Good Clean Fun

by Michael Arditti

Genres: City Life; Literary Fiction; Short Stories

Synopsis

Short stories from the award-winning, bestselling and acclaimed Michael Arditti

'[These stories] simply and elegantly break your heart. They deserve a wide audience, and will create a wiser one' Amanda Craig

Arditti imbues his stories of loneliness, confusion and the uncertainties of sexual neophytes with genuine pathos and . . . humour' The Times

A young boy discovers the ambiguity of adult affection. A camp comedian cracks up on stage. A picture-restorer learns to accept her husband's true nature. A travel agent tastes the mysterious power of the Internet. A honeymoon couple take an unconventional route to love . . .

These stories employ a spectrum of different voices to explore all aspects of experience - friendship, family, misunderstandings, frustrations, griefs and joys. They will appeal not only to the author's loyal readers, but also to a broad new readership for their assured style, humour, compassion and insight.

Release date: April 1, 2004

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 254

Sample

 

UNCLE BRIAN isn’t my proper uncle but I call him it because he’s married to Mum. Dad is married to Jayne but I don’t call her Aunt. Jayne spells her name with a ‘y’. Mum used to laugh at her, but she can’t now she’s married to Uncle Brian because his dad’s got a tattoo. My name’s Joseph but most people call me Joe. Mum calls me Joey, which Dad hates because he thinks I’ll never grow into a man. Uncle Brian calls me Jay, which is the capital letter of Joseph but, when he writes it down, he adds ‘ay’ to make it a word. ‘A jay is my favourite bird,’ he says, ‘just like you’re my favourite boy.’

Here, I’m only called Joe in letters. The Warden and staff call me Pargeter like they’re talking to Dad. The other boys call me Yid, which is a bad word for being Jewish. I’m not Jewish – I’m not anything though Granny taught me the Lord’s Prayer – but, on the first day I was sent here, three of the Intermediates followed me into the toilet and pulled down my pants. ‘Look, he’s a Yid,’ one of them said, ‘he’s had the top chopped off.’

‘It’s more hygienic,’ I said, ‘my dad’s a dentist.’

‘You’ll be all right then,’ another one said and punched me in the mouth.

The only people here who ask what I want to be called are the doctors. ‘Jay,’ I tell them. But, when they ask me why, I don’t say.

They’re always asking something. I used to want to be eighteen so I could stay up all night, but now I want to so I won’t have to answer any more questions. When you’re eighteen, you can say ‘I’d like to speak to my solicitor.’ When you’re eighteen, you can say ‘I reserve the right to stay silent,’ like they do on TV. When you’re nine, you don’t have any choice. My grandpa Pargeter used to give me 50p every time I got ten out of ten in one of his tests. If I got 50p every time I answered all the questions in here, I’d be rich as the Queen. ‘Did your dad ever hit your mum?’ they ask in voices that sound like smiles. ‘No,’ I say, and I know they think I’m lying. But it’s true. They just used to shout – sometimes until it was midnight. ‘You bitch,’ he’d say. ‘You bastard,’ she’d say. But I’m not going to tell tales.

Mum stopped loving Dad when I was four. She told Aunty Janet she sent him packing, but that was a lie because he just piled his clothes straight on the back seat of the car – which is another thing that’s allowed when you’re eighteen. Mum said she did it for us – that’s me and Rose. Rose is my sister: she’s four years older, but she says, since girls grow up quicker than boys, it’s more like eight. Mum said she did it to protect us because, if you live next to waste, you end up becoming contaminated. Rose said that was a lie too and she did it for herself so that she wouldn’t have to share Dad with ‘that woman’. Mum never calls Jayne ‘Jayne’. Sometimes she calls her ‘the slag’, although I was the only one brave enough to call her it to her face. Dad gave me three smacks and drove us home early. At first Mum was cross but, when she found out what happened, she kissed me and called me her ‘knight in shining armour’. I wish I’d been wearing armour on my legs. She said, if Dad smacked me again, I must tell her straightaway so she could report him to the police. I think she was sad when he never did.

Ever since Dad went to live with Jayne, he’s only allowed into our hall – even though half the house belongs to him – and Jayne isn’t allowed on to the doorstep. Mum won’t speak to Jayne. The one time when she saw her in a shop, she turned away like she was a witch and marched us straight out. Rose cried and said that it was embarrassing. But there’s not much chance it’ll happen again because Mum can’t afford to take us to the sort of places where Dad takes Jayne. ‘They’re living it up on our money,’ she says when her friends come round and tell her where they’ve seen them. The thing that upsets Mum most is that Jayne gave up her job as Dad’s hygienist so she could spend the day painting her toenails, when Mum has to go out to work in Aunty Janet’s wine bar. Which is strange because Dad tells us over and over that Mum is bleeding him dry. He gives her money every week. ‘Like pocket money?’ I asked her. And she screamed like she’d stood on a nail. ‘I can see you’re your father’s son all right!’ But you’d think she would have seen that before.

Rose and me weren’t allowed to go to Dad and Jayne’s wedding. I didn’t care because it only happened in an office but Rose cried for weeks because she wanted to wear a special dress. When the day came, Mum stayed in bed with a migraine (which is grown-up for headache), so Rose made us toast for lunch. Mum kept moaning that she was thirty-two and time was running out. It seemed to me like time was going extra slow – especially since she wouldn’t let us watch TV because of her head. But I know about time going quicker for grown-ups. At first when Miss Bevan told us how time was different depending on where you were, I thought she meant like the way you had to put your watch forward when you go to Spain. Then she said it was much more complicated and when we went to big school we’d understand. But I understand already. It’s like when Granny says it seems only last week that it was Christmas when, for me, it’s felt like a whole year. Time starts slowly when you’re young and then gets faster and faster when you’re eighteen until, when you’re really old like Granny, it whizzes by in a flash. But what I don’t understand is why, when I’m older than I’ve ever been before, it’s never gone so slowly as it does in here.

Granny came to stay. I looked forward to it, but Mum said that was because I’ve never had to live with her. She told Mum to pull herself together. She’s allowed to say that because, although Mum’s more than thirty, she’s still her ‘little girl’. Mum shouted at her but she still took notice of what she said. She put on lipstick again – more even than Jayne (though she’d have been furious if I’d said so) – and started going out in the evenings. Rose said it was with her boyfriends, but I said that was stupid because they were far too old. Sometimes, when they came back late from a party, the men had to stay overnight. Rose didn’t like it but I said they were safer. I’d seen on TV how grown-ups shouldn’t drink wine and drive. I felt safer too because I knew that, if burglars came, there’d be a man there to beat them up. Ever since Dad left, I’d lined up all my animals around me on the bed, with Rory at the front because, although he’s the softest material, he’s a lion. It helped, but it wasn’t the same.

Mum met Uncle Brian when he went into the wine bar for some soup. He couldn’t eat anything more because he’s a student. When Dad heard that, he called him ‘one of the great unwashed’, which isn’t fair because Uncle Brian’s always washing. Sometimes he has three showers a day. Mum teases him and asks him what’s so dirty. Granny says it’s because he grew up in the working class. Granny doesn’t like Uncle Brian. When Mum told her she wanted to get married to him, Granny said he was only after her money. Mum said she was a frustrating old bitch. So Granny called a taxi and said she would never set foot in our house again. But she did. Mrs Stevens – who’s Uncle Brian’s mother – was even crosser. She shouted at Mum that she was snatching a cradle. Which didn’t make any sense at all. Then they both shouted at me when they heard me giggling at the door.

The only people who were pleased that Mum and Uncle Brian were getting married were Rose and me – especially me. When Mum’s other friends played with us, it felt like Helen Clarke handing round her crisps because Miss Bevan was watching. When Uncle Brian played with us, it felt like he wanted to. Mum said most men ran a mile from a woman with kids. Uncle Brian said he would run a hundred miles the other way. He said no one would believe somebody his age could have such a grown-up family. So I said we should call him Uncle to make it clear. Mum didn’t agree, but it was three against one. When we were on our own, I asked Uncle Brian who he liked best: Rose or me. He said that he liked us both equal – the way grown-ups always do – but I knew that wasn’t true, or else why didn’t he lift her up on his shoulders and ruffle her hair? He said he understood boys better on account of his five older brothers. I said how I’d always wanted an older brother and he said I was welcome to all of his (although Geoff was ruled out because he was in prison). When he was young, they’d used to pick on him and call him names. Then, when he grew up, they hated him because he went to college. He was the only one who’d bettered himself. ‘Like Joseph in the Bible?’ I said. ‘In a way,’ he said, ‘although at least he was his father’s favourite. My dad used to pick on me too.’

Rose and me went to Mum and Uncle Brian’s wedding, but Mum said it was far too small for Rose to be a bridesmaid: just Rose and me, Granny, Aunty Janet and Mr and Mrs Stevens. After the wedding, we went out to lunch and Mr Stevens, who smells of petrol, rolled up his sleeves and we saw his tattoo. Mum smiled all afternoon, even after Aunty Janet had stopped taking pictures. She was allowed to smile now she was married again. She still lost her temper with Rose and me, but it was a crackly little temper not a big thundery one. Sometimes she lost her temper with Uncle Brian. He used to play jokes on her, like when he switched her toothpaste with a tube of sauce. She said it felt less like having a husband than adopting a kid. Then she dropped her voice to stop me listening and said he should remember how he had married her not Joey. He said he didn’t want me to feel left out. Then she said I wasn’t the one feeling left out. She must have been feeling sorry for Rose.

Uncle Brian said that because I was eight and he was twenty and Mum was thirty-two, he was exactly the same distance from both of us, but we shouldn’t talk about it to her. I said I expected she’d already worked it out because she was wicked at sums. He said he was sure she had but she didn’t like to be reminded of it. I said I didn’t see why, since Dad was even more years older than Jayne. He said it was different when the younger one was a girl. I said everything always was and it wasn’t fair. He asked me what I meant. I said how girls are allowed to wear trousers and skirts but boys can only wear trousers – except for Scottishmen and kilts. Girls are allowed to kiss men and ladies but boys can only kiss ladies.

‘Do you want to kiss me?’ he said, which made me shiver.

‘I just don’t think it’s fair,’ I said.

‘I’ll kiss you if you like,’ he said and, instead of waiting for me to say ‘yes’, he gave me a kiss on my cheek that smacked like in a cartoon. I laughed. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘now who’s for a tickle?’

‘No,’ I screamed and curled up into a ball. ‘It’s not fair. Your fingers are longer, so you always win.’ But he didn’t take any notice and tickled me until I had a stitch and it stopped being funny.

‘Do you want me to give you another kiss?’ he said, like he was offering me a piggyback.

‘All right,’ I said, even though I knew this time I ought to say ‘no’. It wasn’t like he was saying goodnight or thank you or leaving for the airport. It was a grown-up kiss like he did with Mum. It was weird and tasted of tongues.

‘Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ he said. ‘It’ll be our secret.’

‘I promise,’ I said. I’d never had a secret before – at least not one I’d shared with someone else. It was the secret I wanted to share with him, much more than the kiss.

In the summer, Mum took us all on holiday (it was abroad, even though it was called Brittany). At first, she was just going to take Uncle Brian to celebrate because he was twenty-one and had finished his exams, but he said he would rather take us and she had to say ‘yes’, because it showed we were a family. He made all the bookings through a man on his hotel course but, when we arrived, we found that there’d been a mess-up. We’d been given one single room and one double and all the others were full. Rose sat down on her suitcase in the middle of the hall and said there was no way she was going to sleep in the same bed as me. I thought it would be fun, but she said that in any civilised country it would be against the law and, if they tried to force her, she would sleep on the beach. I thought that would be fun too. But no one was interested what I thought. Uncle Brian suggested that, for the sake of peace, Rose and Mum should have the double room and he would sleep in the single one with me. ‘Some holiday!’ Mum said and she made a lot of rude remarks about the hotel. I’m sure the manager understood them even though he was French.

Uncle Brian and me were supposed to sleep top to toe like he used to with one of his brothers but, when he came into bed, he flopped his head on the pillow next to mine. ‘You don’t want to snuggle up to my pongy feet, do you?’ he said. I didn’t think it was fair of him to wake me just for that, so I turned away. ‘That’s all right then,’ he said. ‘Budge up!’

We were so squashed that he had to put his arm on top of me, but I didn’t mind. I turned to face him. ‘You smell of wine,’ I said.

‘I do, do I?’ he said. ‘It’s time you were taught to respect your elders, young man.’ Then he began to tickle me, which wasn’t fair as I was too tired even to curl up.

‘I give in,’ I said, but he didn’t take any notice. ‘I want to go to sleep.’

‘So give me a goodnight kiss,’ he said. Then he gave me one, but it didn’t feel like goodnight at all. It was hot and breathy and it felt more like something waking up than going to sleep. ‘How much do you love me?’ he said.

‘I’m tired,’ I said.

‘Tell me or I’ll tickle,’ he said.

‘Lots and lots,’ I said. ‘More than anyone in the whole world.’

‘Really?’ He sounded surprised. ‘More than Mum and Dad?’

‘Yes,’ I said, which I know was bad but it was true.

‘And I love you more than anyone too,’ he said, which was even worse because he was a grown-up.

‘What about Mum?’ I said.

‘More than anyone,’ he said, like he hadn’t heard. ‘Are you pleased?’

‘Yes,’ I said. But really I was only half-pleased because I knew Mum would be sad.

‘So how are you going to prove it to me?’ he said.

‘I haven’t got any money,’ I said, and he laughed.

‘You don’t need any.’ He took my hand and pulled it along his chest to his tummy-button, which is lumpier than mine. I rubbed it, which is one of my favourite things in the whole world, but it can’t have been one of his because he pulled my hand down on to his leg to where I knew it shouldn’t go. At first I thought that it couldn’t be his willy because it was so thick and hard. ‘Put your hand on my prick,’ he said, in a voice that was thick and hard too. I said ‘no’: Jonathan Hurt and David Simmonds were sent home from school for measuring each other’s willies in the cloakroom. Miss Bevan said that, just like you should never pick a mushroom in case it was a toadstool, so there were parts of people’s bodies it was dangerous to touch. Uncle Brian said that was rubbish – which is rude to say about a teacher – and you could touch anything you wanted if you loved someone. He said Mum touched him there all the time. That’s when I knew he was lying, because she never even dried me there after a bath. I pulled my hand free. ‘So that’s how you much you love me,’ he said and turned on to his side. ‘All talk, you!’

‘No,’ I said. I didn’t want to make him cross so I put my hand back.

‘That’s more like it,’ he said and he jigged my hand up and down, which hurt. He turned back towards me and kissed me and stroked my face. Suddenly, he began to make noises like he was choking. He pushed up and down and fell back like he’d done a giant sneeze. That’s when I found out grown-ups could still wet the bed. I felt it through my pyjamas – not a lot but a little. I was scared Mum would think it was me. He laughed and said not to worry: she would never know. His voice and his body went all soft again. He ruffled my hair and said how much he loved me. Then he hugged me till I was as hot as him. I felt safe.

The next day the manager found an empty room and we all moved, except for Mum, who stayed in the double room with Uncle Brian. I tried not to think about what had happened but I couldn’t help it because, any time no one else was looking, Uncle Brian would wink at me. After we went back home, he got a job in a hotel too. He’d done exams to be a manager, but he was only a receptionist. I felt sad for him, but Mum said it was a good step. Sometimes he worked in the night, so he would pick me up after school to give Mum extra hours at the wine-bar. ‘You know what we’re going to do when we get home?’ he said. I always wished he wouldn’t ask because, if I said ‘yes’, it sounded like I was looking forward to it and, if I said ‘no’, he said I was playing games. ‘You like being dirty,’ he said. But it wasn’t true. What I liked was lying on the bed – on Uncle Brian – and feeling warm. I didn’t like any of the rest of it, especially when he pushed my head down and made me kiss his willy – or his lollipop, as he started to call it, so as to make me feel better about the taste. He said it was the nicest thing anyone could do for you but he didn’t seem grateful. He pulled my hair and banged against my mouth till the moment when he peed stuff and got kind again. And I couldn’t help crying, though I knew it upset him. Then he kissed me and stroked me and called me his own boy and hugged my head against his chest. And I felt safe.

The thing I hated more than anything was when Mum and Uncle Brian had a row. It wasn’t like the rows she used to have with Dad, where their voices went up and down like singing. It was more like the row Dad had with the man who stole his parking space and they both stood in the road with their fists clenched like they were going to hit each other, until the man told Dad that he had his number (though he didn’t write it down) and drove away. Once, when they didn’t know I was listening, they had a row about me. It started when Uncle Brian said he was taking me fishing. ‘You spend more time with the boy than you do with me,’ she said. She’d started calling me the boy to make it sound like I wasn’t a proper person. ‘Don’t you want me to take an interest in him?’ he said. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘But your job is to give me satisfaction.’ That wasn’t true – only he was too polite to tell her. She was speaking like she was a guest at his hotel.

Whenever we went fishing, he found a time for us to be dirty. I didn’t mind because I knew how happy it made him. I just wished he would find a time to hug me afterwards. But he said there were too many risks. So I said that I wasn’t going to play with him any more. Then he got really cross and said I was clinging, just like Mum, and he didn’t know why he bothered with either of us. He should get on his bike and ride off. He said he’d given everything to our family and all he’d got to show for it was grief. He said, if he did leave, Mum would make life into a misery for Rose and me. He asked if I knew who she’d blame for driving him away. But, when I tried to tell him, he said it was one of those questions you weren’t supposed to answer (I wish they asked more of them in here). So, for the first time, I put my hand on to his trousers without him asking, and I put my head inside them. I didn’t pull away even when I felt like I would choke. Then he started peeing stuff so I knew he was pleased. ‘I can see you love me,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t leave you now.’

Uncle Brian changed everything for me at school, even though he never came inside. He said it made him feel like he was a kid again, then he winked. I wasn’t scared of the teachers any more. When Mr Batty told me to clean the blackboard, I called him Mr Botty and acted like i. . .