The Turning Point

As with any ambush, the element of surprise was crucial. It was a five pronged attack consisting of four consonants and a vowel, harmless individually, yet devastatingly effective when grouped together.

I should have been better prepared, considering the enemy was always camped at the castle walls devising new ways of penetrating my defences. I could manage to evade them at times, but no matter how hard I tried they would keep up the relentless pursuit.

I don’t blame Mr. Goulston, who supplied the ammunition and was an unwitting accomplice. He was one of England’s finest teachers, with a flair for storytelling, who could describe a battle with such clarity that you could almost feel the blows as swords and bodies crashed together in a bloodthirsty orgy.

This lesson centred on London in the nineteenth century and the gulf that existed between the opulence of the gentry and the squalor of the workhouses. In any other lesson I would be at the back of the class daydreaming, but a History lesson warranted a front row centre seat. I was taken off guard and totally vulnerable as the word rocketed out of Mr. Goulstons mouth… “Slums”!

A normal word to most people, but deadly when you happened to live in one yourself and spent every waking hour trying to conceal the fact. The word flew at me and embedded itself in my consciousness. With the gates breached the enemy poured through. My face and neck began to redden; resistance was futile. I felt every pair of eyes boring into the back of my head as I sat out the utterly humiliating experience.

With the battle won, the enemy retreated back outside the castle walls to prepare for a fresh onslaught in the ever-continuing war. The bell finally sounded. I rushed out of the classroom wondering how I was going to face my schoolmates the following morning.

At least I could off load on Jonah. No one would better understand how I was feeling. He’d arranged to meet me at home after school and guide me to a derelict mansion on the outskirts of town, a journey destined to be fraught with excitement and danger. If it hadn’t been for Jonah’s brief fling with my older sister, I’d never have met him, let alone elevate him into best mate status. After all he lived two miles away, had attended a different school and at sixteen was eighteen months older than me. He was also outspoken, loud, and unpredictable, characteristics, which made us complete opposites.

As I turned the corner at the top of our street I walked straight into another ambush. The bag lady was about twenty paces away and steaming in my direction. Her thick legs propelled her heavy body along in a sort of rolling motion.

She always wore the same filthy old blue coat. Her matted hair was tied down with a frayed headscarf and the permanent smile she wore helped to emphasise her two missing front teeth. I glanced across the street; Sally and Debra Cunningham were sitting on their front wall with two other girls from the blue coat’s school so nothing would entice me to cross that road, so having no alternative I pressed on. She passed by unblinking.

‘Thank God, I thought. She must have had something important on her mind to walk past without acknowledging her own son’.

I continued on down the street, turned into our gate and crunched up the gravel driveway. I could hear the kettle whistling away as I entered the porch.

A cloud of steam engulfed the kitchen. I dashed over and turned off the gas; there was about a quarter inch of water remaining. At least Mom hadn’t burnt the bottom out this time; dad would have gone mad.

I ran upstairs and rummaged around in a pile of hand-me-downs on my bedroom floor. I’d just finished changing when I heard a knock at the back door.

'Great, I thought, Jonah’s early'. I bolted down the stairs almost causing an avalanche with the junk piled down either side. I went through the kitchen and slipped out the back door.

Jonah drew hard on his cigarette, brushed his long blond hair back off his face and flicked the smouldering butt into our neighbor’s porch. I was surprised to see another kid with Jonah who I’d never seen before.

“Come on Scruff, announced Jonah, (which was my nickname) get yer skates on. Oh yeah, this is me mate Nebber, you don’t mind if he tags along, do yer?”

“No, course not,” I replied, carefully scrutinising Nebber as he stared back at me through expressionless brown eyes. He must have been sixteen or seventeen stone and his thick ginger hair and bloated freckled face made him seem anything but friendly.

We were just about to head off when I remembered something, so i said “You two carry on then, I’ve forgotten somethin’, I’ll catch yer up.”

I raced back upstairs and found a musty old sweater. I swung around the banister post and lost my footing on the top step. Half a jumble sale full of junk accompanied me down. I hadn’t time to rearrange it so I shoved it all under the stairs and went into the kitchen.

I would have had a clear view of the window, but I’d been too preoccupied to notice Jonah and Nebber’s faces pressed up against the glass. They reared back when they saw me and ran around the side of the house.

I froze and looked around the kitchen as though for the first time. A filthy dump was the only way to describe it. The steam had turned to water and was trickling down the walls. Every horizontal surface was covered with an assortment of dirty crockery, jars, bottles and putrid cat food tins.

Cobwebs hung in every corner. A thick mat of them covered a row of rusty old paint tins on the top shelf, which ran the full length of one wall. The gas cooker was caked with grime with used matches embedded into the grease. ‘At least we have fresh mushrooms,’ I thought. I could see them growing in the mould on the larder floor. Even the rats and mice would think twice about entering such a hovel.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I was reluctant to go and face them, but it would be worse if I didn’t. I headed down the drive stopped on the pavement and looked down the street. They’d ridden about fifty yards and were laughing hysterically. I was completely stunned.

Jonah was supposed to be my best mate and he was laughing in my face, even worse, with a stranger. I just couldn’t believe it. I’d been one of the few trusted friends invited into his Mother’s council flat, which was a smaller version of our House, I’d listened and shared confidences with him about his troubled home life.

Now this was how he saw fit to treat me. I was normally quite placid, but a feeling raged through me which I’d never experienced before. It was anger, but a new kind mixed with defiance at the injustice of it all. They both stopped and turned, Jonah waved, beckoning me to come and join him. I just stared back wondering how he could be so callous, before turning away and trudging back up the driveway.

I sat down on the stairs going over the most embarrassing day of my life. I heard Mom come in and sat waiting for the inevitable explosion. She came through the kitchen door, took one look at the stairs and started screaming.

“Where’ve my things gone. What have you done with them? It’s taken me years to sort that lot out. There’ll be hell to pay when yer Dad comes home, you little beggar.”

“It’s O.K. Mom, don't worry, I replied. I slipped and fell. Your stuff’s just under the stairs there. I’ll help you put it all back.”

She wasn’t concerned about my health, only about how she could piece together her piles of old newspapers, knitting patterns and other assorted bits and bobs she zealously hoarded. I passed everything up and she returned them to their original positions, except for a battered old blue Toby jug. She sat at the bottom of the stairs weeping and trying to glue the handle back on with paper paste.

“Look at it? She continued, I’ll never be able to fix it, you’ve ruined it.”

“Come on Mom, I implored softly. It’s not a family heirloom. You only got it from the jumble sale two weeks ago. I’ll get you another one on the weekend.”

“I don’t want a new one, she replied, perfectly mimicking the five year old girl across the street, I want this one.”

I didn’t know what else to say so I went into the kitchen, put the kettle on and made two cups of tea, then handed one to her as an attempted peace offering. She just put it down on the stairs without saying anything.

I made a couple of sandwiches and went for a long walk along the canal hoping to work out a plan for the following morning. I got back about ten, none the wiser, just as Dad was coming in from work.

“What time do you call this?” he inquired jovially.

“Ten o’clock ain’t it, I shot back with a little more venom than I’d intended. Are you blind or somethin’?”

He flashed me an angry glance and said. “What’s up with you misery guts? Try getting up at five in the morning and driving to Torquay and back, then you’d have something to moan about.”

It was a fair point, which I decided to sidestep, by saying.

“If you ask me, you’ll be wanting a good sized gold watch for the amount of hours you have to put in.”

“No one is askin’ you, are they? He replied. Now whatever it is you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about, you’d best spit out now.”

I paused for a moment weighing up the dangers of an escalating conflict, before deciding to blurt out.

“Well can’t you at least get one day off so we can clean the place up a bit?”

“Ah so that’s it, is it? He replied slowly nodding with acknowledgement. I was wondering what this was all about? Do you think I like trundling around the countryside seven days a week, when there’s a hundred better things I could be doing? You should take a look at that letter on the mantle piece from the rent tribunal that says we’re three months in arrears. Then you might show some understanding. I’ve given your Mother money to cover the bills religiously, but God only knows what she’s done with it, or how long it will take me to pay it back. If you think you can wave a magic wand and sort this shambles out in a hurry you’ve got another thing coming. You know what your Mother’s like, we could spend a month of Sundays tidying up and it would be upside down again in no time.”

“Well couldn’t we at least try?” I stubbornly replied.

I knew he was right though. We’d attempted the same thing many times, but it never seemed to make any difference.

“I’m off to bed anyway, I announced. Goodnight Dad.”

“Goodnight then, he replied evenly. Try not to worry son. It will sort itself out one way or the other.”

I lay in bed for a while going over the whole situation. All sorts of crazy ideas began to materialise, like running away to London, playing truant till school ended, or feigning a serious illness.

Then suddenly through all the chaos a clear and simple plan began to emerge. It was a tactic I’d used successfully before to mollify the gang of thugs from the ‘D’ grade. I felt a sense of purpose as a couple of ideas immediately sprang to mind. I set the alarm for eight o’clock, deciding that I’d be able to think clearer in the morning.

I woke up feeling apprehensive, as I’d be the laughing stock of the whole school if it backfired on me. It was odd, I should be feeling suicidal yet now I felt more optimistic. I even had a proper wash and brushed my teeth. Then raced around to school with a couple of minutes to spare.

The musty smelling oak paneled classroom was a hive of activity with rubbers and screwed up paper flying in all directions. I stood at the front facing everyone and screamed out, “Shut up!” As the room fell silent.

“OK, I said, if anyone wants to come back to our house after school? They’re more than welcome.”

At the final bell half the class followed me around home. I led them in and we all crowded around the kitchen table.

“Right, I announced, you’ll have to excuse the mess only the maid hasn’t turned up. She’s the fifth one this month. Three have committed suicide, the fourth has excepted a job offer in a prison camp in Siberia and the fifth was last seen belting over the Scottish border wearing nothing but a terrified look.”

Although there was only a slight pause, in that fraction of a second my whole future seemed to be suspended in a timeless vacuum. I’d gambled everything on the theory that humour could sometimes bridge the widest of chasms.

Of course it was a risky strategy, but I was paid the ultimate dividend when the whole assembly erupted into uncontrollable fits of laughter. It took a few minutes before order was restored. Then the shabbily dressed figure of George Parris stepped forward, took a long look at the mess surrounding him, and said.

“It’s a bit of a pigsty, isn’t it?”

The question radiated out into every corner of the room and hung there ominously. Every pair of eyes turned upon George. I looked at George and smiled, because although the subject had only ever been hinted upon, in that precise moment I realised that only someone who shared the same dark secret could offer such an emotive response. The question had obviously been tendered not just as a test of our newfound status, but also as a measure of really true friendship. In an effort to defuse the tension, I replied by saying.

“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you George, but what were you expectin’, Buckinum friggin palace?”

After another bout of laughter Eric Garrington said.

“Hey Scruff, how about a tour around?”

“Come on then, I replied, follow me.”

I led them through every room in the house except for the lounge. I stopped outside the door and said.

“O.K, come in quietly, because I want you to meet my Mom.”

They followed me in and crowded around the back of the settee. She was sitting in her usual chair staring straight ahead.

“Mom, I’ve brought some of my school friends home to meet you.”

She turned, suddenly noticing everyone for the first time. She just looked at them, nodded, smiled and then returned to the sanctuary of her other world.

Everyone filed out of the room and made their way to the front of the house. They were just about to disperse when George Parris said.

“Hey! Now listen here a minute. If you think that’s bad, wait till you come around our dump.”

“We’ll hold you to that, George,” I replied.

I waited until the last person had disappeared around the corner, then as I headed up the drive, I thought. ‘Oh well, I may as well wash up and throw a few cat food tins out.’

I learnt a lot of things over those two days; about knocking down barriers, accepting my share of responsibility and the fickle nature of friends. But the most important thing I learnt was to never be ashamed of my Mother again.