Boys Don't Knit

by T. S. Easton

‘See you there, then,’ she said.

  ‘See you there, then,’ I repeated, like an idiot.

  Then she had a customer and I went and sat at another bench, watching her work, smiling at the customer. Soon there was another crash in the aisles and a few seconds later a second bottle rolled gently into Gex’s bag.

  The situation wasn’t ideal, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad day after all, I thought to myself as the third bottle rolled cheerily between the checkouts. The Great Trolley Robbery was proceeding, and I had a sort of date with a real live girl who was in a narrow bracket, being both quite fanciable and also in my league.

  That is, it was going great until Freddie grabbed a bottle of gin. Nothing wrong with gin, except this particular bottle wasn’t round, it was semi-circular. I watched him in alarm, frantically texting as Freddie shoved the misshapen bottle under the wheels, got a good long run up towards the checkouts and stopped suddenly. Of course, this bottle didn’t roll, but instead slid noisily across the floor, stopping right behind a customer at the checkout, who stepped back and tripped over it. The bottle shot forwards and shattered against a stack of shopping baskets and they had to get a cleaner and the store manager came over to look after the customer and the security guard started sniffing around and a baby started crying and everyone had to have counselling and take legal advice. Freddie and Joz had disappeared and Gex only had three bottles.

  ‘You better do it, man,’ he said, nodding towards the booze section. ‘We need one more bottle.’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘I’m no thief.’

  ‘If you don’t go in, Bellend, then you can’t come to the party, innit?’ he hissed.

  ‘Why do I have to miss out?’ I hissed back, forgetting for the moment that I didn’t even want to go to the party. ‘I didn’t panic and run at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘They went in and got the bottles, you didn’t do nothing,’ he said.

  I was going to just walk, but then I remembered Megan. I had sort of promised. She was only going because of me. I couldn’t let her down. And do you know something else? Just at that moment I felt something unusual. Something I never feel. I felt confident. I felt strong. I felt that everything was going my way, nothing could go wrong. Everything suddenly seemed clear, and neat, and … and just right. I don’t get that feeling very often.

  So I went in. How hard could it be?

  I steeled myself and walked right to the back of the store. I took the trolley Freddie and Joz had abandoned and casually walked past the alcohol section.

  But just as I reached out my hand to grab a bottle, an employee walked round a corner and gave me a funny look and I think I might have panicked a bit so after he’d gone I grabbed the first bottle that came to hand and went back to the cheese aisle.

  When no one was looking, I slipped the bottle under the front wheels and started pushing towards the checkouts. I could see Gex pretending not to watch as I worked up a good head of steam until I was nearly running. It was going to work!

  But then disaster! A lady with a pushchair appeared from nowhere and I had to stop, but I was too far away from the checkouts and the trolley was slightly off-centre. The bottle rolled away, clipped a display unit full of pork pies and went off at the wrong angle, towards aisle 9, bumping into Megan’s foot. Megan, who had her back to me, looked down at the bottle. Then she looked up, saw me, and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Is that bottle yours?’ she asked.

  I should have just denied it, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her. I nodded, eyes down. I was all-too-conscious of the store manager and security guard just a few checkouts away.

  ‘Do you like Martini Rosso then?’ she asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Save some for me, will you? We can try it together,’ and she kicked the bottle over to where Gex was sitting, still staring straight ahead. Gex quickly shoved the bottle into his rucksack and walked out, hoodie up, head down.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I said. ‘But thanks.’

  ‘You owe me,’ she said, grinning. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ I said, grinning back. Then I scarpered.

  I caught up with Gex again down the street.

  ‘You’re such a Bellend,’ he told me, shaking his head.

  I’m tired, my hand aches and I haven’t even got to the lollipop lady yet. Tonight I need to finish rating all my iTunes songs. I’ve only done half of them and it’s been preying on my mind.

  I’ll finish the rest of this tomorrow.

  7th July

  So, the lollipop lady.

  We met back up with Joz and Freddie after the great Martini Heist.

  ‘Well, look who it is,’ I said as they sauntered up. ‘Usain Bolt and Jessica Ennis.’

  ‘Did you get busted?’ Joz asked.

  Gex showed them the bottles and we all grinned. Despite my misgivings, I have to admit I was enjoying this. I had the theme tune to The Sopranos in my head.

  ‘Shh,’ Freddie said, not at all suspiciously. We stopped talking as two fairly attractive girls walked past wearing crop tops, showing off their belly buttons. Joz ogled them unself-consciously, turning to watch them go by.

  ‘Joz,’ I sighed. ‘Try to be less obvious.’

  ‘I’m just being polite,’ he protested. ‘Girls dress like that because they want to be looked at.’

  ‘Not by you,’ Freddie said.

  ‘You take these,’ Gex said to me, holding out the clinking bag of bottles.

  ‘Why should I take them?’

  ‘Cos you got the bags on your bike, innit?’ he said.

  This was true. The others all have BMX bikes with no seats or gears, let alone racks. I, on the other hand, have a twelve-speed hybrid with rear panniers. I take my cycling seriously.

  I jammed the bag into one and we set off back down the hill.

  Repton Street runs off the High Street right down the hill to the river. My house is at the bottom. Halfway down there’s a pedestrian crossing next to the Infant School where Molly goes. Freddie, Joz and Gex shot off down the slope, for once able to show some speed. I’m usually miles ahead of them, trying not to go too fast as they peddle furiously on their tiny little bikes. This time all three were ahead. I took it easy, the incline is substantial and it’s easy to go too fast.

  I could see there was going to be trouble as they approached the pedestrian crossing. An old man was moving across slowly on a mobility scooter and Mrs Frensham, the crazy lollipop lady, was standing holding the traffic, which was two cars on our side of the road and one coming the other way. Mrs Frensham takes her job very seriously. Arguably too seriously. Mrs Frensham hates cars, and she hates cyclists even more than she hates cars. She’s got mad hair and looks really tall because of the lollipop thing. She stands there, on her crossing, like Boudicca holding a huge spear except with a large circle on the end. She glares at the drivers as though they’re Roman legionnaires, daring them to move, keeping them waiting for ages.

  The problem was that my idiot friends didn’t look like they were going to stop at all. They didn’t want to get stuck waiting for Mrs Frensham. A dozen metres from the crossing, Joz, who was in the lead, bunny-hopped up onto the pavement, followed by the other two. It was clear they’d have time to whizz along the pavement and get by before the old codger in the scooter reached their side of the road.

  I had a choice. I could have done the right thing, which was to slow and stop behind the cars, wait for Mrs Frensham to move aside, then proceed carefully. Or I could have followed my friends up onto the pavement and carried on, illegally, but perfectly safely, as it was clear there was no risk to pedestrians.

  I got it wrong. I was still feeling reckless. I thought I could do anything, break any rule and get away with it. So I did something I’ve never done before: I cycled on the pavement.

  There. I’ve said it.

&nbs
p; Unfortunately, Mrs Frensham had seen the others shoot past.

  ‘Hooligans!’ she yelled and ran towards that pavement. She was too late to catch them but then I came hurtling by, already starting to regret what I’d done. With a roar she swung the lollipop like it was a pole-axe and smacked me on the head. I was wearing a helmet of course, but the blow stunned me nonetheless and I clipped the fence to my left. I ricocheted off at an angle which took me back onto the road, right across to the far side and into the path of a Porsche Cayenne. The Porsche had to swerve and hit a Skoda with a sickening crunch. I swerved too, came back in a big, uncontrolled loop and slammed into Mrs Frensham, who’d come charging after me. We went down together in a tangle of spokes, limbs and lollipops and I heard the crunch of breaking glass under me.

  I lay there for a few seconds, dazed and confused, and when I finally managed to sit up, my heart leaped into my throat as I saw blood everywhere. All over my bike, all over the road, all over the lollipop, and all over Mrs Frensham.

  Oh my God. For one surreal and horrifying moment, I thought I’d killed a lollipop lady. Which is proper serious. It’s worse than killing a cop, almost.

  But then she groaned and lifted her head. I sighed with relief.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked nervously.

  She looked at me, puzzled, then licked her bloodied lips.

  ‘Martini Rosso?’ she said, then slumped back down, unconscious.

  It all went even more Pete Tong after that. The police figured out where the bottles had come from when they searched the bag they were in and found a Waitrose recipe card for courgette pasta bake. They checked the CCTV footage. Joz, Freddie and Gex got away with cautions but because I’d caused about £13,000 worth of damage to the Porsche and the Skoda and the lollipop, I got probation.

  I’m obviously not cut out for organised crime. I’m straight as an arrow now. Never again.

  8th July

  It’s 6.37am and I’ve just woken up. I’ve had that dream again about Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard and thought I’d better scribble it down before I forget it all. He’s living in our loft (in the dream), and is clearly on the run from something or someone. I can hear the studs on his football boots tapping around up there as he slowly paces.

  I wonder if I could discover what it is he’s running from, whether it might make things clearer. This dream interpretation thing is really interesting. I downloaded a free ebook about it yesterday. I’ve noticed my dreams have been vivid and a bit weird since the incident with the lollipop lady and the book says that it’s quite common for stressful or life-changing events to trigger a period of intense dreaming as your brain tries to make sense of it all. Everything can be interpreted somehow and it’s never straightforward. Apparently, everything’s an allegory or a metaphor or a symbol of something else, though I’m not convinced there could be many alternative interpretations of my recurring dream about Jennifer Lawrence. Perhaps the massage oil isn’t really massage oil?

  9th July

  Describe the members of your immediate family. Explain what they’re like physically and also how you see their characters. How would you categorise your relationship with each person: Very Good, Good, OK, Poor, Very Poor.

  Family Member 1 – Dad

  Relationship – OK

  Dad has no eyebrows. He is a bit taller than me, but not much taller, which makes me worry that I’m not going to grow any more. Joz told me he read that you always end up halfway between the heights of your parents, which doesn’t seem right to me.

  ‘Your dad is shorter than you,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Which is why I think he’s not my real dad.’

  ‘I see your thinking,’ I said, ‘but it’s not a lot to go on. I wouldn’t go making any dramatic accusations in front of the whole family at Christmas on the strength of that evidence.’

  Joz didn’t say anything, which makes me wonder if he is going to make a dramatic accusation. I wouldn’t put it past him, and he might even be right. It’s like Albert Square round his place, always some big drama. He’s got three older sisters and everyone’s always sleeping with each other’s boyfriend or, even worse, borrowing each other’s clothes without asking and generally having hissy fits and storming out of rooms, slamming doors.

  Dad is dark-haired like me but is going grey because he’s old. We have a Good relationship mainly, except for that time he took me to a football match then abandoned me in a pub as a fight kicked off and I got a broken nose. My relationship with my dad on that day was Very Poor.

  He loves football, and is a huge fan of Frank Lampard, which I don’t get at all. Seriously, what’s the big deal about Frank Lampard? I’ve never seen him score. He just boots it up into the top row of the grandstand then holds his head like he’s missed by an inch.

  He’s a mechanic (Dad, I mean, not Frank Lampard), but he doesn’t work full time, which he likes, because he’s quite lazy. He does three days a week at Hutch’s Auto Repairs and does a few private jobs for friends, which means we usually have some random car in the garage or the driveway up on bricks, leaking oil all over the paving stones. What with our old caravan out the back, our house sometimes looks like a council-approved traveller’s site. And that’s ironic because Dad’s always complaining about travellers.

  ‘I don’t like all them mechanical gypsies on the Common,’ he said the other week.

  ‘Ro-manical,’ I corrected him.

  ‘They don’t look very romanic to me,’ he said. ‘They’ve been there a month.’

  ‘Our camper van hasn’t moved since July 2009,’ Mum pointed out.

  ‘I’m just saying,’ he grumbled.

  Dad ‘just says’ things quite a lot. Mum says he’s ‘largely unreconstructed’. Like Corfe Castle.

  Dad sometimes gets me to help him with his work on the weekends, which, owing to my ham-fistedness usually means me just sitting in the car turning the ignition on and off again according to his instructions. Sometimes afterwards he takes me to watch football with him. He’s mad about Chelsea, but he can’t afford Premier League prices, so we go to watch local team Hampton FC, who aren’t as bad as they sound. This season they have Joe Boyle playing for them, who used to play for Portsmouth before he got injured and is a minor celebrity around here. He also happens to be going out with my English teacher, the amazingly beautiful Miss Swallow. So double props to him.

  I suppose he’s all right, my dad, except he just talks about nothing but football and Top Gear. Oh and the Second World War. He has an entire bookshelf of books and box sets about the Second World War (along with Frank Lampard’s autobiography, which I haven’t yet read).

  ‘There were other World Wars, you know, Dad,’ I told him.

  ‘There was one other World War,’ he corrected. ‘And it wasn’t as good.’

  ‘What was wrong with it?’ I asked. ‘Not enough people died?’

  He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really interest me. They just sat in holes most of the time then ran out into machine-gun fire.’

  The real reason, of course, is the Nazis. When men get to a certain age they become obsessed by the Nazis and watch endless programmes on the History Channel called Hitler’s Dogs, or Brides of Belsen or Extreme Nazi Hunters. Joz says men start watching programmes about the Nazis when they get too old for video games.

  I may have mentioned this before, but I don’t really like football. Or cars. Or the Second World War. If Dad found that out I think he’d be really disappointed and probably start thinking I’m gay. (I’m not.) So I pretend to know what he means about Christmas tree formations and differentials and universal joint offside traps. And I watched Band of Brothers all the way through even though I felt a bit queasy, and that mournful trumpet music made me want to slit my wrists.

  Dad wants me to watch the new Top Gear season with him tonight. ‘Clarkson’s going to reveal the new Stig!’ he told me, giddy with excitement.

  ‘Sounds great,’ I said weakly, giving him the thumbs-u
p.

  ‘Though if you believe the tabloids, there are a few BBC interns who’ve already had a good look at Clarkson’s Stig,’ he went on.

  Is the double entendre really the only form of humour he recognises?

  Dad is EXTREMELY untidy.

  Family Member 2 – Mum

  Relationship – Good

  Mum’s a bit odd. She’s a stage magician, which sounds quite cool but it’s not really, because it isn’t like David Copperfield with a huge stage and special effects. It’s just little clubs and pubs with dodgy PAs, unappreciative audiences and nowhere she can keep her white doves. She’s always off ‘on the circuit’. My relationship with my mum is OK, when she’s around. On the one hand she never cooks or cleans or does any of the stuff mums are supposed to do, on the other hand she can make Pringles come out of my ear.

  Physical description? Mum is tall and thin, wears glasses and has dark curly hair. She wears jeans a lot. What else is there to say?

  Oh yes, Mum is EXTREMELY untidy.

  Mum and Dad get on well most of the time, except for the occasional random blazing row, after which Dad goes off for a bit. Just a night here and there. Not like when I was little and he left for a year. Frankly, I don’t understand how they ever ended up together in the first place. Mum went to university but it took Dad eight years to finish his apprenticeship because he kept failing his NVQs. He says he has dyslexia so bad he thought he was doing QVN and stayed up all night watching shopping channels. I told you he was unreconstructed.

  Mum reads a lot, like me. She introduced me to The Hobbit and The Hunger Games and bought me a Kindle Fire. If it had been up to Dad, he would have introduced me to a 1972 Ford Capri owner’s manual and bought me a blow torch.

  Mum’s at home at the moment, after a mini-tour in Scotland. She has a small cut on her nose from where someone threw a bottle at the stage in Glasgow. Her glasses got broken so now she keeps walking into things and therefore has a genuine excuse for not tidying. Mum’s eyesight is Very Poor. Her prescription is -8, which on the blindness chart is about the same as those fish that live in totally dark caves. Mum now somehow believes that means she is allowed to park anywhere she wants at Tesco, even the disabled spaces, if she can find them.