Becoming Nancy Page 3

  The school did have another gay member of staff up until a couple of months back, as it happens: a timorous and nervy creature who taught French, and, in his patchwork denim and multicoloured braces, looked like he’d been left behind by a travelling production of Godspell. His name was Mr Majors, and some of the children – well, most of them, actually – called him Farrah Fawcett. In stark contrast to Hamish McClarnon, Farrah held little to no authority over any of his classes, most of whom had decided he was a homo the minute his ‘Bonjour, mes enfants’ got under way. He fared, I believe, slightly better with a handful of the younger boys – the first and second years – who hadn’t quite worked out the implications of his rather liberal hand gestures and assorted silk neckerchiefs, but once the boys hit about thirteen, any wide-eyed notions of Mr Majors being anything other than a ‘raving arse bandit’ went straight out of la fenêtre.

  During almost all our lessons with Farrah, there had been a steady stream of random, smart-alec remarks bandied across the French room by the clever little so-and-sos who knew, with some certainty, that poor, wretched Mr Majors would rather stick his tightly permed head into a textbook, or fuss around with something unimportant in a stationery cupboard, than confront their cruel slurs, and, indeed, his own demon. So Jason Lancaster’s cries of ‘Where’s your girlfriend, sir?’ and ‘Does she like it up the bum?’ went, for the most part, unchecked.

  I, of course, felt horribly sorry for Mr Majors at first; but then sometimes – when the name-calling spilled over, consuming me in its putrid wake – I would catch him studying me, as if I might be party to some hitherto unspoken secret method of deflecting the spiteful tongues of fifteen-year-old schoolboys. He never once stood up for me. He never once told Jason and his friends to desist as they pointed and laughed at me each time we read aloud the word ‘pensée’, on the afternoon we learned the French names for popular flowers. It was something of a breather for him, I imagine. Anyway, after finally more or less convincing most of the fourth and fifth years that he was, in point of fact, engaged to be married and therefore not gay, someone spotted Farrah on the night bus with a man in cerise angora – so that was the end of that. Two weeks later he handed in his notice and fled the school, unable to endure the unyielding derision.

  At least he had that option. I, of course, don’t. I’d thought a lot, recently, about the obvious similarities between Mr Majors and Hamish McClarnon … both teachers, both gay … and the striking differences. I’d thought about which one of them I would rather be … which one of them I might well be.

  * * *

  ‘What about Bill Sikes, sir?’ Frances called out across the hall, heroically navigating attention away from my still fresh mortification. ‘Who’s playing evil old Bill?’

  ‘Oh! Yes! I nearly forgot,’ Hamish whooped, sounding uncannily like Molly Weir from the Flash commercials. ‘The part of Bill Sikes will be played by Maxie Boswell.’

  Who? Who the fuck was Maxie Boswell? I’d never heard of him. I followed a sea of rotating heads, now all looking in the direction of said Maxie, who was sitting at the back of the hall on his own, and discovered a blond, hazel-eyed creature I don’t think I’d ever once spotted at the school, or anywhere else in the locale for that matter. I would have remembered. I indisputably would have remembered him.

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ I quizzed Frances.

  ‘I’ve not ever seen him,’ she said, ‘but I’ve heard about him. He started this term – transferred from St Joseph’s. And he’s put a lot of noses out of joint cos after the football trials the day before yesterday he got made captain. He’s a bit tasty, actually.’

  I looked around at the boy once more. He was leaning back on his chair and his right hand was between his legs.

  ‘D’you think?’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Then the pips went for the next lesson. Frances and I began to gather our bits and pieces together, but Hamish, evidently not quite finished yet, started clapping his hands together and shouting over the resultant din.

  ‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute!’ he yelled. ‘We’ve got our first read-through and sing-through tomorrow afternoon, so can everyone be here prompt after last period, please? Mr Lord will be accompanying us on piano, so start learning these scripts and songs now, ma pets.’

  ‘Mr Lord, the PE teacher?’ I squawked at Frances, aghast, as we filed out of the hall. ‘Playing the bloody piano?’

  ‘Believe it or not, Bob Lord’s a veritable Winifred Atwell on the ivories, as well as being Greater London’s forty-eighth strongest man,’ Hamish assured us as we passed him.

  ‘And he’s a born-again Christian, sir,’ Frances reminded us.

  ‘Yes, well, nobody’s perfect, dear,’ Hamish said, handing us each a script and ushering us through the swing doors and into the corridor. ‘Now, quick smart te your next lesson!’

  The aforementioned Mr Lord, in fact, taught my next lesson, technical drawing. Technical bloody boring I call it: why on God’s green earth I ever let my father talk me into taking the subject is a constant and bewildering mystery to me.

  ‘You’ve got to have a practical option in amongst all the arty-farty bollocks,’ Dad had said. ‘Drama, music, French … fuck that. You need to do something that might be a bit useful in the outside world, son.’

  But I loathed it, and was rubbish at anything technical or scientific, or, indeed, mathematical. What I loved was drama, history and music, and, of course, English language: I didn’t even have to try at that, and I’d sat my English O level, and passed, a year early along with another fourth-year boy. In the end, though, it had come down to a toss-up between technical boring and metalwork, but the thought of coming home from school twice a week with iron filings in my freshly Alberto Balsamed hair was too much to bear, so TD – or should I say, TB – it was. Apart from that, Bob Lord also presided over the Physical Education department, PE being the other subject I loathed with all my being, so there was double the reason to hate him. He wasn’t that fussed on me either, really, particularly as far as any sports-related classes went. Only last week he’d pulled me aside in the changing room before games, virtually yanking my arm out of its socket.

  ‘You can’t wear cut-off denim shorts to play basketball, Starr!’ he’d spat.

  ‘My shorts are in the Hotpoint, sir,’ I said as astringently as I dared, ‘so it’s this or my sister’s old ballet tutu.’

  It was the first TB lesson of the fifth year today, so there were a few fresh faces in our class, odds and sods who had defected from other art-based curricula within the school – pottery mainly, as the headmaster’s much-heralded promise of a new kiln had finally fallen flat after almost two years. As I turned around to see exactly who had rocked up for this funfest, I found myself practically nose to nose with the mysterious Maxie Boswell, who was sitting at the desk behind me, smiling and chewing a protractor. I noted his sturdy jaw; his full and crooked mouth; his thick, dirty-blond eyebrows above eyes one might bathe in: nothing to write home about, I said to myself – though I suddenly found myself only semi-detached from a swoon.

  ‘So you’re my Nancy,’ he said, almost bashfully.

  ‘I guess I am.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then, ain’t it,’ he said.

  And I supposed it was.

  When the lesson had finished, he grabbed the back of my blazer as I was headed for the door.

  ‘What you doing lunchtime?’ he said. ‘We could go through the script together if you like.’

  I stopped in my tracks and turned around, intrigued, as the rest of the exiting class shoved past me.

  ‘Well, we ’ave got quite a lot of lines together,’ he said. ‘And it’s still pissing down with rain, so we might just as well find a quiet corner in the library and get a head start on it – what do you think?’

  I suddenly had butterflies, and felt slightly clammy. What the hell was happening?

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose that would be really rather sensible,’ I said.
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br />   Maxie seemed pleased that I’d agreed to his plan.

  ‘Great!’ he said. ‘What ‘ave you got next?’

  ‘Double music,’ I said, hauling myself together. ‘We’re discussing Evita, and whether the tight bun might have been a contributing factor in her early death.’

  ‘Oh!’ Maxie said, visibly baffled. ‘Well, I’ve got double PE, and the showers weren’t working this morning so I might be a bit sweaty come lunchtime.’

  ‘I’ll live,’ I giggled.

  Why did I feel so strange? What was going on with me? Before I knew it, Frances was upon us, waving bits of printed paper in my face.

  ‘Hiya!’ she shouted. ‘I hope you’ve not forgotten about helping me with my leafleting this lunchtime, David.’

  My heart sank. I had. Maxie stepped forward.

  ‘What are you leafleting about?’ he asked Frances.

  ‘Blair Peach,’ Frances said proudly. ‘Oh! You’re Maxie Boswell, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am,’ Maxie confirmed, ‘but who’s Blair Peach when he’s at home?’

  ‘Well, he’s not at home any more,’ I muttered. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘He was an anti-Nazi protester who was killed by SPG while he was demonstrating against the National Front earlier this year,’ Frances elaborated. ‘So far the police have fucking got away with it – got away with murder. But there’s gonna be a march and a demo in a couple of weeks, with a concert at Brockwell Park, so that’s what the leaflets are all about.’

  Frances had been a vigorous campaigner for the Anti Nazi League ever since Hamish took us to the Rock Against Racism gig in June. Maxie looked at her, and then back at me.

  ‘Well, that sounds important, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Maybe I should help too.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Frances yelped: her favourite word. ‘Brilliant!’

  Then she grabbed an armful of leaflets from her shoulder bag, dumping half of them on me and the rest on Maxie.

  ‘Make sure you do the whole school this lunch,’ she said.

  And she trotted off.

  I turned back to Maxie, who was busy studying one of Frances’ pamphlets.

  ‘This is awful,’ he said, ‘really awful.’

  I nodded solemnly.

  ‘I’d better get off to my next lesson,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Maxie said. ‘Evita!’

  I turned and headed along the whitewashed, bricked corridor towards the music room, and Maxie suddenly shouted after me.

  ‘We can go through our lines tomorrow if you want. Lunchtime. I’ve got footy after school.’

  ‘All right!’

  Well, I practically floated down that long hallway, quite giddy. I didn’t know what it was about that boy, but I was strangely and undeniably taken with him: bowled over, if you like; and then I caught myself. What the fuck was I thinking? I mean, what could I possibly do about it anyway? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why can’t things be different, I thought, why?

  ‘Why?’ I said aloud, as I turned the corner.

  Jason Lancaster was coming out of the science lab with biro ink all down his white shirt.

  ‘Why what, Starr?’ he said noisily. ‘Why are you such a fuckin’ faggot?’

  And then he laughed, a couple of his granite-faced mates joining in.

  ‘I s’pose it’s no surprise you’re playing Nancy anyway,’ he went on, raising his voice even further. ‘Seems to me like you were born to play it, you sad fuckin’ fairy.’

  The peal of spiteful laughter rang through the school corridor, and I slipped into the music room and shut the door. That’s why things can’t be different.

  Three

  Love and Lunacy

  It was raining for a spell, but it’s stopped now, and the air seems cleansed and revived as I promenade along Lordship Lane, swinging my mother’s loaf as though it were an Indian club. I’ve been turning things over in my mind for a while and, I must confess, I’m moderately baffled now. What on earth have I been daydreaming about? I seem to have persuaded myself that this apparition … this boy … this … ‘Maxie Boswell’ – a nom de plume if ever I heard one – has captured my heart in some way. It has to be said, thoughts of him, and him alone, have been affecting me all day. I’d been, for instance, scandalized to find, during English lit this afternoon, that I’d recklessly felt-tipped his name across the dust cover of my Cider with Rosie. Fortunately, it being a wipe-clean frontage, I managed to render this imprudent dedication an unsightly red smudge, but it’s not funny. How could I allow myself to even consider the possibility that I could fall in love … be in love with … NO! It just isn’t possible. I’m fairly certain that even thinking along these lines is akin to embarking on some grisly and ceaseless fairground roller-coaster ride, which would without doubt transport me, ultimately, to the certain annihilation of my very soul. Perhaps I’m being a teeny bit dramatic, but it is no small thing I’m contemplating here; and then, of course, there’s the likes of Jason Lancaster and …

  ‘OY!’

  My sister, Chrissy, is standing by the little grocer’s on the other side of the main road, and is hollering at me to come over.

  ‘All right, bruv?’ she smiles as I reach her. Then she frees a cigarette from the golden trappings of a Benson & Hedges packet, and places it between her lips, immediately staining its filter bright pink with lipstick.

  ‘OK?’ I say brightly. ‘What you up to?’

  ‘Just waiting for Abs. She’s gone in the Wimpy for a bender and chips,’ Chrissy says, flicking her hair out of her eyes. ‘You know Squirrel, don’t ya?’

  And she gestures towards the boy to the left of her.

  ‘All right?’ he grins, blowing out smoke.

  One might peg them as a fairly odd coupling, Chrissy and her latest boyfriend, Squirrel, as they slouch against the outer wall of the shop, puffing on fags. Chrissy is relatively voluptuous for a fourteen-year-old, and, as we speak, she’s teetering on skyscraper heels and is clad in a tight grey pencil skirt and an even tighter mohair sweater. Her bleached-white hair, still damp from the early evening downpour, is fashioned into a rather severe wedge at the back. At the front, it falls forward over her right eye, affording her a quality of significant and, it has to be said, effortless mystique. That is, until she tosses her head, or flicks the hair away from her face, revealing her wide blue eyes and trademark petulant smirk. It is this particular trait that the boys at her school can’t seem to get enough of – that, coupled with the fact, of course, that Chrissy has the largest breasts in the fourth year.

  In stark contrast, Squirrel, as he is known – principally due to his aptitude for concealing stolen goods about his person, usually without detection – is a somewhat weaselly apparition. Our mother, Kath, has suggested on several occasions that Squirrel – real name unknown – appears more than a little undernourished, and would almost certainly profit from a few hearty lunches. And if you ask me, I don’t think Chrissy is entirely sure what she sees in him, but she seems to cherish him nonetheless.

  ‘I just fuckin’ love the way he dresses,’ she’d told me only this morning over her Ricicles. ‘He’s dead fuckin’ kushdi – don’t you reckon, David?’

  I guess he is a rather well-turned-out boy at that. This evening, for instance, Squirrel is sporting a tonic-green three-buttoned box jacket; grey Sta-Prest trousers that seem to give up at the ankle; thick white socks and shiny black tasselled loafers. I’m led to believe that he has aligned himself with the most recent of youth cultures, the growing throng of south London mods: teenagers, and older, in fact, who have embraced and revived the clothes and music of the early sixties youth cult of the same name, though I believe a lot of them now call themselves rude boys. They’re all obsessed with a band called the Specials, and a new film just out, Quadrophenia, which apparently concerns itself with young men without aspiration hurtling around Brighton on scooters, and which looks deadly dull to me. Well, certainly not as good as Abba: The Movie, anyway! Regrettably, a few of these mods, and
quite a lot of their skinhead counterparts, appear to be leaning towards light Nazism, despite the fact that most of the bands that supposedly inspire them are racially mixed. Squirrel, however, seems to have little time for politics, and just likes the outfits … and possibly the dance. He eyes me nervously for a moment as Chrissy stubs her cigarette out underfoot; and then he turns to her, earnestly.

  ‘So going back to what we were talking about earlier,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ Chrissy sighs, rolling her eyes to the heavens, and sparking up another B&H almost immediately.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘would you let me finger you or not?’

  My mouth drops open and Chrissy draws heavily on her fresh fag. Then she looks evenly at Squirrel, whose eyes are farcically wide.

  ‘Not outside the mini-mart, no,’ she says, only marginally irritated.

  ‘No, obviously not outside the mini-mart,’ Squirrel laughs, ‘but I mean, would you – in theory – let me finger you?’

  I turn away, agog. Surely Chrissy has never done anything like that. Not my little sister. She’s not fifteen for two months, for Christ’s sake. She can’t be more sexually qualified than me – can she?

  ‘Well, what do you wanna do that for?’ Chrissy says, slumping further down the wall. ‘I’ll tell you what you can do, Squirrel, you can buy me a bottle of cider – that’s what you can do.’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Squirrel sulks. ‘We’ve been going out three months now; you don’t let me do nothing.’

  I pitch forward.

  ‘Can you not discuss this in front of me, please?’ I shriek.

  But Chrissy completely ignores me.

  ‘We kiss, don’t we?’ she says to him, taking another elongated drag on her fag. ‘I let you feel me tits, didn’t I? Stop fucking moaning, Squirrel, for fuck’s sake!’