The Secrets We Keep

by Jonathan Harvey

  Huh – little did he know. But that’s another story.

  I’d never hung out with anyone like Guinness before and I’m not sure why I was so drawn to him. Part of me wanted to protect him, probably, as he was more like a girl than the other lads; but his banter was good, once you’d gained his trust. His sharp tongue and skewed view of all the people in there made me laugh. But sometimes I worried about how compliant he could be for the grown-ups. Even though he’d been sent here for challenging and upsetting authority, once in here, if they said jump, he said how high, and how camp? And can I wear a tutu while I do it?

  How I won Guinness’s trust

  The Falklands War had been rumbling on for a couple of months, and it held no interest to me whatsoever. The notion of ‘abroad’ was something I couldn’t get my head round. I could just about get France and Spain and stuff, as they were so close to home, but a set of islands so far away? Not arsed, mate, sorry. And as for seeing endless shots of Maggie Thatcher riding around in a tank and waving and wearing a headscarf and goggles, kicking the arse out of Up the British. No thanks.

  Huge, on the other hand, saw it as a great excuse to hang posters of the Iron Lady everywhere and have us all singing the national anthem in assembly each morning and flying Union Jack flags from every building, even the Portakabins. Lots of the lads got into the jingoistic spirit, but it all got a bit National Front for my liking. Many’s the time Guinness got a smack in the face coz he looked Argentinian – he looked nothing of the sort of course, he just didn’t look like those knobs.

  ‘Are you from the junta?’ they’d say. ‘Are you a massive junta?’ – admittedly I quite liked that one. ‘Is your mam on the Belgrano?’

  When word got back to Huge that this was kicking off with Guinness, he had a word with us all in assembly. I’ll never forget it. Even though I was only a kid, I knew what he was saying was bang out of order. Not the first bit, mind, the last bit.

  ‘And we’ll have no more bullying of Samuel Korniskey, thank you. He does not look Argentinian and is not Argentinian. He is half-caste. That dusky mix of black and white that, despite what a lot think, some people find very appealing in a person. Many half-caste ladies have gone on to win beauty pageants, for example. So think on.’ He seemed to be getting a bit carried away now. ‘No, if you want to know what Argentinian people look like, they’re more along the lines of Gurprit Singh here,’ and he pointed to an Asian lad on the front row, and everyone turned to stare. Gurprit was a fat lump who never joined in with anything. With all eyes on him, Gurprit looked like he was shitting himself. And well he might. I knew his life was going to be hell from then on in, poor sod.

  To give Guinness a treat for having been picked on, Huge said he could have a night in the caravan. The caravan was a tiny thing with two small beds underneath some trees, and it was usually set aside for the older lads as a treat if they were doing well in their studies. Basically, and God knows why it was a treat, but it was, two lads at a time were allowed to go and sleep there for the night, like they were on holiday. There was a record player to play records (though only a Rod Stewart LP and one by the Wurzels; hardly Pick of the Pops) and fizzy pop and crisps. etc. But the most exciting thing was, there was a portable telly. Guinness was allowed to pick one other lad to share the caravan with him, and he chose me. There was a flinch from Huge, and a dart of the eyes that told me he was disappointed in Guinness’s choice. Immediately I was suspicious.

  We had a pleasant enough evening in the caravan watching Knight Rider on the telly. Looking back, it was a bit shit, as the screen was so tiny and the black and white contrast not great – but at the time we lapped it up, even though Guinness admitted that usually he had no time for the talking car. Later on in the evening there was a knock at the door, and Huge called through, ‘Are you decent?’

  And we were, so we told him to come in.

  He had a tin tray with a picture of Prince Charles and Lady Di on it. And sat on the tray were two mugs of hot milk which, he said, would help us sleep. He kept going on about how we should be changing into our pyjamas soon and be getting comfortable. He wanted to know who was going to have which bed, so we told him. After a bit he left. It was then I noticed that there were no curtains on any of the windows. I didn’t say anything to Guinness about it, but I did suggest that maybe it’d be warmer if we slept in our normal clothes.

  I took one sip of the hot milk, and realized it was off.

  ‘Don’t drink it,’ I told Guinness. ‘There’s something wrong with it.’

  I took both mugs and poured them down the little sink.

  When we were knackered we got into bed, but not before I suggested we swapped beds coz I’d decided I didn’t like sleeping on the left side of the caravan. Guinness wasn’t arsed. See? Compliant.

  Lights off, and soon I could hear the gentle snoring that told me my mate was spark out.

  I woke about an hour later to the noise of someone trying to come in through the door. I’d locked it, so that was pointless. Guinness didn’t stir. A moment later I heard someone trying to climb through the window next to my bed. I jumped up and as he tried to get through I instinctively lashed out and punched him one in the face. Whoever it was fell back, and Guinness woke up. He put the light on and went outside and, of course, found Huge lying there clasping his face.

  ‘I was checking you were OK!’ he cried. Of course you flaming were, I was thinking.

  Guinness pretended to be bothered, I pretended to be apologetic. Huge pretended to be professional.

  The next day Huge had a black eye in assembly. Served him bloody right.

  Guinness and me never spoke about that night again. But I’m pretty sure he understood what had happened.

  It was that night I decided I had to get the hell out of there.

  Swatting flies

  Folk often said later in life, God, wasn’t it scary living in that place, with all that went on? But when you don’t know any different, you just get used to it. I was lucky on the whole. Coz I was a bit gobby and handy with my fists, or coz I could blend into the background when required, I was, for the most part, left alone. But if there ever was any hassle, it was irritating more than scary, and you just got used to it. A bit like being in the country and there’s loads of shit about. You just get used to swatting flies.

  Running away

  I’d made the odd phone call to Mum while I’d been at Hansbury, but she rarely made contact with me; it wasn’t really encouraged. One thing Huge was into was putting on shows and recitals. This year he was putting on a no-holds-barred production of a thing called Her Benny. It was a bit like Oliver Twist, he said, but set in the North West. Guinness was cast as Benny’s sister, Nelly the match girl, and I was a street urchin (no lines, not arsed). It was a story about poverty-stricken street kids in Liverpool in the 1800s who found redemption in hard work and Jesus. On the instructions of Huge, those of us who still had contact with our families wrote letters inviting them. To this day, I remember the wording he made us use.

  Dear Mother

  On the evenings of Thursday 19th – Saturday 21st August I shall be playing the part of Street Urchin in Mr Arthur’s new production of Her Benny: A Victorian Tragedy. It would please me greatly if you could attend. Please contact the Community office to arrange your tickets.

  Your loving son,

  Danny.

  I remember thinking as I handed it in, there’s no way she’ll come, she’ll think I’ve been brainwashed. And the description hardly bigs the thing up.

  I really wanted to add:

  P.S. I haven’t got any lines despite being the best at accents in the whole place. But Mr Arthur says I blend in too much.

  Huge had actually said that. I told him I’d be good playing the posh judge fella in the play. I even did the posh accent for him.

  ‘I can’t fault your dialect, Eye-Tie,’ he said, ‘but for me, you’re not a front-of-stage type person. You blend in too much.’

  ‘To what, Sir
?’

  ‘The scenery.’

  I just assumed it was payback for me blacking his eye that time.

  Needless to say, she didn’t come.

  Life at Hansbury changed considerably in the weeks following the production of Her Benny. The local remand centre, Risley, had become overcrowded and so to make some more money, prisoners were housed at Hansbury for a short while. It was never really going to work. Some of us had to be moved out of the main hall and into some new prefabs because the prisoners needed to be locked in of a night, and this could only be done in the old building. But it was odd having the old lags rubbing shoulders with kids. And I’m sure, looking back, Huge didn’t enjoy having guys his own age breathing down his neck and seeing the way things were run.

  So behind our backs, talks were under way to get the prisoners moved on. But we didn’t know that, and it just seemed like all the fun had gone out of living here.

  So I decided to run away. They might have locked the old fuckers up, but they didn’t lock us up. I don’t know why more lads didn’t do it, to be honest. The gates were open – you just had to walk through them. I did it after dusk one night. One of the benefits of, as Huge put it, blending into the scenery was that nobody seemed to notice or care. No alarms when whirring out, no spotlights chasing me down the path and onto the country lane.

  By the time I’d thumbed a lift to St Helens and then bunked on a bus and got home, it was gone nine o’clock. There was nobody in, and the curtains were drawn. There were new curtains up in the front room, I noticed. I didn’t have a key any more, but that didn’t worry me: Mum always kept a spare behind a loose brick in the back yard wall. She was either out, or lying in a puddle of her own humiliation.

  Long Island Iced Tea, anyone?

  The key was there, but Mum wasn’t. And as I looked around I saw that everything had changed.

  It wasn’t just the curtains that were different. She had new carpets down, a new three-piece suite. A new telly, new pictures on the wall. And then I saw she had framed pictures of schoolkids in uniforms on the wall. Kids that weren’t me. Asian kids. There was a statue of an elephant God with loads of waggly arms on the mantelpiece.

  That’s when I realized. Mum didn’t live here any more.

  I checked the bedrooms out: yup, all my stuff had gone. I nicked a bit of money from the sideboard downstairs and locked the place up as I’d found it. Though admittedly thirty quid lighter.

  My mum had moved house. A new family had moved in. My mum had gone off, and she hadn’t bothered to tell me.

  Huge had taken some of his special boys into Manchester that night to ‘catch a show’, as he put it. When they got back, he had them in his quarters listening to music. I hitched a lift back and got there just after midnight.

  None of the officials had even noticed I’d gone missing.

  Guinness saw me coming in, though. The light from the moon peeking in through the too-thin curtains hit his eyes and I could see him staring at me. I got undressed and said nothing. When I got into my bed I looked back at him. He was asleep then.

  A week or so later, Huge had these security lights installed along the drive. They lit up if they sensed movement; they were forever going off if a wild animal ran across the grounds. I realized if I ever wanted to run away again, I’d have to rethink my tactics.

  Benefactor

  Special guest of honour when we’d been doing Her Benny, and a person Huge got his right royal knickers in a twist over, was local Tory MP Benedict Bishop. Or Hairy Benny, as Guinness referred to him, what with his hirsute appearance. He was Old School. Dead posh accent, shiny old suit, crumbs in his beard, shiny shoes. Thick Coke-bottle glasses. As your mam would say, a real catch.

  The community play was the first time I’d laid eyes on him in my time there, but I’d heard a lot about him from the lads who’d been in longer than me. He was a great supporter and benefactor of the centre, taking groups of boys out for meals, paying for much-needed building work. Like Huge, really, but with more money and class. He arrived at Hansbury in an actual Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur. Me and Guinness had never seen the like before. In the months after the show, Hairy Benny was a regular visitor to Hansbury.

  One day he turned up unannounced and walked into the refectory, where me and Guinness were both having a milkshake. Well, we were drinking milk and we’d dropped a Pink Panther biscuit in it and tried to stir it up, so it was as good as.

  ‘Delia Smith, eat your fucking heart out,’ went Guinness, which really made me laugh.

  He stood beside us watching us drink, passing the time of day, asking us why we were in there. He asked if we did much sport. Despite outward appearances with Guinness, he didn’t. I just looked like a skinny runt, so said, ‘Do I look like I do much sport?’

  ‘Indeed. But when you get to my age, it’s hard to differentiate between the litheness of youth and the litheness of the athlete.’

  ‘Or the skinniness of the undernourished,’ I said. And then wished I hadn’t. Coz it made him more interested in me.

  A lesson I was learning during my time in that place was, keep a low profile. Blend into the background like you did on stage. Raise your head above the parapet, and suddenly people are interested in you. You’re a target, for good or for bad – and I was, right there, right then.

  Benedict Bishop was staring down at me like an archaeologist inspecting a pile of old bones.

  ‘Are you an orphan?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Any contact with your family?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  This seemed to impress him.

  ‘On the lowest rung of society. What little hope there is for you, young man.’

  This made me want to punch him.

  ‘We shall go for a run in the Rolls. Bring your friend.’

  And with that, he turned round and walked out of the refectory.

  I knew the minute we got in the car it was a mistake. I wasn’t daft, I’d heard rumours of what happened on these runs out into the countryside. And it wasn’t pretty.

  The good news was, he had his chauffeur with him, and for some reason that made me feel more safe.

  The way I saw it was, I had to make myself less attractive to him. And the only way I knew how to do that was, blend in. Gold star for Bioletti!

  So if he asked me a question, I shrugged or gave one-word answers, and soon my ploy worked. He grew disinterested in me. The spark, the cheek he’d seen at Hansbury had evaporated. I knew he was beginning to regret inviting me. He’d’ve got more craic out of Helen frigging Keller.

  It was easy to keep silent because I don’t know what was going on with our Guinness there, but Jesus, he was singing like someone had given him fucking canary seed. Answering every question with the flourish of a pop star on Wogan. Why use three words when thirty-three would do? The old man was entertained. I say old; I discovered that day that he was thirty-nine. I discovered this because Guinness asked him outright. And then answered like he was a saloon-bar hostess:

  Oh, you don’t look it, Mr Bishop. Honest to God, is it genetic? My mam always said she had good skin on her mam’s side. She said if you’ve got bad skin that’s it, you’re fucked. Oh sorry, Mr Bishop. My mouth. I’m like a navvy sometimes. Worse than a navvy, some might say. D’you know what I mean?

  And then this irritating little chuckle. Shirley Temple on speed.

  I just looked at him, incredulous. What the frig was he playing at?

  I wondered if he thought by talking so much it would put the old man off him, but it seemed a risky strategy, especially as Guinness could make you laugh till it hurt. But something worked. We drove round the countryside, Bishop pointed a few things out on the landscape, and an hour or so later he dropped us back at Hansbury.

  After he’d gone I said to Guinness, ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘The gossip. The gift of the gab. You was all over him.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

 
‘You was!’

  ‘Oh, who gives a fuck, Danny?’

  ‘You do know what they all say about him?’

  ‘Yeah. That if you do what he wants, he gives you money.’

  I was gobsmacked.

  ‘You want money off him?’

  ‘No, knobhead. I want him to ask me to marry him.’

  And with that, Guinness did a massive flounce back to the house. The sarcasm, man. The brass neck and the sarcasm! I watched him go. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the lad, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wanted to punch his face in.

  I didn’t speak to Guinness much after that. I tried giving him the old silent treatment for a bit. I thought he’d be devastated. I thought he’d come crying to me, going, ‘What have I done, Danny? What have I said?’

  But he never. He just kept his distance back. I thought he’d be all lonely, but maybe he was taking himself off somewhere to think, coz half the time I couldn’t find him anywhere.

  And then one of the other lads filled me in. They’d seen him getting into Bishop’s Rolls. On more than one occasion.

  Spanner

  One of the old lags on the overspill from Risley told me he knew my dad. His name was Spanner and he reckoned he’d been to school with him, and then they’d worked together briefly at the glassworks before Spanner was found nicking stuff and was given his marching orders. He’d not had much luck since and only had one kidney, but he was decent enough. God knows why, but there was an old banger knocking about one of the yards at Hansbury for the lads to mess about with once they were seventeen, and Spanner offered to give me driving lessons (of sorts) in it. You couldn’t go far in the car, which was probably a blessing for Huge, as this particular yard was more of a courtyard, blocked either side by either prefabs or barns. It was an automatic car, so there wasn’t much to learn; but I still lapped up everything he told me, thinking I was really mature for my years.