Becoming Nancy

by Terry Ronald

  Frances, however, begins to cry.

  ‘It was filled with piss,’ she whimpers, ‘and somebody shouted nigger at me. I just went to that hot-dog man by the gates, because the sausages looked better than the ones from the man by the portable toilets. And then, on the way back – I was soaking wet – one of the skinhead girls grabbed my arm through the fence – she really pinched me. She called me a black bitch.’

  And she sobs some more. I am unreservedly horrified.

  ‘Fucking cunts!’ Maxie shouts, jumping up. ‘Are they still there? I’m gonna go out there if they are! I’m gonna fucking go out there.’

  He turns to make a dash for the gates, but I grab his arm.

  ‘Oy, simmer down, Batman, for fuck’s sake!’ I say urgently. ‘Let’s calm down a bit … what happened next, Fran?’

  ‘The pigs waded in and the NF have been moved on – those that weren’t carted off in a meat wagon. The thing is, though, half the people that were arrested were our lot – the anti-Nazi brigade. The police don’t seem to care that it’s our festival and that those fuckers have come to spoil it.’

  I put my arm around my friend’s shoulder, and pull her close to me.

  ‘It was horrible, really horrible, and you’ll never guess who I bloody well saw,’ she goes on, her distress now morphing into something approaching fury. ‘Right in the thick of it: swastika on his jean jacket, Nazi salute – the lot!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jason pigging Lancaster!’ Frances announces, with the emphasis on the ‘pigging’. ‘Right at the front of the mob, and with another goon from our year: Bernard … I can’t remember his surname … the one that had a wank during the RE exam last term. There was a few of them from our school I recognized, as it goes.’

  Now I’m furious too, and Maxie and I stare at one another in disbelief.

  ‘The bastards!’ I spit. ‘We should tell Mr McClarnon when he gets here – tell the whole school, in fact, they’d be expelled.’

  ‘What’s the fucking point?’ Maxie says, getting between us and putting one arm around me and the other around Frances. ‘Jason will only lie his way out of it and say he was just here for the gig or something – people like him always get away with it. I think we just need to try to forget it now and enjoy the day, eh? Don’t let ‘em fuck it up for us? What do you think, Frances?’

  Frances sticks her bottom lip out and flutters her dazzling eyes at Maxie.

  ‘Do I smell of piss though, Maxie?’ she says pathetically.

  ‘Yes, Frances,’ Maxie says, smiling. ‘You actually do.’

  As a big auburn ball of late summer sun sinks over Brixton, and the park revellers get progressively and jubilantly more stoned and pissed, my sister Chrissy and a fiercely sunburned Abigail join us with a practically full bottle of Cinzano Bianco.

  ‘You said you’d be by the fuckin’ stage,’ Chrissy snaps at us, Abigail nodding furiously behind her.

  ‘Sorry, sis,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you were definitely coming, and it’s too crowded up there. Where’s Squirrel?’

  ‘I’ve no idea where that prat is,’ Chrissy says, ‘and I don’t fucking care to be honest. He’s always disappearing lately.’

  She holds up a large checked laundry bag.

  ‘’Ere, look what I nicked out of Nan’s ottoman,’ she says.

  When we all sit back down again, it’s on one of my nan’s old eiderdowns, and we decide to smoke the weed that Frances had pilfered from her older brother that morning. After a couple of puffs I can’t seem to stop myself giggling.

  ‘Your face is ever so red, Abi,’ I splutter. ‘Do you not think you should cover up a trifle?’

  Abigail, who is in an aubergine tank top and cut-off denim hot pants with scarcely any of the original trouser-leg left to speak of, looks at me with only thinly veiled abhorrence.

  ‘It’s called being sun-kissed, David,’ she barks. ‘We don’t all want to be sheet-white like you, do we?’

  ‘I’d say it was more of a slap than a kiss,’ I laugh, and Maxie starts to giggle too.

  ‘Shut up! It’s from sunbathing, if you must know,’ Abigail says. ‘I’ve been sunbathing.’

  Chrissy shrieks.

  ‘Where, on the fuckin’ sun itself? You look like a tomato with teeth, Abi!’

  And with that we descend into merciless hysteria. Poor Abigail. Frances is practically slapping her thigh with delight.

  ‘Oh, Lard! Dat is too damn fonny,’ she screams, and we roar even louder.

  At least she’s laughing again. Abigail, however, is incensed.

  ‘I slavered meself in Hawaiian Tropic – Number Five,’ she continues to protest, ‘but I’m very susceptible to the elements. Mum says I’ve got thin skin; you shouldn’t laugh.’

  Nothing can stop us now, though, and as the strains of ‘Take Me I’m Yours’ by Squeeze float across the park, I have tears running down my face and an aching side. Brilliant!

  Eventually we’re all flat on the ground, pretty much done in, and I tip my head back and soak myself in the pulsating music, enjoying the feel of Maxie’s head on my chest as he lollops from side to side, slowly. I virtually leap out of my own hide when a familiar voice says, ‘Are ye gonna give me a toke on that joint, or what?’

  It’s Mr McClarnon, looming over us with an open, half-drunk bottle of Sainsbury’s red.

  Maxie sits up sharpish, clearly aghast at the fact that we’ve all been caught red-handed smoking an illicit substance by a member of staff, but Frances and I just giggle as Chrissy, also open-mouthed, hands Hamish the joint, and he inhales, long and deep. For most of the day thus far, Hamish has been hands on at the ‘Schools Against Racism’ information stand on the far side of the park, but he’s evidently ready to relax and enjoy the concert now, and he joins us all on the ground in his green cap-sleeved T-shirt, covered in badges. My eye is drawn to the pink one with the black arrow: it reads ‘Gays against Nazis’, and it makes me smile.

  ‘Well!’ Hamish says after I’ve introduced him to Chrissy and the now lobster-coloured Abigail. ‘This is a nice surprise indeed. It’s food for the soul te see you kids getting involved with this sort of thing.’

  He takes another huge pull on the joint, and as he coughs and puffs out the smoke, says, ‘It’s important!’

  He stares at me for what seems like a very long time, and then I follow his eyes down to Maxie, who is clearly stoned and has gone back to using me as a pillow. Hamish nods slowly.

  ‘It’s nice te see you two boys here together too,’ he says softly, and I’m almost certain I detect him chase away a tear before taking an enormous quaff from his wine bottle.

  ‘I’m proud of you, David,’ Hamish says. ‘Right proud! I know you’ve had a difficult time this week.’

  And Maxie looks up at me, puzzled.

  Hamish wasn’t bloody kidding about me having a difficult week; I’d have said monumental was nearer the mark. It had all kicked off on Wednesday afternoon, when Jason Lancaster and his friends had ribbed me horribly as I rehearsed the number ‘I’d Do Anything’ with the repulsive little first-year who was playing Oliver.

  ‘Do I have to hold the little brat’s hand?’ I’d complained to Hamish. ‘He’s no Mark Lester, you know, and I don’t think I’ve once seen him without his finger jammed up his nose. That coupled with the fact that Sonia Barker can’t pronounce her Rs, so it’s bloody “catch a kangawoo” every time she sings it, and this number’s turning into an absolute fiasco!’

  ‘Of course ye have te hold his hand,’ Hamish had instructed, just at the inopportune moment when Jason was shifting the long and weighty workhouse table across the hall with a couple of his mates.

  ‘Go on, Starr, you know you want to,’ Jason had bellowed at me the minute Hamish had disappeared off to the loo. ‘Stick his willy in ya mouth while you’re at it!’

  Charming!

  Then, on Thursday lunchtime, there had been what I’d call a major incident – well, two, actually. Maxie and me were sitti
ng in the costume room off the lower assembly hall, sipping Tab in amongst the half-finished papier-mâché scenery, when Maxie said to me, ‘Do you reckon people think we’re bum chums?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know,’ he said. ‘Some of the other kids. Do you think that’s what they’re thinking? Half the footy team hardly speak to me since the other night at the field when I squared up to Jason.’

  I stared into his face, blinking.

  ‘They don’t call you names, though, do they?’

  Maxie shook his head, and then he got up and started pacing around the tiny room.

  ‘Not like they do you. But I reckon they all think it just the bloody same.’

  I fiddled with the buttons on Mr Bumble’s frock coat, which was hanging on a clothes rack next to me.

  ‘And does that bother you?’ I enquired cautiously.

  I felt horribly anxious. Had Maxie, at last, cottoned on to my feelings? Was he about to run a fucking mile? If the penny had dropped then there wasn’t much I could do about it, but if it hadn’t, I would have to discourage him from any further suspicions of it. I couldn’t chance losing Maxie, not now.

  ‘Well, it’s not true, is it?’ he finally said, crushing his drink can. ‘I’ve never even fuckin’ kissed a boy, have you? Have you kissed a boy, David?’

  I shook my head slowly.

  ‘Mind you,’ he went on. ‘I do think there is something a bit … weird with us, though, don’t you?’

  My heart almost flew out of my mouth.

  ‘Is there?’

  Maxie sat down again, and then leaned right back on his chair – he was always doing that. He closed his eyes tight for a moment, as if in deep thought.

  ‘Well, I’ve not known you for that long, have I?’ he said, ‘and we’re already so …’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Then he got up again, but this time he walked straight towards me, his brow in a deep furrow. He put his warm palms on either side of my face, and for a second or so I thought I might be sick again. Then, just like it was nothing, he planted a light – almost silly – kiss on my mouth and laughed.

  ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Now I have kissed a boy. Don’t make me queer though, does it?’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ I said, but the words barely left my mouth, and I felt myself crumple slightly, sliding down in the chair.

  I lifted my hand and touched my bottom lip softly with my index finger to check that it was still there, because I wasn’t sure it actually was, and all the while Maxie was saying something to me – well, I thought he must have been because his mouth was moving. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, though; I couldn’t hear him at all. All I could hear, loud in my head – filling the room, in fact, as far as I was concerned – was The Crystals singing ‘Then He Kissed Me’.

  Then the pips went for the end of lunch, and I heard Maxie say, ‘What have you got next?’

  And I said, ‘I don’t know … Sociology, I think … and I’ve not done my essay or …’

  ‘Well, I’ll catch you after school,’ he said.

  And he was gone.

  When I followed Maxie out into the hall I felt flushed, and ever so slightly feverish. I didn’t feel as though my legs were functioning all that well, but Maxie was striding ahead swinging his Arsenal sports bag as if nothing had happened. Unfortunately for me, Bob Lord had been hovering over by the piano, and when he clocked me following Maxie out of the costume room he got this look on his face that, I must say, unnerved me somewhat. It wasn’t one of the routine looks he trotted out whenever he saw me approaching: menacing, disdainful, irritated; it was more a look of concern – fear, almost. I thought he might burst into tears. I couldn’t work it out, but he didn’t say anything, just looked. Things became crystal clear later, however, when Mr Lord arrived at the tail end of my English lit class, last period, and requested the pleasure of my company in his office.

  ‘Off you go,’ Miss Jibbs, my English tutor, said. ‘We’re just about done here any road, Bob.’

  I felt as though she was sending me into the arena with a particularly unpleasant lion, but I didn’t have much choice but to go, did I? So I packed up my books and toddled along after him.

  ‘You’re a bright lad, aren’t you, David?’ was his opening gambit as I wriggled uneasily in the tatty calico armchair in his broom cupboard of an office.

  ‘I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, there’s no suppose about it, son,’ he said with a slightly ominous edge. ‘One of only two students to take his English O level at the end of the fourth year, and passing with an A; editor of the school newspaper two years running; top of your class in almost all of your humanities subjects, and a lexis that most of the staff here would envy.’

  I’d looked up the word ‘lexis’ only last month, so I knew what it meant.

  ‘Some folk might just call that having a smart mouth,’ I laughed, attempting to lighten the mood.

  ‘They might indeed,’ he semi-sneered.

  Then he went quiet and sank back in his swivel. I looked around the room, perhaps for an escape route – I’m not entirely sure. The place was crammed with sports equipment: a locker with a broken door almost bursting with rugby balls and tatty-handled hockey sticks; a net on a hook on the back of the door full of cricket balls; and a Tesco bag spilling over with unclaimed articles of football kit. I decided to rupture what seemed an inordinately protracted silence.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘it’s not all good news, aptitude-wise, with me. I mean, hand me a Bunsen burner or ask me about algebraic variables and I’m at complete sixes and sevens, and don’t even get me started on homeomorphism.’

  Mr Lord grunted a laugh to himself.

  ‘My point exactly,’ he muttered. ‘An answer for everything.’

  Another long silence. Then he said, ‘I’ve been chatting to some of the other staff, David, and they seem to think you’re letting things slide a bit so far this term: assignments not handed in; lateness a routine occurrence; not paying attention. I mean, you’re in a world of your own most of the time in my classes, son, I can see that for myself. Do you think the school musical might be diverting your focus from your studies, given your evidently faultless previous diligence, I mean? Or do you think, perhaps, it might be something or someone else cocking it all up? Eh, son?’

  Mr Lord’s demeanour was now vaguely menacing, so any thoughts I had of a swaggering retort were dwindling by the second.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know to what you’re referring, sir,’ was the best I could do.

  Mr Lord smiled at me with all the sincerity of Uriah Heep, and then he said, ‘We’re on the second floor here, aren’t we, David. Overlooking the car park?’

  Oh shit, he’s not going to throw me out of the fucking window, is he?

  ‘And what,’ he went on, ‘do you think I’d see if I looked out of this window right now, David?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir,’ I said. ‘Probably not Niagara Falls. Why?’

  ‘I think I’d see young Maxie Boswell out there right now,’ he said, ‘and do you know why?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  By now, any bluster I’d had was completely gone and I could feel the sweat building under my collar. Whatever this was, I thought, it wasn’t good.

  ‘I think I’d see Maxie Boswell outside because the pips went two minutes ago, and because he’ll be waiting for you to come out of your English lit class, which is just below this window. That’s what I think.’

  I wriggled a bit more.

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘And that’s what I’ve seen every night for the past two or three weeks, Starr. Him hanging around waiting for you, or you skulking about the football pitch when there’s a practice on, waiting for him.’

  ‘I don’t skulk, sir,’ I almost whispered. ‘I just go and meet him, and we walk home together – well, for part of the way, anyway. I’m sure lots of other kids do the same. What’s the problem?’

  Bob Lord slithere
d around the table and sat on the edge of his desk facing me. He almost looked compassionate.

  ‘Well, my problem is, David, that you’re a lot more sure of yourself, and what you’re about, than Boswell is, and I think he might be a little bowled over by you. I think he might think some things are OK, or acceptable, when they really aren’t. Do you get me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what I see is the two of you behaving in a way that might be construed as … odd for a couple of lads of your age – not, dare I say it, Christian. And I think that you, as the older of the two boys, need to address this and put a stop to it before it goes too far up the wrong path.’

  I resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Maxie is three weeks younger than me, sir. We’re both sixteen in the next few weeks.’

  ‘Yes, in years and months you might be the same age,’ Mr Lord said, rather creepily putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘But, as I’ve said, you are much more sure of yourself than Boswell, and I guess you have already made choices about who and what you are. I think he’s a lad, however, that could be swayed into doing something that he might not naturally do otherwise.’

  ‘Like macramé, sir?’ I said.

  ‘I think you know what I’m getting at, David,’ he said, his voice remaining spookily measured and serene. ‘I’ve seen the two of you together, and I think you do know what I mean.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Do you?’

  I looked down at my shoes, as if I should be ashamed. I don’t know why, it just seemed the right thing to do. When I lifted my head again, Mr Lord was smiling and nodding.

  ‘Can I go now, sir?’ I said.

  ‘Go on then.’

  As I reached the door, though – eyes fixed on the net bag full of cricket balls – Mr Lord surprised me with a little gasp and said, ‘Oh! We didn’t check, did we, Starr?’

  I turned to see him beckoning me over, and I crossed the room as he yanked up the venetians. Then he chuckled as we both looked out of the window at Maxie, two floors below, leaning against the lamp post in the car park outside what had been my English class.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Bob Lord.