an absolute gent the whole time we were together. Took me places I never thought I’d go: Hampton Court Palace, Garfunkel’s … it was tough, though, kids, it really was.’
‘What was?’ I say. ‘What was tough?’
‘The pressure of stepping out with an overseas-type gentleman,’ says Moira, sticking out a large bosom. ‘People are unkind; they don’t want to understand anyfin’ different. I’d ’ave women lookin’ daggers at me in Victor Value – oh yes, cutting remarks on the bus from all and sundry, people expecting me to like hot food. No, kids, other people’s prejudices tore me and my Sajan apart, I can tell you that. We were fuckin’ doomed from the start.’
There’s that word again. Doomed.
Moira looks wistfully, and somewhat over-dramatically, out of the kitchen window for a moment, while fiddling with a Brillo.
‘I wonder whatever ’appened to him,’ she muses.
‘Well, I think you should have bloody well stayed together,’ I say, banging my spoon down rather too vehemently on the glass table. ‘It’s nobody else’s business who one chooses to love, is it? You should have stuck it out. Fuck what anyone else thinks – that’s what I say.’
‘S’pose you’re right,’ Moira says, now bleaching down the draining board. ‘But if it wasn’t meant to be, darlin’, it wasn’t meant to be. I guess it just wasn’t in the stars for little ol’ me to spend my life with an Indian man. Which is probably for the best if you think about it. I mean, they’re very studious and clever an’ all that, but they don’t really ’ave the big willies like the blacks, do they?’
And with that she starts singing along with Sad Cafe’s ‘Everyday Hurts’ on the transistor – gathering up our breakfast bowls as she goes.
There’s a thump on the front door and before I know it, Squirrel has locked Chrissy in an earthy clinch in the passage. When they’re done, he bowls into the kitchen, whistling, and wearing ankle-swinger school trousers that have been crudely taken in at the leg to make them into drainpipes, with a skinny chequered tie over a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He looks ever more gaunt, and decidedly shifty this morning. When Chrissy goes upstairs to get her schoolbag, he sidles over to Moira, who’s still singing at the sink, and motions to her with his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking. Strange. Moira looks back at him and shakes her head, eyes bulging, teeth gritted: I can see them in the mirror on the wall opposite – what on earth are they up to? I didn’t even know Squirrel knew Moira that well. I decide to pop out to the utility room, and I pretend to rifle through the laundry basket for something. Then, when they think I’m out of sight, I peek back into the kitchen through the crack in the door. Moira is bending down and she takes something out of her tote bag – it looks like a little package – and she hands it to Squirrel, who bungs it into his pocket as quick as you like. Then she shoves him away, like she doesn’t want him near her, gritting her teeth again and shooing him off. This is all very odd, I feel – should I mention it to Chrissy? Perhaps not. At least not until I know more.
‘Let’s go!’ Chrissy shouts from the passage, and I reappear from the utility room, smiling knowingly at Moira as I pass her. She doesn’t twig.
‘Don’t be late, I promised your mother,’ she says.
It’s a greyish morning and I think it might be spitting, so I pull up the hood on my duffle. Chrissy lights up the minute the front door’s shut behind her, and she links arms with Squirrel, dragging the heels of her slingbacks along the pavement as she goes. The three of us plod towards our respective schools, and when we get to the end of Chesterfield Street, Abigail, who becomes animated to the point of virtual apoplexy when she spots me, tags along with us. Shit!
‘Hiya, Dave,’ she gushes as we head along Lordship Lane.
‘Hi, Abigail,’ I mutter back.
To be honest, I’m mortified at the very sight of her after what had occurred between us a couple of weeks back – particularly since I’d finally admitted to myself that coral nail varnish on my private parts was, perhaps, not something I’d be altogether thrilled about from hereon in.
‘I’m glad I’ve bumped into you,’ she goes on. ‘Do you know what I was thinking?’
Surprise me.
‘I was thinking we could go out together, Sat’day – you know, just us. Me an’ you. What d’you think?’
‘Why?’ I say.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I thought after what happened the other week – you know …’
And she leers at me as if she might eat me. I’m affronted, and I stare blankly at her as we walk, almost crashing into a lamp post outside the off-licence.
‘What do you mean – after what happened the other week?’ I enquire foolhardily.
Chrissy and Squirrel start laughing, and I turn to them open-mouthed.
‘What?’
‘It’s all right, Davey boy,’ Squirrel chuckles. ‘We all know Abi gave you one off the wrist up in your bedroom the other week. She told us straight after.’
I stop dead in my tracks. She fucking told them.
‘You fucking told them?’
Abigail looks down at the pavement and fiddles with one of her bunches.
‘I had to,’ she says. ‘I ‘ad spunk on me pleated mini, and your sister noticed. Anyway, we tell each other everything, me and Chrissy – don’t we, Chris?’
She’s brazen.
‘Yeah!’ Chrissy laughs. ‘And some things I’d rather not know, thanks very much: like me brother being jerked off to a Donna Summer record by me best mate being one of ’em.’
They all find this highly amusing, and Squirrel is almost frenzied with laughter at this juncture. I feel slightly queasy and I lean against the window of the dry-cleaners.
‘For fuck’s sake, Abigail.’
‘I’m sorry, David,’ she says.
And I can see that she is, so I decide to let her down gently.
‘The thing is, Abigail,’ I say cautiously, ‘I’ve actually met somebody else … met somebody … you know … that I like in that way, and I … er …
well, I can’t really go out with anyone at the moment, because I like this person, you see.’
‘Oh!’
Abigail sucks in her cheeks and looks down at her moccasins.
‘I thought you said I looked like Debbie Harry,’ she says quietly.
‘Oh, you do!’ I say, gripping her by the shoulders. ‘You really do. It’s just that … well, I’m not sure that I’m looking for someone that looks like Debbie Harry, much as I enjoy her music. Do you understand?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she snaps, and she pulls away from me.
Chrissy and Squirrel suddenly stop giggling and pay full attention. Abi goes on.
‘All I know is that you took my virginity, and now you don’t want to go out with me. Typical boy. You think I’m a slag, don’t ya?’
‘I don’t think you’re a slag,’ I say, agog. ‘And what do you mean, I took your virginity? We didn’t even …’
‘My hand virginity,’ Abigail clarifies. ‘You took my hand virginity. I’d never touched anyone like that before, down there before.’
I think she might cry.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ I say. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Abi. Look, I can’t go out with you, and that’s that – I’m really sorry.’
Squirrel elbows me, hard, in the ribs.
‘Ooh! Right little minge-teaser, you are, Davey,’ he squawks. ‘Didn’t think you ’ad it in ya, mate.’
This exhausts me, and I turn my back on the lot of them.
‘Whatever,’ I say. ‘I’m going to school.’
And I start to head along Lordship Lane again, alone. Suddenly, Chrissy shouts after me.
‘Who is she, then? This girl!’
But I don’t turn back.
‘He’s making it up,’ I hear Abigail say. ‘He hasn’t got no one.’
You’re probably right, Abigail, I decide. You’re probably absolutely bloody right!
I’m pondering my Debbie dream when I finally wander into school, and I’ve just stopped to consider Moira’s insight into the numerous pitfalls of star-crossed love outside the science block, when a voice calls me from across the playground.
‘What are you doing out here, David? It’s twenty past nine, son, you’re late.’
Luckily it’s Mr Peacock in a pea-green cagoule carrying a clipboard.
‘Nothing, sir! I didn’t realize what the time was, sir, sorry!’
He strides over towards me, eyes squinting against the spitting rain, which is dripping off his loosely permed fringe.
‘Haven’t you got technical drawing first lesson?’ he says. ‘Mr Lord won’t be best thrilled if you’re late, will he?’
I shake my head.
‘I don’t think I’m in Mr Lord’s good books anyway, sir,’ I smile.
‘Oh, and why’s that?’ he says, and then he holds up his hand.
‘Actually, David, you don’t need to answer that.’
And he chuckles.
‘Are you looking forward to the rally and the concert on Sunday?’ he asks me, then. ‘Annie and I are, very much – I think it’s going to be a really good turnout.’
I nod enthusiastically.
‘I really am, sir, so is Frances. And Maxie Boswell is coming along, too, did you know?’
‘I somehow thought he might be,’ Mr Peacock smiles, and I look up at him, slightly puzzled by the remark.
‘Well, you just go easy, David, eh?’ he says softly.
I nod again, but I’m not sure quite what he means; then he looks down at his clipboard.
‘I won’t put you in the late book today, David,’ he says.
‘Thanks, sir!’
I turn and head, then, towards the main building. I’m thinking about Moira and her kind, gentle, Indian man and their ill-fated romance; and I wonder, just as I reach the dreaded technical boring room and a red-faced Mr Lord, whether all misunderstood love – and indeed, my love – might well be doomed.
Nine
A Moment of Unity
The day of the Rock Against Racism rally and concert is upon us and all I can say is Wow! Brockwell Park is awash with punks, Rastas, hippies, students and all sorts of homosexuals, male and female, under a seemingly endless canvas of azure sky. Everywhere you look, large-breasted, dungaree-clad women and their offspring are skipping about plaid blankets that all seem to be covered in nut roasts, discarded sandals and Sainsbury’s red wine in ribbed plastic bottles, the smell of ganja pricking the air. The sound system is now so implausibly loud that the dub and reggae coming through its speakers just sound like a low buzzing thump echoing around the park, but nobody seems to mind at all; everyone just keeps on dancing.
This is my second Rock Against Racism gig – we’d been to one with some of the ‘lefty brigade’ teachers at the Alexandra Palace earlier in the year and Frances and me had adored it. There, we hadn’t felt different: wonky or out of place. We felt like we were part of something that made up something that counted for something, and we vowed to go to every subsequent RAR event that we could. Frances has now got quite into the whole Anti Nazi League scene and has learned practically everything there is to know about it. She’d explained to me, for instance, that the Rock Against Racism movement had originally been launched after Eric Clapton, who I felt had never made a decent pop single, had stopped one of his concerts to make a speech in support of the intolerant and bigoted diatribes of Enoch Powell. She also knew all about ‘the battle of Lewisham’ in 1977, which, people say, brought about the formation of the Anti Nazi League.
‘Ever since then we’ve had the NF on the run,’ she’d say with pride, ‘and we’re getting stronger all the time.’
She was a right little militant. Of course, Margaret Thatcher being elected Prime Minister earlier in the year wasn’t ever going to be a help to any kind of left-wing group, particularly as the news and media slant seems to have taken a very sharp – and in my opinion, unpleasant – turn to the right these days. Still, though, Frances can oft be discovered outside Chelsea Girl in Peckham of a Saturday, doling out paraphernalia, and shouting up for her cause. And for that – and for the astute and compassionate eyes through which she views the world – I admire Frances utterly.
I suppose I’m seeing the universe in a whole new light as well, as it happens. I’m actually fast growing used to the fact that I am what all the other kids always said I was: homo, queer, bent, shirt-lifter and all the other choice and exquisite pet names I’d collected over the years. The difference is that now it is my declaration and no one else’s. Not Mr Lord’s, not my dad’s and not Jason Lancaster’s. I am the one affirming who and what I am. I have taken back the power. I am something approaching Wonder Woman and I’m rather enjoying it. Not that I’ve been able to caterwaul about my sexuality from the proverbial rooftops or, indeed, make public my feelings for Maxie. But just to have finally said the words ‘I’m gay’ to myself without actually combusting, or melting, or turning bright pink, is extraordinarily empowering. Having Hamish McClarnon and my best friend, Frances, tell me ‘it’s OK’ is like breathing a new and exhilarating oxygen. And as the days go by, and the fruit of this fresh revelation ripens, my vim and vigour are shooting up like wild corn, along with a new sanguinity.
Maxie and me have settled on the grass towards the back of the park where the crowd is a little thinner. We’ve decided to catch the first band while Frances goes on the hunt for a food stall, and Maxie is actually lying here in his crisp white shirt with his head virtually in my lap, chewing a long stalk of grass. It’s très Evelyn Waugh, I decide, but he doesn’t appear to be in the least self-conscious about it. I’m resisting the urge to run my fingers through his hair when he suddenly bobs up.
‘Hey! There’s Frances!’ he shouts, pointing through the throng at an approaching juvenile covered in badges.
‘Oh yes!’ I concur. ‘And she doesn’t seem to have my fucking hot dog. The greedy cow has probably scoffed it herself!’
‘She’s been ages,’ Maxie says, gazing across the bustling park. ‘D
o you think she’s met a lesbian or something? There seem to be an awful lot of ’em here.’
‘I should think she’s probably met several lesbians,’ I suggest. ‘But I’m pretty certain that when push comes to shove, our Frances has a preference for the penis.’
‘What, like you?’ Maxie laughs, lying back down and looking up at me with saucer eyes, and I feel myself crimson: what does he think he knows? I’ve not actually told him anything!
When Frances eventually reaches us, hopping over a dwarf punk couple, I can tell that all is not as it might be.
‘There’s been trouble. There’s been a lot of fucking trouble outside the park gates,’ she says.
She’s quite breathless, and her Bob Marley T-shirt is soaked through. Maxie and I sit up straight.
‘Really?’
‘Nazis. The National Front, shouting, throwing bottles at the people coming in, doing Heil Hitler. I got hit in the face with a Kia-Ora carton,’ Frances says, looking like she’d just run with the stampeding bulls in Pamplona. Her hands are positively trembling.
‘Well, it could have been worse, lovey, couldn’t it?’ I say, quickly pulling myself up from the ground and giving her hand a little comfort squeeze. ‘A carton’s not as bad as a bottle, is it?’