What was I . . . ?
What . . . ?
What . . . ?
Police! The day before our front door was smashed in – and a voice shouted ‘POLICE!’ was Mum’s birthday, so me and Karen and Todd got in our brand new car (a Toyota Cressida) and went round to see her. I was wearing a new gold neck chain, a new gold chain bracelet, a new gold sovereign ring and new trainers that cost almost as much as all those three things put together. Karen was wearing her new gold earrings (big as chandeliers), a new dress she bought down Oxford Street (so tight it could’ve been painted on), and had just had her nails and hair done so she looked the business. And Todd (he was going to be eight next birthday) was wearing a cashmere tracksuit with ‘SUPERSTAR’ written on the back, so he looked the business too. In fact, we all looked the business. As Melv said when he’d popped round earlier with Steph, ‘You wouldn’t look out of place in Dallas.’ He meant the telly series, not the real place, but I suppose it could apply to both. To be fair, Melv and Steph were looking like something out of Dallas too. The shoulder pads on Steph’s dress were like the wings on a Boeing 747. I said to her, ‘If they get any bigger you’ll have to walk through doors sideways, Steph.’ She laughed. She can take a joke. All of us can. Which is one of the reasons we’ve always got on so well— What was I saying . . . ?
What . . . ?
What . . . ?
Mum’s birthday! So we all arrived at Mum’s looking like something out of Dallas and did Mum say to any of us, ‘Oh, you look nice?’ or ‘Are those new earrings?’ or ‘Oh, you’ve had your hair done different’? No! Of course she fucking didn’t. True, she mustered a halfhearted, ‘Well, don’t you look smart?’ for Todd, but then she looked at me and – indicating what Todd was wearing – said, ‘How much did that cost?’ I told her, ‘A lot.’ Mum said, ‘You’re throwing your money away.’ I said, ‘Mum, I’m earning lots. I’m rich!’ Mum said, ‘Well, are you going to wish me “Happy Birthday” or do I have to beg for it?’
We gave Mum her presents (a matching necklace and earrings – gold with dangling pink crystals shaped like kittens – from me and Karen, and a big bottle of perfume called Glamourpuss from Todd). I said, ‘We kept the cat feel. You see?’ Mum said, ‘Eh? What?’ Dad said, ‘The jewelry’s got cats and the scent’s called “puss”.’ Mum doesn’t thank people for giving her helpful information, she gets angry with them. She looked at Dad and said, ‘Who woke you up?’ Mum didn’t try the jewelry on. She didn’t spray some perfume onto her wrist and give it a sniff. She put all that to one side (‘Never to be seen again,’ as Karen said later) and picked up something wrapped in tissue paper and asked, ‘Have you seen what Clyde’s sent me?’ Karen and me didn’t reply as the answer was clearly, ‘No, we haven’t seen what Clyde sent you.’ Mum unwrapped the tissue paper to reveal a scarf. Mum said, ‘It’s silk. It’s from Bloomingdale’s. The most famous department store in New York.’
Clyde had gone to New York just after he left university. He’d set up some publishing company (or something) with a few of his university friends (or whoever). And if you’re thinking I don’t sound very interested in all this, then that’s because I’m not.
When we got home from Mum’s birthday, me and Karen ordered a pizza, then sat on the sofa flicking through some brochures Melv had brought round earlier. We were all planning a holiday to the Seychelles later in the year. But the holiday never happened. Because that night, at four o’clock in the morning, the front door was smashed in and we heard a voice shout, ‘POLICE!’
Now, the first thing I want to say about all this ‘arrested for drugs’ malarkey is that it’s not as dramatic or exciting as you see in the movies. In fact – after the initial door smash and shouting – it became one of the most boring experiences of my life. I had to wait for hours – hours! – at the police station before anyone really spoke to me and . . . and . . .
You know, I don’t really want to go into any of this at the moment. I might come back to it later. I might not. Who knows? Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about . . . about . . .
What? . . .
What? . . .
Yes!
Clyde nearly strangled me once! I was twelve years old – which makes Clyde fourteen – and I’d just come home from school, and Clyde was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework – he always started his homework as soon as he got in – and I got a can of Coke from the fridge and opened it and the can must have been dropped (or perhaps I accidentally shook it without realizing) because, when I opened it, it spurted foam all over the place, and some of it went on Clyde’s homework, and Clyde jumped to his feet and started yelling that I’d done it on purpose, and I said I hadn’t done it on purpose, and Clyde said he knew I’d done it on purpose, and I yelled something like, ‘You think you fucking know everything, don’t you!’ and Clyde yells at me, ‘I’m telling Mum you deliberately ruined my homework!’ and I said, ‘Oh, tell her what you fucking well like, you queer!’ And – suddenly! – Clyde is jumping on me like you see Indians jumping on cowboys in all those old Wild West movies and his face doesn’t look like his face at all – it’s all bulging eyes and teeth – and he’s got his hands round my throat and he’s squeezing and squeezing, and I can’t suck any air down, and I can feel my face filling up with blood like a balloon ready to burst, and I punch him and kick but he’s still squeezing and squeezing, and I’m seriously beginning to think, ‘This is it! I am going to die!’ And then – all of a sudden! – Clyde’s face becomes Clyde’s face again and his eyes and teeth go back to their normal size, and he lets go of my throat, and he looks at me like he’s just woken up and don’t quite know where he is, and then he rushes up to the bathroom, and I hear him lock the door and the whole house goes very quiet. And I stand there for a while, gasping. And then I drink some Coke and then I get a tea towel and wipe the Coke off the table and off the floor. And I try to dab Clyde’s school books dry. And then I take off my school uniform and put on my T-shirt and jeans and go out to play.
I was sentenced to three years for possession of a class B drug, and I was released – on parole – after eighteen months.
Okay, there’s one thing I do want to talk about regarding this whole ‘going to jail’ malarkey. Namely, Karen’s dad. This is what he said to me: ‘I only agreed to take out the mortgage on your house in my name because you gave me your word – your bloody word! – that you would always be able to pay me the money. And now you’re expecting me to continue paying that mortgage, while you’re inside for fuck knows how long! Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m selling up and Karen’s coming back to live with us.’
Can you believe that? Eh?
Let’s get a few things straight. First, it was Karen’s dad’s idea that the house be in his name. Not mine. I wanted to wait a few years till I could get the mortgage myself. Karen’s dad had to persuade me to go ahead with it because it’s what his precious daughter wanted. Second, property prices all over Ilford – and in particular Goodmayes – had shot up since me and Karen moved there, so it was a huge financial advantage to Karen’s dad to now sell the property. He made a fortune on it. The bastard. I hated him. I still hate him. I will always hate him.
Melv, needless to say, was the proverbial rock through all of this. He was the only one who gave me intelligent advice. We were in The Seabright a week or so after the arrest and Melv said, ‘However long you’re inside, you can trust me to keep an eye on Karen and Todd. They won’t want for anything, mate. You understand?’ I told him I did. Melv said, ‘Now, we’ve got to make sure you spend as little time locked up as possible. Stick to your “I only sold it to people who needed it for medicinal purposes”. Next, you give the police a few names. So long as it’s not mine you can grass on as many as you like. Then, when you’re inside, be the model prisoner. With a bit of luck, you’ll get early parole.’ And I did get a bit of luck. Because the day before my parole hearing, Dad died. But that’s another . . . story . . .
Ano
ther . . .
What? . . .
Think of another . . .
Another . . . Yes!
Mum told me Clyde was leaving New York and going to live in San Francisco. I was seven months into my sentence. She told me over the phone. When I told Karen, she said, ‘Yeah, he would end up there, wouldn’t he. The queer capital of the world.’ I said, ‘Mum says he’s gone there to help his publishing company or whatever it is.’ She said, ‘He’s gone there to help his cock get sucked. That’s all.’ But that clearly wasn’t ‘all’ because, when Clyde wrote to me in prison, he sent a photograph of him (and Neville) standing outside their ‘new studio’ (that’s ‘office’ to you and me). When the prison psychiatrist (or whatever she was) saw the photograph and letter she said to me, ‘He’s certainly talented, your brother. You must be very proud.’ (If you’re wondering why I’d shown her the photo and letter, I had no choice. There was something written on the back of the photo, so I needed her to read it for me, and the letter itself. Clyde wrote everything with a thick felt tip pen, with lots of squiggles, and that made everything whizz and blur for me. Clyde does things like this on purpose. To make my life more difficult). I said to the psychiatrist, ‘Clyde’s just a pretentious wanker. Who else would call comics fucking “graphic novels”?’ She said, ‘Oh, no, no. That’s a perfectly accepted term now. Especially in America. They used to be called picture novels. My boyfriend is a big fan. He’s got all the Marvel graphic novels. I’ve read them myself. The Swords of the Swashbucklers is my favourite. I must hunt out your brother’s work. This Fever Summer of his sounds fascinating. That was his first graphic novel, right?’ I stopped asking her to read Clyde’s letters after that. In fact, I stopped opening the letters altogether. Like my housewarming invite to him, his letters to me got ‘lost’ in the post. Shame.
What was I . . . ?
What was I . . . ?
What . . . ?
Dad’s funeral! Let me tell you about that. He was being buried in Manor Park cemetery. Dad hadn’t died through anything to do with his ‘little problem’. What happened was this. Mum and Dad were down Bethnal Green Road shopping. Mum had bought a bit too much in Tesco and, because Dad was no longer driving, they had to carry it all back home. Or, rather, Dad carried it. They were halfway down Canrobert Street when Dad felt a razor-sharp pain in his groin. He couldn’t move. Mum said to me later, ‘I could have died with embarrassment. We just had to stand there with all this shopping around us. Of all the times for your dad to give himself a hernia.’ Someone who lived in the flats nearby called out, ‘Do you need an ambulance?’ And Mum called back, ‘Oh, no. We’re fine.’ But twenty minutes later they were still there – and Dad was near passing out with the pain – so the person in the flats called an ambulance anyway.
They kept Dad in overnight and – as he was in so much discomfort – said they’d operate the next day. He should be able to go home as soon as it was done. The operation went very well. But two days later Dad woke in the middle of the night with a fever. Mum called for the emergency doctor. Dad had got an infection. The doctor called for an ambulance. Dad was put on a course of intravenous antibiotics. The next day, when Mum visited the hospital, Dad wasn’t in his bed. He’d been moved to intensive care. Why? He’d gone down with pneumonia. Mum told me she nearly fainted when she saw him, and for once I don’t think she was exaggerating. The following night, when she was at home, fast asleep, the phone rang. Could she come to the hospital as soon as she could? She did. But Dad was already dead. Mum said she passed out, but I think that’s just her exaggerating side coming out again. I said to her, ‘It’s fucking dramatic enough as it is, Mum. You don’t have to add to it!’ She said, ‘I’m not adding to it. I passed out. One of the doctors had to catch me, otherwise I would have cracked my head open and I would have been as dead as your dad.’ I didn’t say anything. What’s the point?
Clyde had been told and, of course, said he couldn’t come back from San Francisco immediately. After all, he couldn’t let the mere death of a parent interfere with his glorious career. But he would be there in time for the funeral. Mum said to me, ‘Your brother’s taken this very bad. He thought the world of your dad.’ I said, ‘Yeah. He’s so devastated he’s not coming home for another week.’ Mum said, ‘Well, there’s nothing he can do now, is there?’ I said, ‘He can be here. With you. I’m here.’ Mum said, ‘Only thanks to the parole board, you are.’ Again, I didn’t say anything. Again, what’s the point?
Part of the deal with me being on parole (rushed through on ‘humanitarian’ – Dad’s death – grounds) was a curfew. I had to be indoors, at home (and a home where someone else lived, preferably a reliable family member), by six o’clock every evening. But, of course, since Karen’s dad sold our house, a ‘family home’ was something I didn’t have. Mum had said I could stay with her, but as it was hard for me to be in the same room as her without wanting to cave her skull in, this was not really an option. It was Melv – who else? – who came to the rescue yet again. Apparently he had come into possession of a few properties while I’d been inside (small bungalows), very close to where we lived before, and Melv said he would rent me one – at a ‘very reasonable’ price – and he would get it furnished (under Karen’s instructions of course), for when I got out of prison. And – yes, there’s even more! – he knew someone who owned a cleaning company – who owed him a favour, several favours in fact – and this person promised to give me a cleaning job in a car park, so everything would be hunky-dory as far as parole requirements were concerned. Then Melv added, ‘That’s if you and Karen are getting back together again, mate.’ The question threw me. It had never occurred to me that we’d stopped ‘being together’ to have to ‘get back together’ again. Karen had visited me lots while I’d been inside, and we were as lovey-dovey as we’d always been. I said this to Melv, then added, ‘Unless you know something I don’t, mate.’ And Melv said, ‘No, no, mate. I just thought I’d ask.’ But his question did niggle. And niggle, niggle.
Clyde arrived at Mum’s house on the morning of the funeral (how much later can you leave it? Karen said it was ‘a disgrace’, and it was). We didn’t have much time to talk before everyone left for the cemetery, and Mum did most of the talking in the funeral car. Karen and Mum had done all the arrangements for the actual ceremony. There was to be a hymn, a prayer, a piece of music – We Have All the Time in the World sung by Louis Armstrong (one of Dad’s favourites apparently, although I’d never heard him mention it) – and Clyde, as the eldest son, was going to say something. I just took it for granted that Clyde had worked it all out and was intent on delivering a speech that was deliberately designed – like his best man speech – to steal the whole fucking show. But when he got up to deliver it, he said a few words and then burst into tears. It was so sudden, so explosive, so like a toddler-falling-over-and-grazing-his-knees sort of tears, that all we could do was sit there and stare. Eventually, Clyde got control of himself and carried on speaking. But his voice was dry and broken, and kept turning into the sort of squeak only a dog could hear. I thought, ‘Thank fuck Todd’s not here to see this!’ (Karen had decided the funeral would be too upsetting for him. And she was right.)
We went back to Mum’s place for some tea and sandwiches afterwards. Karen whispered she didn’t believe ‘Clyde’s theatrics’ for one second. I said, ‘His tears looked real enough to me.’ Karen said, ‘He’s crying all right. But for himself, not your dad. It’s guilt. Guilt about deserting his family, guilt at not being here to help when his dad was ill, guilt not supporting his mum, or you, or anyone except himself.’ I looked over at Clyde sitting on the sofa with Mum. Mum held his hand. She never holds my hand like that. She never holds my hand at all. Karen said to me, ‘We’re going home soon, so if you want to start saying your goodbyes you better start now.’ I went over to Clyde and told him we were making a move and he said, ‘So soon? We haven’t had a chance to talk.’ I said, ‘We’ve got to get back for Todd. We’ve got . . . frie
nds looking after him.’ Clyde looked towards the back garden and said, ‘Let’s have a quick chat, brov.’
We went outside. It had been a fine morning but now it was starting to drizzle. Clyde asked me if I was okay and if I needed anything. I said, ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ He asked a few meaningless questions about prison and parole and I gave him a few meaningless answers in return. Clyde said, ‘And you’ve got a lovely new place to live, I hear.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ Then, because I was struggling to think of something – anything! – to say I asked, ‘How’s that mate of yours? Neville.’ And Clyde looked at me for a second, blinking, like I’d just asked him the most complicated question he’d ever heard, and then he said, ‘Neville died, brov.’ I felt the ground wobble. I said, ‘Oh?’ Clyde said, ‘I wrote you a long letter about it.’ I said, ‘I . . . I didn’t get that one.’ The ground was still wobbling. I asked, ‘When . . . when did he die?’ Clyde said, ‘Eight months ago.’ I said, ‘In San Francisco?’ Clyde said, ‘Yes. I had to arrange for the body to be flown back home.’ I asked, ‘Did you . . . did you come back with it?’ Clyde said, ‘No. His parents . . . his mum anyway . . . made it clear I wouldn’t be welcome. I had no say in . . . anything.’ The wobbling was easing off a bit now. I said, ‘Well, perhaps it was for the best.’ Clyde glared at me, ‘What was? Neville dying?’ I said, ‘No! I meant all the travelling backwards and forwards on the plane. It can be exhausting, right?’ Clyde didn’t say anything. Then he said, ‘Neville made a will. He left me copyright on all his work. He’s become quite a cult figure, you know. Sales of his first collection have skyrocketed. I’m doing all the artwork for his . . . his posthumous collection. It should come out next year.’ I felt like saying, ‘Jesus, Clyde, you’re not doing an interview. I’m your brother, not a fucking journalist!’ But all I said was, ‘Oh, right, yeah.’
Flamingoes in Orbit Page 22
