The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (21 page)

“You have such a très jolie robe, Madame Auclair.”

“Merci, Maxine. Merci très beaucoup.”

Maxine was not
Tracy’s
real name.

And Danny was waiting for a really big gust of wind.

56

D
anny dropped his pencil on the floor seven times in our French lesson. He kept saying, “Zut alors!” That is what you say in French and not, “Fuck me, I’ve dropped my fucking pencil on the floor again,” if you’ve accidentally dropped your pencil on the floor right under Madame Auclair’s desk.

“Did you see anything? Anything?” I asked.

“Not a fucking pube. The desk is in the fucking way,” he whispered to me.

“She might have her knickers back on.”

“No fucking way! Those knickers were fucked. Didn’t you see them? She’s naked under that dress. I know it. Her quim is completely fucking naked.”

“She might have a spare pair.”

“Fuck me, that’s funny! No one has a spare pair of knickers, you idiot! She’s only got two pairs. One on and one in the fucking wash. Just like the rest of us!”

Danny was lying. We have to get changed for physical education in our classroom, girls and boys together, and that’s how we all know that Danny has no underpants at all. The first time we all got changed together he took down his trousers and his willy was there for all the girls to see. Of course, the girls all crowded round for a closer look while I tried to shield him.

“Go on, have a fucking look! I don’t care if you see my fucking cock!” he said and wiggled it at them.

Some of the girls gasped.

Danny says his plan is to let the girls see his cock and then he can ask to see their quim. It is a simple trade.

“You’ve fucking seen mine so now let me see yours!”

So far this has not worked. But he keeps trying. He has even offered Mandy a private viewing.

Danny says it’s better to have no underpants at all because then you know you are never wearing any and you therefore know you are naked under your trousers. If you have only one pair then you might be wearing underpants and you might not and then the girls will not know whether they are going to see your cock or not. Although Danny did accept that this could create quite a bit of anticipation from the girls at PE time. Two pairs, however, is ideal because then you’ve got one pair on and one in the wash but that can also be a problem because one wet fart early in the week and you will have to sit on it for days.

That’s what happened to Gary Gibly today. We were getting ready for our swimming lesson and luckily we have actual changing rooms at the swimming pool or the girls would have seen what we saw. When he hung his underpants on the hook we could all see that huge thing poking out like a ferret. It was dried up, of course. He said he did it on Monday when he thought it was just a fart and now it’s Thursday and he is going to have to live with it until the weekend or not wear any pants at all. I’ve never heard of someone farting an entire turd. It will be quite a shock for his mum when she comes to do the weekly wash.

Danny loves swimming lessons and so do I because it means we don’t have to have a bath that week. The only thing we hate about swimming is Mr. Hudson. He’s our class teacher and he slaps us for no reason at all and everyone knows that a slap on a wet leg really stings.

Mr. Hudson likes to supervise the girls getting undressed in their changing room because he is an old pervert and likes to help them with their knickers. Danny says he wishes he could help the girls with their knickers because
then he could see all the quims he wants. That’s why Mr. Hudson spends so much time in the girls changing room.

“He doesn’t fucking get any you know what from Mrs. Hudson.”

“Any what?”

“Shagging. No shagging. Fucking old pervert. I’m desperate for a fucking shag, I am.”

“Yeh. Me too.”

I am not sure what a shag is.

We’ve also tried standing behind the girls in the swimming pool when they are practicing their leg movements for the breaststroke but we haven’t seen anything worthwhile because the water gets all frothed up. And recently, I have been paying particular attention to Viola Pinkerton because she has got actual breasts. But Danny says they are not real breasts and the only reason she’s got them is because she is so fat. Her mum works in a cake shop.

It would be a lot better if I could actually swim because then I could show off and the girls would be amazed and want to watch me. They are not amazed by my three strokes of doggy paddle in the shallow end. I therefore decided it was time to make my move. I would push away from the side and do the breaststroke. This was a huge mistake.

I sank immediately and swallowed a lot of water. And that’s when I realized something terrible. Gary Gibly was practicing his leg strokes right beside me.

His stinky bum was being washed clean by the water I had just swallowed.

I could die.

57

I
don’t know if it was Gary Gibly’s shitty bum or the sardines on toast for tea that made me throw up. Mum said I needed to go and lie down and stop being so dramatic. That’s easy for her to say. She’s not the one who has swallowed Gibly’s crusty turd. I really could die.

The room is spinning round and round and I’ve noticed that if I open my eyes in the pitch black in the middle of the night I can see tiny creatures floating in the air. They only come out at night. I don’t think they can harm you but it’s best to keep your eyes shut tight and keep the blanket over your head.

Sometimes a week passes without a single sound and it’s easy to believe that the screaming has stopped forever but then it starts again and a nasty pain shoots down through my stomach. Tonight it is making we want to throw up again.

It’s not quite so scary, because Akanni sleeps in my room now. He sleeps in a box bed that folds out of a wooden cupboard. It has a really thin mattress and when he pisses himself, which happens a lot, it runs straight through the mattress and bounces off the floorboards with a sound like a machine gun. He left some Lego under his bed last week. I’m not playing Lego anymore.

Akanni never wakes up when the screaming starts in the attic. Sometimes it starts like a howl, like someone who is pretending to be a ghost. And then I know it’s not someone pretending to be a ghost because it turns into the sound you would make if you were being murdered and it’s hard to pretend you are being murdered. But still, Akanni never wakes up.

There is something really bad in our house. I think it is going to get worse. Much, much worse. Margueretta says that the thing from the cellar in our old house has finally found its way back to us and is living in the attic. She also says that it speaks to her in the night and tells her to kill herself. Or kill someone else.

And if she doesn’t, that thing will kill her.

She said there are other things I should know. The water must never be allowed to run from a tap when she is in the room. Under no circumstances can it be allowed to look like a glass tube. And there are voices in her head that are not hers and they wait for her and they say very bad things. She hasn’t told me all the details but they are voices of evil. One of them is the Devil.

I need to be sick one more time.

58

A
untie Dot is so much fatter than I remember. She was only supposed to be visiting for a day but she is going to stay for a week. That’s why she didn’t bring a change of clothes but it doesn’t matter because she never changes her clothes anyway. And as for washing or having a bath, I overheard her telling Mum that she was on her “monthly” and a woman should not wash during her cycle for fear of infection. I asked Mum about this and she said it was not important for me to know and Emily would know when her time comes because it is the blight all women were born for.

Auntie Dot will, however, have to buy a razor and some shaving soap or she will become the bearded lady.

“You can sleep in the front room, here on the couch,” Mum said to Auntie Dot.

“Thanks, ducky. You’re a real sweetheart. And this is a real palace! A real fucking palace, if you don’t mind my saying! I can even watch telly in bed.”

There could be a problem with Auntie Dot watching our telly in bed. When we could afford it, I went with Mum to the Radio Rentals shop to ask about renting a television and the man there said it would be fine but he could not rent a television to a woman.

“It is the rule because, unlike men, women don’t have jobs, and a telly is a very expensive piece of electrical equipment, and we need to know that the rental payments are going to be made. And no, Mrs. Mitchell, a woman cannot sign a rental contract.”

So Mum asked Robert to sign the contract. At first he said no and then Mollie Midget said he had better sign it if he wanted to continue to keep those damned chaffinches in the kitchen. And he said it would now be his personal financial responsibility and will keep him awake at night. So he would therefore only sign for the cheapest telly rental they had. This turned out to be a Ferguson Type 306T black and white telly with a screen the size and shape of a small frying pan.

Our Ferguson takes about seven minutes to warm up before it shows a picture and it keeps blowing its EY86 rectifier valve. I know all about EY86 rectifier valves because the Radio Rentals repair man is here a lot. And he told me that those valves are getting harder and harder to find and our telly belongs in a bloody museum. We must not, under any circumstances, turn the volume up above four. And we should not watch any programs with loud music or keep it switched on for longer than four hours each evening.

So Auntie Dot should not watch telly in bed.

“Those are lovely orange curtains, ducky,” Dot said.

“They’re fiberglass. I got them from the Littlewoods Catalog. They’re fireproof.”

“Fireproof?”

“Yes, fireproof.”

“So I don’t need to worry about smoking in bed then! This really is the height of luxury! Telly and a fag in bed! Now listen, ducky. Have you ever been on a diet?”

“None that worked. Other than starvation! And we’ve all tried that.”

“Well, I need to go on a diet and not soon enough. I can’t get my arse in these fucking London Transport trousers any more. I’ve complained to the Union. And then there was last week. My foot went right through the fucking floorboards in the bedroom. Course, they were rotted, but that’s not the point. No, I’m as fat as a bleeding, pregnant elephant.”

“Sounds like a diet is the only way then, Dot.”

“I tried that grapefruit diet from the telly, but I can’t stand grapefruits. Too blooming bitter. So I was thinking I might go on an apple diet. Is there a fruit and veg shop around here?”

“Yes. Just up the road.”

Dot came back from the shop with a whole box of Cox’s Orange Pippin apples.

“I will begin my diet tomorrow. Nothing but apples. Nothing. Do not try to tempt me.”

“You’ll fade away!”

“I know. But needs must. I’m the size of a London bus. And look at these bloody tits. They’re like carrying around two giant fucking watermelons, and I’m never going to have any use for them at my age, am I?”

“Well, that’s right enough!”

“Right, you kids come here. And you, Margueretta.”

“Uh?” Margueretta replied.

“We’re going to roll Lassie over and crack some fleas, poor girl. This is a holiday for her too, you know.”

“Disgusting!” Margueretta replied.

“Emily, you get the ones under her back legs. John, you do the front legs. Margueretta, get the ones round her belly. And make sure you crack them or they’ll jump right out of your hands and back onto her.”

Margueretta ran out of the room and didn’t come back so Dot told me and Emily that whoever cracked the most fleas could have an apple. I won the apple.

And all this evening I’ve been thinking about whether to do something. At first I thought about doing my David Nixon magic show for Auntie Dot but I think I have a much better idea. It’s not a magic trick but it is a trick. I bought it at the U-Need-Us jokes and novelty shop on Arundel Street while Mum was at the Portsmouth Magistrates Court getting a divorce from my dad, which is not something a small boy should witness.

My trick will make everyone laugh, especially Auntie Dot, because she always says she loves a really good laugh. This will be a really good laugh. She will be talking about it for years.

And it will be so much better than anything I could do with my five-in-one magic wand.

59

A
untie Dot had four apples for breakfast this morning along with two mugs of tea and three Kensitas. After reading the
Daily Mirror
and having a good long fart, she made an announcement.

“Listen everybody. I have made a decision.”

“What’s that, Dot?” Mum replied.

“I’m going to cut down that jungle in your front garden. You can’t even see the front of your fucking house from the path! You could lose a child in there! It will also be just the right exercise I need to go along with my apple diet.”

“Well, that would be nice, but we haven’t got a lawn mower.”

“What about some garden shears?”

“No.”

“Scythe?”

“No.”

“A knife?”

“Only the breadknife. And it’s serrated.”

“Scissors?”

“Just my sewing scissors.”

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll use your sewing scissors, then.”

Auntie Dot settled down on the path by the front door and started to clip at the weeds with Mum’s scissors. I would have to make a move soon as this was the ideal opportunity, while Dot was distracted. Yes, the ideal opportunity because she had two open packets of cigarettes and one of them was on the floor beside the couch with just four cigarettes left in it.

I just know for sure that my Exploding Cigarette Bomb trick will make Dot laugh more than anything in her life. There is a diagram on the packet showing the tiny bomb being pushed up the end of a cigarette. And there’s a picture of a man in a smoking jacket with an exploded cigarette dangling from his mouth.