This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior (written) permission of the author.
CHAPTER ONE
Call me Rob. Oh, but I dare say there are many young men out there who, like me, have a story to tell about having to grow up before they were quite ready in some anonymous, god-forsaken little town; that mine happened to be a dreary Outer London suburb was pure accident. Every great city has its satellite towns where ordinary people can but go about their daily lives in its shadow, all but dwarfed if not altogether crushed under the sheer weight and spread of its reputation.
As a boy, I’d read somewhere that, in the language of flowers, the dog rose symbolizes pleasure mixed with pain. A pretty, wild thing, few of us pay it much attention. After all, it has no place in a vase or buttonhole; rather, it belongs in the shelter of a privet hedge or among a patch of weeds. During the years between realizing I’m gay and struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of my father, I developed a peculiar affinity with dog roses.
For years I had nightmares about my father’s cremation. As the curtains close, I hear him call my name. I dive after him. As the incinerator devours us, he breaks free of the coffin’s oak trappings and hugs me before turning into a huge white bird and flies away. I am left burning up with a resentment that chokes my lungs, sears my insides.
My dad has left me to die.
I would lie awake for hours. In time, although these nightmares never lost the power to scare me, I saw them for what they were. I’d wake up, turn over and eventually go back to sleep. I stopped wearing pyjamas. Damp sheets did not cling to the skin in quite the same way. I felt less trapped. In this sense, my nakedness helped set me free. Besides, I had already devised an escape route - the pleasure mixed with pain (guilt?) of masturbation. It was pure escapism. I didn’t fantasize about having sex. Shaun Devlin, once my best mate, used to tell me how he’d wank over big boobs in his mother’s women’s magazines. I tried that once but it didn’t do anything for me.
I was just fifteen when my father died. He went off to work as usual one day and never came home. At the inquest, I heard his death attributed to a fatal pulmonary embolism. It should have brought my mother, my younger brother Paul and me closer together. Only, it didn’t. On the contrary, we drifted apart. That is to say, my mother and brother became closer, leaving me feeling at best like a stranger, at worst an intruder.
Although Dad’s life insurance paid off the mortgage, my mother still had to work all hours at various cleaning jobs to keep us well fed and clothed as well as pay for Paul to go on school trips.
“It’s only fair Robert,” she’d say to me, “Besides, he’s just a boy, and you’re nearly a man. You’ve had your turn, and you know perfectly well your father wouldn’t have wanted Paul to miss out.”
What about me? I wanted to scream at her. Invariably, though, I’d bite my lip and slope off to my room to play pop CDs very loud, during which time I’d not only convince myself I wasn’t sulking but also enjoy a good wank or, as my mother would have it, indulge in the ‘disgusting habit of masturbation.’
This was Tony Blair’s Britain. New Labour was supposed to mean new beginnings. Maybe, for some, but few of my schoolmates took much heart from a political rhetoric that mostly went over our heads and was plainly designed to catch bigger fish than us.
When I announced my intention to leave school at sixteen, my mother agreed it was for the best after only a few words of token protest. She knew it made sense. Moreover, she was anxious to put my brother through university. He was the bright one, after all. Even so, I swotted hard for good passes in my GCSEs if only to prove I could have stayed on for A-levels and gone to university had all things been equal on the Home Front.
Paul took a sudden interest in sport. During the next few years, he became something of a hero at local events; football, cricket, tennis, whatever. He displayed a remarkable talent for all three, swimming too. My mother fretted that he was neglecting his studies, but his teachers reassured her otherwise. “You should try it sometime bro,” he would say to me, “There’s nothing like the roar of a crowd rooting for you to get the adrenalin flowing.” But I had other things on my mind.
My mother got a job as an assistant at the local public library. This made life a whole lot easier for her; a good, regular pay packet and none of the arduous demands or hours that cleaners are required to put in. Paul took on a newspaper round to help fund his various sporting interests; the gear alone was costing a small fortune, plus trips to various championship events. I worried that he would burn himself out. Only once did I express this fear to him. He merely glared and told me to mind my own damn business.
I left school and took a job at the ‘81’ café, just off the High Street. It was owned and run by a crusty old devil everyone called Bananas although I still think of him as the gaffer. His peculiar loathing for the fruit was a local legend. It wasn’t so much the eating as the peeling that offended his sensibilities. He couldn’t bear to catch so much as a glimpse of anyone in the act. It was only out of sheer perversity that he permitted bananas to be sold along with other fruit at the counter. More than once, though, I saw the gaffer launch himself at a customer. He would grab the banana and rip off its skin. Dangling it between finger and thumb at arm’s length and wearing a comical grimace of utter loathing, he would then drop it into the nearest waste bin. All this, performed with his eyes tightly closed.
Although the gaffer was barely in his fifties, people frequently referred to him as ‘old’ Bananas. Some people are born old, I guess. His bark was much worse than his bite. All the same, he was a mean taskmaster and tolerated no slacking on the job. The café was spotless. It fell to me to make sure it stayed that way.
Bananas laid down certain ground rules for the staff. These included no idle chatting to customers and no sly freebies to friends or family. Fair enough, I thought, but couldn’t help observing how he loved to gossip himself. Sometimes, too, he would let some elderly or unemployed soul have a cup of tea on the house when he thought no one was looking.
Everyone loved Bananas, including those who would have felt the sharp end of his tongue if they happened to walk in without wiping muddy shoes on the coconut mat by the door. Nor would he tolerate anyone chatting away an octave or two higher than he thought conductive to everyone else’s comfort. He was a big, no-nonsense man. Troublemakers were barred for life. As a substitute father figure and role model of sorts, I could have found a lot worse.
For a while, it was mostly Bananas and me having to see to everything. His wife, Hannah, known affectionately by regulars as Ma B, would sometimes help out when I took time off. Within three months, I was banking the takings and doing battle with the gaffer’s inspired bookkeeping. After a few more months of good and sometimes less good-humoured wrangling, I was rewarded for my efforts with a significant increase in my wage packet. I saw less and less of Ma B and Bananas was frequently absent. It upset me no end to watch the man’s fast decline as her cancer spread and she slipped slowly away.
Bananas made me temporary manager and took on two part-time assistants to keep an eye on things when I was not around. One of these, Doreen, was the wife of an old friend. The other, Sarah, was a pert little thing who proved to be as competent as she was popular with the customers. By now he was spending more time at the hospital than the café and left us to our own devices. Fortunately, we made a good team so he had no worries on that score.
Being something of a 1960s enthusiast, Bananas had covered the café walls with glossy posters and other pop memorabilia. Most of the tracks on the jukebox comprised Elvis, The Beatles, Dusty Springfield and the like. These were especially popular with a young crowd who, together with one or two down-and-outs practically filled the café most evenings until we closed around 11.0’clock. Not much older than me, they rode motorbikes and enjoyed showing off their girlfriends. Doreen called them Hell’s Angels although they weren’t, but what does the older generation ever get right about the younger? She invariably referred to the girlfriends as ‘floozies’ - an expression guaranteed to send Sarah and me into fits of laughter every time. In well-worn leathers and customised helmets, they were a scruffy lot. Their machines, on the other hand, gleamed from hours of tender loving care.
Occasionally, fights broke out. More often than not these were sudden flare-ups and over in seconds. None of the staff would stand for any nonsense, although we rarely banned anyone outright as Bananas probably would have done. Even pint-sized Sarah would wade in and slap a flushed cheek or two with a wet tea towel whenever tempers became frayed. It wasn’t often, though, that we’d need to get involved.
Whenever it looked as if trouble was brewing, Billy Mack would step in and restore order.
I was more than a little in awe of Billy Mack. Two years older than me, he was a natural leader. Broad shouldered, he stood over six feet tall in his boots. He had blond, wavy hair and a grin that was quite something; it could utterly disarm or make the blood run cold. I envied him his easy, but commanding manner. He could dissolve the slightest hint of any hassle with a look. Many a time, I’d watch him. Wide blue eyes would narrow as the full, sensual mouth pouted threateningly and long fingers flexed themselves before curling into a tight fist. Instantly, the object of his attention would visibly wilt. In the same way, any potential challenge to his leadership was extinguished on the spot.
Billy owned a magnificent 1000cc machine that served as a more than adequate status symbol. He was neither a violent person by nature nor the sort to duck a fight if provoked. Once, a pasty-faced character with slick, greasy, hair called Nick Crolley, punched his girlfriend in the face during an argument. Before he could land a second blow, Billy Mack was at his elbow. Crolley was promptly despatched to the nearest hospital’s Accident & Emergency Department hospital with a broken arm. The girl, Liz, accompanied him, clearly torn between anger, distress, and misplaced devotion. At the door, she turned and hurled a torrent of abuse at Billy. A few people got up and left but most stayed behind, their faces glowing with approval.
Billy and I exchanged glances. His grin seemed to throw down a challenge of sorts. I looked away, confused and obscurely frightened.
While the incident itself passed quickly enough, it changed my perception of Billy Mack. I had always admired him but only in passing. Now, my awareness of him persisted whenever I had a spare moment, and often when I didn’t. Its intensity was unnerving. I’d be clearing tables and his face would suddenly loom up at me from a plate, a spoon or an unwashed mug. I found myself looking forward to seeing him again in much the same way as I might have anticipated meeting up with a mate after work. Only, it wasn’t quite like that either. I kept telling myself I was being silly. He was only a customer, after all. But that didn’t sop me brooding. As for being mates, that was out of the question since I did not own a motorbike.
On the whole, evenings at the ’81 passed quietly enough. Billy Mack continued to enjoy the grudging admiration of everyone and kept a tight lid on things. Charisma, charm, he had the lot. Even Doreen treated him with a distant civility that had a lot to do with the way he always took care to be polite and respectful towards her. Tongue in cheek or no, he won her over. I once heard her comment to a day customer that she thought Billy Mack had the makings of a nice lad. “Pity he’s such a lout,” she couldn’t resist adding. A sense of outrage welled up inside me. I wanted to butt in and rush to Billy’s defence. Instead, I vented my spleen on a chunk of cheddar cheese and my doorstep sandwiches were thicker than ever all day.
Towards the rest of Billy’s crowd, Doreen’s attitude remained on the frosty side. But she knew where to draw the line and so did they. A love-hate relationship developed between them, each taking a steady stream of banter in tolerably good sport.
From day one, Sarah fantasized about Billy. She usually worked evening shifts and her flirty manner went down a treat with the leather jackets, especially the male variety. Poor Sarah would visibly drool and go weak at the knees whenever she had to serve Billy. In all other respects, she was competent and a real asset. Billy was her Achilles heel. He had only to set his handsome face into a cheeky grin and, like as not, she would forget to charge him for his order; invariably, two cappuccinos and a ham doorstep sandwich with lashings of brown sauce.
Billy always shared a corner table with a flame haired girl who chewed gum. They made an odd but striking couple; Billy with his blond mane and her with tongues of fire licking face and back almost to the waist. They rarely spoke. Eye contact seemed to suffice. Whatever telepathy passed between them, it always seemed to me that Billy preened under her steady, ironic gaze. She, for her part, assumed a postured nonchalance.
Her name was Maggie Dillon. I hated her.
At first, Maggie and I barely acknowledged each other’s existence. Billy usually ordered for them both at the counter. Occasionally, my eyes would stray to their table and linger. She always seemed to sense this. Her shoulders would tense and she would turn her head a fraction. We would exchange glances; mine embarrassingly diffident, hers piercingly neutral. She had strikingly beautiful grey-green eyes. Yet, I never detected any warmth in them. Much as I detested her, she fascinated me. At the same time, she only had to give a single toss of her tawny head and arch but one heavily scored eyebrow to keep me firmly in a separate orbit. In my mind, I began to enjoy crossing swords with her, even went out of my way sometimes to catch her eye, taking a curious satisfaction in returning her faintly superior smile with what I hoped was a dismissive air before looking away.
Billy would often intercept these exchanges. He’d toss me a broad grin. Was he laughing at me, I wondered? Whatever, discreetly observing the curve of his mouth and the whiteness of his teeth always gave me goose bumps. I put this down to envy, nothing more. He epitomised all aspired to, but couldn’t see myself ever achieving.
Maggie sensed my hostility, I could tell. The glossy, provocative lips would twitch mockingly. Moreover, she had a way of undressing Billy with her eyes, as if warning off the other girls and leaving the boys in no doubt that, compared to Billy, they were trash and she despised them. I told myself it was none of my damn business. Yet, in the darker recesses of adolescent disquiet, this frank gesture of possessiveness incensed me.
One evening, I watched with growing interest from my usual vantage point at the counter as Nick Crolley made no secret of ogling Maggie. Again, he was with the girl, Liz, although, for all the notice he took of her, they might as well have been sitting at separate tables. In spite of the way he treated her, Liz Daniels remained loyal to Crolley. Even now, she was all over him. She gave a squeal of delight when he sat her on his knee and ran nicotine-stained fingers through his greasy hair. Meanwhile, his every look, every crude gesture, told everyone watching that he wanted Maggie Dillon for himself.
Maggie ignored him.
If Billy was aware of the atmosphere, he gave no sign. The tension mounted. Only Liz seemed oblivious to it. Then Maggie turned her head at last. For an instant, she met Crolley’s smirking expression. Seemingly unruffled, she blew a perfect smoke ring before looking away. Crolley’s jaw dropped. Nor could he have failed to hear the subsequent sniggering.
Meanwhile, Billy hadn’t so much as spared Crolley a sidelong glance. They were so damn sure of each other, he and Maggie, I reflected bitterly. I told myself I was being stupid, suspected I was jealous of their friendship only because I was being kept so busy at the café that I was fast losing touch with my own friends. Billy caught my steady gaze. To my horror, I found myself blushing and was relieved to be distracted by someone signalling for another coffee.
Crolley now gave Liz his undivided attention. Sliding one hand up her short skirt, he tightened he grabbed her arm with his free hand and pulled her roughly towards him, smothering her face and neck with heave kisses.
A few onlookers started cheering.
Conscious of an audience, the pair proceeded with an all but pornographic display of titillation, drawing spasmodic applause and much whistling. That is, until Doreen marched over to their table and threatened to call the police.
“Keep your hair on, Doreen, sweetheart!” protested Crolley while continuing to caress the lobe of Liz Daniel’s left ear with his tongue and fondle her breasts, “We’re only having a friendly kiss ‘n’ cuddle. No law against that, is there?”
“No,” Doreen placidly agreed, “But there’s one against offending public decency and you two are giving mine the shits.”
Everyone roared.
The café rang with good-natured laughter for several minutes. Liz wrenched herself free and went sprawling. If an exaggerated vivaciousness was meant to disguise a sudden awareness of a smudged mouth and mauled breasts all but uncovered, it fooled no one. “And talking of hair,” Doreen rounded on the poor girl, “yours is a bloody disgrace!” jerking her head emphatically towards the door marked ‘Ladies’. Plainly grateful for the cue, Liz grabbed her shoulder bag and fled to the loo in floods of tears. I noticed another girl, Lou Simmons, rise unobtrusively and go after her. All other eyes were on Crolley and Doreen. Hands on hips, legs slightly apart, she met his sneering gaze without flinching. “You disgust me,” she said loudly.
More laughter filled the café.
Crolley was the first to back down. Bristling with malice, he stuck two fingers up at Doreen before turning his attention to the plate in front of him and champing noisily away at a sandwich. Doreen returned to the counter, half heartedly trying to disguise her satisfaction by wiping her hands on the apron coat she wore. A burst of applause brought a rush of colour to her face. My eyes met Billy’s. He grinned, and nodded appreciatively towards Doreen. I grinned back. For a moment, we shared an intense, intimate rapport. It was both an exciting and disturbing experience.
I looked away uncomfortably. By the time I risked a glance in his direction again, he was chatting animatedly to a group who had wandered across from another table. It was Maggie who intercepted my furtive look. She grimaced. Oddly enough, it did not strike me as either a warning nor even hostile expression. The glossy lipstick mouth twitched but I didn’t feel as though she was laughing at me either. It was as if we were mutually agreeing to a truce of sorts. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come and she resumed taking a piece of gum from its silver wrapper and carefully placing it on her tongue.
I was grateful to Doreen. A comely figure in her late forties, she was a mother figure to us all. Certainly, this particular crowd would take more from her than they would from me. Oh, I could keep them in line as and when required, even entertained the notion now and then that they harboured a grudging respect for me. But I was the same generation, had attended the same local Comprehensive. Pulling rank now and also meant I had to take a lot of stick. Mostly, it was all good-humoured fun. Crolley and some of his cronies, though…Well, they could turn nasty. On this occasion, I was relieved to spot one of them, Baz Pearce, toss Doreen a cheeky wink. She bristled with mock indignation and, in turn, winked at me.
Crolley continued, resolutely, to sulk.
Lou Simmons finally emerged from the toilet with a friendly arm around the now smiling Liz. Both girls headed for the group talking to Billy and Maggie, careful to give Nick Crolley a wide berth.
“Is there any chance I could get away early tonight Rob?” Doreen asked me a little later on, bright pink spots breaking out on her normally sallow cheeks.
“For that little performance, no problem,” I readily agreed. She beamed with a child-like pleasure that should have alerted me to grounds for speculation. But I hadn’t time for any of that. Shaun Devlin caught my eye, indicating that he required as many cappuccinos as fingers raised while shifting his massive frame to make room for Lou and Liz.
Shaun and I had been close once. He cut an imposing figure and stood out from any crowd. Tall, always smiling, he was the son of a Jamaican bus driver and his Irish wife, Nancy. Our parents had been friends for years. It always struck me as an unlikely liaison. Nancy Devlin was something of a rough diamond, my mother a quiet, unassuming woman. But I liked Nancy; she always had time for me. Mick Drummond, Shaun’s dad, was a kindly man with a ready, infectious laugh. Shaun took after him. We had been best friends since nursery school.
Mick and Nancy Devlin had never married. That didn’t bother me in the least although I sometimes wondered why Shaun took his mother’s surname, not is father’s. But it was none of my business and I never asked.
Shaun was a year older than me. We had made other friends at the Comprehensive and drifted apart. His friendship with Billy Mack was almost legendary. Shaun was tall but gangling in those days and hadn’t filled out. A gang of bullies led by Vince Crolley, Nick’s older brother, had set upon him in the playground. Billy had dived in and rescued him, knocking Crolley to the ground in the process. The ensuing fight was ingrained in school folklore for countless generations to relate, embellish and enjoy.
Shaun, an only child, adored Billy like a brother. It baffled Billy, however, that Shaun should have chosen Maggie Dillon’s friend Lou ‘Loopy’ Simmons for a girlfriend. Pigtails abandoned years since, the old nickname had stuck. She had a slow way of speaking that gave the impression she was retarded in some way. She was plain and quiet, the very opposite of Maggie, and stood a mere five feet without shoes. Shaun dwarfed her. I often heard people refer to them as ‘the odd couple’ and no one was convinced by Maggie’s frequent assertions that there was more to Lou than met the eye.
Needless to say, Billy Mack’s crowd accepted Lou in much the same way as they accepted Shaun, if only on Billy’s say as self-styled leader of the pack. I had the feeling that Billy looked out for them both. This not only fuelled my thoughts about Billy himself, but also intensified my feelings for him. I told myself I was jealous and should know better since Shaun and I were still good friends. Nevertheless, it provided my alter ego with as good an excuse as any for my growing obsession with Billy Mack.
I got on well enough with Billy’s crowd, even the few Nick Crolley types he appeared to count among his entourage. I served their drinks, cut their sandwiches and cleared up their mess. It was, after all, my job. I was never one of them. Times were, though, when I envied them their brash camaraderie; times, too, when I would have given anything to share a place in Billy Mack’s affections. There was something else, something almost tangible but tantalisingly beyond my grasp. It was something about Billy himself. Not, though, the same Billy whose voice and easy laugh made my spine tingle or the Billy I so envied for his easygoing charm and undisputed leadership skills.
There was, I sensed, another side to Billy Mack.
Now and then I would catch him observing me. He’d wave and grin, but almost at once something or someone else would divert his attention. Yet, while the glance held, it was as if we two swam beneath the surface of things, coming together in an exhilarating secretiveness that no one else could possibly have experienced or shared. For me, such moments were sheer bliss.
I felt closer to Billy than to anyone else in the pack he ran with, even Shaun. He could summon a baleful stare capable of nipping trouble in the bud while a wicked grin probably helped extricate him from as many sticky situations as his fists. But there was more to Billy than that, I just knew it. I had never been so intensely aware of anyone in my life before. My mouth would become dry just for noticing the way he moved, with an easy nonchalance close to grace. The vivid blue of his eyes, absorbing everything and everyone, conveyed hidden depths. I longed to plunge in and float there naked. The idea was preposterous, scary. But it haunted me night and day. Oh, I went through the motions, responding to everyone with a ready smile and a cheerful “hello” but they were just customers, barely even faces. I had a café to run and was making a damn good job of it too. But Billy Mack…It was all so different with Billy. It took a while, though, before I began to appreciate how the difference lay within me rather than with him.
The more I thought about Billy Mack, the more sensitive I became to an increasing sense of loneliness. It was worse away from the café. I might be relaxing with a magazine, listening to a CD, watching TV or maybe even sharing a rare moment with my mother and brother. Suddenly, Billy’s handsome, smiling face would completely fill my vision, blocking out all else. I’d get angry then. So Billy Mack had lots of mates and I was left with precious few, so what? Who needs friends of that sort? They could keep their precious bikes, their hammy leather gear and fancy mobile phones. What did I care? But Billy was also an apprentice printer, and I little more than a skivvy in a back street café.
Burning up with resentment, I’d go upstairs to my room and, yes, enjoy a good wank.
To be continued.
NB [16/2/17] Certain changes to Blogger and Google over a period of time have resulted in some inconsistencies in lay-out for my earlier serialised novels. I am in the process of making some corrections. Regular readers should be aware that 'Updates' do not mean any changes to story-lines.- RT
