Part 3

It was the first time I met Andy.

I‘d wandered along the balcony and climbed the concrete steps that smelt of piss and disinfectant. It was a big climb and when I reached the new world it looked the same. A sweeping row of front doors and a long balcony.

There was a small kid in tiny red wellingtons riding a kiddie’s tricycle. He cycled furiously towards me and stopped. His nose was snotty, and he kept wiping it with the sleeve of his blue anorak.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for my dad,”

“My dad will beat your dad up.”

“He will not. My dad killed your dad.”

“He did not. My dad hit your dad with a big stick and now he is champion of the world.” 

In later years, I realised that Andy’s dad would have easily beaten my dad up, and he would have been the one to have done any killing.

“I’m going,” I told him.

“You’re a scaredy cat.”  

I ran back down the steps. “Fuck you,” I called.

We saw each other often. Usually at a distance. We would look at each other as our mother’s dragged us in opposite directions. He would dawdle and his mother would clout him across the head.

“She’s a bad woman,” my mother once said to me.

“Fuck her,” I replied, and she slapped me harder.

Our paths crossed again when we were five years old. It was our first day at school, and we were scared. We decided, encouraged one another, that we didn’t want to go, and so we both cried with the hope that they would let us go back home. But they didn’t.

From that moment we were inseparable. We sat next to one another and were a hellish combination.

Our flats were on consecutive floors, sharing the same view, and outside school we’d congregate at the bottom of the lifts. We rode bikes, became little soldiers, and played football because we were Sheffield Wednesday fans.

We were hard little bastards. Anybody who crossed us ended up dealing with the other too. We gained a reputation for being unruly and played up to it. We misbehaved in class and found that punishment enhanced our status further.

I recall that Andy once threw a tin of bright yellow powder paint over Paula Smith because she called him a bummer. It was funny but she cried, and Mr Newsome grabbed Andy by the hair and paraded him in front of the class. He bent him over and walloped him across the arse with such ferocity that he couldn’t sit down for hours.

The class looked on in admiration at this defiant small boy who smiled and became ‘cock’ of the school.

I was incredibly jealous and wanted the same adoration.

My turn came one rainy afternoon. We were being taught by Mr Ellerby, a pipe-smoking guy who everybody liked. He called me to his desk. I stood waiting and watched my classmates play with Colour Factor. I saw Andy pocketing long red bricks that he would later toss off his balcony.

Mr Ellerby had been writing school reports. In his scrawly handwriting he had carefully put comments against each of us.

‘Andy. Disruptive. More effort required.’ ‘Harry. Not very boyish. More effort required.’

It was the first sign that I could explode. And I did. I swept everything off his desk until there was a pile of papers and pens on the floor. All except a half filled coffee mug that I picked up and threw at the nearest person who happened to be a boy called Ivan. It hit him in the face and cut his eye.

Mr Ellerby dragged me outside.

“What the hell are you doing lad?”

I couldn’t catch my breath and realised it was the point of no return. But it was my moment of glory.

I suspect that teachers would have gladly queued up to punish me. But it was nice Mr Ellerby who proved he could be equally nasty and smacked me ten times with a battered old plimsoll. My arse smarted and I’d never experienced such pain before. I tried not to cry, and when I looked up, I saw Andy smiling and then he winked at me. My standing had been cemented.

When the school report reached my parents, it read differently.

‘Harry. Behavioural problems. More effort required.’

I also found out that I’d misread Mr Ellerby’s illegible notes. I’d forgotten that there was an effeminate boy in our class called Barry Green.

‘Barry. Not very boyish. More effort required.’

Years later I had an email from somebody called Amanda Green who had read one of my articles online.

“You may not remember me, but we once went to school together. I was called Barry in those days.”

There was another consequence to that day.

Sitting at the back of the classroom was a boy called Jack Dempsey. He was small, sporty, and well liked. He’d nervously watched my retribution and made his mind up.

Jack was waiting outside the school gate and tagged along as we walked home to Park Hill. We entered the lift and pressed the button to go up. He exited on the landing beneath mine. I was next. Andy was the last one out.

That was when I thought that Jack was okay.