XXX
5
The daytimes glazed through the rest of the spring, blowing warm winds and the smell of grass into the nostrils of those still aware enough to appreciate such things. Everything opened up into the transient summer. Sandy would rise early, afraid of oversleeping for his exams. He took them seriously, and did an hour's revision before breakfast. Then, leaving his mother at the door, he would choose a stone to kick all the way to school.
The examination hall was stuffy and full of smiling, unserious contenders. He feared to look up in case his attention should be distracted and his crammed memory evaporate entirely. He had been storing rote answers for weeks. It needed only one of Belly Martin's funny faces to knock a dozen equations from his head. So he kept his eyes on the desk, though the air near the wood was dank and overpowering. Here was his school career: scrawls on a scratched desktop; a rickety chair; a list of multiple-choice questions; a one-in-five chance; feet sliding over the dusty tiled floor. One teacher sat at the front of the hall reading his newspaper. Another stared out of a window as he paced the rows of desks. This was it. Everything. It was ludicrous.
Nothing about it equated with ten years of schooling. Sandy was suddenly glad that he had swotted - not that he meant to stay on, but grades mattered. It had been drummed into him until it had seemed as casual a knowledge as the gospel stories he had known as a child, and like them this new knowledge - not knowledge, but facts pure and simple would be forgotten in time.
The examinations weren't too difficult. Between them there were days of nothing, a time to laze and to taste freedom and to study the few sentences which constituted a distillation of several years' teaching. Sandy carried his lists of important sentences and equations around with him. He would take a list from his pocket and study it at random moments. These nuggets replaced, for a few weeks, his collection of good stones.
After each exam he was pleasantly surprised to feel himself drained and in need of sleep. He would go home and
doze in the chair until tea-time. On waking, he would be unable to recall many of the exam questions. He would delete from his lists the information no longer needed, then would take the examination paper from his pocket and examine it as if it were an alien object. He could not have answered it. It would not seem the same paper that he had so recently sat. Even the words would be unfamiliar. It was a curious sensation, and one which others experienced. Belly Martin laughed at them when they discussed it one day.
'You're fucked then, aren't you? When that happens it means you haven't been concentrating. You might have written anything down. Serves you right, you fucking swots.
What good will it do you when we leave? There's no jobs anyway. Why bother?'
Belly Martin's stomach sagged obscenely over his waistband, and his pudgy fingers would lift leftovers from a neighbour's school-dinner plate straight into his gaping mouth. Fat boys are usually ridiculed at school, both in comics and in reality, but Belly was too ghastly to have even that fate befall him. He was not the archetypal fat boy.
Indeed, Sandy often shuddered when he contemplated the differences. Belly was vicious. He would hug you to him in a clinch and would crush your face against his chest, smothering you. His shirt smelled of vinegar, as if he had not washed for a long time. He lied and stole and cheated, and if confronted by a teacher would retreat into the guise of typical fat boy - picked on, unloved, unwanted, innocent. To the frustration of his classmates, it was a part he played to perfection. He would spread his arms wide plaintively, and his eyes and mouth would open in astonishment, then he would blurt out his controlled acting until the teacher frowned and looked again for a culprit. Belly would soon be grinning, and would reach a hand deep into his trouser pocket, wriggling it around until he found some ancient paper-covered sweet. This he would crunch into tiny pieces, still laughing and slavering mild taunts at those who had informed on him.
'Ha! Better luck next time, clipes. Go tell fucking teacher.
Ha!'
Sandy was revolted by the boy and always had been. He seemed impervious to pain, either mental or physical, like a lumbering dinosaur. That was the frustrating thing. Sandy tried not to be sitting near him in the examination hall.
Belly scratched his bemused face with a rasping sound like the unwrapping of a difficult toffee and made life unbearable for those around him.
Revenges, often colossal in intent, were planned against him, but were never carried through with any degree of success. Sandy had planned several of his own. The simplest was the braining of Belly with an empty bottle in a dark alley. The most complex involved pieces of machinery, a trifle containing ground glass, and a nest of rats. Sandy used to keep these plans in a stolen jotter in his secret drawer at home, but he had guiltily torn them up just before his exams in case there was a God and it or he or she decided to spite him with low marks. It had been childish anyway. Any worthwhile revenge would be simple and short-winded. But what? That was the problem.
After the final examination, Economics, a few of them went down to the park with a carry-out filched from Colin's
father's drinks cabinet. They leapt what had once been the hot burn - now a sorry old thing, dehydrated, its clay a raw, rusty colour - and jogged across the playing field in the direction of a small pond in the Wilderness. They carried the cans of warm lager inside their rolled-up jackets. They were so nearly men, only weeks away from the dole and the free money that came with it.
All except Sandy.
'Christmas!' yelled Colin. 'Christ's Mass! Sandy's got to stay on till Christmas!' As Sandy wiped his damp forehead he found it impossibly difficult to envisage snow and being wrapped up in layers of clothes and rushing to the fireside.
It seemed too ludicrous an idea to have any grounding in the real world. He became disorientated, and almost asked his companions if they really believed in something as alien as snow. Then his head cleared a little, just in time for him to realise that they were crossing the pipeline over the river.
He watched the others playing at being acrobats as they walked over the slender cylinder, then walked across himself, his legs trembling. They were waiting on the other side, laughing and pleading with him to fall off. He tried to smile, but kept looking down at the long green tendrils of weed in the water below. Once over, he leapt from the pipe on to crumbly brown earth. It was a good feeling. They jogged the rest of the way through the field to a pool of algae covered water. Immediately one of them, Clark, stripped, and penis waving like a comedian's wand ran into the pond.
He shrieked, but no one told him to be quiet. They were truly in the wilds here. No one would hear them shout or laugh or scream. Clark splashed out of the pool, green tapioca clinging to his white body. He scratched it away with a look of disgust.
'It's freezing in there,' he said. 'Dare you.' He looked around, but the rest of them were busy opening cans and catching the foam in their mouths. He wiped himself with his T-shirt. 'Fair shares/ he said, walking towards them.
They lay in the long grass and stared at the sky as if it were a picture-show. They had blades of grass in their mouths. It was a time for lazing. They had spent their energy fighting in the pool.
'The dole in eight weeks,' said Clark. 'I can't believe it.'
'It would be better if we all had jobs, though,' said Colin.
'Ach, we'll get jobs eventually,' said Mark. We've deserved our rest.
Complete rest and relaxation. No early rises except when you've to sign on. It's just what the doctor ordered.'
'Oh aye?' said Sandy. 'Seeing the doctor, are you, Mark? I wonder what for?'
The clap if I know him.'
'Now, now, lads. Let's not be too hasty in condemning the poor sod. Let's condemn him slowly.'
'Ha fucking ha,' said Mark.
'Any advance on that?' said Sandy.
'But seriously, guys. No more school! It's like being let out of jail after doing thirty years' hard labour.'
'Now, now, Mark. Remember one of u
s has to go back.'
'Oh yes. Sorry, Witchy. I forgot.'
'I don't like being called Witchy, Marcus.'
'I don't like being called Marcus, Witchy.'
Sandy stuck a hand up into the air and Mark clasped it.
They shook. Then there was silence for a time. Sandy lay with his shirt crumpled over his genitalia. They had to be protected, he had told his friends, as you never knew when they would come in handy. Sandy worked hard at every utterance he made in this group. His jokes were his defence in a way, and were also what had first gained him entrance to the gang. He did not want to lose his privilege.
'Freedom,' said Clark. 'It's okay, Sandy. You don't have any exams when you go back. No work to do. Just sit it out, like you were in jail in Monopoly.' Everyone chuckled, grass still wedged between teeth. The sun was too bright. It made Sandy's eyes dizzy to look at it. He watched the blood red of a foetus form whenever he closed his eyelids.
That little shit Belly Martin. It's about time somebody got him. And good, too. Give him something as a souvenir.'
"You're right, Colin. But how?' They thought for a few moments.
'Bring him down here,' said Sandy, savouring the words as they formed inside his aching head, 'and throw him in the pond. Then leave him, naked, wet, lost in the dark, and just go home.' Somebody sat up. Their shadow blocked the sun.
Sandy peered up but could not see who it was.
'That's brilliant, Sandy. But how do we capture him?' said Colin.
'Kidnap him some evening when he leaves the chip shop,'
said Sandy, closing his eyes again.
'It's a fine plan,' Clark said lazily.
'A great plan,' said Colin. Everybody agreed. 'So great that I think we should have a trial run!' Colin was on Sandy immediately. Sandy gasped, nearly choking on his blade of grass. He clung with one hand to his shirt while the other clawed at the earth. Colin was dragging him by the feet towards the pond. Too late, Sandy released his grip on the shirt and grabbed for Colin. With a splash, he had been thrown in a semi-circle right into the pond. He was going down. It seemed incredibly deep, and certainly much deeper than it had been twenty minutes before. It was like being tossed into the sea from a helicopter. Sandy turned and turned. He sucked in some liquid and began spluttering. The water was sour for a second and then was bland, filling his mouth, trickling down his resisting throat. It was dark down there, but he fought against the darkness. His feet touched bottom. He pushed hard, and his head rose above the surface. Someone was shouting.
'By Christ! Here comes the Loch Ness Monster!'
He stood coughing and retching for a minute. They were at the edge of the pool and began to help him out. They could see that something quite frightening had just happened.
'Sorry, Sandy,' said Colin, patting his back. 'It was just a joke. Are you all right?' Sandy nodded.
'Fine,' he said. Then, tipping his body slightly forward over the pool, he brought up a foamy concoction of lager and lemonade and algae and water. The others stood back a little.
Well,' said Mark, 'we'll not be swimming in there for a while.'
They lay down again and were reflective for some time.
Sandy stared at the grass and let himself dry in the hot sun.
He felt fine, but shaky.
'Are you still seeing Shona McKechnie?' Mark asked Colin. This brought an interested glint to every eye: sex.
'Well, lads,' said Colin, 'that's confidential. Hush-hush. I wouldn't like to say, really.'
'That means she's chucked him in,' said Clark, hoping it were true.
'Just you keep thinking that, young Clark, if you want to.'
Well, tell us then, Colin.'
'Okay, boys. Are you sitting comfortably?' They shifted closer to Colin. 'Once upon a time,' he began, 'there was a sexy young lad called Colin McLintock. Now, Colin happened to stumble across a ravishing princess one day. . .'
'Stumbled is the right word! You were pissed as a fart.'
'Okay, Mark,' said Colin angrily, 'you tell the story.' But they poked Mark in the ribs and pleaded with Colin to continue. 'No more interruptions then,' he said. 'Now, as I was saying, this handsome lad one day met a lady at a party, and the lady's name was Shona McKechnie. They enjoyed one another's company, and started necking on the couch.
He walked her home. There was a passionate goodnight kiss on her doorstep, and that, thought Colin, was that. But no! It was not to be, my children.
For, as it turned out, this Shona person had a fiery reputation with the older boys in town. After school, it turned out, she would go up into the
Wilderness and cavort with the whole of the Cars gang.
Word had got around that Shona had the hots for noble young Colin, and so the Cars, in their infinite stupidity, decided to scare him away from the princess, a bit like the Ugly Sisters in "Cinderella" . . .'
'Christ, Colin, you better watch that they're not hiding in the grass this very minute. If they could hear you .. .'
'So,' Colin's voice became even louder, 'the aforementioned Cars gang, being a cowardly bunch of shits, chased poor Colin for weeks and would be waiting for him outside school, forcing him to sneak home by devious routes, and they made his life hell to the extent that he gave up seeing Shona, though she still chased him in school. So you see, lads, he was in a tight spot. Chased by two fearsome elements.' Colin was on his feet now, acting with gusto. What could he do?
He did what a man must do.'
'Quite right,' said Sandy.
'He started seeing Shona again, but making certain that it was kept as secret as was humanly possible. He told only his most trusted friends. And, my most trusted friends, he is still seeing her. He is seeing her tonight, he thinks. And he is regularly getting his nuts from her.'
"You jammy bastard,' said Mark.
'What's she like then, Colin?' asked Clark.
'Princesses are not to be discussed in such terms,' said Colin, sitting down again. There were groans of dissent.
Sandy knew these games. They were old, and their utility value, as the Economics exam would have had it, seemed to decrease with each rendition. They all knew what sex was.
They had learned about it from boys with older brothers, from glossy magazines flicked through in public conveniences, from tentative dates at parties and school discos. But probably, despite all their bravado, Colin was the only one of them who had properly lost his virginity. The rest of them were left straining on the leash like bug-eyed dogs. Sex for them was the toilet at home or under the sheets with a handkerchief and the mild queasiness and guilt afterwards.
The horror that your mother would find or had already found some telltale stain. Not all the boys at school were as innocent. The Cars, the town's gang, were not innocent, but then they were mostly older boys who had already left school. Sandy picked a new blade of grass and chewed it, crushing the sap with his teeth. He thought of his own princess. Dark golden kisses, treasured like jewels. He had written some poetry for her, but would never let her see it. What if she couldn't read? All the better: the poem was terrible.
From the falling time you call to me,
From the youngest time you call to me,
And now we are here,
Shed not a tear,
From the falling time.
Your hair is so long
I feel I could climb it,
Into a castle where treasure is hidden.
Your shape is as secret as the key to that treasure.
Will you give me the key,
For this is a tempting time?
He was embarrassed by it, but he would keep it in his secret drawer beside the others and the stories he had written and hope his mother did not find it. His friends would laugh at him if they found out. All they knew was that he was good at writing stories and poems when asked to in English by a teacher who was going out with his mother.
He had visited the mansion one day in every week for a while now. He was waiting for Rian to suggest s
ome meeting in a secret place. She had not yet done so. He had to content himself with a stolen kiss when Robbie was not around, and then only if Rian were in the mood. If not, she would sit with her face as dark as a coal-box and her arms folded firmly across her chest. On those days he would talk more with Robbie, and be more friendly towards him, just to spite his cruel princess.
They were talking about videos now - about the ones they had seen lately and the ones they would see when their parents were out. Sandy thought that he would leave and go to the Soda Fountain. Mr Patterson had promised him a whole lot of chocolates when he had finished his exams. But Sandy did not eat many sweets these days. Their taste was debilitating. It slowed him down, making his insides all sugary and numb. He preferred fruit. He would visit the fruit shop. But then he was being asked a question.
'What about you, Sandy? You never had a dad, did you? I mean, you never knew who your dad was?' They were talking about someone whose father had died suddenly. Now they had directed the conversation towards him. He looked at the serious faces and the acne and the thin, pallid bodies.