by Terry Ronald
We cross the room and sink down on the divan with its ridiculous gold lamé headboard and black silk sheets. Above it are even more framed snaps of Jeanette partying with the glamorous and purportedly famous, though I only manage to identify one actual famous person, that being Danny La Rue, who is posed – rather awkwardly – next to Jeanette, and is wearing a more expensive-looking wig. The room, as I said, is suffused in a reddish glow, and the dimness of it seems to camouflage a multitude of sins, decor-wise: threadbare faux-Persian rugs and a pair of stern 1940s utility armchairs, one of which is piled high with dusty back issues of Harpers & Queen and Vogue. But Jeanette has sweetly gone to the trouble of lighting some little candles and putting them on the cabinet next to the bed, and he has garnished the bed’s two pillows with a few red rose petals. I turn to Maxie – who has been ever so quiet since we got out of the taxi – and smile, giggling nervously like I imagine one of the girls at school might, when about to lose her virginity.
‘Look how romantic it all is,’ I say. ‘Our first proper night together as …’
‘As what?’ Maxie whispers.
He is staring at me in the flush of the candles, but it is not a stare that I especially welcome. It is not the gaze, for instance, of a yearning lover, nor is it even that of a horny football captain. No. It is the cheerless glower of a confused and terrified adolescent, and I know the look well. I had seen it in our bathroom mirror at home, on my own face, just a few short weeks back.
‘What?’ I say softly to him, and I notice that there are tears in both his eyes.
‘All this,’ Maxie says.
‘All what?’
‘The room, the candles, the rose petals,’ he says, ‘all of it. I’m not sure it’s right. I’m not sure it’s for me … no … I am sure. It’s not for me, David.’
I suddenly have a tennis-ball-sized lump in my throat.
‘You’re different to me,’ Maxie goes on. ‘You’re brave and sorted and properly gay and …’
‘And what?’
Maxie’s eyes drift downwards to his lap, in which his hands are clasped tight.
‘My mum is a very tidy lady,’ he says. ‘Everything ’as to go in its proper place as far as Vi’s concerned; in its rightful and designated space or little nook. The ironing board ‘as to go in the utility cupboard in the kitchen, but the iron goes under the sink. The books have to go in the posh bookcase, but not all of them: the cookery books have to go in the larder, and God help you if she finds an A–Z or a car manual in the posh bookcase – that sort of literature goes in the garage with Dad’s things. I’m surprised, actually, that she doesn’t make Dad stay in the fuckin’ garage as well; she always says he makes the place look untidy.’
I’m not entirely sure where Maxie is headed with this little family-themed discourse, but he looks so very solemn that I’ll stick with it and keep mum anyway.
‘Mum’s a bit like that with people, too,’ he goes on. ‘My sister Jessica was the clever one, so she was always pegged to go to university – it was never even discussed whether I would go or not, no. I was the sporty one. I would do football or swimming or athletics or all fuckin’ three at the same time if she ’ad her way.’
And he laughs, but only fleetingly.
‘Anyway, a few years ago, when my sister decided she wasn’t going to go to the uni that Vi had picked out for her – that in fact she wasn’t going to any bloody uni at all, and was actually going to move out of home and live over the brush, as Vi would say, with her boyfriend, who was a panel-beater from Billericay – Vi started buying things.’
‘Buying things?’ I say, glancing at the carriage clock on the bedside cabinet – it’s pushing one by now.
‘Buying things,’ Maxie says again, slightly dreamily. ‘It started with an electric kettle, and some new net curtains for the upstairs landing. Then she had another row with my sister and she bought herself the same velour tracksuit in four different colours and a set of Carmen heated rollers, followed the next day by a rotisserie and a four-berth tent, even though she hates camping. Over one weekend, just before Jess was due to leave home, Mum bought a cine-camera with projector, a nest of tables, a music centre – even though there was nothing wrong with the one we had – and a full set of Osmond dolls, including little Jimmy. It was like a fucking episode of Sale of the Century in our sitting room most of the time. Geoff – that’s me dad – reckoned it was best not to mention it, and as she had just bought him a Black & Decker Workmate and me a Raleigh Tomahawk we decided to keep shtum and not look a gift horse in the mouth.’
Maxie is now looking me directly in the face.
‘On the Sunday after Jessica actually moved out,’ he says, ‘my dad went into the garage and found 147 pairs of American tan tights in his screw drawer, and seventy-six packets of cotton buds stuffed in the glove compartment of his car. And then on the Monday when Dad got his Access bill it turns out that Vi had spent three and a half fuckin’ grand in less than a month. She’d even booked a fuckin’ Mediterranean cruise without tellin’ poor old Geoff.’
‘But why?’ I ask. ‘Why did she? And what’s all this got to do with you and me?’
‘Doctor Krol said that it was a mild nervous collapse,’ Maxie says distantly, ‘but she just did it because things weren’t in their proper place and she couldn’t take it. My sister was supposed to go to university, and then meet a nice man and get married with a lovely posh wedding at St John’s; she wasn’t meant to fuck off to Billericay with a panel-beater called Derek, and Mum just couldn’t stand the untidiness of it. Jessica was just like the A–Z in the posh bookcase as far as me mum was concerned, but the difference was you can take the A–Z out of the bookcase and put it where it belongs, in the garage. You can’t do that with people, David.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You can’t.’
‘I’m meant to be the sporty one,’ Maxie says firmly. ‘Not the gay one. There isn’t a gay one. It would just fuckin’ kill her.’
And then he stands up and kisses me on the top of the head.
‘You are fantastic, David,’ he says. ‘But I’ve got to go ’ome. I’m gonna get the night bus.’
He walks towards the front door and I stand up quickly, as if on springs.
‘All right,’ I say, and he turns around. ‘We’ll go home.’
As I pull on my bomber jacket and head towards the door behind him, a bleary-eyed Jeanette appears from the bedroom with chaotic hair and a cigarette – not in a glamorous holder this time. Maxie disappears down the stairs and I turn to face Jeanette, who is leaning in the doorway blowing smoke out in tidy rings.
‘Are you off, then?’ he asks, sounding mildly surprised.
‘We have to,’ I tell him. ‘We weren’t in the right place, apparently.’
‘Oh,’ Jeanette says matter-of-factly, and he crosses the room to his sink and starts rinsing out some mugs that have been sitting on the draining board.
‘And shall I see you boys again?’ he says, looking down into the washing-up bowl and scrubbing hard.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I reply gently. ‘As you say, we’re not really all that au fait with Pimlico. Anyway, thanks and all that …’
But Jeanette doesn’t look round. So I close the door quietly behind me.
Nineteen
Unravelling
I don’t see Maxie at all the following week as it’s half bloody term and he doesn’t even phone me. Then on the first Monday back I find that he’s been mysteriously kept at home – what the hell’s going on? Now it’s Wednesday and still no sign, so when I stride into the drama room after second period I’m all ready to shed my woes at Mr McClarnon’s feet and have him anoint me with some munificent and tremendously wise words, but he’s somewhat distracted. I discover him limp-wristedly running a duster over the blackboard at a snail’s pace, and with a faraway look in his eye.
‘Mr McClarnon?’
I announce my presence but to no avail. Hamish appears completely diverted from the world around him and fails even
to acknowledge my presence. Then all of a sudden Frances totters into the room behind me eating a bag of salt ’n’ shake crisps.
‘What’s going on?’ she says.
‘Search me. I just came in to talk to Hamish but he seems to be on another astral plane for the time being.’
The drama room is empty but for us and so Frances and me head for two of the old-fashioned desks at the front of the class and sit down. Eventually Hamish turns around and spots us, blinking as if he’s been abruptly woken from a Rip Van Winkle-length slumber.
‘Och! It’s you two,’ he says vaguely.
Frances screws up her empty crisp packet and jams it into the inkwell.
‘Yes, sir,’ she says. ‘It’s us. What on earth is the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Hamish says, still in a veritable dream state. ‘I was just …’
And then he drifts off again.
‘SIR!’ I call out, and he finally snaps back into the here and now with a frown.
‘What is it, David? I’m busy.’
‘I need to speak to you, Hamish,’ I say, getting up, ‘about what happened at parents’ evening and about what’s happened since, and my mum and dad and everything, sir!’
Hamish sits down at his desk and puts his head in his hands.
‘Not now, eh, David?’ he says, but I lean over the desk and thrust my face pleadingly towards his.
‘But you said yesterday that you’d talk to me today, and I’m going nuts here. I don’t know what to do about Maxie, he still isn’t at school, and I don’t know if he’s ever coming back, and it’s hideous, sir, hideous!’
Hamish lifts his head and shakes it slowly, almost annoyed.
‘We’ve gone over it, David. I told ye yesterday what I thought was going on wi’ Maxie, didn’t I? I don’t know what else te tell y’, David.’
The ghastly truth was that, because of our little flit up to London, Maxie was being kept away from school and away from me, and I was beginning to unravel. Mr McClarnon had indeed assured me yesterday that Maxie would almost certainly be coming back to school, and would still be involved in the school production if he was inclined to – as props manager – but at the moment his wretchedly overprotective parents, Vi and Geoff Boswell, had decided that Maxie needed to lie low until the proverbial fairy dust had settled, and that’s all there was to it. Hamish firmly believed that Maxie would be back at school next Monday, and that the best and safest course of action for me was to work hard and keep my head down until everyone had calmed down over the whole ludicrous debacle of parents’ evening and its aftermath. Easier said than done. Three teachers had hauled me over the coals already this week for not completing any of the assignments I’d been set over the half-term, and that was in subjects I actually like.
Even nice Mr Peacock had shaken his head mournfully at me when I handed in a flimsy few paragraphs on the Battle of the Bulge on Monday, but to be honest I wasn’t at all fussed about lessons any more. I mean, I used to be an out-and-out sponge for knowledge, I really did, but quite frankly now I don’t give a shit. And having heard nothing from Maxie since all this had blown up has rendered me marginally hysterical and more than a little anxious for some reassurance from him of our love, or at least our connection. How, I thought, could he be just sitting there at home without trying to phone me at the very least? Why hadn’t Maxie attempted to scale the walls of my home to tap on my bedroom window and lead me to escape with him? Did he not care about us? Was he not tormented by the same insidious torture that I myself was enduring? By this morning, it seemed to me that he might not be.
‘I will sit down with you, David, I promise,’ Hamish says. ‘I know there’s a lot ye need to talk about, I know there is.’
And he leans back in his chair, resting his head against the ‘Who killed Blair Peach?’ poster behind him and staring out of the skylight in the sloped ceiling above him.
‘I’ve just got a hell of a lot of other shite te deal wi’ today, kids, honest I have.’
Frances jumps up and joins me at Hamish’s desk, intrigued.
‘Why, what’s up, Mr McClarnon?’ she says, all breathless. ‘Is it something to do with the filth being at the school this morning? I saw the meat wagon outside the sixth-form centre – what’s cooking?’
‘Police?’ I ask. I hadn’t seen them.
‘Yes, yes,’ Hamish says, agitated and waving his arms, ‘and o’ course it’s all landed on ma bloody lap, hasn’t it.’
‘What has?’
‘Two kids in ma form who shall remain nameless,’ Hamish says. ‘Caught wi’ drugs during a technical drawing lesson … by Bob Lord, no less. Not only does the man now think I’m the son o’ Satan for harbouring underage practising homosexuals, but he also thinks I’m sheltering drug dealers under my lovely left wing as well.’
‘No,’ Frances gasps.
‘Drugs?’ I say. ‘What sort? Weed?’
‘I wish it were only weed,’ Hamish says. ‘But it’s pills: speed, and plenty of ’em. After ma form was searched there was four other boys wi’ drugs on ’em too, and we suspect we have a dealer in our midst. Any road, dear old Mr Lord and the headmaster thought it best if the police were informed, and now I’ve got te head off te the cop shop in a wee while te try te sort the whole mess out. Two o’ my lads are in a cell right about now.’
‘Shit,’ Frances says.
‘Exactly!’ Hamish nods. ‘So you’ll excuse me, David, if I’m a bit preoccupied. I promise I’ll talk te you tomorrow when I get the chance, OK?’
‘OK.’
Frances and me decide to head out to the playing fields and find our usual spot by the goalposts as we’ve got a free period, and, as ever, we gossip fiendishly as we walk, speculating on who the guilty parties in Mr McClarnon’s form might be, narcotics-wise, and who might be dealing within the school grounds.
‘I reckon it’s Miss Jibbs,’ Frances surmises. ‘She looks like a coke fiend to me.’
‘Or Bob Lord,’ I sneer, ‘jacking up heroin while he watches the boys in the showers after football.’
And we howl with laughter as we kick through the fallen, brittle, russet leaves that blanket the grass surrounding the footy pitch, and I feel better for a moment.
It’s very definitely autumn now, and so the pair of us are bundled up in our duffels and scarves, despite today’s blue skies and cheery splash of sun. Frances – never without sustenance of one sort or another – has managed to rustle up a couple of toffee Yo-Yos and a can of Tab to share, and once we’ve sat down she starts prodding at me as I nibble disconsolately at my half-unwrapped biscuit.
‘David,’ she trills with a rather pronounced upward inflection, and I turn to face her.
‘What?’
She looks shamefaced for some reason, and she won’t look me in the eye.
‘Don’t be cross,’ she says, ‘will you?’
‘About what?’ I say thoughtfully. ‘Thatcher’s fascist regime, or the fact that Abba haven’t had a number one since “Take A Chance On Me” in February 1978?’
Frances laughs, and then she says, ‘No, neither of those. I mean don’t be cross about what I’m about to tell you.’
‘Which is?’
Frances stuffs the last half of her Yo-Yo biscuit into her mouth and chews it quickly, rather like some sort of demented rodent.
‘Well,’ she says, spitting chocolate dust. ‘I went to see Maxie during half-term …’
And then she swallows hard.
‘Went to see him – where?’ I shriek, jumping up.
‘At his house,’ Frances says. ‘I was wondering how he was doing, and so I went over there to see him. I was only going to knock for him but his mother invited me into the house for tea, so in I went. It was quite a nice house, actually – a bit too much peach, I thought, but anyway, quite nice … Sit down, David, will you, for fuck’s sake?’
I throw myself back down on to the grass next to her, then yank her towards me with two of the toggles on her duffle.
Frances is chuckling annoyingly.
‘Yes, he did,’ she says, ‘and that’s why I’m telling you this now, so you’ll stop bloody fretting so much. He said that he cares about you, David … very much.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes!’
I had wondered, to be honest. After we’d left Jeanette’s flat in Pimlico two Friday’s ago and made a dash for the night bus, Maxie had hardly said two words all the way home.
His face had looked as though it were wracked with a multiplicity of quandaries, and he kept biting his bottom lip and looking down and shaking his head. When he did speak, as we came round Elephant and Castle roundabout, it was only to say, ‘My mum’s gonna fucking kill me.’
And try as I might, I couldn’t for the life of me come up with any sort of appropriate riposte to that, so I just kept my mouth shut and gazed out of the window at all the many and varied creatures of the night. There were drunks all over the show, more than one could shake a stick at, and I noticed that many of them didn’t seem particularly cheerful. Overweight girls tottering along on fiendishly high shoes and hollering foul-mouthed abuse at their theoretical loved ones seemed to be the order of the night, and there were also a fair few underage lads knocking about: skinheads and soul boys who weaved and staggered along the Walworth Road absurdly, before vomiting into a litter bin or a shop doorway. When we finally disembarked at Goose Green, where Maxie and I would be due to go our separate ways, he stopped and looked at me, glassy-eyed.
‘It’s quarter past two in the fuckin’ morning,’ he said, and I nodded.
‘I had a really great time today, David, I really did. It’s just …’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a lot to think about, that’s all.’
I put my hand up and touched his shoulder, and I said, ‘So there’s hope for me yet, then?’
But he just smiled and shrugged, then he turned and walked off towards his house, and that was the very last I’d seen of him.