The Life of Lee (18 page)

Having fun bunking off school.

So the senior school in Billericay immediately put me in a special class out of the way of all the other children. It was called ‘remedial’. There were about nine of us, and we all sat around dribbling all day long. The other dunderheads and I would stare in wonder at what we thought was a computer – in fact, it was a small wooden abacus. They gave us our own special teacher, but she can only be described as a prize dong-ding.

Overall assessment – not too good!

And that is how I spent the first year of senior school in the hidden-away-and-never-spoken-about lummox unit, rolling my eyes around my sockets like the odd-shaped wheels of a clown’s car and making trumpeting noises with my lips. It doesn’t really fill you with confidence when all the other kids find out you have ‘special needs’ – there is something especially malevolent about the cruelty of children. But then, one morning, something happened that seemed to change everything …

I was wandering through the main assembly hall, idling my way towards another lesson, when I stopped just to have a little peek over my shoulder at the huge brown beast of a grand piano that I had felt so comfortable beside during assembly. It was standing quietly
in the corner over by the window, like a giant, brooding rhino.

The urge was too great. I looked around to see if anyone was nearby and made an instant decision. I hurriedly tiptoed over and opened the lid. I knew that if I was caught, I would be in serious trouble – for some reason, school pianos must not be played, it’s against the rules. But the desire was just too strong. It had been ages since I’d played the piano; in fact, I hadn’t tinkled the ivories since watching our own piano fly out of our bedroom window in Bristol.

It does feel so good to express yourself on the piano. It’s something that’s just irresistible to me. I love to play. It has nothing to do with your abilities – it’s the affair the individual has with this magical box of sound. Once you cross the line and begin pressing, kneading, stroking and tapping along on its shiny smooth keys, you’re gone. You free yourself to the sensation that travels from your head down your arms into your hands. Depressing the light wooded keys – on to which are fixed small, crafted and perfectly balanced hammers that exactly mirror your intonation on the copper strings – you make a sublime sound. Mellowed by the surrounding wood, the chimes caress and soothe your primeval soul. You become immersed in a place far, far away, where anxieties lift from your body. You get a feeling of freedom, as though you’re entering a zone of nowhere-ness and –

‘Shit, farmer boy, that’s all right, that is.’

I snapped out of my music-induced reverie. Standing next to the piano were a couple of scruffy boys. Where did
they come from? I panicked and immediately went into a little ditty in the key of D Major that I’d picked up when I was a kid and Dad used to sing it to Wayne and me.

‘There was a young man from Gosham,

Who took out his balls to wash ’em.

His wife said, “Jack,

If you don’t put them back,

I’ll stand on the buggers and squash them.”’

The two boys fell around laughing.

A door banged and Mr Nelson suddenly breezed into the hall. Mr Nelson was a short, stubby, balding man known for his extra-strict, take-no-prisoners attitude. He was hated by all the pupils because of his markedly sadistic streak. If he spotted a weakness in you, he would play on it relentlessly.

If he had an inkling that we were playing the piano without proper authority, then it would certainly be an instant caning for all of us, with no hesitation. If there was one thing that brightened Mr Nelson’s day, it was a caning.

His little legs bowled at a determined pace across the hall, little feet tapping along the well-worn parquet flooring. He didn’t say anything but stared with menace in our direction. Because of his infamy, we three boys froze on the spot, waiting for his notorious explosion of temper. It would only be a matter of seconds before one of us cracked under his laser-like glare.

‘You see, boys …’ I began, doing my best impression of a school prefect’s posh accent. I thumped down on the keys of the piano before adding, ‘That is what Mr Martin –’ Mr Martin was a music teacher who Mr Nelson
considered soft, arty and slightly effeminate, a frivolous waste of school time who only instilled indiscipline and rebellion. I carried on in what was becoming a bit of a Danny La Rue performance piece – ‘calls an F Sharp.’

Luckily, it was working. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that, like a robotic drone, Mr Nelson suddenly lost interest, looked away and carried on walking.

But as he approached the door on the other side of the vast school hall, I couldn’t resist it; I began playing the Laurel and Hardy theme tune in time to Mr Nelson’s footsteps. It was a highly risky move. He stopped with his back to us. Twitching, he sniffed the air and turned his head slightly, so we could see just one eye looking back over his shoulder at us.

The two other boys looked petrified. I could tell they were thinking, ‘You’ve done it now!’

But, at that moment, I managed to rescue the situation. I flounced around the piano keyboard and continued, as smoothly as I could, ‘Now, Mr Martin said to snap, snap, snap over to a nice E Minor that melodically would …’ Still looking suspicious, Mr Nelson turned and left the hall. We were safe!

It was my lucky day. The two lads turned out to be two of the most popular pupils in my year, and they asked me to hang around with them. I couldn’t believe it – they wanted to be my friends. They had older brothers in higher years who were quite hard. I was officially in with the lads.

Of course, I was still a numbskull, but, hey, I wasn’t going to get my head kicked in – for a while, anyway! I would from now on be the funny punchbag, the butt of
the jokes, the monkey boy of the group. Yes, I was considered the chump of my year and girls would still regard me as the loser’s loser, but at least I could entertain people and I was happy with that.

Up to a point.

17. Trying (and Failing) to Impress Girls

There was no doubt about it, it was the life of Riley being a part of the main gang. It gave you a little respect and a taste of the finer things – yep, I was definitely getting used to the high life now. Already, I couldn’t imagine how boring it must be not being one of the gang. If I had once more been consigned to ‘loser’ status, I wouldn’t have experienced the joy of having fag butts pinged at my face while hanging out at the smokers’ corner round the back of E block. I would also not have had the delight of receiving a shockingly painful random dead leg from Ben Coulter who, as I collapsed to my knees in agonizing pain, would laugh so hard, it would bring up a big blue vein that ran down his huge, dome-like forehead.

The main gang were popular because they made up half the school football team. I was an integral part of the celebrated side who came a close second in the regional inter-school championship. I didn’t actually play in any games, of course, but I can only put their triumph down to the fact that I cut, bagged and brought on the oranges at half-time. I reckon I was also the main driving force in morale-building as, after showering, the whole team would subject me to a thousand stings by flicking their wet towels at my milky white skin. Just to see them
all laughing like that, I felt I was the glue that held them together.

Naturally enough, the glamour of being a part of the football team did come with benefits: girls, and not just ordinary girls. The main gang attracted a certain type of wild girl, a girl who looked for a little more action and excitement than you might get from your run-of-the-mill social outcast.

This was a decided advantage. If I hadn’t been in with the main gang, I wouldn’t have stood a chance at all with these gorgeous, uninhibited girls. But now, being associated with the glamour boys, I had a sniff – at least, that’s what I thought …

That’s how I got to meet Jenny, the hottest girl in the school. There is no way she would have even looked at me twice if I hadn’t been a member of the Alpha Male gang. OK, maybe she might have looked at me twice but only in the way that you might double-take at the sight of a zoo monkey sitting in a tyre rubbing his banana.

But I got my opportunity to drool over Jenny when I was hanging around E block by smokers’ corner. I was trying to look impressed by a couple of hard cases, Barry and Steve, as they puffed away on their Number 6 cigarettes. They were boasting about their attempts to break the world record for the most masturbations in one evening while their mum was up the Mecca Bingo, when Jenny arrived with a couple of her friends.

She was searching around in her smart school bag when she suddenly looked up and clocked me. To me, she was a vision of unattainable loveliness. From the moment I’d first clapped eyes on her across the playground, I’d
lusted after her from afar. She had the face of an angel and the body of a goddess. We were only thirteen-year-olds, but she already had ample breasts.

I couldn’t believe she even acknowledged my existence, but at this moment she did. ‘Gissa smoke, weasel breath,’ she demanded – God, if only she knew how much I loved her!

I panicked. ‘I don’t have any, but I got some Polos,’ I stammered feebly. As soon as I’d said it, I winced. In the pit of my stomach, I instantly realized that was the most ridiculous thing to have said – and she did, too.

‘Don’t be such a tit face,’ Jenny sneered.

So I quickly tried to make up for it by desperately begging one of the hard cases, Steve, to sell me a cigarette. I emptied my pockets of all my change. Luckily, he agreed, thank God. However, he wasn’t interested in my money alone – he would only sell it to me if I ate it.

I paused for a second, thinking his demand was a bit steep. But I was desperate, and at least I would have a cigarette to give to Jenny, albeit briefly. So I threw caution to the wind, handed over the money and took the cigarette. Barry and Steve were watching intently, clenched fists at the ready. If I didn’t do what they said, they were poised to attack.

As I quickly proffered the cigarette to Jenny, her face changed. Her eyes softened, she shook her hair, rolled her lips like a giant succulent mangle, and slowly reached out towards me for the cigarette. I was mesmerized. As she put her hand around the cigarette, it was so sensual, so phallic, I could barely contain my excitement.

At that moment, though, I glanced over at Barry and
Steve and saw they were primed to pounce. So I snatched the cigarette from Jenny’s eager grasp, stuffed it in my mouth and began frantically chewing it. Jenny looked at me for a long time in utter astonishment. Then she moved a little closer towards me, bringing her face right up close to mine. Her expression changed again, as she shouted in my face: ‘You complete and utter prat!’

But even as she was shrieking at me, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her porcelain features, now distorted with fury. At the same time, I couldn’t help noticing that the delicate, smooth skin of her forehead had become furrowed and wrinkled from rage. The tip of her wonderful button nose had turned bright red with the blood rush. And the way her hair fell across her face when she shook her head in frustration at me was such a turn-on. My hormones danced around my body like a Russian Cossack group on a stag do in a pole-dancing club. God, she was incredible. I would have done anything for her. In fact, on one occasion I did …

I don’t know if it was by design or just coincidence, but it seemed that every class the school stuck me in was disruptive. It always contained all the kids who either didn’t want to learn or couldn’t learn. Either way, it held all the pupils the school had just given up on, and I became one of them.

It’s funny, maybe it’s a survival thing, but kids like that can spot a weakness or a chink in someone’s armour a mile away. That’s why the stand-in teacher on that particular day didn’t stand a chance.

I used to so look forward to English lessons, taught by
the much-loved Mr Cavendish. His methods were different from other teachers’. Unconventional, he seemed genuinely excited about the English language, sharing the power of the word with us dullards in the class. For example, he would never give us essays as he knew we couldn’t even spell our own names, but preferred to involve everybody by physically acting out verse. He helped us understand what was on the pages of a certain book or play that us bunch of chowderheads would never otherwise have been exposed to in a million years. Even the most uni-brow, knuckle-scraping dribbler sitting in the corner – who would normally pass the time by pulling legs from a large stolen cow – would shut up and listen to Mr Cavendish.

Mrs Henford, on the other hand, was unfortunately well-known at the school for being a soft teacher, and if there’s one thing that brightens up a class full of mutton-heads, it’s a teacher who they can lasso, castrate and brand – any excuse not to do any work.

I sat at the back of the class, and on this day it just so happened I was sitting next to Jenny. She wasn’t aware of it, but I was fixated on her every move. She didn’t see me: she was too busy beautifully punching the boy in front of her in the back of his head for being – well, just for having a head. Good job she was punching him because if she’d looked round, she would have seen me staring at her like a psychopath. And no doubt she would have started on my head, even though it may have been a more challenging prospect as it was so much smaller in size, owing to its tinier brain mass.