I thought about it. ‘So what does your dad say, then?’
‘Doesn’t know.’
‘Are you not going to tell him?’
‘Not yet, anyhow. He’ll go f***ing mental.’
‘No, he won’t, he’ll be pleased, then he can rent your room out,’ I told him. I was just joking, but Billy looked really pissed off.
‘Don’t say that,’ he told me. ‘Anyhow,’ he added, ‘he couldn’t rent it out – what about our Tony? It’s his room and all.’
I wandered back off to the wardrobe and rooted about for more frocks. I didn’t really want another frock, I was hiding me face. I was upset. I wanted to say, ‘Don’t go, Billy, I’ll be left all on me own.’
‘What do you reckon?’ he asked me.
‘I think you shouldn’t bother,’ I told him.
‘Why not?’
I glanced round at him. ‘Well, I’d miss you,’ I said.
‘Oh, bloody hell, Michael!’
‘Well, it’s true,’ I told him. I wasn’t being much use, really. I suppose he just wanted some advice. I was being selfish, but what do I know about London and ballet school and that? I don’t know anything. But I knew I’d miss him if he went away. I was feeling lonely already.
Billy started cleaning his lipstick off. He wanted me to come out and muck around but I didn’t feel like it. I was thinking, shit, shit, shit. If Billy goes away, who can I talk to then? And who’ll want to talk to me?
As usual, I think he felt sorry for me, because he said, ‘Tell you what, I’ll show you.’ He pushed back the chair and made a little space next to the bed and started going through the moves. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘and you. Bend your legs. Plie. Like this.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s French.’
‘Why’s it French?’
‘I don’t f***ing know! Look, like this. Beautiful neck. Like a princess, you poof.’
He showed me the moves and I followed what he was doing. I’m not that type myself, but I enjoyed watching him go through it. He half closed his eyes and he seemed to forget that I was wearing a dress and pretending to be a girl. He just went through the moves one after the other, murmuring, ‘Up and round and one and two ...’ to himself. He looked really lovely, lost in his own little world. Then he jumped up and did this spin like a f***ing top. It almost made me shout.
‘F*** ya!’ he yelled, and he went round and round so fast he nearly took my head off.
‘Wow,’ I said, and he grinned at me.
‘How about that, then?’ he said. ‘How about that? That’s dancing, ain’t it?’
Everything happened all at once. We only had two weeks before the audition. We went at it like maniacs.
There were those things she asked me to bring in – something personal, she said. I’d never made up a dance before, I’d no idea – how do you start something like that? I just grabbed what was there, like. A Newcastle United shirt, a football – I thought maybe I could do something with that – you know, boot it around or something. Why shouldn’t that be part of the dance? There was a tape: ‘I Like to Boogie’ by T. Rex. It’s one of our Tony’s. I was hoping she could copy it for me, he’d kill me if he found out. It just seemed like something I’d like to dance to.
And me mam’s letter.
I don’t know why I brought along mam’s letter. Well, I do – it’s because she said bring something personal and there’s nothing more personal to me than that. But I felt funny about it. I mean, it’s none of her business, is it? It’s none of anyone’s business except mine.
I met her round at the Social by the boxing ring that Monday, like we’d arranged, and she started to go through the things. I was a bit worried they might be wrong, but she said so long as they were special to me, it was all right. She didn’t think much of the football idea. She just gave a sniff and said, ‘Do you fancy chasing this around? What if it goes the wrong way? You’ll feel a right prat then, won’t you? How good are your ball skills?’
‘Not bad,’ I said, but she chucked the ball to one side anyhow. Then she picked up the letter and looked at me oddly. Of course, it was the letter she was going to go for. I knew she bloody would. I was afraid of it.
‘It was supposed to be for when I was eighteen,’ I told her, ‘but I opened it early.’
She took it out and began to read. ‘Dear Billy.’ Then she stopped and looked at me again. ‘Do you mind if I read it out?’
‘I suppose not,’ I said.
‘I know I must seem like a distant memory to you. Which is probably a good thing,’ she read. ‘It will have been a long time. And I will have missed seeing you grow, missed you crying and laughing and shouting ...’
She sort of stared at me and stopped, so I carried on for her.
‘I will have missed telling you off,’ I said. ‘But please know that I was always there, with you all through everything. And I always will be. And I am proud to have known you. And I am proud that you were mine. Always be yourself. I love you for ever.’
I didn’t need to read it, I knew it by heart. Miss looked at the end of it to see if that was it and then read the last word.
‘Mam.’
She looked the other way and started breathing heavily. “Are you all right, Miss?” I asked. Then she sniffed and rubbed her nose on her arm and I knew, she was crying. I thought, Oh, Jesus, I shouldn’t have brought it in. The whole thing’s going to be totally soppy now I’ve done that.
‘She must have been a very, very special woman, Billy,’ she said at last.
‘Nah, she was just me mam,’ I said.
She started asking me questions about her then – what sort of things she liked, what made her happy, what made her sad. I kept trying to tell her about the tape. It’s the music I was interested in. In the end I got round her by saying, ‘Mam liked music too. She was a piano player. She liked rock ‘n’ roll. She was always asking our Tony to put this on.’ So she put the tape on then and we sat together on the edge of the boxing ring and listened to it.
‘I like to boogie,’ sang Marc Bolan.
‘Jitterbug boogie.
‘I like to boogie
‘On a Saturday night.’
‘Happy music,’ she said. ‘Foot-tapping music.’
‘Dancing music,’ I told her.
‘Your mam liked this, you say?’
‘Aye.’
‘She liked being happy. Was she kind?’
‘Of course she was. She used to get a bit stressed, that’s all.’
‘Don’t we all. So. Happy, kind, stressed. And foot-tapping. That’s our dance, Billy. Right, let’s get going. Put that tape on again.’
We had fun that day! We jiggled and jumped and ran round in circles. She made me arse about. She never let me arse about before, it was always, you had to do things exactly like she said, exactly right. Now suddenly we were mucking around around. I had to show her how mam did this daft dance she used to do for a laugh. I had to show what she was like when she did ballet with me nan. I had to show her what she was like when she was being cross, and how she tipped her head back when she laughed. It was dead clever, actually. She got all those movements and then sort of strung them together. There was even a bit of footy in it too, and a whole lot of foot-tapping – and that was our dance!
‘Now listen, Billy,’ she told me. ‘When you’re dead, you’re dead, and that’s it. But I want to imagine, just imagine, mind, that you’re dancing your mam right back to life. And at the end of it you’re going to do the biggest, fastest, highest spin any living child ever did do, and when you do that spin, you’ll be whizzing round so fast you’ll be able to catch your mam out the corner of your eye clapping her hands and jumping up out of her chair in excitement, just like you showed me just now. Right?’
‘Right!’ I said. Actually, I thought that was a bit much. Telling me to dance Mam back to life. I can just imagine what Tony would say if he knew that, he’d want to smack her one. But the thing about Miss is, she’s
clever. It worked, see. I thought about Mam and dancing so hard she’d jump up and clap – and it worked. Even though I thought she was being a bit cheeky, really.
I knew she’d latch onto Mam, but the great thing about it was, it wasn’t soppy. One thing you had to say about Miss, she was really not soppy. It was a right happy dance. It made you feel good. It made you feel – foot-tapping!
‘I love to boogie,
Jitterbug boogie.
I love to boogie
On a Saturday night, night. All right!’
At home, things were going right the other way.
It wasn’t just home, mind. The whole bloody town was under siege. You’d have thought we were trying to attack the Houses of Parliament rather than just be out on strike. The police were everywhere.
When it started off they were just down by the pit. They were OK at first, they used to chat with the miners, every-thing was fairly friendly. But then miners from other places were coming to picket our pit, and that’s when they started. There were road blocks and all sorts. They were everywhere. Gangs of them wandering around all over the place. On horseback. In cars. On motorbikes. All over our town.
It wasn’t getting them anywhere, though, we were running rings around them. The miners always found a way to get to the pit no matter how hard the police tried to stop them. They hid on the school buses and lorries taking goods to the shops. We had people from all over, not just miners, coming in to fight for the mines. Young people, old people, all sorts, all gathered round the pit chanting, ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go’ and ‘Maggie Maggie Maggie – out out out!’ Tony reckoned we were going to bring the government down, but we had no money left at all. People were chopping down anything you could burn just to keep warm. We pulled our little wooden shed in the yard to bits for firewood. We were – well, I never went hungry but I was geting really sick of sliced bread and marge. I’d have died for a bacon buttie. There was nothing to spare, no treats, no money for anything. They were trying to starve us out, see. And frighten us and all, with the police. It was scary.
It was the ones on horseback that scared me the most. They were so big, and the policemen had these long sticks to hit people with. You know? Galloping up behind one of the miners and whack! Right across their backs or round the head. There was blood and everything. I’ve seen it. You’d never ask a policeman the time again if you’d seen them do what I have.
What’s got four legs and an arsehole in the middle of its back? A police horse.
Our Tony told me that one. I was getting on better with him lately, maybe it was because we were both not getting on with Dad. I was pissed off with him because he wasn’t letting me dance. Tony was pissed off with him because he was a silly old bastard who’d had all the juice sucked out of him. That’s what he said. He was always shouting at him. Dad never said much back, he just let him go on. I felt sorry for him, it wasn’t his fault the mines were being closed down. But Tony was right. He’s just a silly old bloke. Stuck in a time warp.
He stuck up for himself when Tony pushed him too far, though.
It was the middle of the night, just about a week away from the audition. I was woken up by Tony getting out of bed.
‘What’re you doing? What’s the time?’ I asked.
‘Shurrup, get back to sleep,’ he told me. He was standing there pulling his jeans on, trying to be dead quiet. I looked at the clock. It was four in the morning. What was he up to, this time of night?
‘Get back to bed!’ he hissed. I lay back down and rolled over. He tiptoed out. I lay back down and listened. A couple of minutes later the shouting started and I got up to have a look.
Dad was standing in front of the back door. Tony was in front of him, white as a sheet. He had a bloody great hammer in his hand.
‘Get out of my way,’ Tony was saying. He was bloody furious.
‘Put that down.’
‘I said, get out of my way!’
‘Put it away.’
Tony suddenly lost it. He rushed up to Dad waving the hammer right under his nose. I thought he was going to lump him with it.
‘No!’ I shouted, but they both hardly glanced at me.
‘You wanna just stand around getting the shit kicked out of you, that’s your problem,’ Tony yelled. He was pushing his face right up to Dad’s. ‘Fine. But some of us are ready to fight back for once. You might be finished but I’ve only just f***ing begun. Now – get out of my way!’
Dad just stood there like a rock. ‘You’re no use to us in jail,’ he said.
‘I’m not planning on getting caught.’
‘What are you doing?’ I cried.
‘Get back to bed – both of you!’ roared Dad. Tony took a step back. He was almost ready to do as he was told, like he was a kid again. But then he lifted up the hammer and stopped himself.
‘F*** you,’ he said.
‘Put it down!’
‘Are you going to make me?’
‘I’m warning you.’
‘You haven’t f***ing got it in you! You’re finished, aren’t you? Since Mam died you’re nothing but a useless old idiot. Stop me then! What are you gonna do about it, eh?’
He made to push Dad to one side, but Dad had had enough. He suddenly pulled his arm back – it was so quick I hardly saw it – and then, bang! He got Tony right on the side of his face. Tony went down like a log.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I screamed.
Dad turned to look at me. I’d never seen him look like that. He was white and red and his eyes were shining like he’d gone mad. ‘What the f*** are you looking at?’ he yelled. I backed off – I was scared he was going to turn on me. I never saw him so angry. Tony picked himself off the floor and staggered forward at Dad. For a moment I thought he was going to use the hammer on him, but he just shouldered him to one side and ran out the door.
‘You’re not concentrating, Billy! Billy! Chin up!’
‘What?’
That was Miss. I was lifting up my arms and holding my chin up but all I could see was Tony and Dad – that hammer in Dad’s face, Dad’s face so white and red, Dad’s fist going smack into Tony, Tony falling.
It was all I could think of all day long.
‘Billy!’
... Dad’s fist going back and bang! ...
‘You’re not concentrating!’
‘I am, miss, I am concentrating.’
‘You’re not even trying!’
It was stuck in my mind. That hammer in Dad’s face ...
‘Do it again!’
‘What?’ Dad’s fist – bang!
‘Do it again!’
‘I can’t!’
‘You do it again! You do it again right now!’
She had her face right up into mine. She was as bloody bad as they were, practically spitting on me, that dirty fag smoking away in my eyes.
‘I said, you do it again.’
… ‘No.’
‘What?’ She took a step back, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
‘No,’ I said again, and then that was it. I’d had enough. On and on and on and on and on at me, the bloody old bitch. I ran out of there and into the changing rooms. Didn’t I have enough on my plate? She thought my whole life was built around her – well, it wasn’t! I ran into a cubicle and locked the door. Sometimes you just ... well. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, could I? That hammer. He was bloody going to smash my dad with it. With a f***ing hammer! What was going on? And Dad, smacking him like that. Fighting each other, pulling everything to pieces. If our mam was here, it’d be different. She’d never let Tony and Dad go on at each other like that.
Everything had fallen to pieces ever since she died.
The door to the changing rooms opened. That old door is as squeaky as anything. She came walking down past the cubicles. She couldn’t see which one I was in. There was a gap under the doors but I had me feet up on the bench so she couldn’t see me.
‘Billy?’
I was sa
ying nowt.
‘I know you’re in there Billy. Billy, I’m sorry.’
Sorry, she says. What good’s that? I’d really had it with her. I banged the door open and jumped out on her, sudden like. I made her jump and all.
‘It’s all right for you, it’s not you who has to do it!’
She looked scared. I was almost as big as she was. Actually, I was bigger.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I get carried away.’
‘You don’t know bloody anything,’ I shouted. ‘Sitting there in your posh house with your husband that pisses hisself. You’re the same as everyone else, all you want is to tell me what to do.’
‘Now wait a minute, who do you think I’m doing this for?’
‘Well, I don’t want to go to your stupid f***ing audition. You only want me to do it for your own bloody benefit ...’
‘Now, look here, Billy,’ she said, but I wasn’t having any of it.
‘Just because you’re a failure!’
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that!’
‘You don’t even have a proper dancing school. You’re just stuck in some crummy school gym and you just pick on me because you f***ed up your own life – ‘
That’s when she slapped me. Whack, right round the chops. Really hard. It bloody hurt. I was shocked. I never thought she’d do that. She had no business doing that. I put my hand to me face. She looked as shocked as I was. I took a step back; she took a step forward and held her arms out.
‘Billy, love,’ she said. Well, I was ready to run. I was ready to go out that door and never come back. But ...
Well, it wasn’t her fault, was it? If I didn’t keep her, what had I got? I didn’t want to stop dancing, you see. So I couldn’t leave. And because I couldn’t leave, I started crying instead. She took another step towards me and reached out for my head when she saw my eyes go wet, and I let her put my head on her shoulder. I leaned against her like a pudding and just cried.
‘I’m sorry, Billy,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’ And me, I just cried my head off while she stroked my haircut. It went on for about five minutes.
‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘Have you done?’
‘Yes, miss. Sorry,’ I said. She pushed my head back up and I wiped my eyes on my T-shirt.