It was April when all this shitty stuff happened – no school, no exams, no army, no best mate – because I remember going to see the school’s ‘careers officer’ – who advised kids about ‘the best way to utilize their potential’ (otherwise known as giving us the address of the local unemployment exchange) – and I happened to mention how down in the proverbial dumps I was and . . . what does the smug bastard do? He quotes some bullshit poetry about April being the cruellest month or something. I said to him, ‘If that’s the best bit of advice you can give me, you can shove it where the sun don’t shine.’ The next thing I know he was telling me to leave the premises immediately otherwise he would call the police and have me arrested for ‘threatening behaviour’. So I left. And his bullshit poetry was wrong anyway. Because May was a hell of a lot crueler than April. And then, in June, I met Karen.
Most people, when they hear how me and Karen met, sigh and go, ‘Oh, how romantic!’ Perhaps I used to feel like that about it too. But it’s hard for me to link the name ‘Karen’ with the ‘romantic’ now. I can link it with ‘cellulite’ and ‘stretch marks’ and ‘lazy fucking bitch’. But ‘romantic’? No. Anyway, for those of you who’re interested, this is the ‘how we met’ malarkey.
I was walking down Bethnal Green Road when this old biddy trips up and goes arse over tit. I rush to help her and – at the same time – this girl runs over to help too. Me and the girl get the old biddy on her feet, and the girl says, ‘Why don’t you sit down for a while’, and we both help the old biddy over to the bus stop and the old biddy sits down, and I sit on one side of her and the girl sits on the other side, and now I’m looking at the girl for the first time – really looking – and – my God! – she’s fucking gorgeous, and then the old biddy says she’s in the right place because the number eight bus will take her home, and the girl says, ‘Well, we’ll wait with you,’ and then the girl looks at me and says, ‘Won’t we?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, of course,’ because I would have waited till hell freezes over to get the old biddy out of the way and have this girl all to myself, and then the old biddy asks us our names and I tell her mine and the girl says ‘Karen’ and the woman says, ‘And what are you two lovebirds up to today?’ as if we’re – you know – boyfriend and girlfriend, and I’m about to tell the old biddy that we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend, when Karen says, ‘We’re going to Victoria Park to feed the swans,’ as if we are boyfriend and girlfriend and the woman says, ‘Oh, I used to feed the swans over Vicky Park when I was a little girl!’ and we carry on talking like that – as if me and Karen are a boyfriend and girlfriend – and then the number eight bus comes along and we help the woman on and she waves goodbye, and the bus drives off and I look at Karen, and Karen looks at me and I can tell – Pow! – that she fancies me as much as I fancy her, and then she says (just as I’m about it say it), ‘Shall we go over the park and feed the swans then?’ and I say, ‘Yeah!’
We didn’t actually feed the swans but we looked at them a lot. We went to the snack bar beside the lake and I bought us some fizzy grapefruit juice and Bakewell tarts. Karen asked me how old I was. I said, ‘Sixteen. How old are you?’ She said, ‘Sixteen. What school do you go to?’ I said, ‘Daneford. I’ve just left. What about you?’ She said, ‘Bonner Primary for Girls. I’ve just left too.’ I walked her back home. She lived in one of the Cranbrook Estate tower blocks down Roman Road. We held hands the whole way. I wanted to snog her so bad but didn’t know if that’d be rushing things. Some girls flirt and give you the ‘come on’ but go apeshit if you so much as grab their tits. When we got to Velletri House – her tower block – Karen said, ‘It’s a bit soon to introduce you to my parents, I think.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And then – Pow! – we kissed. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever kissed a girl, but it felt like the first time. I didn’t want it to end. I could have done it forever and still asked for an extra weekend. I remember thinking afterwards, ‘I will marry Karen and we’ll get a house somewhere and we’ll have children and everything will be happy.’ And everything was happy. Very happy. Till it wasn’t. But that’s another story— Where was I? . . .
Monster! Garden! Okay. So Boyd – my son’s best friend – had been helping his dad dig a pond in their back garden. They’d only been digging for about an hour when Boyd found something. It was covered in dirt – obviously! – and the length of Boyd’s arm. Melv told Boyd to throw it away. But Boyd took it to the bathroom and scrubbed it clean. It was yellow and smooth under all the muck. Boyd brought it round to show my son Todd. I looked at it as well. I said, ‘It looks like a cow bone.’ Boyd said, ‘Cow bone?’ I said, ‘Yeah. There used to be farms here years ago.’ Boyd and Todd looked at me like I was talking total bollocks. I said, ‘It’s fucking true!’ Boyd said, ‘When were there farms?’ And Todd goes, ‘Yeah, when?’ I said, ‘Years ago. Before any of us were born.’ Boyd said, ‘Well, we think it’s a human bone. Don’t we, Todd?’ And Todd goes, ‘Yeah.’ And, to be honest, the thought had crossed my mind as well, but I didn’t want to say anything in case it spooked the kids. Silly me. Clearly, the only thing spooking them was not the fear it might be a human bone, but the fear it might not be.
The next day, Boyd – without telling Melv, his dad, or Steph, his mum – took whatever it was he’d found to the local police station and, a few weeks after that, the fuzz phoned Melv and said they had reason to believe it was a dinosaur bone (or did they say ‘fossil’?) and that some scientists from the Natural History Museum (or someplace) had taken it away for tests. Melv – who’s the savviest bloke I know, bar none – immediately saw ‘media potential’ (his words) and informed the local rag. The following week it was front page news. ‘THE BOY WHO FOUND A MONSTER IN HIS BACK GARDEN.’ The BBC picked up the story. They did a film report. They told Boyd to re-enact digging the pond. Then, afterwards, they made an animation of the dinosaur standing next to Boyd. The dinosaur towered above Boyd like a double-decker bus. It was when Todd saw that he said, ‘I want to find a monster too!’ and started digging in our garden.
I told Mum about Todd’s digging a few days later. She still lives in the house down Canrobert Street (in Bethnal Green) where I grew up. She said, ‘If he wants to dig I’ve got just the thing!’ She went upstairs and returned with a bucket and spade. She said, ‘Remember these?’ I said I did. They were the bucket and spade me and Clyde, my brother, used to take on holiday. They used to be covered in bright paintings of starfish and dolphins, but now they were covered in rust. I said, ‘Jesus, Mum! Why’ve you kept these?’ Mum said, ‘Oh, I keep lots of things.’ And then she did that sad little sigh of hers that irritates me no end. ‘Memories,’ she said. ‘Lovely memories.’ I thought she was about to burst into song – or, even worse, tears – so I made an excuse and scarpered as quick as I could.
Mum never used to be the sentimental type (not the sugary-sweet, reach-for-the-bucket type anyway), but ever since Dad died she’s been like a fucking Disney film on steroids. Every time I talk to her she’s thought of a new ‘remember when’ moment from my childhood. I say ‘my childhood’ but most of what she remembers doesn’t include me at all. It’s usually about my brother. Remember when Clyde did this. Remember when Clyde did that. Clyde is two years older than me. He’s what Mum refers to as ‘the clever one’. Meaning, of course, I’m the thick as shit one. Which I may be. But it’s not exactly encouraging to have it rammed down your proverbial throat all the fucking time, and by your own bloody mother. I grew up listening to stuff like, ‘Clyde could say the alphabet by the time he was eighteen months old.’ ‘Clyde could read and write before he started school.’ ‘Clyde wrote his first novel at the age of seven.’ Well, if you call an exercise book full of doodles ‘a novel’, then fine. Personally, I think ‘a novel’ requires a bit more. More words for one thing. Not that I’ve read many novels. Or even one novel. It’s not that I can’t – and I can’t – it’s just that – even if I could – the idea of sitting down for hours with my nose buried in pages of gobbledygook does not
strike me as an entertaining way to pass the time. I’d rather be actually doing something. Like watching television or having a barbeque. But Clyde . . . oh, he was the exact opposite. He read a lot. He studied a lot. He was ‘the clever one’ who got into St Jude’s.
St Jude’s was the best school in the area. Kids who went to St Jude’s were the brightest of the bright. They took lots of A levels and went on to college or university. They got degrees. They made lots of money. They gave their mums something to be proud of. What could I ever give mine? Nothing but grief, as it turned out. And a grandson of course. That’s one thing Clyde could never give Mum. Not that Clyde would want to have a kid even if he could. He’s too self-obsessed to take that much interest in anyone else.
When me and Karen were planning our wedding, Karen (who’d hadn’t liked Clyde from the moment I started talking about him) made it quite clear she did not want Clyde to be our best man (even though, being my brother, he was the ‘traditional’ choice). To be honest, I didn’t want Clyde to be our best man either. I wanted Melv. But Mum kept insisting that Clyde do it. ‘Clyde will be heartbroken if you don’t ask him.’ I said, ‘Heartbroken?! Clyde?! He hasn’t even phoned me to say congratulations yet!’ Mum said, ‘Well, he’s busy at university, isn’t he!’
Clyde was in his first term at some university up North somewhere. He was studying ‘English’ or something. Fuck knows what that entails. To be honest, I was glad Clyde hadn’t phoned to talk to me. Not because I didn’t want to discuss the wedding. But because I didn’t want to talk about Karen being pregnant. I’d had enough conversations about that particular subject with Mum and Dad. And Karen’s mum and dad. And all Karen’s aunts and uncles and endless ‘friends of the family’. Mum said outright that Karen and me were ‘far too young’ to have children. She said, ‘Have you and Karen considered a . . . you know?’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘You know.’ I said, ‘You mean an abortion?!’ Mum said, ‘That’s not the exact word I would’ve used.’ I said, ‘Well, what word would you have used?’ Mum thought for a moment, then said, ‘Look! I’m only trying to help you make the right decision. You and Karen have only known each other a few months.’ I said, ‘Nearly six months! We met in June. June the fifth!’ Mum said, ‘That’s no time to get to know someone properly. I was courting your dad for years before we got married. You’ll ruin your life if you – ’ I interrupted, ‘Mum! Karen does not want an abortion. And nor do I. I love her. She loves me. We want to have a baby. We will have this baby. And we’re going to get married.’ Mum scoffed like I was a five-year-old saying he wanted to marry his favourite ice cream.
To be fair, Mum and Dad did give me a wad of cash when me and Karen eventually tied the proverbial knot. Not as big a wad as I’d hoped for (or needed), but big enough to make a difference. And, also to be fair, Clyde helped too. He’d just sold his first short story (or whatever it was) to some magazine or something, and he used the money to buy me and Karen a microwave (for when we eventually got our ‘home together’). And – even though me and Karen hadn’t been keen on the idea – Clyde ended up making a really good best man. Too good in fact. But that’s another story— What was I saying? . . .
Rusty bucket and spade! We used to take them to the same holiday camp every year. Butlin’s on the Isle of Sheppey. I used to love it there. There was a big outdoor swimming pool that was always warm, even when the weather wasn’t. Some days, when it got really cold, you could see steam rising off the water, like it was an alien swamp from an episode of Star Trek. We used to get a lot of cold days because Mum and Dad couldn’t afford to go on holiday during the height of summer (prices shot up in July and August), so we always booked a fortnight in early spring. It never bothered me because – if the weather wasn’t so good – there was always a lot to do indoors. The best thing was a cinema for children (The Crazy Capers Club) that showed cartoons and old, silent movies (the ones in herky-jerky black and white). Me and Clyde would sit in there all day, watching the same films over and over. My favourite was a Laurel and Hardy film where they have to take a piano up a big flight of steps. It’s called The Music Box. Have you seen it? You should. It’s hilarious! I’m chuckling thinking about it now. Clyde’s favourite was a Road Runner cartoon where the coyote takes earthquake tablets. I forget the actual name of that one. Perhaps it never had a name. I laughed at the Road Runner film too, but I never belly-laughed like Clyde. And I’m not chuckling about it now. All the holidays we had on the Isle of Sheppey were a lot of fun except the last one. That wasn’t fun at all. Mum and Dad argued nonstop. I was nine at the time. I know that because all the arguments were about how Clyde – who was eleven – hadn’t got into St Jude’s, and what Mum and Dad were going to do about it.
Clyde had had the interview to get into the school a month before the holiday. Mum went with Clyde, but Dad didn’t because he couldn’t get the day off work. According to Mum the interview ‘couldn’t have gone better’, and the headmaster of St Jude’s obviously ‘adored Clyde, just adored him’. Mum was already phoning up Burston & Son (the clothes shop in Ilford that stocked the school uniform), but then – then! – on the fucking day we’re leaving to go on holiday – just as Dad’s tying the last suitcase to the roof of the car! – the letter arrives from St Jude’s saying Clyde hadn’t got in, and Mum . . . oh, Mum went crazy! I mean Crazy Caper crazy! How could they do this? It’s a con! Clyde was clearly the cleverest boy in his class. Hadn’t Mr Hansen (the headmaster of Lawrence Junior School for Boys, where Clyde – and me – went) said the interview at St Jude’s was ‘merely a formality’!? What’s gone wrong? What?
Dad tried to calm Mum down by saying there was nothing they could do about it now. Let’s deal with it all after the holiday. But Mum’s like a volcano with an endless supply of lava when she’s like this. She erupted all the way to the Isle of Sheppey – Clyde kept his head in a book, I counted how many Mercedes we passed – and Mum was still erupting as we settled into the chalet. She was going to phone Mr Hansen first thing Monday morning. She was going to tell him to do something! She was going to cause big trouble if he didn’t! Dad said that was fine. But could we at least have a peaceful weekend until then? It’s supposed to be a holiday, for fuck’s sake! Mum yelled, ‘Don’t you even care about your own son’s education? Do you want him to end up like you?’ And the arguing went up a gear.
On Monday morning, Mum was on the phone to Mr Hansen and telling him it was a disgrace, an outrage, a scandal, blah, blah, blah. Mum made Clyde get on the phone and say, ‘It’s made me ill, sir. My life will be ruined if I don’t get into St Jude’s and I’m forced to go to Daneford.’ Mum wrote that script, of course, but Clyde delivered it like a pro. Daneford, as you’ve probably guessed, is the shit school in our area. That’s where I ended up going.
Eventually, after endless phone calls, word came through, at the end of our second week at Butlin’s, that Clyde had – at last! – got a place at St Jude’s. But, by then, of course, the holiday had already been ruined. I remember one day from that fortnight in particular. We’d all gone down to the beach. It was the first sunny day we’d had since we got there. Mum and Dad were sitting on a blanket and bickering. The bickering was getting louder and louder. I started to cry. It just happened without me realizing it was going to happen. Clyde put his arm around me and said, ‘Let’s build a sand castle over there, brov!’ We walked to another part of the beach until we couldn’t hear Mum and Dad. All we could hear was surf and seagulls. Clyde said, ‘Let’s build the best sandcastle ever!’ And we did. It was very big. It had turrets and a moat. We put crabs in the moat. We decorated the walls with shells. When it was finished Clyde said, ‘We can live in the sandcastle. Just you and me. Would you like that, brov?’ I said, ‘Yes, yes!’ Clyde said, ‘Where’s your room?’ I pointed at a turret and said, ‘There! Where’s yours, brov?’ Clyde pointed at another turret. And I could see our lives in that castle. See it all so clearly. The sandy floors and the sandy walls and the sandy ceilings. And it wa
s just me and Clyde. And we were happy.
Mum and Dad’s constant bickering – perfected that fortnight on the Isle of Sheppey – never really stopped. It was as if they’d discovered a new way of talking to each other, and forgot they’d ever communicated in any other way. They were still bickering, years later, when Dad got ill. In fact, if anything, the bickering got worse. Or, at least, more spiteful. Mum hated the disruption of Dad’s illness. She hated how it interfered with her housework. She hated being known as the wife of a man ‘going senile’.
It’s hard for me to remember exactly when (or how) Dad’s ‘little problem’ (as Mum liked to call it) started. The truth is – and I know this is going to make me sound an even bigger bastard than I probably already do – but I had my mind on other things. Or, rather, one other thing. Karen. Oh, boy, was I in love! From the moment we met, I woke up thinking about her, I went to bed thinking about her, I dreamed about her. A few months after we met, Karen got a job in a local boutique – Miss Glossy – and I would sit in the McDonald’s opposite, hoping to get a glimpse of her through the shop window. I’d walk her home when she finished work, and I’d have dinner with her and her parents, and then me and Karen would spend all evening in Karen’s room watching television, with her mum popping her head round the door every ten minutes to ask if we wanted a cup of tea, but really to make sure we weren’t bonking each other’s brains out (which is all we really wanted to do). When it came time for me to go home Karen would say, ‘I’ll see you out of the block’ and we’d both get in the lift and, on the way down, she’d whip off her kickers down and I’d whip out my cock and we’d both be so horny we’d cum in seconds, which is just as well, because we rarely made it to the ground floor without someone else getting in. As time wore on, I stopped going home, and started spending the night at Karen’s. The sofa in their living room pulled out to become a bed. Not a very comfortable bed, but I would have slept on a bicycle in a bag to be near Karen. And, of course, we were always going out for something (a stroll, a kebab, see a film) so we could fuck in the lift. In fact, we fucked in the lift so much, it started to become weird thinking of fucking anywhere else. Karen said, ‘When we finally do it in our own bed it’s going to feel so . . . ordinary!’ And she was right. It did. I missed the clunk and thrum of machinery, and the risk of being discovered.
Flamingoes in Orbit Page 19
