The Pimlico Kid

We don’t get much sunshine in Cumberland. When John and I returned from holiday last week, Kirk greeted us with a rare joke, ‘Nice tan, Driscoll brothers, been moonbathing?’ Of course, he’s at his best in the summer, when his hair goes ‘straw blond’. Bastard.

Everyone looks better with a suntan. It makes Rooksy’s dad look like a film star. My dad goes dark brown in summer when working on the building site but because he keeps his vest on, he looks like he’s wearing one even when he isn’t. I’ve been sitting in the sun myself at every opportunity because it’s supposed to shrink spots – and Mum says a tan makes my eyes look bluer.

I pick up my empty Jubbly carton. Punching down over the hole at the corner can get it to burst with a satisfying bang. I place it nonchalantly on the step and bring the side of my fist down hard. It’s my day for missing targets. The blow fails to cover the hole and instead of a small explosion, there’s an embarrassing ‘phut’ as the carton collapses.

‘Ha, he’s farted,’ says Kirk.

My face burns.

‘Billy Driscoll’s farted.’ He’s rolling backwards on the step, forcing himself to laugh.

Sarah smiles. Does she think I have?

‘Don’t be stupid, it was the Jubbly packet, I say.’

‘Wasn’t. You farted, we’ll get the smell in a sec.’

My voice goes sissy-thin. ‘I have not farted.’

‘Pooh, the whiff,’ says Kirk, like some five-year-old.

‘It was the Jubbly packet, I say.’

‘It was a faaaarrrt.’

‘It wasn’t a fart. I don’t fart.’

‘Yes you do.’

Then I say it. ‘No I don’t, I’ve never farted.’

Kirk throws his arms in the air. Sarah’s eyebrows rise. I stand up, desperate to get away.

‘Never farted? Ha! Everyone farts,’ says Kirk.

Embarrassment boils through me but now I can’t help myself. ‘I haven’t.’

‘You’re not only a farter, Billy Driscoll, you’re a liar too.’

It’s true. I’m unravelling in front of them.

‘It was the Jubbly packet,’ says Sarah.

Kirk stops smiling, ‘But he said he’s never farted … liar.’

‘Have you ever heard him?’

Unlike me, Kirk doesn’t lie. ‘Fart? Well, no. But …’

‘How do you know he has then?’

His mouth opens and he looks around for an audience to share his disbelief. ‘But everyone …’

‘You don’t know, Kirk, do you? So stop it.’

Her words cut through the shame roaring in my ears.

‘But …’ He flashes her a furious look and thrusts his face into mine. ‘You bloody liar.’ He storms off.

Although Kirk can be dim, he’s made me look dimmer. I hate him. But not as much as I hate myself for being a lying idiot in front of Sarah.

She gets to her feet. ‘I have to go now … see you at the street party?’

I can’t look at her. ‘Yeah, see you.’

‘The pigeon … it was brave.’

I tingle at hearing ‘brave’. Now I can look at while her ‘brave’ competes with the other voice in my head screaming ‘liar’.

‘Thanks. Look, sometimes I say … want to say things that don’t come out like they should …’ She stops me with a shake of her head.

‘I hope you win the race.’ She touches my arm with Jubbly-cold fingers. Guinevere is tying her favour to my lance before I go jousting with Sir Bad Knight.

‘Thanks Sarah, yes, see you there.’

She walks away, pushing a hand through her hair and revealing the back of her neck. I wonder, again, if it’s normal to find this so exciting. I watch her until she reaches her doorstep half way down the street. She turns and gives me a wave, and goes indoors before she can see mine.

Beach Magic and Sunray Stories

I sit down again on the Big Step and squeeze my palms into my eyes. Why not be like Kirk and simply say what comes into my bloody head? Being dull has to be better than being a liar.

I don’t often get caught out lying because I rarely tell complete lies. At a hint of doubt in someone’s face, I can adjust smoothly back towards the truth. I fib because in that second before speaking, there’s enough time to make things funnier, smarter – and I can’t resist. However, my ‘improved’ versions are often pathetic. Melty hot?

It’s when I’m scared or ashamed that I lose control. ‘Never farted’? For God’s sake! While I can laugh when others talk of bodily functions, I can’t bear it if it has anything to do with me. This goes back to when I was four years old. I was at sanatorium on the Kent coast: a ‘fresh-air haven’ for the chesty kids of smoggy London.

My stay began badly. On the first morning, the nurse stood me on the bed to pee into the wide-necked bottle. When she thought I’d finished, she took the bottle away. But there was more and my arc of pee splashed on to the floor. ‘Billy!’ she screamed and lunged forward to field the waning stream. Startled, I swung round, spattering her white apron and dribbling over the blankets. She stretched again to get the bottle between my legs but slipped to her knees on the wet floor. The bottle flew from her hand and spun along the ward, sprinkling left and right. The other kids scrambled to the ends of their beds to cheer its progress.

I was frozen with shame until I had to jump, two-footed like Spartacus in the gladiator school, above the nurse’s slap at my legs. Before she could aim a second swipe, sister arrived, scrubbed arms on hips.

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