Chapter Twenty Seven
Mayflower
Pete had managed to watch a little bit of Tiswas this morning. He had gone up town early this morning to go to Tony’s to get his hair cut. Pete had been glad that he hadn’t wanted Pete to go with him. Tony smelt, in fact, the whole shop reeked of cigars. There was cloud smoke everywhere, it was like the opening sequence of Captain Scarlet going in there. Also, Pete hated it when Tony got out the wooden plank for him to sit on. It made Pete feel like such a kid. Then Tony would clip away with his scissors at maniac speeds, making the same joke every time, that he had only ever cut one child’s ear off. That would immediately be followed by the continual orders of “stop fidgeting” and “stop moving” that he would feel obliged to join in with. Was it surprising that a kid got nervous Pete thought when Tony had already cut off one kids ear. Then came the worse thing of all, when Tony got out his cut throat and started running it up and down his strap. Pete swore he saw evil glitter in the mans eyes. Pete hated the feel of it on his neck and the shivers that it created.
He would be on his way back from the bookies, he’d probably already be back. Pete had seen the Phantom Flan Flinger and a bit of Lenny; and a cartoon. Mark watched Tiswas every week. Richard didn’t, he was a swap shop git. But then Richard watched Blue Peter rather than Magpie and Jenny Hanley. She was nearly as pretty as Debbie Harry.
Pete had also listened to a bit of Junior Choice in his room. Pete felt he was getting a bit old for it, but Ed Stewpot was still funny and some of the songs were still funny. Like “My Brother”. Pete wondered what it would be like to have a brother. Maybe Callum could be like a pretend bother. The sort of best friend who is that close that they become like brothers. More that spit friends even. Mark had suggested that they become spit friends once. Pete had spat on his hand and shook Marks hand so quickly before diving it in the brook and then wiping it in the grass. Pete’s hand had ended up all green.
A money spider tickled as it walked across Pete’s face. Did that mean he was going to get some money?. Pete hated spiders, even little money spiders. Pete never knew if they had to walk across your hand and that meant you would get some money, all these sayings and things that you have to remember and that have to go just right so that things go your way. Pete hoped that it was enough and that it meant good luck. Pete felt like he could do with it, deserved it almost. The last night had been a quiet night, thankfully. Just the sound of the telly, even of laughter until Peter guessed that moment when Peter knew that the picture shrank to a small white spot on the screen. Pete knew that he’d fallen asleep long before that moment came.
Pete took the spider as his lucky omen and decided it was time to head out to start his search of the cracks in the pavement and along the gutter. Once Pete had found a whole load of coins in the gutter outside the pub. Pete had loved picking those up and wondered if maybe. He, had dropped them when he had been out on his nightly trek. Just that thought made the coins extra precious and special. There had been a two bob, three shillings and a few tuppences and more than a few pennies. Most special of all was a fifty pence piece. It was nearly a whole quid and Pete had doubled his stash in a single find. The pocket of Pete’s shorts felt bulging, heavy; its weight jangling against his leg all the way home. Pete had been scared when he got home, he‘d scarpered up the stairs without his mum hearing him come in. Sometimes he wondered if his mum had x-ray vision like Superman and spidey sense like Spiderman. Mum always seemed to know when he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to, or when his pockets were full of contraband.
Pete had told Mark the next day at school and Mark had just bragged on about the time that he’d found two tenners. Mark had taken it home and his mum had found it and made him call the police and say he’s found it. Pete recalled how they had sat at there desks at school for days afterwards saying how we would have spent. Pete would’ve bought a chopper, Mark said he would have got an air rifle. Now that was just cool.
Pete was going to go out on his bike. He’d have to be careful where and how he looked for cash cause today he didn’t want to crash his bike. Pete thought to himself “Go slowly, go slowly“. Maybe Pete thought he might bump into Mark, or Mark might see him and come out to play. He hadn’t seen a lot of Mark because it was the holidays. Pete knew that people at school would think him weird if he told them that he was glad that the holidays would soon be over, because then he’d get to see a lot more of Mark. Not that he was looking forward to seeing Richard; because he’d brag about all the things that he’d done over the summer. For Pete about the most exciting thing that had happened to him was three weeks ago when he had biked to the edge of the fields with Mark. Mark had gone for a wee in the woods and inside he’d found a single pair of brown y-fronts, stained by the weather, by time; and by marks that you just don’t want to think about how they got there or who put them there. They lay next to this weather beaten copy of Whitehouse in this hole in the bush. Mark had tried to turn the pages to have a look but they were all stuck together. Pete could see the woman’s tits though. It made him feel a bit weird. Pete felt a bit sick when he went in there and saw these two items. Mark had picked the pants up with a stick and put them on his handlebars. They had cycled back and Mark had tried to throw them onto Sammi Oldman‘s head. She was a right slag anyway, that’s what Mark‘s brother said. It was probably Sammi Oldman who took the mans pants off in the first place. Pete wondered what happened to that man? Did he know that he lost his pants and what was he doing. Maybe he was abducted by aliens?.
Pete looked up at the sky but all there was were a few clouds in the distance; no UFO’s though. Mum had told him that it would rain later, maybe thunder or even hail. Hail was a little bit scary.
Last night Pete had one of the strange dreams again; It was nice to be able to go out on his bike so as to sort of forget them, except he never quite forgot them. He’d half wondered if they would have stopped because he’d seen Callum. Pete also wondered if Callum had dreams like his, he reminded himself to ask Callum when he next saw him.
Pete’s dream last night had started with him flying; except it wasn’t quite flying, it was more floating, up above his bed, almost bumping his head on the ceiling and then drifting across his bedroom. Pete found that if he really concentrated hard enough he could direct where he was going. The movement was slow, gradual; and at times jerky; until Pete gained a momentum and remembered how to do it. Pete always had to concentrating so he didn’t float too high. Sometimes Pete floated down the corridor to his mums room and watched them sleeping. That was weird. Pete could hear him snoring so loudly he got scared he’d wake up and fall down onto the floor. Then Pete would remember that couldn’t happen as he was dreaming.
But last night Pete had managed to float all the way down the stairs and around the corridor to the back door; and then even out into the garden. Sometimes if Pete managed to get outside in his dream, he’d get scared that he might float away into the sky and that made him panic. So in this dream, Pete had dreamt to himself that he was going to start walking. It was like magic. Pete’s feet had become heavy on the ground again; so he had walked to the shed instead. That felt so cool. In this dream, the shed had even opened, the lock had opened magically as soon as he had touched it, it just sort of fell open, as if it wasn‘t really locked anyway.
Pete had got out his bike, except it wasn’t quite his bike. It was yellowy orange instead of purple and it had gears in the centre like a chopper; instead of on the handle bars. It was cool. All the light outside was really strange. It was like everything was in black and white and the moon was really bright and absolutely massive. Pete thought that if he had reached out with his hand he could have touched it, that was how big it was.
Pete went out onto the road on his bike. There were no cars, no sounds. The road was sort of the same except it was different. Pete had seen a coin on the floor. It was a shiny brand new looking five pence. He had stopped and picked it up and put it in his pocket. Pete got on his bike again and cycled a few feet further and he saw another coin, except this was a ten pence piece. Pete cycled along and found that it was this trail, almost like a treasure hunt. All the way along the gutter, every five or ten yards was another coin, even a pound note a couple of times. Then there were other coins and notes that Pete didn’t even recognise. Ones that didn’t make any sense. They were for funny amounts like two pounds and a fifty pound note. Pete knew then that he was dreaming because you could buy a car with a note like that and that was just silly thinking. But this wasn’t a dream that stopped just because you’d figured out that you were dreaming. This one had gone on.
Pete had started to feel a bit weird. A bit scared. As though someone was watching him, or thinking about him really really hard. Pete Had started to want to peddle away, to go back, but he had found that the street wasn’t quite the same, it wasn’t the same and he couldn’t figure out where he was. Pete started to feel frantic, scared, lost. Then from the houses he thought that he could hear songs playing, or speaking. At one point the thought he had heard his name being said.
Pete had woken up and found himself covered in sweat. It had been a hot night and he had been really glad that it wasn’t the other wet. The times when other dreams become the weird and scary dreams, the ones that always make Pete wake feeling panic and covered in sweat; and sometimes other wetness’s, the wetness that you have to hide and pretend isn‘t really there.
Pete would have to ask Callum what he dreamt about. It would be good to know someone else’s dreams. Pete was old enough to know that they were dreams and that this was real and he told himself this every time that he got his bike out of the shed to go out.
Pete loved it when his mum allowed him out. That was the question he’d ask every morning; “Am I ‘llowed out?’. Sometimes the answer would be yes, sometimes it would be no. Most of the time it would be ‘maybe later’. Pete learnt that sometimes later didn’t come. Pete’s next question would always be ‘Can I go out on my bike?‘. Pete loved it when he was allowed on his bike. Its name was The Mayflower.
The Mayflower was a purple bike. Pete didn’t name it The Mayflower. That’s a bit of a poncy name after all. The name came from a transfer on the side that said ‘The Mayflower’. It wasn’t a girls bike either; Pete knew that boys liked purple too; it wasn’t only his mums favourite colour, some boys liked purple too. Pete had picked off the transfer, or at least tried to. It had been of a ship, that’s another reason why Pete knew that it wasn‘t a girls bike; because if it had been a girls bike it wouldn‘t have been a ship, the picture would have been of a flower or a rabbit. Mum had been furious, but he’d so much wanted to love the bike. Pete just found that it was so difficult to ride the bike with the transfer on. It made the whole thing feel heavy and that it didn’t work properly. Mum didn’t understand when he had told her why he‘d been picking at the transfer. He knew that mum liked The Mayflower, a lot. Pete had guessed that mum might have been putting in the two bobs in her special tin for a long time; a very long time he‘d guessed. That tin that Pete wasn’t supposed to know about, that no-one was supposed to know about because if he found it all of the money would have gone. The Mayflower wasn’t a chopper like Richard had. Richard had everything and yes, he had a chopper. Richard even took it into school on the bike day, Mark had spat on it and that made Pete laugh. The thing about the chopper is that the gear stick that is just about perfect; because it makes it like a car.
Pete pretended that he was driving a car sometimes. Or he’d ride his bike as carefully as he could to see if he could follow the lines or track lines on the road or on the pavement. Pete would pretend that his car was an electric car, a bit like a train; and he was getting energy from the lines. Even though The Mayflower didn’t have gears like the chopper, it only had five gears and they were stiff and awkward to change. It didn’t stop Pete from pretending though. Pete sometimes made a quiet sound as he changed the gears as though the car was revving up or slowing down. Pete did it quietly, you don’t want people hearing you after all.
Pete wondered what it was like to drive a car for real. Going in a car was a special thing, even a thing worth bleeding for, maybe even worth stitches for; maybe?.
Pete drove down the street, past houses and past the pub. Some of the houses had there windows open. It was still warm and hot. Pete could hear laughter from one house and a radio playing a song that made him peddle even faster. Pete decided he would head to the playground and see if Mark was there.
‘I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like….’
Queen - Bicycle Race
(Freddie Mercury)
Raincloud Productions Ltd / Queen Music Ltd
(P) 1978 EMI Music Publishing Ltd
2009 © Kevin Mattingley
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