What We Hide

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “And he’s a good bloke?”

  Percy nods. “If you weren’t looking for a school,” he says. “If this film weren’t happening …” He stops. Why ask a question when the answer will either be a lie or make you wince?

  Mick slips off his left boot, yanks up a floppy sock, and pulls the boot on again.

  “What we’ve got here,” he says, “is the classic setup for a scene.” He stands up and leans on the railing, gazing down at the river. “See why? We’ve got two characters, each wanting something very badly, but that something …” Mick rubs his head. “For each of them, that something is interfering with the other person’s something. Do you see?”

  Percy sees.

  “I like to tell the actors secrets,” says Mick, “just before the camera rolls. I tell the girl that she has to avoid getting kissed during the scene. Whatever it takes. And I tell the m-m-man, ‘Do not leave the room until you’ve kissed the girl.’ ”

  So, am I the girl or the man? Percy wonders. He sure as shite doesn’t feel like a man. But it’s Mick who seems to be stepping around the crucial moment. Not a kiss, obviously. But a connection.

  “So, here,” says Mick. “We’ve got an arsehole of a dad, an accidental dad, preoccupied with work. In the room with …”

  With who? Percy almost claps his hands over his ears but manages to shove them under his knees instead. Who’s the other character?

  “Bloody hell,” says Mick.

  “The other one is a boy,” says Percy.

  “Who wants a dad,” says Mick.

  All the imaginary conversations he’d had with his father during all the years—utter fiction. The wise words, the funny anecdotes, the manly tips that Percy had invented for Mick to pass along—complete made-up crap.

  But. Percy waves at the van as it bounces away down the Illington drive. He realizes that whatever you’d call it—invention, wishful thinking, or brilliant observation—everything that Mick had said inside Percy’s head in all those conversations … well, it was Percy who wrote those lines, right? All that knowledge was already there, just waiting to be summoned.

  “So, Chicken Boner, why aren’t you Percy Malloy?” Adrian asks, after Lights-Out.

  “Just not,” says Percy, after a pause. No better answer has occurred to him.

  Kipling dorm is quiet for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, before Adrian speaks again.

  “G’night, m-m-mate.”

  revenge

  A FILM SCRIPT

  by PERCY GRAHAM

  INT. KIPLING DORMITORY-EARLY MORNING

  Cold light through uncurtained windows. Grey blankets on two rows of single cots cover boys waking up. A clanging bell is heard from downstairs, insistent. General moaning but no movement for a few moments. ADRIAN is the first to rise, pulling blanket off bed and wrapping himself before going to large communal dresser. His drawer is in the middle. HENRY and LUKE get up and stumble past, to loo, getting dressed, just part of the background.

  ADRIAN

  Colder than a witch’s tit.

  PERCY

  (only eyes and nose can be seen above blanket, surrounded by his wild dreadlocks)

  If the coal miners are toiling away in the depths of the earth to absolutely no effect on the Kipling dorm, why do they bother?

  ADRIAN

  Trust the Chicken Boner to think of the miners. Bloody typical.

  NICO

  (rolling over, half emerging)

  I’d rather be the janitor in a morgue than be a miner.

  (He lies back down and pulls a pillow half over his head.)

  I’d rather unblock sewage pipes in August than be a miner.

  ADRIAN

  (dragging on jeans)

  I’d rather be mashing up sheep pluck on the line in a haggis factory than be a miner.

  PERCY

  I’d rather be a—

  NO-FACE

  My uncle is a miner. So are my two cousins, Terry and Phil. So you can all shut your stinking yaps.

  NO-FACE flings back his duvet and skids across the floor in his thick woolly socks.

  He EXITS to loo.

  BEAT while boys absorb info. HENRY and LUKE EXIT also, heading off to breakfast.

  NICO

  Should we have known that?

  (He swings his feet to the cold floor and snatches them back.)

  ADRIAN

  Was he wearing purple boxers?

  PERCY

  I feel like crap. Saying that about miners.

  ADRIAN

  You look like crap. And is it even true? Why is he at this school if his family’s down the pit?

  NICO

  Lots of local kids at this school.

  Chance for a leg up in the world.

  PERCY

  Maybe he’s got a clever-boy scholarship.

  ADRIAN

  This is No-Face we’re talking about!

  NICO

  And why does he have that name anyway?

  He’s got a face.

  ADRIAN

  (hopping foot to foot because floor is as cold as an ice rink)

  Yeah, but—

  (He stops as No-Face comes back in.)

  NO-FACE

  Ice in the sink.

  ADRIAN

  Bloody miners. Sod the lot of them.

  NO-FACE goes still. Easy for him, he’s got socks on.

  NICO drops his pillow to the floor and shuffles it under his feet and over to the dresser.

  NO-FACE

  What did you just say?

  (He curls up his fists.)

  ADRIAN

  Oh Christ.

  (yanking on socks)

  I was joooking, mate!

  NO-FACE

  It’s not a bleedin’ joke.

  ADRIAN

  Of course not. Nothing funny about it.

  Do you see me laughing?

  NO-FACE

  Are you going to stop?

  ADRIAN

  Oh Christ. You’re treading on my nerves, No-Face.

  NO-FACE

  Don’t call me that.

  BEAT. It is momentarily clear that despite having roomed with him for a couple of years, ADRIAN has no clue to NO-FACE’s real name.

  ADRIAN

  Would you prefer No-Prick?

  NICO and PERCY jump out of the path as NO-FACE launches himself at ADRIAN, arms outstretched, hands aiming for the neck. ADRIAN stumbles against the dresser, getting stabbed in the back by a drawer knob at the same time that NO-FACE slams into his chest.

  ADRIAN

  What the fu—

  He ploughs NO-FACE with his open palm-wham-catching chin and nose together.

  NICO AND PERCY

  Uhhhhhh!

  Blood spurts from NO-FACE as he falls sideways onto a bed. KIRBY, the Chemistry teacher and dorm monitor, comes through the door.

  KIRBY

  Adrian!

  ADRIAN

  Hey, it wasn’t me!

  KIRBY

  I just watched you!

  He leans over NO-FACE, whose nose is bubbling red snotty stuff.

  ADRIAN

  No, really! Back me up, lads!

  NICO

  First hit, No-Face.

  PERCY

  First hit, maybe, but … I mean … to be fair, Adrian did say—

  KIRBY

  Don’t stand about yammering! The boy is bleeding all over the bed! Percy, soak a towel in cold water. Nico, go fetch Matron. And you—

  (He jabs a finger at ADRIAN.)

  Go straight down to Richard’s office and explain what kind of a peace-loving Quaker you are.

  PERCY, holding a small towel, tries to slip around ADRIAN toward loo. ADRIAN, just outside the doorway of the dorm, blocks PERCY’s path with a threatening smirk on his face. PERCY pauses in resignation, no point pushing past.

  ADRIAN

  (whispering)

  Was “back me up” too difficult a concept, Chicken Boner? You just qualified for some serious attention.

 
PERCY

  That’ll have to wait. I’m getting first aid for your current victim.

  KIRBY

  Percy, cold water. Now.

  PERCY

  Could you move, please?

  ADRIAN

  Ooh, got some manly nuts when there’s a teacher in the room, eh?

  PERCY

  Piss off.

  ADRIAN

  Did I hear you right?

  (He puts a hand across PERCY’s throat, pushing him to the wall, silent but scary.)

  PERCY

  Gags, blinks, blinks again … and morphs into an avenging demon, muscles popping and dreads aquiver.… His knee jerks up to catch ADRIAN-wham-in the crotch. As ADRIAN leans over in instant agony, PERCY head-bumps him, grabs both his hands in one of his own (the one not holding the towel). As quick as Spider-Man, he binds ADRIAN’s wrists. He lifts him with a slow, spinning move like that of a discus thrower, and hurls him over the banister. ADRIAN falls nearly three floors to the school lobby, but the rope holding his wrists snaps him up short, to dangle just above the floor. The dangling figure continues to spin slowly. A close-up shows spittle and rolling eyeballs. There’s a weak, gurgling moan.

  PERCY flicks his towel to brush himself off and heads to the loo.

  Sound of exultant applause as kids emerge from all dormitories onto the landing to cheer their hero.

  PERCY nods and smiles modestly as he returns to Kipling with cold-water towel.

  The End

  robbie

  Lanny lost the first baby during the summer, but now she was knocked up again. If she liked my brother enough to have it off with him more than once, she deserved him, being a bit of a twittering dolly bird. But she came around one night when Simon was at work, telling me a wedding wasn’t a wedding without the groom’s brother and wouldn’t I pretty please be there? She was a fence mender, she said. She knew Simon could be grumpy, but didn’t I wish them well?

  What I wished was to be rid of Simon Muldoon. Facedown on a bed of steaming rubbish would be my first choice, but seeing him married and moved into a council flat in Leeds was still worth celebrating.

  Not as best man. No possible way of me fitting that bill. I’d be what they call an usher. Best man would be Felix. Ha. Joke’s on Simon. Felix up from London where he worked in a nightclub hanging lights, making different colours flash onto a dance floor. Sounded dead exotic to us stuck carting boxes from one end of town to the other.

  I wondered how would it be seeing Felix, now that I had Luke.

  The church was out of the question, but Lanny’s mum saved face, having them married at the parish hall and then a party at the Red Lion. Barmy, you ask me, seeing as Lanny might last two years before she came boohooing home. Two years? Two months would be a bleeding miracle worth calling the pope about. I was given a monkey suit with a waistcoat the colour of grape jelly, matching the bridesmaids’ gowns. Everything rented and paid for with the sweat off Simon’s arse from his night job pulling pints at the Red Lion.

  All because of a shag.

  Course, I’d had me lights clocked thanks to same, so the Muldoon brothers weren’t too clever that way. They’d got me in the dark and from behind. First a grab around the neck, then a kick in the nuts so I was crippled with pain. They tied a knit cap over my head and zipped their lips except for grunts. If Simon had been there, I’d’ve known. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t his idea. I’d bet ten quid one of them was Alec, him being frantic ugly on the topic of queers.

  I told Luke I wished he could come to the wedding.

  “Not bloody likely,” he said.

  “If you were a girl, it’d be all right.”

  “I’d like to see you dressed up as James Bond.” He slid a hand under my shirt. “Tuxedo with lavender bits.”

  “Seems daft to bash me up for being queer and then prance about like poofters wearing something called a cummerbund on their wedding day, eh?”

  “Your brother?” Luke caught my slip.

  “His sort,” I said.

  My aunt Pat, being chums with Lanny’s mum, had been baking sausage rolls by the dozen and organizing girls to serve at the supper in the pub.

  “She was ticked when I told her the list,” said Aunt Pat. “Brenda’s coming, you know the one?”

  “Kath’s sister,” I said.

  “Ever such a good girl, she’ll be a big help.” She opened the oven door and slid in the next baking sheet. “But the high-and-mighty mother of the bride is taking exception to the … prior connection.”

  “She’d better get used to Simon’s prior connections,” I said. “Every girl in the village …”

  “Too bloody true.” Aunt Pat’s splodgy fingers shaped raw pastry around little sausages. “Lanny will be wishing she’d run the other way before that baby’s born, you mark my words.”

  No argument.

  “If your mum hadn’t passed on, may she rest in peace, your brother might’ve had a softer side.” Aunt Pat scraped the last shreds of pastry from the bowl. No sausage left, so she made a lonely little tart shell, sprinkled with brown sugar, dotted with butter. “As for you …”

  “What about me?”

  “A little too soft, from what I’ve heard.” She wagged her head back and forth, weary with the weight of her nephews, giving my long sleeves a particular look that made the scabbing cuts itch.

  “That’s crap,” I said.

  I’m the opposite of soft. You have to be, if you’re the sort people hate.

  Inside the parish hall Saturday noon, it was nippy as Norway. People kept their coats on, jiggled their feet. Lanny, being a bit dim, had me as one usher and Alec as the other. Alec looked even more of a prat than I did, gussied up. He kept scowling till I finally winked, making him yank sharp on Dickie’s mum’s arm, and her with a cane. Didn’t look my way again. When everyone was settled on the folding chairs and the creaking had subsided, I sat next to my dad in the front row. What did he think, really, about his shiny new daughter? And what about Mum? Would she have been dolled up, looking grand and proud, a bit of lipstick? Or with a pout on, having a shadowed heart? Would wedding bells even be chiming if she were here? Like Aunt Pat said, there’d likely be a different sort of Simon.

  I had a flash of Mum, working the jumble sale in this very hall. She never bothered with the pies or the potted plants, too many ladies making it a contest whose plum tart was juicier or whose geranium boasted the most blossoms. Mum liked to be at one of the junk tables.

  “Here, Robber,” she’d say. “See if you can find a lucky penny in one of these.” I’d spend an age sliding my fingers into every wee pocket inside the ladies’ handbags, chuffed to come up with the odd pence or two, along with bus tickets or buttons or safety pins. Then we’d move on to the books, looking for pressed leaves or scribbled notes. Once I found a hanky with a shiver of fancy scent. Might’ve belonged to a duchess, my mother said, the book being poems. And then, the best time, a ten-pound note, smooth as the day it was printed.

  “Always worth looking.” Mum combed her fingers through my hair, untangling the knots. “You never know what’s inside.”

  Only we gave the money to the jumble, so the thrill didn’t last long.

  The service was short, because what could they say beyond, We gather here today to sanctify the shag that can only lead to misery …? Not those words, but everyone was thinking it. Simon mumbled his I do. Lanny said hers and started to giggle till they got to the snogging part, which was over so quick the audience hissed, so we had to watch it again.

  Outside after, Simon’s mates had plenty to offer in the way of bedroom advice. Lanny just smiled, teetering a bit on her wedge-heel shoes. Had they ever used a bedroom? A sofa was likely the most plush they’d ever encountered. Simon caught sight of me, loitering like an idiot beyond the cluster of gooning yobs. If I’d been hoping for a big brotherly handshake, all crimes forgotten, I’d’ve been drenched in disappointment.

  “You can piss off now,” he said. “Done your duty
. Sat a few twats in chairs. Big help. Ta.”

  “Simon!” Lanny linked her arm through mine. “Robbie’s coming to the party, aren’t you, sweetie? I want you to meet my cousin Elaine.”

  Harry the bartender had strung up Christmas lights at the Red Lion, early but cheery. The music was cranked on high, the Beatles playing “Two of Us.” Very bleeding romantic.

  Aunt Pat bustled back and forth, laying out plates of cut-up cheese, rows of biscuits, tray after tray of sausage rolls, baskets of crisps, bowls of nuts. Brenda was slicing pork pies, another girl stuck plastic forks in mugs and stacked serviettes.

  Harry was laughing it up, everybody’s friend for a change. Not often he had forty extra customers dead keen on getting blind drunk enough to forget it ever happened.

  “No, lad!” He nudged Simon out from behind the bar. “It’s your wedding day, nod nod, wink wink. You’re not to be pulling pints. You’re to be drinking them!”

  “You won’t send me home with a lousy drunk on my wedding night, will you?” Lanny was flushed and pretty, tits big and round. Simon always said she’d got the best ones. Tits get bigger when a girl is knocked up, right? Simon’d be in heaven till the rest of her caught up.

  I stood next to me dad while he nattered on with Mr. Darrow, a nosy old codger, the two of them slurring a bit already.

  “Simon’s second, eh?” Mr. Darrow had a voice like fingers scraping a screen door. “Or is there a third and a fourth Muldoon brat out there that none of us knows about?”

  “No need to be sarky,” said Dad. “As if your Sharon didn’t stop off at the church on her way to the maternity ward.”

  Mr. Darrow showed us a few grey teeth. “And her mother before her, truth be told. I’d’ve never … if she hadn’t been …”

  “And that’s a fact,” said Dad.

  “You were the lucky one,” Mr. Darrow told Dad. “Your Aileen was a prize.”

  “Lucky for how long?” Dad rubbed his eyebrows. “Barely ten years.”