by Mikey Walsh
Around the rest of the family Joseph acted as though we were friends who shared a secret; winking, joking and acting as though my silence meant I liked the things he did.
I was trapped. But it wasn’t Joseph that I feared most. It was what my father would do if I didn’t do as Joseph said. As long as I played the game, Joseph told my father I had worked hard and done well. That’s how it worked.
At the campsite Frankie and I were no longer alone. As more plots were completed, more families arrived, and we children became an inseparable clan. A year after we first moved in the site was finished and it seemed we had finally settled somewhere that we could stay.
Coming back to the camp from anywhere else was like entering into another world: a full-scale exotic trailer-filled town, created and built by Gypsies for Gypsies. Fresh concrete had been poured on top of the mud that had once been everywhere, and a smart road of jet-black tarmac flowed right through it. At the main entrance the walls curved and spiralled ingeniously like frozen waves. At the very tip of each solid wave stood the life-sized stone head of a wild horse, peering like a milky-eyed guardian at the people passing below. And inside, the plots were no longer marked out with red string, but with scarlet brick walls, eight feet tall, surrounding each home like gigantic theatrical curtains.
We were still at St Luke’s School, with Jamie-Leigh Bowers, our cousins Olive and Twizzel and a few of the other children from the site. None of the other kids liked school, and I pretended not to, but secretly I needed it as a refuge; it kept me from being at home, or with Joseph.
Our parents saw school as a place where we had to go, because the law said so, and they didn’t care whether we learned anything there. My mother was the exception, she wanted me to read and write, and so did Mrs Kerr, who encouraged me and tried to help, whenever I was in her class.
Ever since the accident in class and the knickers moment, she had fought my corner and encouraged my artistic skills, and she stuck up for me when the school bully, Scott Leemer, had a go at me. She even gave me a wink when we were taken to the Head’s office for a telling off.
I came to love Mrs Kerr. She was the only person who showed me tenderness and affection. To have one person believe in me and encourage me to be whatever I wanted to be was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.
My education was patchy, to say the least, but I did manage to learn the alphabet well enough to recognise the look and sound of each letter, and to read and write a few three-letter words: dog, cat, run. But most of all I enjoyed art. Drawing people fascinated me and I could do a good pencil portrait.
I wished I could go to school every day, but although I was supposed to go four days a week, it often ended up being just one or two. I would be given jobs about the plot, or sent to the scrapyard for an extra day, while the girls were kept back and trained in how to run a home.
When we did get to school we were either ignored or picked on by the other kids. Only lunchtime gave us a break, because we had our own dinner table. No one else dared to sit there, in case they found themselves cursed, robbed blind or with some kind of monstrous Pikey disease.
When it came to the staff Mrs Kerr was in a minority of one. Even the dinner ladies hated us. Every day they made sure we were the last to be asked to queue for food, which meant we only got what was left by all the other kids. The ladies behind the counter would glare as they slapped the dried-up remains onto our plates. A slice of spam fritter, without the fritter, was a rare treat.
Mrs Bannerman was the head dinner lady. We called her Old Pig’s Head and it suited her. She had a dyed orange comb-over and a permanently sour face.
One lunchtime Jamie-Leigh and Olive and Twizzel returned from the queue. Twizzel was cackling and pointing at Olive’s tray. ‘You got a feather up your arse?’ said Frankie, drowning her food in tomato sauce.
‘Look what dat old cunt’s just give me ferr me dinner.’
We leaned over to look at what looked scarily like a chain-smoker’s lung. Olive picked up a fork and prodded the black lump, which sank to the plate like a melting witch. ‘Old piggy wotsit made her have it!’
We opened up our yogurt cartons, licking the lids and discussing where we would play after school. Frankie wanted to venture out of our camp to explore the grounds of the mental home next door.
She aimed her empty yogurt pot at me like a cannon. ‘You have to as well, Mikey. If I get killed by me dad, then I ain’t going through it on my own.’
‘I wanted to go anyway,’ I insisted.
Cheers of agreement flew around the table.
Then Mrs Bannerman appeared. ‘Just what is all this commotion about?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Twizzel, narrowing her eyes.
‘Good. Then pick up that cutlery and eat your food. That’s if you are accustomed to using cutlery.’ She glared at us, before marching away.
‘Old cunt,’ said Jamie-Leigh through her teeth, dropping a spoon into her yogurt pot. She pulled in her cheeks making a digging sound in her throat and spat a slug of rubbery green slime into her yogurt pot.
‘Miss, this yogurt’s gone off.’
Old Pig’s Head turned and came back to the table. She snatched the pot from Jamie-Leigh’s hand and picked up a clean spoon, then stirred slowly through the mush before raising a loaded spoonful to her mouth.
‘Tastes fine to me, Miss Bowers. Maybe next time you won’t be so fussy.’
She stalked off, as we cried with laughter.
At playtime we would all meet in the girls’ toilet so that the girls could grab a sly after lunch cigarette – most of them, including Frankie, were experienced smokers by the age of ten.
One break time Olive, our nominated look-out that day, was spotted by Mrs Bannerman, who gave chase. Olive raced into the girls’ toilets to warn us, slamming the door open so hard that it smashed into Jamie-Leigh’s front teeth. Jamie-Leigh’s head flew back, blood all over her mouth. She put her arm into her mouth to stop herself screaming and leaned against the door. Seconds later Mrs Bannerman barged through the door.
‘Aaargh! My tooth.’
I stood, slack-jawed and in total awe of Jamie-Leigh’s deviousness.
‘You spiteful old witch. Look what you’ve done!’ she sobbed.
Mrs Bannerman fell back against the wall in shock; her hands flew to her mouth as she peered around the side of the door to where Jamie-Leigh was cupping a tooth in a small pool of blood in her hand. The blood trickled between her fingers and down her arms. At that point two other dinner ladies came in, giving Mrs Bannerman disapproving looks, as they escorted Jamie-Leigh off to the nurse.
When we took our seats on the carpet in Mrs Kerr’s classroom that afternoon, Jamie-Leigh was still with the nurse, waiting for her mother to come and collect her. The school assistant came in to warn Mrs Kerr that she had arrived.
Seconds later the sound of Aunt Audrey’s stiletto heels echoed through the school. She swung into our classroom, tossing her black hair and throwing her mink stole over her shoulder. She was wearing more diamonds than clothes, which was typical for her. She eyed Mrs Kerr like a cobra. ‘Where’s my Jamie-Leigh?’
Mrs Kerr rose from her seat. ‘Oh, hello Mrs Bowers.’
‘Oh, fuck off will you,’ Aunt Audrey snapped. She had an accent that sounded like a fork dragging across a plate.
Mrs Kerr tried to edge her out of the room, but at that moment Aunt Audrey spotted us on the carpet. ‘Hiya kids!’ she squealed, waving a heavily bejewelled hand.
Mrs Kerr took Aunt Audrey to where Jamie-Leigh was, before coming back to take her seat for register. She had to raise her voice to drown out the profanities ringing through the school corridors, as Aunt Audrey saw the damage to her child.
After that the teachers banned us from going indoors during breaks, so we moved our lunchtime rendezvous to a small brick maze which was hidden from the school playground and had plenty of nooks to hide – and smoke – in.
We kept ourselves to ourselves bec
ause more often than not our contact with the Gorgia kids ended in an exchange of taunts, insults and scraps. And sometimes fully fledged fights broke out. The girls were almost always the main targets of the prejudice. And they could never let a bad comment go. No matter how big, ugly or threatening the bully, our girls would never back down from a fight.
A lot of nasty comments were aimed at me, but as long as the girls weren’t around to hear it, I would turn a deaf ear. But when the girls were involved and things became heated, I would be called on to step in and defend their honour. It was my duty as the boy. I hated violence; I couldn’t stand it. But I could never seem to escape it. At home, at work, and now even at school, there was always someone who wanted to beat me up.
There was an important lesson I had been taught about fighting, and strangely it had not come from my father, but from my mother.
‘Never throw a punch. Never be a bully. Never go looking for a fight. But if anyone ever hits you and it hurts, then they deserve to be hit back.’
I tried to stick to this. And on those occasions when I did have to hit back, I had one big advantage – what the little monsters who bullied us didn’t know, was that my tolerance for physical pain was far higher than theirs.
I soon discovered that most of those I had to fight were just a lot of hot air. They bullied anyone who showed fear, but if you fought back, they turned out to be cowards.
The number one bully at the school was Scott Leemer. Most of the kids either admired him for his quiff, like Danny Zuko from Grease, and his thuggish ways, or steered clear of the gang of little thugs he headed. His right-hand man was Jenny Hardy. A girl in name only, almost as feared and loathed by most of us as Scott was.
One playtime I arrived at the maze to find them waiting for me. The gang, who were all older than me, surrounded me and began to close in. Then Scott walked in, handed his jacket to another kid, and began leaping around, bashing his fists together like a cartoon boxer.
I thought he looked pathetic compared to the boys at the boxing club.
He threw some pretend punches to make me flinch. ‘I hear you’re hard, Gypsy boy.’
He walked up to me and pushed me with both hands, and I fell over. A crowd was gathering around us. I spotted the girls, peering through the crowd, each looking a little worse for wear. Frankie’s face was red and tear-stained and her lip was bleeding. Her pretty pigtails had been yanked about and undone.
‘Kill him!’ she screamed.
I looked over at Scott, who was circling with his arms in the air, working the crowd like a pro. ‘Shall I do it?’ He was laughing.
They howled and screeched, shaking their fists in a primal excitement, hungry for Gypsy blood.
Above the noise, I could hear the girls, screaming ‘Kill him, Mikey, kill him.’
As the only Gypsy boy in school, I knew I was sworn to fight for the girls, and for the honour of our culture, no matter what. Scott was much bigger than me. My heart was pounding and my mouth felt dry. But one thought, above all others, stood out in my mind: if I lose, my father will surely find out about it. And a bashing from this boy would be nothing to what I would get from him.
Suddenly I saw red. I imagined I was back in the ring with Paddy, the crowd shouting and cheering around us. At that moment Scott’s first two punches landed on me. Winded, I doubled over. He stood back, taunting and jeering and running around the circle doing high fives. A tear slid down my cheek.
The crowd started to chant. ‘Gypos go home, Gypos go home!’
Scott turned back to finish me off. I looked round and saw Frankie, Olive and Twizzel being pinned down by some of the bigger boys, as several other boys held a raging Jamie-Leigh while Jenny Hardy threw punches at her face.
I turned back to Scott, who was laughing. He raised his fists, and so did I. We circled one another, before he kissed his fist and went in for a punch. The chorus swelled as he turned back to finish me off.
‘You stinking … Gypsy … bastards; coming here and ruining our school. You make me sick.’ He hit me square in the stomach. Bent towards me he gave me a perfect opportunity. I grabbed his mane of hair and locked my fists there.
The crowd started to groan, as Scott screamed and fell to his knees, shouting and trying to grab my arms. He dug his nails into my fingers, but I wasn’t letting go.
I saw my father’s yellow eyes and felt the sting of his bamboo cane falling on my skin. I thought of Joseph, groaning with pleasure, not caring about the pain and fear he inflicted on me.
With strength I didn’t know I had, I lifted him off the ground and began to swing him round by his hair, faster and faster, in a dizzying circle. He was screaming at the top of his voice and I could feel his scalp was bleeding, but nothing was going to stop me now. Fury surged through me and I swung him until tufts of his hair came out in my hands and he flew backwards into the horrified crowd.
As they parted and then ran for cover, Jenny Hardy ran towards me, her face contorted with rage. I drew back my fist and launched it into her chest, sending her hurtling to the floor. As she landed, Jamie-Leigh, Frankie and the other two girls pounced, tearing wildly at her face, hair, clothes and body like a pack of furious she-wolves.
Scott was sitting on the ground, sobbing, a clump of his hair in his hand. ‘Look what you’ve done to me,’ he shouted.
I walked away. I was trembling with the effort of what I’d done. But I felt exhilarated. Then the dinner ladies pounced, and we were all sent to the headmaster’s office.
Judging by its compact size, Mr Wadsworth’s office had not catered for so many misbehaving children at once. Of course we Gypsies had been there before. In fact we knew his office as well as we knew our classrooms; we appeared there most days for some misdemeanour or other.
Sitting in the corner was Dotty Quinlan, a girl rumoured to have been struck by lightning, and always in trouble because of her fondness for painting with faeces. She was sitting in her usual seat, knees tightly together and dressed in a Dorothy pinafore, with enormous spectacles and a haircut like a thatched cottage. She never spoke to us; she just buried her head beneath the neck of her dress like an old tortoise.
Mr Wadsworth was in such a fury he had completely lost the ability to speak an audible sentence. As he stood behind his desk, shouting, the only part I could hear clearly was the ‘Do you understand?’ bit at the end.
At that point, Jamie-Leigh chose to release a colossal fart into the room. She laughed out loud, showing off her new, pointy front teeth, as the impact ricocheted off the base of her chair. Laughter spread throughout the room and Mr Wadsworth cupped his head in his hands as we wiped tears from our hysterical faces.
It was clear that our headmaster had come to the end of his tether with the battle of Gorgias versus Gypsies. It was never going to be resolved. No matter how well we Gypsy children behaved, no matter how much we tried to stay out of trouble, there would always be someone wanting to have a go at us, and being proud of who we were, we could never let it go.
11
Kevin
One day Tyrone Donoghue came home with a young homeless man he had spotted outside Harrods, the posh department store in London. Gypsies and Travellers often pick up their workmen – known as dossas – from the streets of big cities, most commonly London, and take them home to help with their general chores and any kind of dodgy deed they may be plotting. A homeless man can’t refuse if someone carrying Harrods bags offers him a place to stay and money in his pocket every week.
So Kevin was ushered into the back of Tyrone Donoghue’s van and brought back to Warren Woods.
The dread on his face was even clearer than the dirt on it when he stepped out of the vehicle and saw all of us staring back at him as if he was an alien. And that’s exactly what he was. A tall, gangly boy, his hair combed into a neat side-parting and wearing clothes that were too small for him, he wasn’t a Gypsy like us, which put him into a different world instantly. And he was soon made very aware of how inhumane the travellers
of Mr Donoghue’s kind were to a mere Gorgia man. Dossas were considered beneath both Gypsies and Travellers, and were generally despised. But Mr Donoghue took their treatment to a new low with his cruelty towards Kevin.
In a matter of days, Kevin was sleeping in the back of the van that had brought him and was being terrorised daily by Mr Donoghue, his wife and five children. Scared of saying no or of standing up to their cruel demands, Kevin spent twelve hours a day painting, washing cars, walking and feeding fierce dogs, shovelling bricks, cement, dirt and mortar, laying tarmac single handed and even towing the Donoghue children around on a cart like a Shire horse.
He never refused, but he was still beaten regularly. Mr Donoghue would punch him just because he’d had a bad day at work. The children pelted him with stones and Mrs Donoghue refused to have him eat off her own plates and gave him one of the dogs’ dishes.
My father, being a friend and regular pub-going accomplice of Mr Donoghue, regularly witnessed the terrible life Kevin led at the hands of the Donoghue clan.
One day, sick of his modest tool shed, and in need of a helping hand to put up a bigger one, my father asked Mr Donoghue if he could borrow Kevin for a morning.
‘Of course, Frank, and if he gives you any trouble, or don’t shift his weight for you, drag him back up here to me,’ Mr Donoghue said.
Once Kevin was out of sight of his owner, he broke down, pleading to my father to save him. ‘I’ll work for you for nothing, Frank. Please help me.’
‘I’ll try, my boy. I’ll try,’ whispered my father.
He gave him a pat on the back, threw me a stiff glance and they both went about their work.
I stared after them, astonished. It seemed that Kevin had somehow got through to my unmerciful and cruel father. Sure enough, that evening down at the pub, my father dosed Mr Donoghue with whisky and made him an offer of a hundred pounds for Kevin to work for him instead. Mr Donoghue gave in and they shook on it.
They spent the hundred pounds in the next hour, and Frankie and I awoke the next morning to find Kevin cleaning our window. We both gave him a wave. He waved back, and despite his bruises and a thick lip, he had a beaming smile that lit up his face.
