Mr Fox’s room feels cold, and his booming voice echoes around the pale green, glossed walls so even though we’re standing in a line, he seems to be all around us, all at once.
‘You should all be ashamed of yourselves,’ he says for the third time.
From where I’m standing at the end of the line, I can see the playing fields out of the small, paned window. The grass looks marshy and needs a cut. Some of the white markings on the pitch have worn away, leaving broken lines and fractured arcs that don’t really mean anything any more.
Mr Fox is talking about integration and embracing change, and how this is ‘the fabric our school has been built upon all these years’. Blah, blah, blah.
The wall in front of us is covered in dated black-and-white prints. Dusty frames containing old photographs of staff who must surely now be dead, and groups of smart young students who will now be old and grey.
I wonder briefly if in another fifty years, there will be boys who aren’t even born yet, stood here in this very room getting a lecture like we are.
Mr Fox thumps the edge of his desk with his hand and glares at each of us in turn.
When he looks at me, I blink and scuff the toe of my shoe on the dark wiry carpet beneath my feet.
I can’t say anything to Mr Fox in front of the others, but it’s just not fair if I get excluded.
I just stood at the back of the group like I always do.
I didn’t do any of the actual bullying.
We are stuck in Mr Fox’s office for another twenty minutes trying to convince him of our innocence, but in the end, he issues all four of us with fixed-term exclusions.
I get kicked out for a day, Harry and Jack get two days each, and this time Linford is out for three days.
‘I could have been harder on you all, but I’ve decided to be lenient on this occasion . . . on the proviso you sign up to see the school counsellor.’ Mr Fox scowls. ‘A warning. Next time you’re in front of me – and there had better not be a next time – I’ll be looking at permanent exclusions.’
He looks at Linford.
To be honest, I think Mr Fox is being really hard on us. I mean, the new lad was up on his feet in no time and once he stopped feeling dizzy, he just walked back to class. OK, he had a few bumps and bruises but nothing serious, not like when Linford kicked Karl Bingham so hard in the leg he fell off the climbing wall and broke his ankle.
Dad is working down south until Thursday, so when Mr Fox’s exclusion letter drops through the letterbox, I’ll just rip it up. Dad will be blissfully unaware that I’ve been in trouble at school.
I suppose that’s one advantage to him working away most of the week.
In all the good films, people live in exciting places – the posh areas of London or America. Places I’ve never been and probably never will go because we live here.
Our flat in Nottingham is in St Ann’s; an area that’s been classed as ‘deprived’ by the government. What they really mean is that it’s a dump, a slum-hole and best avoided by your average, decent person. People sort of get stuck here and your dreams get stuck too. Dreams of the Deprived: sounds like a pretty miserable movie title, doesn’t it?
The people who actually live here don’t call it deprived. We call it home.
It might not look it, with its boarded-up pubs and dated housing, but St Ann’s is an OK place to be and most of our neighbours are decent. Folks might not drive fancy cars and wear top designer gear round here, but they’re ‘salt of the earth’, as Grandad used to say.
We’ve got our problems like everywhere else, but those of us who’ve lived around here for a long time, well I suppose we sort of look out for each other.
Like last year, when Dad was working down south for ten days.
★
EXT. ST ANN’S – DAY
Council Estate, December. Freezing cold, snowing, no cars on road. Everything covered in a blanket of fresh snow. Silent.
Starving BOY walks down road in knee-deep snow and hammers on door of first-floor flat.
MRS BREWSTER
(from inside flat)
Who the flippin’ hell is it?
BOY
It’s me, Calum, from number five.
MRS BREWSTER opens door. Hair in rollers, floral headscarf, ash on her cigarette a centimetre long. Pokes head out and squints at the bright whiteness.
MRS BREWSTER
What ya standing there wi’ ya gob wide open for?
BOY
Errm . . . the Happy Shopper has run out of milk and bread.
(Starving BOY neglects to mention Dad is away and money has run out.)
MRS BREWSTER
(with a sympathetic smile)
Just a sec.
Moments later, she reappears at door.
MRS BREWSTER
Here, tek these, mi duck.
She presses milk and half a loaf into starving BOY’s hands.
MRS BREWSTER
Come back if you need owt else.
END SCENE.
★
You get the picture.
Living here, you’re not likely to get invited round for a cup of Earl Grey and a cucumber sandwich too often, but people still care about each other.
My mum took off with another bloke eleven years ago when I was still at nursery school. I can’t remember her at all, although I know Dad’s got a few photos put away somewhere.
I think that might be something I could put in my journal that Freya would find interesting. Counsellors like that sort of thing.
I’ve not told anybody this, but I dream about Mum now and then. She’s just a presence rather than a person. A clean scent like soap or wash powder, a softness on my cheek.
Sometimes I wake up crying, but I never remember her face.
There’s no way I’m writing any of that down; it sounds like one of those reality-TV sob stories. I don’t want Freya thinking I’m soft.
So, maybe I could write about Dad.
My dad leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to parenting, but he’s raised me – well, more like dragged me up – all on his own since Mum left.
We stick together, me and my dad. So far, we’ve managed to get by.