Billy Elliot

  It was a thin turnout on the day, but even so, better than I thought. You had the feeling it was mainly curiosity brought people out of doors. Jackie was sitting by me at the table at the front. I’d had some doubts about it, but he seemed to be getting a bit better, wasn’t bursting into tears all the time. Organising the meeting had given him something to do. Tony had hidden himself away in the crowd and I thought to myself, He’ll be glad when this is all over, and no mistake. They’d left Billy at home. Didn’t want him to see his hopes dashed, I suppose.

  I got up and got things rolling. It wasn’t easy. The word ‘ballet’ was sticking in my throat.

  ‘You all know why we’re here,’ I said. ‘And you all know it’s a bit different this time. There’s a strike on, for one thing, no one has much to spare. We’ve sent kids away to be boxers and footballers and all sorts, but this time it’s Billy Elliot and he wants to be a ballet dancer.’

  People were laughing. I gritted me teeth. What else could I do? I’d given me word. I rambled on a bit, then I handed over to Jackie. I was too quick, I know, but ... well. It wasn’t easy, that’s all.

  Poor old Jackie! Tony should never have let him get up there. He was still a bit dazed, you could see that. I reckon the doctor had put him on pills of some sort anyhow. Everyone was staring at him, and he looked like he was facing a firing squad, not a bloody meeting hall with twenty-odd people in it.

  ‘You all know me.’ he said. ‘You all know our Billy. You all know George.’ He ground to a halt. I nudged him under the table. Gerron with it!

  ‘You all know Mrs Wilkinson,’ he said, and they laughed some more. He tried to pull himself together. ‘She say’s Billy’s in with a chance, and I want him to be able to take it if he can,’ he said. And then, just as I thought he was getting going, he sat down. Bang.

  There was this long pause before I realised that was it. ‘Right,’ I said. More laughter. It was a farce. I tried to think quick of something to say. ‘I’ve put all the fifty pences in that I take from the boxing. It was Billy or a new punchbag, and Billy’s won, and it’ll be the first time he’s got the better of that punchbag, mind.’ That got a bit of a laugh. ‘Mrs Wilkinson has put her fifty pences in from the ballet. Now, I have some raffle tickets here.’ I waved them in the air. ‘We haven’t even got any prizes yet, but we will. Anyhow, the prize isn’t the point. I want everyone to reach into their pockets and cough up. I know you’re being asked all the time, and this is just one more thing and Christmas is only just over. But this is important. Right?’

  Everyone began looking at each other. A few got up. No one was moving up to where I was sitting. I reckon they were just waiting for the one to make a line for the door and the whole lot of them would run for it.

  ‘Hang on a minute.’

  It was Tony. He was sitting right at the back. I thought, What’s he up to?

  ‘You all know me and all,’ he said. ‘I’m the bloke that set fire to that horse’s arse.’ Everyone laughed at that. ‘We all have to be famous for something. Well, I’m famous for a horse’s arse. Billy’s my brother and there’s been lots of times I wanted to set fire to his arse and all.’ They were all chuckling now. I was impressed. He’d set everyone at their ease, which was more than I’d done.

  ‘I know ballet must seem to be a pretty weird thing,’ he said. ‘I was against it myself for a long time. But. I just want to say this. First of all – ‘ and I saw him looking up and catching his dad’s eye as he said it. ‘First of all, this strike is about the future. We all know that. My future, your future, your chil-dren’s future. And that includes Billy’s future. Not everyone’s going to end up down the pit but they still have a right to their own future, no matter what it is. You can’t pick and choose what someone’s future is going to be.

  ‘I’ve been speaking to his dance teacher too. And what she said to me wasn’t that Billy is in with a chance. She said he was brilliant. Brilliant. Well, he’ll be the first in our family who’s been brilliant at anything, except setting fire to arses, so I think he should get his chance. You all know, Billy and me haven’t had a mam for the past couple of years. And, well, she’d have wanted this. She’d’ve let him. In fact, she’d have bloody made him. So. Dig deep. We need your help.’

  Yes! How about that. I looked down and you could see how it was affecting Jackie. His eyes had gone all wet, and I could have run over and kissed Tony for that. Then he was back up again. ‘One more thing. George has shown you the raffle tickets. Well, if anyone thinks they sneak out the back without buying one, I’ll be waiting for them outside, right? So get your money out, and that’s a threat. Right?’

  Everyone laughed again. I couldn’t believe it, how did he manage to speak like that? Bloody hell. I never knew he had it in him. And what’s more, it had done the trick. Everyone was up and shuffling towards the front to get their tickets. I sat down and started writing down names and addresses, but I had half an eye on Jackie and Tony. Jackie jumped up as soon as he could and pushed his way back to his son, Tony pushed his way forward to his dad. They just stood staring at each other while people went past them – most of them forward, some on their way out.

  ‘Well, I only f***ing said what I thought you were going to say, you daft f***er,’ said Tony. ‘I thought you were going to but you just stood there like a bloody twat. I had no choice, did I?’

  Jackie didn’t say owt. He just stared at Tony and nodded, once, hard. And Tony nodded back, once, hard. They were staring into each other’s eyes. And then Jackie nodded back at him. And then –

  ‘Give him a f***ing hug, you stupid bugger!’ someone yelled out. And while everyone was politely looking the other way and getting out their pennies, Jackie and Tony Elliot had their arms round each other at the back of the hall, hugging and banging each other on the back, and crying their heads off for all I know. See? A strike like this breaks some families in half and it brings some together. But I never thought I’d see Jackie and Tony come together over ballet dancing, I’ll tell you that for nothing!

  And the next thing I knew, I was on the bus to London. It was a roller coaster. One minute I was some sort of weirdo and the next thing I was having raffles and dances and fundraising done for me. One minute I was letting the side down and the next thing, Dad was rifling through the drawers looking for things to sell. Even Tony was going round selling raffle tickets and the like. It was real nailbiting stuff. We had to have coach fares for me and Dad and B&Bs and a bit more to spend on food and the underground train. It was touch and go for a long time. Right at the end we had to cancel a dance at the Social because the heating broke down and we thought we’d had it. I really did think I wasn’t going to go, but then Dad found some money from somewhere. I don’t know where, he never told me where from.

  Anyhow, it was on.

  I rode down on that coach, and it was so exciting … all the way to London. The houses went past and then the fields went past, and then we were already going through towns I’d only ever heard about. Then we went sailing past Durham and …

  London.

  ‘What’s it like, Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘London!’

  ‘I dunno, son, I never made it past Durham.’

  ‘You’ve never been, like?’

  ‘Why should I want to go there?’

  ‘Well, it’s the capital city.’

  ‘Well, there’s no mines in London,’ he said.

  ‘Christ, is that all you think about? Mining?’ I mean! I used to think he knew so much and here it was, I was only twelve and I was going to London and he’s forty-five and he’s never even been south of Durham.

  It took ages. When we got there, I wasn’t terribly impressed with it at first. It was just houses – bigger houses than I knew but nothing that special. But then it just went on and on. It was huge, it was more like a whole county than a town. It went on for ever, houses and streets, and then more houses and more streets. And all the time the houses got bigger and higher, thr
ee storeys, four storeys, five storeys high. Me and Dad were peering out the window like a pair of kids. I was impressed then all right, and I didn’t know it but I hadn’t seen nothing yet.

  Our B&B in Victoria wasn’t much. I’ve had better eggs and bacon in the morning and all.

  ‘We could give them a few lessons in how to cook an egg,’ my dad said. He was right, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if the egg had been cooked by the Queen. I could barely eat a thing, I was that scared. We’d come all this way just for me and all I could think was, How the hell can I dance feeling like this? I didn’t stand a chance.

  ‘Are you not going to eat your bacon?’ said my dad.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  He forked it onto his plate. ‘We don’t want to let it go to waste.’ He nodded at me. ‘You better have some cereal or something, you’ll be wanting some food in your stomach for today, won’t you?’

  ‘I can’t eat owt,’ I said. But he made me eat some cornflakes with loads of sugar on just to keep me going.

  Then we caught the tube to the Royal Ballet School. The tube was great, I enjoyed riding on that. When we got out – well. You know. London just goes on and on getting bigger and bigger. The buildings in that part were enormous. Just enormous. And the school itself was so big and posh, all pil-lars and these huge doors and everything. It was like a bloody mansion or a palace or something. I stood there at the bottom of the steps looking up at it and I could feel my heart just sinking down to me toes.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said me dad. ‘Is this where we’re sending you? How much is it going to cost to keep you here?’

  We walked up the steps. I think they were about the width of our street. And you know what? The whole thing was horrible. It was just totally f***ing horrible. I knew, as soon as I saw that building, I knew we’d made a mistake. No one told me it was going to be like that. I thought it was just dancing. Now I could see why Tony had started off so angry about it, because it wasn’t just dancing. It was posh gits. It was bosses and people who don’t give a toss about anyone. And me, I’m not a posh git. And I don’t want to be, either.

  The changing rooms were awful. They were full of these posh kids going, ‘Es this youwr fowst thime? Itsth my seocnd thyme, oh, isn’t it nerwve-wacking, oh aye say ...’ all lah de dah bom bom.

  ‘I dunno,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I dunno,’

  ‘Pardon? Sowy, youwr accent. Ay’m Thsimon, by the way. Did yew say yowr name?’

  ‘Billy Elliot, From Everington. County Durham.’

  ‘Duwham? Isn’t there suppothsed to be this amazing cathedral there?’

  ‘Dunno, I’ve never been.’

  ‘What? Pwardon?’

  ‘Just shut it, will yer?’

  ‘Sowy.’

  Well, it wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t make out a word I was saying. I might as well have come from another country. And I was thinking, maybe I did.

  Then the medical was awful with this horrible posh doctor.

  ‘Up on the box, William. Bend over. Good. Right down! And up. Up, up slowly, good boy. That’s lovely.’

  La de dah, look up my arse.

  ‘Head down. Oh, little curvature here, might not be a problem, very small. Come on, keep coming. Right, jump up, William.’

  ‘Billy. Billy Elliot from Everington.’

  ‘Sorry, Billy.’

  I couldn’t bear it. I felt like a horse or something. They sent me back to wait in the changing room, but I’d already decided I’d had enough. I sneaked out and found me dad waiting at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Have you done? How’s it gone?’

  ‘Dad, Dad, I’ve changed me mind, I don’t want to do it, please, for f***’s sake, I’ve – ‘ He didn’t even let me finish. He just grabbed me shoulder and spun me round.

  ‘You come back out of there again, I’ll bloody leather you!’ He kicked me straight back in and closed the door. I could hear him dusting his palms together on the other side.

  And then the audition. It was just pure torture. There was this panel of posh prats, all sitting in a row staring at me, about five of ‘em.

  ‘And you are ...?’

  ‘Billy Elliot. From Everington.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Now then, to the barre please, Billy. Left arm on the barre. Feet first. Demi-plie, and hold.’ And they all peered at me and looked at my legs and my arms and my back and leaned together and muttered like I wasn’t even there. It made me feel so stupid. You know, I’d seen some of ‘em that was already in the school practising before I went in there, and I knew for a fact I could do as well as any of them if I had the chance, but this ... it just wasn’t fair. You can’t dance when you feel like that, you can’t do anything properly when you feel like that. If it had been back home at the social with Miss, I could have shown ‘em something. Anyhow, they never wanted me there at all. You could tell from the expression on their faces they didn’t like me.

  Then it was the dance.

  ‘Aye hear you have some mewsic, Billy. You have a pwiece pwrepared?’

  Someone turned the tape on. T. Rex. The music came on and right away I knew it was the wrong music for that sort of thing. In that place. It sounded so stupid.

  ‘I like to boogie.

  ‘Jitterbug boogie.’

  No, I f***ing don’t like to boogie. Not there, anyhow. I just froze. I couldn’t move a muscle. It was awful. Someone moved their eyebrows encouragingly – that was about as far towards giving me a boot up the arse as they could go.

  I like to boogie.

  On a Saturday night.

  The music was halfway gone and all I was doing was staring at them. I could feel my chances trickling away down the drain. Then I heard Miss’s voice in my ear.

  ‘Billy, you’re not concentrating! When you’re up there in front of an audience, you have to concentrate, no matter what’s going on. So go on – just do it!’

  So I just did it. It was a waste of time really, the music was already half done, but I did it anyway. It was over in about half a minute. I looked up and there they all were, sitting there staring at me like someone had just offered them a plum and it had turned out to be dog shit and they didn’t dare chew any more but didn’t like to say anything in case it was rude.

  ‘Thank you, Billy. You can go now.’

  I almost ran out of there, I was so scared. I got back into the changing room and I just wanted to cry. There was just the one kid there, the one who’d spoken to me earlier. I was trying not to show how upset I was. All that money spent on me. All those people running around, leaflets, raffles, dances. Dad rushing his arse off. And I was f***ing it all up!

  ‘Are you awl wite?’ goes this kid. He comes up to me. I couldn’t bear it! It wasn’t my fault, I just wanted to be left alone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It was a waste of f***ing time!’

  ‘No, don’t be upset. It’s just a silly audition.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Don’t worry, there’s always next year.’ And then the stupid prat came and sat next to me and put his arm on my shoulder. I’d had enough.

  ‘Piss off!’ I yelled.

  ‘You’ll be OK – ‘ And I twatted him one. He was bloody asking for it. I got him a good ‘un to, right on the gob – smack! Down he went, over the bench. George would have been proud of me.

  ‘You bent bastard!’ I yelled. And then of course in they came, all the staff. The people from next door.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  Well, and that was it, wasn’t it? That kid – I know he was only trying to help, but he should have left me be – he was lying on his back with blood coming out of his nose and his mouth. The only time I land a decent punch in my whole life, it had to be there, didn’t it?

  So that was that. They were never going to let me in after that.

  The last thing was the interview. I don’t know why they bothered. Just so’s they could tell u
s off, I expect. They interviewed me and Dad together. Same old shit.

  ‘Mr Elliot, you do understand that mutual respect and self-discipline are absolute prerequisites of any pupil at this school. Such displays of violence cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. Do you understand?’

  Both me and me Dad said yes at the same time.

  ‘We will have to consider this very seriously and it will be bound to affect our final decision. Has anyone anything to add?’

  The bloke looked down at the other people on the panel. They were all frowning and glaring at us, but they hadn’t got any more to add to that. Well, it was enough. He was more or less telling me I was out.

  ‘Just a few questions, then,’ said the tutor. ‘Billy, can I ask you why you became interested in ballet in the first place?’

  Well, I’d already blown it, hadn’t I? It was a waste of time. They all sat there staring at me. Dad nudged me with his elbow.

  ‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘Just was.’

  ‘Well, was there any specific aspect of ballet which caught your imagination?’

  ‘The dancing.’

  I could feel me dad trying not to poke me one.

  ‘He dances all the time,’ he told them. ‘Every night after school.’

  ‘Yes, we have a very enthusiastic letter from Mrs Wilkinson. She has mentioned your personal circumstances.’

  ‘Mr Elliot,’ goes another one of them. ‘Are you a fan of the ballet?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say I was an expert,’ said Dad. That was a bloody understatement.

  ‘You know that pupils who come here must attain the very highest standards, not only in ballet but in their other school work. It’s a lot of work. If Billy were to come here, he would need the full support of his family. You are completely behind Billy, are you not?’

  Dad looked down at me and then back up. ‘Oh, yes. Oh, aye,’ he said.

  And that was about it. Complete f***ing disaster. The last thing they asked was what it felt like when I was dancing. What was the point? They come from a different planet than people like me and me dad. And anyhow, how can you say something about that – that feeling you get when you forget where you are and what you’re doing and even why you’re doing it? It just is, that’s all.