by Terry Ronald
Silence. Then Eddie stands up, knocking his chair backwards, and I sit there impotently as Chrissy disappears up the stairs sharpish. Judas!
‘You can’t say fuck-all in this house – especially where he’s concerned,’ Eddie yells, and he gestures at me accusingly. ‘Just cos he’s a bit clever, nobody thinks he can do any wrong. Well, you don’t know the fuckin’ half of what he gets up to, Kath.’
Oh dear. OH DEAR.
‘Oh, don’t talk rubbish, Eddie,’ Aunt Val says, jumping in. ‘You’re determined to ruin his bloody birthday. You’ve been digging at him all night.’
‘I ’aven’t been digging at him, Val,’ Eddie spits. ‘You lot just think the sun shines out of his arse, but you don’t know anything. You don’t know what a crafty little fucker he is … you can’t see it!’
Then he spins around and marches towards the lounge door, kicking his upturned chair as he goes.
‘Oh, I’m going round the club for the last hour,’ he says.
And thank God for that!
‘What the bleedin’ hell was all that about?’ Nan says once the storm has passed and the porch door has slammed.
‘Search me,’ Mum says, helping herself to a glass of Nan’s Emva Cream. ‘He’s never happy unless he’s fucking moaning, and we’ve got his birthday to get through next week. I suppose he’ll expect us all to make a big song and dance about that.’
She polishes off the sherry in one go, and then she says, ‘I went to get him a card today, but I couldn’t find one with a pig on it.’
And we all scream with laughter – apart from poor Abigail, who clearly doesn’t find uproar and near violence at a family birthday party legitimate grounds for merriment.
‘Shall we go upstairs, David?’ she suggests loudly, as Mum, Val, Nan and me rock back and forth with glee.
‘What on earth for?’
‘Well, you said …’ Abigail hesitates, ‘… play some records, stop over …’
‘Well, that was before,’ I say, edging my chair away from her. ‘I think I’d rather just go up to my room alone now, if you don’t mind.’
Abigail stares at me, blinking. I really don’t know what she’s looking at me like that for. What does she expect – for me to take her upstairs and fuck her? I should co-co! The plan had fallen flat anyway, and what was the point of having Abigail stay over to throw Eddie off the pansy scent if Eddie wasn’t there to witness it? He’d be at the club drinking with Marty till all hours now. I decide I’d best really hammer the point home.
‘You might as well get off actually, Abi,’ I say. ‘I’m a bit tired, to be honest, and you’ve been ever so clingy tonight – you know how that irritates me. And aren’t there any mirrors in your mother’s prefab? Your make-up looks like you tossed it into the air and then ran underneath.’
Abigail stands up slowly and buttons her cardigan with pursed lips. Mum and Nan are still giggling, but Aunt Val is eyeballing me rather peculiarly, almost reproachfully, if I’m not mistaken.
‘Do you know what you are, David Starr?’ Abigail says, once she’s thrown her bunny jacket on, and gathered up her suede patchwork shoulder bag.
‘I’m all ears,’ I say, looking up at her.
‘A self-obsessed little prick,’ she says.
Nan gasps.
‘Ooh my Gawd! Language, lovey!’
But Abigail is on her way towards the door. As she reaches it, she looks over her shoulder – possibly for dramatic effect – and tosses her ringlets one last time.
‘Happy birthday, wank-face,’ she says.
Charming!
Fourteen
Fags and Apples
To be honest, I’d felt pretty damned shoddy about my behaviour towards Abigail almost as soon as she’d shot off home earlier tonight. What was I bloody thinking? Aunt Val had grabbed me by the elbow in our passage afterwards and given me what for while Nan was getting her coat.
‘You shouldn’t treat people that way, David,’ she’d said. ‘It’s mean. If you don’t fancy Abigail then you shouldn’t be mucking her about like that.’
I knew she was right and I felt frightful about it.
‘I thought I was being funny,’ I mumbled, looking down at the floor. ‘I don’t really fancy Abigail. I actually like somebody else but it’s all a bit sticky and so I …’
Aunt Val had put a finger under my chin and lifted my face up towards hers.
‘I think I’ve figured that out for meself,’ she said softly. ‘In fact, I think I’ve known it for a long while. But you wanna start sorting yourself out, David. It’s not like you to be spiteful, and it’s not that poor girl’s fault, is it?’
I’d looked Aunt Val in the eye, only for a moment, and willed her to say something more, to say the words out loud, but she didn’t, so I just said, ‘No. Sorry.’
After Mum has staggered off to bed, and Aunt Val has escorted Nan home, I trot out into the front garden armed with a packet of Chrissy’s Bensons, and I light one up. I sit down on the front-room window ledge and take a long drag, and then tip my head back, blowing the smoke out, slowly and luxuriously, into the night air. It’s warmish for October, I think, and extraordinarily clear and starry into the bargain. I sit and ponder Aunt Val’s chiding words in the passage. She was right: it is very unlike me to be spiteful, and I do need to sort myself out, and quick smart about it. Suddenly I make a decision: a snap one, you might say. I decide then and there that I’m going to sweep away the debris and disarray of the past weeks and keep things simple from now on. The simple fact is that I am in love with Maxie and that is that. I will apologize to Abigail, yes, and then I’ll explain my atrocious actions by telling her the complete and utter truth – surely she’ll forgive me then. And as for Dad – well, there is no reason why he has to know bugger-all about anything, is there? As long as I don’t bring Maxie round to our house for the next couple of months and dangle him under Eddie’s nose, we could sweep the whole tawdry episode under the shagpile. It’s all going to be all right. It really is.
Just as I’m about to go back into the house, feeling rather pleased with my resolution, the porch door swings open and Chrissy appears in her cotton nightie and dressing gown, her bleached hair slicked back, wet.
‘There’s my fags,’ she says, and I throw her the packet.
She sits down next to me and starts picking flaky paint off the ledge. Then she sparks up her own cigarette, and I watch in awe as she puffs out three faultless smoke rings in a row. Chrissy always seems so much more grown up than me, I feel, even though she’s a year and a bit younger. She seems to have a composure and assurance about her that I long for but never manage to attain. Sure, I’m the clever one, but Chrissy is just so much fucking cooler. Neither of us speak for quite a while, and then finally I say to her, ‘Your hair smells of apples.’
‘That’ll be me VO5 conditioner,’ she replies somewhat tersely.
‘It’s nice,’ I say. ‘Apple-ish.’
She looks me up and down for a moment, and then she says, ‘Why were you such a fucking tosser towards Abi in there earlier? She was crying when she left, you know. I could hear her from all the way upstairs, making that funny noise at the back of her throat, like she does. You’re a bloody freak!’
‘I don’t know why I was like that,’ I whine. ‘Everything went wrong last week and I just wanted to—’
‘What’s gone wrong?’ Chrissy suddenly snaps. ‘Is it something to do with that bloody Maxie? And where was he on your birthday anyway – your new best friend? You’re just behaving really weird lately, David, cos you wanna be different. You always have to be fuckin’ different.’
Then I bristle and leap up from the windowsill.
‘ME? What about you getting back with bloody Rudolf Hess? Nan told me she spied the two of you snogging. It makes me want to vomit after what he did to Frances and Maxie: he hit him in the face!’
‘No!’ Chrissy shouts.
‘No what?’
‘He’s not a Nazi, he’s not
!’
‘Oh no?’ I snipe caustically. ‘Well, he does a bloody good impersonation of one then.’
And I spill my guts about what Frances told me about Chrissy’s ‘dear little Toby’.
When I’m done, Chrissy lights another B&H, and looks altogether horrified.
‘But he didn’t know those kids were NF,’ she spits, desperately puffing out smoke in short sharp bursts, her eyes fiery. ‘He thought they were just into the clothes and the music, like him, and now that he does know he’s stopped knocking around with them – honest. He told me that he got very, very pissed on strong cider before that party on the Aylesbury, and that’s why he behaved like such a dickhead. He didn’t know what he was doing. He swore on his little sister’s life, and she’s got a semi-withered arm. He never meant to hurt Maxie or Frances – he didn’t even know that she was your friend, and he certainly wasn’t the one shouting out those vile names – that wasn’t Squirrel. He’s not like that, David, I know him.’
She suddenly has tears in her eyes.
‘He’s not,’ she says softly, and I put my arm around her.
‘You need to get him to talk to Frances then,’ I say. ‘Put things right.’
Chrissy nods solemnly.
‘I will.’
‘Sometimes nice people do horrible things, don’t they?’ I smile. ‘Like me with Abigail. I was vile to her tonight. I didn’t really mean it, though. You just have to put these things right, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, you do,’ Chrissy says, sniffing.
We sit quiet for a while, a police car whizzing along Lordship Lane with its siren going the only sound you could hear, a woman on a late-night stroll with her boxer dog the only sign of life. I consider, for a moment in the lull, mentioning Squirrel’s unexplained liaisons with our cleaner, Moira, but it doesn’t seem the right time – Chrissy seems too upset – so I decide to let it lie. Then she suddenly flicks her cigarette high in the air and into the kerb, and turns to face me.
‘Are you gay, David?’ she says. ‘Are you?’
I laugh out loud, smashing the near silence of the evening, and then I say, ‘Yes. I am.’
‘I knew it,’ she says.
And when she hugs me tight around the neck I can smell the apples.
Fifteen
Hitting the Fan
When I arrive home a mere five nights later, after Oliver! rehearsals, I’m not overly flabbergasted to discover Chrissy on the sofa in the lounge, sprawled out torpidly across a half-dressed Squirrel. His eyes are fixed on the television, and she is lying there a bit like Cleopatra, only with a Caramac and a bottle of lime Corona. All the lamps are switched off and the room is lit only by the glow of Tomorrow’s World, so I quietly plonk myself down on one of the armchairs in readiness for tonight’s Top of the Pops, on which Kate Bush is scheduled to appear. I’m very excited about that!
‘All right?’ Squirrel says to me, his grey Ben Sherman wide open, exposing his lean, ashy upper body.
‘All right,’ I reply.
Chrissy pops her head up and looks over at me sheepishly as I take off my school blazer.
‘How’s rehearsal for the school play going, bruv?’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to see you prancin’ round in a frock, to be honest. Did you see your mate Maxie today?’
It’s dark, but I can tell that she has a preposterous grin on her face.
‘It’s all fine,’ I say cheerily, ‘apart from the fact that half of the actors are retarded, and one would just as soon stab our little Oliver through the heart as look at him. But aside from that, I think it’ll be quite good.’
Chrissy giggles, but it actually isn’t funny. With only a few weeks to go, the show, I feel, is a complete and unqualified shambles. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting the Ziegfeld Follies, scenery-wise, but this is positively Blue Peter; and where Miss Jibbs got the idea that London Bridge is, or has ever been, the colour of overcooked asparagus is a complete mystery to me and to everyone else.
‘It’s teal,’ she’d announced proudly this afternoon. ‘I thought we needed a splash of pizzazz, and my Auntie Iris had a couple of tins going begging after she’d finished her Jack and Jill bathroom.’
I argued, of course, that during my death scene, which was played out right in the vicinity of London Bridge, the audience might not be able to see me at all, as my Second Act frock was a rather charming peacock taffeta and not a million miles from the colour she’d seen fit to paint the fucking bridge.
‘I’ll just look like part of the bloody scenery, miss,’ I’d lamented to no avail.
She just told me to go for something showy on the glove front and wave my arms about. As for the singing, well, it’s hardly the Vienna Boys’ Choir – more like the terraces at Millwall – but I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it. Maxie and me, at least, will shine as Bill and Nancy, and the sixth-form lad playing Fagin is very good, if slightly paunchy.
Chrissy is still grilling me.
‘It’s just that I’ve not seen him around for a week or so, that Maxie. Is he all right?’ she says, suddenly sitting up.
‘Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’ I laugh, and I can just about make out my sister winking at me.
‘I just am,’ she says. ‘And did you tell Frances what I said?’
Chrissy leans forward, clearly eager for my answer.
‘I did tell her, and I think she’ll probably come around,’ I say, ‘but Toby will have to talk to her as well. It has to come from him, not me.’
Squirrel has been fixated on Judith Hann reclining on the bonnet of a small space-age-looking car that she reckons could be folded down and packed into a tote bag. When he hears his name, he tears his eyes away from the telly.
‘Don’t call me Toby, for fuck’s sake, Dave,’ he mutters, ‘and I will make amends to your mate Frances, I promise.’
Then he’s back to the box.
‘You see,’ Chrissy grins. ‘I told you he would. And you have to apologize to Abigail about your birthday, David, like you promised, right?’
‘I will apologize to Abi,’ I say. ‘I promise I’ll do it tomorrow when she comes over.’
‘Excellent!’ Chrissy says, and she snuggles back down, her thick blonde hair splayed out across Squirrel’s bony torso. I wonder, as I watch them on the couch in the dark, whether I might soon be reclining like that in Maxie’s arms, whether Maxie would even feel comfortable lying on the couch like that with me. I mean, what is the etiquette for sitting at home relaxing with a gay lover? I wonder if Maxie will take to it – to any of it? In the last three days at school, and during rehearsals, we have been tighter than ever, if anything, despite the near-ruinous episode in my bedroom and in the face of the glowering disapproval of Bob Lord, whose disdain for our ‘friendship’ is now practically rabid. We have even managed to steal a few seconds alone, and a couple of mischievous kisses – yes, kisses – when there is no prying eye to find or trap us. Those moments, however, have been few and far between, so the rehearsals for Oliver! – with Maxie and me playing ill-fated sweethearts – are as precious as gold, or at least the rare twelve-inch version of Blondie’s ‘X Offender’.
A third of the way through Top of the Pops the front door bangs shut and, without warning, the lights go on. It’s Nan at the lounge door balancing three plates of thick mince and mashed potatoes. Aunt Val is hovering behind with cutlery and a copy of Titbits.
‘I’m feeding you tonight,’ Nan announces. ‘So if you’re going to eat this in here, eat it fast. I don’t want him bloody moaning at me for letting you kids eat in the lounge and getting mince all over the three-piece.’
Nan really is a rather fine and laudable woman, and she isn’t an elderly or in any way decaying type of nan either. She has just turned sixty-one, and spends most of her waking hours looking after anyone who’ll let her – especially since she lost Grandad to the big C. When she isn’t tidying up or making a batch of her unparalleled home-cooked chips, she can oft be found sipping her
favourite beverage – a pony – with her friend Judith Goodley at the club. Aunt Val, two years Mum’s junior at thirty-four, still living with Nan, has not yet married. It’s not like there are not enough suitors, mind. Aunt Val has been in a perpetual state of courtship or semi-engagement since the Tokyo Olympics. She’s just fussy, that’s all. There’d been Ray the plumber, Julian the architect, Cyril the policeman – an endless stream, it seems to me – but there’s always something the matter.
‘Ray’s beard tends to chafe,’ I remember her saying after she’d cruelly dumped him outside Timothy Whites.
‘I asked Cyril to book a weekend in the Lake District and he took me to a reservoir in Stoke Newington.’
She was never satisfied. Val had, she tells me, been really and truly in love with only one boy during the mid-to-late sixties: Johnny Barber, his name was. But he’d been tragically killed when his scooter had gone under a tram at Blackpool, and Val says she’s never got over it. I think she’s happy living at Nan’s for the time being, if you want the truth.
Chrissy and I tuck into our plates of thick mince, mine balanced precariously on my knee as I wait for Kate Bush to come on.
‘What is this stuff?’ Squirrel whispers, glaring down at his plate in abject terror. ‘I’m not really that peckish, Chrissy, to be honest!’
‘Are you fucking anorexic or what?’ my sister yells. ‘Give it here, I’ll eat yours, you skinny bastard!’
Chrissy and me both crack up laughing, and then Nan and Aunt Val decide to sit down and join us for the back end of Top of the Pops – which means I’ll have to put up with Nan saying things like, ‘Ooh, she screeches, that Kate Bush – I can’t bloody stand ’er.’
But it makes me laugh out loud – Chrissy and Squirrel too – and for the first time in days, I actually have the feeling that everything might be all right after all. But it doesn’t last long …
‘So where have Mum and Dad gone? Is there a darts match at the club or something?’ Chrissy says, licking mashed potato off her knife.