I don’t see Maxie at all the following week as it’s half bloody term and he doesn’t even phone me. Then on the first Monday back I find that he’s been mysteriously kept at home – what the hell’s going on? Now it’s Wednesday and still no sign, so when I stride into the drama room after second period I’m all ready to shed my woes at Mr McClarnon’s feet and have him anoint me with some munificent and tremendously wise words, but he’s somewhat distracted. I discover him limp-wristedly running a duster over the blackboard at a snail’s pace, and with a faraway look in his eye.
‘Mr McClarnon?’
I announce my presence but to no avail. Hamish appears completely diverted from the world around him and fails even to acknowledge my presence. Then all of a sudden Frances totters into the room behind me eating a bag of salt ’n’ shake crisps.
‘What’s going on?’ she says.
‘Search me. I just came in to talk to Hamish but he seems to be on another astral plane for the time being.’
The drama room is empty but for us and so Frances and me head for two of the old-fashioned desks at the front of the class and sit down. Eventually Hamish turns around and spots us, blinking as if he’s been abruptly woken from a Rip Van Winkle-length slumber.
‘Och! It’s you two,’ he says vaguely.
Frances screws up her empty crisp packet and jams it into the inkwell.
‘Yes, sir,’ she says. ‘It’s us. What on earth is the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Hamish says, still in a veritable dream state. ‘I was just …’
And then he drifts off again.
‘SIR!’ I call out, and he finally snaps back into the here and now with a frown.
‘What is it, David? I’m busy.’
‘I need to speak to you, Hamish,’ I say, getting up, ‘about what happened at parents’ evening and about what’s happened since, and my mum and dad and everything, sir!’
Hamish sits down at his desk and puts his head in his hands.
‘Not now, eh, David?’ he says, but I lean over the desk and thrust my face pleadingly towards his.
‘But you said yesterday that you’d talk to me today, and I’m going nuts here. I don’t know what to do about Maxie, he still isn’t at school, and I don’t know if he’s ever coming back, and it’s hideous, sir, hideous!’
Hamish lifts his head and shakes it slowly, almost annoyed.
‘We’ve gone over it, David. I told ye yesterday what I thought was going on wi’ Maxie, didn’t I? I don’t know what else te tell y’, David.’
The ghastly truth was that, because of our little flit up to London, Maxie was being kept away from school and away from me, and I was beginning to unravel. Mr McClarnon had indeed assured me yesterday that Maxie would almost certainly be coming back to school, and would still be involved in the school production if he was inclined to – as props manager – but at the moment his wretchedly overprotective parents, Vi and Geoff Boswell, had decided that Maxie needed to lie low until the proverbial fairy dust had settled, and that’s all there was to it. Hamish firmly believed that Maxie would be back at school next Monday, and that the best and safest course of action for me was to work hard and keep my head down until everyone had calmed down over the whole ludicrous debacle of parents’ evening and its aftermath. Easier said than done. Three teachers had hauled me over the coals already this week for not completing any of the assignments I’d been set over the half-term, and that was in subjects I actually like.
Even nice Mr Peacock had shaken his head mournfully at me when I handed in a flimsy few paragraphs on the Battle of the Bulge on Monday, but to be honest I wasn’t at all fussed about lessons any more. I mean, I used to be an out-and-out sponge for knowledge, I really did, but quite frankly now I don’t give a shit. And having heard nothing from Maxie since all this had blown up has rendered me marginally hysterical and more than a little anxious for some reassurance from him of our love, or at least our connection. How, I thought, could he be just sitting there at home without trying to phone me at the very least? Why hadn’t Maxie attempted to scale the walls of my home to tap on my bedroom window and lead me to escape with him? Did he not care about us? Was he not tormented by the same insidious torture that I myself was enduring? By this morning, it seemed to me that he might not be.
‘I will sit down with you, David, I promise,’ Hamish says. ‘I know there’s a lot ye need to talk about, I know there is.’
And he leans back in his chair, resting his head against the ‘Who killed Blair Peach?’ poster behind him and staring out of the skylight in the sloped ceiling above him.
‘I’ve just got a hell of a lot of other shite te deal wi’ today, kids, honest I have.’
Frances jumps up and joins me at Hamish’s desk, intrigued.
‘Why, what’s up, Mr McClarnon?’ she says, all breathless. ‘Is it something to do with the filth being at the school this morning? I saw the meat wagon outside the sixth-form centre – what’s cooking?’
‘Police?’ I ask. I hadn’t seen them.
‘Yes, yes,’ Hamish says, agitated and waving his arms, ‘and o’ course it’s all landed on ma bloody lap, hasn’t it.’
‘What has?’
‘Two kids in ma form who shall remain nameless,’ Hamish says. ‘Caught wi’ drugs during a technical drawing lesson … by Bob Lord, no less. Not only does the man now think I’m the son o’ Satan for harbouring underage practising homosexuals, but he also thinks I’m sheltering drug dealers under my lovely left wing as well.’
‘No,’ Frances gasps.
‘Drugs?’ I say. ‘What sort? Weed?’
‘I wish it were only weed,’ Hamish says. ‘But it’s pills: speed, and plenty of ’em. After ma form was searched there was four other boys wi’ drugs on ’em too, and we suspect we have a dealer in our midst. Any road, dear old Mr Lord and the headmaster thought it best if the police were informed, and now I’ve got te head off te the cop shop in a wee while te try te sort the whole mess out. Two o’ my lads are in a cell right about now.’
‘Shit,’ Frances says.
‘Exactly!’ Hamish nods. ‘So you’ll excuse me, David, if I’m a bit preoccupied. I promise I’ll talk te you tomorrow when I get the chance, OK?’
‘OK.’
Frances and me decide to head out to the playing fields and find our usual spot by the goalposts as we’ve got a free period, and, as ever, we gossip fiendishly as we walk, speculating on who the guilty parties in Mr McClarnon’s form might be, narcotics-wise, and who might be dealing within the school grounds.
‘I reckon it’s Miss Jibbs,’ Frances surmises. ‘She looks like a coke fiend to me.’
‘Or Bob Lord,’ I sneer, ‘jacking up heroin while he watches the boys in the showers after football.’
And we howl with laughter as we kick through the fallen, brittle, russet leaves that blanket the grass surrounding the footy pitch, and I feel better for a moment.
It’s very definitely autumn now, and so the pair of us are bundled up in our duffels and scarves, despite today’s blue skies and cheery splash of sun. Frances – never without sustenance of one sort or another – has managed to rustle up a couple of toffee Yo-Yos and a can of Tab to share, and once we’ve sat down she starts prodding at me as I nibble disconsolately at my half-unwrapped biscuit.
‘David,’ she trills with a rather pronounced upward inflection, and I turn to face her.
‘What?’
She looks shamefaced for some reason, and she won’t look me in the eye.
‘Don’t be cross,’ she says, ‘will you?’
‘About what?’ I say thoughtfully. ‘Thatcher’s fascist regime, or the fact that Abba haven’t had a number one since “Take A Chance On Me” in February 1978?’
Frances laughs, and then she says, ‘No, neither of those. I mean don’t be cross about what I’m about to tell you.’
Frances stuffs the last half of her Yo-Yo biscuit into her mouth and chews it quickly, rather like some sort of demented rodent.
‘Well,’ she says, spitting chocolate dust. ‘I went to see Maxie during half-term …’
And then she swallows hard.
‘Went to see him – where?’ I shriek, jumping up.
‘At his house,’ Frances says. ‘I was wondering how he was doing, and so I went over there to see him. I was only going to knock for him but his mother invited me into the house for tea, so in I went. It was quite a nice house, actually – a bit too much peach, I thought, but anyway, quite nice … Sit down, David, will you, for fuck’s sake?’
I throw myself back down on to the grass next to her, then yank her towards me with two of the toggles on her duffle.
‘What did he say?’ I ask impatiently. ‘How was he? Did he say anything about me?’
Frances is chuckling annoyingly.
‘Yes, he did,’ she says, ‘and that’s why I’m telling you this now, so you’ll stop bloody fretting so much. He said that he cares about you, David … very much.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes!’
I had wondered, to be honest. After we’d left Jeanette’s flat in Pimlico two Friday’s ago and made a dash for the night bus, Maxie had hardly said two words all the way home.
His face had looked as though it were wracked with a multiplicity of quandaries, and he kept biting his bottom lip and looking down and shaking his head. When he did speak, as we came round Elephant and Castle roundabout, it was only to say, ‘My mum’s gonna fucking kill me.’
And try as I might, I couldn’t for the life of me come up with any sort of appropriate riposte to that, so I just kept my mouth shut and gazed out of the window at all the many and varied creatures of the night. There were drunks all over the show, more than one could shake a stick at, and I noticed that many of them didn’t seem particularly cheerful. Overweight girls tottering along on fiendishly high shoes and hollering foul-mouthed abuse at their theoretical loved ones seemed to be the order of the night, and there were also a fair few underage lads knocking about: skinheads and soul boys who weaved and staggered along the Walworth Road absurdly, before vomiting into a litter bin or a shop doorway. When we finally disembarked at Goose Green, where Maxie and I would be due to go our separate ways, he stopped and looked at me, glassy-eyed.
‘It’s quarter past two in the fuckin’ morning,’ he said, and I nodded.
‘I had a really great time today, David, I really did. It’s just …’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a lot to think about, that’s all.’
I put my hand up and touched his shoulder, and I said, ‘So there’s hope for me yet, then?’
But he just smiled and shrugged, then he turned and walked off towards his house, and that was the very last I’d seen of him.
‘So what else did he say?’ I yell at Frances, still pulling at her toggles.
But now she’s shaking her head.
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘His mum was there most of the time showing me the new vacuum cleaner she’d just bought, and it was only when she went out to fetch the tea that we had a chance to talk properly. The important thing, though, is that Maxie is all right, David, and he says he cares about you – so stop worrying. He’ll be back at school soon, I know he will.’
‘I suppose,’ I sigh, finally releasing Frances from my clutches. ‘Hamish did say Maxie would be coming back to do the props for the play, so I guess that’s something; but it’s not just Maxie, though, is it, Fran? Have you seen how the other kids are with me now since parents’ evening? They all know! The ones that don’t shout fucking names at me can’t bring themselves to look at me without sniggering. I walk around this place like a fucking ghost. I’m like Cathy at the tail end of Wuthering Heights.’
Frances is rolling her eyes.
‘I just wish Hamish would hurry up and cast another bloody Bill Sikes,’ I tell her. ‘At least if I could get on with my bit in the sodding play it would take my mind off all this other shit.’
‘Your language is getting worse,’ Frances smiles.
And then, quite suddenly, her face falls and freezes into a death mask of unequivocal odium.
‘Oh, bollocks!’ she mutters.
So I spin my head around just in time to catch a glut of fourth-year boys headed towards us, tailgated by a grinning Bob Lord, who is merrily kicking a football along in front of him, and Mr Peacock, who looks utterly inappropriate in a bright-red Adidas tracksuit with a whistle hanging around his neck. The boys themselves just sail past us, but not without one of them, a spotty creature with an erratic bum-fluff moustache, shouting ‘Bender!’ at me as he does. Mr Lord, however, comes to a sharp halt as he reaches us, and he kicks the ball towards the centre of the pitch, the boys chasing it like puppies. Mr Peacock stops behind him, waving and winking at Frances and me.
‘Well, Mr Starr,’ Bob Lord smiles. ‘Are you happy now, son?’
I look up at him, and Frances grabs my arm as if to stop me saying something I might fast regret.
‘Happy, sir?’ I say, mirroring his colourless grin. ‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘I mean, Starr, that we now have a boy – young Maxie Boswell – missing his school and all his friends and his sports because of your selfishness,’ Mr Lord says.
‘Leave it, Bob,’ Mr Peacock interjects softly, but it falls on deaf ears.
‘We have a distraught mother and a broken-hearted father, and the reputation of another teacher on the line because of your antics, because you couldn’t keep your filthy hands to yourself. And now I don’t think he’ll be coming back to this school at all, despite what your Mr McClarnon seems to think – I did warn you, Starr.’
‘That’s not fair, Bob.’ Mr Peacock tries again. ‘David’s not to blame. Now let’s get on, shall we?’
But Mr Lord completely ignores him and shakes his head, laughing quietly and smugly. I stand up, slow, to face him and Frances jumps up behind me, still holding my arm protectively.
‘You’re not a very nice man, are you, Mr Lord,’ I say.
‘Am I not?’ he says, still grinning. ‘I think you’ll find I just did what was for the best, Starr, despite what you and anyone else might imagine. It’s what Jesus would have done.’
I smile and nod in agreement.
‘You might be right there, Mr Lord,’ I say, sweating slightly but trying desperately not to lose equanimity. ‘… but then look what happened to him.’
And as Bob Lord’s face sours to an incensed scowl, Mr Peacock grits his teeth and closes his eyes as if he wishes he might disappear into thin air. Then he blows his whistle loudly to signal the start of the game. Frances and me head back across the field towards the school for our next lessons.
On my way home that evening in the semi-dark, I stop outside the bistro that used to be David Greig’s. It’s open tonight and I can see the light from the crystal chandeliers bouncing off the emerald tiles.
‘You’d know what to do, Grandad,’ I say out loud.
But would he? Grandad’s answer to almost any problem was to make a hot, sweet cup of tea and pop on a Kathy Kirby record, and I doubt that would help me now. I mean, how am I supposed to keep going back to school to face all this on my own, day after rotten day? Dreaming my way through lessons, dodging Jason and his mob as best I can and, on top of that, Mum and Dad hardly speaking to me when I get home. Even the musical seems ruined now that Maxie can’t be in it. It suddenly dawns on me, as I stare at the happy, laughing couples in the bistro, that I’m very, very tired. I need to sleep. I need to go home to bed and sleep. I shan’t even bother with Crossroads tonight.
When I finally do get off to sleep, I can hear a helicopter, its blades spinning faster and faster, and now I can see it. Agnetha and Anni-Frid are standing beside it in their brilliant-white jumpsuits, beckoning to me with urgency. I have to get on, I’m thinking, I have to get on that helicopter – I can’t miss it. But hard as I try, and hard as I run, my bare feet slip and fail on the sodden grass and I don’t seem to be getting any closer.
‘Wait!’ I hear myself calling through the din of the engine, but they’re boarding it now, waving sadly at me and closing the door.
‘Can’t you wait? I’ve lost my clogs!’
And then it lifts off the ground, swinging gracefully from side to side, then moving up higher … faster … higher. And then it’s gone. Shit.