TAG E-Book

Stephen May

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 495

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Mistyann is fifteen, unpredictable, unreliable and violent. She's also gifted. Jonathan Diamond is fortyone. Looks a bit like Tom Cruise and he's going to Wales too. A failed musician and a recovering alcoholic he's now an Advanced Skills Teacher and he'll be in loco parentis for the week. Together the two of them develop an unlikely and dangerous alliance as they are forced to confront difficult truths about themselves.

Leseprobe

TAG

STEPHEN MAY

Published by Cinnamon Press

Meirion House

Glan yr afon

Tanygrisiau

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Gwynedd LL41 3SU

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Stephen May to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © Stephen May 2012.

ISBN 978-1-909077-07-2

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) or to institutions is purely coincidental.

Designed and typeset in Garamond by Cinnamon Press

Cover design by Mike Fortune-Wood from original artwork ‘young woman face abstract’ by ‘madartists’; agency: dreamstime.com.

EBook design by Peter Clough @ DynamicEbooks.com

To Carole, Caron and Hannah

Gifted women all of them

For their help with this book many thanks are due to:

David Armstrong

Adrian Barnes

Heather Beck

Suzanne Berne

Jan Fortune-Wood

Ilona Jones

Camilla Hornby

Paul Magrs

Duncan May

Anthony Roberts

Nicholas Royle

Marjorie Sandor

Christopher Wakling

Table of Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

ONE

There is a baby crying. Yelling its little heart out. Really screaming. A group of kids, fourteen or fifteen year olds are gathered around a buggy. That screaming. It just twists your insides. A girl reaches into the buggy. The screaming doesn't increase in intensity but neither does it diminish. The girl brings out a swaddled bundle. She's calm despite the noise. The girl holds the baby up by the throat with her left hand. She pulls back her right fist and smashes it into the baby's face.

The other kids laugh.

The baby stops crying.

The kids laugh some more.

Someone sniffs.

'That wasn't very kind, Mistyann.'

There's an adult in this group. A woman. Nervous. About fifty. Badly dressed.

'Worked though Miss, didn't it?'

This isn't a real baby. This is the School Baby. This is a baby whose job it is to go home with pupils and irritate them so intensely, that no-one will want to go out and get a real one. This is a baby whose mood swings and tantrums are programmed by Miss Midgley, the Health and Social Care Technician. This is a baby that begs to be given a slap.

'And what will you do if she cries at home tonight Mistyann, hmm? What if your, er, unusual, er, child-care methods don't work? What if Baby carries on screaming through the night hmm? What will you do then?' Snort. Sniff.

'I'll kill her miss. I'll rip her head off.'

'Miss?' Another kid now. A boy. Small. Spots. 'How do you know it's a she miss?' The kids laugh again.

'It's got no cock you div!' Someone shouts but Spots persists.

'Yeah but it's got no it's got no it's got no other bits neither.'

'It's a eunuch,' says Mistyann. Clear. Firm. She's got authority. 'It's a little baby eunuch.'

Mistyann's good with words. Mistyann's Talented And Gifted. We did a test. 198. Highest score in the year. So she's coming with me on the special course in Wales. Eight specially selected fifteen year olds from across the country are going. And I'm going because apparently I'm Talented and Gifted too. I'm an Advanced Skills Teacher. It says so, on the certificate I've got in the downstairs toilet at home.

'Mr Diamond, look.' They've seen me now. 'Mistyann's murdered the School Baby'.

'Ring the police, Sir. She's a killer, Sir. She's a psycho.' 

Just then the baby cries. It's heart-breaking how real it sounds. The baby sobs and chokes. Sounds like she's waking from terrible dreams into somewhere worse.

'It's a miracle!' I cry, all theatrical. Everyone laughs. Except Mistyann.

'Fucking eunuch,' she says her voice stretched and tight, 'I thought I'd killed it.'

'Babies are tough, Mistyann,' I say.

'Not that tough,' she says, her eyes on mine unblinking. Her hands white around the buggy. There's a pause. A bell rings and tugs the kids towards the buildings.

'Don't forget the course, Mistyann,' I say. 'We need your yellow slip.'

Mistyann nods, turns and walks away. The School Baby cries and cries. Mistyann turns back, the clouds lifted from her eyes. She's bright, smiling.

'You have to punch it, Sir! Like I did. It'll shurrup then!' She skips away, fizzing with energy. A mongrel terrier darting between all those zombie sheep. There's a heavy sigh next to me.

'You're going to Wales with Mistyann Rutherford?'

'That's the plan, Mrs English. She's officially part of the TAG crew. Talented and Gifted. 198 on the Cognitive Reading Score. A genius in waiting.' There's a pause. A sniff, I think. Or a snort. Or a dismissive remark.

Mrs English sniffs. I award myself five points. Then she snorts. I award myself another five.

'Oh she's clever alright,' Mrs English does not make this sound in any way good. I award myself another five points. The maximum mark. Mrs English heads after the kids.

'Time to go in,' she says.

'I've got a free,' I reply and Mrs English sniffs again, as I should have guessed she would. She snorts.

'Alright for some.'

As she turns away, I punch the baby.

The crying stops.

TWO

I'm a fucking genius. That's what Mr Negus says back in Nursery. He uses that funny voice old people use to kids that they think are sweet.

'Do you see the car, Mistyann?'

And I say, 'Which car do you mean, Mr Negus? The green Subaru? The blue Saab 9000? Or the iron-car with the ugly dent in the side?' I'm nearly three. Iron cars are what I call Robin Reliants. They look like irons you see. And that's when he says it. He doesn't say it to me. He says it to my mum.

'Claire,' he says, 'your kid is a fucking genius.' Mr Negus is the care-taker at Edith Cavell Lower School but he knows my mum from when they were both at Pilgrim Upper. He's got a dog, Sally. An Alsatian, beautiful and big. Looks like a wolf. I see them both sometimes, out walking. Sally, that's the dog, looks sad now. Course she's got to be like proper ancient and old age makes you pure sad if you're a dog or a person.

'Old age definitely ain't for cissies.' Nan says that, and she should know. She's proper old. Sixty at least. She lives in Manchester and that's not for cissies either. They are always stabbing and shooting each other up there. Nan says that she doesn't mind that so much, it's the bleeding rain she can't stand. When she wins the lottery she's going to buy a caravan and live in Spain with her toyboy. That's what she says.

When we're little and see Mr Negus and Sally we scream and hide behind our mums' legs

Mr Negus says, 'She's alright. She wouldn't hurt a fly.'

And I say, 'But I'm not a fly, Mr Negus, I'm a girl.'

And Mr Negus says, 'Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah she does likes to eat girls I must admit. Flies are safe. Girls are not.' And we all scream some more. It's like a stupid little joke that we have between us.

Anyway. Mr Negus is the first person to call me a genius.

'What's a jeenus?' I say.

Mum says, 'A genius, Mistyann, is a fucking pain in the arse.' She says it nice though, with a smile in her voice.

And I say, 'Don't swear, Mummy. It is very rude.'

And Mum looks at Mr Negus and laughs.

'See what I've got to look forward to? Years of being bollocked by my own kid.'

That's a long time ago now. Before Ty, and before William and Harry were born. Before all the trouble.

Not many people call me a genius now. They call me GIFTED instead and it always sounds like it's being said in capital letters. They also make it sound a bit like a disease. They kind of whisper it. But whisper it noisy, if you know what I mean. Today I've mostly been writing my name over and over on my new bag. I haven't done that since I was eleven. I've even been putting little smiley faces in all the 'O's'. I can't even remember when I last did that. My new bag is cream and it says 'Books and Things' in big black fuck off letters. It's not the sort of thing I normally buy.

Things you should know about me. I'm Mistyann Rutherford. I'm fifteen. I live – used to live - in Manton Heights which is an estate of shoebox houses in Bedford but, IN NO WAY IS IT A COUNCIL ESTATE. That needs to be said big, cos they all have heart attacks round here if anyone says that they can't afford their own houses. Seems weird to me. If you rent you can live where you want for as long as you want. You can move on or out whenever you want. But if you buy you're stuck in some poxy little house somewhere you don't really want to live.

I live with my mum, Claire, who is a bit of an alkie plus she's depressed about Ty going off with that slag. And I live with my little brothers William and Harry. They are eight and five and not my real brothers. They're half-brothers. William was Mum's scheme to keep Ty living with us and Harry was Mum's revenge on Ty when it didn't work and he was off shagging the tart who lives in Clapham Road. We're not sure who his dad is. Mum won't say. I bet he's an embarrassment. Pure married or minging or gay.

My dad's still alive but he lives in Scotland and he's a loser anyway so I don't see him much. I used to email him telling him how well I'm doing at school and asking for cash. That was when I was at St Teresa's Catholic High School, which sounds floss but isn't. It's just the school all the Irish and Italian and Polish kids go to. And the only other things you need to know are:

I still like cars

I like football, even though I don't watch it much anymore and

No-one ever needs to feel sorry for me.

THREE

You should have been in court today. It would have made you laugh. My solicitor was an acned kid called Wayne King. Yes, really... A typical set one boff. Food, you'd have called him. Someone asking to be eaten.

You told me to go to a decent firm and I did—Porter and Sons, established in 1956—but the old hands clearly knew that I was a lost cause. They wouldn't touch me. Why would they? Poor old Wayne got lumbered.

I felt almost sorry for him. Wayne looked like some awkward wading bird; all knees and elbows protruding from impossibly scrawny limbs. You definitely look older than him. His Top Man suit was a size too big and he reeked of Lynx and morning masturbation. Sorry, but there it is. You're not going to read this and I'm not going to censor myself. Call it a pact. Poor old Wayne looked so thoroughly, geekily adolescent that I kept expecting him to get out his Game Boy whenever proceedings adjourned.

It won't surprise you to learn that he was rubbish. Not that it mattered. He could have been Perry Mason and it wouldn't have mattered. Maybe it mattered to Wayne. Maybe he really felt that he could pull off some kind of miracle and make his name. It was never going to happen.

Think what he had to work with. A self-confessed alcoholic. A teacher caught abusing a position of trust. And worse, a man convicted by the tabloids of the most appalling of modern crimes—that of being a 'sad loner'.

It didn't help that Wayne completely misread the magistrate. You know about magistrates, Mistyann? I know that you have come across them. Part-time volunteers who spend their free time judging their fellow citizens as an alternative to working in the local thrift shop. Most of them are ladies of a certain age. Tories of course. The one I got even looked like Maggie Thatcher in her peak years. And everything about poor old Wayne was calculated to annoy her. The cheap suit, the acne, the ridiculous teenage haircut —asymmetrical mullet, not the hair of a serious advocate— the spineless blushing and, most of all, his PC habit of calling her 'Madam Chair'. All of it was bound to get on her tits.

Magistrates sit in threes but it is only the chairman that you have to worry about. They are the most experienced and Maggie was clearly not the type to brook any serious debate. You could tell at a glance that her word was going to be Law in this case.

As poor old Wayne stumbled through the mitigation he grew more and more skittish at the disapproval radiating down from Maggie's stare. Eventually he called her 'Madam Chair' once too often and she could bear no more.

'Mr King,' she snapped, forcing him to break off from his laboured spiel. Making him jump. Poor old Wayne panicked and dropped his notes. He was using a lever-arch file containing notes as densely scribbled as some ancient Anglo-Saxon manuscript. Improv, like so much else, was clearly not his forte. After a pause for him to scramble around the front benches picking up his scattered manuscript, Maggie got to the point.

'Mr King, I am not an item of furniture. Please desist from referring to me as though I were.'

Poor old Wayne looked like his arse had been spanked. He stammered, swallowed and gasped. Eventually he choked out a kind of damp apology and we all moved on, the rest of his oration being delivered in a pathetic schoolboy whisper.

I felt for him when, as he staggered to a close, Maggie rose imperious as a battleship.

'The bench will retire.'

And it was at that point that I laughed out loud. She didn't want to be a chair, but she didn't mind being a bench. Maybe the old battleaxe knew exactly what she was doing, but I'm not sure. Old prejudices die hard and I still don't like to credit Tories with a sense of humour.

Whether she was making a deliberate gag or not, I don't suppose laughing in court did me any favours. In any case, Mistyann, I don't think anyone's really interested in my version of the whole Welsh debacle.

Do you want to know what I'm up to these days? I don't teach any more. Had you heard that? I do shifts with the Undead and I watch telly and I surf the net. And, yes, I'm thinking of putting that band together with my mate Cog. After all, it's only been what, twenty years?

It's my mate Cog that really wants to re-form. He's the driving force.

'Come on,' He says more or less nightly on the phone, 'It'll be a laugh. And it's not as though you've got anything else on. No marking or anything.'

No marking, no five a side, no running, no snooker, no nothing it is true. I don't go out much. It's all a bit too dangerous these days.

I've known Cog since 1977. 1977 imagine that. Good Queen Lizzie's Silver Jubilee year. It's September. I've been at my new school for less than three weeks. We're doing PE.

'What do you mean you've forgotten your kit? I don't know what your last school was like, Diamond, but this is a serious place. You can get undressed anyway. You'll do in PE in your pants. Come on, we're all boys here. And at least it's not swimming today.'

The new school is big on swimming. It has a huge pool, bigger than the public one, and if you forget your swimming kit, you swim naked. I'd heard stories about this place before I arrived, but I'd never believed them.

1977. Silver Jubilee year and I'm wearing my last clean pair of pants. My silver Jubilee briefs. Tiny, covered in a union jack and with the smiling official portrait of Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh stuck fast on the crotch.

I'm the new kid. I'm four feet nothing tall. I'm eleven years old. I wear glasses. I'm shit at rugby. I've already learned that Mr Cheshunt's mantra, 'Come on lad, the bigger they are the harder they fall' is a big fat lie. Stopping some of these kids is like stopping a charging rhino. Dive at their feet? I don't think so.

I have no friends at this school. I've been plucked from the comp to go to the Modern school. Well, it was modern in 1802 or whatever.  A scholarship kid with his fees paid by the council, detested equally by staff and students as an oik getting above his station. No allies. And now I'm nearly naked. I'm wearing comedy pants. I'm blushing pinkly with my whole body and the teacher, a sniggering sadist called Mr Gamble is saying.

'Get into pairs.'

No one comes to join me. I can see that there is one group of three but Mr Gamble doesn't make any of them become my partner. He says, 'You'll just have to do these exercises on your own, Diamond. Do the best you can.'

It's then that Cog comes over.

'Hi,' he chirrups, 'I'll be your partner. If you want.' If you want. How impossibly gallant is that?

Cog. Charles Oscar Greenwood. My oldest friend and now half of my entire corps of friends. Times like these you find out who you're friends are. And mine are Cog and Army Dave. That's it. And compared to being stripped nearly naked in your first week at an all-boys school, and in this way exposed as someone who wears a picture of the Queen next to his cock, the humiliation of courts and magistrates is nothing, believe me.

FOUR

I sign the stupid yellow form myself. Mum's never going to get round to it.

'In a minute,' she says, and everyone knows that 'in a minute' means fucking never. Anyway, she doesn't want me to go on the trip. I'm too useful. Who gets William and Harry to school? Me. Who feeds them home? Me. Who clears the place up? Me.

Mum used to be proper house-proud, now she just screams about living in a tip and does sweet FA about it. She'll start sometimes. Some mornings we're woken up by the hoover going at 7 o'clock. She loves old disco and it'll be on mega-loud with mum in her thong singing about dancing in New York City, while going mental with the hoover. She never finishes. We get up, get breakfast and go to school and when we come back the hoover will be parked in the kitchen and mum will be yelling that she doesn't get a minute's peace. Or sometimes she'll be in bed. Whatever, the house will be in a state. In fact it might be worse than usual 'cos she'll have got all William and Harry's toys out to 'sort through' and left them all over the floor.

Harry's got this one toy, a horrible plastic doll with an evil face that he calls Tim. Don't ask me why. Ty gave Tim to Harry and he was battered then. I think he comes from a car boot sale and he's got pen all over his face from where Harry drew on him. And he's got one arm 'cos William gets jealous and operates on him with a pair of scissors.

'He's got cancer Harry. I had to cut his arm off to save his life.' So then Harry goes and destroys all William's Lego models. It's pure total war for a while and they are only four and six then. Anyway I come home once and mum is sitting in the middle of the lounge, toys and bits of crap all round her, and she's howling. Proper howling like she's in agony and she's holding this Tim doll real tight. Freaks me out this does. Scares the shit out of me. Much more than when she goes berserk and starts calling us names.

She tries to be a good mum but she's just a bit pants at it. And I think that's okay because you can't be good at everything for ever. It's like footballers. I like Roy Keane. I like him because he was proper small at home in Cork in Ireland and everyone told him that he would never make it. But he refused to listen and he made himself stronger, fitter, harder than everyone else and he became the best and got signed by Manchester United. Then, in that World Cup, when all the other Irish players are just happy to be in Japan and wanting to party, Roy goes crazy because he can't see the point in playing if you're not trying to win. Roy's retired now. Had a hip that was a bit dodge, knew he wasn't good enough anymore and quit just like that. He's a manager. A star one. He doesn't take any shit.

Other footballers who aren't as sorted as Roy don't choose to give up. Football gives them up. Some of them get into drink and drugs and have to have liver transplants. Mum's like that in a way. She's a talented mum but she let herself get tired. Couldn't keep up. It happens in football, TV, music, everything. Like I used to think Ant and Dec were well funny, now they get on my tits. Okay, I might have grown up a bit but I also think they're just not as good as they used to be. A bit tired, a bit smecked. Course you don't actually stop if you're on telly—you just get sad. And my mum's like that too. She should stop being a mum. She should get her liver transplant or whatever she needs and just do something else, but you can't if you're a mum.

Anyway. I sign the stupid form myself. I can do mum's signature perfect and no-one ever looks at the signature. But before I do that I have to check some things.

'Mr Diamond?'

'Yes, Mistyann?'

'Mr Diamond, is it true that where we're going there's no TV?'

'No TV. No radio. No internet. No CDs. No mobile phones. I told you, Mistyann. It's paradise.'

'Sounds boring. What about newspapers and stuff?'

'None of those either.'

'And how far is the nearest town?'

'Six or seven miles I think, Mistyann. Though there is a village nearer than that.'

'What about you, Sir? Will you take a radio and that?'

'I might try and smuggle in a small wireless, Mistyann. For the cricket.'

'You can't do that!'

'Very passionate, Mistyann. Why not?'

'Cos it would be cheating. You can't have one rule for the kids and another for the adults. Wouldn't be right.'

'Mistyann, it happens all the time. I can vote, drink, smoke, drive, get married, do the lottery, buy a kitchen knife. All things that you can't do. Not legally anyway. I don't have to wear a school uniform either. It's a cruel world, Mistyann, where double standards operate all the time. You should be used to that by now.'

It's a weird thing to say about a teacher but Mr Diamond is the most like a film star of all the blokes I know. He's only about 40. That's not that ancient. He doesn't really look like a teacher. He sort of looks a bit like Tom Cruise, only taller cos Tom Cruise is a bit of a midget. He's got all his hair and he's thin. He hasn't gone lardy and grey and smelly like most teachers. He goes running and plays football and all that, so he doesn't look old. He just likes to use an old fashioned way of talking. But he's got a good voice. It's deep and he speaks slowly like he's tasting all the words. Mainly he sounds a bit like there's a well good joke going on somewhere. Love that.

I've always loved having him talk to me like that. Just me and him. Even in Year 7. Sometimes, when we get a bit of a groove going, it's like we're in a play. Not one where all the words are written down, but the kind where you make up the words as you go along but somehow the words don't turn out to be ordinary words. Even if they are, me and him can make ordinary words sound better. Just like words in a play. And he always looks right at you, which most teachers, most grown-ups, hardly ever do. Anyway it's important that I get the answer I want.

'Sir, I don't think you should cheat. If you take a radio I ain't going, Sir'

'You aren't going. You aren't going.'

My heart sinks. I've heard that stupid expression before but this time I proper feel it. I feel my whole heart sink towards my stomach. I'm thinking that Mrs English, or someone like her, has fucked it up for me. She hates me. She really does.

'Why not? Is the trip cancelled?'

'No, Mistyann, it's just that you don't say 'ain't'.'

'Jesus, Sir. You can be so boring. I'm NOT going if you cheat.'

'Mistyann, I'm just trying to give you some free grammar advice here. You'll thank me one day'

Yeah, right. As if.

'Forget it, Mistyann. Okay I promise. I will not take any modern receiving equipment to Cefn Coch even though the second test against the Windies begins that week, so help me God. Is that okay? And since when did you get so keen on people following rules, Mistyann, eh?'

That's the other thing I like. The way he says my name a lot. Love that. Not enough people do that.

'And it's true that the course is during half-term, Sir?'

'Yes, Mistyann. Rather unbelievably I'm giving up my precious rest and recuperation offered by the February half-term to escort a group of the county's most precocious brats to a strange and distant land, one peopled by painted savages who persist in speaking their own tongue despite a much better alternative now being freely available.'

'What are you on about, Sir?'

'I'm on about the Welsh, Mistyann.'

'They speak English, Sir.'

'Mostly that is true, Mistyann, but not where we're going. Where we're going it's the full on Cumree, dai-boyo-bach-bungalow-burning-experience. Cumree is spelt C-Y-M-R-U by the way and it's what the Welsh call Wales.'

'Why do they burn bungalows?'

'Because English people buy bungalows and only live in them at weekends and the Welsh say that the English have put the prices up so that they, the Welsh, can't afford bungalows of their own. So they burn them.'

'Isn't that fair enough then, Sir?'

'I suppose you could argue that, though personally the mystery is why the English would want to live there.'

'Don't you like the Welsh then, Sir?'

'Listen, Mistyann. Racism is a terrible thing. I think that we're all agreed on that aren't we?'

'Course. My brother's black.'

'Yes. Well. Racism is a terrible thing. But it's also a powerful human impulse. So God invented the Welsh. The only people it's okay to be racist about.'

He has these little jokes does Diamond. I bet they get him in trouble loads when he's out and about. I bet he gets in some right rucks. Anyway I get all the information I need. So the next day I hand in the form.

I know that Diamond thinks I'm asking all these questions about TV and that because I'm a stupid little kid who can't imagine going a day without watching cartoons. Which just shows you how even people like him, can't see beyond the obvious. Really pisses me off sometimes. And I can't believe we're going to a place called Kevin Cock.

FIVE

Poor old Wayne tried to use the fact that I was 'subjected to an all male environment at a formative stage' as part of his explanation for what he called 'my disastrous, but momentary, loss of control'. Crap. Even I don't buy that. And Maggie was having none of it.

And in any case at the Modern we weren't without feminine influence. Ms Marsden was the music teacher and she ran a little lunch-time club for kids who preferred records to rugby. It was important that we called her Ms rather than Miss; it felt significant, even if we didn't know why. We did know that it annoyed other members of staff.

'Oh you're in Mizz Marsden's class. Lucky you.' They would sneer.

We were allowed to bring records to the music club. We could play them in turn and talk about why we liked them. You were allowed to discuss the record for the same length of time as it lasted. This meant that my Ramones singles didn't get much discussion at first but that Roland Marshall's Barclay James Harvest tracks got a lot of undeserved focus. But we loved it in her room. It was warm and safe and we felt like a little gang.

Ms Marsden was cool. Twenty-five-ish, she wore men's clothes, three piece suits, slightly—and only slightly—accessorized and feminised. A pair of strange, vaguely ethnic, earrings one day, a vivid pink scarf the next. She had an intense, severe expression. Her face, which was pale and devoid of make-up, was like the surface of the moon; pitted with craters and oddly shaped scars. She was no beauty, but she had a sharp angular look and a smile that could be quite annihilating. She looked like no-one we had ever seen and the rest of staff hated her. I think we were all in love.

I remember you saying that you don't like music, but it's hard for someone my age to understand that. For us it became the main thing. Music meant more to everyone then. It was harder to find for one thing. You didn't hear punk classics played in Asda the way you do now.

It was in Ms Marsden's lunchtime class that I heard Joy Division for the first time and Echo and The Bunnymen and The Doors and The Velvet Underground and The Kinks and Roxy Music and Patti Smith. And Bowie, of course. Ms Marsden had a major crush on Bowie and she looked so great, her hands moving like strange hawks in the air, as she described seeing Bowie's farewell Ziggy concert that we were fans before we'd heard a note. About a year after the music club had formed, Ms Marsden started setting homework.

'Go home and listen to Peel tonight,' she'd say, 'There's a Slits session on.' Or she might say, 'Old Grey Whistle Test tonight, gang, Comsat Angels and Dr John.' And the following day we'd argue and shout and talk and play records. It was a proper education and after a while the Barclay James Harvest stopped coming in and instead we'd compare The Only Ones with Lou Reed or The Clash against vintage Stones.

She had a whole syllabus worked out. One half-term we listened to early rock 'n' roll. Elvis, Little Richard, Wanda Jackson, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Gene Vincent.

'This is the stuff that turned the Beatles on.' she said. 'We ought to know about it.'

Another term it was vintage soul. James Carr, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin, Aretha, Otis, Smokey. I don't remember when we started bringing in fewer records to allow more time for hers, but I also don't remember caring.

Outside in the cold and the rain, County House would prepare to do glorious battle on the rugger field against Churchill House—who were boarders and the sons of army and air force officers—in the first round of the Cock House Trophy. And from our eyrie in the music block we would literally look down on them and laugh. From where we sat they looked like so many misshapen crabs conducting some bizarre mating ritual. And there was no doubt that Ms Marsden encouraged our laughter. We were insurgents against the established order.

It really was called the Cock House trophy too. Teams of boys competing to be called Cock House. Those Victorians had a real sense of humour. I'd love to hear what you'd make of that: The Cock House.

I'm thinking of buying a ticket to London. Spending some time there, just walking the streets. Is it a good idea do you think? Of course I'll have to fill in a form, ask permission, promise to be good. It's like being back at school this, Mistyann.

SIX

I nearly don't make it out the house.

'Mistyann! Mistyann! Harry's fucking puking every fucking where!'  This is typical of Harry. Little brat can tell when I want to do something and does everything he can to wreck it. See, if he's sick then I'll have to baby-sit him while mum goes to work. Even if she wasn't working I'd have to stay at home and look after him cos mum pure hates the littleuns when they're ill. Sometimes she doesn't like them much when they're well either. And then sometimes she hugs them all day long and calls them her 'little chickens' and calls Harry 'bun-bun' and 'noo-noo' and all crap like that. But that doesn't happen often, and I'm not sure they like it. I think it scares them cos it's not normal and it's not what they're used to.

Anyway today Harry is puking into the washing up bowl and William is creating because he can't find his mobile. Little fucker's only eight. Shouldn't have a phone. Ty got it for him of course. It's got wi-fi, TV, MP5, about a million games, all the bollocks. I moaned about it for ages. I've only got a crappy little phone that doesn't even do polyphonic or the web. I mean I don't really care but it's not right that my little brother should have the dogs of a phone when I've got a shitty old thing, but Ty says he doesn't want William to be called a ragga at school.

I say, 'What about me then?'

He says, 'But Mistyann, you are a ragga.'

And William laughs his nasty little laugh and I go upstairs and wipe his toothbrush under the rim of the bog and put it back. Stupid little rat is sick for two days.

Ty turns up at our house about twice a year. William's birthday and sometime around Christmas and every time he has loads of presents. He's like William's own personal Santa. If Santa could be black. Ty's fat with the kind of stupid little beard lardy blokes have because they think it hides their chins. It doesn't. Ty's always laughing this big old fake ho-ho-ho laugh. And he drinks sherry. Likes to think he's got a bit of class does Ty. That's why he gets wankered on martini and sherry and stuff. Can't get lushed up on lager like normal people. He's a twat.

Anyway, his precious William is pure whinging big time about his mobile and Harry's coughing and crying with sick all down his jumper and I'm worried that mum is going to notice that my PE bag is about 15 times its normal size in a minute.

'He's fine,' I say 'He's faking. He's trying to bunk off. He's probably got SATs or something.'

I feel a bit bad about this cos Harry looks at me and his eyes are huge and full of tears. He looks well sweet my brother. He's got all this mad curly red hair and a cute little round face and eyes like chocolate buttons. Red hair and brown eyes. It's proper unusual and everyone says he's adorable. And he can be. As long as he gets everything he wants. So he's looking up at me all outraged.

'I'm ill, Mistyann! I'm really really really sick.'

'Really thick you mean.' That's William being really bloody helpful. And so Harry starts crying.

And Mum goes, 'Oh God, I can't stand it, Mistyann. You deal with this. I've got to be at work.'

I know that there's no point complaining but I do anyway.

'Mum, it's an important day at school today. We've got a test.'

'You don't learn anything while you're taking a test do you?' she says. 'People worry too much about exams if you ask me.'

'I didn't ask you. Who would ask you anything? You don't know fuck all about anything.'  I say and she tries to slap me but I'm too quick and move away.

'Mistyann, just look after the boy, okay? Just start your half-term a day early. Jesus, it's just a day.' And suddenly she looks proper smecked. I hate her when she does that 'I'm all exhausted' thing.

'He's your fucking kid!' I yell, but she's already in the hall putting on her coat.

William's still whining on. 'Mum, what about my mobie?'

'It'll be where you left it.'

'It isn't. It isn't. I always put it in a special place and it's gone. Someone's nicked it.' And obviously he has to blame me now. 'I bet it's you, Mistyann.'

'Why would I want your stupid phone?' I say.

'Because yours is pathetic and rubbish and old and doesn't do anything.'

'It makes calls,' I say, 'It receives calls. What else do you need a phone for?'

William looks at me like I'm mad. And of course calling people is the one thing that William never does on his phone. He listens to music and wastes aliens and vids his mates twatting each other and all that, but he doesn't call people. Who would he call? He used to phone his dad but Ty changed his number after a couple of weeks and wouldn't tell him the new one. Said he didn't want to be bothered by kids ringing up and stopping important calls getting through. Which means calls from his fuckbuds I guess.

Mum says, 'Fuck this, I'm off.' And she's out the door and gone.

I get down after her and yell down the street, which I know she hates. 'You're the worst mother in the whole fucking world, you know that? Worse than Rosemary West!'

She turns around. 'Get back inside you little bitch!' she hisses.

And off she goes to spend the day filing nails and asking people about their holidays and telling people they look lovely and being nice. She works in a beautician's, my mum. Mad isn't it? Talks about setting up her own business. As if.

Rosemary West is this woman who killed loads of people, or helped her husband kill them. They even killed their own daughter. My Dad is obsessed with crime. Murders especially. Only things I ever see him reading are quiz books and books about famous killers. He let me read the one about Rosemary West when I was nine. Gave me nightmares.

Just then I hear this choking sound and turn around just in time to see Harry vomming over himself. He's missed the bowl by like at least a kilometre. William is staring at him proper fascinated.

'You. Fuck off to school,' I say.

'But it's only ten past eight,' he whines back, 'and I haven't got my phone.'

'If you mention your phone again I'll batter you,' I say, 'School. Now.'

And he looks at my face and decides to go which is a miracle. So at least he's out the way. I look at Harry, who seems a bit better. I take William's mobie out of my bag and check his credit. He's got £20 on it. God knows how, probably Ty playing Santa again. I phone 999 and tell them my little brother's vomiting everywhere and we wait for five minutes till the ambulance arrives. Harry's well excited as I tell the paramedics that he seems a tiny bit better but that I've been proper worried and that my mum is out because she's run to the neighbours for help. No, I don't know which neighbour, she's in a bit of a panic and so they say that they'll take Harry to A&E to have him checked over. And they give me the number of the hospital and tell me that I'd better wait for my mum so I can tell her what's happened and they promise Harry that they'll put the siren on. Then they go and I can finally get out of the house and get to school.

Before I do that though, I get changed. I was going to do it at school in the bogs but now that Mum's not here I don't have to worry about her getting all sus, so I can put on my travelling-to-Wales gear at home.

When I leave the house I've got five minutes to make it to school so I use William's bike with all my gear over my shoulders. Halfway there I realize that I've forgotten the lock, which means it will definitely be nicked while I'm away, but I think—fuck him. Fuck him. And I wonder what Mum will do when I don't come home from school. And I decide she'll probably do fuck all. Which is good. Which is what I want.

SEVEN

The night before the trip to Wales I went to play pool with Cog in the Three Horseshoes in Bletsoe. They had a doubles tournament on. It was a quiet night, the winter rain keeping a lot of the younger punters indoors, so we won. An outrageous flukey double gave us the title, which Cog accepted graciously by chanting football style at the locals.

'Who are yer! Who are yer!'

He followed up with a chorus of 'You're not singing any more…' before we were given our prize—a bottle of Liebfraumilch, presumably one that had been mouldering away since the heyday of sweet German wines back in the 1970s—and asked to leave.     

A night of extraordinary success couldn't be allowed to end with me dropping Cog off at his door before returning home to complete the marking that was waiting for me like a sullen, neglected wife. No, it was a special night, so Cog came back to drink the Liebfraumilch; the first time, incidentally, that booze had ever crossed the threshold of my little house. But I was confident in my abilities to withstand the temptations of this particular vintage. If I was going to fall off the wagon it wouldn't be into the sickly stickiness of cheap Kraut plonk.

There was a moment of crisis when my lack of a cork-screw was discovered. We could only settle down when the old gent next door had been roused to furnish us with the necessary. I had no wine glasses obviously, so Cog sipped at his drink from my old 'Coal Not Dole' mug. It seemed to put him a nostalgic mood.

'Hey, Jonny do you remember the night we supported The Fall?'

Of course I did. It was the night I got to finger a Danish teacher-training student called Sabine. Our band really did its job. We were all virgins before the advent of Be Nice, but within three gigs we had all managed to make significant sexual headway.

It's always been a source of wonder to me. It's girls who do music when you're young. It's girls who are ferried from piano to gym to ballet to horse-riding. It's girls who fill the ranks of the school orchestras. A boy will get an imitation Strat for his fifteenth birthday and four weeks later he's on stage, stumbling through a sausage-fingered version of Seven Nation Army. Meanwhile the beautiful all rounder whose tits he gets to grope at the post gig party has grade eight bassoon and can play the entire works of Shostakovich. I've never really managed to get my head around that. Why would you want to be the girlfriend and not the star?

'You know, Mark E Smith said that he loved us and that we could go on tour with them. We should have taken him up on that.'

'Bollocks. You're suffering from False Memory System my friend. His tour manager said we were okay and that we could support them again in London if we paid them two hundred and fifty quid.'

'We should still have done it. Things could have been different.'

'Cog, you're a chartered surveyor. A successful professional. I'm bringing great literature within the grasp of the proles. We do important, worthwhile jobs.'

We had a good laugh at that.

'Do you remember Ms Marsden's band?'

'Tower of Strength in the Horse and Groom? How could I forget?'

It's hard to imagine there being a modern equivalent of the Gloom, as we called it. You'd know it as the Bedford branch of Pret a Manger. Back then it was where all the local bands played. A venue so scummy that the last landlord died in 1989, not of cirrhosis of the liver but from a necrotising super-bug infection of the kind normally only found in Rwandan refugee camps. And amid this small-town temple of the squalid there was Ms Marsden on the Gloom's tiny stage shouting, 'Christ was a liar. A fucking liar!' over and over to a squall of feed-back. She was wearing a wedding dress, an ivory vintage gown that pushed up her breasts, always hidden at school under a black waistcoat; a voluptuous impersonation of a restoration beauty. In my first glance I could see acres of snow-white cleavage on display, all set off with a delicate tattoo of a strawberry. The dress was slashed raggedly and diagonally from her right hip to just above her left knee. She also sported black fish-nets and, on her right thigh, we could clearly see the garter belt and suspenders.

I know. How crude. How lacking in guile this seems now. But remember this was before Madonna, before Britney, Kylie or Beyonce or any of the modern parade of under-dressed, overly pneumatic disco vamps.

After the breasts/dress/legs, I noticed the hair. The bristly crop was now platinum. Her head glittered where it caught the light. Her face, normally pale and yoghurt fresh, was as immaculately made up as any long haul air hostess. She was stunning. Her cheek bones were sculpted and her eyes a suitably luminous cat-green. She was sparkling, cosmetically enhanced by secret processes that boys of my generation never got to know of.

It's different for lads your age. I think twenty years of FHM and Men's Health have given boys an insight into the running of the modern face. In 1983 this information was distributed on a strictly need to know basis and only women needed to know.

'She was crap wasn't she?' Cog was laughing at the memory. 'Passing out was the best response, mate.'

I nearly died at that gig. A near fatal combination of two bottles of red Martini, the boots of the Churchill house rugby team who we'd played in our Cock House semi, and the heat and humidity of the unventilated pub conspired to induce major organ failure.

Everyone always got a right kicking playing the boarders. They only ever got outside by volunteering for extra sport practice. They were, to all intents and purposes, professionals.  Not only that, but they carried deep grudges against their opponents who were able to watch Top of the Pops or Starsky and Hutch; privileges which were denied those who lived at school.

It took ages for anyone to call an ambulance because:

a) Everyone thought that I was just a lightweight who couldn't handle his booze

b) Cog had dragged me to the bogs because he didn't want to be thrown out once the bar staff had spotted me comatose and

c) Ms Marsden came and told Cog that calling a fucking ambulance would ruin her special night and she wasn't going to lose her chance of being signed because of some prick of a kid getting wasted. She let him know that she had heard for a fact that there were A&R men coming specially from London in time to catch her second set.

Apparently she came right into the gents, opened my eye with one exquisite thumb and sighed, 'He'll be okay. Prop him against a wall or something. He's just rat-arsed. This is a big night for me.'

Betrayal. The hard edge of this is something we have to keep bumping into again and again if we are going to learn the lesson of it. But I think Ms Marsden's betrayal of Cog was worse. Me she just left to die in my own piss. He had to suffer the fact that her band was shit. Really, really shit. In my front room Cog closed his eyes to picture it all.

'They were like King Crimson. They were like Jazz. They were like a jazz band trying to do punk. Four bald guys and Ms Marsden doing all that stupid poetry over the top. I tried to like it, I really did, but by song three I thought, I have to check on Diamond. It was just such a relief to be away from that fucking racket man'

And I was thinking that if Ms Marsden and her group had been any good at all, he'd have been moshing at the front and I'd have been dying in the stinking bogs of the Horse and Groom.

'I mean, after all she said about music. After all she taught us…'

'I know, mate. I know.'

And once again we told each other the whole story of that night. The sirens, the irritable ambulance man who paused in his fixing of tubes and wires to lecture someone who had referred to him as a paramedic.

'You've been watching too many American movies, sonny. We don't have paramedics here. I drive ambulances. I'm an ambulance driver. We don't need poncy titles.'

And there was the beautiful girl who had wept when she saw my face as they carried me outside and, of course, Cog told the story of how Ms Marsden, face shiny with sweat and fury, had tunnelled through the crowd to spit, 'You fucking, fucking kids. That's it. No more music club. I'm not wasting any more time on you, you TONE DEAF TWATS!' And she really did say it like that. As though it was in capitals.'

'That was the name of our band wasn't it? Tone Deaf Twats.'

'For about ten minutes.'

'That's right. Then Sid and Jacko joined and it was Be Nice.'

Cog was silent for a while sipping at from the mug which, I noticed now, was chipped. When had that happened? I loved that mug.

'And you're off to Wales tomorrow with this genius feral child.'

'Yeah. For my sins. Seven days with Ariel La Rock, Educational Psychologist to the stars, guru of the academic talent spotters.'

'It's funny isn't?' Cog was thoughtful now. 'I mean you were a genius yourself. I mean the scholarship and everything. And we were all so impressed with you at school. I mean the way you seemed to sleep through the lessons and then come to life whenever you were asked a question and always seemed to have the right answer. It was awe-inspiring. We were all a bit scared of you. And you were so quick at everything. I mean you picked up guitar in what, a week?'

'Bit longer I think and I was always pretty average. And I got a C and a D at A level. Hardly genius scores. I went to Essex for God's sake—the University of Clearing.'

'Yeah. But you were also pissed most days, so actually it was a real achievement. Me, if I have one glass of wine I can't even do the Sun cross-word. You're the cleverest man I know, Mr Diamond.'   

'You're also bladdered.'

'True. True.'

We called a cab and, after he'd gone, I sat thinking about the day I'd got the offer of a scholarship to the Modern. I hadn't wanted to go. I wanted to go to Pilgrim Upper with my mates, but there were my mum and dad bursting out of their clothes with pride.

'Why didn't you tell us you were a genius, son?'

'I'm really proud of you, Jonathan…'

'The Modern. Imagine…'

'Means school on Saturday mornings mind…'

'That'll be alright he only watches rubbish on TV then anyway. What's it called? The Multi-coloured Swapping Shop?'

'They finish at twelve. Still be home in time for Football Focus.'

'I think it's rugger at the Modern, Nick.'

'Good. Toughen him up. Football's a girl's game now. All long hair and kissing. What's that about?'

'So. What do you think, Jon?'

'The council will pay the fees.'

'It's a real honour…'

'I always knew you had brains. Somewhere…'

'Your decision. What do you say?'

'What about my friends?'

'You ungrateful little get…'

'You'll still see them, Jonny. We're not moving. They all live round here. Come on Jonathan, it's such an opportunity…'

It hadn't turned out quite the way it was meant to. I think I was meant to get straight A's and head off to Cambridge to lose the mockney accent and dedicate myself to advancing our understanding of the world or some such bollocks. Instead it was the dogged pursuit of a drinking career that started at school, worked on with real fervour at the University of Clearing and developed with admirable single-mindedness through the jobs held for a couple of years, then the jobs held for a few weeks. Before long I was working the night shift as what is euphemistically known as 'a carer' for the ancient and the mad. The people I called the Undead.

Sluicing the commodes of the very old and very ill is a good job for the alcoholic. You're permanently anesthetised to the stench and, almost uniquely among modern western businesses, there are no deadlines. You and your charges can drift together towards death.

For three years I tended the scabs and bowels of the Undead. You don't get fired from working with the demented. It would be like sacking someone from carrying out the dead from the plague houses of seventeenth century London. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it. Someone else. Someone who can't do anything else.

For a long time I thought I would never leave them. That I would be there mopping and stroking and soothing and breathing sweet vodka-coke over the restless gurglings of the Undead forever. I thought that I would stay there until the cruel thief that stole their identities came to add mine to his collection. That happens. It's far from unknown for attendants in homes for the geriatric mad to move quietly from warder to patient.

Cog had left half a mug of the Liebfraumilch. I took a deep sniff and recoiled from its cloying bouquet. Christ, how do people drink that stuff? It's like some sort of chemical weapon. It should be banned by UN convention. I opened the door and threw it outside into the garden. It struck me that it was an odd thing to do. Maybe I was worried that it would corrode my sink or something. But after I'd tossed out the wine I stood for a moment looking out into the drizzling night. I'd known this road all my life. There were no surprises waiting for me in Gladstone Street.

If I was to look outside my front now, Mistyann, I'd see your mum. I know I would. She'd be sitting as she does every night in that silver 4x4. Sitting, drinking, smoking and staring at my front door. The phone calls have stopped. The abusive ones and the silent ones. The haranguing in the street has mostly stopped too. She's opted for this unnerving passive stalking. I can't say it's worse, but it's not good. Really not good.

EIGHT

I get to the car park yeah, and the only person around is Carboot. He's crying. Carboot is always crying. He's like pure total food. Everything about him says kick the shit out of me. Carboot's name is Dale. Car Boot Dale. Funny huh? You know who makes that name up? Our teacher. Mrs Duck in Year Three. Pretty fucking cruel cos Carboot is in and out of fucking foster homes and when he's with his mum she forgets to look after him. So when he's back living at home he pure reeks or he doesn't have a coat. I don't think she's evil, Dale's mum, she just doesn't know how to deal with her kids. This is how bad she is: she's so bad my mum takes the piss out of her. My mum slags her all the time.

'She's an effin disgrace,' Mum says, 'She wants putting away. She wants her kids taken off her full time.'

And this is my mum talking. Mad. And if his mum wasn't bad enough Carboot is like proper scrawny with this proper bad acne. He looks like he got chicken pox and then it never left. And he stammers. Kid's got no chance. Food.

But he lives down my road and I kind of look out for him when I can. But he's pure hard work. He doesn't do himself any favours. I mean here he is fucking crying again. He's asking to be twatted.

'Alright, Dale?' I say, He looks at me blank. 'What's up?' I say. 'Come on mate—ain't telepathic, you're gonna have to give me a clue at least.' 

Carboot looks at me. He can't talk. His mouth is full of tongue and his nose full of snot and his eyes full of tears. He looks like he needs squeezing out. He looks like a dish-cloth left in dirty washing up water. He looks a state. He unzips his coat, shows me what he's got on underneath.

What has he got on underneath? Fuck all. Diddly-squat. There's just his white skin stretched over his ribs like a manky sheet over a cheap bed.

'Jesus, Dale. You let them take your fucking shirt. What is wrong with you?'

He swallows, dirty tears leak down his face, like fucking slugs crawling along a garden path. Slow and disgusting.

'I cccccccouldn't help it.' He sniffs. 'They made me.'

'No one makes you give them your shirt, man.'

'They did!' He looks desperate

Here's the thing about bullies. They are not cowards like teachers say they are. Stand up to them and you will get battered. Grass them up to a teacher and you will get battered. Whatever you do, you will get battered. It's what you do after you get battered that is crucial. You have to keep at them. Whenever you see them, no matter how many there are you've got to pile in and when they put you on the deck you've got to keep getting up and you've got to hit first and hit fast and you mustn't avoid them, you've got to seek them out. You've got to make the bullies sick of you. See them in town? Then you've got to be over the road and in their face. See them out with their mum and dad? Get over there and give them a mouthful. Or a face full of spit. The more public the place the better.

Yeah, you'll get battered. You'll get battered again and again and again, but in the end they're gonna give up. In the end they'll be avoiding you and the places you go. In the end they'll be hiding from you or wanting to be your friend. Carboot? He's a three stone streak of piss. But if he kept coming back. If he kept after the cunts who took his shirt then eventually, eventually—they'd leave him alone.

You've got to make the bullies bored of you. It's like the postman. If some annoying little yappy dog keeps going after his ankles every time he tries to deliver somewhere then he'll kick it a few times but in the end he's just not going to go there. He'll miss that house out. You've got to make the bullies change their route. Carboot though, he hasn't got what it takes to be an irritating little mongrel. He can't jar people off enough.

'Who took your shirt, Dale?'

'Them lot. Carter and that.'

Angel Carter. Tits like Katie Price. She's only sixteen, but they can't be natural. Someone must have paid for them. Looks like a Page Three model but I swear she's another one who is like Rose West inside. Thinks she's it.

'Why?'

'Said it was for a fashion project. Said she just wanted to take a picture of it. A Polaroid. Said she'd give it straight back.'

'Why did it have to be your shirt?'

'Said that it needed to be small and and and and and and…' His voice drops to a whisper, 'stink'

'For her pro ject.' I say it like it's two words like the Americans do cos I like the sound of it that way. Pro. Ject. 'And then what?'