in the screen, you could usually spot coarse reactions: my brother crossing his legs, my mother jumpily deciding to count the stitches in her knitting. If you wanted a finer focus, you had to rely on dangerous tricks, like leaping up to get a glass of orange, or reaching across for the Radio Times . Then, briefly, as you turned, you might catch heaving nostalgia (my father), embarrassed boredom (my mother), technical interest (Nigel), or querulous puzzlement (Mary). Visitors were equally transparent, despite away manners.
‘Tits?’
The final part of the triad, the part to which we brought all our worldly perceptiveness.
‘Didn’t see hide nor hair. Perhaps – and I’m being generous – a couple of verrucas.’
‘Ah.’ Toni relaxed his eyebrows, satisfied and relieved. He hadn’t missed anything after all.
12 • Hard and Low
Toni and I spent a hefty amount of time together being bored. Not bored with each other, of course – we were at that irrecoverable age when friends can be hateful, irritating, disloyal, stupid or mean, but can never be boring. Adults were boring, with their rationality, their deference, their refusal to punish you as severely as you knew you ought to be punished. Adults were useful because they were boring: they were raw material; they were predictable in their responses. They might be wet and kindly, or sour and vicious; but they were always predictable. They made you believe in advance in the integrity of character.
‘What shall we be today?’ Toni and I would sometimes ask each other. It was a direct denial of adult status. Adults were always themselves. We, by popular insistence, were not yet grown up, not yet formed; no one knew how we would ‘turn out’. We could, at least, make a few trial gestures on our own account.
‘How are you going to turn out?’
‘Like a jelly?’
‘Like a light?’
‘Like a Sandhurst cadet?’
We hadn’t yet turned out. Being protean was our only consistent shape. Everything was justifiable. Everything was possible.
‘What shall we be today?’
‘Why don’t we be supporters of the Firsts?’
It was a seductive idea. We were always searching for new pockets of character within ourselves; and it was always enjoyable to try something finely alien. The Head was continually appealing for boys to waste their valuable Saturday afternoons by going to support the First XV; especially at away matches, when the pressure of six or eight parents from the opposite side baying for victory, plus the disorientation of a train journey to an unfamiliar ground, were always good enough to buckle the morale of our insecure team. On this occasion, Toni and I headed off to watch the school play Merchant Taylors, whose ground was a mere ten minutes’ bike ride from Eastwick.
‘How shall we do it,’ I asked, ‘straight or clever?’
‘We couldn’t be too clever in case Telford reports us.’
‘True.’
‘Mustn’t be too straight, though.’
‘No fear.’
Telford was the brute who ran the First XV, a tyrant in a trench mackintosh who drove a Singer Vogue to away games, and whose tireless exhortations of ‘Feet, School, feeeeEEEEt’ would wail across the frostbound pitch from the opposite touchline.
‘Have to stay away from the side Telltale’s on.’
‘Yeah. I think we’d better do it completely straight at first, only fantastically enthusiastically – up and down the touch, waving our scarves, shouting out the score just in case they forget it. Then, as they begin to lose, we carry on in exactly the same way, so that it gradually becomes more and more piss-taking, only Telltale won’t be able to get us for it.’
It sounded a foolproof scheme. We stationed ourselves on the less tenanted touchline and roared and cheered while School fumbled, missed tackles, dropped the ball, got offside, passed the ball forward while inches from the line, and wheeled their scrum in opposite directions at the same time.
‘Bad luck, School.’
‘Keep
‘Tits?’
The final part of the triad, the part to which we brought all our worldly perceptiveness.
‘Didn’t see hide nor hair. Perhaps – and I’m being generous – a couple of verrucas.’
‘Ah.’ Toni relaxed his eyebrows, satisfied and relieved. He hadn’t missed anything after all.
12 • Hard and Low
Toni and I spent a hefty amount of time together being bored. Not bored with each other, of course – we were at that irrecoverable age when friends can be hateful, irritating, disloyal, stupid or mean, but can never be boring. Adults were boring, with their rationality, their deference, their refusal to punish you as severely as you knew you ought to be punished. Adults were useful because they were boring: they were raw material; they were predictable in their responses. They might be wet and kindly, or sour and vicious; but they were always predictable. They made you believe in advance in the integrity of character.
‘What shall we be today?’ Toni and I would sometimes ask each other. It was a direct denial of adult status. Adults were always themselves. We, by popular insistence, were not yet grown up, not yet formed; no one knew how we would ‘turn out’. We could, at least, make a few trial gestures on our own account.
‘How are you going to turn out?’
‘Like a jelly?’
‘Like a light?’
‘Like a Sandhurst cadet?’
We hadn’t yet turned out. Being protean was our only consistent shape. Everything was justifiable. Everything was possible.
‘What shall we be today?’
‘Why don’t we be supporters of the Firsts?’
It was a seductive idea. We were always searching for new pockets of character within ourselves; and it was always enjoyable to try something finely alien. The Head was continually appealing for boys to waste their valuable Saturday afternoons by going to support the First XV; especially at away matches, when the pressure of six or eight parents from the opposite side baying for victory, plus the disorientation of a train journey to an unfamiliar ground, were always good enough to buckle the morale of our insecure team. On this occasion, Toni and I headed off to watch the school play Merchant Taylors, whose ground was a mere ten minutes’ bike ride from Eastwick.
‘How shall we do it,’ I asked, ‘straight or clever?’
‘We couldn’t be too clever in case Telford reports us.’
‘True.’
‘Mustn’t be too straight, though.’
‘No fear.’
Telford was the brute who ran the First XV, a tyrant in a trench mackintosh who drove a Singer Vogue to away games, and whose tireless exhortations of ‘Feet, School, feeeeEEEEt’ would wail across the frostbound pitch from the opposite touchline.
‘Have to stay away from the side Telltale’s on.’
‘Yeah. I think we’d better do it completely straight at first, only fantastically enthusiastically – up and down the touch, waving our scarves, shouting out the score just in case they forget it. Then, as they begin to lose, we carry on in exactly the same way, so that it gradually becomes more and more piss-taking, only Telltale won’t be able to get us for it.’
It sounded a foolproof scheme. We stationed ourselves on the less tenanted touchline and roared and cheered while School fumbled, missed tackles, dropped the ball, got offside, passed the ball forward while inches from the line, and wheeled their scrum in opposite directions at the same time.
‘Bad luck, School.’
‘Keep
Similar Books
