скачать книгу бесплатно
On the rare occasions his dad isn’t around, Swole invites us in and his mum gives us cold lemonade: the kind you make by adding water to yellow powder.
The shelves beside his bed are stacked high with books and board games but Swole doesn’t read much and he has no brothers or sisters to play games with. His pride and joy is the huge wooden battlefield, painted green and brown, on which battalions of British and German soldiers line up against one another. There are hundreds: running or marching across the uneven terrain, lying down or kneeling to fire from black trenches, or from behind balsa-wood rocks and bushes. Some are frozen in action, arms flung back in the moment of being shot, while others are charging enemy lines with fixed bayonets, led by officers armed only with pistols. Each model is immaculately painted: the British in khaki and the Germans in grey with contoured helmets that are so much smarter than the British pudding bowls. ‘Dad made everything, apart from the soldiers,’ says Swole. He tells us this with pride but little affection.
He was proud enough recently to take me into the separate area of the wood yard adjacent to their home where his dad makes his own stuff. When working here, Swole says that he always wears a full-length white apron instead of his overalls.
‘Take a look at this,’ he said, carefully lifting the sheet from a large cabinet whose delicately shaped doors lay unattached beside it. ‘It’s for keeping trophies in. Look at those joints, they’re called dovetails.’
I ran my finger across the interlocking wooden teeth at the corners and could feel only smooth wood.
‘I said, “look” not “touch”!’ He leaned close to check for incriminating fingerprints before he put the cover back, and tugged it left and right to make it look undisturbed.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Jesus, Swole, what’s the matter?’
‘My dad, he’d kill me if he knew I’d let you in here.’
The look on his face made me as keen to get out of there as he was.
John and I used to play with toy soldiers but Swole deploys armies. Today, John is eyeing them longingly. If he were on his own, he’d happily lead them into battle. Swole regularly rearranges the formations and we would much sooner help him to do this than look at his dick, again. Rooksy, however, is persisting.
‘Come on then Swole, let’s see if it’s got any bigger.’
I hate these moments because they can lead to Rooksy suggesting cock comparisons, which only involve establishing whose is next biggest after Swole’s. I always refuse. Although things are starting to happen for me down there, progress is depressingly slow. Rooksy and Swole have pubic hair. So do I, but unlike them, I know exactly how many I’ve got. We’ve seen Swole’s dick before because he likes showing it. He spends a lot of time in his bedroom, making do with his solitary games of soldiers, reading American comics, playing chess against himself and, we suspect, playing with himself. Rooksy says that it couldn’t have got that big without hours of attention, something that could work for us if we do the same. We’re obviously not devoting enough time to it.
Swole looks like Alfred E. Neuman, the kid on the cover of Mad Magazine; his ears don’t just stick out but are cupped towards you by invisible hands. He’s aware of his less-than-film-star looks but his dick is a consolation and, although his ears turn deep red when others refer to it in front of girls, he’s secretly pleased and fondles it gratefully in most idle moments.
Rooksy gives him a shove. ‘Give it some air Swole or it might stop growing.’
Swole grins. ‘OK, shut the door Billy.’ He unbuttons his trousers. And there it is on his open palm, like Mr Bevan our butcher showing a lamb chop to a customer. Only the greaseproof paper is missing.
‘You lucky bastard,’ says Rooksy, poking at it with a German lieutenant. ‘Can you make it bigger?’
Swole is ahead of him and everything is swelling nicely until we hear his mother coming along the hall. He grabs a comic from the shelf and throws himself face-down on the bed. Rooksy stands bolt upright. John and I whip round to study the soldiers but crash into the battlefield. The resulting earthquake sends the British and German armies bouncing into one another. Mrs Dunn flings open the door to the silence of illicit activity rapidly abandoned.
‘Four nil!’
Mrs Dunn raises an eyebrow. ‘What’s that, Billy? I hope it’s not four nil to the Germans.’
She’s a sharp one is Mrs Dunn, a skinny woman with short, violently permed hair. She purses her lips while her darting, nervous eyes probe the room.
‘Now what are you up to, Raymond?’ she asks, in the way mums do when they really mean everyone present.
‘Nothing, just playing.’ The choked squeak betrays his excitement.
‘Why don’t you go out now and get some fresh air.’
‘OK Mum.’ His voice is closer to normal.
‘Well, up you get then.’
‘In a minute, Mum, I want to finish something off.’
Rooksy snorts. Mrs Dunn’s eyes flash but she says nothing.
‘Quick about it then, Dad’s home you know … and that comic is upside down.’
Very sharp, Mrs Dunn.
Swole won’t be finishing off anything. Mention of his dad has drained the colour from his face. After his mum closes the door, he rolls on to his back, frantically doing up his fly buttons. John starts setting the soldiers in khaki back on their feet to show a British victory. Rooksy looks disappointed enough to ask for his money back.
‘Let’s go,’ says Swole.
In our house, ‘Dad’s home’ means noise and what Mum calls ‘foolery’; at Swole’s, it brings a scary hush. Even when out with us, Swole behaves as if his dad were standing behind him, and whatever he’s about to do, he takes a look around first.
Mr Dunn is a cabinetmaker. He hates running the yard and the business of buying, cutting and selling wood when all he wants to do is work with it. According to Swole, he’s happy only when he’s making his own furniture. But most of the time, he seems to be waiting to get angry and the red marks that we often see on Swole’s face show that he doesn’t wait for long. Sometimes it’s worse: a black eye that Swole swears comes from being bashed up by kids from the other side of Vauxhall Bridge Road. Even if this were true, they would never hit Mrs Dunn. So where does she get her bruises?
It’s not as if other parents don’t hit their kids; some fathers even use their belts. John and I have been spared this. While Mum used to slap out spontaneously at whatever part of us was closest, Dad has never hit us, or threatened to. His own father beat him and Mum says we’re lucky that he’s decided to be different. Not that he doesn’t make his disapproval clear: he can freeze you with a look. But it lasts only long enough to make a point before a tilt of his head and, sometimes, a smile tells us it’s over.
At the foot of the stairs, Swole’s wide-eyed warning brings us to a halt by the open door to the wood yard. On the workbench, Mr Dunn, in his white apron, has the carcass of the trophy cabinet on its back and he’s rubbing it with sandpaper wrapped around a small wooden block. His work-thickened shoulders and Popeye forearms couldn’t be moving more gently. After each pass, he runs his fingers over the smoothed surface and holds them close to his face to examine the white dust as if he’s about to taste it. He wipes it on his apron and rubs again.
He hasn’t looked at us but he knows we’re here. He stops working. We’ve interrupted him and he isn’t going to start again until he’s told us so. He closes his eyes, tilts his head forward and stretches his neck by easing it from side to side. We wait. Swole is shaking. His dad opens his small, dark eyes and his instantly accurate gaze makes me want to run away.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ His soft, menacing voice makes me forget he’s only our mate’s dad.
‘Just going out for a bit,’ says Swole.
‘No you’re not, upstairs.’
‘But Mum said I …’
‘Now!’ His whisper is more frightening than a shout.
Swole’s head dips to his chest and he climbs the stairs to his room.
Rooksy, John and I stand there, waiting to be dismissed.
‘Well?’ he says and shows us the way out with an angry flick of his eyes.
‘Miserable bastard,’ says Rooksy, once we’re in the street. ‘Do you think Swole’s mum told him what was going on?’
I shake my head. ‘No, she’s scared of him too. He blames her for anything Swole does.’
Rooksy shrugs. ‘Jealous then, Swole’s got a bigger dick.’
Jubblies, Pigeons and Lies
Wooden crates of R Whites and Corona empties are stacked four high on the Big Step outside Plummer’s corner shop. The sun has turned the black-and-white tiles into a chequered hotplate. I’m sitting on its edge holding a Jubbly that was frozen ten minutes ago but is already turning to orange juice in its collapsing tetrahedron carton.
‘Hello Billy.’
Sarah’s slender silhouette stands before me. A gentle fizzing in my chest has me rising to my feet. But a bigger outline moves alongside her and I sit down again. It’s Kenneth ‘Kirk’ Douglas. He’s blond, very blond. Girls like him, giggle when they see him, send him anonymous notes, and the younger ones use his name in their skipping games.
On a mountain stands a lady
Who she is I do not know
All she wants is gold and silver
All she wants is a nice young man
The rope turns faster.
All right Susan, I’ll tell your mother
Kissing Kirk Douglas around the corner
Is it true?
Faster still, to catch the girl’s legs.
Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes …
The rope invariably traps their legs on yes.
I listen out for my name but never hear it. When I was little, the girls never caught me in kiss-chase because I didn’t want them to. Even if I’d made myself catchable, they would have rushed past me in pursuit of Kirk, who was a good runner but enjoyed being caught. At the time, it made him a sissy. Not now, it doesn’t.
I didn’t care much about girls at the time but it bothered me that they liked Kirk so much. They still do, especially his ‘lovely long eyelashes’ and his blond hair. What makes him bearable is knowing that he’s not too bright. Not backward or anything, only a little slow on the uptake.
‘Hello Sarah, watcha Kirk.’
His push on my shoulder is heavier than playful. ‘Watcha Billy, hot eh?’
He has this likeable, irritating way of talking without thinking, while I waste time searching for clever things to say that, once said, are rarely worth the effort. Inside Kirk’s head, there’s no space between thinking and speaking and although what he says isn’t funny or that interesting, it’s OK. I can’t stand him.
‘We’re going to have Jubblies too,’ he says.
‘We’re’? Because they’re both going to buy one? Or because they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, and he’s buying? An ache spreads in my stomach as I hold up my Jubbly.
‘Just the job in this heat, it’s … melty hot.’
Melty hot? Melty bloody hot? Thankfully, they don’t seem to be listening. Kirk goes into the shop but Sarah waits outside. He is buying hers and she’s avoiding looking at me.
Kirk emerges with a Jubbly in each hand, tearing along the top strip of one with his teeth to reveal the orange ice. He holds out the other one. ‘Here you are Sarah.’
‘Thanks Kirk.’
It hurts to hear them say each other’s names. And is Kirk standing between us to make it clear she’s his girlfriend?
Sarah squeezes the orange ice out through the edge that Mr Plummer has cut with scissors; girls ask for it to be cut, boys tear it. Kirk sits down, and jostles me to move over, pretending to be friendly but determined to make room between us for Sarah to sit next to him. I’m about to leave when I catch her glance at the space Kirk has made for her and pretend she hasn’t seen it! She walks in front of us to sit down beside me. One in the eye for Kirk, long lashes and all.
She is wonderfully close and her bare arm is touching mine. She stretches out her brown legs on the pavement and, with her free hand, pushes her frock down to her knees. I clutch my Jubbly too hard and orange juice squirts on to the pavement
‘Ha,’ says Kirk, ‘what a waste.’ He leans over, knocking me against Sarah. His bulk doesn’t threaten in the same way that Griggsy’s does but with Sarah next to me, I hate him for being bigger than I am.
‘Kirk, do you mind?’ she says.
‘Looks like he’s peed on the pavement.’
It does.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she says.
He smirks. I swig long and slow at my Jubbly, trying to think of a clever response. Nothing comes to me and we sit in awkward silence until relief arrives in the shape of Michael, who is toiling towards us, arms straight down like he’s carrying an invisible rucksack. One hand is cupped backwards as if ready to draw a gun; it’s hiding a cigarette.
He flicks the brim of an invisible cowboy hat. ‘Howdy M’am, Kork, and if it isn’t Billy de Kid. Buenos dias, how are ye?’
‘Hello Michael, what’re you up to?’ says Sarah.
‘Not much señorita but I’m just after hearin’ on de wireless that de bandits who robbed that train vamoosed with more than two million pounds. Jesse James would have been proud of ’em.’
‘Oh yeah?’ says Kirk, dropping his jaw to mock him.
Michael spits a shred of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. ‘I’m too late for de Jubbly swallying contest den?’
‘Contest? It’s not a contest,’ says Kirk.
Michael winks at me. ‘Just as well, doesn’t Billy have yiz both well beat?’
Sarah laughs.
Kirk takes the bait. ‘Anyway, he started before us.’
‘Dat’s de way to win muchachos, dat’s de way.’
‘If we’d started at the same time …’
‘Ah Kork, if de moon were made of cheese …’
‘What?’
‘Oh nottn’, just a bit of poetry.’
I suppress a laugh. Michael looks away, eyes narrowed against the sun and prairie dust, like Randolph Scott. He drops what’s left of his cigarette and shreds it with the sole of his shoe. ‘Will yiz be at the hoedown on Sunday?’ He’s referring to our street party that has been held ever since the Coronation, except that it now takes place in the school holidays. We nod. ‘Me ould fellah’s doin’ de announcements. Isn’t he after gettin’ ahold of won of dem loudhailer yokes to help with de organizin’?’
Other Irishmen have difficulty understanding Michael’s dad’s accent and our Cockney neighbours will be taking the mickey as usual. Kirk shakes his head and smirks at me. I refuse to smile. Dad sticks up for Mr O’Rourke because he says it’s better to be a doer than someone who watches doers.
Behind Michael, some pigeons scatter as a Morris Minor burbles by. It’s white, like my aunt’s. I’m about to mention this when Sarah cries out and puts her hands over her eyes.
