11: Sexy Boy
WHERE illness was concerned, Mum believed that everything was just some lame excuse for skiving off work, that 'flu didn't exist and you should simply pull yourself together because colds were all in the mind. Telling her mine was all in my nose, I managed to wangle two days in bed with a hot-water bottle and the thrilling second act of Beethoven's Fidelio, where love, giving 'strength to free you from your chains', saves a life, and sinking my aching face into the steam rising from a hot eucalyptus/menthol solution, rubbing my chest with Vicks Vaporub, drinking countless mugs of hot lemon and honey and reading SS General, which was all about how bloody awful the Siege of Stalingrad was, this Rattenkrieg where you captured the kitchen but still had to fight like a fox in a sack for the living-room, where nearly 2 million men, women and children died during 5 months of brutal, desperate combat and where the average life-expectancy of a newly arrived Soviet soldier was less than one day. I mean, Gott in Himmel und Donner und Blitzen, as ze Germans say, right?
I'd read nearly all Sven Hassell's novels. My favourite was Reign of Hell, about the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto, and my favourite characters were Porta, because he told these like madcap stories, cut dodgy deals and seemed to know just about everyone in the German Army whilst being brave to the point of stupidity, and Sven himself, because he was honest about his feelings towards the brutality and futility of war. Some of the writing was really graphic. I didn't want to picture soldiers with their guts hanging from their stomachs or their faces sliced off. I preferred my soldiers as plastic models or cardboard counters.
I lolled around in navy trackies, white socks and cobalt sweater. Mum, working from home, stoked me with chicken soup and even played Treasure of the Pharaohs with me, though I had to suffer Manilow Magic over and over again. Man, if he 'came and he gave without taking' one more time, I thought I'd put my foot through the CD player. Having said that, 'we dreamers have our ways, of facing rainy days, and somehow we survive… I made it through the rain' had such resonance I wanted to get up and belt it out to an imaginary backing-band on an imaginary Vegas stage. Bazza seemed to be like singing my life-story right now, you know? Unfortunately my Vegas Moment came out as a croak.
Well, anyway, I don't think Mum liked the game much. I had no idea why. I mean, you took like these little explorer figures in pith helmets (I always chose the yellow one) through this pyramid, cross a bridge which had a trap-door into this snake-pit, raise the Great Stone of Cheops, negotiate the Hall of Mummies and hope to avoid the Curse of the Pharaoh, or, as Dad called it, the King Tut Trot, ha ha. I mean, walk like an Egyptian, right? Clench your arse-cheeks tightly and skip to the loo, ha ha. Anyway, there was even this ruddy great picture of Tutankhamen's Mask on the box! What more could you want in a game, eh, Mum? I wondered if Ali would like it then scoffed. Ali who? I'd play it with Tim instead.
Mum seemed happier with 'Space Phenomena' Top Trumps. I had Halley's Comet, trying to decide what category to pick. Not speed, for sure. It was only 5 mph, which was like rubbish, slower than an asthmatic tortoise carrying a ton of shopping up Kilimanjaro. Diameter was 16000 miles. Temperature might do. 57 Celsius. I liked this set. With comets, galaxies, black holes and meteorites, every game was an exploration of the Final Frontier.
''Temperature,'' I said.
''One million,'' went Mum. She only had the bloody Supernova, 'one of the most explosive and energetic events in the known universe.' I tutted and sniffed.
''Mass,'' said Mum.
I had the Earth. Ha. The Earth was bloody heavy.
''24.78,'' I said confidently, laying down the card.
''31.14,'' said Mum, using the Cygnus XI black hole to swallow up my Earth.
I unclogged my nose into a soggy tissue.
''Jonny,'' she said suddenly. ''You know this fight with Ali Ross?''
''Rose,'' I snapped. ''He's called Rose, not Ross, and he's a stuck-up spazmoid twat.''
Mum studied me thoughtfully for a moment then asked the question Dad had ducked. I looked up from the M17 Nebula, with the awesome diameter of 380 million billion miles and a temperature of 10000 degrees Celsius and shook my head. No, I said. He hadn't molested me. No-one was molesting me. No. No-one. I wasn't getting fondled by a friend, touched by a teacher or pawed by a prefect. My virginity was totally intact. Unfortunately.
Relief flooded Mum's face as she conjured up the bloody Milky Way with its trumping diameter of 940 billion billion miles. ''You promise?''
I promised.
The Sun. 5500 degrees Celsius. I stared at Uranus (shut your face!) and threw in my hand. Everything was fine 'cos my boy's bits were ungroped. Since that's all that matters, I must be OK. Grumpily I stomped off to blast some skyscrapers off the New York skyline in Ground Force Zero, this new game where you had to pilot a plane that is losing altitude all the time and the only way to land it safely is to basically obliterate any buildings in your way.
The living room was this light airy space with a massive marble fireplace in which, during winter, Dad lit real fires with coal and logs. A fairly knackered TV and video stood in a corner facing this three-piece suite in browns and oranges to match the orange walls and varnished woodwork. Mum and Dad usually took opposite ends of the three-seater, mainly so Mum could sit in her pyjamas, white with lavender cats, with her feet curled up in the middle for Dad, in his thick green dressing-gown and Paisley PJs, to rub absently whilst they contemplated the answers to Mastermind or the antiques on the Roadshow. I generally sprawled on the two-seater in PJs and dressing gown, legs hanging over one arm, head on the other, swinging one tan-moccasined foot till the slipper dropped off. They didn't mind. They just seemed pleased their teenager wanted to watch telly with them.
There were several pot-plants, a couple of paintings, one a seascape, the other some kind of vaguely yellow forest-scene, and, on the mantelpiece, an expensive ornamental vase Mum'd been left by some aunt. This was surrounded by some framed family-photos, them on their wedding day eighteen years ago, all loud colours, flares and massive hair, me as a baby crawling on a rug on the Grunters' back lawn, the Grunters on their golden anniversary, Mum's parents, me in a tux and black tie performing at the Harrogate Festival two years ago. It was a nice room and I enjoyed spending time in it, especially when I could scoff a bag of banana chips with a classic Star Trek with a Klingon war-bird fighting the Enterprise and some baby born into a primitive tribe getting named after Kirk and McCoy, a brilliant Horizon on BBC2 on time-lapse photography and Paddington. I liked Paddington. He was a marmalade-sandwich-scoffing bear with a crazy hat. What wasn't to like? Though I preferred The Wombles, you know? Underground, overground, Uncle Bulgaria, long furry noses and a cool song called 'Wombling Free' but they weren't on. It was Paddington. But Top Gear involved turning a Renault Espace into a convertible using power-saws then setting fire to a car-wash. I laughed so hard I almost puked.
Returning to school on Wednesday, Double Biology was its usual rueful (ha), thyme-less (ha ha) dilling (ha ha ha) with the force of darkness that was Herbidacious who said I looked like death warmed up and that if Lamp-post Lewis held out an arm the dogs would come before making us copy this fiendishly detailed diagram of the ear from the board then complaining they were all too small. I mean, what a twat. Why didn't he like tell us first?
I did OK in the Music test, though I got two wrong (a plagal cadence I incorrectly identified as imperfect and a key-change from G major to A minor that I thought was E minor – what a spaz). Perry also hated my latest composition 'cos he had this thing against parallel fifths. I told him I didn't do classical harmony but he said the examiners did, and deducted 5 marks. Meanwhile that swot Paulus got 10/10 for the weird discordant shit he claimed was 'modernist'. Paulus liked Schoenberg, Ligeti, Birtwistle and Reich and was desperate for the school orchestra to tackle that cheery number Different Trains, about people going off to be gassed at Auschwitz. After an argument between him and Tredwell about whether minimalism really was music, to which Mr D. Bim
p of Kent's contribution was 'what a bag of wank', we listened to the dramatic excitement of Night on the Bare Mountain, focussing on this massive key-change at bar 256, sostenuto pesante, with a lot of pizzicato strings culminating in these triple fortissimo chords in bar 281, just before letter Q in our yellow Eulenberg scores.
At lunch, I went to Wingnut's class-room for the play rehearsal, sat at the back rocking on my chair scoffing Ryvitas, a celery-stick, some raw carrots, a bag of pumpkin seeds and an apple from our garden whilst Rose glared sourly at me, said ''Nice of you to show up for once'' and ran through Scene 1 with Turner, Sutcliffe, Middleton, Warburton and Anderson. It was no longer funny, not after eight readings.
''Oh man, this is so shit,'' I whined to North. ''Wish we were doing a proper play like Tetley.'' Austen and Dell were doing Waiting for Godot. I was even more fed up when I learned that Rowntree were doing Toad of Toad Hall, with Pip Broody as Ratty and Niall Hill as Mole, Collins, for Smeaton, was going to fall through a sideboard, and Leeman, Bunny's house, were doing Ali Baba with about thirty kids and loads of singing and dancing.
''Don't worry,'' muttered North. ''Firth's doing a French parable, Goodricke are doing a Noel Coward satire and Brearley something by Sean O' Casey. We got off lightly.''
Unconvinced, I contributed my half-dozen lines in a hasty gabble, got another scowl from Rosie and legged it. Fuck him. He hadn't phoned me while I was sick and anyway I had a footie game to play.
Waving my arm in the air like some demented budgie and screaming ''David! David!'' at Fosbrook, I scored one screamer of a goal with a sweetly taken volley from his exquisite cross and then saved a goal with a desperate sliding-tackle on Bainbridge then tipped an absolute scorcher of a shot from Niall Hill round the blazer-pile post. Sure, I ripped most of the tendons in my fingers, but I impressed the hearties. Anyway, the day got even better when Big Willie read out my comprehension answers on how Jerry's swim in Through the Tunnel symbolised his rebirth and represented his movement from child to adult and this was reflected in the more grown-up way he spoke to his mother at the end of the story. Apparently it 'shows rare perception.' I didn't think so. I thought it was easy. The story came from Modern Short Stories in English, a book me and Willie really liked which contained 'Sunday' by the best poet EVER, a story about a guy called Billy Red who kills rats with his teeth, 'Great Uncle Crow' by the guy who created Ma and Pa Larkin, 'Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit' by the the late wife of the best poet ever (though the feminists'll cut my balls off with a rusty breadknife for saying that), and this Doris Lessing story I loved so much. It was about a boy who drew on every ounce of courage he had ever possessed to attempt, and succeed at, something utterly impossible, in his case swim through an underwater, under the rocks tunnel, but in our case, a metaphor for anything unbelievably challenging, like being… gay I mean, different.
Man, we'd been set the questions on page 28 for prep: '1. Talk about Jerry's mother. What kind of person is she? Talk about a time when you knew an adult who was similarly concerned about your actions and feelings.'
What the hell to write? I'd copped out by writing about Mrs Lennox, my toad-faced teacher, sweating it out before my rendering of Maxwell Davies' utterly beautiful 'Farewell to Stromness' at the city council's primary schools' star performers gig at that pink and gold candyfloss town hall when I, little Jonny Peters, 10 years old, had blown the competition into the stratosphere because I felt this aching, longing music, and brought it to life. Similarly, Willie read my work on my favourite short story and read it to the class to demonstrate how to weave direct quotations into one's own sentences, a skill I'd recently developed.
''Tell me,'' he finished, ''Have you read F.R. Leavis?''
''No, sir.''
''Well, do. You'll learn a lot.''
''Tell me, Keeno Brainiac,'' mimicked Maxton sourly as I danced down the parquet corridor, ''Have you read every book in the universe yet?''
''Say, Max, you read any books yet, or are you still on pictures?''
''Least they're pictures of women, not sheep,'' he said, slapping me round the head and bleating ''Baaaaaaa! Jonnyyyyyy Peeeeeeeters shaaaaaaags sheeeeeep.''
Yelling joyfully, I flicked two fingers at some prefect banging on about running in the corridor and, jumping down the vast wooden staircase three at a time, chased Max past the stained glass windows and pot plants of Heathcliffe Lodge to the school bus.
When I got home, I got stuck into Chopin's Berceuse, playing the opening two bars with my left hand only then hit a treble F with the middle finger of my right hand to begin the top-line melody. I played to the end of Bar 12, noted my fingering in orange pencil on the score then studied the next page. The Berceuse, with five flats, was packed with trills, grace-notes, high octave runs and, yikes, in Bar 32, an accidental double E flat. Peering at the black spot, I counted three ledger-lines. Oh, man, there was another in Bar 33, a double B flat… at least the left hand was straightforward.
I moved onto the clarinet, playing some scales and the perky third Lutoslawski Dance Prelude for my exam. Dealing with a succession of grace-notes in the first sixteen bars, I realised that the notes themselves were not that hard to hit, but the rhythm was everything, and fairly tricky. I glanced over the list of 'homework' pieces from Otto Langey's Practical Tutor for the Clarinet, 'Sep 22nd, page 125, 121, Oct 20 page 102.' Page 125 was the Adagio from Mozart's concerto, page 121 the slow movement of Weber's first concerto, page 102 more Mozart, the Larghetto from the Quintet. Nice stuff even Dad might appreciate. Then it was prep time. Gazing for inspiration at the red Fokker triplane on my wall, I shoved a cartridge in my Waterman, glanced at Ozzie's googly eyes and wrote
''Rates of reaction. 1) Does the size of particles affect the rate of a reaction?
''A suitable reaction to study is that between lumps of marble (calcium carbonate) and dilute hydrochloric acid.''
Whistling 'One for the Vine' from Genesis' Wind & Wuthering, I wrote an equation which I hoped was correct. I loved this song, this whole album. I'd had it like forever.
''Ca2+CO32- (s) + 2H+ (aq) + 2Cl- (aq) → Ca2+ (aq) + 2Cl- (aq) + H2O (g) + CO2 (g)''
''In his name they could slaughter, for his name they could die, Though many there were believed in him: still more were sure he lied, But they'll fight the battle on,'' I sang, writing ''The course of the reaction can be followed by observing the loss in mass of the reactants as the carbon dioxide escapes from the reaction.''
There was this massive table which Maxton had recorded whilst I'd called out the elapsing time and mass and Gray had calculated the differences.
''The weight of the vessels containing the reactants,'' I wrote, ''Was noted every half-minute and graphs of loss in weight against time were drawn.'' Since this wasn't due till Wednesday and I had other stuff, I would do that bit tomorrow.
''He walked into the valley, all alone,'' Trying to sing like Phil Collins, my voice soared up into a falsetto stratosphere that made the wind-chimes hum. ''There he talked with water and then with the vine,'' whistling again and writing ''Precautions:- i) saturated the acid with carbon dioxide so that it would not dissolve the marble, ii) wad of cotton wool in flask to prevent acid spraying out.''
''They leave me no choice, I must lead them to glory, or most likely to death…da da da da da, da da da…'' My voice went into the stratosphere. Man, I'd forgotten how good Genesis were. I'd have 'I know what I like (In your wardrobe)' on next.
''Deductions Graph B is steeper showing that reaction B is faster. (In fact the gradient of the graph shows how fast the reaction has proceeded). 2) Both graphs gradually flatten out, (i.e. reaction is slowing down) and eventually become horizontal (i.e. the reaction has stopped).'' I'd do the questions tomorrow.
Slapping that book shut, I looked at some French: ''craindre, to fear, je crains, tu crains, il/elle craint, nous craignons, vous craignez, ils/elles craignent, cueillir, to pick or gather, je cueille, tu cueilles, il/elle cueille, nous cueillons, vous cueillez, ils/
elles cueillent.'' My blue pocket Collins Gem French-English dictionary had the blue-black ink-stains from the burst bottle of Quink back in 2W and, scrawled in pencil on the inside-front cover, 'Qu'est-ce que c'est?' which was like crossed through with diagonal pencil-slashes. I had no idea why. It was like my green Collins Gem Dictionary of Biography, a pocket-book I'd carried everywhere with me. It had 505 pages of brief life-summaries, from 'Aalto, Alvar (1898-1976), Finnish architect and furniture-designer' to 'Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma (1888-1982), American physicist, b. Russia. Developed scanner from cathode-rays and first practical television camera.' Five supplementary pages listed Sovereigns of the United Kingdom, from William I onwards, Presidents of the United States of America, and Prime Ministers of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain. Also inky and well-thumbed, it had my name J. Peters and, again in pencil, 'Spencer Perceval, Tory P.M. Assassinated 1812' and 'Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 1906 Liberal P.M.' Don't ask me why. But I'd also written, on the back page, in blue biro, 'Are you easy to fall in love with?', then scribbled it out with black spirals. Huh?
I scanned the list of random German vocab which Beaky would be testing us on later in the week, ''überfahren = to run over, sich schämen = to be ashamed, beschlieẞen = to decide, bestellen = to order (goods), meiner Meinung nach = in my opinion, der Verbrecher = criminal, die Träne = tear, streicheln = to stroke, der Imbiẞ = snack, leuchten = to glow, gleich = at once,'' sitting with my back against the radiator so the heat could seep through my jumper.
I kicked some balled-up socks against my bedroom wall, booting them hard with my left foot then diving on the carpet to block the rebound, firing Norwich towards a penalty shoot-out against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup Final till Dad yelled something about elephants and what the hell are you doing up there? Man, I got energy to burn at 15, don't you remember? Anyway, although Wednesday was shit for telly, I managed to find Top Gear blasting a Robin Reliant into space from their base in the hysterically named Penis-Town and show-jumping on Sportsnight. Then I went to bed with a hot-water bottle and lost myself in the Custer's Gold prequel, North Against the Sioux where [SPOILER ALERT – if you haven't read it, look away now] Portugee Phillips breaks out of the besieged fort and rides through the snow with Red Cloud's Indians hot on his tail, arrows whizzing round his head, and revelled in the Boomtown Rats, 'my mind beats time like clockwork, I think in sync, like clockwork' and 'Rat-Trap', that raucous saxophone and Johnnie Fingers ' glissando piano, Bob Geldof's snarling narrative, the powerful lyrics: 'Hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors and pus and grime ooze from its scab-crusted sores.' Barry Manilow this was not.
As October evolved into darker mornings, darker evenings, central-heating, vests, sweaters, raincoats and drizzle, life settled back into the normal pattern of lessons, homework, break-time football and lunchtime activities presided over by the atmospheric calendar photo of Flamborough Lighthouse at sunset. Mr D. Bimp of Kent said he was bored whilst Miss Jocelyn Nosepick said he was a twat and Pinka and Munko played conkers.
''So,'' said Collins, ''I got up this morning, all tousle-haired and bleary eyed, as you writers say…'' He nodded at me. I had never in my life written like that. I would have to be some hack-writer of over-sentimental teen-angst romances to use such clichés.
''All right, all right,'' he cut me off with an irritable flap of the hand. ''Well, my mother had made some porridge, really thin, runny, watery, you know.''
''Like workhouse gruel,'' I suggested brightly.
''I wouldn't know, JP,'' he scowled pointedly. ''Anyway, it looked disgusting. I wasn't sure whether to eat it or pebble-dash the house with it, you know? Then Dad butts in, says it was all I was getting, we couldn't afford to waste good food, well, food, and Mum goes 'what do you mean?' and while they're arguing, I give it to the dog, 'cos he eats anything, even Mum's cooking, he doesn't care. Well, you all know our Max. Greedy little bastard, bit like our Richie. He never stops eating either. Don't know who's greedier, my brother or my dog.''
We all laughed appreciatively. Yes, everyone knew Wolfie, a hyperactive but soft-as-butter Alsatian, and everyone knew Collins' equally hyperactive younger brothers. We'd all been out to lambing parties at his family farm, even swots like Huxley and Cooke, because Andy Collins was the most generous, inclusive guy I ever met.
''So I slop this porridge stuff into his bowl and shove off back to the kitchen into this mega-argument between Mum and Dad, and think I ought to fix my own breakfast…''
''Just a sec,'' I frowned. ''The porridge. Did the dog eat the porridge?''
''Yes, but that's not the point of the story,'' said Collins impatiently. ''Bloody hell, JP, you do insist on the details, don't you? God help us if you ever do become a writer. You'll bore the arse off everyone with your digressions and side-tracks and bloody blind avenues. People haven't got time for all the ins and outs. They just want to get to the meaty bits.''
''Doesn't sound as though this has any meaty bits,'' Paulus muttered.
''Ha ha!'' Collins beamed triumphantly. ''That's where you're wrong. I went to the fridge, took a couple of sausage rolls, shoved 'em in my trouser pocket and strolled innocently back to the table. Just then, our Eddie, the one in J5, you know? He's in the choir, and the swimming team, and the footie team. In fact they're going on some tour at Christmas. Can't remember where, Worcester, Gloucester, Leicester, somewhere ending in –ster. He plays in defence, pretty nippy little right back. Last week he goes on this mazy run up the wing…'' Risking another glare, I cleared my throat. ''Anyway, since JP's got the attention-span of a half-witted goldfish with a learning disability… Eddie comes up to me and goes 'Hi Andy' and smacks me right there, right in the pocket, right where the sausage rolls were. You ever had a pocketful of squashed pastry and sausage-meat?''
''What did you do?'' grinned Maxton. He had a cold sore coming on his lip.
''Dug the remains out with my fingers,'' said Collins, ''And I was just about to scoff them, 'cos you shouldn't waste food, when bloody Wolfie comes up, jumping and slavering all over my trousers and licking my hands like I'm some ice-cream. Then Mum's going 'where are my sausage rolls?' And Richie's going 'Andy's got 'em' and Mum's going 'Andrew! Have you eaten my sausage rolls?' and I hold out my hands and shrug, 'cos Wolfie's eaten the bloody evidence, but he's got crumbs on his whiskers and before he knows it, he's out in the yard with Mum's toe-end up his arse, ha ha…''
''Good story,'' I grinned.
''Ta,'' said Collins, ''Like that geezer you like, Dixon, Dachshund, him.''
''Dickens?'' I suggested brightly.
''That’s the one. Great story-teller. Gulliver's Twist, Tale of Two Kitties…'' Anyway, 'cos I kept laughing on and off all bloody day, I did like the worst Chemistry test in the entire history of the Universe.
'Iron is manufactured by passing a blast of hot air through a mixture of iron ore, coke and limestone.
a) Explain carefully, with equations, the function of 1) air 2) coke 3) limestone
b) Give the reason why pig iron is brittle.
c) State briefly what has to be done to the pig iron to convert it to steel.
d) If you were to build a new factory for making steel from imported iron ore, suggest two factors which would inful influence your choice of sight site.'
Fuck me. Apparently this was revision. We'd done it in May. The 8th to be precise. Well, hello! That was like yonks ago?
Staring at the paper, baffled, I just wrote 'a) breathing, drinking and building, b) 'cos its thin, c) steal the pig and d) nice views; good weather.'
I also got bollocked in Chapel by 'Leatherface' Leatherbridge, the Director of Fifth Forms, for not being ready to sing Hymn 290, 'Through all the changing scenes of life, In trouble and in joy…' and having my top button undone again then fidgeting through his fucking boring reading from the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 1, beginning at Verse 20 while Gray doodled Pinka on the back of my left hand with a biro.
Dedicated to St Aidan, the chapel had this
polished wood Victorian Gothic interior, a gleaming brass lectern in the shape of an eagle, this marble monument to the dead Head from the 1840s who'd contributed this Chapel, and these richly coloured stained-glass windows including a memorial installed in the 1950s to the old boys and masters who'd died in the two world wars. It was this long, sobering list, especially when you like looked at the ages of the kids. Some were just seventeen when they were gassed at Passchendaele or blown apart at the Somme: Ali's age. Imagine if he got blown apart or gassed… God, I couldn't bear anything happening to him. Or anyone actually, 'cos there was nothing special about HIM.
The window contained images of martyrs such as St Bartholomew, St Laurence and St Sebastian. I was fascinated with St Sebastian, the guy who was shot with arrows. This picture had one buried deep in his ribs, and another stuck in his thigh. What a martyrdom. But if I had to pick a way to go, it'd be that. Neither flaying alive, like Bart, nor roasting on a grid, like Larry, held much appeal. No. If I had to go, someone just shoot me with arrows, like Seb. The iron point would pierce my skin, the strong shaft drive into my flesh, skewering me, impaling me, like Jesus and nails through the palms… yikes. Ticket to Screamsville, yeah?
The altar, covered in a green cloth, had this brass crucifix in the centre and two candles burning either side. Above it was some stained-glass depiction, in rich reds, bold blues and glowing golds, of Christ's Ascension into Heaven. These images of the northern saints we'd studied in 2W glared down at us, resplendently red-robed Aidan of Lindisfarne himself, died 651, Bede of Jarrow, with a long white beard, died 735, Wilfrid of York, died 709, and white-robed Cuthbert, died 687. Their ferocious glower seemed to penetrate my soul to the core of its wickedness. When I mentioned this to Maxton, he asked what I was smoking.
''I in my turn,'' roared Leatherface from the pulpit, which had demons and angels carved into its dark wood-panels, ''Will laugh at your doom and deride you when terror comes upon you…'' Three verses from the end of the thirteen, he suddenly stumbled.
''Shame,'' whispered Gray, drawing Pinka's nose, ''He was going so well.''
''I'm sorry,'' said Leatherface, ''I'd better start over.'' And back he went a gazillion pages to Verse 20. My loud groan earned me the bollocking. Smuggling a Polo into my mouth earned me yet another bollocking and a hundred lines for eating in Chapel. Moodily I leafed through the Book of Common Prayer. Easter 2027 was on March 28. Ascension Day in 2019 fell on May 30, my birthday. When I was a kid, I'd gone to Sunday school, drawn pictures of Jesus and acted out parables. I'd not known then how evil I was. Although I believed Jesus forgave people like me, I felt guilty just being there. Through my grey shirt, I touched the crucifix and mumbled the Lord's Prayer, like 'deliver us from evil' was aimed at me personally.
In Choral Society, I sat next to Gray as we tackled number 54, this awesome chorus where the Roman soldiers decide not to divide Jesus' robe but to cast lots for it. Fred wanted us to start piano, as in the score, but to whisper it to each other, like we were discussing a rumour, or plotting something in secret. We started high up on C for a bar before the tenors joined in. The music was tremendously exciting as got louder and stronger, increasingly confident in our plan, increasingly powerful, until the trebles hit this climactic top A that sent a shiver through me. Fred said we sounded like a lot of washerwomen. It didn't help that me, Gray and Arnold kept singing the treble line in falsetto and making the altos laugh, then tickling Shelton's neck till he squirmed and swore at us in the filthiest language, making me and Leo howl with laughter, then Stewart coughed like Wilfred Owen's 'machine-guns' rapid rattle' and Fred asked if he'd accidentally wandered into a TB ward and everyone laughed. Afterwards, high on confidence, I stormed the English lesson like a Roman soldier storming Jerusalem.
After all the stuff in chapters 18 and 19 of the Mayor of Casterbridge involving letters, the death of Susan (the wife Henchard sold to a sailor at a fair back in chapter 1), the discovery that Elizabeth Jane is not, in fact, Henchard's daughter despite what he has just told her, and lots of meetings in graveyards (man, it was getting complicated), Donald Farfrae returns to the story [oh, I forgot the usual spoiler alert! Never mind. If you don't want to know what happens NEXT, look away NOW.] According to my summary of Chapter 24, 'Lucetta is coquettish. She is preoccupied by appearance. Farfrae's new seed-drill arrives as L decides what to wear. L. and EJ go to see it and, coincidentally, meet H and F. L. winces whenever EJ mentions an event that has a connection with L. She is trying to cover up her past. EJ realises that L is in love with F. L. is said to be an amiable and brilliant companion. EJ is a ''discerning, silent witch.'' She is perceptive.'
''What's 'coquettish'?'' Maxton yawned.
''Flirty,'' I said. ''She's obsessed with appearance, how things look on the surface, what she wears. Putting on clothes is a physical symbol of her hiding the truth about herself, covering up the past.''
''Brilliant,'' goes Willie, ''Tell us more.''
Bollocks.
The seed-drill, I told the class, is new technology and shows Farfrae as far-sighted (ha ha) and embracing the future whilst Henchard consults a weather-prophet (in chapter 26) before he buys corn showing his superstition (don't forget his daughter is described as a 'witch' who meets Lucetta in a graveyard, I added). Yes, I read ahead, and yes, Maxton called me a lick and Stewart called me a swot but frankly I didn't give a shit. I felt God had brought me back from the brink of disaster. That trip to church with Mum had clearly paid off. I skipped as many play rehearsals as I could get away with and dodged the first round of the debating competition so I didn't hear him propose the motion that 'This house believes that the Devil has all the best tunes'. Although we won, Burridge said Rose had performed poorly before a disappointingly small audience of some dozen bored gimps from Brearley, fumbling his jokes and addressing questions uncertainly. Burridge also said rehearsals were going badly. Rosie seemed distracted and irritable and argued with everyone, even Sonning, finally flinging his coffee-cup at the wall and storming out. Turner'd muttered something about 'time of the month.' Tough shit. The twat was lucky I hadn't quit his stupid bloody play altogether.
On the school bus, I saw him looking at me unhappily, heartache written on his face, like he really really missed me, you know? My heart flipped, and I considered talking to him, then remembered I was a fucking rock, you know? An island. And Rose could sod off. The final of Jeux Sans Frontières was coming from Portugal, and these people dressed as giant cats were gonna steal lobsters, prawns, clams and stuff from a pot of stew while giant puppet seagulls controlled by the opposing team tried to nick them from a net. Then there was this water-skiing German in a fat-suit dodging Belgians and Yugoslavians dressed up as swordfish who've got to plant a rosette on her arse using their super-long noses. I mean, who thinks of this stuff? And the swordfish have these really lecherous expressions? Sooo surreal, and a megabillion times better than Jasper Farthing's frankly feeble jokes. Yes, Rosie Rose could truly sod off.
Out: A Schoolboy's Tale Page 11
