Read Online Broken Music: A Memoir by Sting - Free Book Online Page B

handlebars and whitewall tires and fourgears. It costs fifteen guineas, a king’s ransom. I know I’m chancing my arm, but I also know that I’ll never be in this situation again. Ernie, with some reluctance, walks with me to the bike shop, which sits just off the High Street next to the funeral directors’. There it sits in the center of the window, like a prize in a TV game show—even my dad gets excited, the engineer in him marveling at the lightness of the frame, the gears and the brake system. Holding the handlebars I inhale its newness, and its chromium gleams like a promise of the future.
    “Thanks, Dad.”
    “You just be careful now.”
    “Yes, Dad!”
    Tommy lives on a council estate about a mile away, and this is my first trip on the new bike. It is spring and everything is new, the bike a shining symbol of adventure and escape. I park the bike at the side of Tommy’s house, next to the cracked paintwork of the kitchen door.
    I walk into the kitchen. “Is Tommy in?”
    “He’s watching the telly,” says his mother. “He’s not in a very good mood.”
    Undeterred, I march into the front room. “Hey, Tommy, I got a new bike.”
    The room is dark, as the curtains are drawn, and Tommy, seated in an armchair, is staring intently at a test card on the television screen. It’s a black-and-white image of horizontal and diagonal lines, which is the only afternoon programming of the time, I suppose for the use of TV technicians so they can tune in this new technology that is bringing the world into our living rooms.
    Tommy doesn’t respond. He just keeps staring at the screen, his mouth set grimly, and now that I’m getting used to the gloom, I can see that his eyes are red and swollen.
    His mother comes in from the kitchen. “What’s the matter, our Tommy, cat got your tongue? Say hello to your friend.”
    “Shurrup, you!”
    I wince, horribly embarrassed as she turns to me. “Oh, the tough guy’s been crying’ cos he didn’t pass the scholarship.”
    “I said shurrup,” shouts Tommy.
    The air is thick with the threat of violence but his mother will not be quieted now that she has me as an audience for her ranting.
    “Oh aye, mister big shot, wouldn’t go to school, playing the wag and smoking his tabs and God knows what else, but he was crying like a baby when he got the results. Weren’t ye?”
    “Fuckin’ shurrup.”
    “Don’t you set your cheek up to me, you’re not too big that I can’t hit you.”
    “You can just fuck right off!”
    And with that Tommy leaps from the chair and bolts across the room. He is now framed cinematically in the kitchen doorway, and slowly turns toward me. “You coming or what?”
    I sheepishly begin to follow him, trying to make myself invisible. “Er, good-bye, Mrs. Thompson.”
    “Good-bye, son,” she says resignedly, and then screeches at Tommy’s retreating back, “And you’d better be back before it’s dark or your da’ll take the belt to you. Do you hear?”
    But Tommy is out the door, and so am I.
    If he notices the new bike, he says nothing; there seems to be an instant and tacit understanding between us that he won’t mention the new bike and I won’t mention the redness of his eyes.
    “Where shall we go?” he asks, and I’m somewhat taken aback, as it’s always been Tommy who has set the agenda for our wanderings.
    “I thought we could go to Gosforth Park,” I venture.
    “All right, let’s go.”
    Tommy walks into a ramshackle wooden shed at the side of the house and emerges with the dilapidated old bicycle that he inherited from his sister. It has clearly seen better days. As well as having the lowered crossbar of a girl’s bike, the front wheel is slightly buckled and has one or two spokes missing, it is far too small for him, and it has been hand-painted with black emulsion. It is, in short, an embarrassing joke, but not one I feel brave enough to share with my friend, who seems to be daring me to say something disparaging.