When I arrive home a mere five nights later, after Oliver! rehearsals, I’m not overly flabbergasted to discover Chrissy on the sofa in the lounge, sprawled out torpidly across a half-dressed Squirrel. His eyes are fixed on the television, and she is lying there a bit like Cleopatra, only with a Caramac and a bottle of lime Corona. All the lamps are switched off and the room is lit only by the glow of Tomorrow’s World, so I quietly plonk myself down on one of the armchairs in readiness for tonight’s Top of the Pops, on which Kate Bush is scheduled to appear. I’m very excited about that!
‘All right?’ Squirrel says to me, his grey Ben Sherman wide open, exposing his lean, ashy upper body.
‘All right,’ I reply.
Chrissy pops her head up and looks over at me sheepishly as I take off my school blazer.
‘How’s rehearsal for the school play going, bruv?’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to see you prancin’ round in a frock, to be honest. Did you see your mate Maxie today?’
It’s dark, but I can tell that she has a preposterous grin on her face.
‘It’s all fine,’ I say cheerily, ‘apart from the fact that half of the actors are retarded, and one would just as soon stab our little Oliver through the heart as look at him. But aside from that, I think it’ll be quite good.’
Chrissy giggles, but it actually isn’t funny. With only a few weeks to go, the show, I feel, is a complete and unqualified shambles. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting the Ziegfeld Follies, scenery-wise, but this is positively Blue Peter; and where Miss Jibbs got the idea that London Bridge is, or has ever been, the colour of overcooked asparagus is a complete mystery to me and to everyone else.
‘It’s teal,’ she’d announced proudly this afternoon. ‘I thought we needed a splash of pizzazz, and my Auntie Iris had a couple of tins going begging after she’d finished her Jack and Jill bathroom.’
I argued, of course, that during my death scene, which was played out right in the vicinity of London Bridge, the audience might not be able to see me at all, as my Second Act frock was a rather charming peacock taffeta and not a million miles from the colour she’d seen fit to paint the fucking bridge.
‘I’ll just look like part of the bloody scenery, miss,’ I’d lamented to no avail.
She just told me to go for something showy on the glove front and wave my arms about. As for the singing, well, it’s hardly the Vienna Boys’ Choir – more like the terraces at Millwall – but I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it. Maxie and me, at least, will shine as Bill and Nancy, and the sixth-form lad playing Fagin is very good, if slightly paunchy.
Chrissy is still grilling me.
‘It’s just that I’ve not seen him around for a week or so, that Maxie. Is he all right?’ she says, suddenly sitting up.
‘Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’ I laugh, and I can just about make out my sister winking at me.
‘I just am,’ she says. ‘And did you tell Frances what I said?’
Chrissy leans forward, clearly eager for my answer.
‘I did tell her, and I think she’ll probably come around,’ I say, ‘but Toby will have to talk to her as well. It has to come from him, not me.’
Squirrel has been fixated on Judith Hann reclining on the bonnet of a small space-age-looking car that she reckons could be folded down and packed into a tote bag. When he hears his name, he tears his eyes away from the telly.
‘Don’t call me Toby, for fuck’s sake, Dave,’ he mutters, ‘and I will make amends to your mate Frances, I promise.’
Then he’s back to the box.
‘You see,’ Chrissy grins. ‘I told you he would. And you have to apologize to Abigail about your birthday, David, like you promised, right?’
‘I will apologize to Abi,’ I say. ‘I promise I’ll do it tomorrow when she comes over.’
‘Excellent!’ Chrissy says, and she snuggles back down, her thick blonde hair splayed out across Squirrel’s bony torso. I wonder, as I watch them on the couch in the dark, whether I might soon be reclining like that in Maxie’s arms, whether Maxie would even feel comfortable lying on the couch like that with me. I mean, what is the etiquette for sitting at home relaxing with a gay lover? I wonder if Maxie will take to it – to any of it? In the last three days at school, and during rehearsals, we have been tighter than ever, if anything, despite the near-ruinous episode in my bedroom and in the face of the glowering disapproval of Bob Lord, whose disdain for our ‘friendship’ is now practically rabid. We have even managed to steal a few seconds alone, and a couple of mischievous kisses – yes, kisses – when there is no prying eye to find or trap us. Those moments, however, have been few and far between, so the rehearsals for Oliver! – with Maxie and me playing ill-fated sweethearts – are as precious as gold, or at least the rare twelve-inch version of Blondie’s ‘X Offender’.
A third of the way through Top of the Pops the front door bangs shut and, without warning, the lights go on. It’s Nan at the lounge door balancing three plates of thick mince and mashed potatoes. Aunt Val is hovering behind with cutlery and a copy of Titbits.
‘I’m feeding you tonight,’ Nan announces. ‘So if you’re going to eat this in here, eat it fast. I don’t want him bloody moaning at me for letting you kids eat in the lounge and getting mince all over the three-piece.’
Nan really is a rather fine and laudable woman, and she isn’t an elderly or in any way decaying type of nan either. She has just turned sixty-one, and spends most of her waking hours looking after anyone who’ll let her – especially since she lost Grandad to the big C. When she isn’t tidying up or making a batch of her unparalleled home-cooked chips, she can oft be found sipping her favourite beverage – a pony – with her friend Judith Goodley at the club. Aunt Val, two years Mum’s junior at thirty-four, still living with Nan, has not yet married. It’s not like there are not enough suitors, mind. Aunt Val has been in a perpetual state of courtship or semi-engagement since the Tokyo Olympics. She’s just fussy, that’s all. There’d been Ray the plumber, Julian the architect, Cyril the policeman – an endless stream, it seems to me – but there’s always something the matter.
‘Ray’s beard tends to chafe,’ I remember her saying after she’d cruelly dumped him outside Timothy Whites.
‘I asked Cyril to book a weekend in the Lake District and he took me to a reservoir in Stoke Newington.’
She was never satisfied. Val had, she tells me, been really and truly in love with only one boy during the mid-to-late sixties: Johnny Barber, his name was. But he’d been tragically killed when his scooter had gone under a tram at Blackpool, and Val says she’s never got over it. I think she’s happy living at Nan’s for the time being, if you want the truth.
Chrissy and I tuck into our plates of thick mince, mine balanced precariously on my knee as I wait for Kate Bush to come on.
‘What is this stuff?’ Squirrel whispers, glaring down at his plate in abject terror. ‘I’m not really that peckish, Chrissy, to be honest!’
‘Are you fucking anorexic or what?’ my sister yells. ‘Give it here, I’ll eat yours, you skinny bastard!’
Chrissy and me both crack up laughing, and then Nan and Aunt Val decide to sit down and join us for the back end of Top of the Pops – which means I’ll have to put up with Nan saying things like, ‘Ooh, she screeches, that Kate Bush – I can’t bloody stand ’er.’
But it makes me laugh out loud – Chrissy and Squirrel too – and for the first time in days, I actually have the feeling that everything might be all right after all. But it doesn’t last long …
‘So where have Mum and Dad gone? Is there a darts match at the club or something?’ Chrissy says, licking mashed potato off her knife.
‘No,’ Aunt Val says. ‘Your father went off in his cab to pick up some boxes of cheap brandy or something from someone in Dartford, and your mum jumped in for the ride. They’ll be at the school by now though, David, for your parents’ evening.’
I’d forgotten it was bloody parents’ evening. Jesus Christ, another thing to fret about. I’m all too horribly aware of the fact that of late, what with the school musical and my near-constant starry-eyed daydreaming, my once fiercely conscientious schoolwork ethic has gone right out of the bastard window. While I’m quietly confident that Mr Peacock and Miss Jibbs and the like will be fairly benign when chatting to Mum and Dad about my evident lack of progress, other members of staff, perhaps more disgruntled by half a term of my lackadaisical approach, will be out for revenge, and no doubt stick the boot in. That’s all I need with Dad in the mood he’s been in for the last couple of weeks, I can tell you.
‘Oh yes,’ I mutter. ‘I’d forgotten about that, what with the play an’ all.’
‘They’ll be back in a tick anyway,’ Nan says. ‘So finish up and let me get rid of those dirty plates.’
By the time Mum and Dad finally do arrive back from parents’ evening, we’re well into the second half of News at Ten, and Nan is snoozing in the armchair. Dad’s face is quite white when he walks in, and his lips are pulled in, skinny. Mother’s skin seems to bear the same vaporous pallor as she follows him into the living room in her smart pink work suit and drops her handbag. They both look bloody terrible. Surely the reports from my teachers couldn’t have been that fucking awful. Something in Dad’s uncivilized stare, though, tells me that they must have been. Really awful!
‘Chrissy, get upstairs,’ Dad barely mumbles. ‘You’d better get home, Squirrel.’
Now I’m really worried. What on earth is going on?
‘What’s wrong, Kath?’ Aunt Val says in a rather shrill tone. ‘You’re sheet-white!’
Nan wakes up with a start.
‘It’s him again, that’s what’s up,’ Eddie says, glaring at me. ‘You stupid little—’
‘Eddie, calm down,’ Mum interrupts, and I feel my fingers and neck sweating.
‘What?’ I squeak, jumping up.
‘Sit down!’
Dad is somehow screaming through gritted teeth, which, prior to this moment, I would not have thought possible.
‘What?’ I say again, only quieter this time. ‘What have I done?’
‘I’ve had some boy’s mother and father calling me all sorts because of you, you little bastard. It was like a fucking circus up at that school tonight.’
‘It was bad,’ Mum says softly. ‘It was really bad.’
All at once, a white horror falls upon me. I thought everything seemed a little too good to be true. I should have recognized it as a dreadful omen earlier this evening when, instead of Kate Bush actually appearing on Top of the Pops as advertised, they’d featured the abysmal Legs & Co. dancing to ‘Them Heavy People’ in cream negligees instead.
‘Somebody’s mother and father?’ I gulp.
Dad opens his mouth to yell again, but Mum holds up her hand with a mad stare like some kind of demented lollipop lady stopping traffic.
‘Let me tell him,’ she demands. ‘You’ll fuckin’ explode, Eddie, if you’re not careful.’
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ I hear Nan mumble from the corner.
I suddenly feel slightly otherworldly, so I sit down next to Aunt Val, with Mum and Dad standing over me. Dad is now almost a faultless shade of beetroot; and Mum is speaking in a soft but clipped tone.
‘We were talking to your drama teacher, Mr McClarnon, and he was telling us how well you’re doing in drama and music. He really likes you, David, he does …’
I nod, wide-eyed.
‘When all of a sudden, this other bald teacher comes over with some other parents: Mr and Mrs Boswell. Your friend Maxie’s mum and dad, right?’
I nod again, small pieces of a terrifying jigsaw falling into place.
‘What other teacher?’ I ask meekly, as if I didn’t know.
‘Mr Lord!’ Dad pipes up, jerking his head forward and spitting the words.
My heart somersaults.
‘Oh! And what did he say?’ I ask, tasting disgust in the back of my throat.
‘Not very much, really, at first,’ Mum says. ‘But this Mrs Boswell, she just stormed straight up to our table and demanded to know if our son was a … if you were …’
‘“Is it true that your son is a homosexual?” That’s what she said,’ Dad sing-songed, flopping down on to the sofa that Chrissy and Squirrel had swiftly vacated minutes earlier. ‘“According to Mr Lord your son is a homosexual, and he is, how shall I put it, trying to lead my son up a bad path.” That is what Mrs fucking Boswell said, David.’
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck!
I look at Mum. I look at Aunt Val. I look at Reginald Bosanquet, who is animate but mute on the TV screen. Mum continues quietly, as Dad’s face falls into his hands.
‘Mrs Boswell says that “her little Maxie” has been acting differently in the past few weeks: secretive and distant. He stayed out all night the other Sunday – she’s no clue where – and he’s started watching cookery shows. Mr Lord says—’
‘Oh, that wanker!’ I interrupt, snarling.
‘Mr Lord says that this boy, your friend Max Boswell, is letting his sports go to rack and ruin: skipping football practice to hang out with you and a coloured girl.’
‘Black!’ I snap. ‘She’s not coloured, she’s black.’
‘Is that Frances?’ Aunt Val asks gingerly, putting a hand on mine.
‘Yes.’
I’m furious and terrified all at the same time now, but Mum continues calmly.
‘Mr Lord reckons that you are influencing Maxie: trying to make him more like you. More … more …’
‘Fashionable?’ I suggest. ‘Worldly? Unblinkered? Remarkable?’
‘Shut up!’ Dad warns.
‘Why?’ I scream.
And then I jump up, probably unwisely, in an attempt to preserve what is left of my apparently fast-waning honour.
‘Bob Lord is a fucking bigot, and you are just like him.’
I gesticulate madly towards my father, who in turn leaps to his feet, teeth still gritted, pointing.
‘Shut your fucking mouth! I knew this was coming, didn’t I? I fucking knew it!’
‘Eddie, Eddie!’ Nan joins in now. ‘Calm down!’
Dad, however, has misfired with his prodding index finger and jabbed me hard in the eye. With my right eye covered by my hand, and streaming, the floodgates are open and I find myself yelling and sobbing all at once.
‘Just because we’re friends! Just because we’re fucking friends! Just because Maxie skipped a couple of poxy football games, Bob fucking born-again Lord thinks I’m giving it to him behind the bike shed.’
‘Oh my Gawd,’ Nan says, with her hand over her mouth.
But I’m really in my stride now: tears, snot, profanity – the lot. Dad is still yelling, but I’m not hearing him any more.
‘What makes them think I’m a queer anyway? Who the fuck told them that? Can’t two blokes be friends, for fuck’s sake? Jesus Christ, we’re just friends, Mum, we’re friends!’
I’m intent on defiance. No one can prove any of this, anyway. It’s merely the speculation of a Christian-cum-Nazi on Bob Lord’s part, and overprotective paranoia from Maxie’s mum and dad. I can beat this, I can. I pause for a moment to collect myself, and there is a lull in the hysteria.
‘I said that,’ Mum says softly.
‘What?’
‘We said that,’ Dad confirms in a slightly more composed tone. ‘We said, they’re just close mates, David and Maxie: friends.’
‘And?’
‘And Mr Lord said that he had at first considered that, until he saw you … and Maxie … together, yesterday … in the drama cupboard … kissing.’
Shit!
‘Kissing?’ Nan says.
Dad nods and puts his hand over his mouth as though he is about to burst into tears, or perhaps vomit.
‘I can’t believe my son is really gay,’ he says, voice trembling – rather absurdly, I feel. ‘I really can’t bloody believe it.’
Aunt Val stands up, looking somewhat vexed.
‘Of course he’s fucking gay, Eddie,’ she shouts. ‘I’ve known that since he was knee-high to a tortoise.’
‘Did you?’ Mum says, surprised. ‘Did you know that, Val?’
‘Well, how many other six-year-old boys do you know that can do all Dusty’s hand movements to “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”, Kath? Be honest!’
Mum nods in defeated concurrence.
‘And he knew where to find the eyelash glue,’ Nan smiles.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ is all Dad can manage, getting all irate again. ‘I’m gonna go round and see Marty at the club, see if he wants a late drink. I can’t fucking do this now.’
That’s Eddie’s answer for everything – a late drink. And off he goes.
‘Then your Mr McClarnon and Mr Lord had a terrible row, right in the middle of the parents’ evening,’ Mum says. ‘Mr McClarnon said that Mr Lord had no right to say the things he said to Mr and Mrs Boswell, and that he was pure evil. Mr Lord said that the Boswells had a right to know that a known homosexual was corrupting their son. A known homosexual! I couldn’t believe it; I nearly fucking died.’
There is at least calm now, after Dad has stormed out. Mum has changed out of her work clothes and she, Aunt Val and Nan are all sitting protectively around me on the couch. Aunt Val is holding my hand.
‘Anyway, I told her, that Mrs Boswell,’ Mum continues. ‘Anyone who gets my David as a friend should count himself sodding lucky.’
And she lights up a cigarette, her hands trembling slightly.
‘What did she say to that?’ Nan asks, handing me a Kleenex from her pinny – I’ve been a bit sniffy.
‘She fainted,’ Mum says.
‘She never!’ Val stifles a chuckle.
‘She did. Silly tart!’
It’s long past midnight by the time I’ve finished unburdening my befuddled teenage heart to the three women. I even come clean about that Sunday night at Moira’s – despite my nan’s now well-worn cry of ‘Ooh my good Gawd’ – and I attempt to impress upon them how much I love Maxie, and how certain I am that now, more than ever, we are meant to be together.
‘Well,’ Mum sighs at the end of my starry-eyed discourse. ‘If Mr and Mrs Boswell insist you give their precious Maxie a wide berth, then that’s what you’re gonna have to do, love.’
‘I won’t!’
‘Yes, David, you will!’ Mum stands up, and she seems a little annoyed. ‘Or you’ll be expelled. That’s what Mr Lord said, expelled! He’s already had words with the headmaster and you know what a fucking nutty Bible-basher he is. There’s nothing else you can do; just leave the boy alone, David. Do you hear me?’
The world swirls about me as Nan and Aunt Val gather up their cardigans and head back to their house. Surely life cannot be this ghastly. Surely the gods could not permit me to taste that sweet nectar from a golden chalice, only to seize it away from me not a jiffy later, replacing it with a brass bucket of cold piss. Could they?
Mum appears again, drinking Blue Nun and smoking another fag.
‘What about the play?’ I mutter.
‘Oh! Yes … I forgot,’ Mum says, sitting beside me. ‘I heard Mrs Boswell tell Mr McClarnon that Maxie can only take part in the production if he’s in the chorus. He’s not allowed to play Bill Sikes any more, David. He can’t have any scenes with you. That way he’ll have more time for his football practice. Sorry, love.’
‘But who’ll play Bill?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ Mum says. ‘I’m just saying what I heard, now let it go.’
Now I’m really distraught; this is really happening.
‘But the chorus are all the orphans, Mum. They’re all first-year boys: Maxie is nearly sixteen!’
‘Well, he’ll play a fuckin’ tall orphan, then, I expect,’ Mum says jadedly, and she sips her wine as demurely as one can from a pewter tankard.
‘Now let it drop, David. I don’t really want to talk about it any more tonight.’
We both sit quietly for a very long time, staring at the television, but there’s nothing on except a fuzzy white screen, because ITV has finished for the night, national anthem an’ all. Mum looks terribly sad, though.
‘Your dad told me,’ she eventually says, and she’s shaking her head slowly. ‘In the car on the way home from parents’ evening, he told me what happened the other week.’
‘What?’
‘You know,’ she says, ‘when he came home from work early and almost caught you and Maxie …’
‘Oh.’
‘And now I find out you’ve been stopping over at Moira’s flat with him as well,’ she says, still hypnotized by the dancing white snow of the TV. ‘I didn’t peg you for deceitful, David, I must say.’
I let my head drop, and I can’t look at her. I adore my mum and I can’t stand to see her like this, she looks broken by it all.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I was scared to tell you.’
‘Scared?’ she says.
‘I didn’t know what you’d think … about me being gay. What do you think, Mum?’
She stands up and switches off the TV, and her heavy charm bracelet bangs against the coffee table as she picks up her cigarette packet and her lighter, and then heads for the door. When she reaches it she turns back to me.
‘I don’t know what I think, David,’ she says. ‘I just don’t know.’