They got off the old Selnec buses at the
Interchange. The Queen opened this in the 1970s. They kept on walking, passing
the ice-cream coloured Town Hall, the plush flowers, grass up front. There were
purple crocus with yellow centres. My earliest memory of my mother was planting
crocus. They passed the grey clock tower, the Boer War statue. Drummer Hodge
was buried in the veld, looking up at the stars, sometimes starless nights, darkness
on the veld.
They turned right, to the spot where the
fights took place. A kid’s hair was ripped out, he was kicked in the head. The
‘cock’ won, he was tough, hard as nails. They trudged over the Monkey Bridge, blue
shirts, blue ties. Their trousers were black, Doc Martens ox-red or black. The
girls wore make-up too young, their uniforms customised, sexualised.
The school stood just outside the town
centre. The kids came from all over Paper Town: rich areas, poor areas; good
parents, drunken parents; English parents, Irish parents, Italians, Ukrainians,
and Poles, a multicultural motley crue.
The school stood on a damp marsh:
saturated fields, sodden black. The football field squelched, the eyeballs muddied.
Their navy blue kits dotted the square red brick. The newer buildings were more
gentle fawn: the sports hall, Art block.
Bobby Butcher was nuts, short, bald,
bespectacled, not one to cross. He board-dusted Ragby: fresh chalk marks on a
jet black blazer. The Maths lessons were crap, never-ending crap. This wasn’t
Bobby’s fault, it was just Maths. Some boys liked it, they wanted to get on,
make money, grow up.
One day, the sun was shining through the
windows. The boys’ shirt sleeves were rolled up, ties loosened. The room started
to smell, but Butcher had gone somewhere. The smell came from a red and white
plastic bag, a Kwik Save bag. It contained Bunt’s dinner, his tuna sandwiches. They’d
gone off, and the bag sailed all over the room. Pink tuna raining down, what
fun, what laughter. It stank the room out, the boys keeled over, they were pissing
their sides. The girls slyly grinned. But Bobby was heading back.‘Boom-boom-boom!’,
the door opened, it banged.
Bobby entered, cagey, real cagey, he could sense something,
something wasn’t right. He smiled nervously, scowled the room. The boys smiled
back: “Bobby wasn’t that bad, was he?” Wrong! Bobby went ballistic, a nuclear
rocket taking off. The tuna stank, it was rancid. Bobby wanted his victims:
“Names,
names! . . . I want bloody names! . . . you hear me! . . . I want names!”.
Nobody owned up, it was
tense, a stand-off. Bobby’s eyes were black, fired up with rage. He’d lost it
completely, steam coming out of his ears:
“Come
on, the names! . . . I want names, I said! . . . Bloody names!”
His saliva spluttered,
he would’ve killed for names. Martina Sleet was the swat, top of the class, she
followed the rules, she would oblige, spill the beans:
“I’ll
tell you sir . . . it was Martin Tufnell, Simon Ruddy, Mark Stretcher, Michael
Loster, Jimmy Jones, and Gary Miles . . . They did it!”.
Bobby was happy, had
his chance, his time for fun:
“You
Tufnell, get down to Mr. McKonkie . . . Come back with the cane . . . Make it
sharp . . . Sharply does it boy!”
Ruddy, Stretcher, Loster, and Jones, they
were ready, ready to be thrashed. But Miles stood his ground, stayed in his
seat, he was petrified:
“It wasn’t me sir . . . honestly, it wasn’t .
. . I wouldn’t do that, sir”.
Miles had small hands, bony wrists. They were
shaking, he needed a meal, a big, bloody steak. Bobby wasn’t impressed, he
shook and shook, almost took off:
“Stand on that
chair lad! . . . stand on that bloody chair! . . . On the chair, I bloody
said!”.
Miles clambered up in the middle of the class,
was judged up in the air:
“Is this boy a
liar? Is he a fraud? Is he a cheat? . . . I say, is he a liar? Is he a fraud? Is
he a cheat?”
This was fun, but keeping a straight-face was
difficult:
“Get down you coward! . . . You
yellow-bellied coward! . . . You don’t deserve it! . . .
You’re a maggot or a worm!”.
Still, Miles was spared, missed the rod. His
bony wrists spared, he wouldn’t be hurt.
Tufnell returned, McKonkie’s cane was big
and dark. It’d been soaked in linseed oil, it would have maximum effect. At
Christmas, it was decorated with tinsel, some psychological game. Now, it was
dark and plain, ready for use. The cane dwarfed Bobby, but he held it firm,
took aim, and fired:
“Swish-swosh,
swish-swosh, swish-swosh”.
They got belted, six of
the best, three on each hand. Bobby loved it, his feet lifting off the ground. They
were powerful strokes, but the boys absorbed them. Their faces were in pain, red
pain, but none shed a tear. This was a code of honour, something we’ve lost.
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