All Growed Up Read online

  ‘Spain’s class,’ cried Irene Maxwell. ‘It’s dead sunny all the time and you can get fish and chips and a lovely tan and all!’

  ‘Well they’re ballicks at football,’ interrupted Philip Ferris. ‘Sure we bate them in the last World Cup!’

  This was followed by several choruses of ‘One nil, one nil, one nil, one nil …’

  ‘All the wee girls in Spain sunbathe topless with their diddies out,’ gushed a wide-eyed Sammy Reeves, clutching his crotch inappropriately.

  There was no doubt that this was going to be a special holiday. It was the first time the Westy Disco summer holiday would be to a destination that you could book with Joe Walsh Tours.

  ‘Join the JWT set,’ sang Irene, mimicking the advert from Downtown Radio.

  ‘Chasing the sunshine,’ chimed Heather Mateer on backing vocals.

  When we landed in Spain it was hotter than beside the boney on the Eleventh Night in Millisle in a heat wave. There were hundreds of blocks of flats beside the sea, as tall as the Divis flats, but with more balconies and fewer British Army installations on the roof. In Spain, flats were called apartments and hardly anybody vandalised the lifts or pissed on the stairwells. It seemed that hot weather made living in a flat a much more pleasant experience. Once we arrived at our resort, the Westy Disco crowd were paired off and assigned our own individual apartments. This was to be the first Westy Disco holiday without bunks! My cousin Mark and I shared an apartment with a bath, a shower, a balcony and a cockroach. We couldn’t wait to go to explore the history and culture of Spain, so as soon as we arrived we unpacked our bags and went down to sit beside the swimming pool in the sunshine. Luckily for Mark, he was accompanied by a fluent Spanish speaker – I had got a B in my Spanish O level, so communication would be no problem for me.

  ‘Buenath diath,’ I said to the bar man at the pool. ‘Qué tal?’

  I could tell Mark was impressed.

  ‘Yeah, all right mate,’ replied the barman. ‘What are you ’avin’?’

  The barman was from Liverpool.

  The next day, we met two beautiful English girls with skimpy bikinis and expensive sunglasses who lived in Spain and spoke Spanish fluently. Irene Maxwell and Heather Mateer made friends with the two girls after an initial spat over a sun lounger.

  ‘Thingy and Thingy from England are dead on, so they are,’ confirmed Irene.

  Once again, I seized the opportunity to dazzle all around me with my language skills.

  ‘Buenath diath, chicath guapath,’ I said, quoting from page five of my Spanish textbook – with a little flirting thrown in for good measure.

  ‘Vivo en Belfast, so I do.’

  ‘Oh Belfast, with the bombs?’

  ‘Tengo loth ocoth athuleth,’ I continued, as it seemed to be important in O level Spanish to tell people the colour of your eyes when you met them for the first time. I wondered if there were a lot of colour-blind people in Spain.

  The girls began to laugh.

  ‘No comprendo, senoritath,’ I said.

  The laughter grew and one of the girls fell off her sun lounger and scratched her elbow on the crazy paving.

  ‘Qué patha?’ I enquired.

  More laughter.

  Before I could utter another word of Spanish, my cousin Mark rolled his eyes and intervened. ‘He thinks he’s Julio bloody Iglesias,’ he said.

  ‘Have I got my words mixed up?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it’s just …’ More laughter. ‘It’s just, you speak Spanish like a Chinese homosexual!’

  Now my cousin Mark joined in the laughter.

  ‘Do you have a lisp?’ asked one of the girls.

  ‘No, I do not have a lisp, so I don’t,’ I replied curtly. I was offended now. These girls knew nothing of my achievements on the stage in Belfast Royal Academy – how could I have triumphed as the leader of the Jets in West Side Story with a lisp?

  ‘But you speak Spanish with a lisp,’ she said.

  ‘Well that’s the way I was taught to speak Spanish at school and I got a B in my O level, so I did,’ I replied with muchas indignation.

  For the remainder of the conversation we spoke in English. At the swimming pool later that day, as I turned over onto my front to tan my back, it occurred to me that my O level Spanish teacher had a lisp when he spoke English. It had never before crossed my mind that he also had a lisp when he spoke Spanish. I had learned to speak Spanish with a lisp! This embarrassing incident ensured that I did not attempt a sentence of Spanish in public for the rest of the week. It also ruled out any possibility of romance even if I had wanted to be unfaithful to Lesley, because the two English girls were now convinced I was gay – a misapprehension that was only strengthened when they saw the collection of ABBA cassettes stacked next to my Sony Walkman.

  However, real temptation was soon to arrive, naturally in Swedish form. We met Anna and Elsa the next day – they were hanging their bikini tops out to dry on the balcony above us when they spotted Mark and I below. We were attempting to throw the cockroach over the balcony having successfully captured it in a wet beach towel.

  I was wearing my new denim blue swimming shorts from the Great Universal Club Book, and even though my chest was very sunburned the girls looked at me the same way form one girls at BRA had eyed me up in the playground after West Side Story.

  ‘Hi, you guys,’ said Anna, coquettishly.

  ‘Hello, boys!’ added Elsa with a cheeky wave.

  ‘Where is it that you very cool guys be coming from?’ asked Anna, rubbing her thighs together excitedly.

  I couldn’t believe it! Gorgeous girls with bikinis and thighs from another country thought I was ‘a very cool guy’.

  ‘We’re from Northern Ireland, so we are,’ said Mark, trying to keep his tongue inside his mouth.

  ‘Belfast,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh, Belfast. Boom! Boom! Boom!’ said Anna.

  We all laughed knowingly at our international reputation for explosions.

  ‘And where are yousens from?’ I asked

  ‘We are from Sweden,’ Elsa replied.

  I knew it! They had ‘Swedish’ written all over their beautiful, tanned bodies. Anna was blonde like Agnetha and Elsa was dark like Frida. We had been blessed with half of ABBA in bikinis living directly above us. This was too good to be true, and it was going to put my faithfulness to Lesley to the test.

  ‘Can we be coming down and visiting with you guys?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Aye, dead on!’ I replied.

  ‘Do you mean yes?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, as sure as you’re livin’, we do,’ I answered.

  ‘You speak like a crazy English,’ Anna said, shaking her head, and the girls disappeared back into their apartment.

  ‘Themuns is dyin’ for it!’ said Mark, excitedly.

  Within a few minutes the two Swedish beauties were knocking on the door of our apartment. Mark ran to let them in, tripping over his plastic flip-flops in his excitement.

  Anna and Elsa entered the room like Agnetha and Frida entering the stage at Wembley Arena, and both girls sat down on my bed. Yes, on my bed. I had barely met these two gorgeous Swedes and already they were sitting beside me, in the flesh, on my bed. It was unbelievable! We started to chat.

  ‘Do the British invaders try to be killing you in Belfast?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Well, it’s not really like that, so it’s not,’ I replied. ‘Have you ever met ABBA doing their groceries?’

  ‘Do you like sex?’ asked Elsa.

  This was a rather more direct question than we were used to. In Belfast, the equivalent would have been, ‘Here, wee lad, d’ya fancy a lumber up the entry?’ But only a minger would be quite so direct.

  I was too shocked to answer. The truth was that I liked sex with Bo Derek in the sand dunes in Portstewart quite regularly, but that was just in my head.

  ‘Enough talking!’ Anna announced, removing her bra from beneath her see-through T-shirt. I could now see her real live Swedish breasts
– right in front of me and on my bed!

  The two girls stared at Mark and I as if they were expecting us to do something very important. Anna licked her lips, and I wondered if they were chapped with the sun and all.

  ‘Okay, sure we’ll chat again tomorrow at the pool,’ I said innocently.

  The two girls appeared a little confused. They spoke to one another in Swedish, rolled their eyes and giggled.

  ‘Are you having a girlfriend at home?’ asked Elsa.

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m goin’ out with Lesley from up the country,’ I replied.

  The girls looked at each other knowingly and got up to leave. Anna deliberately brushed her breast against my arm and I felt a distinct stirring in the region of my jimmy joe. I had to think very hard about Mrs Thatcher for a few moments to suppress it; this usually worked very well.

  ‘If you don’t want to do it all, I can do it for you with my hand,’ Elsa offered.

  ‘Do what?’ I asked, stupidly.

  Mark had hit a serious reddener and was now crossing his legs. ‘No, sure you’re all right, we’ll see yousens again the marra.’

  Within a few seconds the beauty, the perfume, the thighs, the breasts and the sexual tension had departed our apartment.

  ‘Themuns were dying for it!’ cried Mark as soon as the door was shut.

  ‘Stop you coddin’ me,’ I replied. ‘They were not, were they?’

  ‘She even offered to give you, ya know, a wee futter with her hand,’ he explained.

  ‘No way! Sure they only just met us!’

  ‘Yes, I’m tellin’ you! Them two were dyin’ for it.’

  ‘But they don’t look like mingers. They’re both gorgeous!’

  It seemed that my complete lack of sexual experience had blocked an attempted seduction by Swedish temptresses. This was fortunate for me, because Joyce Huggett did not mention such a scenario of great temptation and sin anywhere in Growing Into Love. My cousin Mark was not quite as innocent as me, but he clearly didn’t know what to do either. I knew that if I were to be a good Christian I would have to wait until I was married to do it with Lesley – but if I were to be faithful, I would have to resist these promiscuous advances for the rest of the week. It wasn’t fair. After years of not so much as a summer holiday snog, two Swedish vixens in bikinis had been sitting on my bed and I didn’t even know what to do! Most fellas of my age would have managed to get at least one of these girls pregnant by now. I spent the rest of the week on a beach with sand and Ambre Solaire avoiding the advances of my own personal Agnetha, even though she touched my thigh ever higher on every subsequent encounter. I had fantasised for years about being with Swedish girls – blonde or dark-haired – and now that the opportunity had presented itself I didn’t know what they wanted to do, I didn’t know how to do it and I wasn’t allowed to do it anyway! I was a sexually frustrated virgin, so I was.

  12

  WAR AND PEACE

  ‘That wummin!’

  Conor O’Neill was on his soapbox again in the Student Union café where I was having a cup of coffee and a Kit Kat.

  ‘Oooh, Thatchurr! Oooh!’

  He was going very red in the face as usual. I marvelled at Margaret Thatcher’s ability to influence Conor’s blood pressure. The very mention of her name set him off on a rant that usually concluded with a close comparison between Mrs Thatcher and Adolf Hitler.

  ‘That wummin,’ he fumed. ‘They voted her in once, they voted her in again and they’ll keep on voting the witch in forever!’

  At the next table there were nods of agreement over paper plates of limp ham sandwiches.

  Encouraged, Conor drew breath and issued the prophecy, ‘We’ll never get rid of that bloody wummin.’

  ‘Well, is that not democracy?’ I ventured.

  I was almost confident now, and I was prepared to question the unquestionable. Conor turned around slowly and surveyed with me as much suspicion as Doctor McCoy scanning an alien life form with impossibly blonde hair in Star Trek.

  ‘Oh, right, so you support her do you?’

  This allegation was almost as bad as the accusation of being middle class. I didn’t like Margaret Thatcher because she seemed to care more about always being right than always doing the right thing.

  ‘I didn’t say I supported her, I just said that’s democracy. If most people vote for her then she gets elected as prime minister.’

  Suddenly, Marty Mullen swivelled around on his plastic chair at a table across the room, scattering plastic cutlery and the remains of a rubbery sausage roll.

  ‘Well, with the Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other, Thatcher will be thrown out of Ireland and we will be a nation once again. In a Free. Socialist. Republic!’ Marty chimed triumphantly as he dipped a piece of Twix in his tea. Several of Marty’s clones nodded solemnly.

  ‘Violence achieves nothing,’ I said, aware that I sounded like John Hume. ‘It just hurts people and makes everything worse.’

  Marty sighed aggressively. I was daring to contradict the most uncontradictable person I had ever met. I was surprised by how confident I had become.

  ‘That’s just your middle-class Protestant values,’ Marty retorted.

  In my first year at university I had been accused of being middle class so many times that during the summer break I decided to double check with my father if it was possible that we were, in fact, lower middle class rather than working class.

  ‘There’s nathin’ middle class about us, son,’ he’d reassured me.

  ‘Are we not maybe upper working class?’ I’d asked.

  ‘If anything, we’re lower working class, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘Well, do you think we might be upper lower working class?’

  ‘No son of mine is gonna think he’s middle class when he’s nat,’ he’d replied firmly.

  So I was ready for this argument.

  ‘I’m not middle class. You’re actually talking arrant nonsense!’ I protested, instantly realising that what I had just said sounded very middle class indeed. ‘I’m a socialist, so I am.’

  ‘Belfast Royal Academy and not middle class,’ Marty barked with a derisory laugh. ‘Wise up, wee lad! There’s nothin’ socialist about ye. You’re just wan more part’ee the capitalist war machine in the six counties. Just admit it, will ye?’

  ‘Hold your horses, wee lad,’ I argued back (for once). ‘I’m a pacifist. I’m not part of no war machine, so I’m not. Killing people just breaks hearts. The families will never forgive, ya know.’

  ‘Tell that to the fuckin’ Brits,’ Marty hissed.

  ‘I said killing people breaks hearts – that’s anyone killing people. As long as it’s your side doin’ the killin’ you think it’s all right, don’t you?’ If my confidence grew any further I might get myself into trouble and become a legitimate target.

  ‘Pure airy-fairy middle-class shite!’ Marty shouted.

  I had never heard anyone say ‘airy-fairy’ in a Derry accent before and I almost ruined the argument by bursting out laughing.

  ‘My da works in a foundry on the Springfield Road in West Belfast. There’s nothin’ middle class about that.’ I protested.

  ‘Oh aye, jobs for the boys,’ replied Marty. ‘Where’s the jobs for all the Catholics west’ee the Bann, eh?’

  Marty ended every argument by saying everything that happened in the world was unfair to the people who lived west of the River Bann. It was true that the worst unemployment was always in Strabane and Derry, so I couldn’t really argue with him. I was certain there must be some good things west of the Bann, but Marty wasn’t one of them. He seemed to resent me just for being me, and he disliked me for coming from where I came from, and I couldn’t change any of that. But just as Marty was about to launch into another assault on my socialist credentials, Conor opened up an attack on another front.

  ‘Speaking of democracy, I think your precious Christian Union should be banned from the Students’ Union altogether!’

&nbs
p; ‘Wha?’

  ‘It’s a completely undemocratic organisation. Union my arse!’

  ‘’Scuse me – wha’?’

  ‘The Students’ Union should only allow clubs that are open to everyone and youse exclude people who aren’t the right type of super-Christian,’ argued Conor.

  ‘Wise up, wee lad.’ I said. ‘Sure the Women’s Group have to be women and the Socialist Group have to be socialists, so why can’t the Christian Union be for Christians?’

  ‘Ah, but them other groups are not part of the capitalist patriarchy headed by that wummin!’

  Now I was in my second year at university I was getting really tired of all these arguments over politics and ideology. We said the same things over and over again and no one ever changed their mind and I always ended up feeling crap. I understood that this type of intellectual debate was expected of us as students, but sometimes I just wanted to forget about sorting out the world’s problems. I wanted to leave my books in the university library and go home to Belfast and watch a good episode of Doctor Who, like the one where The Doctor had to decide whether or not to go back in time and commit genocide on the Daleks by blowing them all up before they could ever exterminate anyone. The Doctor himself had regenerated as a vet who liked cricket and celery and the long scarf was gone forever. The new, younger Doctor ran up and down spaceship corridors and climbed through ventilation shafts with renewed vigour and he seemed to hate violence as much as I did.

  ‘Right, I’m away to meet my girlfriend,’ I said, getting up to leave the debate.

  No one said so much as a ‘goodbye’ or ‘see you later’. There was no interest whatsoever in my new relationship. Even though I had known them for over a year now, Conor and Marty simply ignored me and Conor started ranting again about how ‘that wummin’ was out to destroy the unions and the National Health Service and the world. Sometimes I felt very lonely at university with my fellow socialists.