The Secrets We Keep

by Jonathan Harvey

  Another skill I had from an early age was to be able to walk into a room, or any sort of space, and assess everyone in it quickly. Mum said it was because her aunty was a psychic but I don’t believe in all that. She also said my eyes never stopped moving – well, that much was true. But say she sent me to get my dad from the boozer: I could walk into the Feathers and within seconds, work out who was having a pleasant evening and who was about to kick off. Call it instinct or whatever, I’ve always been able to read a room like that. I could even tell which members of the bar staff were likely to have their hand in the till and who was likely to be knocking off the landlord. When she wasn’t blaming her distant relatives, Mum also said it was probably because I’d had to get used to reading Dad’s varying moods.

  ‘The only thing predictable about that bastard is his unpredictability,’ she’d say.

  Virgin. Whore

  When my mum was a little girl she’d played the Virgin Mary in the church nativity play. It was her proudest moment and her eyes lit up whenever she talked about it. They’d had a real-life donkey and she’d had to ride down the aisle on its back while she and the bloke playing Joseph sang, ‘How far is it to Bethlehem?’, which was hard to imagine as Mum was a bit tone-deaf. And that’s putting it kindly.

  Like, she always based her look on Dusty Springfield. The peroxide, the panda eyes. Dad loved telling the story of her going to a party and people thinking she was Dusty and Mum going along with it. Anyway, they asked her to sing a song, so she started singing ‘Son of a Preacher Man’, only she was so shit someone threw a trifle at her and she had to get off.

  One day Dad said we were going to Manchester. In the car. We never went anywhere in the car, it just used to sit outside the house, always clean but usually redundant, so this felt like a Special Occasion. Mum was away at the time, she’d gone to Lincoln to see a cousin who’d not long given birth. I wasn’t particularly relishing the prospect of an evening in the company of my father; who bloody would? But the decision to go for a run out to Manchester was better than stopping in. I’d been 13 the week before and they’d bought me a BMX bike. I’d done nothing since – when I wasn’t in school – but ride around on it, thinking I looked like the coolest thing in Christendom. Driving down the motorway, I wondered what it’d be like to ride my bike down the hard shoulder. I reckoned I’d be able to do St Helens to Manchester in half an hour tops.

  ‘What we gonna do in Manchester?’ I asked my dad as he drove.

  He thought for a while then went, ‘Probably go for something to eat.’

  Eating. I liked the sound of that. And maybe we’d go to a restaurant rather than a pub as Dad was driving. At least I knew he wouldn’t get bladdered and therefore handy with his fists. And maybe we’d have prawn cocktail. I’d been to a restaurant for one of Dad’s brother’s birthdays once and we’d had that as a starter and it was like heaven on a plate. Prawn cocktail, and maybe I’d be allowed a glass of Mateus Rosé. You never knew.

  After parking in a multistorey above the coach station we went to a hotel on Piccadilly Gardens called the Britannia. Inside was all chandeliers and thick carpets, and Dad insisted we sat in the foyer and had afternoon tea.

  Four receptionists. Three in their twenties. One about fifty. All women. The fifty one had too much make-up. The twenty one fancied the bellboy guy who was hanging round dying to take your bags to your rooms, tip-hungry bastard. Small queue checking in. Checked shorts. White socks with sandals. Loud. Yanks. Of course. Couples having afternoon tea. Airs and graces. Fur coat and no knickers, the lot of them. Lipstick-stained teeth. False teeth, no less. A wonky wig.

  Please believe me when I say neither me nor my dad had ever had afternoon tea in our lives before. And I think it showed. I’m sat there in my Sergio Tacchini trackie top. He’s in a puffa jacket. We must’ve looked like we were casing the joint rather than having cake and butties. In fact, I can’t honestly say, hand on heart, that I’d ever been in a hotel before. Our family never went to hotels. We hardly ever went on holiday. The idea of Mum and Dad trapped in a caravan on the North Wales coast for two weeks was all of our ideas of hell. Best avoided, if you ask me.

  The tea was hot and sweet. It came with a tiered tray of cakes and butties that had the crusts cut off.

  ‘I’m gonna eat the cake then the butties,’ I told Dad. Pure mental!

  But he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the door.

  Some of the butties had cucumber in, nowt else. Which back then I thought was a major swizz and – not that I was paranoid or anything – wondered if the waiter had done on purpose coz he thought we didn’t deserve to be here.

  Well, we were paying our money, weren’t we? And my dad always said, Money opens doors.

  Open Sesame! Abracadabra!

  Not that money opened these hotel doors. You just had to walk up to them and swish! They opened magically.

  After cramming these tiny cakes into my gob and then shovelling in the cucumber sandwich, the cucumber was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I was just trying to dislodge it with a hot blast of tea when I saw my dad was smiling. Not at me. And not in a nice way. I looked to where he was looking.

  A woman with her hair done was at the reception desk. Big blonde backcombed hair. The panda eyes. Someone who hadn’t really changed their look from the Sixties.

  That woman was my mum.

  It looked like she was checking in.

  I felt a surge of excitement. Was this all an elaborate surprise? A wind-up? Were we actually all going to stay at the hotel, like a holiday for the night or something? I could probably cope with that. If I got my own room. And I could have as many baths as I like and watch whatever telly I wanted to watch and order stuff from room service, money no object. They might even have a radio.

  The money no object thing was a bit far-fetched.

  And when I looked to the floor to the right of where Mum was standing, I saw she only had a small vanity case. She’d never have fitted three people’s stuff into that, even if it was for one night. I looked to my dad, about to ask him what was going on.

  The smile had gone from his face and he had a look of rage now instead.

  The next bit happened in slow motion.

  Or maybe that’s just how I remember it.

  Mum turns from reception desk.

  Mum has key in hand.

  Mum walks towards lift.

  To do this she has to walk past us.

  She doesn’t see us.

  As she passes us I go, ‘Mum!’

  And as she turns to look Dad jumps up and grabs her.

  She looks shit scared.

  As he pulls her this way and that, shouting his head off, her case falls open.

  A negligee and sexy knickers and bra fall out onto the carpet.

  Mum’s in tears.

  Dad’s shouting, You fucking whore.

  The receptionist’s running over. And the bellboy.

  Dyslexic

  Looks like I couldn’t read everyone as well as I thought. I’d not read the fact that Mum had been having an affair with some bloke from the glass factory for the past few months. Not that I blamed her, even then. You’ve got to take your pleasures where you can. And she was married to that Brummie Bastard. No pleasure there.

  R.I.P. Pig

  The morning after the hotel incident, I discovered that Dad had killed the gerbil. He had forced him into a milk bottle, so he’d probably crushed him to death then. But just to make sure, Dad had covered the top of the bottle with tin foil so he could suffocate to death too. This was probably because I’d called him a cunt after what he did to Mum. He left me and her in Manchester and we had to make our own way back to St Helens on the train. Mum cried the whole way.

  She didn’t want to stay at our house that night so we stopped with some mate of hers who she used to work with. When we eventually returned home the next morning we found good news and bad news.

  The bad news was that Pig was dead.

  The good
news was that Dad had left for good.

  I gave Pig a burial at sea. I flushed him down the lav. But it got blocked, and Mum had to call a plumber out.

  Friendly with the plumber

  Mum was quite drunk by the time the plumber came. And it was Ronnie Wolfe from Inkerman Street, round the back of us. Ronnie was the go-to guy if anything went wrong in anyone’s house. All the women fussed over him coz his lovely wife had not long passed away and he’d been left to bring up his son Declan on his own. Declan was a lot older than me and everyone said he was highly strung. I didn’t know what highly strung meant but it made me think of Mam’s Wimbledon and the tennis racquets. He was a nervous boy, I knew that much, and even though he must have been sixteen, he had got all anxious since his mum died and didn’t like to be on his own or away from his dad. So when Ronnie came to sort the toilet out, Declan came too. Mum made us sit in the front parlour and drink milk. I didn’t really have much of a stomach for milk as it reminded me of Pig squeezed in the bottle, so I gave mine to Declan. He didn’t even say thank you. In fact, he didn’t really say much. He just sat there, all gangly and awkward in school trousers that were too short for his long legs – his socks didn’t match – and neither of us knew what to say. After a while I said,

  ‘Is your mam dead?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. She died of the cancers.’

  I nodded. ‘My gerbil’s dead.’

  And he nodded, but showed me no sympathy.

  Mind you, I’d not shown him any. But I’d thought it might bond us. It hadn’t. Looking back, I’m not surprised.

  Bored, and unable to hear any noises from upstairs and the bathroom, I went up to investigate.

  I pushed the door open and something didn’t look right. Ronnie wasn’t doing anything with the toilet. He was sat on the side of the bath. Mum was kneeling in front of him and her head was in his lap.

  ‘Is the bog mended?’ I asked. Mum fell back and was sprawled on the floor, shocked at the sound of my voice. Ronnie was doing his flies up.

  ‘Nearly,’ he said.

  Later, Mum said he was upset about his wife and she’d been giving him a cuddle. To make him feel better.

  ‘What was Declan like?’ she asked, changing the subject.

  ‘He had odd socks on,’ I said.

  And she nodded. Like that was to be expected when your mum had died.

  On ice

  After Dad left, Mum started drinking quite heavily. She had a massive jug in the kitchen and she would make what she called her Long Island Iced Tea. She had met a Yank once before she met my dad and he had made it for her, God only knows why. She could never remember what you were meant to put in it so she just put what she could afford, and as much of it as possible, into the jug. In would go vodka, gin, Tia Maria, Blue Bols, peach schnapps, lager, and then a big bottle of Coke and a few cubes of ice. She’d mix it all up and then be blotto for the rest of the day. She would have three jugs a day and then sleep from teatime onwards. I’d hear her getting up in the night and having a ciggie. Then I’d hear the unscrewing of a tablet jar. Then she’d go back to sleep. Next day, new jugs. Oblivion.

  Was she missing my dad? Was she missing Ireland? Was she missing my brother and what might have been if both twins had remained? Who knew? Maybe even she didn’t. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to think. And the iced tea helped that.

  I certainly often used to wonder how my life would be different if my twinny had survived. I’d’ve had a best mate to share everything with. The other half of me who’d understand. I’d’ve had safety in numbers from the mad ways of the world, and power in numbers in the face of Mum’s withdrawal. Well, all the power and safety you can muster from being two instead of one. But it would’ve been company. Someone to make me laugh, cheer me up, piss me off, get on my tits.

  Maybe fate had done this for a reason, though. Maybe I was just best on my own. It certainly felt that way.

  It was during this period that I stopped going to school. I stopped a lot, actually: washing, changing my clothes that much, speaking. What I really stopped was caring. And what I learned to do, pretty succinctly, was disappear. Blend in. Become invisible. I’d always been slightly built for my age, so the sight of me wandering round central St Helens during the day when I should have been at school should have caused a certain amount of alarm to the education officers who’d roam the town looking for truants, or saggers as we called them then. But somehow I managed to hide from them, even in plain sight. I developed the new skill of camouflaging myself to my surroundings. I started to feel invincible, like no-one could touch me.

  I now know this is a very dangerous feeling to have.

  I was often hungry back then. Mum rarely put food on the table as all her money went on her ‘tea’. So I hung round the back of the baker’s at closing time and waited for them to chuck out the empty stock into the big bins. Sometimes I’d take a plastic bag so I could stock up for twenty-four hours.

  Other times, I threw caution to the wind and just nicked food from various shops. It was easy enough to do. After all, I’d made myself more or less invisible.

  It was an odd feeling during that time. Like everything had stopped. Like I couldn’t see anything ahead of me. Like nothing was changing, whereas everything had. My dad had buggered off. My mum had retreated behind a wall of glass. And I had made the streets my friend. But it felt like I was treading water, not knowing what was going to happen next.

  My life was like Mum’s Long Island Iced Tea. On ice.

  Assessment

  It wasn’t uncommon for me to go home of a night and find Mum face down on the floor, having taken a tumble in her pissed-up state. But this night was different. There was a small pool of blood beside her head, so I called an ambulance.

  I remember sitting there watching her, waiting for it to come. And realizing I didn’t really care if she lived or died. That sounds so bad, I know, but that’s honestly how I felt. Says a lot, really.

  I remember lying to the ambulance man and the doctors when we got to the hospital and they said she’d have to stay in that yes, I did have my dad at home, and that I’d be fine.

  But I didn’t have any money on me and I had to walk home, which was a bit of a pisser as it was pouring with rain.

  The next day I nicked a sausage roll from the baker’s and got caught and they called the police. And when the police took me in and I had to eventually admit that there was no-one to come and get me, that’s how I ended up in the assessment centre.

  I still, to this day, don’t know what an assessment centre’s meant to do. While I was there I have no recollection of being assessed for anything. It just seemed to be the dumping ground where they sent problem lads, or orphans, or lads who’d been taken off their parents, or lads who’d run away from home, or lads who’d never lived anywhere else. Some people referred to it as a Boy’s Home, or a Children’s Home. Not quite a borstal – we weren’t locked up – most people just called it by its name, Hansbury Vale.

  Hansbury Vale was this big mausoleum of a country house sitting in acre upon acre of hilly parkland. In the grounds new buildings had sprung up as classrooms: Portakabins, prefabs, caravans. Privately run – but answering to the local council, I imagine – Hansbury Vale liked to describe itself as a community. Running that community was eccentric owner Hugh Arthur. Or as we called him, Huge Arthur, coz he really was HUGE. A mountain of a man, he’d bought the estate in the sixties and slowly built and built over the years, charging the local authorities a fortune to keep us in his care. I later found out he had no qualifications to do this, and you didn’t need them, and at first glance if he was in the business of caring, then he definitely cared for the lads in the Community.

  For most of us, arriving at Hansbury Vale was like landing on another planet. The green fields and smell of manure from neighbouring farms were as alien to us as the red rocks of Mars. The big house was divided into four houses, one of which we all belonged to – I was in Crosby House – and t
he regime seemed to be strict on discipline in the day, when you worked hard to earn points for your team, but pretty lax in the evenings.

  If Huge Arthur was coining it in by squeezing as many lads as possible into the big house, then he was also spending a fortune on treats for the lads. Especially if you were one of his favourites. Bikes, stereos, clothes – you name it, mate. Money seemed no object with some of the gifts, and believe you me, they were lapped up gratefully.

  Guinness

  My best mate at the home was a lad they called Guinness. Why? Not very politically correct and you’d be slaughtered for it today, but when he arrived he was this mixed-race lad with bleached hair, so they said he looked like a pint of it. He didn’t seem to mind his nickname; from the look of him, he was probably relieved that they didn’t think of something more derogatory. My instinct told me he was different. Bright, sharp as a tack, and a keeper of secrets. He’d been sent to Hansbury coz he’d set fire to his school. At first this made him a bit of a hero, but his propensity to enjoy his own company and keep himself to himself meant that people soon lost interest in him. Guinness later told me he only started hanging out with me coz he thought I was half Chinese and therefore he thought we’d have our dual heritage thing in common.

  Jeez.

  One person who took a great deal of interest in Guinness was Huge. And when he did, it all suddenly clicked into place. With his big green eyes and his coffee skin, already surprisingly muscular for a thirteen-year-old lad, Huge couldn’t stop looking at him. I now knew Huge’s game. And lo and behold, Guinness started getting gifts from him.

  In any other school, Guinness’s fey demeanour and girly walk would have earned him catcalls of fruit, or queer, or poofter. Not so here. The words were occasionally spat when there were no adults about, and I found this odd, but gradually kind of got my head round it.

  Guinness’s real name was Sam Korniskey. He didn’t talk about his family much, but I learned slowly that his mum had died when he was little and his dad had been a bit too handy with his fists for Guinness’s liking. Reading between the lines, his dad wanted Sam to stand up and be more of a man, but Sam didn’t see the point in toeing the line. He’d had a run-in with one of his teachers at school, and he’d been kicked out. Bored, he’d sought revenge by going back and torching the place. Fair dos, like. The one person he did talk about with some frequency was his big sister Linda. It was Our Linda this, Our Linda that. Our Linda was a hairdresser and she’d moved to London when Sam was a toddler. She was the one who’d done all right for herself and escaped their dad’s tyrannical reign. He was adamant that one day he’d move to London and Our Linda would look after him, and everything would finally be all right in the world.