“Just look at the state of this,” he whispered.
He put his hand up into the foliage and shook it. Dust and litter and old dead leaves fell out of it. I scratched at something crawling in my hair.
“Would your dads let your hedge get into a mess like this?” he said.
“No,” we answered.
“No. It’s just like he is. Crazy and stupid and wild.”
“Like who?” whispered Frank.
“Like him inside!” said Joe. “Like Useless Eustace!”
Mr Eustace. He lived in the house beyond the hedge. No family, hardly any pals. He’d been a teacher for a while but he’d given up. Now he spent most of his time stuck inside writing poems, reading books, listening to weird music.
“We’re gonna burn it down,” said Joe.
“Eh?” I said.
“The hedge. Burn it down, teach him a lesson.”
The hedge loomed above us against the darkening sky.
“Why?”
Joe sighed. “Cos it’s a mess and cos we’re the Bad Lads. And he deserves it.”
He unrolled the newspaper and started shoving pages into the hedge. He handed pages to us as well. “Stuff them low down,” he said, “so it’ll catch better.”
I held back. I imagined the roar of the flames, the belching smoke. “I don’t think we should,” I found myself saying.
The other lads watched as Joe grabbed my collar and glared into my eyes.
“You think too much,” he whispered. “You’re a Bad Lad. So be a Bad Lad.”
He finished shoving the paper in. He got the matches out. “Anyway,” he said, “he was a bloody conchie, wasn’t he?”
“That was ages back. He was only doing what he believed in.”
“He was a coward and a conchie. And like me dad says, once a conchie…”
“Don’t do it, Joe.”
“You gonna be a conchie too?” he said. “Are you?” He looked at all of us. “Are any of you going to be conchies?”
“No,” we said.
“Good lads.” He put his arm round my shoulder. “Blame me,” he whispered. “I’m the leader. You’re only following instructions. So do it.”
I hated myself, but I shoved my bit of crumpled paper into the hedge with the rest of them.
Conchie. The story came from before any of us were born. Mr Eustace wouldn’t fight in the Second World War. He was against all war; he couldn’t attack his fellow man. He was a conscientious objector. When my dad and the other lads’ dads went off to risk their lives fighting the Germans and the Japanese, Mr Eustace was sent to jail, then let out to work on a farm in Durham.
He’d suffered then; he’d suffered since. My dad said he’d been a decent bloke, but turning conchie had ruined his life. He’d never find peace. He should have left this place and started a new life somewhere else, but he never did.
Joe lit a match and held it to the paper. Flames flickered. They started rising fast. Tonto was already backing away down the lane; Fred and Frank were giggling; Dan had disappeared. I cursed. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Then we were all away, running hunched over through the shadows, and the hedge was roaring behind us. By the time we were back at Swards Road, there was a great orange glow over Sycamore Grove, and smoke was belching up towards the stars.
“Now that,” said Joe, “is what I call a proper Bad Lads stunt!”
And no matter what we thought inside, all of us shivered with the thrill of it.
Next morning I went back to the lane. It was black and soaking wet from the ash and the hosepipes. The hedge was just a few black twisted stems. Mr Eustace was in the garden talking to a policeman. He kept shrugging, shaking his head. He caught my eye and I wanted to yell out, “You’re useless! What did you expect? You should have started a new life somewhere else!”
Joe was nowhere in sight but Fred and Frank were grinning from further down the lane. Neighbours were out, muttering and whispering. None of them suspected anything, of course. They knew us. We were Felling lads. There was no badness in us. Not really.
That was the week Klaus Vogel arrived. He was a scrawny little kid from East Germany. The tale was that his dad was a famous singer who’d been hauled off to a prison camp somewhere in Russia. The mother had disappeared – shot, more than likely, people said. The kid had been smuggled out in the boot of a car. Nobody knew the full truth, said my dad, not when it had happened so far away and in countries like that. Just be happy we lived in a place like this where we could go about as we pleased.
Klaus stayed in the priest’s house next to St Patrick’s and joined our school, St John’s. He didn’t have a word of English, but he was bright and he learnt fast. Within a few days he could speak a few English words in a weird Geordie–German accent. Soon he was even writing a few words in English.
We looked at his book one break.
“How the hell do you do it?” asked Dan.
Klaus raised his hands. He didn’t know how to explain. “I just…” he began, and he scribbled hard and fast. “Like so,” he said.
We saw jagged English words mingled with what had to be German.
“What is it?” said Tonto.
“Is story of my vater. My father. It must be…” Klaus frowned into the air, seeking the word.
“Must be told,” I said.
“Danke. Thank you.” He nodded and his eyes widened. “It must be told. Ja! Aye!”
And we all laughed at the way he used the Tyneside word.
After school Klaus talked with his feet. Overhead kicks, sudden body swerves, curling free kicks: the kind of football we could only dream of. He was tiny, clever, tough. We gasped in admiration. When he played, he lost himself in the game, and all his troubles seemed to fall away.
“What’ll we call you?” asked Frank.
Klaus frowned. “Klaus Vogel,” he said.
“No. Your football name. I’m Pelé. You are…”
Klaus pondered. He glanced around, as if to check who was listening. “Müller,” he murmured. “Ja! Gerd Müller!”
Then he grinned, twisted, dodged a tackle, swerved the ball into the corner of the invisible net and waved to the invisible crowd. All the lads yelled, “Yeah! Well done, Müller!”
The first time Klaus Vogel met Joe was a few weeks after he’d arrived. Since the hedge-burning, things had gone quiet. Joe spent most of his time with Teresa Doyle. We’d seen him a couple of times, leaning against a fence on Swards Road watching us play, but he hadn’t come across. Now here he was, strolling onto the field in the icy November dusk. I moved to Klaus’s side.
“He’s called Joe,” I whispered. “He’s OK.”
“So this is the famous Klaus Vogel,” said Joe.
Klaus shrugged. Joe smiled.
“And your dad’s the famous singer, eh? The op-era singer.”
“Aye.”
“Giz a song, then.”
“What?” said Klaus.
“He must’ve taught you, eh? And we like a bit of op-era here, don’t we, lads? Go on, giz a song.” Joe demonstrated. He opened his mouth wide and stretched his hand out like he was singing to an audience. “Go on. You’re in a free country now, you know. Sing up!”
Klaus stared at him. I wanted to say, “Don’t do it,” but Klaus had stepped away, closer to Joe. He took a deep breath and started to sing. His voice rang out across the field. It was weird, like the music that drifted from Mr Eustace’s house. We heard the loveliness in it. How could he do such things?
But Joe was bent over, struggling with laughter, and then he was waving his hands to bring Klaus to a halt.
Klaus stopped, stared again. “You do not like?” he asked.
Joe wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Aye, aye,” he said. “It’s brilliant, son.”
Then Joe opened his own mouth and started singing, a wobbly high-pitched imitation of Klaus. He looked at us and we all started to laugh with him.
“Mebbe we’re just not ready for it, eh, lads?”
>
“Mebbe we’re not,” muttered Frank, turning his eyes away.
Klaus looked at us too. Then he just shrugged again. “So. I will go home,” he said.
“No,” said Joe. “You can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“We can’t let you.” He grinned. He winked. “We got to initiate him, haven’t we, lads? We got to make him one of the Bad Lads.” He showed his teeth like he was a great beast, then he smiled. “’Specially when you consider where he comes from, eh?”
“What you mean?” asked Klaus.
“From Germany,” said Joe. “Not so long ago we’d have been wanting to kill you. You’d’ve been wanting to kill us.”
He raised his hand like he had a gun in it and pointed it at Klaus. He pulled an imaginary trigger. Then he smiled. “It’s nowt, son,” he said. “Just some carry-on. What’ll it be, lads? Knocky nine door in Balaclava Street? Jumping through hedges in Coldwell Park Drive?”
“The hedges,” I said. I put my hand on Klaus’s shoulder. “It’s OK,” I whispered. “We’re just messing about. And it’s on your way home.”
So Klaus came with us. We cut through the lanes to Coldwell Park Drive and slipped into the gardens behind, then Joe led us and we charged over the back lawns and through the hedges while dogs howled and people yelled at us to cut it out. We streamed out, giggling, onto Felling Bank. Joe held us in a quick huddle and said it was just like the old days. He put his arm round Klaus.
“Ha!” he said. “You’re a proper Bad Lad now, Herr Vogel. You’re one of us!”
Then we started running our separate ways through the shadows.
Klaus caught my arm. “Why?” he said.
“Why what?”
“Why we do that? Why we do what Joe says?”
“It’s not like that,” I said. I paused. “It’s…” But my voice felt all caught up inside me, like it couldn’t find words.
“Is what?” said Klaus.
He held me like he really wanted to understand. But I had no answers. Klaus shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, walked away.
Klaus kept away from the Bad Lads for a while. He scribbled in his book, writing his story. He sang out loud in music lessons. He dazzled everyone with his football skills during games. There were rumours that the body of his mother had turned up. The whole school prayed for the liberation of East Germany, for the conversion of Russia, for Klaus Vogel and his family.
One day after school I came upon him walking under the trees on Watermill Lane. He walked quickly, swinging his arms, singing softly.
“Klaus!” I said. “What you doing?”
“I am being free!” he said. “My father said that one day I would walk as a free man. I would walk and sing and show the world that I am free. So I do it. Look!”
He strode in circles, swinging his arms again.
“Do I look like I am free?” he said.
“Yes,” I laughed. “Of course you do.”
He laughed too. “Ha! As I walk I think of him in his cell. I think of her.”
“They would be proud of you,” I said.
“Would they?”
“Yes.”
He laughed again, a bitter laugh. “And as I walk I think of my friends here,” he said. “I think of you; I think of Joe.”
“Of Joe?”
“Ja! Him!”
“You think too much, Klaus. Come and play football, will you? Come and be Gerd Müller.”
And he sighed and shrugged. OK.
It was getting dark. Frost already glistened on the field. The stars were like a field of vivid frost above. Klaus played with more brilliance and passion than ever. We watched him in wonder. He ran with the ball at his feet; he flicked it into the goal; he leapt with joy; he danced to the crowd.
Then Joe was there, his footsteps crackling across the grass. He had a small rucksack on his back.
“Herr Vogel,” he said. “Nice to see you again.”
He stepped closer and put his arm round Klaus’s shoulder. “Sorry to hear about…” He held up his hand, as if to restrain his own words. “Our thoughts are with you, son.”
He turned to the rest of us. “Now, lads. It’s a fine night for a Bad Lads stunt.”
You could tell it was almost over with us and Joe. We gathered around him reluctantly; our smiles were forced when he told us he had the perfect trick. But he was tall and strong. He smelt of aftershave; he wore a black Ben Sherman, black jeans, black Chelsea boots. We hadn’t broken free of him. He drew us into a huddle. He smiled and told us we’d always been the Bad Lads and we’d keep on being the Bad Lads, wouldn’t we?
No one said no. No one objected when he told us to follow. I think I hesitated for a moment, but Klaus came to my side and whispered, “You will not go? But you must. We must all follow our leader, mustn’t we?”
And Klaus stepped ahead, and I followed.
Joe led us to The Drive, towards the lane behind Sycamore Grove.
“Not again,” I sighed.
“It’s like me dad says,” said Joe. “He should’ve been drove out years back.” He turned to Klaus. “It’s local stuff, son. Probably your lot had better ways of dealing with the Eustaces than we ever had.”
Klaus just shrugged.
“Anyway, lads. It’s just a bit of fun this time.” He opened his rucksack, took out a box of eggs. “Here, one each. Hit a window for a hundred points.”
A couple of the lads giggled. They took their eggs. Joe held the box out to me. I hesitated. Klaus took one and looked at me. So I took an egg and held it in my hand.
Joe smiled and patted Klaus’s shoulder. “Good Bad Lad, Herr Vogel,” he murmured.
Klaus laughed his bitter laugh again. “Nein,” he said. “I am not a good Bad Lad. I am Klaus Vogel.”
He stepped towards Joe.
“No, Klaus,” I muttered. I tried to hold him back but he stepped right up to Joe.
“I do not like you,” he said. “I do not like the things you make others do.”
“Oh! You do not like?” said Joe.
“Nein.”
Joe laughed. He mocked the word – “Nein! Nein! Nein!” – as he stamped the earth and gave a Nazi salute. He grabbed Klaus by the collar, but Klaus didn’t recoil.
“You could crush me in a moment,” he said. “But I am not … ängstlich.”
“Frightened,” I said.
“Ja! I am not frightened. Ich bin frei!”
“Ha! Frei. Frei.”
“He is free,” I said. And in that moment, I knew that he was free, despite his father’s imprisonment, despite his mother’s death, despite Joe’s fist gripping his collar. He had said no. He was free.
Joe snarled and drew his fist back. I found myself reaching out. I caught the fist in mid-air.
“No,” I said. “You can’t do that.”
“What?”
“I said no!”
Joe thumped us both that night, in the lane behind Mr Eustace’s house. We fought back, but he was tall and strong and there was little we could do against his savagery. Tonto and the others had disappeared. Afterwards I walked home with Klaus through the frosty starlit night. We were sore and we had blood on our faces, but soon we were swinging our arms.
“Do I look like I am free?” I said.
Klaus laughed. “Ja! Yes! Aye!”
And he began to sing and I tried to join in.
A couple of days later he came with me to Mr Eustace’s house. I knocked at the door and Mr Eustace opened it.
“I burned down your hedge,” I said.
He peered at me. “Did you now?” he said.
I chewed my lips. Music was playing. Beyond Mr Eustace the hallway was lined with books.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“Yes, you were.”
I felt so clumsy, so stupid.
“This is Klaus Vogel,” I said. “He is a writer, a footballer, a singer.”
“Then he is a civilized man. Perhaps you can learn from
him.”
I nodded. I was about to turn and lead Klaus away, but Mr Eustace said, “Why don’t you come inside?”
We followed him in. There were books everywhere. In the living room was an open notebook on a desk with an uncapped fountain pen lying upon it. The writing in the book was in the shape of poetry.
Mr Eustace stood at the window and indicated the ruined hedge outside. “Is that how you wish the world to be?” he asked me.
“No,” I answered.
“No.”
He made us tea. There were fig rolls and little cakes. He spoke a few words to Klaus in German, and Klaus gasped with pleasure. Then Mr Eustace put another record on. Opera. High sweet voices flowing together and filling the house with their sound.
“Mozart!” said Klaus.
“Yes.”
Klaus joined in. His voice rang out. Mr Eustace closed his eyes and smiled.
Me as a kid on the new council estate
THE BOY WHO SWAM WITH PIRANHAS
Stan’s Uncle Ernie has developed an extraordinary fascination with canning fish, and life at 69 Fish Quay Lane has turned barmy! Then barmy becomes barbaric … and Stan runs away with the fair. Finally Stan has the chance to be the person he was meant to be. But does he have the courage to join the legendary Pancho Pirelli in the churning waters of the piranha tank?
“A life-affirming voyage of self-discovery with a fabulously fishy twist.” THE BOOKSELLER
THE SAVAGE
You won’t believe this but it’s true.
I wrote a story called “The Savage” about a savage kid that lived under the ruined chapel in Burgess Woods – and the kid came to life in the real world.
“An extremely touching and cleverly conceived story within a story.” THE IRISH TIMES
MOUSE BIRD SNAKE WOLF
Long ago, the gods created a wonderful world – with mountains, seas, astonishing beasts and people rather like us. Then they became lazy and the world remained incomplete. Harry, Sue and Little Ben decide to fill the empty spaces – with a squeaky mousy thing, a feathery flying thing, a slithery scaly thing. But do they dare to create a hairy howling thing with great big teeth…?