“Are you going to get Daddy to complain?”

  He blushed again. The thought had probably crossed his mind—posh folk were excellent at complaining. Sharp elbows, that was what Phil’s mum called it. I leaned forwards. “The thing is, mate, someone like you would enjoy doing an assignment or an exam paper, wouldn’t you? Detention isn’t supposed to be enjoyable; it’s supposed to be shit.”

  With a huff of displeasure, he pulled a page at random from the middle of the broadsheet then proceeded to put pen to paper. Popping my reserve wine gum into my mouth, I then folded my arms across the desk, rested my head down on them, and closed my eyes.

  His fountain pen scratched across the paper and then stopped. “Aren’t you doing any?”

  “Nope.” The stuffy warmth and peace of the office was having its usual soporific effect. More pen scratching. “Aren’t you going to get into trouble?”

  “Nope.”

  In principle, Mr. Cartwright didn’t give a shit what we wrote or not, as I’d found out a few detentions ago when I’d handed him two sides of A4 listing every swear word I could think of. He’d laughed, torn it up, and offered me a wine gum. I wouldn’t share that nugget of inside knowledge with posh boy though—he could sweat it out with the financial section of The Times for a couple of hours.

  Drifting in a sleepy haze, I listened to the rasp of his pen. Alex Valentine. Short for Alexander maybe. Alexander Valentine. I tossed the fancy name around my head a while. Matt Leeson sounded like he should be the substitute goalkeeper for fourth division Halifax Town. Or a lad in the ‘appearing this week at the Magistrate’s Court’ list of the Stourbridge Star, arrested for nicking razor blades in Superdrug and fined twenty quid. Whereas Alexander Valentine would be a BBC special correspondent, uncovering a story linking childhood cancer rates in a third world country with dumping of radioactive crap. He would save countless lives, earn himself an OBE and be gifted his own telly programme. Or some such shite.

  “Well,” the kid fumed after about a quarter hour had passed. “I don’t agree with this political journalist one jot! I can’t understand how she could possibly even attempt to justify Thatcher’s position on trade sanctions against a South African governmental regime that supported apartheid.”

  Yep, the Alexander Valentines of the world would grow up and change it for the better. The Matt Leesons would abuse it and then die unnoticed. Plus ça change, as Mme Tripot would say. Just under a year from now, he’d be swanning off to whichever august university was lucky enough to have him, and I’d be signing on at the dole office then swanning off to the pub with Brenner. Those perfect blond curls and clear blue eyes, which fifteen minutes ago I’d thought as pretty as a picture, now pissed me off enormously.

  “This isn’t The Breakfast Club, mate.” Although if it were, then I would so be the sweary bad boy with the cool boots and the switchblade. Not sure about Alexander Valentine’s role though. Not the jock, because we didn’t have those in England, and, truth be told, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain what a jock was. But not the brain either—Alexander Valentine was far too pretty.

  “Let me tell you how this works.” Affecting a languid drawl, I swept my gaze over his fancy pen and his neat handwriting. “You and me—we don’t chat about politics. We don’t bond over a mutual dislike of Margaret Thatcher. We just sit here and wait until Cartwright gives us permission to go. And then we fucking go.”

  He eyed me warily from his side of the table, surprised by my outburst, and I glared at him until he turned back to his newspaper.

  “Keep your hair on, I was only making conversation.”

  Resting my head back down on my arms, I ignored him.

  Mr Cartwright had either forgotten about us or died of boredom during his staff meeting. Restless and hungry after my snooze, I appropriated the remainder of the wine gums then clambered onto the desk and set the wall clock back twenty minutes—just for the hell of it. After that, I took a dump in the staff toilet next door and didn’t flush. Aside from an occasional, thin-lipped tut of disapproval, Alex Valentine overlooked my antics and covered eight sides of A4 in curly, girlish handwriting. As his belly let out an alarming growl, he folded the newspaper and flexed the fingers of his writing hand.

  “You can eat the lime ones; lime sweets are Satan’s spawn.” I pushed the mostly empty packet of wine gums across the table towards him.

  He shook his head. “No thanks.”

  “You worried you’ll get into trouble?”

  “No,” he answered defiantly. He’d removed his jacket and sweater, and his arms were folded across his regulation, plain navy polo-shirt.

  “Eat them, then.”

  He pushed the sweets back across the table. “No. I said I don’t want one.”

  I shrugged. “Your loss.”

  Reclaiming the packet, I fished inside for the last red one and popped it into my mouth. “Mmm.” I made a loud sucking sound.

  “You’ve eaten nearly the whole lot,” he accused. “Do you know how much sugar that is?”

  “No.” I smirked. “Who gives a fuck?”

  “You will, in about ten years from now, when your teeth start falling out.”

  I gave him my best withering look. Keanu’s repertoire of facial expressions didn’t extend to withering, so I’d picked up this little gem from my brother Simon’s girlfriend, Tara, who always stared at me as if I’d shat myself then rolled in it. I bared my quite-decent-thank-you-very-much teeth at Alex Valentine. He huffed and glanced down at his watch before baring his immaculate set of pearly white gnashers back. Wanker.

  Cartwright ambled in, seemingly about twenty years older and weighed down under a heap of history books.

  “Fun staff meeting, sir?”

  I’d scanned the agenda he’d left behind on his desk about forty-five minutes earlier. “Solved the thorny issue of Mr Barton persistently parking on double yellow lines when he drops his darling daughter off? Agreed the health and safety budget for the GCSE Spanish trip to Madrid? They really shouldn’t be allowed more money than Mme Tripot was awarded for that trip to Versailles, you know.” I shook my head with a disapproving tut.

  Mr Cartwright returned it with a tired smile. “Between you and me, Matt, some of my colleagues indulge in a hell of a lot of barking without having much to say.” The history books landed on his desk with a loud slap, and he jerked his head towards the door. “Go on, then, off you go. Consider yourselves well and truly detented. Valentine—I don’t expect to see you here again. And you, Leeson? Stop buggering about with my clock.”

  If Germany could have held strong for a few more weeks, they’d have won the First World War. For the principal reason that by the end of November all the Brits would have topped themselves, fed up with fighting a relentless war for four years as well as coping with our fucking shite weather. Head down, my eyes following the cracks in the damp pavement, I trudged towards the bus stop. Icy fingers of rain trickled uninvited down the back of my neck. An hour earlier, my hair had framed my face in two satisfyingly symmetrical black curtains; now it stuck flat to my forehead, channelling even more fucking wetness down the slope of my nose.

  A powerful car skidded up behind, headlights glaring, tyres whipping up spray, and I feinted to the inside of the pavement. Too slow; my grey Farahs now clung to my shins, and with every step my sodden socks rubbed my heels. I must have pissed God off, big time in a former life. I remembered the documentary I’d watched last night on the telly, about turtles in Hawaii, the size of kids’ paddling pools. Smiley Hawaiians splashed and fooled around in the crystal-clear water above them, almost oblivious, as if tropical seas and sugar-white sands and glorious sunshine and fucking turtles under their feet were an everyday occurrence. Which they were, of course.

  Another car, and from the sound of the engine smaller than the last one, came up behind me and I nimbly stepped to the side once more, braced for the rush of freezing water which never came. Instead, the car drew up alongside, hugging the kerb, orange indicator light winking. The driver wound down the window, revealing his wholesome, clean, and dry face.

  “Do you need a lift?”

  Alex sodding Valentine. His car was a red VW Polo, a newish model. Shiny and clean, just like him. I gritted my teeth, pissed off that he’d caught me like this, a drenched dishevelled mess. The real, golden-limbed Matt Leeson was shacked up in Hawaii, sunning himself on Oahu beach and sipping a strawberry margarita as a bronzed god rubbed suntan lotion into the skin of his sculpted inner thighs.

  “Nah, you’re all right mate.”

  “I know I’m all right. It’s you who looks like he’s not.” He sounded exasperated. “Go on, get in. I’ve just driven a lap of the ring road—the bus isn’t anywhere close.”

  I looked back down the street. Plenty of cars, vans, and orange streetlights, but no buses loomed out of the darkness. Just more sodding rain. Alex Valentine wound his window back up and leaned across to unlock the passenger door. The warm dryness of the leather interior was so tempting I could almost smell it.

  I don’t know why climbing into his car set my nerves jangling, but it did. It was only a bloody VW Polo; that it was possibly the newest car I’d ever sat in was irrelevant. Automatically, I reached for my pack of Marlboros and began lighting one up. He shook his head in warning.

  “You can’t smoke in the car. Sorry.”

  He gave a puzzled frown as I pretended to cast a glance over each shoulder.

  “Just looking for someone who gives a shit,” I explained, and a satisfying flush warmed his cheeks. The skin of his face was smooth; clear peaches and cream. Not a zit in sight, whereas I cultivated a boil the size of Belgium on my chin. To give him his due, he stood his ground.

  “I give a shit.” His words had bite, although the effect was somewhat lessened when he followed up with, “Actually, my sister does. We share the car, but she’s away at university at the moment. In Cardiff, studying psychology. She’s in her second year.”

  “When?”

  “When what?” His brow wrinkled.

  “When did I ask?”

  With a rougher touch than strictly necessary, he slammed the car into first gear, most likely already regretting his rash decision to offer a lift to such an ungrateful tosser. My ciggie would have to wait, and I tucked it, unlit, behind my ear. And then tried to keep my head still so it didn’t slip, because…not cool.

  “Hopefully, your sister is also the explanation for the fucking disgusting sequined yellow cushions on the back seat, then.”

  His lips twitched. “Yeah, not my choice.”

  “Turn left at these lights and then follow the signs to New Cross Hospital. And then second left after that.”

  He drove confidently, although with much more care than other lads of our age. Phil drove like he was screeching off the grid at Silverstone, and my brother Simon as if he was being chased by the filth. Alex Valentine hadn’t any music blaring out either. No subwoofers in this car—I bet he didn’t even know what one was. Thanks to my damp clothes, the windows had steamed up, and while Alex Valentine was distracted adjusting the demister, I surreptitiously sketched a cock and balls in the condensation on the passenger side.

  Between gear changes, his left hand rested loosely in his lap. His nails were short, but not bitten to the quick, unlike mine, and I could make out the muscular shape of his thigh under his school trousers. My dick warmed, so I slid my eyes back to looking around the car. Not a single balled-up tissue, empty Coke can, or random petrol receipt soiled the pristine interior. It was bloody quiet, too. Stabbing at the CD player, I ejected a disc and snorted.

  “Boyz to Men? Tell me that’s your sister’s, too, otherwise you’re going to have to perform an emergency stop so I don’t puke all over your immaculate upholstery.”

  Shifting uncomfortably, he gave me and the offending CD a nervous side-eye before gluing his eyes back on the road. “Um… yeah, I think it’s one of hers.”

  Alex Valentine was such a bad liar. Grinning, I opened the glove box. Three CDs spilled out.

  “Wet, Wet, Wet Live at the Apollo Theatre? Celine fucking Dion? Oh my god, Take That and Party?”

  To be fair, I scoffed at that one only to spare my own blushes. I’d pretty much worn out the rewind button wanking to Tara’s videos of Take That dance routines. Little Mark shaking his tush to ‘Could It Be Magic’ was a particular highlight. Their music was still shite, though.

  “Hey, mate.” I tittered. “If I turn on the radio, what’s the betting I’ll get a blast of the Jimmy Young show?”

  Jimmy Young: a Radio Two, Home of Easy Listening DJ since Marconi had worked out how to transmit a signal. Every other song the old geezer played was either Cliff Richard or Kenny Rogers, served with a large helping of cheese. Alex Valentine reddened and fumbled his gear change. The car jolted.

  “No, because I don’t listen to Radio Two. And his programme happens at lunchtime, anyway.”

  My fingers hovered teasingly over the knob. “So what are you tuned to? Or do you gently ease yourself into the day with some light Celine, then chill with Boyz To Men all the way home?”

  My needling had begun to piss him off. “Look, I can listen to whatever the hell I like, because this is my car.”

  “And your sister’s,” I taunted. “Don’t forget that. Is she fit?”

  He ignored me. “For your information, not that it’s any of your business, the radio is actually tuned to Radio Four, because I like to keep up-to-date with the news and current affairs.”

  Bloody hell. Eighteen going on eighty. He swiped down on the indicator and we slowed to turn left by the hospital. “If that makes me dull and uncool and too…too…bourgeois for you, then…tough titties and get the hell out of my car.”

  Tough titties? Oh my God, this guy was something else. To accentuate his point, he knocked my hand away from the radio knob then jabbed it himself. The car filled with the cultured tenor of some posh twat of a journalist discussing European agricultural subsidies. Alex Valentine stared straight ahead, his lips a thin line.

  “You can let me out here,” I offered, pointing to a layby up ahead. No way would I let him see where I lived, even if it meant I had to sprint another half mile in the relentless downpour. He didn’t reply, but he must have clocked we weren’t outside my house, because the only buildings were the back of the hospital, council offices facing onto a carpark, and an unlit, creepy locked graveyard. He stopped the car anyhow, glad to be rid of me, and I opened the door. A pair of clear blue eyes studied me unhappily, willing me to fuck off. With one foot in the car and one foot on the pavement, I retrieved my ciggie from behind my ear, placed it between my lips, and lit up. Puffing a long stream of smoke back into the car, I grinned around it, praying the soggy fag wouldn’t fall out. I hadn’t yet perfected the art of smiling and smoking. Funnily enough, my new buddy didn’t grin back.

  Alex bloody Valentine. As square as a cream cracker and as straight as a pencil. That didn’t stop me wanting to reach across and plant a fat smacker on those disapproving, pursed lips. Instead, I settled for a wink.

  “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.”

  Childish, moi?

  WELCOME TO THE CHEAP SEATS

  (THE WONDERSTUFF)

  A skint Saturday night found Brenner and me parked in front of the telly over at his place, babysitting his kid sister so his mum could work her shift at the chippy. Phil was out, trying to get into his new bird Alison’s knickers by spoiling her with a trip to the cinema beforehand. Not sure I’d have chosen Return of The Living Dead 3 as foreplay, but what the fuck did I know about girls? Nowhere near as much as Phil chick-magnet Cantor, that was for sure. Though I probably knew more than Brenner, even if I did prefer dick. But not Brenner’s dick.

  The fancying boys and not girls thing had been around a while—forever actually. And it was fucking annoying, on a number of levels. Keeping my spidey senses on permanent high alert, for example. Having to nurture the mantle of a laddish charade, forever petrified I’d slip up and reveal my true leanings. Over the last couple of years, grooming my blokey persona had become as natural as breathing. Even more upsetting was the absolute certainty my life as a homosexual was destined to be a lonely, wretched, miserable, and hopeless one. As I saw it, my options were to die a decrepit, seething mass of frustration after a lifetime of denial, or meet someone as queer as me, fuck their brains out, then succumb to a hideous, knob-eating disease. My ravaged, raddled body would waste away, culminating in an agonising, undignified premature death.

  Hella depressing. I tried not to dwell on it too much. Being skint, seventeen and a pouf in the West Midlands in 1995 really sucked.

  At least I had Brenner. I reckoned I’d always have Brenner. The girlies weren’t exactly flocking to his door either; he often reminded me why.

  “Blimey, imagine sticking your nose in between those beauties and going pbbbt.” He blew a noise like a wet fart.

  Those beauties were a pair of spacehopper breasts, crammed into a teeny-tiny sports vest. The unfeasibly large mammaries in question belonged to Jet, a high-kicking, cartwheeling Gladiator on the perviest, yet most family-friendly TV show ever invented. In our dingy corner of England, Gladiators was pretty much the pinnacle of a wet and windy Saturday evening’s entertainment. It had something for everyone, not least me, because I could nod and perve to my little gay heart’s content alongside Brenner. With a strategically placed cushion stuffed into my lap, gawping at the outline of Hunter’s cock in his wrestling leotard contraption had me almost coming in my boxers. Jet’s tits had zero to do with it.

  The housing estate Brenner and I had the misfortune to call home was rough.

  Not an edgy, slightly thrilling, might-get-stabbed-by-a-psychotic-skinhead-in-a-dark alley kind of rough, more of a cheap, post-war, pre-fab housing-that-time-forgot kind of rough. Brenner’s mum’s dismal flat was an anonymous box on the top floor of a low-storey block. Rows of hard-up, drab pensioners filled the other flats, their miserable existence shrunk to afternoon horseracing on the telly, own brand teabags, and a two-bar gas fire heating a ten-foot room. I had the misfortune to reside in a marginally bigger council flat opposite.