Black Swan Green (7 page)

I sensed Mrs de Roo’s white magic but didn’t dare hope it might save me. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Yes, Taylor. It seems your dedicated speech therapist holds the opinion that a postponement of this morning’s trial-by-ordeal may be conducive to a longer-term level of self-confidence vis-à-vis the Arts of Rhetoric and Public Speaking. Do you second this motion, Taylor?’

I knew what he’d said but he was expecting me to act confused. ‘Sir?’

‘
Do
you or
don’t
you wish to be excused this morning’s reading?’

I said, ‘Very much, sir, yes.’

Mr Kempsey squished his mouth. People always think that not stammering is about jumping in at deep ends, about baptisms of fire. People see stammerers on TV who’re forced, one magic day, to go on stage in front of a thousand people and lo and behold a perfect voice flows out.
See
, everyone smiles,
he had it in him all along! All he needed was a friendly push! Now he’s cured
. But that’s such
utter
bollocks. If it ever actually happens it’s just Hangman obeying the First Commandment. Just go back and check up on that ‘cured’ stammerer one week later. You’ll see. The
truth
is, deep ends cause drowning. Baptisms of fire cause third-degree burns. ‘You can’t turn tail at the prospect of public speaking your whole life through, Taylor.’

Maggot said,
Want to bet?

‘I know, sir. That’s why I’m doing my best to master it. With Mrs de Roo’s help.’

Mr Kempsey didn’t give in right away, but I sensed I was in the clear. ‘Very well. But I had you down as having more pluck than this, Taylor. I can only conclude that I had you down wrongly.’

I watched him go.

If I was the pope I’d’ve made Mrs de Roo a saint. On the spot.

Mr Kempsey’s reading from
Plain Prayers for a Complicated World
was about how in life it can rain for forty days and forty nights but God made a promise to humanity that one day a rainbow will appear. (Julia says it’s absurd how in 1982 Bible stories’re still being taught like they’re historical fact.) Then we sang the hymn that goes
All good gifts around us are sent from Heaven above, so thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for a-a-all His love
. I thought that was that, but after Mr Kempsey’d read the notices and orders from Mr Nixon, Gary Drake put up his hand. ‘Excuse me, sir, but I thought it was
Jason Taylor’s
turn to read the assembly today. I was really looking forward to hearing him. Is he going to be doing it next week instead?’

Every neck in our classroom swivelled its head my way.

Sweat sprang out in fifty places, all over me. I just stared at the chalk nebulae on the blackboard.

After a few seconds that felt like a few hours Mr Kempsey said, ‘Your spirited defence of established protocol is commendable, Drake, and, no doubt, altruistic. However, I possess reliable intelligence that Taylor’s vocal apparati are in an unseaworthy condition. Thus, your classmate is excused on quasi-medical grounds.’

‘So will he be doing it next week instead, sir?’

‘The alphabet marches on regardless of human frailties, Drake. Next week is T-for-Michelle Tirley, and Ours Is Not to Wonder Why.’

‘Doesn’t seem very fair, sir, does it?’

What’ve
I
ever done to Gary Drake?

‘Life is regularly
un
fair, Drake,’ Mr Kempsey locked the piano, ‘despite our best endeavours, and we must face its challenges as they arise. The sooner you learn that,’ our teacher shot a stare not at Gary Drake but straight at
me
, ‘the better.’

Wednesday kicks off with double maths with Mr Inkberrow. Double maths is just about the worst lesson of the week. Normally I sit next to Alastair Nurton in maths but this morning Alastair Nurton was sitting next to David Ockeridge. The only free seat was next to Carl Norrest, right in front of Mr Inkberrow’s desk, so I had to sit there. It was raining so hard the farms and fields outside were dissolving in whites. Mr Inkberrow frisbeed us back our exercise books from last week and started the lesson by asking a few dead easy questions to ‘engage the brain’.

‘Taylor!’ He’d caught me avoiding his eye.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘In need of a little focusing,
hmm
? If
a
is eleven and
b
is nine and
x
is the product of
a
times
b
, what is the value of
x
?’

The answer’s a piece of piss, it’s ninety-nine.

But ‘ninety-nine’ is a double-N word. A double-stammer. Hangman wanted revenge for my stay of execution. He’d slid his fingers into my tongue and was clasping my throat and pinching the veins that take oxygen to my brain. When Hangman’s like that I’d look a
total
flid if I tried to spit the word out. ‘A hundred and one, sir?’

The brighter kids in the class groaned.

Gary Drake did this loud croak. ‘The boy’s a genius!’

Mr Inkberrow takes off his glasses, huffs them and polishes them with the fat end of his tie. ‘Nine times eleven equals “a hundred and one”, you say,
hmm
? Let me ask you a follow-up question, Taylor. Why do we bother getting up in the morning? Can you tell me that,
hmm
? Why oh why oh
why
do we flipping
bother
?’

‘They’re
here
!’ I yelled, as Uncle Brian’s white Ford Granada Ghia cruised up Kingfisher Meadows. Julia’s door closed as if to say,
Big deal
, but a volley of getting-ready noises banged downstairs. I’d already taken down my map of Middle Earth and hidden away my globe and anything else Hugo might think babyish, so I just stayed sat on my window sill. Last night’s gale’d sounded like King Kong trying to yank our roof off and was only just dying down. Across the road, Mr Woolmere was hauling off bits of his blown-down fence. Uncle Brian turned into our drive and the Granada came to a rest alongside Mum’s Datsun Cherry. First out was Aunt Alice, Mum’s sister. Then my three Lamb cousins piled out of the back. First came Alex in a
THE SCORPIONS LIVE IN 1981
T-shirt and a Björn Borg headband. Alex is seventeen but he’s got bubonic zits and his body’s three sizes too large for him. Next was Nigel the Squirt, the youngest, busy solving a Rubik’s cube at high speed. Last came Hugo.

Hugo fits his body like a glove. He’s two years older than me. ‘Hugo’ would be a cursed name for most kids but on Hugo it’s a halo. (Plus, the Lambs go to an independent school in Richmond where you get picked on not if you’re posh but if you’re not posh
enough
.) Hugo wore a black zip-up top with no hood and no logo, button-fly Levi jeans, pixie boots and one of those woven wristbands you wear to prove you’re not a virgin. Luck loves Hugo. When Alex, Nigel and me are still swapping Euston Road for Old Kent Road plus £300 and praying to scoop the kitty from Free Parking, Hugo’s already got hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane.

‘You
made
it!’ Mum crossed the driveway and hugged Aunt Alice.

I opened the window a crack to hear better.

Meanwhile Dad’d come round from the greenhouse all togged out in his gardening gear. ‘Blustery weather you’ve brought us, Brian!’

Uncle Brian’d hauled himself out of his car and did a jokey step-back-in-amazement when he saw Dad. ‘Well, catch a load of the intrepid horticulturist!’

Dad wagged his trowel. ‘This blooming wind’s
flattened
my daffodils! We have “our man” do the lion’s share in the garden, but he can’t come until Tuesday, and as the old Chinese proverb—’

‘Mr Broadwas is one of those priceless village characters,’ said Mum, ‘who’s worth twice what we pay him because he has to undo all the damage Michael wreaks.’

‘—as the ancient Chinese proverb goes, “Wise Man Say, to Be Happy for Week, Mally Wife. To Be Happy for Month, Sraughter Pig. To Be Happy for Rifetime, Prant Garden”. Rather amusing, eh?’

Uncle Brian pretended to find it rather amusing.

‘When Michael heard his ancient Chinese proverb on
Gardeners’ Question Time
the other day,’ Mum remarked, ‘the pig came
before
the wife. But look at you three boys! You’ve shot up
again
! Whatever are you putting on their corn flakes, Alice? Whatever it is, I should put some on Jason’s.’

That
was a kick in the ribs.

‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘let’s all get inside before we get blown away.’

Hugo received my telepathic signal and looked up at me.

I half waved.

The drinks cabinet is only opened when visitors and relatives come. It smells of varnish and sherry vapours. (Once, when everyone was out, I tried some sherry. Syrupy Domestos, it tastes of.) Mum had me haul a dining-room chair into the living room ’cause there weren’t enough. These chairs weigh a ton and it banged my shin something
chronic
but I acted like it was no sweat. Nigel flumped on the bean-bag and Alex got one of the armchairs. Alex tapped out a drumbeat on the arm-rest. Hugo just sat on the rug, cross-legged, saying, ‘I’m fine here, Aunt Helena, thanks,’ when Mum told me off for not bringing enough chairs. Julia
still
hadn’t appeared. ‘I’ll be down in a
minute
!’ she’d hollered, twenty hours ago.

As usual, Dad and Uncle Brian kicked off with an argument about the route from Richmond to Worcestershire. (Each was wearing the golf jersey the other’d given him for Christmas.) Dad thought the A40 would’ve clipped twenty minutes off the A419 route. Uncle Brian disagreed. Then Uncle Brian said when they left later today he planned to drive to Bath via Cirencester and the A417 and Dad’s face lit up with horror. ‘The A417? Crossing the Cotswolds on a bank holiday? Brian, it’ll be living hell!’

Mum said, ‘I’m sure Brian knows what he’s doing, Michael.’

‘The A417?
Purgatory!
’ Dad was already leafing through his
AA Book of British Towns
and Uncle Brian’d sent Mum a look that said,
If it makes the old boy happy, let him
. (That look got on my wick.) ‘We have these innovations in this country, Brian, commonly known as “motorways”…here, you need the M5 down to Junction Fifteen…’ Dad stabbed the map. ‘Here! Then just head east. No need to get bogged down in Bristol. M4 to Junction Eighteen, then the A46 to Bath. Bob’s your uncle.’

‘Last time we went to see Don and Drucilla,’ Uncle Brian didn’t look at the
AA Book of British Towns
, ‘we did that. Took the M4 north of Bristol. Guess what. Stuck, bumper to bumper, for two hours! Weren’t we, Alice?’

‘It certainly was quite a long time.’

‘Two hours, Alice.’

‘But,’ Dad countered, ‘that was because you got caught in a contra-flow when the new lane was being built. You’ll zip along the M4 today. Clean as a whistle. Guarantee it.’

‘Thank you, Michael,’ Uncle Brian said mewily, ‘but I’m not really a great “fan” of motorway driving.’

‘Well, Brian,’ Dad clomped shut his
AA Book of British Towns
, ‘if you’re a “fan” of crawling along at thirty in a convoy of geriatric caravanners, the A417 to Cirencester is the route for you.’

‘Come and give us a hand, please, Jason.’

‘Give us a hand’ meant ‘get everything’. Mum was showing Aunt Alice her recently souped-up kitchen. Meaty smells leaked out of the oven. Aunt Alice stroked the new tiles, saying ‘ex
quis
ite!’ while Mum poured three glasses of Coke for Alex, Nigel and me. Hugo’d asked for a glass of cold water. Then I poured a bag of Twiglets into a dish. (Twiglets’re snacks that adults think kids like but they taste of burnt matches dipped in Marmite.)
Then
I put everything on a tray in the hatch, go round and carry it to the coffee table. Dead unfair
I
had to do everything. If it’d been me and not Julia who was still in my room, they’d’ve sent in a SWAT squad by now.

‘The memsahibs have got
you
well trained, I see,’ said Uncle Brian. I pretended to know what a memsahib was.

‘Brian?’ Dad waved the decanter at him. ‘Drop more sherry?’

‘Why the heck not, Michael? Why the heck not?’

Alex grunted as I gave him his Coke. He scooped up a fistful of Twiglets.

Nigel did this perky ‘Thanks very much!’ and grabbed the Twiglets too.

Hugo said, ‘Cheers, Jace’ for the water and ‘No thanks’ to the Twiglets.

Uncle Brian and Dad’d left Driving and moved on to the Recession.

‘No, Michael,’ Uncle Brian said, ‘you’re mistaken, for once in your life. The accountancy game’s more or less immune to economic doldrums.’

‘But you can’t tell
me
your client base isn’t feeling the pinch?’

‘The “pinch”? Blimey O’Riley, Michael, they’re taking it in the teeth! Bankruptcies and foreclosures, morning, noon and night! We’re rushed off our bloody feet, pardon my French. Swamped! Tell you, I’m grateful to that woman in Downing Street for this financial – what’s that latest fad? – anorexia. Us number-crunchers are making a killing! And as partners’ bonuses are profit related, yours truly is sitting rather pretty.’

‘Bankrupts,’ Dad prodded, ‘are hardly repeat customers.’

‘But with a never-ending supply,’ Uncle Brian glugged his sherry, ‘who gives a tinker’s cuss? No, no, it’s you shop folk that
my
heart goes out to. This recession’ll bleed the high street
dry
before it’s finished. Quote me on that.’

I think not
, said Dad’s wagging finger ‘The hallmark of switched-on management is success in the lean years, not the years of plenty. Unemployment
may
be up to three million, but Greenland took on ten management trainees this quarter. Customers want quality food at bulk prices.’

‘Relax, Michael,’ Uncle Brian did a jokey surrender, ‘you’re not at a seaside sales conference now. But I think you’ve got your head in the sand. Even Tories are talking about “tightening belts”…Unions dead on their feet, not that that’s a bad thing in my book. But we’ve got British Leyland haemorrhaging jobs…the docks dwindling away…British Steel imploding…Everyone ordering ships from South bloody Korea, wherever that is, instead of the Tyne and the Clyde…Comrade Scargill threatening revolution…it’s difficult to see how it can’t have a knock-on effect on frozen crispy pancakes and fish fingers, in the long run. Alice and I do worry, you know.’

‘Well,’ Dad leant back, ‘it’s very good of you and Alice to worry, Brian, but the retailing sector is holding its own and Greenland is robust.’

‘Very glad to hear it, Michael. Very glad indeed.’

(So was I. Gavin Coley’s dad was laid off by Metalbox in Tewkesbury. His birthday at Alton Towers was cancelled, Gavin Coley’s eyes sunk into his skull a few millimetres and a year later his parents got divorced. Kelly Moran told me his dad’s still on the dole.)

Hugo wore a thin leather cord around his neck. I wanted one.

When the Lambs visit, salt and pepper magically turn into ‘the condiments’. Dinner was prawn cocktails in wine glasses for starters, lamb chops with chef’s hats with Duchesse potatoes and braised celery for main, and a Baked Alaska for ‘dessert’, not ‘afters’. We use the mother-of-pearl napkin rings. (Dad’s dad brought them back from Burma on the same voyage he got the Omega Seamaster I smashed in January.) Before starting the starters, Uncle Brian opened the wine he’d brought. Julia and Alex got a whole glass, Hugo and me just half, ‘and a whistle-wetter for you, Nigel.’

Aunt Alice did her usual toast, ‘To the Taylor and Lamb dynasties!’

Uncle Brian did
his
usual ‘Here’s looking at you, kid!’

Dad pretended to find that rather amusing.

We all clinked glasses (except Alex) and took a sip.

Dad is
guaranteed
to hold his wineglass up to the light and say, ‘
Very
easy to drink!’ He didn’t let us down today. Mum shot him a look, but Dad never notices. ‘I’ll say this much for you, Brian. You can’t half choose a decent plonk.’

‘Fabulous to earn your stamp of approval, Michael. Treated myself to a crate of the stuff. Comes from a vineyard near that charming cottage we rented in the lakes last year.’

‘Wine? The Lake District? Cumbria? Oh, I think you’ll find you’re mistaken there, Brian.’

‘No, no, Michael, not the
English
lakes, the
Italian
lakes. Lombardy.’ Uncle Brian whirlpooled his wine round his glass, snuftered it and glugged it back. ‘Nineteen seventy-three. Blackberryesque, melony, oaky. I concur with your expert judgement, though, Michael. Not a bad little vintage.’

‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘dig in, everyone!’

After the first round of ‘
delicious!
’es Aunt Alice said, ‘It’s been all go at school this term, hasn’t it, boys? Nigel’s the captain of the chess club.’

‘President,’ said Nigel, ‘actually.’

‘Beg pudding! Nigel’s the
president
of the chess club. And Alex is doing incredible things with the school computer, aren’t you, Alex? I can’t even set the video recordery doo-dah, but—’

‘Alex’s
streets
ahead of his teachers,’ said Uncle Brian, ‘truth be told. What is it you’re doing with it, Alex?’

‘FORTRAN. BASIC.’ Alex spoke like it hurt him. ‘PASCAL. Z-80 Code.’

‘You must be
ever
so intelligent,’ said Julia, so brightly I couldn’t tell if she’d said it sarkily or not.

‘Oh, you
bet
Alex is intelligent,’ said Hugo. ‘The brain of Alexander Lamb is the final frontier of British science.’

Alex glared at his brother.

‘There’s a real future in computering.’ Dad loaded his spoon with prawns. ‘Technology, design, electric cars.
That
’s what schools should be teaching. Not all this “wandered lonely as a cloud” guff. Like I was telling Craig Salt – he’s our MD at Greenland – just the other—’

‘Couldn’t agree with you more, Michael,’ Uncle Brian made a face like an evil mastermind announcing his plan for world domination, ‘which is why Alex is getting a hot-off-the-press twenty-pound note for every grade A this year, and a ten-pound note for every B – to buy his very own IBM.’ (My jealousy throbbed like toothache. Dad says paying your kids to study is ‘derelict’.) ‘Nothing beats the profit motive, right?’

Mum stepped in. ‘And how about you, Hugo?’

At last I could study Hugo without pretending not to.

‘Mainly,’ Hugo took a sip of water, ‘I’ve had some lucky races in the canoeing team, Aunt Helena.’

‘Hugo,’ Uncle Brian burped, ‘has
showered
himself in glory! By rights he should be the head honcho oarsman chappie, but some stuffed fat-arsed governor – oops, pardon my French – who owns half of Lloyd’s Insurance threatened to kick up a stink if his own Little Lord Herbert Bonks wasn’t appointed. What’s that child’s name again, Hugo?’

‘You might mean Dominic Fitzsimmons, Dad.’

‘“
Dominic Fitzsimmons
”! Couldn’t make it up, could you?’

I
prayed
the spotlight’d swivel its gaze towards Julia. I
prayed
Mum wouldn’t mention the poetry prize, not in front of Hugo.

‘Jason won the Hereford and Worcester County Libraries Poetry Prize,’ said Mum. ‘Didn’t you, Jason?’

‘I
had
to write it.’ Shame boiled my earlobes and there was nowhere to look but at my food. ‘In English. I didn’t’ (I tested the word
know
a couple of times but saw I was going to stammer spastically on it) ‘I didn’t
realize
Miss Lippetts was even going to enter it.’