Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

  14: Give me just a little more time

  I FINISHED the half-term with mixed mid-term grades, with 5 As (English, History, French, Music and German), two Bs (PE and RE), two Cs (Chemistry and Biology) and two Ds (Maths and Physics), finishing bottom of the class in both. Like no surprise there. Bunny just shook his head sadly, like I was some dribbling mush-head. ''Cute,'' he told Jennings, ''But terminally stupid.'' Jennings, the fucker, had agreed.

  ''I just can't do it,'' I told the folks over a mixed-bean curry. ''I haven't got the kind of brain for algebra. I mean, what are all those letters for anyway? I can like write about experiments and stuff but I can't do the equations, you know?''

  ''You'll have to do better than that in June,'' Mum said.

  Bollocks. I was doing my bloody best. I wasn't doing exams in PE or RE, and it wasn't my fault I was a jelly-for-brains scientist. More like the bloody genes, Mum!

  ''Perhaps,'' she suggested icily, ''If you spent more time on your studies and less time on the 'phone?''

  Ouch!

  I'd, like, started phoning Ali at eight every night, just for a chat, to see how he was, how his studies were going, how the play was going, how the magazine was going, but mainly just to hear his voice. I sat on the second step, the receiver close to my mouth, nervously excited, literally quivering with anticipation as I dialled his number then went through the ritual of ''Hi, it's Jonathan Peters. Is Alistair there?'', feeling this, like, explosion of intense happiness when he answered ''Hi, J, how's it going?''

  Hours passed like seconds. Before I knew it, the clock'd be chiming nine, or once ten, and I'd have to go. Hanging up turned my heart to lead. Sometimes we didn't speak for ages, we'd just sit and listen to each other breathing.

  I had a pile of work, most of which I left to the end of the week, a decision I came to regret when it all turned out bollocks. There was this English essay on the relationship between Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae, and one for History on Lenin's contribution to Russian Communism. I had to write about this experiment to measure the growth of plant-seeds for Biology and like some prose piece for German? There were also a shed-load of simultaneous bastard equations to solve. This was our holiday, for fuck's sake! What was it with these teachers? And don't say, like they did, 'oh, GCSE is the most important year of your life,' because it bloody isn't! It's just another bloody hoop to jump before university!

  On Saturday I stuck the decals on the Tiger, listened to Liverpool play out a 1-1 draw with Arsenal, helped Mum fry onions for our liver-and-bacon dinner and watched tennis and snooker on Grandstand, then the new Doctor Who story which introduced this new boy-companion but seemed to involve experiments with melons and marshmen. Yeah, I know. Anyway, on Sunday I watched a load of telly. Episode 4 of A Tale of Two Cities was followed by Songs of Praise from Hartlepool, Mastermind from Cambridge, with a taxi-driver answering questions on Henry II and a retired major doing the history of Rome, a sitcom about a posh woman living on a country estate and a serial set in Bristol about a private detective. I also listened to this new opera by Philip Glass called Einstein on the Beach with episodes intriguingly titled 'Knee Play 1', 'Train' and 'Dance 1 (Field with spaceship)' which Andrew Paulus raved about. I could hear why. I’d never heard anything like it before. There was also Biggles of 266, where wily, sausage-eating, square-headed Huns wore coal-scuttle helmets and Biggles, Donner und Blitzen, dropped leaflets from his Sopwith Camel on Brussels to win a gramophone. Unfortunately I got so engrossed that I forgot about the washing on the line and didn't hear the rain over Steve Wright in the Afternoon so everything got soaked. Mum snarled 'bloody kid' as she stomped past with the washing-basket. Also, I'd hung it wrongly anyway. She'd've pegged the shirts tail-first at the house-end, then the pyjamas, then the socks, pants and bras. To be honest, I didn't feel comfortable handling either Mum's black frillies or Dad's washed-out Y-fronts so I'd just kind of done it. It wasn't my fault she'd had a bad day at work. I suggested she do some yoga to align her chakras. Bad move. I think every parrot in the Amazon rainforest heard the response. Who'd have thought my mother knew such language? She told the parrots she got it off me, bloody cheek. And then there was the usual Gestapo interrogation about why hadn't I made my bed, and who did I think was gonna do it, the Bed-Making Fairy? Anyway, by Tuesday I was more than ready for our rehearsal.

  Leo and I turned up around 11. We'd travelled the three miles on the 21 bus together. He wanted me to accompany him in his Grade 6 flute exam and the music competition. Of course I said yes. I liked Leo. I'd put on white Chinos and a dark blue shirt and dragged a little gel through my hair. Leo had these pale lilac Converse hi-tops, a pale pink, sorry, 'crushed strawberry', Lacoste sweater and pale green, sorry, 'pistachio', jeans.

  ''Pastel colours are pretty,'' he said simply, swinging round a lamp-post.

  ''With my trousers and your shirt, we make a whole ice-cream,'' I remarked.

  ''I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream. What's your favourite flavour?''

  ''Lemon,'' I said. ''What's yours?''

  ''No,'' he said petulantly, dancing down the kerb. ''You've got to sing it.''

  I began to understand why his father thought he was a little bit lavender.

  ''I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream. What's your favourite flavour?''

  ''Bananas with cream.''

  It was a long journey, you know?

  Unlike some of the others, I didn't mind going into school during the holiday. The play had become fun again. Ali was desperately trying to contain Harry Turner's rather risqué ad-libbing, without much success, so there was always lots of laughter. Now, with one week left, we gathered for our dinner-party scene round the table on the dusty brown floor of the Beckwith Hall where the gimps sat on a Monday morning. Super-cool in these black jeans and a black sweater, he was standing in the hall with a clipboard talking to Peter Dwyer, his stage-manager, whilst Turner, Sutcliffe and Middleton waited on the Rises, these twenty wide wooden steps that spread back from the halfway point to a bank of permanent seating behind a rail but could be pushed in under that bank to create a huge exhibition space for Open Day and, most crucially, for exams, 'cos the Beckwith Hall could accommodate 200 nervous exam candidates and their desks.

  ''This isn't right.'' Paulus. ''If I were scared of Lulu, I wouldn't sit next to her, would I?''

  ''No,'' said Ali, ''That's true, very true.''

  ''It says in the script that Clarissa is head of the table,'' Laud pointed out.

  ''Doesn't matter,'' said Ali. ''The script's flexible. My master-copy's covered in arrows, deletions, insertions… it's a template not a headstone, Bill, a work in progress.''

  Sonning, playing Aunt Clarissa, suggested we all move round one place so that Lulu was at the head and he and Paulus were on the corners.

  ''Right,'' said Ali. ''Everyone move round one.''

  ''But,'' I said, as I settled into my new seat, ''Surely they wouldn't put Lulu at the head of the table. It'd be a man. Jasper, perhaps.''

  ''OK,'' said Ali, ''Move round again.''

  ''Blimey,'' said Warburton, ''It's like musical chairs.''

  ''From the top,'' said Ali, squatting on his haunches, clipboard dangling.

  Sitting on a packing-case later, I listened to the Sixth Formers' conversation.

  ''I heard he can down a pint in three and a half seconds,'' said Dwyer.

  ''That's nothing,'' said Rice. ''I heard he swallowed one in two last week.''

  ''Gets plenty of practice,'' said Turner. ''I know for a fact he gets people in the pub to buy him a pint so he can show them.''

  ''Anyway,'' said Dwyer, ''He's got a beer-gut already.''

  ''Some people'll do anything for a free drink,'' said Sonning.

  ''You mean like Rosie?'' Dwyer made a crude masturbation gesture which drew coarse laughter from the Sixth Formers, except for Sonning. He frowned.

  Ali was talking to Sutcliffe, telling him to look at the audience and speak from his stomach
so he'd get a more substantial sound and wouldn't strain his voice. Then we did the dinner scene again. Leaving the script, I only needed two prompts. Ali flashed me this brilliant smile and asked me to sit with him while Paulus and Leo went through their seduction-scene, Paulus lying on this sofa with Leo crawling up him. I caught Rice and Dwyer's eyebrow-twitches as I sat down. Fucking hell. They thought this all very fruity.

  Paulus, unnerved by Leo's public pawing, forgot his lines three times. The third provoked a burst of furious swearing which made Leo yell back and stomp tearfully off.

  ''Two right little ponces,'' grunted Rice.

  ''Little Lion's a bit highly strung,'' said Dwyer.

  ''Yes, he should be,'' Ali riffed effortlessly.

  ''And you know what Poorly needs, don't you?'' said Dwyer.

  ''No,'' grinned Ali, ''Tell me.''

  ''A good hard kick in the balls,'' said Dwyer. ''Make their voices break at last.''

  ''I thought you were going to say a good hard cock up the arse,'' said Ali.

  ''I'll leave that to you, Rosie.'' Dwyer moved off to reset the stage.

  Alistair laughed, and laughed some more when he saw my shocked expression.

  ''Lads' banter, J,'' he said, looping his arm round my shoulders and shaking me. ''By the way, you look really nice today. That shirt suits you, and I really like your hair spiked up a bit. Leo!'' he called, leaving me blushing like an over-ripe tomato on the Rises and striding down to where Paulus was reclining. ''You should unbutton his shirt a little more sensually, like this.'' Perching by Paulus and gazing into his eyes, he reached down and slowly, lovingly, unfastened the second button on Andy's shirt. I felt a sudden pang of jealousy. That should've been me, though when I heard Turner suggest that Rosie and Poorly were obviously bum-chums, I was glad it wasn't and glad when we moved on to the last scene.

  ''I'll take the deeds.'' I drew an imaginary gun. ''Come on. I haven't got all day.'' Standing beside the evil Herr Lakker, I covered the others with my double-barrelled fingers.

  ''We gonna have real guns on the night, Ali?'' asked Sonning.

  ''Sure,'' grinned Ali, enjoying himself at last, ''With a couple of undertakers to clear up the bodies. Add 'em to the stage-crew.''

  After Lakker had disposed of the gardener with a cackled ''I don't need you any more,'' I yelled ''And I don't need you either,'' shooting him with a loud cry of ''BANG!'' Then Warburton entered, Leo clinging to his chest, a plastic squash-bottle in his hand.

  ''Whit's all this noise, Jimmy?''

  ''BONG! BONG!'' went Ali, signalling the chiming of a clock.

  His brother burst out of a cupboard in a perfect forward-roll. As I turned to cover him, Leo grabbed the bottle and like crashed it down on my head. I crumpled at the knees and collapsed on the floor with a heart-felt ''fuck's sake, Lion, no need to kill me.''

  Leo, grinning maliciously, stuck out his tongue.

  ''Brilliant, guys, brilliant!'' Alistair clapped excitedly. ''Go again. 'I'll take the deeds'.''

  We did it again and again and one more for luck. My hip was bruised, my head was ringing and my immaculate Chinos were smeared with dust. Rubbing my bruises ruefully as the cast dispersed, I remarked ''I think you only wrote this play so I could get bashed about.''

  Alistair, grinning, asked what I was doing now.

  ''Going home to apply some bruise-lotion,'' I said sourly. My hip was really sore.

  ''You wanna come to the theatre supplier downtown? Get some wigs and stuff?''

  I had been planning to go to the autumn food-fair with Andrew and Leo. Every year you got dozens of stalls selling international food, German, Moroccan, Thai, Chinese, pizzas and a massive paella interspersed with a load of arty-crafty shit, like beads, woolly hats, jewellery and friendship bands. We really wanted this tongue-tingling, lip-livening sweet-sour prawn and lemongrass soup, tom yum kung, and then glass-noodles with seaweed.

  ''You can help me choose, and then we could go to the food-fair,'' said Ali. ''I'll buy you a cup of mulled wine.''

  I'd prefer a hot, thick sausage, I didn't say.

  High on his play, he chattered like a demented magpie as we crossed the university campus, me skipping round the cracks ‘cos step on a crack, you'll break your back, you know? I tightrope-teetered along the kerb into the red-brick Victorian quarter. We cut behind the children's hospital and down a small alley to the art gallery then slid past the library towards the theatre. Hearing him laugh was thrilling and his excited enthusiasm was contagious as we cracked jokes, quoted lines and swapped impressions all the way to the shop, some dingy, seedy-looking establishment with the legend Nigel's Theatrical Knick-Knacks painted in fading gold letters above the dust-caked, bird-shit-spotted window in which sagged a dragon, a zombie and a vampire. A tiny bell tinkled as Alistair pushed at the door and called ''Is there anybody here?''

  ''Knock once for yes, and twice for no,'' I whispered as Ali shushed me.

  Nigel materialised behind this old-fashioned wooden counter. He was tall, thin, with greasy black hair and a long, bony face. A sickly scent of strong perfume wafted our way. He wore this blue pinstriped suit, pink frilly shirt and a bow-tie, blue with pink spots, and sported this pink carnation in his buttonhole. He had long, bony fingers. Suppressing a nose-busting sneeze, I scanned the racks of dusty, moth-eaten costumes whilst Ali said he'd phoned earlier about some wigs and a maid's outfit.

  ''Oh,'' said Nigel, winking slyly at me, ''And will the maid's outfit be for your little… er… friend here? Or perhaps…'' Rocking his head back slightly, he appraised me leeringly. ''He's not so little where it counts, eh, ha ha?''

  ''He's about the right size,'' grinned Ali.

  ''Oooh,'' sighed Nigel, fanning himself with a limp, flapping wrist. ''I'll bet he is.''

  ''He'd be a very good, though possibly tight fit.''

  Nigel's knees seemed to surrender. ''Oh my,'' he said, leaning on the counter, ''I've come over all queer, with a bit of luck, if you get my drift.''

  ''Fucking hell, Ali,'' I muttered. ''He's camp as tits.''

  ''Try this on,'' said Ali, thrusting a wiry ginger bush into my hands. ''It's for Jock.''

  For the next twenty minutes, we tried on various wigs of various hues and laughed ourselves sick whilst Nigel slipped in these not-so-subtle innuendos about his little knick-knacks and hinted even less subtly that he fancied the arse off me. He kept adjusting the wigs, his fingers lingering on my face. The scent of his perfume was quite overpowering.

  ''Right,'' said Ali when we'd got six wigs, ‘’Leo's costume. You'll have to try it on so I can see how it looks.''

  ''Ha ha,'' I said. ''You're joking, right?''

  ''Certainly not.'' He grinned again. ''Get in touch with your inner Jenny, Jonny.''

  ''Fuck off,'' I hissed, glancing over to where Nigel was ringing the wigs through the cash-register. ''He'll cream in his pants if I dress up as a girl.''

  Ali grinned an evil, beautiful grin. ''Flash your legs, J. You'll get us a discount.''

  Someone just shoot me.

  Snatching the hanger with this bloody black frock and stupid frilly apron, I marched towards the fitting-rooms saying ''Alistair Rose, I hate you so much.'' He merely laughed.

  Shaking my head in disbelief, I stripped to my mint-green pants and squeezed into the outfit. Needless to say, I'd never worn anything like it before. The skirt came to mid-thigh. On Leo it'd be up to his arse. But, tying the apron-strings, I couldn't help admiring myself in the mirror. Not bad, actually. Especially my legs. My inner Jenny approved.

  ''Oh my dear boy,'' purred Nigel, ''You look ravishing. Let me adjust the hem a little.''

  ''You're all right.'' I backed away. ''Leo's mum can do that.''

  ''Well, just the apron then.'' His fingers closed on the hem around mid-thigh.

  Pulling himself together and shaking himself like a wet sheep, Ali cleared his throat. ''Great, J. It'll be great. Maybe some fishnets or suspenders, eh, Nigel?''

  ''I have just the thing,'' sa
id Nigel, bobbing behind the counter again.

  ''You're a bastard, and I hate you,'' I told Alistair.

  ''You look fantastic,'' he replied.

  ''Well, I feel like a twat.''

  He pulled me closer and whispered ''Your legs are gorgeous, you know?'' He had that hungry look in his eyes again. ''Try it with the wig.'' This was a long blonde effort made of nylon and shot through with silvery strands. It fell below my shoulder and was incredibly itchy. ''Oo la la,'' he said.

  Nigel returned, his jaw falling slackly.

  ''Oh, my dear. You are adorable, utterly adorable. What are you doing this evening?''

  ''My homework,'' I said shortly. ''I'm still at school.''

  ''Well,'' said Nigel, ''So was I,'' and he gave me this filthy, lecherous wink.

  Someone just shoot me. Again.

  ''Leo'll love this,'' said Ali. ''He's game for anything.''

  Nigel popped up again, this time with a packet of lacy black stockings.

  ''I'm not trying those on,'' I said strongly. ''You can both fuck off, you pair of pervs.''

  Nigel arched an eyebrow.

  ''Sorry about him,'' said Ali. ''He can't help it. Care in the community and all that. I take him out once a week to give his carer a break.''

  Nigel instantly switched to 'sincere condolence' mode. ''Many apologies. I didn't realise he had…'' glance over the shoulder and lowered voice, ''Well, learning difficulties. Isn't that what you say these days?''

  ''He covers it well,'' said Ali, wincing as I slapped his shoulder.

  Nigel bagged up the outfit and, as Ali was handing over the cash, said ''I almost forgot. There's a French tickler to go with it. Will you be wanting a French tickler for later?''

  Ali erupted into the loudest guffaw I'd ever heard, spluttered ''Put one in the bag'' and hustled me into the street. Leaning on a lamp-post, he wheezed, tears in his eyes.

  ''What?'' I demanded. ''What?''

  ''French tickler,'' he coughed, ''Is a type of condom.''

  ''What?''

  ''A rubber, Jonny. A Rubber Johnny, Jonny. Ha ha ha ha.''

  His knees seemed to be buckling so I kicked them hard and said I hated him.

  ''Oh, my dear, you look quite ravishing,'' he spluttered, mincing along the pavement and flapping his wrist. Then suddenly, from nowhere, ''What a poof. He's gay as Paulus.'' He snorted with laughter all the way to the food-fair where he got me a tub of sweet and sour pork, which I love, and a plastic cup of warm spiced wine, all consumed sitting on a wall outside Marks and Spencer. Then we dived into Holland and Barrett for some soya nuts, Next to look at scarves and HMV to look at DVDs, returned to the fair for more spiced wine and these friendship-bands for a pound apiece, yellow, red and brown for me, blue and red for him, and tied them round each other's wrists. Then we caught the 21 to our shopping parade from outside the Cornmarket. I told him about the zombie German spy.

  ''His heart had stopped,'' I said, swinging round and round the bus-stop with my left hand, ''But he was still walking about, like a regular guy, till someone poked him in the back with a brolly and broke his bones.''

  ''Which film was this?''

  ''It was on the news,'' I said, still swinging round the post. ''Andy Collins told me.''

  ''Nothing you said made any sense at all,'' he replied as the bus pulled up. ''I like the photo on your bus pass.''

  I didn't. I'd had it taken at the end of the summer, before Mum had cut my hair for school, so the fringe was really long and over my eyebrows and my ears were totally covered. Also I had my mouth half-open, like I was about to speak. Mum said I looked 'gormless' and Gray said I looked about ten, but I'd used the last of my coins in the photo-booth and was stuck with it till it expired on 31 July. The pass itself had my name, address and the address of the school and was laminated in hard green plastic. Numbered 52133, it entitled me to two half-fare journeys between home and school during term-time, but I was Roy Peters' lad so none of the drivers looked too closely.

  ''Listen,'' said Ali casually, ''You wanna come to mine? Bobby's out all afternoon and my folks are at work. We haven't got a piano, but I got Action Men. It's only half-two.''

  We'd got off the bus outside William Hill, McColls the Newsagent and the fruit and veg shop where we bought our Christmas trees.

  ''Sure,'' I said as nonchalantly as I could through a suddenly dry mouth and a croaky throat that seemed to contain my whole swollen, thumping heart and a wish that he would be like my Action Man, you know?

  His house was this white-washed semi with an open porch and bay-windows set behind cherry trees, a neat, square lawn, well-turned soil borders and a beech hedge, now a blazing coppery gold.

  ''Spectacular in May,'' he said, ushering me up the two steps to the porch, through a black front-door and into a hall with a red shag-pile carpet and this like massive cheese-plant in a pot. ''All pink and white blossom.'' The telephone stood in an alcove on a nest of wooden curly-legged tables. ''This is where I call you from.'' He kicked off his shoes. ''Want some tea? Or a beer? We got some lager, I think.''

  ''Whatever you're having,'' I said, noting these sharp, gleaming Kitchen Devils, the vegetable-rack overflowing with potatoes, carrots and onions, the fruit-bowl stacked with apples and oranges, the wooden wine-rack with four bottles of Shiraz, a Monet water-lilies print in a clip-frame on the wall and deciding I liked its mustard-coloured homeliness.

  He tugged back the ring-pulls of two cans of Foster's. ''Don't tell your Mum. Cheers.''

  ''Oh, my Mum knows I drink a bit,'' I said, clinking cans. ''I'm fifteen already. Everyone does it. Some people in my class drink ten pints a night.'' Well, Seymour claimed to have drunk ten pints one Saturday. ''I would too if I had the chance.''

  We stood awkwardly for a minute on the lino.

  ''I love Leo Trent,'' he said. ''He's such a tart and doesn't give a shit.''

  ''His dad thinks he's gay,'' I said, then clapped my hand to my mouth. ''Bollocks. I wasn't supposed to say.''

  Ali shrugged. ''He probably is. Look at his clothes. Whatever. He's a right laugh.''

  I sipped the lager again. I couldn't work this out. Ali seemed, like, sooo attracted to me, you know? His eyes kind of screamed desire but, when he spoke, he seemed so dismissive of the whole gay thing, as though it didn't interest him at all.

  ''I'm glad I'm not,'' I said cautiously. ''Gay, I mean. Like Poorly.'' Was he bumming Paulus, like Turner suggested? ''I mean, I like him, he's nice but…he's such a poof.''

  ''He's OK,'' said Ali. ''Did you watch The Taming of the Shrew?''

  ''Yeah.'' I wrinkled my nose. I hadn't really got it. I mean, John Cleese was, like, brilliant but it was so sexist, you know? Breaking this woman in to become a good wife. Or was it supposed to be ironic? I didn’t know. I'm only 15. Anyway, it was on the cover of Radio Times so I suppose it must've been all right. ''Did you watch Taxi?''

  ''Danny de Vito's so nasty,'' said Ali, ''And Christopher Lloyd's crazy.''

  ''They're my favourite characters,'' I said. ''I'd love to be Louie. Did you see that one the other day, when the old woman's suing him for running her over, and he thinks she's faking so shoves her wheelchair out of the courtroom, and you hear her clattering down the stairs and he finishes 'No further questions, your honour.' Fucking brilliant. And Jim's talking about being in court. 'Did they get you on drugs?' 'No,' he goes, 'I was already on drugs. That's why I was there.' Ha ha ha. I love the one where he does his driving test and they go 'mental illness or narcotic addiction?' and Jim goes 'That's a tough choice.' Ha ha.''

  ''American sitcoms,'' said Ali, ''Are so much better than ours. They've got sharper, snappier scripts and the characters seem more rounded and real, not the stereotypes and clichés we have, though MASH isn't so good any more, not since Major Burns left but you can't get more sexist than the BBC. Have you seen that one on a Thursday? All about this sappy bloke getting his sappy wife a birthday present. Man, it's sooo vanilla, all these bland, boring, middle-class, heterosexual coupl
es doing heterosexual couple things…''

  ''At least there are women on the telly,'' I said. ''We don't exist at all, unless we mince round Grace Brothers or ponce round the jungle like Bombardier Beaumont. I wish I had a proper role-model on the telly, someone I could relate to. Mind you,'' I was talking through his quizzical look, ''Do you watch that one on Saturdays, the woman police inspector running her own nick in a sexist environment? BBC always tries to do its bit for women's lib.''

  ''Yeah,'' he said, ''But did you see the first episode? The car chase involved an Austin Allegro and a moped and the cops commandeered a vicar's car and the vicar's going at about ten miles an hour. Man, it's so not Starsky and Hutch, is it?'' I drank some lager. ''Shall we go to my room?'' he said eventually, ''Listen to some music?''

  Heart racing, I followed him upstairs to the place where he slept and studied and wrote his play, his stories, his speeches, the place where, possibly, he lay awake, thinking of me, the place where, hopefully, he masturbated, thinking of me…

  It was a blue colour-washed square with a soft, deep-pile blue carpet. The single bed, covered in a plain dark-blue duvet, was pushed into a corner near the lead-striped window. A simple wardrobe stood by a desk which was covered with books, files and papers. A massive poster of the Star-Ship Enterprise loomed from the wall.

  ''Didn't know you were a Trekkie,'' I grinned.

  ''President of the Sci-Fi Club,'' he said. ''Don't you read the handbook?''

  ''Favourite episode?''

  ''The time-travel one with Joan Collins. 'City on the Edge of Forever'. Classic.''

  I'd never heard of it. ''Anything with the Borg,'' I said, glancing over his bookshelf. ''Resistance is futile. Oh God. Roald Dahl. I can't stand Roald Dahl. It's so fake. Boring jokes about farting and bratty little kids. I mean, who gives a shit?''

  ''The Witches is really good,'' he said defensively, ''And everyone likes Charlie.''

  ''What? Bloody Oompa-Loompas?'' I scoffed, ''And those bloody annoying girls?''

  In the sepulchral silence that reverberated round the room, I buried my face in the rest of the spines on his shelves. I'd never heard of this stuff. Lenin, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, Paine, Jung and Dostoevsky nestled cheek-by-jowl with arty books on Turner, Escher, Picasso, Monet and Michelangelo. The CDs included Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Pete Seeger and Mama Cass. This was a totally new world, you know?

  ''I'm working on an essay for German,'' he said. ''It's about Brecht. You'd love Brecht, Jonny. Think of everything you know about theatre and tear it up. This guy's out of the box.''

  Recalling Beaky saying something similar, I noted the pictures pinned over the desk. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise in Top Gun, an almost unrecognizably young Cliff Richard.

  ''Cliff Richard?'' I scoffed. ''My mum likes Cliff Richard. What are you? Forty?''

  ''Summer Holiday,'' he grinned lazily. ''Oh boy! Weak at the knees for a month.''

  There was also the photo of me and him in The Dream, the really like gay one from the school magazine? It was the original and stood on his desk in a frame.

  ''I got it from Simon Ayres,'' he said shyly. ''It's a really nice picture.''

  He was already mapping out the school magazine. There was a photo of the Head addressing Speech Day, some shots of rugby matches and some more arty pictures of aspects of the school which Ayres had taken, archways, the bell-tower clock, stained-glass windows in the chapel, that kind of thing.

  There was a pile of creative writing, poems and stories from all over the school and formal reports of sports fixtures and house events. We agreed on a deadline of December 17th, the last day of term. Ali would badger heads of houses and team captains and I said I'd ask Niall Hill to draw a cartoon about life in the school for the centre pages. We wanted more original art-work, which I suggested Pip Brudenall co-ordinate. Holt would pull together the music section, Dell drama and Sonning sports. Ali would write the editorial with Mr Webster. I said I'd work with Paulus on the creative writing submissions and Shelton on Features. Then Ali showed me his poem. It was called 'Final Rest'.

  'A dark and silent wasteland

  Calls

  Across the sunless sea

  Ten thousand thousand people weep,

  Ten thousand thousand voices cry

  How long, o Lord, how long?

  They cry, alas, in vain.

  Man is born good.

  Man wants to be bad.

  I am free, like a bird

  I can fly, I can soar,

  I can see, I can feel,

  I can breathe, I can hear

  The sounds of silence

  Echo through the pain.'

  ''It's not finished,'' he muttered.

  Man, I wished I could write poetry. What the hell did it mean? Sooo deep. It was like that poem he had recommended, Little Gidding, by his favourite poet, Toilets, or someone:

  Midwinter spring is its own season

  Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown.

  I preferred Seamus Heaney. 'All I know is a door into the dark' sums up my life.

  Paulus wrote poetry. He'd done one called 'Sunlight in a Bare Room' and another comparing a marble to a shooting star. I really liked his poems.

  I indicated the poster of Liverpool Football Club stuck up on his wall. ''Ferrety Fosbrook supports them. I thought you supported Luton, Leicester, something beginning with L.''

  Telling me to fuck off, he asked who I supported.

  ''No-one, really,'' I replied, ''Though I quite like Norwich. They play in yellow. Why do you like Liverpool? You're not a Scouser, are you? You haven't got the perm, or the shell-suit.''

  He said they had the cutest players. Then he showed me his collection of Panini football-stickers and Subbuteo teams, his cuddly rabbit (called Rabby – sooo lame), a toy fort, a blue velvet bag of marbles and this massive box of Lego which he used to build star-ships and re-enact Star Trek, writing scripts about parallel galaxies, time-warps and black holes.

  ''I love science-fiction,'' I sighed, ''Though I can't understand the science. Max and Gray got me into it, The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and stuff. Do you watch Dr Who?''

  ''The new companion's quite cute,'' he replied. ''I love Blake's Seven too. Great ship. Avon's a slimy toad but Vila's a great character and Cally's kick-ass fit.''

  ''Not so good since Jenna left.'' When I was 13, I'd wanked over Jenna. I'd even cut her picture out of the Radio Times and kept it under my pillow, till it disintegrated in the bath one afternoon. ''Can't get into Star Wars though.'' I'd been to see the most recent instalment at the cinema for my fifteenth birthday with Max, Gray, Paulus, Fosbrook and Tim. They'd all loved it, kept banging on about the Force and imitating Darth Vader in the queue at McDonald's till I'd wanted to exterminate them. I'd thought it mostly bollocks. I mean, little green men with long ears speaking backwards English… I'd much preferred Fozzie's birthday trip to The Thirty-Nine Steps, with Robert Powell hanging off the big hand of Big Ben while ze Germans shot at him. That was a thriller.

  ''Still,'' said Alistair, ''Light-sabers are super-cool.''

  ''Super-lame,'' I grunted. ''Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blasters are cool.''

  ''Ha,'' he crowed, ''Wish I had a Babelfish for every time someone said that. Wanna listen to some music? Do you like David Bowie?''

  I loved David Bowie. Ashes to ashes, monk to monkey, we know Major Tom's a junkie… I couldn't help singing it. He chucked some socks and a shirt from the chair to the floor and slid a CD into the player. Holding my can in both hands, I sat on his bed and sang:

  ''It's a God-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair,

  But her mummy is yelling no and her daddy has told her to go…''

  Swinging in his desk-chair, he grinned happily as we did the next verse together pretending our cans were microphones and holding the 'Life on Maaars' as long as we could. We drank lager, warbled and air-drummed 'The Man Who Sold the World' then bawled ''Goodbye Ye
llow Brick Road, where the dogs of society howl,'' and, when 'What You're Proposing' came on the radio, we actually danced, swaying a couple of feet apart, thrusting shoulders, playing air-guitar, pretending we were long-haired rockers:

  It sounds so nice, what you're proposin', just once or twice, and not disclosin',

  And not disclosin' how we're really really feelin', what you’re proposin'…

  Suddenly the Police replaced Status Quo:

  Her friends are so jealous, you know how bad girls get,

  Sometimes it's not so easy, to be the teacher's pet,

  Temptation, frustration, so bad it makes him cry,

  Wet bus stop, she's waiting, his car is warm and dry,

  Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me…

  Ali, jerking away, crushed his can and tossed it into the bin grunting that he needed a slash. Then it was Barbra Streisand: ''I am a woman in love, and I would do anything…''

  Suddenly I was alone in his bedroom.

  Quickly I pressed my face into the pillow and inhaled a mixed scent of shampoo, sweat, laundry and Alistair Rose. Then I had a great idea. I'd take a trophy, a souvenir of the day. Jumping from the bed, I scooped a black sock off the carpet and shoved it into my pocket. Then I had another idea. Maybe, if I rummaged in the bin, I might find a… maybe there was a… There was! A crumpled tissue. God Almighty. My heart missed several beats as I sniffed it, touched it with my tongue-tip. Man alive. Was that really… you know? I almost fainted with anticipation. Then, in his top drawer, I saw this photocopy of a picture of myself in Oliver, baggy cap, scruffy shirt, raggedy trousers, the lot. This had been in the school magazine too and I had the original. He'd xeroxed it and kept it in his bedside drawer. Oh boy.

  A mix of emotions swirled through me, pride that he liked me so much, excitement 'cos I guessed he masturbated while looking at my picture, and shame, that I was excited and aroused when I should be creeped out that this older boy was wanking over me. And then I found my missing sock. Bollocks. The sock I’d lost at the start of September was here, in Alistair's drawer. My mouth went very dry, scarcely daring to imagine how he might've used it. My God, he was sooo crazy for me! Hearing the toilet flush, I shoved the tissue in my pocket with his sock, slapped the drawer shut and collapsed in a heap on the carpet.

  ''When eyes meet eyes, and the feeling is strong, I turn away from the wall.'' Streisand.

  ''I stumble and fall,'' I sang, grinning up at him, ''But I give you it all…''

  He called me an idiot and told me to get up.

  ''I can't get up,'' I said, ''I'm too drunk,'' and joined in as Barbra continued ''I am a woman in love, and I would do anything, to get you into my world…''

  Now he knelt beside me, like in the swimming pool, and I locked his eyes on mine. My heart lurched and my breathing changed. His eyes glittered. His lips came closer.

  ''And hold you within, it's a right I defend, Over and over again…''

  Now, please, on this perfect day, on the best day ever. Do it now. Resistance is futile.

  His fingers were fiddling with my shirt buttons. I looped my arm round his neck. The world stopped spinning. The stars held their breath. My buttons came undone, down to the waist. He leaned towards me. His breath warmed my lips. His fingers fumbled with my belt-buckle. My fingers touched his zipper. His lips hovered, an inch away. Make it so. His hand burrowed inside my shirt, sweeping over my skin, ribs and side. I sighed, parted my lips, my fingers unzipping his fly as my belt buckle fell away and my trouser button came undone. Then something, I don't know what, broke the spell. Blinking, he switched the radio off.

  ''Bob Marley all right?''

  ''Sure,'' I said, choking down my disappointment.

  He put on Uprising and returned to his chair. Levering myself from the carpet to 'Redemption Song', I refastened my buttons and belt. He was gazing moodily into nothing.

  ''What's up?'' I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.

  ''You know what's up,'' he said in this thick, choking voice, but he didn't shake my hand off. ''I nearly kissed you. That's what's up. And it's happened before.''

  ''Oh that.'' I tried to laugh it off. ''That doesn't matter.''

  He swung round, his dark eyes alight with anger, despair, hatred and passion.

  ''Of course it matters, Jonathan. If I kiss you…'' He took a long draught of lager. ''If I kiss you… oh God.'' He buried his face in his hands.

  ''Do you think I'd be such a bad kisser?'' I was like trying to lighten things up, you know?

  ''No,'' he muttered eventually. ''I think you'd be a great kisser, but that's just the point. We shouldn't be kissing, should we?''

  ''Why not?''

  ''Don't be a twat, Jonny. Because we're boys, that's why not. Because we're both boys. Because we're not gay.'' He squeezed the shape from his beer-can. ''Because I'm not gay. I am not gay.'' Suddenly he started shaking. I could feel these tremors through his shoulders. ''I'm not gay.'' Then he was crying, great sobs dredged up from his soul. ''I'm not gay. I'm not. Gay. Oh fuck… what am I going to do? Eh? Jonathan? What am I going to do?''

  Trying to comfort him, I hugged his trembling body and stroked his hair but I had no words except ''It doesn't matter, Ali. It doesn't matter.''

  Thinking of the picture in his drawer, of the picture on his desk, I suddenly realised he was creeped out by himself and his own desires. He was scared of himself, and for himself, but more, I thought, he was scared of me, and my desires. I felt my heart shattering for my poor, poor boy, and it made me cry too. How could it not? I loved him.

  ''Just telling one person helps,'' I murmured. ''Tell me, Alistair. Please. Just tell me.''

  ''There's nothing to tell,'' he said. His shoulders suddenly shuddered violently.

  Putting my unfinished lager on the floor by his bed, I gazed at him, this boy I admired so much, this boy I loved so much, hunched on the edge, arms on his knees, drowning in misery, loneliness and despair. There was nothing I could say. It was something he needed to face alone. Like all of us at some time or other must face the truth of ourselves, confront our demons. All I could do, all any of us can do, was pray for him and for all those we love.