I don’t mean that I’m homosexual, Mam! I know you’ve always thought that I might be. But I’m not. I know I always loved Twinky and Norman and I always will love them. And I wouldn’t ever have minded even if I had been homosexual. But the fact is, Mam, that I’m not. All I am is not normal. And being here, where nobody seems normal, it feels quite normal really, not being normal.
That’s what Jo said, she said, ‘Looking at us all here, I’m not surprised you mistook it for a mental institution.’
She’s really nice, Mam, Jo. She’s not my girlfriend. But she’s my friend. And although she doesn’t live there any more, Mam, she originally comes from Failsworth! I didn’t really know her before I came here although I did talk to her once, at the bus stop by the bottle bank on the boulevard. And then when I was trying to get to Grimsby, I saw her in a motorway service station. Unfortunately there was a bit of unpleasantness in there and so we didn’t get to talk that time. But Jo says if she’d known I was coming over to this side of the country she could have given me a lift. She’s only seventeen but she’s driving already and she’s got her own car. She says, ‘It’s just a bit of a bin really!’
But you can tell she’s dead proud of it. Sometimes she gets up really early and drives over to the coast, to go walking on the sand as the sun’s still rising. She says she likes it, being out at that time of the morning, and that’s when she does some of her best writing. She let me read some of her poems. I think they’re quite good really. In fact I think they’re quite brilliant, some of them. But I might be a bit biased though.
Mam, I know that you probably won’t believe me, but I really am truly all right! And sometimes I feel so all right, I get frightened that it might not be real and I might wake up at any minute.
I know I’m not on a building site, Mam, and I know you’ve probably had to put up with all kinds from my Uncle Jason and my Aunty Paula, just like you’ve always had to put up with them picking and patronising and pitying you because you had a son who turned out to be like me. I’m sorry, Mam. I never meant to turn out like I did. And I know how much you wanted me to be a normal, ordinary, invisible boy who just did all the normal things and never got picked on. Remember that summer, Mam, the first summer that nobody would play with me and so I couldn’t go foot-balling or camping or playing tick and hide-and-seek on the recreation ground any more? And you said it broke your heart to see me like that; you said you couldn’t wait for the day when you’d be able to look up and see me once again running with all the others, headlong and careless on the recreation ground, unaware and easy with the beauty of belonging.
Well, I know it probably seems as though it’s taken for ever, Mam; and I know that you sort of gave up hope and don’t even bother looking up any longer. But Mam, if you could see me here now, if you could see me sat beneath the beams in this converted barn, where I’m writing this with Jo sat across the table from me, the two of us scribbling away, each absorbed in what we’re doing but each of us giving a sort of strength to the other, if you could see it, Mam, I know that it would be just like looking up at the recreation ground and seeing me there again, where I belonged.
Mam, that’s what it feels like here; like I’m no longer out of place. And I wish you could see it, Mam, the house and the barn and everything; because you know that old biscuit box of yours where you keep your private things and all your jewellery, the box with the painted countryside picture of the house in the distance and the fields all full of the abundance of nature, well, that’s what it’s like here, Mam. The house is all on its own in the middle of fields and you have to come down a long dusty track just to get to it. We go walking sometimes, across the fields and down to the river. The river’s quite low at this time of year and with the heatwave it’s even more shallow than usual. Jo goes further down though, by the poplar trees where there’s a deep pool and she says the water’s so cold there, she thinks it must be fed by an underground spring and that’s why it stays so deep even with the rest of the river nearly dried up. I’m going to go swimming there myself, when I can. I’ve got to wait a bit though because of my back and my shoulders.
I’ve been a bit ill, Mam.
But don’t worry, I’m all right now. And I don’t mean ill like I used to be! It’s just physical, Mam. See, when I was on the building site, working outside in the sun, I didn’t even know it was one of the hottest days of the year. Tom says that if I’d worn a hat or even a handkerchief over my head then it wouldn’t have been quite so bad. He says my skin would still have got burnt and I’d still be peeling like I am now; but I wouldn’t have ended up so delirious with the sunstroke. I didn’t realise that Tom was a doctor. But in his ordinary life that’s what he is. And that’s why, when Ralph found me, down by the fish docks, he brought me straight back here, because he knew that Tom would know what to do. Tom said it’s the ultraviolet rays that do it – when your head’s exposed to the sun for too long, the ultraviolet goes straight through your skull and so it’s a bit like having part of your brain microwaved. And that’s what makes you go all doolally and delirious.
Mam, it’s all right though! My brain’s back to normal now. My skin’s still sore and peeling but I don’t mind that so much, apart from the fact that it stops me going swimming with Jo. My arms and my back, Mam, they just look hideous and that’s why I keep my shirt on. I told Jo I couldn’t go in the water yet because I was too sore. But really it’s just because I don’t want her to see it, all my skin peeling and flaking and looking horrible. It might make her feel sick! Like it always made me feel sick when my Uncle Jason came back from the Canary Islands or the West Indies or somewhere and him and my Aunty Paula and the gruesome twosome were always sunburned to bits, like barbecued brats, and my Uncle Jason’s big nose was always peeling and flaking and bits of it would fall off into his tea and he’d just carry on drinking it!
That’s why I don’t want Jo to see me flaking all over the place. I know it’s stupid really, me still trying to hide something like that when I know so much about what Jo’s had to go through. It’s just that I don’t want to make her feel sick. And I suppose I don’t want to risk it that she might go off me. I know that she’s not my girlfriend and I’m not even trying to make her become my girlfriend. But she’s really easy with me and relaxed and when we’re in the lounge at night with all the others, sitting on one of the big settees, listening to Ralph or somebody who’s reading out a story, Jo sometimes just holds my hand or leans her head against my arm like she’s snuggling up to me. And it’s lovely, Mam! Because even though she’s not my girlfriend, I know how much she likes me. And it’s brilliant, being liked so much by a girl like Jo.
And I know really it probably wouldn’t make any difference at all, even if she did see my scabby skin. I just feel a bit embarrassed about it, that’s all. And I know it’s stupid because Jo saw me when I was demented and delirious and even that didn’t put her off!
It was the sunstroke, Mam, it made me woozy in the head and stumbling like a drunk man. And then I passed out and apparently I was in a sort of fever and became confused and delirious. That’s why I thought I was in a kind of mental institution! When I first got here I thought it was a hospital! The day when I woke up, when I finally came round, I saw them out of the window, all the strange people wandering about on the lawns, some of them with their lips moving ten to the dozen but without any words coming out; and others talking to themselves, mumbling and jibberjabbering and suddenly shouting out and swearing at the tops of their voices, just like the Tourette’s sufferers always did in Swintonfield; and others talking all posh and fluty, saying the same thing over and over again like some of the old ones in Swintonfield when they were all deluded and thought they were the late King George or Bertrand Russell. It was just like that, Mam, just the same; like at Swintonfield, on the nice afternoons, when all the pathetic patients wandered the lawns on the march of the broken-hearted.
And the girl, Mam, this girl that I thought I kept imagining, like I used t
o keep imagining the Lerts and the man behind the curtain, the Man with the Upside-Down Head; remember that, Mam? Well that’s one of the reasons I thought I was back inside some kind of unit again, because she was with them on the lawn, this girl that I thought I kept imagining, the girl I’d seen by the bottle bank, the one with the eyes like bright brown chestnuts.
And as I stared out, watching them all mingling on the lawn, trance-like, some of them, possessed-looking and repeating things over and over again, repeatedly making the same movements like obsessive compulsives, I even saw the American man amongst them, the one I’d dreamed up somewhere inside my head where he had a big car, a silver Mercedes, and a stack of cassettes of Morrissey and The Smiths. I watched him through the window of the white room, as he appeared on the lawn and walked into the middle of all the other patients. And that’s when I thought he must be the doctor, the consultant, like Dr Corkerdale, because he clapped his hands and as he did that, all the patients on the lawn stopped whatever they were doing, stopped moving, stopped talking and shouting, stopped picking things up and putting them down, stopped walking round and round in circles. And I thought the American man must be a really brilliant doctor because it was like all the patients just suddenly stopped being patients! He was standing amongst them, talking to them, talking like he was excited, you could see he was excited. And they were all looking at him, the people, looking and listening, all their eyes on him, following him as he moved around the lawn. And then they were laughing, all of them laughing at once, laughing properly like ordinary people.
And that’s when he saw me watching him through the window. I tried to dodge back behind the curtain but he was waving at me with a big delighted smile on his face as he called out to me, saying, ‘Raymond! Hey! How are you?’
Then everybody, all the patients, turned and looked, all of them staring at me, some of them pointing, some starting to smile, others lifting up their hands and waving and all of them starting to talk to each other. He was walking forward though, across the lawn, towards the window, talking to me, asking me how I felt and telling me he was sorry; telling me he’d forgotten that my room backed onto the lawn – and that if he had remembered he would have arranged to hold the workshop in the barn and not out on the lawn.
You see, Mam, they weren’t mental at all, the people on the lawn! What they all were, were writers, Mam; people who come here to try and learn how to write better. And all they’d been doing on the lawn was going over their lines and rehearsing a play that one of them had written. That’s what it is, you see, Mam, it’s like a school for writers here.
That’s what Ralph is, the American man who brought me here, he’s a writer.
Don’t worry, Mam, I know what you must be thinking already!
But Mam, honest, this time it’s not like Malcolm or Malcolm’s dad or anything like that. Ralph really is a real person, Mam, and he comes from New York City not Baton Rouge. And if you’re worried, Mam, and you don’t believe me, you can go down to the library or even to Waterstone’s or somewhere like that and if you look under ‘G’ for Gallagher you’ll probably find some of Ralph’s books or his plays because even though I’d never heard of him, he’s quite famous really, Ralph Gallagher.
It was Ralph who said he’d lend me the money to get back home. It was the day I’d started to feel better.
We were outside, in the shade between the house and the barn, stood on the big brown flagstones, still warm with all the sun they’d soaked up. We were looking out over all the meadows, field after flat field stretching away, all the crops, the green and the yellows shot through with reds and purples, the furthest fields lost in the heat haze that made the distant poplar trees look like dangling worms wriggling on the horizon.
I told Ralph, thanks. I promised that I’d send him the money back as soon as I could.
He nodded. Then he said, ‘And what will you do, kid?’
I asked him what he meant.
‘When you get back home,’ he said, ‘what will you do then?’
I just shrugged, and sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to try and see about getting a job.’
‘Doing what?’ Ralph asked.
I shrugged again. ‘I don’t really know,’ I said. ‘I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get a job.’
Ralph nodded and kept looking out over the fields. Then he sniffed and said, ‘So why the fuck don’t you do what you should be doing, Raymond?’ He was looking at me with his eyebrows raised.
I frowned at him.
‘Ray,’ he said, ‘I read your book! Your lyric book.’
I could only stare back at him, the frown on my face growing deeper as I tried to understand.
Ralph just watched me. And then he said, ‘You want me to say I’m sorry? You want me to apologise for snooping?’
But he wasn’t apologising because he was shaking his head and he said, ‘No way, kid! You’ll get no apology from me. I’m sorry I had to do it. I don’t make a habit of sticking my nose where it don’t belong. Only you’ve got to understand, Ray, when we brought you back here you were in a bad way. We didn’t know who you were, where you were from. Jo told us the little she knew – she’d seen you in town, bumped into you in the motorway services. But other than that, we knew nothing. And like I say, you were in no state to make us any wiser. You were raving!’
Ralph nodded at me. ‘And that’s why I took the liberty of taking a look through your things, to try and find who he was, this kid with the delirium and skin like a spit-roast chicken!’
Ralph just watched me then, sort of studying my face as I stared out over the fields.
‘You upset?’ he asked. ‘Offended? Outraged, just pissed? What?’
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I was. I just felt faintly embarrassed really, with my mind racing back through all the private things that Ralph must have read about.
Then I heard him saying, ‘Come on. Let’s walk.’
He moved off and I followed him towards the arch that led out of the garden and onto the path leading down to the fields. We were walking along by the dried-up marshes. I didn’t know what he was going to say, whether he was going to have a go at me about something.
But what he did say was, ‘Ray, I love your Gran! Christ, she’s wonderful. When she gives that what’s-his-name … Akela? … when she gives him that flea in his ear, Jesus, I wanted to pick her up and kiss her! Fun! Christ, the way she hates fun, I just adore her for that alone.’
I couldn’t believe it! Ralph was talking about my Gran as if he knew her! Talking about her as if she was still alive!
And then he said, ‘Do you sustain her throughout?’
I frowned at him.
‘Throughout the story,’ he said, ‘she keeps coming back?’
I nodded. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘She’s my Gran! Of course she keeps coming back until—’
But Ralph suddenly shouted, ‘NO!’ his hands up as he said, ‘Don’t! Don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know, don’t give it away! Let me find out for myself when I read the whole thing.’
Ralph nodded again. ‘I stopped reading,’ he said, ‘I forced myself not to go on reading because I knew you’d written it as a personal thing, a private manuscript. That’s why I only read it in part. But,’ he said, ‘I’d love to read it all, if you’d give me permission.’
We’d reached the wooden fence by the cattle grid. Ralph leaned against the fence, looking back towards the house as he said, ‘Because although I only read your manuscript in part, Raymond, I read enough to tell me that here is a kid who needs to write.’
Ralph looked at me but I didn’t know what to say.
Then he nodded back towards the house and sighed as he said, ‘See back there, the house? Well, I don’t want you to quote me, Ray, but most of the people on this course, nice people, sweet people, probably better people than you and me; but most of them, they only want to write.’
He shook his head like it was something that made him sad.
Then he turned and looked at me.
‘So can you imagine,’ he said, ‘what a joy it is for me to find that I’ve got someone here who needs to write!?’
I just shrugged. I didn’t fully understand him.
But then he nodded and looking back at the house again he said, ‘Two or three others on the course, I think they’ve got it. Jo’s one of them. I think she’s got real talent. She’s got great insight and she can express it. But I’m worried that it’s not really working for her, this course. Part of the problem is that there’s nobody remotely near her own age. And I think she needs that. I think she needs to be communicating with someone who’s culturally closer.’
Ralph turned and looked at me. ‘That’s one reason’, he said, ‘that I hope you’re gonna stay around. I think it’d be really good for Jo if she had someone closer to her own age.’
I frowned. And looked at him. Then I said, ‘What’s the other reason?’
Ralph smiled. ‘So that I can get to read the rest of the book,’ he said. And then, as he pushed himself away from the fence and we started walking back to the house, he said, ‘And so I can try and help you be who you should be.’
You see, Mam, that’s why I’m not coming home, not yet. But I want you to know that you don’t have to worry. I know what my Uncle Jason will say, that I’m just fartarsing about in the country with a bunch of would-be poets and play-actors, being bone idle and useless like I’ve always been useless. But Mam, I’m not useless, or bone idle; not here. That’s why you don’t have to worry and fret any more. I’m happy, Mam. So happy that I’m almost frightened to say it; too frightened to breathe sometimes, in case something as soft as a breath could blow it all away.
The Wrong Boy Page 48
