F: Sharp Focus

Sharp Focus

April 1972: the month when Young and Duke became the ninth and tenth
Americans to shuffle around in moon-dust, Elton John, fittingly hit the
charts with 'Rocket Man' and I spluttered into being a teenager. When I
think back to that time, it's with the feeling that the moon, even with
its searing days and freezing nights, its grey and barren landscape,
strangling atmosphere and near-zero gravity, would have been a less
inhospitable place for me to have been.

The month started well, my birthday falling on the first weekend. My
present, the article I'd drooled over for months: a Raleigh 'Chopper',
a bike that epitomised style over practicality, with its undersized
wheels, poor ratio three-speed gears, clumsy brake levers and ludicrous
riding position. A bike that also seemed to confound the law of gravity
by refusing to accelerate down even the steepest of hills. But also a
bike that had the safety campaigners wetting themselves with
indignation from the moment it hit the streets. I cherished mine with
an affection that was only surpassed when my daughter was born.

I knew I'd got one; my parents always stored large presents in the back
bedroom of my Grandmother's bungalow, a room with a window that could
easily be reached by sweeping aside the branches of an untamed privet
hedge. I'd already spotted the bike hidden beneath a cardboard shroud
emblazoned with the give-away 'Raleigh' logo. An expensive gift, the
bike would have been purchased through the 'club' allowing small
payments to be made over the next millennia.

My parents were pathetic at hiding things and I'd always manage to find
my Christmas and birthday presents ahead of time. When I was young,
they'd pile the wrapped boxes and packages behind a large walnut
dressing table which stood in one corner of their bedroom. As I grew
older, the presents were moved into the loft but, as the stepladders
were easy to manoeuvre, I soon discovered that hiding place too. At the
time I thought I was being clever, I glowed in the mastery of my
cunning but my parents were probably only too aware of my deviousness.
They never said anything; after all, it was my loss as ultimately I
only spoiled my anticipation of the day. It did provide a degree of
excitement though; through the fear of being caught tampering with the
packaging (I became an expert at removing cellotape from wrapped
presents).

On the mornings following my birthday, I rose early and wheeled my bike
from the garden shed and across the sparkling lawn. With the sun
slanting through the trees, ribbons of mist floating above the chilly
fields and the heads on Dad's flowers shrugging under the weight of
heavy dew, I'd set off. A stillness hung over the streets; not the
muffled tranquillity after a heavy snowfall but a crisp, clear silence.
Heavy with promise. Smoke rose vertically from rows of chimneys,
undisturbed. The morning light seemed to bring everything into sharp
focus reminding me of the photograph of Earth reflected in the golden
visor of Buzz Aldrin's spacehelmet. I cycled around the village, along
the High Street, weaving around the trees planted in rows along the
pavement, eyes squinted, head bent at a crazy angle to watch the ground
blur beneath the bike, emphasising the speed. The pit headstocks stood
above the village like launch gantries, the similarity spoilt by the
winding mechanisms spinning like huge Catherine wheels. A cool morning
air pinched my face and squeezed the tears from my eyes, my hands ached
and I wished I'd worn gloves. But I was elated, for an hour these were
my streets and I was the commander on these voyages. 'This is one small
bike ride&;#8230;'. Then I headed home for breakfast and by the time
I left for school an hour or so later, the village would be
unrecognisable under the swarming uniforms converging on the secondary
school. But I was happy; I didn't have a care in the world.

"Oh, I see her face everywhere I go. On the street and even at the
picture show. Have you seen her, tell me have you seen her?" I sang to
myself. The song wasn't one that I particularly liked but the tune was
catchy in an over sugary-sweet kind of way. I've never been much of a
singer, my singing voice has never broken and to this day I sing in a
warbled tremolo, much to the amusement of my family. This song by the
Chi-Lites was already sung in a high pitch so my rendition must have
sounded like a cross between a chipmunk and Pinky and Perky.

"What y' singin' like a fuckin' girl for?"

I'm sure there were a fair number of bullies in my school; there being
over eighteen hundred pupils, there was plenty of room for them to
flourish undetected by the staff, but Lance Peterson was probably the
worst. He was in my year- and form-group and life for most of us was
spent trying to be ignored by him. Once you'd attracted his attention,
he'd stick to you like dog dirt to a sneaker, and I'd just stepped
right in it. I ignored him and was rewarded by being swung into the
wire fence that ran alongside the school drive. He pinned me against
the fence with one long and bony hand and a fierce stare, the weave of
wire dinging into the back of my head. I glanced at the school. It's a
typical sixties building: linear metal framed blocks with brightly
coloured panels, brown tiles and glass, laid out in a square around a
central quadrangle, the 'quad'. It's outdated in 1972 and to this day
is still the most modern building in the village. There must be a
hundred windows and not a single teacher in any of them. I looked back
at Lance and tried not to show my fear. He's tall and sinewy with a
black, short, badly cut hair. His eyebrows are thick line which runs
the width of his eyes, unbroken across the bridge of his nose. His face
is livid with acne and there's a spiteful curl to the corners of his
lips.

"You're a fuckin' girl, bet ya got no bollocks" and he made a grab at
my trouser front. I struggled to keep his hand away and we grappled,
sending twanging shudders rippling down the fence. My hair, shoulder
length at the time and with a slight natural curl (I must have looked
stupid) caught in the wire and I let out an involuntary cry of
pain.

"You got y' hair all messed up, you not wearin' y' Harmony?' He laughed
and smacked the fence with the flat of his hand, the wire tugging hair
from my head. He let me struggle away from his grip.
"See ya. Harmony!" and I felt his malicious grin as I hurried away,
rubbing my scalp.

Bullies like Lance always have an entourage of cronies willing to aid
and abet their activities, ready with false laughs of encouragement and
eager fists of cowardice. But there are an even larger number of kids
that join in just to prevent being picked-on themselves. I've been
guilty of this too, using some defenceless sprog as camouflage. News of
my new nickname spread faster than the plague and soon I found myself
the target for everyone's vicious humour. Suddenly I was in sharp
focus, standing out from the crowd, isolated. Where I used to feel
invisible, I now felt as conspicuous as the spots on Lance's
face.

Harmony: a reference to the advertisement for a ladies hairspray; two
guys walking towards a woman with long, flowing blond hair, the guys
arguing as to whether she's using 'Harmony', until they see the
canister resting in her handbag as she passes. Harmony: a gentle name
in bullying terms admittedly, but I knew what they were insinuating,
with its connotations of effeminacy, of being gay. Every lesson became
a challenge; 'Is she or isn't she' was the prelude to most and any
question that had a link to hair or women, no matter how tenuous, would
lead to 'Ask Harmony sir, she'll know.' Ha, ha, ha!

Apart from my bike, music was the only other distraction I had. Girls
would eventually seep into my consciousness but I was a slow starter on
that score and never really caught up. Every Sunday evening, between
six and seven, I'd be glued to the radio and the Top 20 charts,
microphone cable snaking across the bedroom floor between radio and
cassette recorder, my finger hovering above the pause button. Lost in
music. The only thing that could irritate me on these occasions was if
the DJ chatted over the closing bars of a favourite song. For an hour
my room would reverberate with glam tracks from Elton John, T.Rex,
Slade, Sweet. These guys all had long hair, I wondered if they suffered
the same abuse?

Life at school was becoming tedious. The bullying was mainly verbal,
but it was relentless, it seemed that every conversation that took
place around me would include a reference to my new name. I was not
armed with the wit to respond to the taunts or a thick enough skin to
ignore them. Occasionally I lost it and raised my fists and there'd be
vicious minutes of scuffling, the chant of 'fight, fight', a tight
circle forming around two tight-lipped and ashen-faced boys. My
schoolbooks would go missing, as would pens and pencils, rulers etc. My
bag would be the one kicked around the 'quad' and graffiti appeared in
the loos. There was no escape. Even my close friends, though there were
only a small number of those, picked up and used the nickname as we
stood kicking our heels in a corner of the 'quad' or sitting against
the lockers in one of the form rooms. I suppose they may have been
trying to lessen its impact but that name had really begun to needle
me. Never the most confident of kids and having now reached the age
where my hormones were erratic and thought patterns scrambled, I began
to feel desperate. In those days we couldn't retreat to our bedrooms
and kick the electronic crap out of a platoon of aliens.

My early morning rides became a physical and emotional breath of fresh
air and I stayed out longer and longer, sometimes hardly having time to
wolf down my breakfast, before setting off, despairingly, to school. If
it hadn't been for the fear of what my Dad would do if he found out, I
would probably have disappeared on my bike for the day. As I rode
towards home, down one of the alleyways that ran between the houses,
linking the streets of the village, I was horrified to find Lance
approaching from the other end. He stood spread-eagled across the
narrow path forcing me to stop.

"Giz a ride Harmony!" he said, grabbing hold of one of the bike's
handles and pushing me off the seat.

"No, Lance!" I pleaded.

"Fuckin' yes, Harmony" he swung his fist and I tripped and fell
backwards. He jumped on the bike and pedalled furiously away down the
alley leaving me to pick gravel from my grazed hands. I watched in
dismay as he shot down towards and across the road, hitting both curbs
cruelly, into the next alley and out of sight. Just as I thought that
would be the last I saw of my bike, he reappeared and cycled towards
me, a stupid grin plastered across his face. I made a hesitant grab for
the handlebars as he passed, but he kicked out and I was forced to let
him go. He wheeled around and came back again, past me and down the
incline towards the road, both legs outstretched this time, the pedals
spinning freely. I watched in horrified fascination as a milk lorry
wiped him from view, like a wiper swiping a fly from a windscreen. I
couldn't believe what I'd seen: one moment he was there, my eyes
burning with hatred into his back, the next, the alleyway and what I
could see of the road were empty. The sound of a neighbour screaming
broke my trance and I ran. The lorry had come to a stop, slued at an
angle, the driver's door swung wide-open. In the road lay two broken
bodies, one of bright orange aluminium, the other of bloodied skin and
broken bone, the limbs bent oddly in a reflection of the bike's crooked
frame.

-oOo-

I met Lance in the High Street last week, the first time for years. His
face, though etched with age, still has the same contemptuousness, the
same spiteful curl to the lips. We passed the time of day, the accident
has always stood between us, a physical barrier that no amount of time
will diminish. As he walked away, I noticed he still had the limp. We
survive, though -the hostile environment of our childhood- more or less
unscathed. Most of us.