The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (23 page)

Soon I will be ten years old but Margueretta will be fourteen and she towers over me and my arms don’t reach her face when I try to punch her in the mouth because she holds me away with her arms and I just swing wildly at her. One day, my arms will be longer and then she will be sorry.

So, as I am now going to have to stay in this house with my sister who wants to kill me and the ghost of someone who keeps screaming in the attic, I need a rapid escape plan. I have been practicing jumping out of my bedroom window but there is a lot of dog shit and nettles and brambles down there and I should only do that in a real emergency. I therefore need to sleep with a knife under my pillow but there’s only the bread knife and Mum would soon notice if it was missing when she goes to make our beans on toast for tea. And I am supposed to have a penknife for Cub Scouts but Mum says I
will have to wait until Christmas, which is less than two weeks away, but not to get my hopes up.

As a matter of fact, I am not getting my hopes up. I do not want a penknife for Christmas. I have been looking at the Littlewoods Catalog. It’s very boring expect for two sections: toys and women’s underwear. I always start with the women’s underwear and definitely not the pages with those fat old ladies wearing nighties and dressing gowns and housecoats. There are three whole pages of women in their bras and knickers so I stare at those pictures really closely and sometimes you can see a nipple through the material but mostly it’s gussets. Absolutely no quims. Then I turn to the toys. There is only one thing that I want for Christmas and that is a Dan Dare Radio Station. It costs £5 19s 6d. Mum says that is more money than she has ever known so I’m definitely not getting a Dan Dare Radio Station for Christmas and don’t even ask.

Danny said he is getting a new bike for Christmas but I know he is lying as he still does not have any underpants. But the good thing is the girls don’t look anymore when we get changed for PE because they are bored looking at his cock, even when he wiggles it at them. But today we saw something amazing.

Mandy was sitting on the floor getting undressed for PE and Mr. Hudson was putting his hand on her breast, because she now has breasts, so she didn’t notice me and Danny staring at her knickers. We have asked her if we could touch her breasts but she always says no and Danny even offered her a bite of his Fry’s Turkish Delight bar but she still said no. Mr. Hudson doesn’t even ask—he just slides his hand inside her vest and touches them.

Today she was wearing really baggy knickers that I think must be her sister’s. I have been trying with Danny to see inside her knickers for months with all those handstands down by the bushes but we still haven’t seen a thing. But today was different. Today we saw the quim. It wasn’t a whole quim, just a glimpse, but we saw it. And it was a bit of a shock. It was hairy. Danny is always talking about pubes but I did not know what he meant. Now I know—a quim is hairy.

Danny pulled out his Parade magazine picture, which he carries with him at all times, and showed me the naked girl in the picture but she did not have any hair between her legs.

“Fucking look at that! Not a fucking pube in sight! Fucking useless!”

Danny let me keep his Parade magazine picture because he said it was fucking unacceptable that they didn’t show any pubes and anyway his dad has got a lot more where that one came from. His dad keeps them at the bottom of his chest of drawers under his socks.

So we have come up with a trade. Danny will show me his dad’s Parade magazine pictures and I will give him something that he wants. I suggested a look at the women’s section of the Littlewoods Catalog but Danny said that’s just for homos and he wants to see my big sister naked and I said that’s impossible and he said there must be a way.

“You could fucking do something with a mirror if it was at the right fucking angle!”

“She keeps her door closed all the time.”

“Drill a fucking hole in the toilet door and we can spy on her when she takes her knickers down. Yeh. We can fucking spy on her.”

I told Danny that everyone would notice a hole in our toilet door and he said to hang a picture over it, like they do in ghost films when they want to spy on someone. This is a completely ridiculous idea because we only have the oil paintings from Great-Uncle William or a small picture of Jesus and the Last Supper, which is hanging in my mum’s bedroom. Either way, questions would be asked.

We therefore agreed that Danny could come round to my house at lunchtime and have a drink of ginger beer in return for me seeing his dad’s pictures. My mum is brewing the ginger beer for Christmas. She got the recipe from Mollie who brews it every year and gave Mum some yeast and all she had to do was add some ginger and sugar and water.

I will leave the backdoor unlocked so that we can get in and no one will ever know so long as we don’t drink too much of it.

64

I
am going to have to blame it on the cat. Danny has drunk three whole cups of ginger beer and I have drunk two and Danny says he is still thirsty, which I think is a lie. And at this rate we are going to be late and today is not a good day to be late back to school because Mr. Hudson said we all have to do party pieces in our class this afternoon for Christmas.

“One more cup, that’s all, Danny! And when are you going to show me the pictures?”

“Fucking hell, my dad would kill me if he knew I had them. I had to wait for him to go to the bookies. He says you should never back two horses in the same fucking race. You need to place your bet. Mind you, he bets on a lot of fucking horses. Every fucking day. Just in different races, I suppose. And he never fucking wins.”

“OK. Just one more cup each.”

“Two. Fucking two more!”

“OK. Two. And that’s all. Now show me those pictures!”

My hands were shaking as I unfolded them.

“One more fucking cup. Come on. I fucking love this beer. Fucking love it!”

“OK. Just one. And that’s it!”

And that’s how we ended up being ten minutes late for the Christmas party pieces and ten minutes is enough to make Mr. Hudson have a bloody heart attack and he whacked me and Danny round the head and told us to take those smirks off our faces. Then he told Belinda to continue after being so rudely interrupted.

Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright…

Belinda was singing for us. She seemed more beautiful than ever. So very beautiful.

Holy infant so tender and mild…
Sleep in Heavenly peace.
Sleep in Heavenly peace.

I leapt to my feet and clapped and Danny burped so loudly everyone looked at us. Danny’s face was very red and he looked like he was sweating. I must admit it was very hot in the classroom.

Then I noticed that Belinda was frowning at me. I do not love her anymore.

“Sit down, Mitchell, and stop making such a damn fool of yourself! Thank you, Belinda. That was quite beautiful. Now, Gibly. What have you got for us? And for God’s sake, tell me you’re not going to sing.”

“No, sir. I’m going to tell you what I’m getting for Christmas.”

“What you are getting for Christmas? That’s the best thing you could think of for a party piece?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well get on with it, you clod. We haven’t got all day!”

“For Christmas, I’m getting a…Dan Dare Radio Station! A Dan Dare Radio Station for Christmas!”

If I don’t get my hopes up, I’m getting a bloody penknife for Christmas and Gary Gibly is getting a bloody Dan Dare Radio Station when he had a bloody great turd hanging out of his underpants like a fucking ferret. You cannot be secret agent Dan bloody Dare with a turd hanging out of your shitty underpants. And how can his mum afford £5 19s 6d for God’s sake?

“He can’t have a Dan Dare Radio Station! They cost £5 19s 6d!” I shouted.

“Sit down!” Mr. Hudson shouted back.

And for some reason that made Danny laugh and he couldn’t stop laughing and that made me laugh and I couldn’t stop laughing. But it didn’t make Mr. Hudson laugh.

“You, boy!”

He was looking at Danny.

“Get on your feet and give us your party piece!”

“A poem…” Danny said.

“Yes?” said Mr. Hudson, “We’re waiting.”

There once was a man from Guyana…

Mr. Hudson moved forward.

Who learned how to play the piana,
His right hand slipped,
His fly button clicked,
And out popped a hairy banana!

“How dare you!”

“Hiccup! My dad taught me that one when I was three! Blurp!”

Well, that made everyone in our class laugh except Belinda because she’s too stuck up to laugh at Danny. I hate her. I will never let her put her tongue in my mouth again. Even if I have not cleaned my teeth in days.

And even though Danny has told me that poem loads of times before I laughed until I was choking and Danny laughed at me and we laughed together at Mr. Hudson even when everyone else was not laughing anymore because Mr. Hudson was now in one of his rages. And we laughed and we laughed and we laughed.

Ha, ha, ha.

And we laughed.

65

I
t was Mr. Parsons who caned us. He’s our headmaster. Mr. Hudson was in too much of a rage to cane us or else he could have killed us with his bare hands. That’s what he said when he dragged us both down to the headmaster’s office. Then they gave us a letter each to take home to show our fathers and I said I didn’t have a father and they said it’s no wonder and to show the letter to my mother.

Danny ate his letter on the way home. He said it was the only certain way to destroy the evidence. Well, he didn’t eat the whole letter because it was very chewy but he ate the bit with the address on it and threw the rest in a bush. I told him it was a stupid idea to destroy the evidence because we are supposed to get the letter signed by a parent and bring it back to school and he should have just forged his dad’s signature. Danny said he never thought of that because he had a very bad headache.

“It says here you were intoxicated! Drunk! For the love of God, what is going on, John?” Mum said.

“It was the ginger beer.”

“Ginger beer? There’s no alcohol in ginger beer.”

“Oh mother,” Margueretta said, “don’t be so stupid. Everyone knows that if you ferment something with yeast it makes alcohol. It’s called a by-product. And that’s why it’s called beer.”

“You need to watch your mouth, young lady. Well Johnny, I suppose you were not to know. And it is Christmas, and this letter is punishment enough. I will sign it, and you need to apologize to your teacher when you go back.”

I did not tell Mum about being caned by the headmaster. And I saved the letter for Christmas Eve, as no one could be angry with a little boy on Christmas Eve.

“Do we have to watch this?” Margueretta asked.

“It’s Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. Och, it should liven this house up for Christmas!”

“Herb Alpert is Jewish.”

“Jewish? What? He’s a Latino.”

“Latino? That’s just an act. He’s Jewish. And the Jews do not celebrate Christmas because they do not believe in the Son of God on account of the fact that they nailed him to a cross and crucified him, you fool!”

“I will not be spoken to like that, Christmas or no Christmas!”

“Well, it’s true. Herb Alpert playing “Spanish Flea” is blasphemous if you ask me. If you believe in Jesus, of course, which I do not. And I don’t see how anyone who is Jewish could believe in God when they murdered his only son.”

“Stop spoiling it. We’re not listening to you. Johnny, turn the telly up. We don’t want to listen to your sister talking like that on Christmas Eve of all times.”

“Well, the story of Joseph and Mary and Jesus in a bloody stable, and the three wise men, and the shepherds is a story for children and simpleminded people, if you ask me,” Margueretta added.

“No one is asking you.”

“You can’t face the truth. What has Jesus ever done for you? I mean, look at this disgusting hovel we live in! It’s a filthy, bloody pigsty!”

“Jesus died for you, young lady! He died so that you might live!”

“You call this living?”

I knew I should not have turned the volume up that far. I turned it up to six and Mum was getting angry with Margueretta so she told me to turn it up even louder and I turned it up to eight and that’s when it happened. It was like an exploding cigarette bomb only with more smoke.

“We’ll never get Radio Rentals out on Christmas Eve,” Mum said.

“Well mother,” Margueretta began, “it’s a Rodgers and Hammerstein television. We shouldn’t be listening to anything as
modern
as Herb Alpert and his bloody Tijuana Brass.”

“We’ll just have to do without the telly.”

“Oh, God. This will be the worst Christmas ever. It’s your bloody fault.”

“This will not be the worst Christmas ever! What do you think they did before there were any televisions, eh? I’ll tell you what they did. They entertained themselves, that’s what they did.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, tell me he’s not going to do his magic show again!”

“We are going to play games. That’s what we did when I was a child, you know.”

“You can remember back that far? I’m not playing any games.”

“You need to get into the Christmas spirit, young lady! We’re all going to play the ‘Minister’s Cat.’”

“Oh, God.”

“I’ll go first. The Minister’s Cat is an
avaricious
cat. You go next, Margueretta.”

“The Minister’s Cat is an avaricious,
bonkers
cat.”

“Bonkers is not an adjective. Bonkers is a pronoun.”

“Ha! You should know. The Minister’s Cat is an avaricious,
blasphemous
cat.”

“How can a Minister’s Cat be blasphemous?” Mum asked.

“He thinks Jesus was just a man with long hair and sandals.”

“I’ll ignore that. Now, Emily, it’s your turn.”

Emily added
creative
. I added
dreadful
. Mum added
enigmatic
.

“It’s your turn again, Margueretta,” Mum said.

“The Minster’s Cat is an avaricious, blasphemous, creative, dreadful, enigmatic,
faithless
cat.”