Boys on the Brain

by Jean Ure

  And then I thought of Mum, who had got into her jeans and couldn’t get out, and I thought that maybe this was a sign they were made for each other and could grow old and silly together. I mean, more silly than they are already! I pictured them holding up the queue at supermarket check-outs as they fumbled for their money, and doddering snail-like across the road in the path of juggernauts, causing all the traffic to screech to a halt and being blissfully unaware of it. Rather touching, really.

  I didn’t wait to see if Harry made it into his underpants but assume he did as the shouting finally stopped and so did the thudding.

  Spent most of the day working on a new episode. It is rather steamy… definitely Tingle Factor!!! About ten plus.

  Must remember to buy a birthday card for Mum, and some wrapping paper for her prezzie.

  Monday

  (6th Week)

  Pilch asked me something interesting today. She asked me if I thought that Alastair and Carlito would still be with us when we are old and grey, and if so whether they would also be old and grey. I mean, will they grow up along with us, or will they remain for ever young and beautiful?

  Pilch says young and beautiful, but I am not sure. I have noticed with Mum, when we watch videos together, it is always the older men she fancies. Well, not the very old ones, such as for example Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood. They are too old even for Mum! But ones that I would consider old, such as… I am trying to think of some. Mel Gibson! That is one. Harrison Ford. That is another. I am sure they were quite dishy in their time, but to me they are middle-aged and therefore past their sell-by date. Sexually speaking, so to speak. No Tingle Factor. I mean, jowls are not a turn-on!

  Mum, however, will look at someone young and will dismiss him, saying, “He’s nice, but he’s just a boy.” Like for her a boy has no attraction. Which is just as well, when I think of Harry! Harry not only has jowls, he has the beginnings of a paunch. I mean, he is nearly forty!

  What I’m trying to say, which is what I tried to say to Pilch before we were extremely rudely interrupted, is that maybe as we grow older our dreams will grow older with us. Except that I never got around to explaining it properly as that tiresome duo, Cindy and Tasha, suddenly materialised out of absolutely nowhere and started mindlessly burbling at us.

  Cindy cried, “Honestly! You two are so weird. What on earth do you find to talk about all the time?”

  To which I smartly retorted, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Well, since you ask,” said Cindy, “yes!”

  “Go on, do tell,” said Tasha.

  A brilliant riposte then came to me. I opened my mouth intending to utter the following piece of scintillating sarcasm:

  “We happen to have been discussing Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, if that means anything to you.”

  Which would have put them in their place for sure, since they have almost certainly never even heard of Einstein, let alone his Theory of Relativity. Pilch, however (she can be very quick off the mark) got in before me.

  “We were talking about men,” she said, “if you must know.”

  Quick off the mark she may be, but Pilch does not always think before she speaks. The two morons promptly went into gales of stupid laughter.

  “Men!” spluttered Tasha.

  “What would you know about them?” gasped Cindy.

  At this I suddenly lost all control and shouted, “Sibtupid miborons!”

  I have been longing to say that to them. And now I have done it! What is more, it shut them up. I could see them wondering to themselves, is this some kind of an insult? And what language is she speaking? Me and Pilch just put our noses in the air and stalked off, leaving them standing there. Pilch said, “Hey! We haven’t used IBBY for years!”

  I said, “I know it’s childish, but it gave me great satisfaction.”

  Whereupon Pilch instantly turned round and thumbed her nose, which no doubt gave her great satisfaction. They get you like that, those two.

  Tuesday

  My cup runneth over! Mrs Adey called me up at the end of English. She said, “Your work has been really excellent this term, Cresta. I’m extremely pleased with you!”

  If there is anyone on this earth who I want to be pleased with me, it is Mrs Adey. It somehow makes the whole unequal struggle worthwhile.

  When I say unequal struggle, I am referring to:

  a) life in general (the constant nagging worry about whether the world is going to come to an end through pollution, global warming, etc.), b) certain aspects of life in particular (Mum nagging at me springs immediately to mind) and c) still being less than half way through War and Peace.

  Well, not even a quarter of the way, if I am to be strictly honest, and I suppose there’s not much to be gained from lying to myself. I wouldn’t say that I’m finding it drags, exactly, it is far too fine and noble for that; but it does have a tendency to be what I should call long-winded.

  I shall, however, go back to it in the holidays.

  This I SOLEMNLY SWEAR.

  Wednesday

  Wonders will never cease! First Mrs Adey, now Mum. All of a sudden, it seems, I am flavour of the month. Long may it continue!!!

  Tonight, as we sat down to tea, Mum said, “I stopped off at Tesco’s on the way home. I bumped into Mrs Sullivan.”

  Brad Sullivan’s mum. I thought, “Uh-oh!” and braced myself for yet another onslaught. Instead…

  “How that woman does go on!” said Mum.

  I said, “Really?” perking up a bit. “What does she go on about?”

  “Oh, how the sun shines out of her precious son’s you-know-what,” said Mum.

  I almost giggled at this. Why can’t she just say the word, like everyone else? She’s funny about language, is Mum. Which is strange, when you think about it… with Harry around the place!

  “He’s a nice enough boy,” said Mum. “I have nothing against him. I just don’t particularly want an ear bashing over the frozen foods about what a genius he is!”

  “He can’t be much of a genius,” I said. “Not going out with Tasha Lansmann.”

  “Tasha Lansmann? The little redhead?” said Mum. Mum always remembers what people look like. “Very attractive!”

  “She’s a moron,” I said. You couldn’t get much dumber than Tasha. Well, not unless you happened to be Cindy. Tasha’s a moron, Cindy is brain-dead.

  Mum said, “It’s often the way… you trade on your looks and let the rest go to pot. I know!” She pulled a face. “I’ve been there.” And then she said this thing which really surprised me. She said, “Fortunately you’ve got more sense. You’ve inherited my looks, but not my dizziness.”

  Wow! Does she mean I’m pretty???

  Have just stopped to gaze soulfully at myself in the mirror. I do have a nice nose! I think. But must not get hung up on looks. Don’t wish to become like Tasha!

  I said to Mum, since she seemed to be in an unusually receptive mood, that I aimed to make work my absolute Al priority until I had taken my A levels and got to uni.

  “Very sensible,” said Mum.

  What has come over her? Thinks: maybe Nan has said something? Something about me being immature? Hm! Not sure I like that.

  “Anyway, I gave her something to chew on,” said Mum, meaning Mrs Sullivan. “I told her how you’d got an A* for your essay. That took the wind out of her sails!”

  Phew! It’s taken them out of mine, too! I mean, Mum… boasting about my essay! I never thought she cared.

  It just goes to show, you should never judge people too hastily.

  Thursday

  After my recent triumphs with Mum and Mrs Adey, I today got my comeuppance (or put downance). Mr Bunting gave us our geography homework back. This is the homework I didn’t do when I should have done so had to cram in while sitting on the bus. As a consequence, I have to admit, it was somewhat scrappy. Just a few scribbled lines plus a map gone wobbly. In his illiterate way, at the foot of the page, Mr Bunting had written, “Cresta M
cMorris did you really expect to get away with this? Come and see me after class.”

  He should, of course, have put a comma after my name, but commas evidently do not fall into his sphere of knowledge. Just as maps do not happen to fall into mine, which you would think, from the way in which he raged and frothed and generally carried on, was some kind of personal insult. Boy, oh boy! (Or Hombre! as Sean would say.) Is that man ever touchy?

  Gloomed to Pilch about it as we went for our daily keep-fit tramp round the field, as far out of sight of the moronic duo as it was possible to get. Pilch, in her sensible way, said, “Why worry?” As she pointed out, since I cannot even follow a normal street map without getting lost, there hardly seems much point my trying to decipher contours and the like.

  This is so true! I am notorious for having no sense of direction. If ever I am on a train, like for instance when we go and visit Nan, and I need the loo, I always have to make this mental note “When you come out, turn left” (or right, as the case may be) otherwise I would go gaily marching off the wrong way and wonder what had happened to all my stuff, and Mum. This being the case, I really don’t see why Mr Bunting should take it so personally if my contours are wobbly.

  “In any case,” as Pilch said, “you’re in with Mrs Adey.” Meaning, I guess, why bother with boring Bunting? Hooray for Pilch! She has this knack of putting things into their proper perspective. I cheered up immediately.

  “What did she want to speak to you about, anyway?” said Pilch.

  Airily I said, “Oh! Nothing special.” I didn’t like to tell her what Mrs Adey actually said for fear it might sound like boasting. I hate people who boast!

  I think I might tell Mum about it, though. Now I know that she is interested.

  Friday

  Spent the whole of PSE having thoughts about Carlito (brought on, I suspect, by Mrs Pink talking about birth control). It is amazing how the things that go on in your head can seem far more real than the things that are actually happening all around you. It is almost like living in another - and far more exciting! - dimension. Like sometimes in the morning, if I am in the middle of a daydream and Mum yells at me to get up or I will be late for school, it is really difficult, trying to drag myself back into the everyday world. I suppose this is what comes of having a vivid imagination.

  Without realising what I was doing I decorated the front of my rough book with the name Carlito in flowery letters, with hearts and swirls.

  Very arty! Unfortunately, however, at the end of the class the brain-dead half of the moronic duo caught sight of it.

  “Ooooh!” she goes. “And who’s Carlito?”

  I said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” snatching up my rough book and shoving it into my bag.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” said Tasha.

  “Boyfriend?” shrieked Cindy. “She hasn’t got a boyfriend! She wouldn’t know what to do with a boy if she was handed one on a plate!”

  That girl sucks.

  Pilch came up to me afterwards and said, “You should have told her that he was!”

  Pilch is right. I should have done!

  Saturday

  Mum said today, as I was setting off to meet Pilch, “Wow! Aren’t we looking smart!”

  I don’t know why she said that. I was only wearing quite ordinary stuff out of my wardrobe. My fitted shirt I got last Christmas, and my (mock) leather mini which I’ve had for ages. Oh, and the spider web tights that were Pilch’s only she said her thighs bulged through them so she gave them to me. It was the first time I’ve worn them.

  “Really nice,” said Mum.

  I was glad to have her approval, but it wasn’t as if I’d got dressed up specially or anything. I mean, why should I? I was only going to meet Pilch!

  First, before anything else, we went into Dandy’s to see if Mum’s record might have materialised. Sean was there. Also Tom. Sean said, “I don’t think we’ve had any more Dawn of Humanity come in, but it’s always worth going to have a look.”

  So we went up to the third floor, leaving Pilch downstairs on this occasion, and we looked through stacks and stacks, but all there was was an album called Lily Raven which Mum already has. I recognised the picture on the front, of this girl’s face, pale green surrounded by water lilies.

  “Brilliant, isn’t it?” said Sean.

  I agreed that it was, and as soon as I got home I took out Mum’s copy and studied it, and he is right, it is quite amazing! This face, floating on its bed of lilies. It hadn’t struck me before, for the simple reason that I hadn’t bothered to look at it properly. I think sometimes you need a person to draw your attention to these things.

  Sean said, “It’s a bit like a painting they’ve got in the Tate Modem,” at which I immediately flew into a panic. I thought, Tate Modern, Tate Modem? Help, help! What is he talking about?

  And then I remembered that of course it’s an art gallery, up in town. Phew! Relief! I do so hate to show my ignorance.

  He asked me if I had ever been there and I regretfully shook my head as there is no earthly use pretending you have done something if you haven’t. It is far too easy to get caught out, and then I would just die.

  Sean said that he had gone with his school, which turns out to be Halford Manor, where I could have gone if only Mum hadn’t chosen all girls. Not that we would have been in the same class as Sean is in Year 10. He is sixteen! He asked me where I went and I said St Anne’s and he said, “Oh! The Virgins!” He said that’s what they call us as we all have to wear this excruciatingly gross uniform that I cannot imagine whoever could have dreamed up. I mean, purple pleated skirts and white blouses! At Halford Manor they wear whatever they like.

  So we had a bit of a chat about our respective schools and Sean then said it was time for his tea break so why didn’t we go up to the fourth floor? Which we did, and sat and drank Cokes while he told me all about the Tate Modern. The way he described it, it sounds really interesting and the sort of thing I would enjoy as it is not just dreary paintings like in most places but also films and sculptures and a great many strange and fascinating exhibits.

  I know it is wrong to say that paintings are dreary but I always grow a bit bored of just walking round staring, it makes my eyes go funny for one thing, and for another I start to yawn. I feel that films and sculptures would be far more stimulating. I now want like crazy to go there! Next week would probably be a good time as we are on half term.

  After we had been upstairs for about fifteen minutes, Pilch suddenly appeared.

  “Oh! There you are,” she said.

  Fortunately by then it was the end of Sean’s tea break so he would have had to go back to the shop in any case. I said to Pilch that I was sorry I hadn’t told her where I was, but she didn’t seem very put out. She said she had been quite happy talking to Tom. So that was all right!

  We then came back here to have tea, and on the way Pilch told me about Tom and the things that he had said. The things that Tom said, according to Pilch, would practically fill a book! The Wisdom of Tom, by Charlotte Peake.

  She still insists that he looks like Alastair. I don’t contradict her as I am only too pleased that she is happy to stay and talk to him while I discuss music and art and things with Sean. From what I can make out she and Tom talked mostly about hang-gliding, a subject on which only yesterday the depths of her ignorance were so deep as to defy all attempts at measurement, whereas today, lo and behold! she is a positive mine of information. Hang-gliding is obviously going to be Alastair’s next thing.

  Query: will he make mad passionate love to Zara while he is doing it???

  Sunday

  Suggested to Mum, as she is taking this week off (to coincide with half term) that we should go to the Tate Modern together.

  Mum said, “The Tate what?”

  “Tate Modern,” I said. “It’s an art gallery.”

  Mum said, “Art gallery?”

  Honestly! You’d think I’d suggested a visit to a sewage farm, or something.
/>   “What do you want to go to an art gallery for?”

  “Someone told me it was interesting,” I said.

  “Full of bricks and poo,” said Harry.

  It is a terrible struggle, trying to get any culture in this house.

  “It has films,” I told Mum, “and sculptures. And a painting like on the front of one of your records.”

  Mum immediately said, “Which one?”

  I took out Lily Raven and showed it to her. The girl amongst the water lilies.

  “That’s in there?” said Mum.

  “Don’t you believe it!” said Harry. “Bricks and poo. That’s all you’ll find.”

  He is a very coarse sort of man. I mean, I do like him, and he is quite fun and ever so good to Mum, but I cannot pretend that he is an intellectual. But then neither, of course, is Mum. She freely admits that she wasted her time at school by running after boys.

  “Boys on the brain!” She actually said it.

  Anyhow, she has agreed that tomorrow we will go for what she calls “our culture bash”. Harry has said that he will drive us there.

  “But that’s it,” he said. “That’s as far as it goes! You two girls go in by yourselves. You don’t get me paying good money to look at bricks and piles of poo!”

  Monday

  (7th Week)

  Hah! Harry was wrong on both counts: we didn’t have to pay anything to go in as it is completely free (unless you want to go to the special exhibitions, which we couldn’t as by then Mum was getting restless and complaining of feet ache) and there weren’t any piles of poo! Not that I could see. Not unless some of the things I thought were volcanic rocks were in fact petrified dinosaur turds, which I suppose they could have been.

  Mum, I regret to say, was totally flippant. She didn’t take it seriously at all. To her it was just one big joke. She kept making these idiotic comments such as, “Oh, look! Somebody’s emptied a dustbin over the floor,” or, “A load of old stones! How interesting.”