Today is my birthday. Sixteen. Mum, Nan and Aunt Val have decided that a ‘nice family dinner’ is in order to celebrate the fact, though I’m not altogether sure to which nice family they might be referring: surely not ours at the present time?
‘Who do you want to invite? You can invite anyone you like,’ Mum had said last week, a few days after the appalling debacle with Maxie in my bedroom. I’d thought about it for a moment.
‘I’d like to invite Judith Chalmers, and Anni-Frid from Abba,’ I said, ‘and that’s about the sum of it.’
Aunt Val had whacked me playfully about the ear with a tea towel, and then she chased me into Nan’s scullery, giggling and flicking me with it as she went. Nan was loitering purposefully around her gas cooker with a variety of pans and cooking apparatus. She was trying out a recipe for jugged lamb that she’d seen on a rerun of The Galloping Gourmet – with a queen of puddings to follow – so me and Mum had been summoned in for the result.
‘Be serious,’ Aunt Val said, leaning against the sink. ‘It’ll be nice getting the whole family together for your sixteenth, won’t it, Kath?’
Mum nodded eagerly, but all I could think about was my dad, who apart from one miserable and brief conversation, had barely spoken a word to me during the entire week. I didn’t imagine for one solitary moment that he would be in the slightest bit interested in celebrating my birthday, or anything else, come to that.
‘Come and sit at the table, and we’ll write down a party plan: guest list, grub, et cetera,’ Mum enthused, waving a rather down-at-heel Basildon Bond notepad. ‘It doesn’t have to be a sit-down; I could do a running buffet if you like, Dave.’
I never understood what that was, anyway – a running buffet – I mean, where exactly was it running, and from what?
We pulled up chairs around Nan’s 1940s kitchen table, which was by the big window that looked out on to the Whisky Mac rosebush Grandad had planted a year or so before he died. Mum whipped out a black felt-tip.
‘Come and sit with us, Mum, and we’ll decide on who’s doing what food,’ she yelled, but Nan’s mind was seemingly elsewhere, and she appeared to be quite eerily spellbound by one simmering pot in particular.
‘I won’t, lovey,’ she replied from the scullery. ‘Shout up from where you are. I’ve just got me veg on the go, and it’s very easy to take your eye off the ball with a French bean, I find.’
‘All right then!’ Mum said. ‘Guest list first. Who’s coming?’
‘Well, there’s all of us,’ Aunt Val said, counting people out on her burgundy-painted fingers. ‘Chrissy and her bloke …’
‘He’s not fucking coming,’ I snapped. ‘No way. It’s my birthday dinner, and he’s not coming.’
Mum and Val stared at me blankly.
‘Why the hell not?’ Mum said, somewhat stunned.
‘Well, Chrissy’s broken up with him for a start,’ I said, ‘and besides—’
‘They’re back together as far as I know, David,’ Nan interrupted from the stove. ‘Well, they were yesterday teatime if all the face-sucking in my lean-to was anything to go by.’
She had to be kidding, surely. Back together with Squirrel after what he’d done?
‘Who else do you want to come, Dave?’ Mum said. ‘Frances? Your mate Maxie?’
I mulled it over in my head for a second. There was no way Frances was going to set foot anywhere near Squirrel, or Toby as we now knew him, and the chances of Maxie appearing at my house after what had happened a few days earlier were pretty slim, to say the least – in fact, I’d barely seen him the last few days outside lessons. What a rip-roaring birthday party this is going to be, I thought. After I’d deliberated for a few more seconds, I had a brainwave, though.
‘Abigail!’ I announced resolutely. ‘I’d like to invite Chrissy’s friend Abigail.’
Nan popped her head in from the scullery, her glasses now completely steamed up.
‘Ooh! Are you sweet on her, then, David? She’s a nice-looking thing, I suppose. Bit of a tarty piece, mind you.’
Yes, and that’s precisely it, Nan, I thought. I couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t thought of it before, but Abigail would make the most perfectly convincing beard! It could be like an old-fashioned lavender marriage, and Abigail would be the Phyllis Gates to my Rock Hudson. Surely if Dad saw me cosying up to Abigail at my own birthday dinner, he’d swallow hook line and sinker all the hogwash I’d urgently fed him that afternoon after the incident with Maxie: the stuff about being confused, and needing a nice girl to set me straight – perhaps he’d actually believe it. Yes! Perhaps Abigail could even stay over! I could surely put up with that for one lousy night if it meant throwing Eddie off the scent. The scent of pansy!
There was no denying it had been a fairly grim scenario when I’d followed Dad out into the pigeon loft on that grey afternoon last week, and at first I thought he might cry as he stood there tenderly cosseting his favourite bird, Rasputin. Then, on a second look, I decided that the mist in his eyes was born of anger: I’d seen him like that before, with Mum – so passionately furious there were almost tears.
‘It wasn’t what it looked like, Dad,’ I’d said softly.
I’m not really sure why I said that; it was an oft-trotted-out cliché I’d heard on Crossroads a thousand times, and it had never once had the desired effect.
‘So what was it, then?’ Eddie retorted. ‘It was quite obvious to me what you’d both been up to. Trousers undone; the look on your faces when I walked in. You weren’t playing Mousetrap, were ya?’
‘We hadn’t actually done anything, Dad,’ I said, trying desperately to be humble. ‘I don’t really know what I was thinking, I just got confused. I expect you can’t remember being fifteen, your hormones are racing and you just want to try things out, and they’re not always the right things but you do them anyway …’
Eddie’s face was pallid and stony. I’d hurt him.
‘And how often do you try that out?’ he said.
‘Never!’ I shout. ‘I never have, and we didn’t then … honest! We just got a bit carried away talking about sex and stuff and then you came home, and that was all there was to it. Really!’
I wondered for a moment if my nose might be shooting out from my face like Pinocchio. Why the hell didn’t I just bite the bullet and fucking tell him – get it over with? Instead I gingerly stroked a nearby pigeon while Eddie put Rasputin back in his little stall, and then rubbed his bristly chin against the palm of his hand.
‘I could arrange for you to see someone,’ he eventually said, looking directly at me.
Who, I thought, Raquel Welch?
‘A psychiatrist or something,’ he said, and I suddenly felt sick.
‘I don’t need that,’ I said. ‘I think I just need to meet the right girl to go out on a date with, or something. I’ve not had a girlfriend really, and I think that’s why I …’
Dad was shaking his head slowly, and looking down, and out of the blue I felt like shouting, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eddie, I’ve not fucking killed anyone – pull yourself together, you soft wanker.’
However, I didn’t. I said, ‘You won’t tell Mum about this, will you?’
‘I won’t tell your mother,’ he said. ‘But I warned you. I don’t want to catch you doing anything like that again. And it’s best if that Maxie boy doesn’t come over here any more either. Do you understand?’
I nodded.
‘I do understand … and thanks, Dad.’
I’m not completely sure what I was thanking him for, to be honest. For not killing me, possibly; certainly for not throwing a mad fucking fit, or tearing down all my posters like he did when I was nine and I’d accidentally set fire to my blue nylon bedspread during ‘teddy bears’ firework party’ – which involved my drag queen of an Action Man, Chrissy’s Penny Puppywalker doll and sundry stuffed toys sitting on my bed while me and Chrissy switched the light off and threw lit matches into the air. I suppose I was thanking him for staying calm, really, disconcerting though it was.
Anyway, here I am on my sixteenth birthday, on the blower to Abigail Henson, all but begging her to come over for my birthday dinner this evening.
‘I don’t know why I should,’ she’s saying in a voice that might curdle milk. ‘I’ve told you already that I think you’re a sexist pig who uses girls and then chucks them away once they’ve pleasured you to your satisfaction, David Starr. Give me one good reason why I should bloody come.’
‘Well, you know I think a great deal of you, Abigail, don’t you?’ I lie. ‘And my mum said you can stop over if you want.’
As if that might entice her.
‘Stop over?’ she shrieks. ‘In Chrissy’s room with that filthy gerbil of hers rummaging about in its fucking cage all night? No ta very much! I don’t do rodentia at the best of times: I’d come up in hives – I’m very allergic.’
‘No, not in Chrissy’s room, in my room,’ I gabble. ‘We can stay up late and listen to ‘Eat to the Beat’, I’ve just got it for my birthday. Come on, it’ll be a hoot – we’re having a cake, and wine. We can get to know one another better.’
There’s a tomblike silence for a while, and then Abigail says, ‘In your room?’
‘Yes, my room.’
‘And there’s cake?’
‘Yes … well … lemon meringue, cos that’s my favourite, but we’ll most likely jam some candles in it at some point.’
‘All right then,’ she says grudgingly. ‘I suppose I could put in an appearance if there’s a meringue in the offing. What’s the dress code?’
‘Cocktail chic,’ I say off the top of my head.
‘So, hot pants all right, then?’ she says.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you here about seven.’
I’m a smooth talker, me, when I want to be.
As it pans out, Squirrel hasn’t turned up to my birthday dinner anyway – which I’m quite chuffed about, but if I’d known I would have pestered Frances to toddle over after all. I’ve decided, for the sake of keeping the peace this evening, to tackle Chrissy on the subject of Squirrel afterwards – when we’re on our own – and find out just exactly what the hell she thinks she’s doing stepping out with the little thug again. Anyway, in the end the assembled motley cast sitting around Mother’s brand-new repro Regency dining table this evening turns out to be just our family, including, of course, Nan and Aunt Val – plus my special guest, Abigail, who as we speak is licking Marie Rose sauce off the rather showy bell sleeve of her crochet cardigan. She catches my eye across the table as I finish off my own prawn cocktail, and wipes a smudge of the creamy mixture from the corner of her mouth with her middle finger. Then she brazenly sticks the finger between her lips, which have formed a perfect O, and winks at me. I smile back at her cheesily, but – truth be told – I’m perilously close to vomiting, though I dare not let on as she’s doing me a big favour even being here, little does she know, and Dad certainly seems to be going for it too.
‘Why don’t you go and sit over next to David, Abi?’ he says, placing his shrimp fork on the table and supping lager from a can. ‘You keep staring at one another – I think David’s got the horn by the look on his face.’
‘Oh, Eddie!’ my nan grimaces, ‘for Gawd’s sake!’
I’m mortified.
‘Ooh, Mr Starr! You’ll ’ave me blushing,’ Abigail trills.
Jesus Christ! She sounds like Ruby the scullery maid from Upstairs, Downstairs might after a surprise tap on the bottom from the young master while she was blacking the parlour grate. Still, I’d best play along.
‘Yes, do come and sit here next to me, Abigail,’ I say, coming over all Queen Mother. ‘You’re so far away over there at the other end of the table.’
The other end of Southend pier would be preferable, if you want the truth. Anyway, over she comes, and as soon as she sits down she puts her over-bejewelled paw right between my thighs under the table. She’s plainly going for it tonight, and has consequently trowelled on the Max Factor and curled her hair into the most terrifying ringlets this side of Nellie Oleson.
‘That’s better,’ Eddie grins, and Mum gives him a funny look.
I’m smiling through gritted teeth meanwhile.
‘What’s for main course, Kath? I never did find out,’ Nan suddenly says, pushing her barely touched prawn cocktail asunder in evident repugnance. ‘I tend to struggle with a crustacean these days. They make me bilious.’
‘Just a simple roast, Mum, for main,’ my mother replies, and she commences clearing the first-course crockery from the table. ‘David requested that we have bloody roasted quail wrapped in prosciutto,’ she goes on, ‘but I hadn’t a clue what prosciutto was, and as it turned out, Wallis’s didn’t run to a quail anyway, so we’re ’avin’ beef.’
Nan looks mildly intrigued.
‘Oh, nice, and is that wrapped in anything?’ she says.
‘Yes, love, it’s wrapped in tinfoil,’ says Mum, and then she looks over at Eddie.
‘And before you start,’ she says to him, ‘I’ve done two separate gravies: one pissy for you, and another one with a bit more substance to it for the rest of us.’
Then she clatters noisily out of the room, balancing a tray piled high with Pyrex, while Dad rolls his eyes at Chrissy, who is clearly sulking about Squirrel’s absence because she’s wearing her pork-pie hat pulled down over her eyes at the table. Turning his attention back to Abigail, but addressing her breasts rather than her face, Dad says, ‘So I hear you’re staying over with us tonight, Abi, in David’s room.’
Abigail nods eagerly, and then Eddie says, ‘I hope you two are not gonna be getting up to anything too dirty up there.’
And he winks at her nauseatingly, and gulps down some more Heineken.
‘What, like repotting an azalea?’ Nan says. ‘What the bloody hell do you think they’ll be getting up to, Eddie? They’re just kids.’
Eddie lets out a derisory snort, and even I have to suppress a chortle. Bless Nan’s heart – if only she knew what had gone on in that bedroom in the last few weeks, it’d make her hair go straight. Aunt Val suddenly sits up, back stiff, and looks all confused.
‘What? Are you and her dating then, or something?’ she says to me.
‘Not properly yet,’ Abigail offers, before I can open my mouth. ‘But we’ve definitely laid the ground sheet, so I don’t reckon it’ll be long now, eh, Dave?’
Ye gods, has she gone mental? I asked her round for dinner, not to peruse the Pronuptia catalogue, for fuck’s sake. Now Aunt Val is looking even more confused.
‘Really?’ she says. ‘I’m quite surprised. I wouldn’t have thought you were our Dave’s cup of tea – no offence – but he generally goes for yer raven-haired types: green eyes, full lips …’
‘Stubble …’ Chrissy suggests under her breath, and I shoot her a puzzled look. What does she know? Fortunately Dad’s oblivious, so I decide to jump in before this line of dialogue can go any further.
‘Well, let’s just see how things go,’ I say grandly, while reaching for the wine across the table. ‘And let’s not embarrass poor Abigail now, eh?’
Like that would ever be a possibility.
‘Well, as long as you watch him, Abi,’ Dad chuckles. ‘He’s a filthy little fucker; he’s always nicking my dirty books …’
Oh, Christ, no!
‘Mind you, he’s never in the bathroom that long wiv’ ’em, so I wouldn’t count on his staying power.’
Please let me just die now. Just let me die, right now.
‘Oh, fucking shut up, Eddie, it’s his birthday,’ Aunt Val says, coming to my rescue, but Eddie won’t let it drop.
‘What?’ he says, after gulping down yet another can of lager. ‘It’s natural for boys to masturbate. Nothing wrong with that – he’s always at it.’
Oh, Jesus! Why is he torturing me like this? Does he really fucking hate me that much? Is this his insipid way of getting back at me for the incident with Maxie? Nan and Aunt Val are visibly horrified by Eddie’s blatant outburst of vulgarity, and Nan puts her hands over her ears, wincing.
‘Eddie, put a bloody sock in it,’ Aunt Val says. ‘That’s vile talk!’
But Abigail just giggles and waves a saucy finger at me as if to say ‘naughty boy!’
Just then Mum comes back into the room holding aloft the most beautifully cooked and trimmed joint of roast beef on a gargantuan green and gold platter. That, at least, seems to shut Eddie up.
‘That looks really great, Mum,’ I say, genuinely thrilled, and I clear a space on the table.
She’s made it so nice for me, Mum has, and I hadn’t even noticed – too bloody busy trying to fend off Abigail and my dad – but it’s gorgeous. She’s laid out the lace tablecloth she got when she went on a trip to Bruges last year, and she’s made the paper napkins into little red fan shapes. She’s even got the posh cutlery out of the blue velvet box that’s sat in the sideboard for years, and I note that she’s borrowed Nan’s silver candelabra and has put it right in the centre of the table next to a white china bowl of my grandad’s roses. Even Nan and Aunt Val have dolled themselves up to the nines just to pop two doors along. Nan is wearing her best peacock-blue shift dress with her favourite brooch, and Aunt Val has settled on a flared trouser suit in ivory. Mum’s in midi-length red chiffon, which some people couldn’t get away with – but she can – and they all look divine in the blush of the candles. I suddenly feel very grown up and resolve to push aside my father’s malicious attempts to humiliate me.
Things go fair to middling through the beef course, but by the time we get to the meringue and are singing ‘Happy Birthday’ it’s gone ten, and I can tell that Mum and Dad have both, alas, had one over the eight, as per. For a start, Dad’s got that sort of wild-eyed stare he gets – it’s a bit like an irate African tribal mask – and he’s had it fixed right on me for the past two or three minutes: he’s clearly not happy. Mum is squinting slightly, which I generally take to be a bad sign, and she keeps brushing her fringe away from her forehead like she’s swatting a fly.
‘Are you gonna go and see David in the play, Abigail?’ she says, oblivious to Dad’s burgeoning fetid disposition, and sipping what must be her ninth or tenth glass of Blue Nun. ‘He’s ’ad me making his dress, you know,’ she laughs.
‘I expect I shall,’ Abi says. ‘When is it?’
Dad tuts loudly and lets his pastry fork clang noisily on to his empty pudding dish.
‘Only a couple of weeks off,’ I say brightly, trying to ignore him. ‘I’ve still got so much of it to learn, though. I’ve been rehearsing with Maxie on and off for …’
Now why did I say that? Why? I chance a look over at Eddie, who is now glaring at me with a face like winter thunder, and I wriggle fearfully in my chair, grinning uneasily.
He leans over the table and drunkenly shouts to Abigail, ‘So what’s your opinion about David playing a bird’s part in the school play, anyway?’
Abigail – who by this time has shunted so perilously close to me that she’s virtually on my fucking lap – says, ‘I’m not sure I’ve got one, Mr Starr.’
‘Well, I bloody ’ave,’ Eddie slurs.
Mum stands up, albeit precariously.
‘Oh, don’t start on him, Eddie,’ she says, waving her empty glass, and she’s slurring as much as him. ‘You always ‘ave to bloody start.’
Chrissy suddenly and judiciously gets up and excuses herself from the table; she knows damn well what’s coming, as do I.
‘What d’you mean, don’t start?’ Eddie bawls.
Here we go.
‘I’m only saying, why don’t you mind your own fuckin’ business, Kath?’
Silence. Then Eddie stands up, knocking his chair backwards, and I sit there impotently as Chrissy disappears up the stairs sharpish. Judas!
‘You can’t say fuck-all in this house – especially where he’s concerned,’ Eddie yells, and he gestures at me accusingly. ‘Just cos he’s a bit clever, nobody thinks he can do any wrong. Well, you don’t know the fuckin’ half of what he gets up to, Kath.’
Oh dear. OH DEAR.
‘Oh, don’t talk rubbish, Eddie,’ Aunt Val says, jumping in. ‘You’re determined to ruin his bloody birthday. You’ve been digging at him all night.’
‘I ’aven’t been digging at him, Val,’ Eddie spits. ‘You lot just think the sun shines out of his arse, but you don’t know anything. You don’t know what a crafty little fucker he is … you can’t see it!’
Then he spins around and marches towards the lounge door, kicking his upturned chair as he goes.
‘Oh, I’m going round the club for the last hour,’ he says.
And thank God for that!
‘What the bleedin’ hell was all that about?’ Nan says once the storm has passed and the porch door has slammed.
‘Search me,’ Mum says, helping herself to a glass of Nan’s Emva Cream. ‘He’s never happy unless he’s fucking moaning, and we’ve got his birthday to get through next week. I suppose he’ll expect us all to make a big song and dance about that.’
She polishes off the sherry in one go, and then she says, ‘I went to get him a card today, but I couldn’t find one with a pig on it.’
And we all scream with laughter – apart from poor Abigail, who clearly doesn’t find uproar and near violence at a family birthday party legitimate grounds for merriment.
‘Shall we go upstairs, David?’ she suggests loudly, as Mum, Val, Nan and me rock back and forth with glee.
‘What on earth for?’
‘Well, you said …’ Abigail hesitates, ‘… play some records, stop over …’
‘Well, that was before,’ I say, edging my chair away from her. ‘I think I’d rather just go up to my room alone now, if you don’t mind.’
Abigail stares at me, blinking. I really don’t know what she’s looking at me like that for. What does she expect – for me to take her upstairs and fuck her? I should co-co! The plan had fallen flat anyway, and what was the point of having Abigail stay over to throw Eddie off the pansy scent if Eddie wasn’t there to witness it? He’d be at the club drinking with Marty till all hours now. I decide I’d best really hammer the point home.
‘You might as well get off actually, Abi,’ I say. ‘I’m a bit tired, to be honest, and you’ve been ever so clingy tonight – you know how that irritates me. And aren’t there any mirrors in your mother’s prefab? Your make-up looks like you tossed it into the air and then ran underneath.’
Abigail stands up slowly and buttons her cardigan with pursed lips. Mum and Nan are still giggling, but Aunt Val is eyeballing me rather peculiarly, almost reproachfully, if I’m not mistaken.
‘Do you know what you are, David Starr?’ Abigail says, once she’s thrown her bunny jacket on, and gathered up her suede patchwork shoulder bag.
‘I’m all ears,’ I say, looking up at her.
‘A self-obsessed little prick,’ she says.
Nan gasps.
‘Ooh my Gawd! Language, lovey!’
But Abigail is on her way towards the door. As she reaches it, she looks over her shoulder – possibly for dramatic effect – and tosses her ringlets one last time.
‘Happy birthday, wank-face,’ she says.
Charming!