Life's Lottery Page 4

  ‘Keith, you’re as yellow as fucking school custard.’

  James sees the one he is looking for: Reg Jessup, trying to make his way to the door. Someone stands in front of him, barring his way.

  Everybody remembers their school bully. No one ever forgives.

  Jessup is bowled across the pub towards James, a batsman wielding the sturdy stool. Jessup is thwacked across the face, losing teeth, and knocked down. James kneels by him and darts rapid punches into his face, opening old scabs on his knuckles.

  The police arrive. Two constables. A bloke younger than James, and Mary Yatman. You knew she’d gone into the police, but have never seen her in uniform.

  She hauls James upright. His rage vanished, he allows her to manhandle him. Limp, he gives no resistance as he is hustled out of the door.

  Mary frees James into your care without charging him. You have explained — lied — that he has been upset since Dad’s death. You claim he’s under strain. The real reason Mary lets James off is that she hasn’t changed since school. She remembers Robert Hackwill. She was there that day, running away like you. And she admires James, understands in a way you don’t what he’s just done. As she sees the Marion brothers out of the police station at dawn, she smiles quietly. You remember the Scary Mary smile from Ash Grove; it’s all the more chilling for being on the face of a grown woman in uniform.

  James is quietly satisfied at a job well done. There’s an unbridgeable gulf between you. It’s been there ever since the copse. It’s too late to do anything about it. Your brother has grown into an unknowable alien, a force of inexplicable, vindictive nature. When you get home, he goes straight to his old room — with soldiers and tanks wallpaper and a life-size commando poster — and sleeps away the day, undisturbed. You can’t stop shaking and wish you could still have a crying fit. As ever, you can’t tell Mum what has happened.

  In the Falklands, James is killed. You aren’t told the details, though the family are sent non-committal commendations and a medal. Reading between the lines, it seems James was off on his own somewhere, away from his unit, and picked a fight he couldn’t win. The letter his sergeant sends you refers to him as ‘a lone wolf’, which gives you a stab of guilt. You wonder if you taught him (by example) not to rely on anyone else; if it hadn’t been for that, he might not have always chosen to go off by himself, set his own goals, and try to get by without other people.

  Two family funerals in six months. At a time when you thought you’d struck out on your own, working in London as a journalist on a magazine called The Scam, you are pulled back home. You spend most weekends in Sedgwater, with Mum. It is worst for her, you think. Dad died unexpectedly young, leaving her a fifty-year-old widow; and, though she must have at least considered the possibility of his death as soon as he started seeing active service, James was her youngest.

  Laraine is also drawn back to the family home. The oddest side-effect is that she gets back together with her first boyfriend, Sean Rye. He is acting manager of the bank and seems likely to accede to Dad’s old job. She is engaged to a bloke you didn’t like, but breaks it off and gets engaged to Sean, which surprises you. You always thought he was a bit straight for her.

  Mum discovers an interest in antiques through her new boyfriend, Phil Parslowe. They spend weekends tracking down escritoires and attending estate sales.

  Your presence isn’t quite so much needed at home, so you spend more time in London. The Thatcher years grind on and you see victims all around you. The Scam runs a lot of investigative pieces. You have a sense of the unfairness of it all. You get angry about James. He stands in for the jobless, the abused, the disenfranchised, the dead.

  You go out with a colleague, Clare. She is obsessed with incidences of police brutality against racial minorities and early-1970s pop music. She likes to play Abba while making love.

  Mum and Phil get married, which pleases and surprises you. Not least because it gets you off a guilt hook. And then Laraine and Sean.

  You split up with Clare and go out with an editor, an American, Anne Nielsen. Her history of family disasters makes you feel normal, but it doesn’t last. Anne chucks you and you get back with Clare, on your terms: Bowie, yes; Bay City Rollers, no.

  Margaret Thatcher is still in power.

  You go on Jobs Not Bombs marches and organise fund-raisers for the miners’ strike. Clare lives part-time at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. You write a series of profiles of prominent Thatcherite members of parliament, showing just how much they have benefited financially from legislation the government has passed. You get a few cheerful death threats.

  Clare moves all her records and tapes and her stereo down to Greenham Common. You don’t know where she plugs it in. She comes back sometimes in the middle of the week, but not often.

  You think more and more about James.

  You write articles about the sinking of the Belgrano, the diplomatic chaos that led to the Falklands conflict, the resignation of Lord Carrington, reports of British war crimes.

  Finally, Anne tells you to deal with the thing that really haunts you. She assigns you to write about James. You have to start with the copse. To you, there is an electric line between the copse and the Falklands. In the end, you have to blame yourself as much as anyone or anything else.

  When Anne reads the article, she cries. She persuades the editorial collective of The Scam to run the piece, and you get quite a lot of attention. You go on the radio and television. You get to debate with Tory MPs.

  Clare tells you she’s decided on political grounds to become a lesbian. Actually, she’s fallen into a sleeping-bag with some rainbow-haired peace bimbo who likes Little Jimmy Osmond. Good luck to the both of them. You would try it again with Anne, whom you think you actually love, but there’s too much complicated pain in her background. You worry that you would become a grief household. Loss isn’t your whole life.

  A left-wing publisher offers you a small advance to turn the James article into a book, working in most of your other Falklands pieces.

  You aren’t sure. The book would be a more permanent record than any number of articles. It would also be good for your career: you can’t keep meeting daily deadlines for dwindling fees from struggling, often doomed, periodicals. But it’d take you back to a country you hope you have escaped. It would, in a literal sense, mean you would have to go home.

  If you agree to do the book, go to 78. If you turn the offer down, go to 85.

  7

  In Class Five at Ash Grove Primary School, you’re given tests every month. Papers are put in front of you, with lots of questions. Some are hard or easy sums, some ask you to pick out an odd item on a list, some want you to put things in their places. For you, the tests are easy, even fun. You’re pleased when you know the answers. Most of you on the Top Table come to enjoy the tests. Mary, who gets even more of the answers than you, asks Mrs Daye, the Class Five teacher, for more tests.

  In Class Six, you have tests every week. Dad says you’ll soon be given a special test called the Eleven Plus. Which school you go to next year depends on how many questions you get right in your Eleven Plus. If you do as well as you have been doing, you’ll go to Dr Marling’s Grammar School for Boys. If not, you’ll go to Hemphill Secondary Modern. Laraine is in the Girls’ Grammar, a separate school from Marling’s. At Marling’s, you’ll have to wear a blazer, a tie and a red cap, and you’ll play rugby instead of football. Paul Mysliwiec, of the Middle Table, claims Marling’s boys have to do five hours of homework a night. He’s glad he won’t have to go to Marling’s, because he wants to watch telly and play football.

  Robert Hackwill, the Ash Grove bully, goes to Marling’s, and is looking forward to old victims arriving so he can resume his reign over them with all the power invested in him by God as a prefect. You hear that Marling’s prefects are allowed to cane younger boys and that none of the teachers can stop them. Paul claims Hackwill has already crippled one boy and been let off because he’s a prefect, b
ut you don’t know if you believe that. Panic-stricken, you tell your dad you don’t want to go to Marling’s however you do in your tests. Dad is angry and, as he rarely does, shouts at you. Mum explains it’s important for your future that you go to the school for clever boys like you.

  A good thing about Marling’s is that no girls are allowed, but even that strikes you somehow as wrong. You don’t like girls, of course, but it’d be strange not to have them around. You realise you quite like Vanda Pritchard. You can talk to her, sometimes. She likes Tintin books too, and has introduced you to school stories, Jennings and Billy Bunter and Chalet School. She doesn’t think she’ll go to the Girls’ Grammar, but Mary — the monster — probably will. Of the Class Six boys, only Shane Bush, Michael Dixon, Stephen Adlard and you are expected to pass the Eleven Plus.

  Go on to 8

  7

  In Class Five at Ash Grove Primary School, you’re given tests every month. Papers are put in front of you, with lots of questions. Some are hard or easy sums, some ask you to pick out an odd item on a list, some want you to put things in their places. For you, the tests are easy, even fun. You’re pleased when you know the answers. Most of you on the Top Table come to enjoy the tests. Mary, who gets even more of the answers than you, asks Mrs Daye, the Class Five teacher, for more tests.

  In Class Six, you have tests every week. Dad says you’ll soon be given a special test called the Eleven Plus. Which school you go to next year depends on how many questions you get right in your Eleven Plus. If you do as well as you have been doing, you’ll go to Dr Marling’s Grammar School for Boys. If not, you’ll go to Hemphill Secondary Modern. Laraine is in the Girls’ Grammar, a separate school from Marling’s. At Marling’s, you’ll have to wear a blazer, a tie and a red cap, and you’ll play rugby instead of football. Paul Mysliwiec, of the Middle Table, claims Marling’s boys have to do five hours of homework a night. He’s glad he won’t have to go to Marling’s, because he wants to watch telly and play football.

  Robert Hackwill, the Ash Grove bully, goes to Marling’s, and is looking forward to old victims arriving so he can resume his reign over them with all the power invested in him by God as a prefect. You hear that Marling’s prefects are allowed to cane younger boys and that none of the teachers can stop them. Paul claims Hackwill has already crippled one boy and been let off because he’s a prefect, but you don’t know if you believe that. Panic-stricken, you tell your dad you don’t want to go to Marling’s however you do in your tests. Dad is angry and, as he rarely does, shouts at you. Mum explains it’s important for your future that you go to the school for clever boys like you.

  A good thing about Marling’s is that no girls are allowed, but even that strikes you somehow as wrong. You don’t like girls, of course, but it’d be strange not to have them around. You realise you quite like Vanda Pritchard. You can talk to her, sometimes. She likes Tintin books too, and has introduced you to school stories, Jennings and Billy Bunter and Chalet School. She doesn’t think she’ll go to the Girls’ Grammar, but Mary — the monster — probably will. Of the Class Six boys, only Shane Bush, Michael Dixon, Stephen Adlard and you are expected to pass the Eleven Plus.

  Go on to 9

  8

  After the Easter holidays, you turn up at school one day and find the classroom rearranged. A teacher you don’t know is in charge of the tests. A rumour runs around. This is the Eleven Plus. The important test. No, not a test. An exam.

  Reading over the questions, you realise you could easily answer most of them. That would mean going to Dr Marling’s Grammar School for Boys with Shane and Robert Hackwill. Or you could deliberately get quite a few wrong, which would mean going to Hemphill, with Paul and Vanda.

  If you fail the Eleven Plus, go to 11. If you pass, go to 16.

  9

  After the Easter holidays, you turn up at school one day and find the classroom rearranged. A teacher you don’t know is in charge of the tests. A rumour runs around. This is the Eleven Plus. The important test. No, not a test. An exam.

  Reading over the questions, you realise you could easily answer most of them wrongly. That would mean going to Hemphill Secondary Modern, with Vanda and Paul. Or you could try hard and get many of them right, which would mean going to Marling’s with Shane and Robert Hackwill.

  If you pass the Eleven Plus, go to 12. If you fail, go to 15.

  10

  In 1982, the week after your father’s funeral, you are in town, early in a sspring evening, going for a drink in the Lime Kiln with your brother.

  Laraine has stayed home with Mum, but you both feel the need to get out of the memory-permeated house. James went into the army at sixteen and you haven’t seen much of him in the last few years. You remember him as the kid who wet himself when you ran to find a teacher and tell on Robert and Reg; now he’s coming to the end of his four-year hitch and is talking about getting out. The possibility of being sent to a proper war in the Falklands has shocked him. It’s not just about learning to drive a jeep and travelling to exotic places and German brothels, it’s about being shot dead on the other side of the world.

  The Lime Kiln is full, packed with drinkers whose fathers are still alive or have been dead for so long that it doesn’t matter. You and James have said little about Dad. You think that, as the Man of the Family, you should be able to say something to your brother that will make it easier. Nothing comes to mind.

  As you force your way through to the bar, a cheer goes up. You wonder why, then remember James is in uniform. There’s a drunken wave of patriotism going on in the aftermath of the invasion of the Falkland Islands, a frenzy of kill-the-Argies war-hunger. The barman is Max Lewis, with whom you were at school though he was never a special friend. James orders a couple of pints of bitter. A man claps him on the shoulder and offers to pay for the drinks.

  James, flinching from the touch, turns to accept … and freezes. Pressed close to James by the crowd, you sense the tension which draws your brother tight as a bowstring an instant before you recognise the man with the money.

  It’s Robert Hackwill, grown up.

  The Ash Grove School Bully has done well for himself. He wears a sheepskin coat and a trilby hat. His property business is flourishing and he is in line for a council seat. He has a flash car, a Jag. His smile splits the world horizontally in half.

  Hackwill repeats his offer.

  You look around for Jessup, never far from Hackwill, and spot him in a corner. Reg’s smirk is still there, shaped by the fat in his face. He’s still a sidekick.

  What will James do? It’s fifteen years later and Hackwill is off his guard. James is depressed enough not to give a shit. You know your brother must be thinking of breaking a glass in the grown-up bully’s face.

  You remember that day. When James wet himself while being given the worst Chinese burn in history and you ran to Mrs Daye, the Class Five teacher, and told on Robert and Reg. She saw the bullies off, ordering them to stay away from the school, and looked after the sobbing James, sending him home for the afternoon. You watched, wishing it hadn’t happened, wishing you could have done more.

  You have never talked about it with James. Dad commended you for doing the right thing, but you always knew you did it out of cowardice. James needed help right then, not to see you running off for a grown-up while he was being tortured. Ever since, James has worked to be self-reliant, self-contained. You realise now that you know very little about the man he has become.

  Max puts two pints on the bar. James picks his up carefully, getting a good grip.

  You can see the pint smashing against Hackwill’s smile, glass and beer exploding, blood and froth drenching his whole front.

  But James just takes a deep draught and swallows. He drains it.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ he says. ‘Now have one on me.’

  Hackwill insists on buying the soldier boy another.

  You wonder if you were wrong. Maybe James hasn’t recognised Hackwill? The bully has obviously forgotten hi
m, one among so many long-ago victims.

  Jessup comes to the bar and springs for a round. Your drinks are bought for you too. It is as if you and James were being picked up by a couple of queers, but you know Hackwill and Jessup aren’t like that. What they want from you two isn’t sex but the association with a potential war hero. You’d prefer it if they were just after your arse. The mateyness of these two blokish men, careering towards middle age while still in their twenties, hits you in the pit of your stomach. You think of the school custard that always made you want to puke.

  As the pints go down and your bladder fills, you assume you were wrong. James is friendly with Hackwill, even exchanges names with him. He must have forgotten the whole thing. You’ve carried the guilt for fifteen years and he’s wiped the copse from his mind.

  This realisation, combined with the drink, makes you light-headed.

  Finally, Hackwill eases off the sturdy bar-stool and mutters about ‘pointing percy at the porcelain’.

  ‘You sure your mate’s all right?’ James asks Jessup as soon as Hackwill has tottered off. ‘He’s had one too many. Shouldn’t you see if he’s okay?’

  Bewildered, Jessup agrees and follows Hackwill into the bog.

  Lightning-sober, James tells Max not to let anyone use the Gents for five minutes.

  ‘Come on,’ he tells you. ‘This is for the copse.’

  James remembers. He has always remembered.

  The barman comes out, on his break, and guards the Gents door as James slips in. You follow.

  Hackwill stands at the white wall, urinating loudly. Jessup is wheedling, asking if he’s all right, annoying him.

  James springs across the room and catches Hackwill with his cock out, shoving him against the wet enamel. He rains blows on Hackwill’s head, driving him into the urine-trickling runnel, scattering disinfectant cakes. The smell is strong. James, grunting with each of his well-aimed punches, dances back and forth, jabbing and kicking. Blood trickles in with the piss.