My Gran knew and my Mam knew and I knew; that I hadn’t done anything to the little girl. That’s what I kept reminding myself as I went through my comic collection, making sure that everything was all right and that every comic was in its proper plastic bag with its title neatly printed on the front. And before, before they’d said it was me who’d done the bad things to the little girl, before that it was one of the nicest feelings in the world, cataloguing my comics and loving the look of the shiny covers and the nice neatness of them in their plastic bags and all their names on the front. Only … I couldn’t feel it any more, all the lovely niceness of my comic collection. Nothing felt nice any more, not after they’d said it was me who’d done the bad things to the little girl. I tried to remind myself; all the time I tried to remind myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong or bad. But no matter how much I tried to remind myself of that, I still couldn’t stop myself from feeling that I was a soiled sort of person. It was like I’d been dirtied. And as if to prove it, there were these patches of dark hair that had started sprouting underneath my arms and between my legs. And it was like I knew now that I’d never ever be a nice boy again, not now. He was gone for ever, the boy with the smooth skin and a love of the loveliness of cataloguing comics. I really had become the Wrong Boy now.
Yours sincerely,
Raymond Marks
Gibbet Street Coach Station,
Huddersfield,
West Yorks
Dear Morrissey,
I’m still here! I’d been sat there in that café al dente writing to you, and when I realised the time I went running as fast as I could, all the way from the café back to the bus depot. But when I got there, it was too late. The five o’clock to Grimsby was just pulling out of the depot and accelerating away up the dual carriageway.
The lady in the ticket office said it was the last scheduled service today, the five o’clock to Grimsby. I just stood there and wondered what to do. She was nice though, the ticket lady. I think she sort of took pity on me.
‘Are you all right?’ she said.
‘I’ve got to get to Grimsby,’ I said. ‘My Mam’ll be dead worried about me because I promised I’d phone her when I got there and if I don’t get there and don’t phone her she’ll be all worried and wary and think something’s happened to me.’
The ticket lady shook her head in sympathy. ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but the next scheduled service to Grimsby doesn’t leave till tomorrow morning.’
I just stood there and nodded and wondered what to do.
Then she said, ‘Are you trying to get home? Is that where you come from, Grimsby?’
I shook my head. And if she hadn’t been such a pleasant person I would have been gravely insulted by such a suggestion.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got to get there though because I’m starting a job and my Mam was dead happy about that because it’s the first job I’ve ever had.’
The ticket lady tut-tutted and said, ‘You lads! You’re all the same. Break your mothers’ hearts, the lot of y’. Why don’t you telephone your mam now?’ she said. ‘Let her know that you’re all right.’
‘I would do that,’ I said, ‘but my wallet got robbed and I haven’t got any money.’
The ticket lady shook her head and she said, ‘I don’t know! You youngsters, if it’s not one problem it’s another. Here!’ she said. And she was holding out 50p. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘go ’n’ phone your mam and let her know you’re all right.’
I felt dead embarrassed. ‘No! Look,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t trying to scrounge money. I was just …’
‘Take it,’ she said, ‘go on. There’s a phone booth on the corner. And you can pay me back when you get famous with that guitar of yours. What sort of stuff do y’ sing?’ she said. ‘Simon and Garfunkel? Do you like them?’
I stared at her. And wondered how such a kind and pleasant person could harbour such sick and sinister thoughts.
‘ “Bridge Over Troubled Water”,’ she said, ‘can you sing that one?’
I shook my head and hoped she couldn’t see the look of vomit that was written all over my face.
I think it must be very difficult being a nice person; they all seem to have something seriously wrong with them! It’s like they’re all immune to embarrassment and that’s why they can happily walk around quite untroubled by their unnatural attachment to excrementally excruciating songs.
‘And the Eagles,’ the ticket lady said, ‘they’re another favourite of mine. “Tequila Sunrise”, can you play that?’
I was tempted to hand back the 50p!
But I just shook my head and the ticket lady smiled sympathetically and said, ‘Ah well, you just keep practising, son, and I’m sure you’ll get there in the end.’
She sort of sighed then, the ticket lady, and she looked a bit sad and wistful. ‘I wish my lad was a bit more like you,’ she said. ‘I wish my son could shape himself and get out and get a job. But no!’ she said. ‘Not our Derek, not him! No. Our Derek, he sits there, in his bedroom day in, day out, listening to that morbid monstrosity of a what’s-his-name. Oh he gets on my nerves!’ she said. ‘Do y’ know him, the one I mean, that Morrissey?’
The ticket lady shuddered and said, ‘How could anybody choose to listen to morbid caterwaulin’ like that?’
She sighed and shook her head at the apparent injustice of it all.
And I just stood there, wondering how I was going to get to the phone without having to turn around and let her see the back of my tee shirt with Morrissey written all over it.
And I knew it shouldn’t have mattered to me and I wasn’t being disloyal to you or anything like that, Morrissey. But I didn’t want to upset the ticket lady because I knew that she couldn’t help it really. She was just like my Mam, that’s all; and older people, they just can’t help it but they never understand, not about Morrissey. My Gran would have understood though, Morrissey. My Gran would have said you were marvellously mordant. And her eyes would have twinkled with a sort of conspiratorial delight if she’d ever had the chance to hear the lyrics of ‘Cemetery Gates’ or ‘Headmaster Ritual’ or ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’.
But ordinary older people, they never understand.
At least, though, the ticket lady had been very nice, lending me the 50p. As I was backing away from the ticket counter, making sure she didn’t see my tee shirt, she was even nicer and she called me back. She was leafing through a book and she said, ‘I’ve just thought on! There’s a charter going out at six thirty tonight!’
She told me about the special coach and said it had been chartered by the North Lincolnshire Trades Association. ‘They’ve been here for the conference,’ the ticket lady said. ‘But they’re all going back tonight.’
‘Isn’t that a private coach though?’ I said.
The ticket lady tapped her nose and winked at me. And she said, ‘You come back here after you’ve phoned your mam and I’ll see what I can do for y’.’
I felt a bit cheered up by that.
So when I phoned my Mam I thought it’d probably be best if I didn’t bother her with the specific details of my journey thus far.
I felt a bit awful, letting my Mam believe I’d already arrived in Grimsby and was phoning her from there. But it would have been even more awful for my Mam if she knew I’d had all my money robbed, nearly been arrested in Halifax and still hadn’t got further than Huddersfield.
That’s why I pretended I was phoning from Grimsby.
My Mam was dead excited when she heard my voice on the phone.
She said, ‘Oh son, I’m so glad you’ve got there safely. Is everything all right? What’s it like? Is it lovely? Can you see the harbour from where you are?’
I was in the phone box at the end of Gibbet Street, looking out at the plethora of pizza parlours, burger bars, amusement arcades and the heavy-shouldered horde of city-centre citizens haggard and wearied by the endless dance of normality.
I didn’t tell my Mam any of
that though!
I told my Mam I was gazing out from a phone box overlooking a harbour where the boats were bobbing gently and balmy breezes blew.
And my Mam said, ‘Oh son, son, it all sounds so lovely.’
And I was so glad then that my Mam sounded all happy and delighted, I even told her I could see warm-eyed fishermen with silvery beards sitting on the cobblestone quayside, soaking up the sun and savouring the tang of the salty air as they sat there mending their nets, spinning their yarns and softly singing sea shanties in rough but honest voices.
My Mam just cooed with delight and said it sounded like Shangri-la. ‘Raymond, I’m just so glad for y’,’ she said. ‘I’m just so thrilled that you’ve finally landed on your feet.’
She started to ask me about my digs then and what it was like, where I was staying. And I was just starting to tell her about the guesthouse on the cliff top, all covered in roses and ivy and how my room had a panoramic view of the dazzling blue ocean and the lovely woman who ran the guesthouse was like a cross between Mary Poppins and Mother Theresa and said I had to tell my Mam that she shouldn’t be worried about me because Mrs Hovis would look after me like I was her own son.
And that’s when I knew I must have got a bit carried away because I heard my Mam’s voice become a bit solemn and suspicious as she said, ‘Who? Mrs who?’
But the pips had started going and I told my Mam I’d call her again in a few days. And the last thing I heard was my Mam saying, ‘Raymond! This isn’t Malcolm all over again, is it, son?’
But then we were cut off and so I couldn’t tell my Mam no more. And I felt awful. Because I’d phoned my Mam so that she’d be happy. And now she was worried about me again. She hadn’t even mentioned Malcolm or the Wrong Boy or anything like that for ages.
I’d made him up, Malcolm. It was after we’d left my Gran’s house in Failsworth and we’d moved to the maisonette in Wythenshawe.
In those days, Morrissey, I’d never heard of you or Johnny Marr. So I never knew that your great musical collaborator was a native of Wythenshawe. But even if I had known that, Morrissey, I don’t think it would have made much difference; because I just hated Wythenshawe. It was like it had been built by a particularly brutalist town planner from the Soviet bloc and then half knocked down again by a variety of vandals.
I hated it. And my Mam hated it too. But she put a brave face on it at first. She said at least I’d be able to take up my place in secondary school and start catching up with all the education I’d missed. And she said I’d probably soon make some new friends now that we were out of Failsworth and nobody knew anything about us. I knew my Mam was trying really hard to make the best of it and I tried really hard as well. But with all the fuss and all the time I’d spent sitting in my Gran’s house doing nowt before we finally moved to Wythenshawe, I’d grown even fatter than I was before. So when I started school I was just this fat oddity who hadn’t even begun at the beginning of term and didn’t know anybody and didn’t even know his way around the school. And that’s why I was late on my first day. And when I finally found the classroom and opened the door, Barry Tucknott shouted out and said, ‘Fuckin’ hell, look at that fat fucker!’
And everybody in the classroom started laughing. And the teacher had to shout at Tucknott and tell him off for using the ‘f’ word. But I could see that the teacher wanted to laugh himself. He told the others to get on with some work as he waved me over to his desk.
‘You’re late, lad! First day and you’re late, lad. Why?’
But before I could say anything, Steven Spanswick said, ‘He probably got stuck trying to get through the school gates, sir.’
The teacher just glared at him and Spanswick laughed and went back to his work.
The teacher looked at me then. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘Never mind. But if you’re late tomorrow, son, there’ll be trouble. OK, so what do we call you?’
And that’s when Spanswick shouted out again and said, ‘Moby Dick!’ Everyone started laughing and even the teacher laughed out loud this time.
And it never got any better. I never even tried to make any friends because I hated them all, Spanswick and Tucknott and Mustapha Golightly. They said I had tits! I never had tits! I was just a bit fat, that’s all. But they said I had more on top than Irene Broadbent did. And that’s when they started calling me queer. They said I had the HIV. And if they had to sit by me or pair up with me for games they’d moan about it dead loud so that the teacher would have to give them a bollocking and make them sit by me or have me on their team. So they hated me even more then. And I hated them. Then one day I was in the playground, just keeping myself to myself, when Spanswick and Tucknott and Mustapha Golightly came up to me. They just stood there staring at first. And then Golightly said, ‘Hey, Moby Dick! You used to live in Failsworth, didn’t y’?’
I just looked at him. Then I said, ‘What if I did?’
He looked at the other two then and he said, ‘I told y’.’ Then he turned back to me and he said, ‘I’ve got a cousin who lives in Failsworth.’
I just shrugged. I didn’t care where his stupid cousin lived. But then he said, ‘I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, Marks!’
I tried to move away then but Spanswick pushed me back and he said, ‘Stay where y’ are, you fat twat!’
And Tucknott said, ‘You fuckin’ pervert!’
And I knew then! I knew it wasn’t just one of the brainless insults that they were always coming out with. I looked across the playground to see if there was a teacher on duty, but it was just kids everywhere and not a teacher in sight. Then Golightly jabbed his finger into me dead hard and pointed it at my face as he said, ‘My cousin told me about you, Moby Dick! And what you did to that girl, that little girl!’
I just shook my head and I said, ‘Well, your cousin must be as thick and stupid as you because I never did anything to any little girl.’
‘You fuckin’ liar!’ Tucknott said.
And Golightly grabbed me by the shirt-front then and said, ‘Don’t you fuckin’ call me thick! Y’ twisted bastard.’
And that’s when he slammed me up against the wall and it nearly knocked all the breath out of me. But it made something snap inside of me as well! And I almost felt the shape of this sound that started coming up from my stomach, mixed with bile and anger and fury. And when I opened my mouth and this sound just came out, a sound like a wounded, wild animal, it was such an awful noise that it frightened even me. But it frightened them too. And Golightly let go and moved back a bit with the others, all of them staring at me with their eyes like saucers, as I stood there and bayed at them! Bayed and wailed at them and their taunting and their stupidity and all the crude cruelness of them. And as they stood there, stopped in their tracks and momentarily unsure of what to do in the face of a sort of madness that they’d unleashed, I growled and heard myself telling them, ‘See! SEE! Y’ think I’m just Raymond Marks, don’t y’! Just Raymond who you can laugh at and spit at and make fun of. But you better remember, if you ever try to mess with me again: because I’m not just Raymond Marks.’
They were still staring at me like they didn’t know what to do. And that’s when I should have walked away and not said anything further. And it was stupid really and I don’t even know why I said it. But with them all looking at me like they were still shocked and unsure, I said, ‘You better be careful in future, because I … am the Wrong Boy!’
It was Tucknott who started laughing first. Then the others joined in. And I did walk away then. But they kept following me, all of them screaming with laughter as they kept saying, ‘The Wrong Boy! The fuckin’ Wrong Boy!’ And then Golightly said, ‘He thinks he’s Clark fuckin’ Kent …’ And that made them all even more hysterical as they followed me, saying things like, ‘Show us your wrong boy, Raymond!’
I know I shouldn’t have said it. But I had. And at least it seemed to keep them amused and made them forget about bashing me up for being a pervert. But I knew they wouldn’t forget for lon
g. And by the next day everybody in the school would have heard about it.
So that’s why I stopped going to school.
I didn’t want to tell lies to my Mam and be the sort of deeply devious boy who pretended he was going to school when I was just going down town every day instead and hanging about till it was time to go home again. And every night, when I did go home, my Mam would ask me if I’d made any friends in school today. But I’d just shake my head and watch the telly and wish my Mam would shut up about me making friends. It seemed dead important to her. But I didn’t care. It seemed better not to care. Because if I didn’t care then it didn’t matter. But it mattered to my Mam. And one night my Mam was crying and said it broke her heart, the thought that I didn’t have a friend in all the world. But I didn’t want my Mam crying and having a broken heart. And that’s why I invented Malcolm. The only reason I ever invented him was so that I could make my Mam happy.
He was fantastic, Malcolm. I made him an American and told my Mam that he’d been born in Baton Rouge. I said his dad was a professional bass guitarist who was playing over here, and he’d brought Malcolm with him and got him in at our school. My Mam was made up. And me and Malcolm were best mates right from the very first day he came and joined us in the English class. I told my Mam that I’d had to read out one of my essays to the class that day and then we’d had to discuss it. And when Mr Fuller asked Malcolm for his comments on my essay Malcolm had said, ‘Well, gee, sir, I just wanna say straight off that Raymond’s essay was neater than the stitches in the Turin Shroud. Wow! That’s totally chilled me out, Raymond.’
My Mam beamed a big smile when I told her that. And when Malcolm was my friend, she sort of got younger and happier again and said that after everything we’d gone through perhaps things were finally looking up at last. My Mam started to do things like proper cooking again, with real vegetables, and we didn’t have stuff like pies and pasties bought from the shop or frozen freezer food no more. My Mam would ask me all about the things me and Malcolm had done. And I’d tell her about the American games that me and him played in the playground; and how Malcolm had to wear two sweatshirts under his shirt because he couldn’t get used to the English weather after living in Baton Rouge where it was always so steamy hot and sunny. And Malcolm had said, ‘Gee, Ray, this Wythenshawe weather! It’d freeze the nuts off a polar bear!’
The Wrong Boy Page 22
