by Terry Ronald
‘Let ’im go, Bill,’ I cry as Maxie accosts me viciously and convincingly. ‘Let the boy go!’
But Bill Sikes is having none of it, dragging sweet, sweaty little Oliver from me and brutally casting him to the ground.
‘No, Bill … no … you wouldn’t!’ I wail.
And I’m convinced I hear terrified gasps from the audience, so I ad lib slightly and switch the Cockney twang up a gear to realize full dramatic effect.
‘Not tha’ boy, Biwl! Please dunt ’urt the boy!’
Bill, née Maxie, grabs my arm, driving me forcefully against the shuddering, teal-painted hardboard of London Bridge and putting his hands around my throat.
‘I’ll pay you back!’ he roars. ‘I’ll pay you back!’
Now, in most other productions of the play, Nancy is beaten mercilessly to death with Bill Sikes’ staff, but our headmaster had deemed this excessively bloodthirsty, so I was to be asphyxiated, i.e. choked to death, by my malevolent lover while his faithful and ferocious dog, Bullseye – in this event, Miss Jibbs’ bichon frise, Tilly – looks on. I let out one last, strangled scream as Bill’s hands tighten around my neck, and I look pleadingly into his cruel, unforgiving eyes.
‘NAAW!!!!’
It is at that moment that Maxie stops dead, his grip loosening: what the hell is he doing? Why doesn’t he kill me? He’s supposed to kill me. He stares at me, instead, an almost puzzled gaze – deep into my eyes – for several very long, conspicuous seconds, and does not move or make a sound. I can see Hamish gesticulating frantically from the wings, mouthing ‘What’s going on’ and ‘Get on with it’, but Maxie has his back to him so is completely oblivious. The audience are starting to mutter uneasily now, so I decide that the most pragmatic course of action is to ignore Maxie altogether and drop down dead of my own accord. Before I can actually wriggle free and accomplish this, though, Maxie lifts his hand, touching my face softly, and then he leans in – closer and closer towards me – until he is kissing me lovingly on the mouth for exactly five seconds, and to a soundtrack of gasps from the cast and audience in the lower assembly hall. I suspect that Bob Lord and Vi Boswell might have actually died right then and there, not to mention my own father, but I care nothing about any of that, or for anyone else in that moment under the spotlight on London Bridge – and neither, it seems, does Maxie.
When he is done his eyes are bright and his face full of devilment, and I grin back at him. Then, clearing his throat and composing himself, he places his hands back around my neck and finishes off the dirty, murderous deed he’s there to do. I finally slump to the ground. Dead. And smiling.
When we stand in rows to take our bows at the end, the crowd exalts us rowdily. Mum, Nan and Moira, still in her dark glasses, are up on their feet in the second row, cheering, as are Chrissy and Abigail. Dad is clapping, but sitting, and Aunt Val is projecting loud wolf whistles across the hall. As the principals trot forward for a final bow, this time with Hamish – our director – I notice that the Boswells and Bob Lord are nowhere to be seen in the appreciative throng, so I turn to Maxie, next to me, offering a concerned, if not terribly sad, smile. He merely shrugs and winks at me, just at the moment when Frances Bassey roughly shoves her way to the front through a line of orphans, sending them scattering. The crowd lets go with one ultimate cheer, and the orchestra erupts into a rousing reprise of ‘It’s A Fine Life’. Everybody sings along as Maxie, Frances and I suddenly surge forward together in a line, laughing and singing louder than everybody else … then, holding hands very, very tight, we curtsy.
In my dream, now, Agnetha, Anni-Frid and I are running towards the helicopter in slow motion, just as the chopper’s strident engines start, and its blades begin to circle, flattening the long, thick grass all around it. The air is salt and brittle and I sense water nearby, but only see green and sky, and I feel invigorated beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. As we reach the awaiting bird-machine in our white jumpsuits and clogs, the girls and I turn and wave regally, but there is nobody there and I’m suddenly baffled.
‘It’s time to go, David,’ Anni-Frid says with a dark Scandinavian lilt. ‘Are you ready?’
I nod but I’m not terribly convinced; Agnetha touches my epaulette reassuringly.
‘Let’s go.’
We clamber aboard and there, rather unsurprisingly, I discover the boys from Abba, too, Benny and Björn, and sitting beside them, rather more surprisingly, Debbie Harry dressed in a black plastic bin-liner and pixie boots.
‘Where are we going?’ I shout, hauling myself in.
‘That’s the thing, baby,’ Debbie smiles. ‘You can go anywhere you want from here. You just have to decide.’
‘We can take you any place you wanna go,’ adds Björn.
Hmmm … well, this is something that clearly warrants careful deliberation then, surely. Where do I want to go? What do I want to see? In a second I have whispered my chosen destination to Anni-Frid and she, in turn, leans over and informs the pilot.
‘Buckle up, David,’ Benny instructs over the engine’s din, and I settle down between the ladies as we tear away from the ground, hovering momentarily like an eagle riding on the breeze, and then shooting into the white sky.
Epilogue
I am tantamount to wetting myself with excitement, despite our really crappy seats, as I leaf through my concert programme. Wembley Arena is positively glittering tonight, and much, much bigger than anywhere I have ever been to see a show of any sort – but then again … this is Abba!
Frances’s face is glowing next to me as she unravels her shabby homemade fan-scarf and waves it above her head, screaming, ‘Come on!’
I giggle to myself and wonder what the Jason Lancasters of this world might make of Frances and me – whooping and hollering for our Swedish idols with glitter on our faces and scarves around our wrists. They were all still out there – those unapprised fuckers – but tonight we cared not. Tonight, just like Jason, crumpled hopelessly on the school stairwell outside Class D6, they were voiceless.
‘I want it to start!’ Frances says, turning to me. ‘Maxie would have loved it – wouldn’t Maxie have loved it, David?’
I’m not convinced that Maxie even liked Abba, to be honest, but I’m certain he’d have got a kick out of the buzzing crowd, and the electric atmosphere, were he here. But he wasn’t.
On the afternoon before our opening-night triumph, Geoff Boswell, Maxie’s dad, had apparently announced to his family that he’d been relocated, after a vehement reshuffle at Stationery Universe had left the company wanting in one of their smaller concerns just outside Lytham St Annes. Evidently Vi Boswell had scarcely waited for her old man to peruse the letter before she’d packed up her bits and pieces, alerted the estate agent and enrolled poor Maxie in a high-achieving mixed comprehensive in Ormskirk. They’d put their house up for rent and vacated it within about two weeks and, according to Maxie, had been so wildly keen to do so that Vi had not even given her recently lain and hitherto much cherished peach shagpile a second glance backward.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was – Maxie was gone, and, after a certain amount of lip service implying unwavering devotion and a few desultory phone calls, so was Maxie’s apparent zeal for our so-called romance. It had stung at first, and for a short while, as having one’s heart ripped out might tend to. Then, on the night I threw Frances a glam-rock-themed birthday party and sleepover at number twenty-two Chesterfield Street, her dashing next-door neighbour, Warren, boldly invited himself to stay, sharing my bed in the shortage.
A boy of mixed race, Warren boasted glossy, poker-straight black hair and lips with a trampoline bounce, and he had behaved unexpectedly and gloriously improperly for a blindside flanker during the night, and well into the hours of dawn. He then cheerily reported to me, as he pulled on his Farrahs that morning, that I had definitely – and I might be paraphrasing here – brought him off better than his bird ever had. This was quite an accolade, I felt, and served to bring me notion and hop
e of pastures new, boyfriend-wise: onwards and upwards, I thought.
That very same bright week, there had been splendid reports of the downfall of Bob Lord at the Board of Teacher Governors’ extraordinary meeting to determine the new Head of Fifth Year, Miss Jibbs having point-blank refused to return from her auntie Iris’ chalet in the Vale of Glamorgan after a stress-related depression that led to Bell’s palsy. Mr Lord had attempted to convince all and sundry that he would be taking over from the afflicted Miss Jibbs, insisting that he was the only man for the job. Bob came unstuck, however, when facing the board – which, chaired by the headmaster, also consisted of Hamish McClarnon, Mr Peacock and a couple of the more left-wing members of staff, who felt that he might not possess the nurturing disposition required to handle the gaping array of teenage issues that he could well be called upon to deal with.
‘I’m afraid that as a unanimous vote of the board is required,’ Hamish had seemingly told a crestfallen Mr Lord, ‘you’ll not be offered the position you’ve applied for in this school.’
Word has it that Bob Lord’s resignation was on the head’s desk that afternoon.
Things are ticking over favourably on the home front, too, on the whole. Mum and Aunt Val are no different than they were before my coming out, apart from the fact that now they try to get me to admit that I do, in fact, lust after Paul Michael Glaser and hadn’t just wanted to get my hands on the knitting pattern for the cardigan after all. Even Dad seems to have resigned himself to the inevitable, this highlighted by an incident at the Lordship Lane Working Men’s Club last Thursday night, on my shift during the ladies’ darts match. I was enthusing to Denise about a well-endowed French acrobat I’d spotted on The Generation Game, when an unfamiliar man waiting to be served – a thickset and rather puffy individual with an unruly tone – turned to my dad, who was also propping up the bar, and snorted, ‘Who’s the fuckin’ faggot serving behind the jump?’
An older woman standing next to my dad and holding a barley wine turned and met the man’s eye with a toxic stare.
‘That’s my grandson,’ Nan said.
‘Yeah, so fuck off!’ Dad supplemented.
And he did.
* * *
‘Wooooooooooh!’
Frances is shrieking and making a complete show of herself as synthesizer swells build and then suddenly consume the arena before melting into a spectacular refrain, the crowd’s ovation duly rapturous.
‘I can’t believe we’re here, about to watch Abba, can you?’ Frances says, almost tearfully.
‘No, I can’t! I really can’t.’
Now drums … now bass … now guitars … everyone is on their feet, except for me – I’m strangely frozen. Now lights … now screams!
‘Get up!’ Frances hollers. ‘It’s starting – they’re on! They’re on!’
And I leap out of my seat, and then there they are …
‘People everywhere, sense of expectation hanging in the air …’
And we’re off!
About the Author
South London teenager Terry Ronald had dreams of becoming a writer until music, his other passion in life, steered him in a slightly different direction. He began his recording career in 1990 when he was signed to MCA Records with a top-ten single around Europe, ‘Calm The Rage’, and an acclaimed album, Roma. As a songwriter, producer and vocal arranger he has since had success with some of the biggest names in pop, including Girls Aloud and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. More recently Terry has co-written songs for the BBC TV musical comedy series Beautiful People, working with a cast that included Elaine Paige and Meera Syal.
Terry’s varied experience with vocal production means that he is often called upon for television programmes and music events alike, which have included the Brit Awards, Eurovision and, in 2007, The X Factor, which he joined as a guest judge alongside Dannii Minogue. Terry has been part of the creative teams on two West End shows: Rent Remixed, starring Denise Van Outen and Jessie Wallace, and The Hurly Burly Show, which reopens at the Garrick Theatre in March 2011.
During the summer of 2009, Terry finally set aside time to start work on the book he’d always dreamed of writing. The result is his début novel, Becoming Nancy. Terry still lives in South-east London with his husband, Mark.
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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Bantam Press an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Terry Ronald 2011
Terry Ronald has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
‘(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear’ written by Gary Valentine. Published by Jiru Music Inc/Monster Island Music/Chrysalis Music © 1977. ‘The Logical Song’. Words and Music by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson. Copyright © 1979 ALMO MUSIC CORP. and DELICATE MUSIC. All Rights Controlled and Administered by ALMO MUSIC CORP. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation. ‘In The Flesh’ words and music by Deborah Harry and Christopher Stein © Artemis Muziekuitgeverij B.V. (Bum/Ste) and Jiru Music Inc. All rights administered by Warner Chappell Music Ltd. ‘Gangsters’ (Dammers / Hall / Planter / Golding / Bradbury / Staples / Byers) © 1979 Plangent Visions Music Limited. ‘On My Radio’ © 1979 Davies. Reproduced by kind permission of Fairwood Music (UK) Ltd. ‘Kid’ words and music by Chrissie Hynde © 1979, reproduced by permission of EMI Music Publishing Ltd, London W8 5SW. ‘Am I Ever Gonna Fall in Love in New York City’ words by Jack Robinson & Vivienne Savoie/Music by James Bolden © 1977 Robin Song Music. Reproduced by permission of Peermusic Ltd. ‘Voulez Vous’ by Anderson/Ulvaeus quoted by permission of Bocu Music Ltd.
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781407084077
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