The History of Us

by Jonathan Harvey

  ‘There is always the chance that your Carmelita’s full of shite,’ Adam pointed out, whenever he accompanied me.

  There was that. But I didn’t quite believe it.

  What Mark might ever see in me, I didn’t know. In fact, I couldn’t in a million years imagine him fancying me. But Adam said it wasn’t out of the question, so we needed to keep up our surveillance. So hope beat eternal in this young girl’s heart. And some!

  Ideally I would have liked a combination boyfriend. The looks of Mark, and the personality of Adam. Because – I had to be honest – I didn’t really know what Mark’s personality was like. He’d not really spoken to me that much. And even though Carmelita assured me he ‘wasn’t a knob, like some lads’, I hadn’t really had experience of that first-hand.

  Because he was in fifth form, I knew he’d been at school all the time that I’d been there, but I couldn’t remember any bolt-from-the-blue lightning flash happening the first time I saw him. But I’d never forgotten the first time he’d spoken to me.

  It was nearly Christmas now, and I’d first spoken to Mark back in April. A lot of the schools in Liverpool had decided to go on strike. I’m not talking the teachers here, I’m talking the students. I didn’t really know what the strike was about. Well, I kind of did, but as with my lack of knowledge about Smeg, I didn’t want to really show myself up by asking, ‘What are we doing this for again?’ I knew we were protesting about the cuts to education that Maggie Thatcher had made, and I knew that everyone was fuming about the YTS stuff that you had to do when you left school. The kids who organized the strike and the demo in town said that going on a Youth Training Scheme was just a ruse to keep unemployment figures down, and for businesses to get young kids to work for them as slave labour. But I actually thought going on a YTS might not be that bad actually, especially if you could do it somewhere really interesting like on a movie set in Hollywood, or a theatre, or a nice hairdresser’s. Adam said it didn’t really apply to us because we were going to London to seek our fame and fortune, but at the same time we didn’t want to appear to be scabs and be the only two kids who turned up at school that day, so we treated it as a good excuse to go into town and have a look round the shops. And if we felt like meandering down to the Pier Head at lunchtime to hear some speeches, we always had that option.

  So there we were, casually strolling down Bold Street because Adam wanted to look at the bohemian postcards in the Medici Gallery – when suddenly we head the whoosh of tyres, and we were nearly cut up by a lad on a BMX bike. He whizzed past us and then jammed his brakes on, so hard he nearly went arse over tit over his handlebars. He looked round, and we saw that it was Mark.

  ‘Are yous going to the demo?’ he snarled, like it was an ultimatum.

  ‘’Course!’ Adam said, in an unusually high voice. It was like he was nervous.

  Mark nodded. ‘Nice one. I’ll walk with yous.’

  Oh God. There was no getting out of it now. Although, it had to be said, neither of us seemed to mind. Mark dawdled along at our pace, not getting off his BMX but slowly pushing himself along, feet on the ground as he spouted forth about ‘the revolution’ and ‘Militant know what they’re doing’ and ‘Neil Kinnock needs a good slap’ and ‘Thatcher’s such a knob, lar.’ And of course we found ourselves nodding along like the dogs in the back of cars because, it had to be said, there was something quite mesmeric about Mark Reynolds. Adam wouldn’t walk past the Medici for just anyone. He certainly had the gift of the gab. There wasn’t much need for us to do any talking, as he filled all the airtime and any gaps, but at one point Adam piped up with,

  ‘Yeah I think it’s sickening how Thatcher is systematically destroying the working class of this country. And all that.’

  Which I was really impressed by, as I’d never heard him speak like that before. Was he trying to impress Mark? And if so, why? He’d never seemed that bothered with any of the other lads in school, preferring to hang out with me all the time.

  About fifteen minutes later we arrived at the Pier Head. Usually this place was a dump: a boring space between the ferry terminal and the Liver Buildings, covered in pigeon poop, and smelling of doughnuts from the manky cafe by the ferry ticket office. But today the place was completely transformed. I’d never seen anything like it.

  Mark punched the air and screamed, ‘Power to the people!’ – which admittedly was a little bit cringeworthy, and me and Adam shot each other a look of mortification, but you could see why he was doing it. The area was absolutely crammed full of teenagers with banners and placards. There must have been thousands of them there. I instinctively wanted to step back. I found that amount of braying kids scary, like being in the biggest school playground in the world. It was as if every school in Liverpool had merged into a massive whole. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be jostled by the throng. Mark seemed to sense that Adam was feeling that way too, and saved our bacon.

  ‘Would you mind my bike for me, while I get nearer the stage?’

  ‘’COURSE!’ we both screamed with relief.

  And that was that. We stayed at the edges of the crowd while everyone listened to the speakers from the council, one after another, treating it like a proper day out. We took turns to ride Mark’s bike round in small circles, me particularly savouring sitting on something so personal to him. Adam was hard to get off it too, mind. And Mark was so grateful afterwards, he offered to buy us both chips. Well. It would’ve been rude to say no.

  ‘So how did you first meet the lovely Mark?’

  Sometimes when Jocelyn spoke, I couldn’t tell if she was being patronizing or nice. She had had elocution lessons, and didn’t care that she sounded a bit posher than us, she seemed to enjoy playing on the fact that she went to a private school. I think it was what attracted Adam to her, how exotic she was, although he always swore blind to me he didn’t actually fancy her.

  ‘What, because she’s black?’ I remember asking.

  ‘No! Because she’s . . . oh, you know!’

  I didn’t know. But I imagined he just meant because she was Jocelyn, different from everyone else on our street.

  And so Adam and I took turns in relaying the story of the day of the strike. Jocelyn looked horrified.

  ‘God, I remember that. That was before I moved back here. Our Head swore that if any of us went on the march we’d be completely expelled. And I couldn’t do that to my mum. It sounded horrendous, was it?’ She actually looked scared.

  And so I went on, into a few flights of fancy about how fantastic it had been. I made it sound biblical. I made it sound like it was the Eurovision Song Contest and Live Aid rolled into one. She actually started to look jealous. I got a bit carried away. And when I described how Bruce Springsteen had come on stage and started singing ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and had pulled me out of the crowd to dance with him like that girl in the video, Jocelyn misread my over-enthusiasm for mickey-taking and went into a sulk. The only way Adam could get her to snap out of it was by getting her to sing for us.

  I braced myself. Jocelyn loved the sound of her own warbling voice. I looked around to make sure there weren’t any lightweight ornaments on shelves that might bounce off and smash, but before I could do a complete check, Jocelyn broke into a ‘soulful’ rendition of ‘Love on the Rocks’, eyes tightly closed, and I tried not to laugh. I looked to Adam, expecting him to be wetting himself. But actually he was transfixed. When she finished we both applauded her, but just then we heard Adam’s mum calling up from the shop below.

  ‘What the fuck was that?! You’ll scare the friggin’ horses!’

  After which, a downbeat Jocelyn made her excuses and left.

  ‘You’ve got to start being nicer to her. She likes you. She’s your friend,’ Adam said, like he was telling me off. But not in a nasty way – in a disappointed parent sort of way.

  ‘Well, she needs to stop calling me Conky, then.’

  ‘Conky’s not that bad.’

  ‘It is to me! How would you like i
t if I called you . . . called you . . .’ I scrabbled around to find a distinguishing feature that might upset him.

  And then I remembered: he’d once told me he had a third nipple.

  ‘If I called you Three Tits.’

  To which he burst out crying, told me to fuck off, and pushed me unceremoniously out of the door. I nearly fell down the stairs to the shop. Just in time to hear Dorothy turning a page of her book, gasping and muttering, ‘The dirty bastards!’

  I scarpered.

  Jocelyn was coming out of Mr Wong’s on the corner of Jesmond Street as I walked home. She was picking at a bag of scraps. I smiled politely, and she offered the bag to me. I turned my nose up at it.

  ‘I don’t really like scraps.’

  She looked nonplussed then said, ‘And why don’t you like me, Kathleen?’

  Her directness wrong-footed me. But then, that was Jocelyn in a nutshell: she seemed not to care what people thought of her no-nonsense approach. I’d have been too scared of the answers to ask questions like that.

  ‘I do like you. Don’t be daft.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, sounding worried.

  And actually, it felt nice. It felt like she wasn’t being snobby or patronizing. It didn’t feel like she was laughing at me now. It felt like she was being the vulnerable one for a change. And, much as I really wanted to take advantage of this and be a bit arsey back to her, I found I couldn’t be.

  ‘I do. I tell you what I don’t like, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The way you go on about my nose all the time.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do. You called me Conky tonight when I walked in. And you said I’d be OK playing those parts in the nativity play coz they’re meant to have massive noses.’

  ‘God, did I? I don’t realize I’m doing it half the time.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘To be honest with you, Kathleen. I’ve never noticed your nose being big. It’s just . . . Adam said you had a complex about it, so . . .’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yeah. So I was just trying to make you feel better about it.’

  I wasn’t quite convinced by that argument, but still, she was being civil with me.

  ‘I get called all sorts,’ I went on, ‘Captain Beaky, The Eagle Has Landed, Pinocchio, Nostrildamus. You name it, I’ve been called it.’ I thought she might laugh, but was impressed when she didn’t.

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m a fine one to talk. I’ve got a real African nose. It’s wider than this street, look.’ And she held her face at an angle, and giggled. And I dared giggle too.

  ‘I hate it,’ she said.

  ‘But it suits you,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a man’s nose,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got man’s hands, look.’ She spread out the hand that wasn’t holding the bag from the chippy. ‘I could be a goalie,’ she said, and again we laughed.

  ‘A goalie with nail varnish!’

  ‘I want to be your friend, Kathleen,’ she said solemnly. ‘I don’t have many friends. All the girls at the posh school live on the Wirral. And everyone else round here won’t talk to me coz they think I’m a snob. So I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, really.’

  And in that moment, I did finally feel sorry for her. ‘Can’t be easy,’ I said.

  She shrugged.

  ‘Walk you home?’

  She nodded, and we walked off down the street together.

  ‘What’s the posh school like?’

  ‘All right. I’d rather go to yours, though. It’s just that Mum says that I have to work twice as hard and be twice as good as white people in order to get on. And I kind of think she has a point.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You’ll never realize how easy you’ve got it.’

  ‘Doesn’t really feel that easy. At least you’ve got a mum.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry. Well, at least you’re not little orphan Annie.’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘I mean, your dad’s still alive, isn’t he?’

  ‘True. Though where he is, God only knows.’

  We’d just stopped outside her house. She stopped eating her scraps and looked at me like there was something she wanted to say. What? Was she going to invite me in? Was she about to take our friendship to the next level? She opened her mouth to speak, but as she did I heard a screech of tyres and turned to see Mark coming along on his bike. I leaned in to Jocelyn.

  ‘Oh my God – don’t look now, but that’s Mark!’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  I was hoping he wouldn’t see me. I wasn’t looking my best, and my nose was feeling particularly humongous after discussing it half the night. My side ponytail had slipped as well. Thank God it was dark.

  But he did see me. And he squelched his brakes on and stopped outside Jocelyn’s house.

  ‘All right, Kathleen?’

  ‘Oh, hiya, Mark. Didn’t see you there.’

  Which he could tell was complete tripe.

  ‘Who’s your mate?’

  ‘Oh, this is Jocelyn. She goes to the posh place on the Wirral.’

  ‘All right for some. All right, Jocelyn? What makes you travel all the way over there?’

  Jocelyn paused for a second, then said one word: ‘Oppression.’

  Then she turned on her heel and went inside. As the door slammed, I looked at Mark and realized my mouth had dropped open. He was looking at the door. He was looking where she had been. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or offended.

  ‘Is she dead political?’ he asked. He sounded completely fascinated, and slightly smitten. Another cause for him to get his teeth into.

  I had to nip this one in the bud. I couldn’t have Mark, Mr Politics, thinking Jocelyn was more political than me, so I quickly shook my head. ‘She’s a massive Tory, Mark. I don’t know why I hang round with her.’

  He looked incredulous. ‘You’re joking!’

  I shook my head. ‘No, Mark. It’s like knocking about with . . . with . . .’ I tried to think of a famous female conservative. My mind went blank.

  ‘Adolf thingy!’ I bleated. His eyes widened in horror.

  ‘Hitler?’

  ‘Yeah. Like a cross between him and Mrs Quinlan.’

  ‘The geography teacher?’ He looked repulsed. Good.

  ‘I know. Actually, she makes Hitler look all right.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he said quietly.

  I did this ladylike sigh and put my hand near my neck, like I’d seen posh women do in films when they’d had bad news. I thought it might impress Mark that I was genuinely upset. But he just shook his head sadly, then shoved his foot on one of his pedals and span off into the night.

  I grimaced. But at least my little white lie had kept Mark all for myself. And then I found myself smiling, suppressing a laugh. Such a wicked, wicked girl!

  London, 2015

  I hadn’t really wanted to come to the wake, but Adam was insistent. I can’t think of anything worse than getting drunk with a load of strangers, but like Adam said, we knew Jocelyn longer than anyone. We should be there.

  Should I be here, though? Have I any right to be here? Really? I know I saw her fifteen years ago. She kicked me out of her house.

  But what if I’ve seen her since? What if I’ve seen her recently? What if I can’t remember?

  And what sort of person am I, who forgets things so easily?

  No. I’ve not seen her. Of course I’d remember. Duh!

  ‘Still not drinking? How long’s that been now?’ Adam asks on the way over.

  I look at him like he’s stupid. ‘Oh, I’ve been back on it for a while now. Only in moderation. I’m in a really different place to where I was back then.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘No need to worry about me these days,’ I say.

  ‘Fine. Yeah. Great.’ He sounds surprised, but has the manners to button it.

  We’re now in a pub a stone’s throw from the Crem, and the atmospher
e is strained to say the least. It’s busy, but subdued by the nature of the party that’s here. One concession to the other people propping up the bar is a large plasma-screen television showing some sport with the sound down. We find a table with three stools round it, and make ourselves comfy. It seems to have gone cooler now, thank God, and I’m now quite grateful for my faux fur trim, which has dried out beautifully during the service. Also, keeping my coat on gives the impression that I won’t be staying long. Somehow this appeals to me. I rip open a packet of prawn cocktail crisps and plonk them in the middle of the table to share.

  ‘Ooh, prawn cock, my fave,’ Adam’s boyfriend says in a really camp voice, and I smile politely. Even though he’s raved about the flavour, he doesn’t take one.

  ‘Have one,’ I say, pointing to the bag.

  ‘Carb crash!’ he pouts, frowning, so I shove a load more in my mouth. I see his eyes flick up and down my body. What is this? Judgement Day?

  ‘So. What are you doing with yourself these days, Kathleen?’ Adam asks, before taking a sip from a pint of Guinness.

  Well, at least he’s not continuing with the ‘Do you think this is our fault?’ theme he started at the Crem. I suppose I’ve got to be grateful for Jason’s presence for that. Not the sort of stuff you want your partner to hear, presumably.

  Actually, his boyfriend is looking bored out of his skull. Small talk is rarely interesting, particularly if you don’t know the person making it.

  ‘Sorry? I was miles away.’ I’m busking it.

  ‘What are you up to these days?’

  I can’t tell him the truth. What would I say? I want him to think everything has stayed fine in Kathleen’s World, so I smile and lie and say I’m back at college studying again.