Dance on My Grave

by Aidan Chambers

  ‘You not careful,’ Doormat says to Earlobes, indicating the perpetual waxwork horror, ‘that’s where you’ll end up.’

  ‘And you’ll do the chopping,’ says Monkey Boy.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind,’ says Doormat. ‘Bit of fun, eh?’

  34/ACTION REPLAY

  The fun-fair. The anonymity of numbers. The hardboy bully-boy fun. The gags and catcalls and rowdy rabbit. The rough guy, matey body-talk. The cockiness insured by belligerent numbers. The prickling excitement of engineered disapproval. The dangerous satisfaction of stirring up the law.

  I feel it all and know it all as it is happening.

  And know why these gangboys do it. Their way out. Their way in. Their can of magic beans. Their togetherness. That they wouldn’t dare speak or show anyway else. Which, as we gaggle there, I feel the sadness of.

  There is an easily contracted infection in such mind-losing thrills. And I am speechless of necessity. One word and I’m done for. Thus trapped, there is no escape.

  35/A geriatric gorilla emerges from the waxworks door marked WAY IN.

  ‘Hoy,’ he says, addressing our gaggle, ‘we got enough horrors inside for people to see. Don’t want you lot cluttering up the window giving a free show out here. Piss off. Go on—play somewhere else.’

  ‘Hark at grandad,’ says Girl’s Head. ‘How rude!’

  Questions of a rhetorical nature shower upon the custodian’s balding head. Viz.: Has he looked in the mirror lately, Monkey Boy wants to know. Earlobes inquires whether the old fruit would like he, Earlobes himself, to stuff him and stand him among the dummies in the window. ‘Do you always wax so eloquent?’ asks Carrot Top exhibiting a flash of wit he has so far kept hidden from us all. Monolith offers only a hand and arm in a signal advising the old man of what contortions he might practise on himself.

  But we move off, huffling discontents about holiday places that do not want visitors to have even a mite of fun.

  36/That’s when I see Spike.

  Correction: That’s when Spike sees me.

  (Remember Spike? Good old happy-go-lucky flesh-sexy Spike, owner of Tumble?)

  Correction to correction: That’s when, in the backward-stumbling retreat from Fort Waxworks, I bump right into Spike, literally falling into his arms. There are occasions when I would not object to finding myself in that position. This, however, was definitely not one of them.

  ‘Watch it!’ Spike says, crisply shoving me away.

  Seeing him, my nerves fail me. But seeing who he is manhandling, Spike becomes his normal generous self at once.

  ‘Hey, Hal!’ he says. ‘Where you going, kid? There’s a party over at Bill Hazel’s. Want to come?’

  I reply in hiccups.

  The tribe closes in, looking suddenly bigger, bruisier, more numerous than hitherto.

  ‘You know him?’ says Monolith in his gravel voice, addressing Spike over my head.

  Hiccup I say.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ says Spike.

  ‘Now look . . .’ says Barry boxed in next to me.

  Hiccup I say.

  ‘The bleeders can talk English!’ says Earlobes. ‘I knew there was something funny.’

  ‘Just hang on,’ says Barry, ‘and I’ll explain.’

  ‘Aren’t you foreign at all?’ says Girl’s Head as much in disappointment as in anger. ‘Not even Welsh?’

  Hiccup I say.

  ‘Look, it was just a joke,’ says Barry.

  ‘Who’s laughing?’ says Monolith.

  ‘Markem,’ says Monkey Boy with relish. ‘Go on, givem one.’

  ‘Shut it,’ says Monolith.

  Hiccup I say.

  ‘A friend are you?’ says Monolith with scornful implications on ‘friend’.

  ‘Yeah,’ Spike says and nods at me, ‘of him. What about it?’

  Hiccup.

  ‘Reckons hisself, by the looks,’ says Carrot Top.

  ‘Fancy your chances?’ says Monolith pushing me aside and smiling for the first time since I have been entertained by his company.

  Barry says, ‘He’s got nothing to do with it . . .’

  ‘I’m talking to the man not the mouse,’ says Monolith not taking his eyes off Spike.

  Hic I say. ‘Why don’t you hic Bill’s party, Spike?’

  Spike shrugs. ‘No sweat. I’ll see you all right first.’

  ‘Does fancy his chances,’ says Monolith.

  ‘Depends what you got in mind,’ says Spike.

  Monolith hitches his shoulders. ‘Nothing gross,’ he says. ‘You being so small and young and on your own.’

  This is greeted with jeering cheers from the surrounding braves.

  ‘You could have a try, I suppose,’ Spike says.

  Monolith snorts. ‘Who you kidding, kid?’

  Spike says, ‘This kid is kidding nobody, kid.’

  ‘Oooo—lissen him!’ Carrot Top yelps.

  Hic I say, thinking: That’s torn it! No hope now.

  ‘What d’you prefer?’ Monolith says. ‘Your poncy head crunched or your arm broke?’

  ‘Give him both just for luck,’ Monkey Boy says.

  ‘Crack his peanuts for him as well,’ says Girl’s Head.

  There is no doubting she means it.

  37/At this point, I am sorry to relate, I am not exactly sure what happened next. Girl’s Head’s suggestion suddenly made me very conscious of an urgent need to micturate, brought on no doubt as much by the prospect of her desire being acted upon as by the tensions of the last few minutes. And this distracted me. At any rate, piecing things together from what Barry and Spike each told me afterwards, what really happened goes something like this:

  Barry decides to intervene. He steps between Monolith and Spike. (I have since wondered whether this was an act of sacrificial courage, or was motivated by pique at being ignored as hero of the month by both Monolith and Spike.)

  The next thing I know, B. is crumpling to the ground. He later explained that he tripped over someone’s boot—he thought Doormat’s—deliberately placed in his path.

  Spike, however, claims that Monolith let loose a short arm jab to Barry’s gut and thus felled him.

  Barry said that, if this was what happened, he couldn’t remember the blow. Or, rather, he was kicked and stood on so much during the ensuing melee that he could never then or after sort out the cause of each individual pain.

  Whatever, down goes Barry. Instinctively, I dive to help him. I understand from Spike that at this same instant Monolith launches a blow in the general direction of Spike’s solar plexus. But before his fist can reach its goal, it connects instead with my descending head, smashing into my left cheek, nose and mouth.

  The force of this (not to mention my reaction to it) spins me round, knocking me off balance, and sending my hands to my face in protective shock (and, no doubt, in an effort to ascertain whether my head is still on my shoulders and in one piece. It felt disgorged).

  Twisting in a half-bent posture, my head rams into Girl’s Head’s lower abdomen.

  Girl’s Head doubles up, screaming. This means she falls over my stooping body so that she is lying half across my back, trapping my head under her, and pinning me down. To save herself, she grabs at whatever is in reach and finds my particulars.

  Thinking Girl’s Head is intent on carrying out her aforementioned desire to crack somebody’s peanuts, I unbend with such self-protective force that:

  Girl’s Head is catapulted upwards, through the air, and plummets down between Monolith and Spike, having performed, Spike said, a somersault of quite elegant perfection.

  Sadly for Girl’s Head, Monolith is at this precise moment taking yet another swing, this time in the general direction of Spike’s chin. Spike is stepping back for a second time. Girl’s Head comes diving down between them. Monolith’s oliver connects with snappy crispness against Girl’s Head’s protesting mouth, shutting up it and her with instant effect.

  Girl’s Head slumps onto Barry, who is just managing to strug
gle to his hands and knees. He collapses to the ground again under the weight of the now unconscious girl.

  By this time I have stumbled to the ground, having thrown myself off balance when acting as Girl’s Head’s launch pad. I find myself lying on my backside in the gutter, from which drain’s eye view I observe further progress.

  Seeing the knockout assault on Girl’s Head by their leader, Earlobes and Doormat both let out a noise of the kind I imagine is made by moose in rut, and charge to her rescue. So intent is each on the object of his passion that neither sees the other coming.

  They meet in head-on collision above Girl’s Head’s supine body. There is a crack of mallet on block, of stick on puck. Doormat and Earlobes rebound, hands to heads, letting out cursing howls of pain and anger.

  But Monolith moves too now. He has gazed in astonishment at his recumbent Girl’s Head for the time it has taken Doormat and Earlobes to put their heads together. Their intrusion on his gaze reactivates him. And apparently angers him further as well. After all, Girl’s Head is his girl. Yet here are Doormat and Earlobes plunging to her aid with all the ardour of gallant suitors, each thus revealing, I guess, a so-far wisely concealed dedication to her charms. Eyes blazing now with a fuelling of anger, distress, frustration, and failure, Monolith grabs Doormat and Earlobes by their hair and hurls them violently aside.

  Doormat goes scudding into Monkey Boy, knocking his feet from under him. Each clutches at the other to save himself but they succeed only in bringing themselves crunching to the pavement at which each vents his annoyance by yelling and punching at the other. Meanwhile, Earlobes careens into Carrot Top with such force that he takes Carrot Top with him over the railings that line the pavement as protection against pedestrians falling into the children’s go-kart track fifteen feet below. They disappear from view emitting hollow cries.

  Monolith, with fists clenched and body straining in every seam, lets out a mighty bellow:

  ‘ICE CREAM!’

  There is some dispute later about what Monolith actually did shout. I have always thought he was really calling ‘Irene’, which I take to be Girl’s Head’s given name. Barry, who it has to be conceded heard the noise from beneath the muffling blanket of Girl’s Head’s leather-jacketed chest, thought Monolith had decided we’d all had enough of this game and was hailing a passing ice cream van from which to purchase refreshment. Spike, however, contends that Monolith was uttering some sort of East End war cry before launching a final fierce attack upon him. As he could see no further impediment to Monolith succeeding, Spike decided he had better do something about it and so launched his own counter-attack instead of taking further evasive action.

  Whatever Monolith actually meant, what happened was that Spike steps forward with smooth efficiency and delivers a pile-driver to Monolith’s nose, followed by a teeth-clamping uppercut to the chin.

  Give him the old one two . . . I said the old one two . . .

  Monolith stumbles backwards, a look of disbelief on his face and blood erupting from his snout. Shudders. Then slumps earthwards. Poleaxed.

  38/By the way, I think I should mention that all of this (I mean all of Bit 37) took no more than ten seconds, which only goes to show how much faster real life can happen than reading about it (or, worse still, writing about it: Bit 37 took all morning to do). Also I should record as a matter of interest that while we were enjoying our little Bit of Bovver:

  + my mother and father were watching The Friday Film on TV which, that night, was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They had seen it four times before. My father slept through a lot of it and woke up for the gun fights. My mother looked at her magazine during those parts and would have preferred to watch something else altogether;

  + Mrs Gorman was reading Miss Pinkerton Came to Die—a book I have never heard of before or since—and looked through the family photograph album between chapters, when she also drank coffee: six cups in two hours;

  + Kari was dancing in a disco with a bloke she had met (who had picked her up?) on the beach that evening after I had left her. His English wasn’t dazzling but he looked rather sweet so she took a chance. As it turned out he smelt strongly of nicotine so she ditched him later and wandered home alone (she said);

  + the rest of Monolith’s bikers were doing their best to get drunk in the Forester’s Arms while waiting for the strip show to start. It never did because it only took place on Saturdays at lunchtime, which fact they would have known had they read the poster outside the pub more carefully. They ended up causing a fracas and being turned out, from where they worked off their pent-up emotions by having a punch-up on the beach with the Benfleet mob. The police wagon eventually carted off those too drunk or too mashed to scat when the B.s-in-B. arrived.

  What a happy, busy world we live in.

  39/Spike hauled me to my feet. Barry struggled from beneath Girl’s Head. The three of us crossed the road, leaving Monolith and Co. to the gathering crowd.

  ‘You two okay?’ Spike said. ‘No harm done, eh?’

  Barry said, ‘Nothing a good plastic surgeon can’t put right.’

  I said, ‘Like replacing a face.’ I could hardly bear to touch my left cheek; my nose felt like it was the size of a Christmas balloon; my top lip was swollen and split. Both my nose and my lip were bleeding enough to keep me swallowing in the way that makes you feel you’ll either choke any second or fill up and drown. Need I add, someone was blasting for rock inside my head.

  ‘You look a bit sorry,’ Spike said, inspecting me closely. ‘But everybody does in this light.’ He meant under the sodium neons of the street lamps. I hadn’t noticed till then that dusk had given way to dark.

  ‘What time is it?’ I said, dabbing with my handkerchief at my mouth and nose, wincing.

  ‘Half eleven,’ Spike said, consulting his wrist watch. ‘Bill’s party should be going nicely. What about it?’

  I shook my head, and wished I hadn’t. The movement caused nuclear fission.

  ‘I’d better get him home and clean him up,’ Barry said.

  ‘Please yourselves,’ Spike said. ‘See you.’ He walked off townwards.

  ‘Hey, Spike,’ I called after him. He turned. ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘For you,’ he said, smiling, ‘any time.’ He waved and walked on.

  Barry and I took the shortest way to his place. We decided to abandon his bike to its fate for the night. (The next day B. went to fetch it and there it was, just where we had left it. They’d been kind enough to restrict their revenge to slashing the tyres, busting the headlamp, and breaking his rearview mirror. But they’d left the helmets dangling from the handlebars. Nothing, those lads, if not honest.)

  Luckily, Mrs Gorman was tucked safely in bed and wide to the world under the influence of her nightly sleeping pill when we arrived.

  40/We stripped in the palace of mirrors. Tenderly inspected each other’s wounds. My swollen face and cut lip. Barry’s bruises on his sides and thighs and grazes on his hands and knees from grit on the pavement. Nothing worse.

  And no other excuse needed for touching and holding and caressing the contours of our bodies for the first time.

  We showered. I cleaned up his grazes with swabs. He patched my lip.

  Lightheaded now, high on the smack of adventure and finding each other, and knowing, we ate, drank beer, lay on the bed in his room, chewing over our evening.

  ‘And what was all that qwerty stuff?’ I said.

  ‘Typewriter talk, you goof!’

  ‘Typewriter talk?’

  ‘Q–W– E– R –T– Y – U– I– O– P–question-mark. The top row of letters on a typewriter.’

  ‘You’re crackers, you know that! We’re about to be taken apart by a gang of bikers and you remember the letters on a typewriter!’

  ‘Dad used to play a game with me. We called it Gormandising. Any time we were bored or, you know, feeling skittish, we’d talk to each other in invented language. Mine was Olympian.’

  ‘Olympian?’r />
  ‘After my typewriter. An Olympia.’

  ‘Olim Peer! God, their faces! It was all Greek to me as well! I guessed you had funny tastes.’

  ‘Including you,’ he said.

  And gave me a present from Southend.

  Wish you were here?

  41/‘Stay,’ Barry said. ‘You might as well now.’

  I looked at my watch. Two-thirty.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, getting out of bed. ‘My mother will worry herself sick. And there’ll be hell to pay for being out so late.’

  ‘Then stay tomorrow. You can warn them.’

  ‘You mean today! Okay, but you’ll be the death of me,’ I said.

  I was reaching for my clothes. He came to me naked still and serious as the night.

  ‘You’re always talking about death.’ He put his arms round my waist, stopping me from dressing. ‘Does death bother you so much?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why keep mentioning it?’

  ‘Because it interests me. Doesn’t it you?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘What upsets me is not having him around any more. To be with, I mean. I loved him. Naturally I miss him.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘You’ve missed the point, stupid.’ He kissed me. ‘What I’m talking about is me. Being alive and not having my father around. That’s all that ever really upsets anybody about death. Not having somebody they want any more. But what bothers you is the idea of death. Right?’