The Steering Group

by M. J. Laurence

  Not only was I learning to speak Russian but I was learning to write it and pick up all the slang that would be common in Moscow at the time from all my pen pals. I also got to hear of how they lived, the hardships and the crazy systems that were in place for common Muscovites. For example, they had to queue three times for meat: once to choose it, once to pay and then again to collect, because you were not allowed to handle food and money at the same time or some bullshit like that. I gathered quite a collection of souvenirs and trinkets from my penfriends, including Russian hats and badges. It was cool and interesting. I became popular at school because I excelled in this subject, and Russian homework was just easy so I ended up doing all my friends’ homework for them. I studied maps of the Soviet Union, the CCCP, its history, its wildlife, its size, its military might, the love of vodka and mushrooms, and the simple delights of the common people, with music, simple food and the ability to play chess. I still often sing that annoying song ‘Kalinka’ in my head. It’s totally fucking annoying.

  My favourite pen pal, Anatoly, wrote to me and explained that now he was 18 (some years older than me) he was about to go to an academy of science within a Moscow university and they had to wear a uniform. He had been forced to have his head shaved and was so upset about it because he had loved his long blond mane. He was elegantly Russian, like a young Nikolai Romanov, very handsome and very Russian. I wrote back immediately and promised I would shave my head like his and send him a photo. My mum was horrified when I came back from town one afternoon with a very short crew cut; I think it was a zero all over, bald to look at. I remember that episode in the barber shop – the barber was so unsure about my request but I think he enjoyed doing it as much as I liked seeing it all fall to the floor. He did a reverse Mohawk down the middle, and heck it was short. There was that ‘oh shit, what the fuck am I doing?’ moment but actually I thought it was so cool. I sent a Polaroid immediately to Moscow, much to Anatoly’s delight. Anatoly was to study nuclear physics and chemistry and would later become a huge success in the Soviet nuclear programme.

  Now, if I was a child today, you’d have me labelled with ADHD or some other exotic excuse for bad behaviour. Apart from my interest in learning everything about Russia and its language and customs, I was a bored teenager who simply yearned for travel and adventure. In my mind I simply had to go to Moscow; it had become a fascination, an obsession. I had to get out of England and see the world. I spent the next year or so mostly bored. I enjoyed cycling, becoming an expert shoplifter, learning my Russian and taking long afternoons off school to go down the river with my friends and sometimes my older brother. I spent days on the firing range, fucking around on the railway tracks, and I remember seeing the first ever HST train arrive at the railway station; the stationmaster was horrified to see us kids on the track talking to the driver, who was happy to open the cab door and let us climb in for a look. We later tried firing a couple of rounds in the general direction of the stationmaster, and then spent an entire afternoon on the run from the transport police. Life went on like this for a while, until I took an interest in the local antiques shop, with a view to stealing a few nice silver pieces from it.

  Now, the local antiques shop was owned and run by the local vicar, a guy called Carl who was the quintessential wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was a rogue; he would be my Fagin and I the Artful Dodger. Quite simply, Carl was a bigger thief than I would ever be. Behind the dog collar was the dodgy dealer who could charm the knickers off any nun – and, as it turned out, he had the ability to take advantage of my innocence to sexually abuse me.

  He befriended my father after offering me work at the church shop after he caught me shoplifting, instead of getting any police involved. He did a deal for an antique camera with my dad to cement their relationship and the arrangement between my parents, him and me. He soon had the confidence of my parents who thought I would be well looked after in his company and pick up some good habits – have a good mentor, so to speak (they had no idea what was actually going on). I was to attend church and listen to classical music with Carl to keep me out of trouble at night. Carl held me to ransom over all my thefts from the church and his shop, and extracted sexual favours from me for about a year, a trade-off so that I wouldn’t blow it all wide open and destroy my family. There were many threats of calling the police or social services because I continued to steal from the church and his shop. Eventually, threats of being taken away would come my way if I didn’t conform to all his demands. That’s the thing with most secrets, they always fuck the innocent as well as the bastards who made them necessary in the first place. However, bizarrely and unconsciously I think it was attending that church that allowed faith into my life, if you could call it that. Couldn’t ever explain it, just that this was the entry point of religion into my life, which was then buried for the next 25 years.

  I eventually came across a lad at school who saw that I was trapped like him; he had seen me with Carl and just knew what was going on. We compared stories of our encounters and became good friends very quickly. We spent many days away from school and did some life together. Robert was in a foster home and explained how he had also been sexually abused by carers and was trapped in so much as he couldn’t break out of the system. He had seen the same issues in me that were troubling him: a loner, afraid to talk and mix with the other kids. He had been all alone throughout his short life. I think I understood him entirely. He moved away (or was moved by social services, I’m not sure) and committed suicide not long after I had got to know him. I was the one who got the suicide note. I lost my first friend at just 13 years old. I attended the burial, secretly hiding in the background waiting for everyone to leave. No one knew anything of what had actually happened or the reason for Robert’s suicide. In fact, the very opposite. All the social bullshit niceties were displayed, as one would expect at any funeral. But it was all a lie, a great big coverup, and one that I learnt a great deal from. Secrets do go to the grave sometimes, and I put the note on his coffin before the gravediggers covered him up. Crazy, isn’t it? They covered over the letter, which then covered up the reason for his death, which covered up the whole deal. This was my first real secret.

  I took a bit of a downward spiral but continued to work with Carl and we made a lot of money together in those strange days. We would often get drunk in the vestry on wine afterwards, together with his other boys, before he had his way with me alone. We would go to old folks’ houses and Carl would offer money to take ‘awkward’ pieces of furniture away for a good price; of course, they were all sold on in no time for a profit. I guess it sort of felt normal after a while. It was all done very politely over a nice cup of tea, and the poor old buggers thought they could trust him. We had a good turnover in the shop, and if there wasn’t anything in the till the money collection from the church could always be utilised. Funerals and weddings were great; I actually enjoyed working with Carl on these occasions and sometimes forgot what he was and what he had done to me. Fucking made a fortune. The money collections at church services, plus my wage working for the church and the shop, saw to it that I had more money than I could spend. It was only a few years later when Carl went safely to his grave that his secrets that had been kept safe with me became redundant. How it must have eaten at his mind knowing I could have ruined his entire life at any time when he was alive. I forgive you, Carl.

  I ran away a few times after some of the sessions with Carl; the best trip was to Aberdeen where I managed to stow away on board an oil rig supply ship bound for the North Sea oil and gas fields. I ended up working as a cabin boy for just under two weeks. I hitchhiked up to Aberdeen, which only took a day as back then hitchhiking was commonplace and safer than it is today. It wasn’t hard to get on board a ship – my dad had taught me well. I had my dad’s bullshit on my side, and I put it all to good use as I casually joined the workforce in the morning rush onto the docks and chose a ship that looked pretty interesting and blended into the busy dockside. The Atlantic
Star was a chance of adventure to my young eyes – a huge supply and anchor shifting ship with a beautiful flared bow, lovely lines, freshly painted and looking in fine fettle, it had great big anchors the size of the Eiffel Tower and a bulbous bow that looked like it was meant to be on an ancient Greek trireme or ‘ramming’ ship in the Aegean Sea.

  When you’re doing something wrong you just have to look like you’re meant to be doing it, my dad had told me. So, I’d pick up a crate of bread and follow the crew up the accommodation ladder, then I simply didn’t follow them off again – that’s all there was to it. I remember going onto that ship like it was yesterday – it’s the smell. A ship smells like nothing else, it’s hard to describe: a mixture of oil, exhaust fumes, paint, the galley and that blue shit they use to clean the decks with (that shit really stinks), and inside it was really nice and warm, comforting and welcoming. I soon found a plenum chamber in which to hide before I felt the ship moving as she left the berth. After being discovered I ended up washing pots, cleaning up, my own sick mostly, and got to use lots of that blue shit. I was so seasick but still managed to have the most amazing experience. I was just simply having the best adventure of my life. Captain Melton, or Captain Pies as he was affectionately known, was a top man; he obviously had to call it in when I was discovered but he didn’t let on to me, and he looked after me like a real Sea Dad should. I was allocated my own cabin, bunk and shower. I was free to roam around the ship and sit on the bridge as we ploughed the North Sea out to the rigs. From the calm of the harbour we ventured around the gentle coast and then, before you know it, you’re out of sight of land and into the full force of the North Sea and those big North Atlantic rollers.

  The first time you see a rough sea is the best. It makes you feel so small, so vulnerable and insignificant to the power of the weather, and you start to believe in God. I should imagine many poets have tried to capture how it feels and many artists have tried to paint it. It really is an animal that you can’t tame, a beast that lunges and tries to knock you over with all its weight, as well as a calm tame friend upon a leash. But there is no leash strong enough for the dog of the sea when Neptune opens his storm gates.

  One morning I remember clinging on to Captain Pies’ arm while he was secured in his chair on the bridge as that ship buried her beautiful flared bow in one huge wall of a wave after another. The ocean was crowded with white horses jumping off the tops of the crests like it was race day at St Leger. It was like being in a car wash: every time we ploughed deep into an oncoming wave all the windows would turn green as we were pulled almost completely underwater on the bridge. The ship would shudder and twist to one side and gently pull herself up to meet the sky again. Gentle creaking of the wooden fixtures and Formica bulkhead coverings, the occasional bilge alarms and the odd mug falling on the deck, coupled with the gentle vibration of the engines and the smell of the ship, all played a part in the beautiful orchestra of this ship at sea. There really is a mystique to the sea. I loved to go out on deck and have that spray in my face and the cold wind cut through to my soul as I’d tighten the straps of my lifejacket and hold on so very tightly to the rails. The whip of the spray over those guardrails into your face is like the sting of a wasp that comes again and again. Just beautiful.

  It was my fear and excitement, the raised tempo of the ship’s orchestra and the sea battling for harmony with a kid’s mind who’s run away from home on an adventure that made the world seem like a great place to be. This, coupled with buckets of adrenalin, excitement, fear and joy, was any boy’s dream and it set the foundation of what I wanted, in fact now expected, from life. None of this was in school! It’s like having heroin for the first time but legally, and it was free for the taking. Captain Pies went to great lengths to explain to me the ways of a ship, and how each ship was a lady of the ocean and how we should respect her and her ways at sea. Every ship sails differently, every ship handles differently, like every woman in the world; every old salt will tell you the same story in many different ways, I guess. I learnt about radar, navigation, charts, tides and the moon, engine operations, ship’s maintenance, horsepower, bollard pull, the whole deal, and why a+b = fucking x is actually worth learning about at school. I was hooked on every word he said. I slept the best I’d ever sleep in my entire life those two weeks at sea.

  As soon as I’d turned that bunk light out at night, I was away dreaming about tomorrow’s adventure at sea and eager to be up real early the next day. You’d have to strap yourself in with a kind of seat belt but for a bunk, or you’d risk being tossed out on to the cabin deck unexpectedly. I’d sometimes think of Robert and what it must be like to be in a coffin, as the bunks on that ship were really small – not enough room to sit up and certainly not enough room to really stretch out. It was like a coffin because you had a personal little curtain to pull across the entire length of the bunk, which left you all alone in the dark. Yeah, I was frightened a few times lying in that bunk, unusual sounds waking me up and always wondering what was on the other side of that thin sheet of steel separating me from the big ocean just 10mm away from where I lay.

  It all had to end and I was eventually met at the dock by the police and my parents when we returned to port. No brass band or welcoming party, just a bleak wet and windy jetty with very upset, angry parents waiting with the police who delighted in quoting the law every two fucking minutes and any excuse to offer insult to any part of my most amazing first experience at sea – not once asking to hear about the sheer delight and joy that was bottled up within me from such a great adventure. Why, oh why, couldn’t they just have seen that I had been out into the world, brave and alone, to see a life, like they all wanted to but would never have dared to even imagine. I had had more fun in my short life at this point than most people get in a lifetime, and I just wanted to get back out into the world and do it some more in whatever form it might take and wherever it might take me.

  Eventually it all got really messy and I was in trouble with everyone for truancy and for a few other trips I had managed to disappear on. In the end, there was no choice: boys’ correctional school was on the agenda. My parents, knowing that I needed taming, had me set to leave for a boys’ correctional school up in the north of the country where I would learn all about what one boy could do to another and take the leap from boyhood to manhood in one very short step. Looking back, I was about to join the school of life; no nice long childhood of growing my hair long and dating girls and getting drunk down the local pub. No, I was to be hurled straight into the British equivalent of a Spartan military school for fuck-ups and undesirables. Fucking nightmare.

  Just to add to the boxing ring of life, my grandmother died at about this time, and at 65 it was such a fucking shame; she was such a great person. Isn’t that always the way though? The great people in your life are like a flash of light in the void of time in which we are given, whilst the dull and arduous tend to linger and fester even after they’ve left your life. I remember getting the news, and for once I was in school and was called for by the head teacher. Thinking I was in the shit for something else, I prepared my excuses, not ever dreaming that I would hear the news that my nana had died. I was utterly devastated and wailed the whole way through the funeral. It took eight pall-bearers to carry the old girl. A fucking great big box of love wasted. I loved her because she saw what was important in life and didn’t let all the other shit get in the way. She saw through me, into my soul, beyond all my failures, and above all she knew all my secrets and kept them safe right up to the day she passed. She lived simply and modestly; even when there were servants at her beck and call in South Africa, she jumped in to help, washing, cooking, ironing, and even eating with the servants. Never did she see herself above any other; she was a real friend and so old school, loyal and loving to a fault.

  I often wonder now what a normal upbringing would have been like, in so much as staying on at school till I was 16 and having lots of sex with girls and going on school trips or to concerts. Or
maybe even going to university to do one of those worthless degrees and having a blast getting high and working in bars and, who knows, maybe even getting a qualification early on that meant something perhaps. Today I see my nieces doing rather well in this and think it’s just marvellous. I took a very, very different path, one that was probably a little more exciting but definitely more reckless. I had bigger dreams and wanted to explore this amazing world in which we live. I had too many questions and a thirst for all things new that couldn’t be quenched.

  Poem for Philis, my grandmother, God rest her soul

  She stepped softly off crisp autumn leaves on to winter hills,

  Death waiting on jagged rock, soaked wet with mists of tears.

  Hard to climb the rock laden with all life’s tragedy.

  She stepped softly out of cancer’s grip on to soft spring fields.