Paperboy Page 13

  Mr Black’s attack about my song choice seemed particularly unjust, since I wasn’t even singing the questionable words of the song on the day in question: I was only whistling the tune. Anyway, I was in no doubt that the blonde one in ABBA, in whom I was developing an increasingly strong interest at the time, was much too nice to be on the other side’s side. And I had never seen a woman look less like Bernadette Devlin. I couldn’t work out whether Agnetha was a Protestant name or a Catholic name, but maybe Swedish was a different religion altogether, so it would be okay to marry her – although she was already married to Björn, which was a shame of course, because that was for ever.

  As my professional complacence grew, I began to leave the occasional gate open behind me. If I suspected a customer was out at church or voting again, or if I otherwise judged they would not see my misdemeanour, I would wilfully leave their gate wide open. It felt good, dismissively letting it swing in the wind. I was a rebel now: no gate would dominate me. Of course, if there were small dogs or children that might escape onto the road and get knocked down by a bus, I was still very careful. But in less dangerous circumstances, I would sometimes belligerently let customers’ gates swing on their squeaky hinges.

  In the absence of witnesses, I would be only one of a range of suspects for the crime of a gate left swinging, and I knew that with my reputation, I would be at the back of the criminal queue. It could have been the bread boy, or the rag-and-bone man who shouted ‘any oul regs?’, or a scout ‘bob-a-jobbing’. Or a politician canvassing or a Baptist giving out gospel tracts or a collector for the Loyalist prisoners. Any one of these would have made a better suspect than me. Yes, Christians, boy scouts and Loyalists were all more potentially aberrant than I was. If it came to a line-up in Tennent Street RUC station, I was sure I wouldn’t be the one to be singled out: my reputation was secure, after all, and I knew that both Oul’ and Mrs Mac would defend my innocence to the hilt. Once the pair of them had established the extent of my integrity, they had become invested in maintaining their belief in it.

  I had become very smug. My family, the ones who knew me best, could recognise it only too well. ‘Don’t be so Mr Know-It-All now, love,’ warned my mother. ‘Stop being such a cocky wee shite!’ ordered my father. ‘Catch yerself on, dickhead!’ chided my big brother. ‘Wise up, wee lad,’ said my wee brother.

  But these challenges occurred behind closed doors, and I was far from wising up. To my employers and customer base alike, I remained blameless. In my own mind I was beyond reproach. But pride, as the Reverend Lowe would have said, always comes before a fall …

  It happened on a Wednesday. The papers were lightest on a Monday and Wednesday, so these were generally my most complacent days. Lost in my smugness, I barely gave my professional responsibilities a thought that day. Although it was a school day, I was excited. On Wednesdays I had a violin lesson, and I played guitar at the Bible Union at lunchtime, so it would be a very musical day – although carrying both instruments to and from school on the bus was something of a balancing act. And even though I also had PE on Wednesdays and knew the tracksuited teacher would choose one of his rugger favourites to select the five-a-side teams and I would be one of the last to be picked, I didn’t care, for today was to be the start of my acting career. I had auditioned for the school play, and the casting was to be announced during the after-school drama club that day. For, as well as being a violinist like Yehudi Menuhin and a guitarist like Paul McCartney, I had aspirations of becoming a great actor, like Roger Moore. The school play this year was to be Tom Sawyer, and I had auditioned for the parts of both Tom and Huckleberry Finn. I would have been happy with either part: I had already in fact begun to learn the lines of both. The drama club started at three o’clock and finished at four o’clock, so I reckoned that once I had landed my starring role and modestly accepted the congratulations of my supporting actors, I would have plenty of time to catch the bus home in time to do my paper round and then go to Scouts as usual.

  ‘First of all, I have to say that you all did very well in your auditions,’ began Miss Baron, our drama teacher, in a patronising manner. Miss Baron was young and blonde, and by far the most attractive teacher in the whole school. She was like Olivia Newton-John with chalk, and so she always got my complete attention. I was always determined to please Miss Baron.

  ‘Aaahh, she’s really nice … I like her … Is that blouse see-through, like the one Olivia Newton-John wears in my Look-in poster?’ I found myself thinking. ‘She’s just letting the bad ones down gently, I suppose … That’s really nice of her. If she just stood beside the window, I would know if it was see-through or not …’

  ‘Not everyone can play a leading role, but there is always next year, of course,’ Miss Baron continued authoritatively, interrupting the flow of my meandering thoughts.

  I looked around me sympathetically at all the kids who were about to be disappointed. Miss Baron was right: they would always have next year. Miss Baron was always right.

  ‘The part of Tom Sawyer will be played by … Thomas O’Hara,’ were her next words. This was perfect casting: Thomas could use his real name, and he was already a good mate of mine, so we wouldn’t have to act too hard at being Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I patted my pal on the back magnanimously, as he grinned widely. My part was next.

  ‘And the part of Huckleberry Finn will be played by … Patricia Thompson!’ Silence. Then applause and congratulations for – Patricia bloody Thompson?!

  Excuse me?

  Have I misheard?

  I didn’t get it.

  I am not Huck?

  I didn’t get a part?

  F**k, I’m not Huck!

  She has given my part to a ... girl?

  I hate Patricia Thompson. I bet her da plays golf with the teachers and she lives up the Antrim Road. I bet no one from up the Shankill with a Ford Escort respray has ever been given a main part in a play in this snobby oul’ school.

  I hate that Miss Baron. She gets on like she thinks she’s Olivia Newton-John, but she’s an oul’ boot, and she gave a boy’s part to a girl. And Patricia Thompson already has breasts and ... where is she going to put them?

  I’m tellin’! Patricia Thompson is going to have to dress up as a boy. Miss Baron is trying to make Patricia Thompson into a homo – except a girl homo, if there is such a thing – and I’m going to tell my RE teacher because it sounds like a sin!

  Somewhere amid the mists of my selfish anger and moral outrage, I hazily heard Miss Baron interrupt my internal ravings: ‘The part of Boy Three, one of the boys who paints the fence for Tom, goes to Tony Macaulay.’

  I was to be nothing more than a Boy Three – a bit part at Tom Sawyer’s fence! Thomas O’Hara was to be the star, and I was nothing. This was humiliating. It was like Thomas got to be the new Doctor Who, if Tom Baker ever regenerated, while I got to be a Silurian stuck inside a rubber suit who then got zapped by the Sonic Screwdriver in the very first episode.

  As far as I was concerned, Drama Club was over. But once we had been informed of the casting decisions, we had to do a read-through of the play. Thomas O’Hara had thirty lines to read for every one of mine. Patricia Thompson tried at first to put on a deep boy’s voice for Huck, but Thomas O’Hara’s voice hadn’t broken yet, and it didn’t sound right that the girl playing a boy had a deeper voice than the boy playing a boy. So Miss Baron told Patricia to just speak in her normal voice, so that Huck and Tom would sound the same. I rolled my eyes at this latest example of artistic misdirection, and I could not hide my disgust at Patricia’s attempt at an American accent. The more she tried to sound authentically American, the more she sounded like a farmer from Ballymena. She had clearly never watched a single episode of Sesame Street, where you learned how to say the alphabet in American.

  By four o’clock that afternoon, I just wanted to get out of there and get home to do my papers. At least my talents were appreciated at work, even if they were overlooked at school. As I left the school,
it was already getting dark. It was raining, as usual, so I had to put up my blue duffle-coat hood. It wasn’t properly waterproof, but it was so thick the rain didn’t come through. I walked to my bus stop with my schoolbag over my shoulder, holding in one hand my guitar in its faux-leather case and, in the other, my violin case. It was just me and my instruments at this bus stop, where you could catch a bus into the city centre and, from the City Hall, take another bus up the Shankill. Most of the other thespians had gone to the Antrim Road bus stop. Patricia Thompson, for example, just had a short direct bus route home to her detached house – when her daddy didn’t collect her in his Rover, that is. It wasn’t fair.

  After more than half an hour standing in the rain, during which time I was distracted by angry thoughts about Miss Baron and what would happen if Patricia Thompson broke her leg or if her minister were to receive an anonymous letter and didn’t allow her to dress up as a boy, I realised that my bus was late. Sometimes the bus was late because of the Troubles, but it usually came within an hour, once the bomb-disposal men had had the chance to blow up the suspect device in the hijacked milk van in which it had been planted.

  Another half hour passed, during which my mind wandered from time travel to meteorites to Agnetha. Then I realised that the bus was very late indeed. In fact, I knew that by now I would not make it home in time to collect my papers from Oul’ Mac at the van. At this stage, I wasn’t too concerned, however. I could still be home within an hour and deliver my Tellys a little late. I could blame the Provos; everyone would call them bastards, and everything would be okay. I searched in my pockets among the chewing gum and marbles for the two-pence piece I retained for such emergencies, and then I picked up my violin and guitar and calmly walked around the corner to the red public telephone box, in order to call home and ask my big brother to collect the papers.

  It was only once I had managed to squeeze inside the phone box with both instruments and my schoolbag that I discovered it had been vandalised, and I had to awkwardly extricate both myself and my luggage in a reverse movement with my duffle-coat hood still up, restricting my rear view. I daren’t leave my guitar or violin outside or, I was sure, they would be nicked for Smithfield Market or a bonfire. I walked down the road to the next telephone box, and it had been vandalised too. Then on to the next, and the next: they were all broken. Every telephone receiver had been torn from the wall and the words ‘Brits Out’ scrawled everywhere. I knew these were British Telecom telephones, but I had never realised that a telephone box could be an instrument of British oppression. Maybe they were bugged, like in James Bond? Maybe if I did get through, 007 would be listening to my every word, in case I was a Russian spy hiding plutonium in my violin case?

  As I considered several possible James Bond plot lines, eventually, about a mile later down the road and halfway to the City Hall, I found an intact telephone box. By this stage, I was very wet and exhausted from walking and manoeuvring in and out of countless telephone boxes, weighed down with my schoolbooks and musical burdens. I was starting to panic. If only I had had my own blue police telephone box – my very own TARDIS – I would be able to travel through time and space like the Doctor and be home before I even left for school that morning. Unless, of course, I pressed the wrong button and landed on the planet Skaro and had to battle the Daleks who were trying to take over the universe.

  I was starting to think I might have to ask my big brother to do my papers that night. I knew that he would charge me double-time, which would mean less money to buy ‘Love Is’ cards for Sharon Burgess. I put my freezing fingers into the cold stainless-steel holes of the telephone dial and rang our home number. My mother answered quickly, and I immediately dropped my two pence into the money slot, hoping it would work properly this time, because often it didn’t.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ Mammy asked excitedly. ‘The buses are all off! The UDA are burning them all to stop a United Ireland, and Paisley says we’re going down the Dublin Road! And you and your brother aren’t home from your drama and his rugby, and it’s terrible! And the roads are all blocked with barricades, and your daddy can’t even get the car down the road to collect youse, and youse’ll have to walk home the night in the dark. And I’m worried sick, and they’ll pick on you with your violin, and your father’s up til a hundred …’

  ‘Mammy, I’m going to be late for my papers,’ I interrupted, realising that my two pence would only give me a few precious minutes before the pips went and I was cut off. ‘Can you go round and get my papers from the van, and I’ll do them when I get home or, if I’m not home in time, ask …’

  Beep-beep-beep-beep. I could hear the pips and then the line went dead. The conversation was over. I hoped my mother had got the important message. I wasn’t too worried about walking home in the dark, and I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere near the Dublin Road, but I didn’t like the suggestion that I would be picked on for carrying my violin, and I just hoped Mammy would collect my papers and my big brother would deliver them when he got home.

  I walked for streets and streets into the city centre and then for miles and miles up the Shankill, towards home in the dark in the rain in a duffle coat with a guitar case in one hand, a violin case in the other hand and a schoolbag over my shoulder. I must have stood out, but no one picked on me. In fact, no one paid me any attention at all. There were much more interesting sights to behold: burning buses, barricades blocking the roads, tartan gangs with petrol bombs, police and soldiers in riot gear with guns pointing in every direction. The public-transport network was being torched to save Ulster. My concerns were insignificant in relation to these cataclysmic events, but my feet were sore.

  As I reached the top of the Shankill Road, there was a further delay. Due to several riots on the main road and adjoining streets, not only were vehicles being prevented from going any further, but so were pedestrians. The RUC had blocked off all the roads and the pavements, and so I could go no further. There was only one way up the Shankill to my home and that was up the Shankill! There was no alternative route: I was stuck. It was nine o’clock, and I had long since given up any ambition of delivering my own papers that evening, but at least my big brother would have carried out substitution duties fairly adequately. Unless of course my mother had done them – but she had sounded much too distressed to be thinking about my papers.

  I stood quietly among a gathering crowd of similarly stranded pedestrians waiting for the all-clear. I was wet and tired, but mainly bored. Some of the others were talking excitedly about the drama that had unfolded throughout the day. They seemed to be enjoying it all, in fact. I was just bored, however. Then several Elvis fans with tattoos began to move among us, whispering important information in privileged ears. While the gathering crowd speculated about a rumoured IRA invasion and how Paisley would save us, I just stood and dreamed of being Scott Tracy on Thunderbird 2 – although not with puppet strings.

  Suddenly, I was struck across the back of the head and my duffle-coat hood fell down. I turned around to see if I had been picked on by a violin-hating Loyalist, but I got a huge shock, because standing there behind me in the stranded crowd was my big brother with his schoolbag and rugby kit. With muck from a scrum still on his face, he exclaimed, ‘Look at the state of you, with a guitar and violin and a duffle coat! What are ye like, ya big fruit?!’

  I was glad to see him too. But then it dawned on me: if he was here and hadn’t made it home yet either, then no one would have done my papers! Unless of course my parents had done them, and that was unlikely. I began to realise that I was in big trouble. The perfect paperboy had fallen! I imagined the raised voices of forty-eight angry customers against one errant paperboy. I pictured one extremely angry Oul’ Mac and one deeply disappointed Mrs Mac. I was doomed. This was the stuff of instant dismissal. It was gross misconduct. My career was at an end. When I explained the situation to my big brother, he wasn’t reassuring.

  ‘Oul’ Mac’ll kill ye!’ he said, as the RUC finally let u
s through the site of the now-quelled street unrest.

  The two of us arrived home just after ten o’clock, to be greeted by jubilant and relieved parents. My mother opened the front door tearfully and hugged us very tightly. During this embrace, all I could do was look over Mammy’s shoulder at the pile of forty-eight fresh Belfast Telegraphs with the white cord uncut around them. They were just sitting there sullenly, undelivered. I felt sick. I dropped an instrument from each hand, knowing that tomorrow I would have to face the music.

  I slept remarkably well that night, however. The exhaustion of my mammoth trek home outweighed the anxiety provoked by the prospect of facing Oul’ Mac and the sound of shooting outside. The next day at school, I developed a clever plan. If I wasn’t sacked instantly, I would deliver Wednesday’s paper and Thursday’s paper both together! If anyone asked, I would blame the rioters from down the Road, and Oul’ Mac would never hear about it, and I would survive.

  Sure enough, when Oul’ Mac arrived with the Thursday night Sixth Editions, there was no mention of my misdemeanour. I knew as soon as I saw him that he wasn’t angry. His cigarette ash formed a long drooping protuberance from his mouth – this was not the cigarette of an agitated man. I was relieved: obviously no one had complained. My customers must have assumed that Oul’ Mac had not been able to get the papers through the barricades the previous night. This had happened before, when the roads had been barricaded to keep us British, and for most people it was worth the sacrifice.

  I gathered the Thursday Tellys into my paperbag as usual, but then I ran around the corner to our house, where I added the Wednesday night editions into the bag. I thought my shoulder would break under the strain, but this was a minor discomfort, compared to the potential trauma of being dismissed at such an early stage in my career. And so I began to deliver two newspapers to every house. I tried to fold them into one to take the bad look off them, but together, they were too thick to fit through the letterboxes.