Gotcha

Week 1: 15-21st March 1982

VINCE

Hello mum this is Vincent. Ive started adult literasy classes. Im 20 now but I decided to go back to school 3 evenings a week. Before you left you told me to work hard and allways do what my teachers say. Well Miss Saffron Snow is my teacher and she says its a good thing to keep a dairy. She says if I rite every day I will get better.

This dairy is for you mum because I can rite to you without you telling me to shut up or to stop stammering like a idiot. I asked Miss Snow how much we have to rite and she said as much as we can to practice what we lern in class. Today Im practicing my paragrafs. We did them this week.

They dont usually let you start in the middle of the year but they have said any one can join because the college dont have much money and it needs new students. Miss Snow says its because the goverment has cut the budgie.

My boss is mr Johnson and it was him that said I should go to classes. I said I can rite fine but he said its not my falt I had to change schools a lot as a boy. He says he nows Im not stupid but I need better english.. He says if I rite better I could become a storeman proper and not be a gofer dogsbody round the factry all my life. Mr Johnson was the man who helped me get this bedsit.

Miss Snow smells like she has just got out the shower and she smiles alot. She likes to spray the room with air fresher. I was watching her hair today. It is very blond. It never moves. Its like a big wite candy floss. Even when she bends over some ones work it dont move. I was doing some riting exersizes but really I was thinking about if she will get marryed. But I suppose her husband would want his super just when she has to teach in the evening. I think shed make a nice mother. Im to old to adopt now but it would be nice to have a home to visit where I am well come. I dont go back to any of the foster familys. Shed be strict but shed never let you down. Not like some people.


SAFFRON SNOW

Saffron Snow imagines herself singing a duet with Stevie Wonder as she turns down Ebony and Ivory on the kitchen radio. She drops a couple of Sweetex into her decaffeinated coffee, gives it a stir, then moves through to the hall. She reminds herself she must buy some more paint to redecorate at Easter. The last time was just after she kicked Steven out. Has she really been on her own that long? She picks up the telephone which she balances under her chin and speaks to her own reflection in the white framed mirror opposite. ‘Why not? Don’t condemn me when men have been doing it for centuries. Some of them married to faithful wives as well.’ She looks away and smoothes her skirt over her flat stomach. Not bad for a woman nearer forty than thirty.

She doesn’t ring him often enough to remember the number, so she flicks through the green and gold address book. She dials, waits and then speaks. ‘Greg? It’s Saff.’ Her pulse always races a touch at her own audacity.

‘Saff! I was just wondering if you’d ring. It’s been a while now.’

She takes a sip of coffee, then puts her hand to her hair before continuing. ‘You know I always ring sooner or later. Listen, why not come round tonight? For dinner. It’s been too long.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Yes. It’s either prepare dinner for you or drive down to Greenham Common to show my support.’

‘The air base protest?’

‘You can do your bit for the nuclear armament by keeping me away.’

‘You’d hate all the mud and there’s not a shower within miles.’ She remains silent. ‘Are you telling me you’re serious?’

‘Never more so.’

‘Looks like I’ll have to save you from yourself.’

‘Is that management speak for yes?'

‘What time do you want me?’

‘We eat at eight. Wanting you or not depends on whether you like my cooking.’

‘What am I’m getting?’

‘Coq au vin.’

She puts down the phone slowly, his laughter fading to a gentle click. Then she gives herself a wink. Women are allowed to be fickle, aren’t they? And anyway, with his nocturnal stamina she can ignore his crap politics.

VINCE

There is no class today but I have been trying to read a news paper. Its called the Times but I dont under stand it all. Tomorrow I will by one with more pichers. Miss Snow says she wants us to read a newspaper every day. I told her I rember everything I hear but when I read it goes in one ear and out the other. She said all the more reason to read and rite every day.

At the weekends the men that live in this house go to the pub alot and some of the women have children that make a lot of noise when they run up and down the stairs and the landing. There are 4 rooms on my floor and I share the bath room with Sinthia and her little boy Eddy and to men. The men dont use the bath room much. I think that they must pee in the sinks in their rooms.

Today has gone quickly becose I have been thinking about what to rite in this dairy. I rember one of my foster mothers that always wanted to help me with my home work. She was okay and she would talk to me and help me with my riting. Time went quickly when I was with her. I had a nice room as well. All to myself like now. They are the only times I have slept on my own. I like it that you do not have to worry that some one will see you undressing. It wasnt that womans falt that her husband came to my room one time when I had no trousers on. Im glad I told him to live me alone. I started shouting. I will never forget his face when she came and said oh no please not again Bill.



CYNTHIA

She has left Eddy on his own, but she treads slowly up the dark stairs from the phone, her arms crossed across her chest and her shoulders bent. She pulls a packet of Silk Cut and matches from her red cardie pocket. When she reaches the landing she flicks her blond hair off her eyes, lights up and blows the smoke hard into the gloomy stairwell. Her foot kicks at the frayed carpet that she just knows Eddy will trip over one day.

When a muffled crash comes from her room, it feels as if he’s reading her thoughts. The little beggar must have finished his Ribena and thrown something. More mess. More work for no money.

She hears the tap running in the bathroom. Vince has left the door to his bed-sit open and Eddy goes quiet again behind her own door. She treads carefully across the landing and stands between the bathroom and the room where Vince spends so much time alone. They’re the same age. Why do they hardly talk?

She takes a drag of her cigarette and peers round his door. It’s like the room where her grandfather died in the seamen’s mission; dull wooden furniture, a grubby armchair, chipped ochre paint on the walls, the telly perched on a rickety shelf opposite the single divan bed and a small sink with a white tiled splash back. The only differences are the cooking rings and the collage of photographs that cover the wall by Vince’s bed. Most are black and white.

The bathroom door opens quietly behind her. She turns. He’s tucking his unbuttoned checked shirt into his Wrangler jeans, barefoot. His hair is a mess and she sees how weedy his chest is. His eyes seem to chuckle at the sight of her, but when she speaks he steps back. ‘Hi, Vince.’

‘W-What’s wrong?’ He scrapes the words from his throat like limpets from an old hull.

‘Nothing. I just thought I’d say hello.’

They stand by his open door. He speaks through a haze of embarrassment that envelops them both. ‘Is something wrong w-with my room?’

‘No, Vince. Like I said. I just thought I’d say hello.’

‘Where’s Eddy?’

‘I’ve left him a moment.’

‘To s-speak to me?’

‘No. I was… Yes. What does it matter? Look, forget it Vince. It was a bad idea. I’d better check Eddy. Okay?’

‘You can come in if you want.’

When he moved in a month before she thought he was quite good looking in a dark, gypsy sort of way. Now, she can’t see past the child, the kind who doesn’t laugh when tickled. Too far advanced to retreat, she goes in. ‘Been reading the news, have you?’ The newspaper is spread out over the bed.’ They are standing in the centre of the cramped room where the air is fuggy.

‘News of the World. It’s not really about the news. Its about people being stupid.’

Cynthia laughs. ‘Is that right?’

‘The only story not about … you know … is about the Falkland Islands.’

‘You what?’

‘The Falkland Islands.’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘They must be in a union.’

‘What? The islands?’

‘No. The Argentinean w-workers that have landed there.’

‘I don’t understand Vince. What union? What workers?

‘The ones on South Georgia. Mrs Thatcher is sending a boat called Endurance to make them go away.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t s-say, but they are w-w-workers and Mrs Thatcher doesn’t like them so they must be in a union.’

Cynthia scans the photographs on the wall. They are from wars around the world. ‘I think you should read it again a bit more carefully. It sounds like you’ve missed something.’ She fills her lungs with smoke. ‘Why’d you want war pictures on your wall?’

He doesn’t reply.

She looks around the room again. He has been writing in a notebook. Before she can speak he says, ‘I’m doing my English homew-w-ork for Miss Snow. She’s my evening school teacher. That’s Snow with a capital S.’

‘Can I see? One day I’ll have to help Eddy with his homework.’ She moves towards his table.

‘It’s private.’ He moves between her and the diary.

‘Fine. I’d better get back to Eddy anyway. He’s probably wrecked the place by now.’

‘Don’t ever leave him.’

‘Don’t say that, Vince. I don’t leave him on his tod. It’s only for a moment.’

‘I mean. Don’t go a-w-way and leave him behind.’

‘What? Piss off on my own?’

‘Yes.’

An absurd image of Eddy as an evacuee in one of his pictures comes to her. It releases a small charge of panic. ‘Why the hell d’you say that?’ But he is no longer listening; a thought has stolen the life from his eyes. She is calm again. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t, but I could do with a break now and then.’ He looks at her for a second but his flickering interest fades like her telly when the meter runs out.

VINCE

I have had a visitor and now I cant think what to rite. I kept looking at a picher on my wall of Vietnam. There is a little girl that has lost her clothes and is crying a lot. She is running away from some thing that has burnt her. She is looking for someone to stop her pane. Maybe I should change my pichers and put up some nice ones. I could cut out some from the News of the World. My neghbour asked me why I like the war pichers. I dont now. I keep thinking about the people in them and I make up storys about them. In my storys they dont have to fight or feel pane. I am thinking that the little girl in
Vietnam is picked up in a blanket by a nurs that is quite old. She looks after the girl and makes her better. The nurse nows how to make special herbs and she makes the girls skin good again. The girl grows up but she never forgets the nurse. When the nurse dies the girl puts flowers on her grave every sunday to thank her.


SAFFRON SNOW

What is he doing in her kitchen, looking good in last night’s clothes, reading her newspaper? His well-cut hair is swept off his face, his double breasted jacket is unbuttoned and his shirt, open at the neck, looks freshly ironed. She notices a new watch. ‘Coffee?’

‘Black for me.’ His blue-green eyes look up at her with boyish innocence. ‘I’d have made it myself if I’d known my way round your kitchen.’

‘You had no trouble finding my paper.’ Saffron hunts for the coffee bags she keeps for guests at the back of the cupboard by the window. She finds them and rests her hands on the edge of the cream coloured Formica worktop. She breathes deeply to calm her irritation. Outside it is overcast. She was woken up by a downpour. The plants in her small garden droop under the weight of the rain that continues to drip from their leaves. ‘I ‘m wondering if this is wise.’

‘Huh? What can possibly be wrong with it?’ He speaks as he reads.

‘Nothing, I suppose.’

He looks up. ‘Saff, I didn’t force my way in here. You invited me. Remember?’

‘I know, Greg. I needed you last night.’

‘But this morning you’re not so sure?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So it’s wham bang, thank you, man?’ He returns to the paper.

‘Would you leave after your coffee? I want my Sunday to myself. I have to prepare my classes.’ She pulls her pale blue dressing gown tight and runs her fingers through her fine hair that she knows has lost all shape.

He looks up. ‘I’d forgotten you have the vital task of educating no hopers like Vincent. To be honest, I don’t know why I ever took him on. It’s not as if the factory would grind to a halt without him.’

He can be so bloody arrogant. Why is the kettle so slow to boil? ‘Anything interesting in my paper?’

‘It seems I’m a yuppie.’

‘A what?’

‘A young urban professional.’

She makes a show of clearing the sleep from her eyes and speaks from behind her hand. ‘Is there anything that is not about you in my paper?’

He closes it, folds it and puts it down on the small table. ‘The Argies seem to be getting serious about the Falklands. Thatcher has a problem there.’

The kettle finally boils. Saffron turns her back to pour the water into the CND mug she has chosen especially for him. She speaks over her shoulder. ‘Thatcher herself is a problem. Thank goodness she’ll be gone next year.’

‘Don’t you be so sure.’ She turns to face him and holds out the mug. She can see he is serious now. He takes the coffee.

She leans back against the worktop and folds her arms. Her words fall like cold raindrops from the wet leaves in her garden. ‘Is that wishful thinking?’

He takes a noisy sip of his coffee, winces, then swallows the scalding drink. ‘I just don’t think she’ll go without a fight.’

‘Meaning?’

She glares at him but he speaks calmly. ‘The Falklands might be what she’s looking for. Nothing like winning a small war to get yourself re-elected.’ He looks down into the mug.

‘You’re not serious? Violence solves nothing. It’s just a way of imposing your will on someone else.’

He looks up. ‘Exactly. That’s what politics is all about. Thatcher’s Falklands politics or…’ he pauses, ‘…your sexual politics.’

Her indignation looks for escape; her eyes widen and her shoulders pull back. He puts the unfinished coffee down and stands. He is tall and fills the kitchen. ‘I think I should go.’ He walks through to the hall ahead of her and takes his coat from the peg. As he puts it on he says, ‘But don’t worry Saff, I’m a willing victim of your tyranny.’ He bends to kiss her but she pulls away. How dare he? He shrugs, self assurance in every movement, a glance in the mirror before opening the door to leave.


VINCE

Miss Snow gave me a spelling book last week. She said its what I have to improof most. I have opened it today for the first time. The truth is that I didnt like it that she gave me a spelling book and not Wayne or Ronnie or the others. Some of it is baby stuff and doing it.makes me fill stupid like I allways did at school. Any way I have done some exercises and I have learned some rules. As well she told me to get myself a dickshonary so I can look up words that I need. I have The Pocket Oxford Dictionary. (I just copyed that!) but I don’t see how you could keep it in your pocket becose its quiet big.

The dictionary is making me go bonkers a.sl. crazy. [orig. unkn.]. I wanted to find becose becose Im not sure how to spell it. So I go to becose and its not there. I try beckose and its not there as well. Then, becose Ive been learning about sounds in my spelling book I try to imagine a posh person saying becose. I can here Prince Charels saying becquorze but its still not there. So how am I supposed to find what I want? I hope these classes were a good idea but Mr Johnson allways says that any thing wurth doing is wurth doing well. Wurth. Thats an other word that’s impossible to find becose no words begin with wu…. But, wile I was looking I noticed that you spell writing with a w so at lest Ive learned some thing today.


WAYNE

Wayne shoves the back door open and pushes into the poky kitchen. His gran is out but she’s forgot to take her friggin’ smell with her. He tries not to breathe as he unlaces his work boots and kicks them into the corner. The breakfast dripping has congealed white in the blackened pan and she’s left the last of the tinned salmon for the poxy cat. He pulls a fag from his overall pocket and grabs a match from the plate warmer above the gas stove. As he lights up he looks down into a scummy pan. She’s been boiling her huge kecks. Tomorrow they’ll be flying like white flags in the back yard. If he was incontinent, he’d shoot himself, not surrender.

He swaggers through the back room into the cramped hall kicking the pouffe as he passes. Plastic flowers on every surface. If they were real, the place wouldn’t smell like a slag’s armpit.

But who cares? It’s the fuckin’ weekend!

He hurries up the stairs and shoulders open his bedroom door. He bounces in, jerking his head in homage to Sid Vicious who looks at him from the wall opposite. He blows smoke at the poster while kicking the amplifier switch with his toe that shows through his red socks. He pulls the new XTC shit off the turntable. Why are all the bands selling out? They just want loadsa money like those wankers up the West End. He pulls out one
of the few albums worth killing for and puts on the well scratched fifth track. He staggers round the room pulling off his work clothes, shouting out the words from behind his cigarette ‘…God save the queen her fascist regime ...’

He reaches the landing in his Y- fronts and vest, surrounded by floral wall paper. He’s singing ‘.. no future, no future ..’ when her head appears below him. She lumbers up the last stairs and finally stands between him and the bathroom. She’s panting, her shiny cheeks drained of blood like raw tripe. He’s told her before she’s mad to have a Margaret Thatcher hairdo, but you don’t take the piss when she’s in a strop.

He laughs to himself that she’s like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Before she speaks her eyes roll upwards and her wooden jaw drops. She pants between each phrase. Her false teeth click. ‘It starts in half an hour. No class, no car. Take it or leave it, Wayne.’ She has the keys to her Ford Cortina in her hand.

He protests with his body, but he knows for all her pissing in her pants, her swollen legs and her snoring in the chair, she’s a tough old bird. Tough enough to get him back for not joining the navy like his brother Jimmy. Sod it. As he swaggers past her to get washed he sings ‘…We’re the future, your future …’ He takes the keys on the way because he’ll have the last word. She can send him to evening classes, but she can’t make him learn, not from that blonde bint.


VINCE

I counted 13 people in class today. I sit at the front next to Wayne. He is my age and we are the youngest. He has an army jacket and black punk t shirt. He is very short. When Miss Snow came in to start the class he said well hello dolly really cheeky like. Then he looked at me and laghed. I said whats funny? Then he said dolly pardon. I said pardon what? He said no the singer. I said what singer? He said the one who sings that song 9 to 5. I said why does she sing about numbers? He pulled a face and said no I mean the cuntry singer. Miss Snow is like the cuntry singer Dolly Pardon. I said so
you like cuntry music do you? He said no its shit. That’s when Miss Snow told us to shut up. Thank you Miss Snow becose Wayne dont get my jokes.

Tonite we did full stops, questions and exclamations. Easy peesy! But I rembered about full stops from one of my schools. I showed off a bit by saying how I now that you use them when you rich the end of a sentence. She said yes! But how do you now when youve riched the end of a sentence? So I said its when you take a deep breth. Wayne laghed but Miss snow gave him a long hard look and said I was correct! She said it kind of cor (really quick) then r-e-c-t (really slow). Usually when he is cheeky Miss Snow just gives him a look like she is bord but this time she sprayed him with air fresher to shut him up. I dug him with my elbow.

He didn’t like what Miss Snow did so later he turned to the rest of the class and said you lot are stupid you lot are dead you aint got fuck all in your head. Ronnie looked like she didnt think it was funny. Ronnie is a big woman with short hair what sits on her own at the back and don’t speak much.

Wayne says rap is a new kind of music but he only likes it becose the Clash think its okay. When Miss Snow told us to pack up I said to Wayne you are clever you are the best in the class but I am the best ever smart arse. I thought he would like my rap but he looked at me a long time like I was a alien then he just shock his head and walked away. I dont care what he thinks I am the full stop king!

I saw the film of alien last year. I didnt like it very much. The alien came out of the mans body.


RONNIE

Ronnie lights her second roll up while she waits. It’s gone dark quickly since she came out of class. She pulls her anorak round her gut which pushes out from her food splattered jumper. She toys with the cigarette, knowing the stains on her fingers are getting worse. She puts it to her mouth and drags hard. As she scratches her armpit she glances back at the Adult Institute to see if the punk and his mate are still around. No chance. Buggered off to insult someone else.

She studies the decaying Victorian building. It was her primary school thirty years ago. Here she is, still learning to read and write in the same place. Once upon a time Miss Snow’s classroom was the school punishment room. She spent too long in it before, and she’s spending too long in it now.

Darcy’s red Hillman Hunter pulls up. The front bumper is still held on with string. Ronnie slumps into the passenger seat but ignores her friend, a black who’s white. He’s albino. If he was a real black, how would they be friends? Going up through the noisy gears Darcy says, ‘Well?’

Ronnie turns. ‘Well what?’

‘Well how was it?’ He still has his Jamaican accent. His voice is soft, the vowels tease as he speaks.

Ronnie thaws. ‘It’s the same as ever.’

‘But something’s bugging you. You thinking of giving up?’

‘No. I’ll crack it this time.’

‘That leftie teacher?’

‘It’s a cocky kid. He’s too cheeky. Needs a good smacking. His mate too. He’s on another planet, but he gets on my tits.’

Darcy concentrates on his driving until he pulls up outside the tower block. He switches off the engine. Ronnie listens to cars on the road behind them. Darcy reaches over and touches her shoulder. ‘If it’s a smacking he needs, it’s a smacking he’ll get. You just have to say the word. You know that.’

His profile is West Indian but his skin glows pale in the half light. His head is shaved of the tight white curls that Ronnie once thought were dyed. His skin looks greased with flake white paint. She’ll kill anyone that says a word against him. He’s a prince.


VINCE

Mr Johnson likes history and he told every body at lunch today that Britain dont want the Falklands and so there wont be no problem with Argentina. He said there was a UN solution that told Britain and Argentina to talk about the Falklands and that Britain did not want to keep them any way. He said that the only reason we have not given the Falklands to Argentina is becose Argentina is run by a army dicktator. Carlos is from Argentina. When Mr Johnson started talking he kept looking into his food.

I talked to Carlos later and asked him about the Falklands. He just looked at me and said do you think West Ham will win on saturday? I said I thought you liked rugby? He said I do but I thought you liked football. I said I do. Then I said it sounds like were getting marryed. He looked confused so I said you now, both of us saying I do. He still didnt get it so I said we are playing Notts Forest at home so we should win if Brooking and Lampard play well. He said West Ham should buy a player called Madona who plays for Boka Juniers. He said Argentina will win the world cup because they have Madona to score all the goals. I told him it’s a good thing we arent getting marryed becose we would argew a lot about things like that. I thought he would lagh but he said he had lodes of work to do and he was sure I was busy to. Later I bort the Sun to try and read more about Argentina but I stopped after 3 pages.

I bet Carlos is hard when he plays rugby. Hes not tall but he looks strong and he allways looks like hes angry. He told me once that his girl friend is caled Maria. Shes from Argentina to.


MARIA

There is no reason to feel so nervous. It’s nothing compared to crossing into Brasil at night, but the same worms of anxiety rummage in her stomach. The woman behind the hatch takes her registration form, flattens it on the scratched wooden shelf that separates them and reads it slowly. She looks at Maria over gold rimmed glasses then goes back to the application.

Maria knows weak people give themselves authority wherever they are; this woman who takes her time, the dustman who shouts at her for not putting the rubbish out on Thursdays, or the Generals who arrested her sister.

‘404 has a waiting list.’ The woman does not look up.

‘Excuse me? I no understand.’

She pushes the registration form back to Maria. ‘404 is full. English for Foreigners is
full.’

‘No place?’

‘No place. Too many others got here first.’

Maria fumbles for the list of courses in the leather shoulder bag that crossed a continent with her. She spreads it out on the shelf. It is her turn to take her time. The woman drums her fingers on the old wood between them. ‘What is 409 Adult Lit-er-a-cy III?’

‘It’s what it says, my dear. It’s reading and writing for adults.’

‘Why III?’

‘It’s not just ABC, it’s for them what knows the basics.’

‘So it help my English?’

‘My job is to process the forms. You’ll have to see the Course Coordinator to get further details. So you’ll come back later, will you?’

‘One question please. Is that the class of Vince? He know my boyfriend.’

‘I’m sorry dearie, believe it or not, I’ve got work to do.’

‘I try it. Please to put me for 409.’ The woman snatches up the form and scribbles in the new course number. Maria flicks back her long dark hair and buttons up her denim jacket. Before leaving she flashes the smile that she knows can fill men with desire and women with loathing. ‘Thank you,’ she says as sweetly as she dare.


SAFFRON SNOW

Saffron Snow is surprised to find Ronnie waiting for the class to begin. She is ten minutes early, hunched over the open Daily Mirror on her desk. Saffron wonders if she ever removes her dirty blue anorak at home. She certainly never does in class. At least she is reading, mouthing the words to herself as she runs her finger across the page.

Saffron gets out the worksheets she has just run off on the Banda machine in the staffroom. The pink spirit still smells sharply of alcohol. She knows that when she gives the copies out Wayne will put it to his nose to inhale it.

The room on the second floor is quiet. It’s the silence of a wilderness. The old building is well insulated and there is no one in the corridor. Inside the tatty classroom, only Ronnie’s sniffing and her own shuffling shake the stillness. The yellow walls are chipped where the white undercoat shows through. Along the side of the cramped room dirty windows give onto the corridor above her head. She’s known smarter British Rail waiting rooms. The adult desks are wooden relics from a boys’ secondary modern that made way for a comprehensive. Names are carved into their solid oak surfaces. She glances around the room to check no one has returned the one she locked away in her small storeroom. She tries in vain not to conjure the large letters gouged into the old wooden top. SV 4 SS. Without thinking she reaches for the air freshener she keeps on the shelf behind her desk. A pinch of nausea rises from her stomach as she sprays. How can he have that effect on her after all these years? Will she ever be rid of him?

Ronnie looks up. Her bloodhound eyes unnerve Saffron who can’t read her student’s feelings. Does she think she was spraying because of her?

Ronnie closes the paper and sits back in the chair that is too small for her large frame. ‘Don’t it make you proud?’ she says.

‘What, Ronnie?’ Saffron touches the hair she had done earlier in the afternoon.

‘That ship.’

‘What ship?’

She opens the paper again and scans the text. ‘The En-dur-ance.’

‘The one going to the Falklands?’

‘It’s fighting a force ten storm to get there. It’s not going to let them Argies push us around.’

‘Let’s hope it all comes to nothing. That way no one will get hurt, eh?’

‘They started it. They deserve what they get.’ Before Saffron can reply the door swings open and Vince walks in. Ronnie makes a point of ignoring him by reading the paper again.

In the hairdressers the talk was of Dynasty and Dallas and whether Saffron Snow should have a Linda Evans hairstyle. What a contrast to Ronnie who probably crops her own hair, wears no bra under her grubby tee shirt and who frequently wipes her hands on her large stomach.

Miss Snow finishes getting ready while the other students arrive. She counts a dozen. Two missing. Some have tired faces from work. Others are chatting having dressed up a bit, the class the high point of their day.

She turns to start when the door is kicked open and Wayne swaggers in. He pauses before moving towards his place next to Vince. As he squeezes behind Ronnie he gives her a sharp slap on the back, bends close to her ear and says ‘Hi Ron!’ Ronnie slowly folds up her paper and stares towards Miss Snow. Then she turns to watch Wayne sit down like a bored executioner in search of work. Miss Snow shudders. Then the threat is gone like yesterday’s pain.

Just the new girl is missing.


VINCE


A new girl came to our class today so I suppose it will make the college budgie a bit better. She arrived late and everyone looked at her. Shes called Miss Gonzalez. Miss Snow put her name on the bord. Miss Snow says her name like it is written but Miss Gonzalez says it diffrent. How can you say your own name diffrent to how you spell it? I told Wayne no wonder she needs english lessons! She says Gon-sal-es! I had a bit of a lagh after the class getting her to teach me how to say it her way. You have to say S and not Z. Shes from Argentina and her boyfriend is Carlos that works with me at the factry. He speaks better English than her.

Shes not very tall but shes pretty with dark hare and she speaks so soft you have to get near to listen. I heard Wayne call her garlic breth which is not very nice specially as his trainers smell like drains.

We did comas, and spelling, today. For spelling we did silent letters like w, g and k. Now I know that know, not now, has a silent k! We did how you use comas in lists, but not the last in the list. I sometimes have to say lists at work for Mr Johnson. Miss Snow said to me to sit next to Miss Gonzalez to help her. Wayne said, good, bugger off, what do I care? Im not sure how much I helped her, because it was hard. (I found bugger in the dictionary! The F word is there as well.)

Miss Snow asked me what kind of breth you take when you need a coma, but I couldnt think. I heard Wayne say garlic breth. We had this exercise, but no one could do it, so we did it together, out lowd, seeing were we take breths. I think I could have understood it, but Wayne got silly, brething deeply, and pretending that he was getting exited. Miss Snow gave him one of her Ill kill you if you carry on looks, but it was to late. I lost my consentration and I started to try to get a bit closer to Miss Gonzalez to see if she smelt of garlic. I knew she wouldnt, but she has nice lips. Lucky Carlos!

Because Miss Gonzalez speaks so low, I started wispering to her. At the end of the class I was pleased but I didnt know why. I wanted to talk to her some more but she went of quickly. I kept thinking what was it that has changed? Then I rembered that I hadnt stammered. Wispering to her I didnt stammer. I was so happy I went to talk to Wayne but he didnt want to talk to me very much. He said that he wanted to get home to listen to the Clash. I said clash bang wallop. He said what? I said the Clash. Clash bang … you know … Im just trying to be funny. He said its not funny you fuckiing wanker. Dont you know londons calling? I said is it? He said no but it will be if you dont shut up. Its a song. Londons Calling is a great song. Okay I said. Maybe Ill hear it on the radio.

I know that song but Im not going to say so when he dont get my jokes.


VINCE


I hope you are happy with your man but I hop I dont have any brothers or sisters. If I do I will never forgive you.

I am tried after work. I opened my door to tell Eddy to shut up tonite. I didnt know that Sinthia was there as well. I started talking to her. I said you can come in if you want but Eddy is not aloud. He will brake something. She came in and said my room is okay but she is happy at the back of the building where there is less noise. I said Eddy makes more noise than the cars and she didnt like that.

She was angry about what I said about Eddy but she still got on my chair to fix the curtains properly and said I should make the bed in the mornings. She said it in a hard way but I know she was being kind. She was waring a short skirt as always. When she stood on the chair you could see her legs. She gave me a funny look when she got down. She said tut tut Vince. You know when she is a bit angry because she pulls her jumper down and then pushes the hair of her eyes. Ive seen her do that when Eddy throws something. Her hair is yellow blond but not whit blond like Miss Snow.

Then she looked at my war pitchers. She said we shouldnt complain should we? I was looking at the pitcher of the young boy with his suitcase and a label round his neck. He was an evaquee in the 2 nd world war from the East End. He must have lived close to here. I keep thinking that if he is still alive he will be much older now.

She said the pitchers was the only things in the room that was personal. I said that I had personal things in the chest of drawers like my underware. She gets my jokes because she laghed. She said she meant the only thing that told her any thing about me was my war pitchers. I said how can a room tell you anything about me? You would have to talk to me to know about my life. She said she meant something like photos of me or records I liked or books or something. Then she said so what do I do all the time in your room alone? I said I listen to my radio and watch the telly. Then she said no one ever visits
me and I never use the phone in the hall down stairs. I said how do you know? She said I just know. Then she took out her cigaretes. She smokes a lot.

She sat down on the side of my bed and told me to sit in my own chair. Then she told me to find her an astray. I gave her the foil from a Mr Kipling pie. I like the apple ones. She put her elbows on her knees and looked at me like very serious and said what happened Vince? She had the cigarete in one hand and the Mr Kipling foil in the other. I knew what she was talking about but I said when? She said, what happened to your family? I couldnt tell her what you did so I said I was an evaquee. She laghed. I didnt like that. She said how can you be an evaquee when the war finished years before you was born? I said its the same. I was a boy sent to other families to grow up. She said so what happened to your parents? I said I never had a father. She waited for me to say about you. I wanted to speak but I couldnt do it. She was smoking her cigarete but her hand touched mine. That is when I said my mother left me. I wispered so I wouldnt stammer. Then there was silence but I kept hearing my words like they was still in the air. She touched my hand again and said you must have been in a bad situasion to live me. I told her what you said in the only letter you ever ever sent me. You said you had to chose between a man with a job or a boy you couldnt feed. The man was that bloke you met and the boy was me. Sinthia said she would not live Eddy for a man with money. She would give up smoking and take Eddy with her. I wanted to tell her that Eddy is not stupid and doesnt stammer, but I didnt because he came in the door and climed onto my bed next to his mother. She gave him a big kiss.


VINCE

Miss Gonzalez wears jeans and she has a denim jacket that is buttoned up. It must be difficult to do because she has big whatsits. She said I should call her Maria. She said it just loud enough for me to here. Then I think she said she wished she was in the other class with all the foregners. I wispered to her, not to worry, I like her name, and I would help her with the comas because Im the full stop king. Then I told her that I felt like a foeregner most of the time because I stammer.

(I found BECAUSE in the dictionary. I had to look thrugh all the b words and then I nearly mist it.)

Before the comas we did how you can use smilies to describe something if you use the word LIKE or AS. When we had to do our own smilies, Wayne said that listning to the Jam was like honey in his ears. Miss Snow said it was a good try but not quiet right. He said why aint it right? She said because you dont put honey in your ears. He said it was a smilie because he used the word LIKE and he was saying one thing is LIKE the other. He said the music is nice and sweet and smiled in a creepy way. Then he said any way you can put honey in your ears if you want. Miss Snow said please dont be ridiculus
Wayne. So he said he dont put butter up his arse but in that film Last Tango in Paris they did it.

I knew trouble was coming because she put her hands on her hips like jug handels. I didnt want them to shout at each other so I said what about saying your hair is as white as snow? Miss Snow said, that is nearly right Vince, but can you think of some thing else that is white and not snow, because it is not very original. So I started saying your hair is as white as milk but Wayne waited for the stammer and didnt let me finish. He said in a loud voice your hair is as whit as virgin snow. Then he said, even better, your hair is as whit as a virgin, Miss Snow. She said I think we will move on to comas, but Wayne said, I want to know if it is a smilie or not to say you are like a virgin, Miss Snow? Every one went quite in the room. Miss Snow turned her back to us and picked up the chark. She wrote a strange smilie on the bord that said A WOMAN WITHOUT A MAN IS LIKE A FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE. Then she looked at Wayne as if he had just farted and said nothing for a long time. The silence got louder in the room and Wayne looked a bit gutted.

We did how you use comas in the middle of sentences, to put it in two parts, but only when the two halfs are completly difrent. The thing about the two halfs of the sentence is harder. We had to reed that sentence about women and fish and say if it needed a coma. Maria said it was wrong to say that because women need men. She had to repeat what she said louder, and then Miss Snow said that every one has a right to there own opinion. I said that it needed a coma because you breth, in the middle, after the word man. Then Miss Snow asked Maria what she thoght. Maria said it didnt need a coma, because it is a smilie, and it is saying one thing is the same as the other. Miss Snow said she was right then gave her one of her long, Im changing my mind about you, looks, but Maria was a bit shy.

When I got home I was thinking about Maria. She is very dark. When I looked in the mirror to see what she sees when she looks at me, I saw how I am dark too. Then I rembered when I heard you talking to that man before you went away. You said some thing about the father was a foregner. Maybe I am half from Argentina! But I dont think so, because my last name is the same as your last name and it is very English. But I dont know if my last name is your last name or my fathers last name.

I think I will have a pot noodle before I get confused.

CARLOS

‘¡Joder! No son Las Falklands, son Las Malvinas.’ Carlos flings the newspaper hard onto the table. He looks at María who makes him feel like he is punching air. ‘Say something! Doesn’t it mean anything to you?’

She is lying on the old sofa they have covered with the coloured rug they bought from the Peruvian woman in the Whitechapel Road. Her head is propped on the pillows she has brought down from the bedroom. He knows she is tired after her class, but how can she not be bothered?

She hauls herself up to face him. ‘It’s a provocation. Why can’t we just find peace, eh?’

He cannot stop himself pacing in front of the television they rarely watch. ‘No one hates Galtieri more than me, but this is the one thing that murdering bastard has done right.’

‘Okay, if you say so. Last night it was the rumours of death flights and missing babies. Tonight it’s the Malvinas. And tomorrow?’ She swings her legs awkwardly off the sofa and places her feet on the worn carpet. She looks directly at him. ‘We came here to escape all that. We haven’t had one day without sharing our flat with Galtieri. And now Thatcher has joined us.’

He stops pacing and faces her, his open palms turned upwards. ‘And you don’t talk about your sister and the others that have disappeared?’

‘Only when I get sad. I don’t lay her a place at our table every evening.’

Her eyes moisten but he cannot stop. ‘You can’t be blind to this. They are talking about it at work. They know I’m Argentinean. They are only making comments and laughing right now, but when we retake the islands they will turn on me.’ She looks at him; he knows he has her attention. ‘Thatcher can’t do nothing. It’s too far away for her to fight and America will support us. How will people treat us when they become the Malvinas again?’

She pauses. ‘Is that what the islanders want? To be Argentinean?’

She has the patience and timing of a boxer. He feels the innocence of his own jabs against her punches. ‘That’s not the point. They are illegal settlers.’

‘So Galtieri is going to liberate them from their crimes?’

Damn her! It doesn’t do to be too clever. One day it will get her into trouble. ‘Is that what you think? I expected more support from the woman who says she loves me.’

She picks imaginary dust off her knees as she speaks, her voice almost a whisper. ‘You may own my heart, Carlos, but my head is mine. I refused to let the Generals have it and I won’t surrender it to you now. It’s the only freedom I have. Without it, I am dead.’


VINCE

I got up late today. I like lying in bed trying to sleep as long as I can like a log.

I wanted to read my paper in my room and watch the Generation Game tonite. I wanted to hear Larry say SHUT THAT DOOR! like he does every week but Eddy started playing on the landing and banging on my door with his toy that sounded like a brick. I went out and he was throwing one of those diffrent coloured cubes around. The ones you twist until all the colours are the same on each side. I thught Sinthia is mad! Hes only 2 years old and I cant do that puzzel. Eddy looked at me and picked up the cube. Then he gave it to me. I dont know why but I started wispering to him like I was telling him secrets. I said do you want me to do the puzzel? He came closer so I said it again. He looked at me for a long time then he just nodded. He had a dummy in his mouth. While he was looking at me I saw how much he looks like Sinthia. So I sat down on the floor which is covered with brown lino that looks like dry mud and started to play with the cube. He watched me and then he pushed himself onto my lap. I pulled my arms so they went around the out side of him and did the cube in front of him. His hair is yellow like corn like his mum. All the time he just sat there and watched me so I started wispering what a good boy he is and I didnt stammer not once. If I stopped he looked round at me with his eyes that are as blue as the sea but never saying a word.

When Sinthia opened the door to her room she saw us. I felt stupid so I jumped up and Eddy fell to the floor like a bag of potatos. He started crying and Sinthia said look what you have gone and done. I said what? I was only playing with him. She picked him up and kissed him and said never mind Ed lets have a nice bath eh? It was like I wasnt there all of a sudden.

Then I didnt want to see the Generation Game. That Larry is stupid anyway.


VINCE

Miss Snow told me this week that I am not making enugh effort with my spelling. I said I am but do you know how long it takes to use the dictionary and to keep reading all the rules. Any way, today I am going to write all day and do better.

I bught the News of the World and the Sunday Times as well. The News of the World to read it and the Sunday Times because it has a map of the Falklands. They are a long way away. There is a picture of Mrs Thatcher in the News of the World. I have cut out the map and put it on my wall and I have cut out the picture of Mrs Thatcher. She is looking at the horizon like the captain of a ship. Her hair is wavy like the sea and she looks like you better not argue with her. She has little white ear rings that are like buttons and her mouth is closed tight. The skin under her chin is flabby and makes her look like a cockrel.

You are not like a cockrel, mum. You are like a seal. You were always sitting around at home and when you got out of your television chair you moved like a seal with a cigarete in its mouth. You allways lifted your head to cugh like a seal when it honks. As well, you allways had your shulders a bit bent over and you looked tired when you walked.

I rember that when that man moved in up stairs you started to get dressed in the mornings and put on perfum. At the week ends you would send me to play in the street so you could wait around the door for him to come in. Then you put on that silly girl voice when you spoke to him and your shulders wasnt so bent. You used to stand up straght in front of him to stick out your whatsits.

I was only 9 but I knew that you was shamed of me. You hated me stammering when you was with him. You would do that pathetic lagh and send me in side. It was the only time I was glad I stammered. I didnt want him to become my dad. When you left with him I knew it was my falt for being such a stupid stammerer and for being in the remidial class at school.

Im looking at that boy in the picture with the label round his neck. He is being sent like a parcel to a new family so Hitler cant hurt him. That is not nice for him. I hope he went home all right after the war.

I think that is a good smilie for me. I was like a parcel when you left. Why didnt you tell me you was going? You telephoned the school that day and told them to send me to social services. Then you disapeared. You waited 5 years to write me just 1 letter which you sent to the secondary school I was at. I got told of by the secetary. She said the school was not a messanger service. You sent it from Manchester. I have burnt the letter. When I did that I set fire to my room by accident. I was with my foster family number 6. They was very upset but it was a good excuse to send this parcel to the
hospital.

I hated the hospital but there was two good things. One was we had to talk in this small group about our selves and each other. The doctor didnt mind my stammer. Like I said that I wanted to know why you sent the letter when you did, and why you sent it to the school. The doctor asked if you knew where I was living. I said no. Then he asked, would your mother send the letter to social services? I said, I dont think so. The doctor said, why not? I said because they might not give it to me or they might start looking for her. The doctor said, now go on Vince, speak some more about it.

So I just started and wile I was talking I saw some things more clearly like it would be easy to ring the diffrent schools and ask if I was a pupil. The doctor said, but would the school tell any body who telephoned if you was a pupil or not? I said I dont know but maybe my mother said she was some one else. The doctor said like who? I said, like someone from social services. He said, good Vince. Now why did your mother chose that moment? I said, how do I know? That is when one of the older girls they called Twiggy, who was as thin as a person in a concentrasion camp said, how old was you Vince? I said nearly 14. She said, thats it Vince. You could live school at 14 and after that your mum wouldnt be able to find you so easy.

Then the doctor said, think some more about it Vince. What does that tell you? I said, it tells me that it was my mothers last chance to send me a letter. Then Twiggy said, I dont think that your mum would just wake up one morning and look at the calunder and say, oh look at the date, I must send Vince a letter. So the doctor said, what do you think Vince? I said I dont know, but maybe you was thinking about it for a wile. Then the doctor asked the others what they thught and they all said that you was thinking about me most of the time. Then the doctor said, so how did your mother feel? And we all said you felt gilty for what you did. That was when I couldnt help crying. Twiggy was sitting next to me and she made me stand up and she gave me a big hug. I rember she smelt of that brown soap we used. Only she was so thin I could feel all her bones.

Twiggy was the second good thing at the hospital, but she was very sick in bed and getting thinner when I left.




[End of extract]