White Goods (11 page)

‘
What’s she
hiding under there?’
I asked Della
once.

‘
Lumpy
legs,’
she’d replied with a
shudder.

Whenever Nan
Buckley asked about the swimming, Della would do one of her faces
and Mum would do one of her faces in return, the one that
said
don’t-let-your-Dad-see-you-act-like-that.
There was a rumour that Ian had spoken out-of-turn to Nan
Buckley once and hadn’t been able to sit down for a whole
week.

‘So, you coming then?’
Justin asked, as I stood there drifting, saying nothing.

Quickly, I got my trunks
and a towel from the airing cupboard, not really taking any notice
of which towel I picked – something I later regretted.

‘Going out!’ I shouted
back into the house, dashing out and racing up the road, before Dad
or the others could ask questions or stop me going.

‘Wait up!’ Justin cried,
pulling at Tina, who’d stopped in her tracks, stubbornly refusing
to move. He gave her a quick yank and they were off.

The swimming
pool appeared just as you reached the edge of town. After several
residential streets, we reached a long road lined on both sides
with car showrooms, gardening shops, and smaller, specialist shops.
At the end of it there was a pelican crossing; once across it, you
were in the centre. On the right, just before the crossing, where
you
diced-with-death
according to local legend
,
was
the swimming pool
itself: a long building with a curved front. Behind it, was a big
park – Jubilee Park – where Mum would sometimes take us for a bit.
A little further right was the car park that
cost-you-an-arm-and-a-leg –
from our
Dad, who had all four limbs, so I guessed he never parked there.
Although, Beery-Dave was missing a foot; when I’d asked him if he’d
lost it parking near the swimming pool I got a look that suggested
I stop speaking instantly and a clip round the ear that confirmed
it.

When we were outside the
pool, Tina was still with us.

‘Thought she wasn’t
coming?’ I’d kept saying all the way there.

‘She ain’t,’ Justin kept
replying.

At the last minute, he
left her just outside, next to the bicycle rack.

‘With all the
other bikes,’ he’d said, laughing. All of Justin’s jokes were
about
tarts, bikes and
lezzies
, as he put it. Sometimes his
sister, Sharon, featured in the jokes too – usually as a tart, bike
or lezzy; she heard him once and smacked his head against a wall.
Sharon Tankard was a force to be reckoned with.

‘Will she be alright?’ I
asked, as we went up the steps to the pool entrance.

‘Done it before,’ Justin
said with a shrug and then he looked at me strangely, trying to
work out what was different about me. Eventually he clicked: ‘Why
ain’t you wearing your parka?’

From the minute we were
inside, a mixed feeling spread throughout me, sloshing about like
too many fizzy drinks in my stomach. There was the thrill – my
secret trip to the pool, without my armbands, with no one telling
me I couldn’t do it. Then there was the fear – the smell of the
place, damp, cold and sterile all at once. Wet pools of water under
your feet where everyone was treading, leaving their germs, leaving
you their cells, leaving their corns for you to catch. But it
wasn’t just the smell. It was the sound, too – the little echoes in
the changing rooms, voices running into each other, getting worse
and louder as you went through the showers to the actual pool,
where the echoes were bigger. It was there that the fear outdid the
thrills.

Whilst Justin went to the
communal bit, I changed in a cubicle; I wasn’t showing him my
thingy if I could help it.

When I unravelled my
towel, I discovered the trunks I’d snatched were mustard yellow,
which meant they were a bit eye catching. It could have been worse,
because at least they were mine. However, the same couldn’t be said
of the towel I’d seized. Whilst I had noted the colours as I’d
grabbed it from the airing cupboard – reds and blacks – I wasn’t
until I laid it out on the changing cubicle bench that I realised
it was Della’s Minnie Mouse beach towel. Justin was bound to say
something about that, as might any other boys that noticed. Once
changed, I bundled it up quickly with my clothes and shoved it in a
locker. Maybe no one would notice, and, if they did, maybe no one
would really care.

‘
You ready?’
said Justin, as I pinned the locker key to my trunks. I noticed him
taking them in, looking alarmed at the yellow fabric. I tried not
to look at his, but they were unavoidable: bright purple and there
was a big wet patch at the front.

‘What you staring at?’ I
thought I heard him say and went to mumble something, when I
realised the voice had come from over my shoulder, not in front of
me. It wasn’t Justin speaking at all.

‘A big fat wanker!’ said
Justin and then he turned and walked towards the showers, which led
to the pool.

I went to follow, but a
hand went on my shoulder.

‘You wanna steer clear of
that one, Scot.’

I realised I knew the
voice. I turned and saw Russell Dunbar, a mate of Ian’s. I hadn’t
seen him round ours recently, but he and Ian had been good friends
for years. I shrugged, shaking off the advice. Justin was my
friend, after all; my only good friend.

‘Just watch yourself with
him,’ Russell added, like an adult’s warning, as I walked away,
following trouble and fear out to the swimming pool.

I felt sick. And I knew
that any second now I was gonna get found out. Justin had jumped
straight in, going under the water, streaming through the pool
surface, and bobbing up with a smile on his face.

‘Get in then, Scot!’ he
shouted, but he didn’t wait for me; he just went below the surface
again, and swam off.

I sat on the edge,
putting my feet in. Taking small steps. Very. Small.
Steps.

I knew where
my fear had started. I had a memory of it. Bits of a memory I had
reconstructed, in any case, as I was five when
it
happened.

Infant school.

There was a
big square outdoor pool in the middle of our school, in a courtyard
cut right out of the middle. You reached it through two French
doors that led from one of the corridors. The boys had to get
changed in the class room; the girls in the toilets. The
boys
couldn’t-be-trusted-on-their-own
,
which was interesting, because in our house none of us were
trusted-to-be-on-our-own
, including Della. So, we had to get changed in the
classroom, and there was a bit of staring, and laughing at people’s
pants and their winkies, too. Darren Smith had a big skid that
Steven Harcourt noticed and that caused a bit of tension and
distraction. We were still laughing about that as we scuttled down
the corridor, holding our towels, bare feet slapping on the wooden
boards of the floor, the girls joining us at the back. Outside, you
got grit under your feet, which hurt a bit, unless you had
flip-flops. (Some of the girls did, so did Paul Benson, who was
tripped up and called a queer by Roy Fallick.)

I was about sixth in line
to get into the pool. It wasn’t too deep, but you still had to
climb a small white ladder to get into the water. I remember Justin
being just ahead of me and making a big, wild scream as he hit the
water.

Tankard,
quiet boy!

Maybe it was the scream,
the threat of the wet and the cold, or the smell – the stale smell,
with leaves from autumn and winter still not entirely cleared, and
smears of dirt on the blue of the tiling. But I froze. I didn’t
want to go in. Didn’t want to be cold or wet, have the dirty water
touch me, feel my feet on the greasy, unclean tiles. I wanted to
turn back, but most of my class were on the steps or queuing behind
me.

Come on
Buckley!

Get in you
poof!

Get in the
water, lad!

It’s your
turn. Get in you queer!

It happened quickly: the
fist on my back; the rush forward with no stopping; the smack of my
face and belly on the cold water. The struggle, the panic, the not
getting to the surface again – that happened gradually, like a film
in slow motion, the sound of voices blurred and muffled.

Eventually, I’m pulled
out and think I’m being saved, being looked after, but I’m not. I’m
being told off.

Pull yourself
together, Scot Buckley. Just a bit of water. Now, get to the back
of the queue.

So, I have to start
again, but I’m the last in and I take it slowly, staying near the
edge. Holding the float I’m given, putting on the orange arm bands,
but I don’t take my foot off the bottom.

Not once.

Not.

Ever.

Years later, at the
swimming pool in town with Justin, I still felt sick and angry
about the incident. Roy Fallick had completely got away with it. At
five, he had a fist as big as his head and it left a big black and
green bruise in the middle of my back, right where he’d walloped
me. He was still at our school, being a bully, using his hands to
hurt people; still getting away with it.

‘We’ll get him one day,’
Justin promised, but he was shit scared too and it just wasn’t
gonna happen.

‘Come on!’ Justin
shouted, resurfacing, and finally I had to face my fear and slip
into the water. ‘I’m going up the deep end!’ he announced, the
minute I was in, my feet still able to touch the bottom. ‘Follow
me!’

All I wanted to ask was
‘how?’ but he swam off and I had to find my own way, wondering just
why I’d come along when it was obvious that the day would end in my
drowning.

I stayed near the edge to
start with, where it was safe, where I felt most secure. If someone
had invented a parka coat you could wear in a pool, that’s what I
needed right then: to protect me, to make me forget all the water
that sloshed around me. I held onto the edge of the pool, where the
water came in and out; the lip. Then I slowly made my way along,
towards where Justin had headed. Holding on, going slowly.
Gradually, the bottom of the pool started to slope away and I went
further below the surface. My shoulders were initially above the
water, then they were just below, and then the water was at my
ears, splashing in my lobes and I could feel it over my chin. I
knew I’d gone deep enough; I was on tiptoes, and the bottom of the
pool came and went. I couldn’t go any further. My fingers were
aching from hanging on.

‘I’m going back,’ I
called to Justin, wondering if anyone was looking or had noticed
me. But it was too busy. And Justin hadn’t even heard
me.

Then the inevitable
happened. Someone pushed into me and my left hand jolted away from
the side. I held on with just my right, but it wasn’t enough and my
fingers lost their grip on the lip at the edge. I slipped around,
my panic making me unsteady. Where was Justin? I couldn’t see him.
But I could feel things – my breath quickening, my senses filling
with alarm, making my heart beat its way through my rib cage. I
tried to move my way back to the shallow part, to where my feet
were firm on the ground, but people got in the way, or I got in
their way. Elbows, arms, hands, feet, even heads knocked against
me. So I was swept back into the middle, deeper. And then I went
right under. Just once, but once was enough. I couldn’t even put my
face under, usually. The water went up my nose, through all my
tubes, and felt like it was burning me all the way. Burning and
drowning at the same time.

‘Scot, you’re alright,’ a
voice suddenly told me. ‘Calm down.’ I couldn’t hear it clearly,
not at first, because of the splashing and screaming sounds coming
from somewhere, echoing against the ceiling that went on forever.
‘Scot, I’ve got you.’ It was Ian’s mate, Russell Dunbar. He’d got
me under the arms and he was looking at me, checking me. I noticed
his arms: big rounded muscles. He was strong, looking after me,
like a proper brother; like Ian. Only, Ian wasn’t there. ‘You wanna
get out, mate?’ he said.

‘What’s going on, Scot?’
Justin was back.

Russell gave
him a quick, dark look and I recalled what he’d said to me earlier;
his warning.
You wanna steer clear of that
one, Scot.

‘You alright then?’
Justin asked, looking at Russell, looking a bit annoyed, like
Russell had intruded or something.

‘Your mate nearly
drowned,’ Russell said, not looking at Justin, but looking at me.
Just me. ‘Maybe you should get out?’

‘He’ll be
fine,’ Justin cut in, and it was clear he didn’t like something,
didn’t like Russell. I was a bit torn. Russell had helped and he
was right, but he was Ian’s friend, not mine; at least he had been
in the past. Justin was
my
friend, even if he had left me, encouraging me
out of my depth.

‘
I’ll be
alright in the shallow end,’ I told Russell and he left me,
swimming off, looking back a couple of times to check I was okay. I
felt a bit of shame, as if suddenly I didn’t deserve his help quite
as much, but I didn’t let it show. In a bit, I noticed him talking
to the lifeguard, and I wondered if he’d told on me, and whether
I’d be asked to leave. But nothing happened, so I guess he had just
told him everything was alright.