Gypsy Boy (9 page)

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Authors: Mikey Walsh

BOOK: Gypsy Boy
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The pressure of the jet against my skin was like being trampled on by a pack of horses. The ice-cold water punched me in the ears and face. Then he directed it at my stomach. I threw up, keeling over onto all fours.
When he finally turned it off I crawled back into the
trailer. My teeth were chattering violently and I had to stop to be sick again after swallowing so much of the water.
I crawled back into the bedroom and got myself ready for school.
Boot Camp
As I arrived at school that morning, Mrs Kerr said I looked unwell and asked if anything was wrong. My ears were blocked and I could still hear the sound of the water jet. My head and body ached, and I felt sick.
‘No,’ I told her.
‘You stay in here with me this morning, pet,’ she said gently.
Frankie and Jamie-Leigh left for Mrs McAndrew’s room. ‘I know you love to draw,’ Mrs Kerr said, ‘and I could do with a young man of your talents today. I need you to design me a poster for the class. How does that grab you?’
I made my way over to the desk she was pointing at, where she had put some sheets of paper and a pack of coloured pens. I tried not to knock the back of anyone’s chair, or catch anyone’s eye. I hated being looked at and I could feel the other children staring at me as if they all knew just how disgusting I was.
I sat, trying to draw, but unable to concentrate. I needed the toilet, but I was terrified to pass the other children again, or draw Mrs Kerr’s attention. Paralysed, I wet myself and started to cry.
Mrs Kerr took me to the boys’ toilet herself and said that she would be right back with some clean underwear from lost property. When she returned she knelt in front
of me to unlace my shoes, then pulled each trainer from my feet. My fingers were too limp to undo my fly. As she went to take my trousers off, I tried to stop her.
‘Now, Mikey,’ said Mrs Kerr, ‘there’s no shame in having an accident, we’ve all had them.’
She undid the zip and tugged at my trousers, revealing the red-frilled knickers – a pair of my mother’s – which my father had forced me to wear.
‘Mikey, my pet, why are you wearing those?’
‘My dad made me wear them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wet the bed last night.’
She spotted the bruises on my legs, and lifted my jumper to follow the trail. Her expression was grim. ‘Step into these trousers, pet,’ she said.
When I was changed she held my hand and led me out of the toilets and round towards the school office.
‘Mikey, I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’ve already phoned your parents to come and collect you. I thought you were unwell and needed to go home.’
My mother came for me. She didn’t look at me once, as she led me towards the car. Mrs Kerr followed, trying to explain that the accident had been her fault, as she hadn’t noticed I needed to be excused. My mother ignored her.
She said nothing all the way home, and neither did I. I was sitting in the trailer, eating a bowl of cereal, when my father arrived home from work.
‘What’s he doing home so early?’
I prayed my mother would say nothing.
‘He pissed himself again.’
Before I could pull the spoon from my lips my father took two steps forward, raised his arm and punched me hard and square in the mouth, sending both me and the chair hurtling across the floor.
After that I began wetting the bed every night. And every morning, depending on my father’s mood, I was publicly stripped and hosed down, or a given a good beating inside the tool shed. His weapons of choice ranged from a belt to a bamboo stick or the heel of his boot. But his bare fists were by far the most painful of all. Sometimes, if he had the time, I was put through both ordeals, being dragged off to the shed and beaten while naked and soaking wet. If it was the weekend his anger would continue throughout the day. He would hit me with whatever happened to be in his hand at the time, a shovel, a broom, or even scalding shovels of tarmac if he’d taken me to work with him.
One Monday he ordered that I stay home from school.
‘You’re spending too much time with women,’ he growled. ‘Pampered, that’s what you’ve been, my boy. Too much time around your mother and her lot. There’s only one way to get you straightened out. Your granddad’s said to leave you with him and Tory for a while.’
We climbed into the truck. ‘Every time I see you you’re playing with them girls, or with those fucking men of yours,’ he said. ‘It’s time you stopped.’
He meant my modest, but proud collection of He-Man action figures that my mother had bought. From today, he said, they would all be given away. I had to start becoming a man.
A month earlier he had hurled one of them out of the lorry window after noticing it had boobs. ‘It’s a boy’s one,
Dad,’ I had shrieked. ‘It’s Evil Lyn!’ I had pestered my mother to get me Skeletor’s evil wife for a very long time.
‘All right, Mikey,’ she had said. ‘But let your dad see her and she’s pissed on her chips.’
She was right. The moment he set eyes on Evil Lyn she was doomed. After he had lobbed her through the window I stared after her, heartbroken.
Now I was staring out of the window again as he ranted at me, ripping me apart and saying cruel things about my mother. I hoped he would soon run out of steam, or at least pause for breath.
It was an autumn day. I watched the blurred browns and reds as we roared along. I imagined being Evil Lyn, taking flight after being thrown out of the window. My cloak curling, snapping and whipping through the countryside, as I screamed in wicked delight at my freedom.
I laughed out loud.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’ Caught out once again I slid back into my seat.
Even though his eyes were on the road for the rest of the journey it felt as if they were boring right through me.
He hated me.
 
My granddad Noah ran the scrapyard, with Tory and Joseph. Tory’s sons, young Tory and Noah, worked there too, men before they were thirteen, with thoughts of school long abandoned.
I always wondered why my father hadn’t joined his father and brothers, who all lived and worked together. Later I came to understand that his family didn’t trust him in the
business and he didn’t want to be there – he was intent on going it alone and proving himself to his father.
We pulled into the yard just behind Uncle Joseph. My father turned off the motor and jumped out. ‘How yer doing boyeee?’ he called to Uncle Joseph. Then he turned to me. ‘Get out.’ He sparked up a cigarette before slamming the door, adjusting his braces as he marched down to greet him.
I jumped from the cab and followed them down through the yard and into the office. I hated it in there, with its stink of oil and testosterone, tatty posters of topless girls and random old car parts spread all over the rotting carpet.
They were clearly expecting me.
‘Here’s the champ,’ smirked Uncle Tory.
My grandfather widened a sapphire eye and focused it on me like the barrel of a loaded gun. ‘You feeling better, Mikey?’
I didn’t open my mouth for fear of being mocked for my high voice.
‘He’s still a mute, then,’ cackled Uncle Tory. ‘What have you done to him, Frankie?’
I felt awful for my father, who was being mocked in such a cruel way because of me.
Tory and Noah were sitting on some upturned crates, leafing through old editions of the
Daily Sport
. I sat to one side of them, on a crate passed to me by Uncle Joseph, who gave me a sneaky wink and put his hand on the pit of my back. As they continued to mock, he rubbed my back as Mrs Kerr did when I was upset. Those rare moments of affection always made me tearful, but I swallowed my tears for the sake of my father’s pride.
‘What are we gonna do with the boy then, Frankie?’ said Tory.
They discussed their plans for my week of boot camp hell as I sat quietly, determined I would win their respect and give my father some faith in me.
I looked at Tory and Noah, both perfect specimens of what young Gypsy men should be: rugged, deep-voiced, loose-limbed and great in the ring. Everything I was not.
Uncle Joseph left the office too as I was sent out to collect my father’s fags from the lorry. He heaved his bulky body into the cab of his own lorry and started the engine. Before driving off he leaned out of the window. ‘Just learn to switch off, Mikey. I do it all the time. You don’t have to listen to them. They don’t know nothing.’
Grateful for his kindness, I gave him a smile. ‘I’ll see you later,’ I called out as he pulled away.
Back inside I endured a couple of hours of fighting talk before I could bear it no longer and went to sit in the lorry. I had smuggled Skeletor under the passenger seat. After another hour, I was called back inside to hear my fate.
I was going to travel with Uncle Tory in his lorry for the next week. Then after work each day I would be going to the boxing club, to be trained.
I didn’t know which sounded worse, learning about the scrap-metal business, or training in the club. But I had no choice about either. The only thing I was looking forward to was watching the crusher in action. I wanted to see if it could really squish a car to the size of a shoebox.
Before he left, my father took me to one side and spelled out the number one rule: I must always flatter Tory when driving with him to jobs. ‘Don’t sit like a mute, like you
do with me, ask him questions. Make him feel cushti,’ he said.
That afternoon Granddad Noah and Uncle Joseph headed off to the pink caravan, while I was driven back to Tory Manor with Uncle Tory and the two boys.
I didn’t like the house at all. To me, the windows and curved front door resembled the features of a contorted demonic face, while inside the front hall the lamps were in the shape of bronze demons with horns which each held a candle. Everyone said the Manor was haunted, and I found it easy to believe. I had never stayed there before, and didn’t want to now.
In the vast kitchen Aunt Maudie was frying. The smell of chip fat was everywhere; she would never cook anything unless she could lower it into the vat of fat she had constantly popping away in the kitchen.
Next to her in the kitchen sat their ancient parrot. He was nearly bald, hunched like an old vulture and would imitate Maudie’s long-dead mother like a morbid tape recorder.
On my first morning – which was also, as it turned out, my last – I was woken up bright and early by Aunt Maudie, who came to my room with tea, Jammy Dodgers and an omelette that looked like a large turd.
Uncle Tory was already up, having taken the boys for a 6 a.m. jog. By the time I’d swallowed what I could of my breakfast he was already in the lorry, warming it up. There was no time to wash if I wanted to keep him happy. I was just thankful that I wasn’t dragged out of bed for the three-mile run. I splashed some water on my face from the outside tap that Old Noah used to use to rinse his shoes.
‘Morning, champ,’ said Tory as I swung open the door and climbed in.
‘Morning.’ My voice couldn’t have sounded any squeakier. Tory looked at me, narrow-eyed. I cleared my throat and repeated myself, this time in such a deep voice that it made me choke.
The cab was huge. Looking out of the window was like standing upstairs in a two-storey house. The last time I’d been that high up was in Jamie-Leigh’s
Dynasty
Wendy house, which had two storeys and a balcony, where I would stand screaming, ‘Fly, my pretties, fly!’
Five minutes into the journey I still hadn’t said a word. I cleared my throat again. ‘So, where are we going?’
‘To collect some scrap that I have to pick up.’
‘Oh.’
I remembered what father said. ‘Don’t be a mute. Make him feel cushti.’ I took a stab. ‘My dad says you’ve met Frank Bruno.’
‘Yep.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘A cunt.’
‘Oh.’
I had often heard my father bragging about the celebrities that Uncle Tory had rubbed shoulders with in his time as a boxer. Most were the usual Walsh exaggerations, but I knew it was true that Muhammad Ali had been befriended by Tory at a boxing event and had accepted an invitation to come for dinner at Tory Manor because I had seen the album, the scrapbook and the framed pictures many times: Muhammad sparring up with young Tory, Muhammad sparring up with young Noah, Muhammad sitting in the
lounge, Muhammad shaking hands with Old Noah, joined at the hip – thumbs in the air – with Uncle Tory himself and standing beside a very bemused Granny Ivy. At the time she had just failed her seventh driving test and couldn’t have cared less if the Pope himself had popped his head in.
‘Who else have you met then?’
He paused and then started to rattle off a list of names, most of which I didn’t recognise. ‘So, you name a celebrity and I bet you I’ve met them … Mikey?’
I had switched off as he ploughed through his list, and was bobbing my head from side to side, along with the dancing Christmas tree hanging from the driving mirror. Now Uncle Tory was peering at me, a puzzled look on his face.
I searched my mind for any name that might impress Tory. As his stare lingered, my palms began to sweat. My father’s face appeared in my head, glaring at me and mouthing names of people I could not make out through the oversized imaginary fag hanging from his lip.

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