Billy Elliot

by Melvin Burgess

  I was so busy watching, I didn’t hear the cop car come up behind me until it gave a little poop. I nearly jumped out of me skin. The copper driving smiled at me and winked. I walked out of the road and watched them drive off. Out of the back window, the coppers waved me goodbye. I just ignored them.

  That Debbie gives me the shivers sometimes, actually. She’s a funny little dried-up-looking thing. Middle-class. You’d expect her to want me to fanny about doing ballet, but she wasn’t the only one. Michael thought it was all right, too. Mind you, Michael’s ... well, Michael’s Michael, isn’t he? He’s a good friend, though, he never tries to tell you what you should be doing. I was showing him some of the moves under Gat’s Cope when we were doing cross-country at school. Him and me, we don’t like cross-country. Actually, Michael hates all sports. I like some of it. I used to spend ages learning tricks at football. You know the sort of thing – like grabbing the ball between your ankles and flipping it up over your head. Then, if you’re fast enough, you can spin round and slam it one, right in the back of the net. Only it never works like that on the pitch. I spent ages learning that one. Or tapping the ball from one toe to the other, up in the air in little skips, then knocking it between your opponent’s legs and running off behind him. I’ve done that one a few times in a real game.

  The ballet’s the same in some ways. You have to spend ages learning how to do the moves just right. It’s only, there’s no ball involved.

  Anyhow, while the others go running round a dirty great long loop from the end of the school playing field and right round Gat’s Wood and back, me and Michael hang around the back and slip down into the old tunnel under the track. Then we sit around chatting for ten minutes until the others come along over the bridge. Once they’ve run round the corner, we come back up and follow behind them – last every time, but who cares?

  I showed him some of the moves in the tunnel. ‘Put your leg like that,’ I said. I had to straighten it up for him. ‘Arm out, one, two!’ He looked over his shoulder and grinned at me.

  ‘Eyes forward,’ I told him. I showed him all the moves, and you know what? He wasn’t anywhere near as good at it as I was. I had to show him how.

  ‘You’ve had lessons,’ he complained.

  ‘Lesson. Just one,’ I told him.

  ‘Are you going back?’

  ‘Nah. What for?’

  ‘You’re good at it, aren’t you?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘I feel like a right idiot.’

  ‘You are a right idiot. So what’s the difference?’ He paused and looked at me. ‘I think you look nice, actually. I think you should do it. It looks very ...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, not tough, but ... manly.’

  ‘Manly? What sort of a word’s that? Anyhow, it’s for girls.’

  ‘It’s different when men do it. It’s like the gymnastics on the telly. The men are different, aren’t they? They’re so much stronger, like. Graceful but strong. You know what I mean?’ He comes out with it sometimes, Michael. Manly! But I knew what he meant. Gymnastics is a good way of looking at it. The ballet’s like that. I could jump higher than those girls. If you get your muscles underneath the jump, you go up like a f***ing bird.

  So in the end I did have another go at it, after all. I thought, Just once. When I left the house I had no intention of doing it. Dad and Tony had their usual quarrel and went off to the picket line. I took my fifty pence off the fridge, got the gloves and off I went. But once I got into the changing rooms and I heard George going on, bang bang bang ... oh, my heart sank. I thought, Banging about in the ring and getting twatted by some dopey piece of shite – not for me, thanks. Michael was right, it’s stupid. So I hid in one of the cubicles in the changing room, waited until they’d all gone, and then sneaked down to the ballet class. It was downstairs this time so no one would ever know I’d been. It was just curiosity. I didn’t care that much. I just wanted to see how good I was at it, really. And I quite liked the girls all looking at me as well. And I didn’t half mind looking at them, either!

  It started off boring and embarrassing. They were doing all these moves one after the other and I had no idea what was coming next. I was going one way and they were going the other. How was I supposed to know what to do? They’d been doing it for ages. I bet I could have done any of those moves better than they could, but I didn’t know which one was coming next.

  Miss was going, ‘One two three, one two three, one two three,’ but how can you stay in rhythm if you don’t know what’s coming next? I had no idea what I was doing. I just stopped.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, miss.’

  ‘Follow the others. Go to the back so you can watch – two three, one two three. Where’s those arms, two three, one two three.’

  I did me best, but I dunno. I was thinking, I’ve had enough of this. I was thinking it was more fun getting your head kicked in than being a prat here. But then she showed me the spin.

  I’d seen them before on TV. You know, someone spins round and round dead fast and then stops – comes suddenly to a dead standstill in exactly the same position as when they started off. It’s pretty spectacular, really. If you did that in a boxing ring, no one would know what was going on. You’d spin round really fast, and you’d come out of it with a punch – man, you’d knock your opponent flying! Anyway, it’s like all these things – there’s a trick to it, see. I never realised. You have to find a spot on the wall, stare at it, get your arms right – the balance is in the arms, see – then push off into your spin, really, really fast – and then stop so you’re staring at exactly the same point. It has to be exactly the same spot, mind – it’s not good starting off staring at a picture on the wall and end up looking at the lampshade. If you get it right, you go like a top. If you get it wrong, you end up on your back.

  Anyhow, I was crap at that too. She showed us it over and over. Some of the girls did it pretty well, really. I tried to imitate them, but she wasn’t having it.

  ‘Come on, Billy, you’re not a girl, are you? Put some strength into it! Spin it, spin it! You’re a man. You’ve got to go off like a rocket!’

  So I did. I span round so fast me feet slipped and I ended up sprawled out on the floor like a prat. The girls stared down at me. They didn’t dare laugh, though. She came down on anyone who laughed. You have to be prepared to be a bit of a prat when you start off learning these things, so you can end up good. Same as anything.

  ‘Practise at home,’ she said. And then we went to barre, which was a lot better because it was all slow and you could see the moves easily and I could do that OK.

  At the end of it I was knackered, but I felt great. That spin – I knew I could do it. It was just a question of practice. I was sitting on a bench pulling me jumper on and that Debbie was hanging around me again, watching like I was a TV set or something.

  ‘See,’ she said. ‘I said it was harder than it looks, didn’t I?’

  ‘Aye, you did.’

  ‘The spin’s hard, isn’t it?’ She practised it a couple of times.

  ‘You’re not as fast as me,’ I told her.

  ‘You can’t even do it,’ she scoffed.

  I got up to show her. I did a slow one to start with and it wasn’t half bad, but when I did it fast it was no good. I couldn’t keep me balance.

  ‘You need to go round at least twice. A strong lad like you.’ It was Mrs Wilkinson.

  ‘Aye.’ I sat down and started packing my bag. She nodded at Debbie.

  ‘Scram.’

  ‘Why, Mam?’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Miss. Sorry.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Debbie cleared off and Miss looked down at me, holding her fag to her mouth and squinting through the smoke.

  ‘So then. Do we get the pleasure of your company next week?’

  ‘Dunno. It’s just ... I feel like a rig
ht sissy.’

  ‘Then don’t act like one. Fifty pence.’

  I handed over the money. She pointed at my ballet shoes.

  ‘Well, if you’re not coming, give us your shoes back.’

  I hesitated. Ballet – well, I didn’t care for it all that much, but I wanted to learn how to do that spin. I wanted to do it in the boxing ring. That’d show ‘em!

  ‘Nah, you’re all right,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ she said, and she turned on her heel without even saying goodbye or anything, and walked straight out.

  And you know what? I didn’t realise how much I liked it until I found myself dancing all the way home. I felt really light-headed. I went skittering and jumping all the way, and it wasn’t till I was standing in the kitchen with the ballet shoes in one hand and the boxing gloves around me neck that I thought, What have I done? What was I going to do with them shoes? If Dad caught me with them he’d bloody kill me.

  Nan was there waiting for me.

  ‘Ooh, ballet shoes,’ she said, her little old face all lighting up. ‘I used to dance. I could have been a professional.’

  ‘Don’t tell, Nan, will you?’ I begged – although it wouldn’t make any difference. No one takes any notice of what she says. I ran upstairs and lifted the mattress off to stuff them under there, but I was only halfway through when Dad came in. Shit! I never knew he was at home. I stuffed the ballet shoes under me just in time.

  ‘What are you doing, crawling about like creeping Jesus?’

  ‘Nowt.’

  ‘Where’ve you been anyway? We found your nan round at the Spar.’

  ‘Boxing, where’d you think?’

  He stared down at me. I was lying on the bed keeping the shoes hidden under me, trying to look normal like.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘I forgot me gloves. I thought they might be under the bed.’ I peered down over the edge of the bed as if I was looking underneath it.

  He looked at me, then at the floor, then back at me. Then he pointed to the gloves lying there next to the bed.

  ‘What’s them, then?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  He stood there looking at me – waiting for me to move, I expect, but I couldn’t. I felt like a prat.

  ‘You watch out for them gloves, they were me dad’s.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Right.’ He walked out. That was a close call! If my dad ever catches me doing ballet, he’ll bloody kill me. I won’t do it for long, though. Just for a bit. Just until I get that spin right. Then I’ll go down the boxing hall and shoot someone’s head right off!

  Iknew there was something funny going on. Billy is my son and I stand by him till the day I die, but. Put it like this: he’s a bit of an individualist, Billy. He’s always got these weird things he’s trying to do. It used to be balancing a stick on the end of his nose. He was only eight or so. Then there was the cardboard box. He used to sit in it singing to himself. That’s just kids, you might say, but Billy was ten. I’d not be seen dead in a cardboard box when I was ten. It was when his mother was ill, so perhaps that’s understandable. But what about the necktwisting? That went on for ages. He’d turn round and look behind him, twisting his neck round as far as he could, over and over again. He said it was just a habit, but what sort of a habit is that? It’s not like picking your nose or biting your nails. Once I took him to the cinema and he spent the whole time twisting round in his seat. He was just stretching the muscles in his neck but the woman behind didn’t know that, she thought he was staring at her. It was so embarrassing. You can’t stop him. He can’t stop himself.

  ‘Your son’s staring at me,’ she said.

  ‘Aye, and I paid good money for this film,’ I told her back.

  It was football for a while, that was OK. He used to go out into the street and practise flipping the ball over his head with his feet, or keepsie-upsies or something like that. He was never all that good on the pitch, mind, but at least it was good healthy practice, the sort of thing you’d expect for a kid of his age.

  Now it was spinning round in circles.

  He denied it at first, but I kept catching him at it. In the kitchen, in the hall, in the yard, in his bedroom. All the bloody time. Staring into space like an idiot, holding out his arms and then hurling himself round in a bloody great spin and falling over, half the time. I sent him out to make tea once, and when he didn’t come back for ages I went to have a look. There he was, staring away, just about to go off.

  ‘Billy,’ I said, just as he let himself off, and he went spinning round, trying to look over his shoulder at the same time, and he went crashing into the table and sent the lot flying – milk everywhere, sugar upside down, mugs broken.

  Tony came rushing in from the hall. ‘What are you doing, man?’

  ‘I’m just practising a spin. It’s a boxing move,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not like any boxing move I’ve ever seen,’ I told him. Boxing move! It was another one of his stupid habits.

  ‘Now don’t start doing that all the time,’ I warned him. ‘You’ll wreck the bloody house doing that.’

  ‘Aye, and who’s going to pay for those mugs and all? You’ve got no bloody sense,’ goes Tony.

  ‘All right, Dad, all right.’ But of course he didn’t stop. He can’t help himself once he gets going. He’s like a bloody rabbit with the eyes too big or something. At least he started doing it outside after that. He was pretending to do boxing practice, but was he heck. I crept out into the yard to have a look and there he was, same old thing. Arms curved out to one side, then he flung ‘em round and went hurtling round in a circle. The weird thing was the way he was staring into space. And the gloves – aye, he had the gloves on. He looked like a bloody madman. He scares me sometimes, our Billy. I don’t know what to make of him.

  I went out and had a word with him.

  ‘What are you doing, son? You look like you’re having a fit or something.’

  ‘I’m practising, Dad.’

  ‘No, you’re not practising. Practising what? Looking like a fanny? Don’t you care what people think of you?’

  ‘It’s just a bloody spin.’

  ‘Well, don’t do it. Not out here where people can see.’

  ‘But you told me not to do it in the house!’

  ‘Just don’t do it, that’s all. OK?’

  I didn’t see it so much after that, but I knew he was still at it. I could hear him falling about all over. Banging on the landing, crashing about in the kitchen. I was forever yelling, ‘Stop bloody banging!’ He fell in the bath doing it one time. It was his Sunday-night bath, there was this almighty splash and when I went up, there he was, staring at himself in the mirror, fully dressed, soaking wet, arms out ready to have another go.

  ‘You’re doing that again!’ I told him.

  ‘I fell in the bath, that’s all,’ he said.

  I didn’t bother saying any more. I just rolled my eyes and left him to it.

  He had me worried then. I had a word with Susan Harris down the road, but she reckoned I should take no notice.

  ‘He’s just a lad, he’s only twelve, he’s still a baby really,’ she said. ‘Let him be, Jackie, he’ll be all right. He needs to let off steam somehow.’

  She’s brought up four of her own, Susan, so I thought she knew best. I suppose it’s not the sort of thing your dad lets you do, but maybe your mam’d turn a blind eye.

  I’ll give him this, though, our Billy, he did it. Whatever it was he was trying to do, he did it. I was coming back home from the shops with a pint of milk in me pocket and there he was in the yard doing his stuff. I stood and watched. Bolt upright, staring at the wall, arms out – bang, round he went two or three times, I couldn’t count, he was going so fast. And then came to stop like a slammed door, bang.

  ‘Yes!’ He was so made up, I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes, yes, I did it, I did it, I did it!’ He went dancing around the yard stamping and whooping. I never saw a kid s
o happy.

  ‘Yer did it then,’ I said, and he nearly fell over. He’d been so concentrated he never noticed me.

  ‘Ow, god, Dad! Ah! You scared me.’

  ‘Aye. So you’ve done it, then, have you?’

  ‘Watch!’ And he had another go, but he couldn’t do it this time, not with me watching. He was all over the place.

  ‘I did it just then, though. Did you see me?’

  ‘Yeah. Pretty good stuff. So have you tried it down the boxing club yet, then?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Are you going to?’

  ‘Soon as I’ve got it right each time.’ He was already standing there having another go.

  ‘So, is this something George taught you, now, Billy?’

  ‘George? No. I made it up myself.’

  ‘Did you now? And what does he think about it?’

  Billy looked sideways at me and grinned. ‘He doesn’t mind. He just lets me get on with it.’

  ‘Right. Well, you’ll have a surprise for him next Saturday then, won’t you?’

  Jesus. Poor old George’ll have a heart attack. Well, I didn’t have the heart to ask Billy how it went, I knew what’d happen. He’d get away with it a couple of times, and then someone would come up and whack him while he was spinning round defenceless. He was going round so fast, all you’d have to do was hold your glove out and he’d knock his own block off for you. It’d be like putting a stick into the wheels of a bike as it went downhill.

  He didn’t care, though. He was gone. It was jumps next. He started doing these poncy jumps – big jumps, mind, right high, big, long jumps, but with his arms up over his head like a bloody ballet dancer. It was beginning to drive me barmy. The spinning was bad enough, but he looked like such a prat doing this. And the noise he made jumping up and down – it went through the whole house. Bang, crash, wallop! Christ!