Chapter 2

The fourth years were wary of Astrid, especially after the condemning news papers and brilliant evidence on last night’s television. She was a crazy girl. If she cared, she didn’t show it, she strode in through the school gates, alone, with her heavy boots thumping the concrete. If anything, her footfalls made more resonance than normal; her fierce glare was even more forward-fixed.

Wow. Pete thought. To see a girl who associated herself with last night’s display inspired awe in him. It had been blissful for him, one moment it was the usual drudgery of Wednesday night viewing, the next, curses flew out the TV set and his mother turned white as a sheet, his father red as the inside of the lamb joint they’d had for lunch. It was tough not to whoop, he’d gripped the arm of the sofa till the whites popped on his knuckles, delighted by the horrified expressions and frenzied rush to change channel.

“Where’s the remote?” A brisk shake down of the sofa “WHERE’S THE REMOTE!?”

And all the while Pete had soaked it up like a sponge, branded that band’s name in his mind, and thought restlessly of Astrid Fielding and how he’d ever pluck up the courage to talk to a fourth year girl.

As she passed him in the playground his eyes roved over the safety pins glinting down the side of her blazer. She had one in her ear too, just like the singer last night, which he was sure she’d done on purpose. Everywhere he looked the other girls had little studs with glass jewels, or a plastic mock-up of a pearl on their ears, and he didn’t like it half as much.

*

On the way home from school Pete walked right past the bus stop, like he often did, and headed for Hulme instead, were Ed would be waiting outside Birley High school for a catch up. Normally one boy would buy a magazine or paper, book or record, and one buy another, and they’d do a swap.

Ed saw him first, marching down the road with that boy-scout burst of energy and his goofy NHS specks bouncing on his nose. Christ, Ed thought to himself, as his friend Mark snorted with amusement, if that little squirt keeps it up someone’s going to deck him. Spotting them, the boy scurried across the street.

“So you’re Pete?” Mark observed by way of greeting

“Yeah.” He was slightly out of breath, eye level with Mark’s shoulder. Pete wasn’t that small, but Ed’s best mate was the tallest fourth year in Birley and probably William Hulme’s Grammar School too. He had an afro which added three inches for good measure.

“Mark,” he sniffed, “you’re at the Grammar school, then?”

“sure.” Pete wriggled in the oversized uniform Ed always laughed at.

Ed clapped Pete on the shoulder “My good friend, you are, I’m sure aware of the foul-mouthed punk band on last night’s BBC.” He brandished a newspaper with the headline ‘The Filth and the Fury.’ “There’s a girl at your school who saw them this summer, right? Everyone who went to her primary school gossips about her non-stop, hate her guts, and the main reason is she’s a self-proclaimed punk.”

“You mean Astrid?”

“I dunno, the girls at Birley call her Freaky Fielding,”

“That’s her last name, they must mean her, she walks around with safety pins in her ears and these massive boots that must be twice the size of her feet.” Pete exclaimed in excitement

“So she really is a punk? And she really saw the Sex Pistols?” Ed mused

“I’m pretty sure she did.”

“Well, tell her to come meet us tomorrow, ok? We’ll come to your school, yeah? Meet you outside?”

Pete felt a rush of pleasure at the thought of Ed, tougher than any Grammar school boy, a fourth year, swaggering up to meet him outside the gates of William Hulme. He imagined the gobsmacked faces of the rest of the second years, as this impressive and terrifying creature waited for him, they’d tiptoe round him for months, not say a word against him for fear of his wrathful guardian.

“Yeah! Of course but...”

“What?”

“Astrid’s in your year, I can’t just... go up to a girl and tell her to meet a couple of strangers.”

“Tell her we’re into the Pistols.”

“But she’s two years older.”

“So what? You tell her anyway, and we’ll wait outside anyway, and if it comes to it Mark and I’ll catch her on the way home. From what you said she sounds hard to miss.”  Ed paused, as though forgetting something, then looked down at Pete and, a little embarrassed, asked him “Will you ask Jess how she is, from me? You know, tell her I asked?”

“Jess is fine,”

“Yeah, well, just ask her for me, tell her I asked.”

Mark left for Moss Side while Ed headed off back to the crescents, leaving him clutching the Daily Mirror with its catchy headline. Pete made his way to the nearest bus stop as the chill began to seep through his parka and read the article with interest on the ride back. He got up to his room, explaining he’d stopped to have a cup of tea at a friend’s house, and smoothed the newspaper into the box with the diary and dirty magazines.

*

Pete saw her in assembly the next morning, ignoring the hymns, staring up at the fat-faced exam clock at the head of the room. There were no more safety pins in her ears, but she looked just as magnificent, he thought. He stared at her, hoping she might notice and start talking to him, but she didn’t register his existence. Pete was terrified about what he was supposed to say to this girl, would she shower him with curses like the lads on TV? What if she attacked him? Everyone said she was a head case, and he could almost feel the shame of being beaten into submission by a girl in Doc Martens.

He sat pensively in his morning classes, trying to find the words to approach her, a lowly second year boy. He slipped under the radar in every class, and managed to avoid being asked even a single question. His class mates paid him not the slightest heed, while he took sketchy notes in his exercise books and filled the margins with doodles.

He saw Astrid Fielding again in the hall at lunch while he was in the queue for Friday’s fish and chips, heavily anticipated by his classmates. There was boisterous jostling up ahead while Pete tried to block out the din enough to concentrate. She was sat alone at a table, a rather large table, which was circumnavigated as though infected with the plague. Her hair was easily recognised, springing out around the novel fixed over her upper face like a Venetian mask. Swallowing, Pete continued the crawl to the hatch where the thick-armed cooks dished out from deep trays of chips. He took a tray and watched them fill a plate, slapping on a hunk of fish and a ladle of mushy peas and carried it carefully to her table. He approached it, the crowd thinning the closer it got to where she sat, until he was right there, by her shoulder. He felt like a worm beside her cool silence

“Um, excuse me?” Her head jerked up and she stared at him with polite interest, the very last thing he’d expected.

“Yes?” she asked

“I have a friend, he heard you’re into the Sex Pistols and he’d really like to meet you. He’s Ed Jones, he’s stopping by after school to talk to you, um, if that would be alright?”

“Sure, ok, how old is he?”

“Fourth year, same as you.”

“Oh, and is he your friend?” she had not the slightest trace of Manchester about her accent, she talked like a newsreader

“Yeah,”

“What’s your name then?”

“Pete,” he flushed, feeling the eyes of the entire school burning into him, trying to get an earful. He realised, with a sinking feeling, that any status his friendship with Ed may have granted him had now been completely overridden.

“Alright, Pete, I’ll meet you at the gates after school and you can introduce us, I’ll tell him everything he wants to know.”

Nodding his thanks Pete backed into the ranks of his fellow students and tried to slip unnoticed onto a table with some of the boys in his form. He flashed them a customary smile before testing one of the chips was cool enough to eat. He pretended he hadn’t noticed when they didn’t return it.

*

The school gates were flooded with grammar school students desperate to get off the bitter streets, their ears red and noses streaming as they began the journey home to their respective kettles and gas fires. Astrid didn’t really mind waiting for Pete, she didn’t feel the cold too much, and she had a black woollen coat which touched her ankles. She noticed him meandering through the other younger kids, smiling to herself. He might not be aware of it but he was moving with the grace of a dancer, put him in a skirt and you’d have thought him a girl the way he walked. She reckoned the other kids must take the absolute piss out of him for it and she felt bad for him, so softly spoken!  She couldn’t imagine him putting up much of a fight against any kind of bully.

She realised two lads were following him, older, more like her age. She realised one of them must have been Ed, and was disappointed at their rather bland, uniformed appearances; they didn’t look like she’d imagined her fellow punks. She’d built them up to be these magnificent spectacles, imported from another world, embracing her into a parallel sort of existence among their ranks. Instead she was confronted with a wolfish, scruffy looking lad in an ill-fitting Birley blazer and shoes almost fallen apart. His friend, though he’d clearly taken more care with himself, looked like anyone you might meet on the street. Astrid felt a welt of disappointment as they introduced themselves as Ed and Mark and was tempted to ditch them for home. Her coat was beginning to be infiltrated by the freezing temperatures, she was in no mood to converse with a pair of time wasters out in this.

“You’re Astrid, yeah?” Ed sniffed, snubbing his nose on the back of his hand

“Sure,” She smiled tightly

“I’ve heard about you, see, I’m sorry if this is a bit out of the blue. But we really would like to know more about the Sex Pistols, after they were on TV, you know?”

Astrid raised her eyebrows “You saw something good on the telly and you come finding me?”

 Ed continued, trying to win her back, “Nobody but you ever talks about the punk movement they’re a part of, but, if you’ll have, us, we’ll join you. We want to be punks.” Astrid’s eyes widened. People were coming to her to become punks, when all this time she’d been waiting for someone to go to. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t know much. She checked the magazines, taped the radio at home and flitted through on her cassette deck for nuggets. When she saw a photograph she kept it, cutting newspapers to shreds for a glimpse of a band. And then she copied them.

But Astrid had one thing that made her feel justified to teach them to be punk: that summer she’d seen the Sex Pistols, back when nobody had given a damn about them. Why should she be the student? She held the power here, the authority on what the movement was all about, and she could make it her own.

It was bloody cold though “Come back to mine, and I’ll show you, ok, can you get the bus with me? I don’t want to walk in this, and it’s quite a way,” Mark glanced to Ed in slight apprehension

“You sure? I mean, I don’t want to impose or nothing” He began, but Ed nudged him in the ribs.

“It’s fine,” Astrid assured the three boys

“Alright, sounds good to me, come on, you two.” Ed grinned, clapping Mark on the shoulder, having to reach up to do so. Rolling his eyes, Mark nodded, and Pete, trailing after them, decided to follow.

*

Astrid’s house lay on a pleasant street not very far from Pete’s in Whalley Range, the drive was leafy and you could smell roasting meat on the hot air sighing out the seams of the door. Ed’s stomach did a clench and churn, he was starving, and hoped to god Astrid might invite them to stay for tea.

“Nice house,” He commented,

“Thanks,” She opened the door and unshed them all into the hall, then slammed it back closed with a puff of cold air. Pete, last to cross the threshold, felt a bloom of heat across his cheeks and stood blinking stupidly by the coat rack.

“Mum! I’ve invited some friends round, is that ok?” Astrid called, and a reply came from the kitchen

“Course! Bring them in here, they must be frozen!” Astrid smiled, Pete wondering if Astrid had ever had any friends to bring home before, was surprised by the warmth in her mother’s voice and the comforting feel of clutter and use within the house.

“You can just leave your coats here if you want,” She offered, and Mark and Pete hung their duffel coats beside Astrid’s. Ed pulled off his blazer and added it to the coat rack after some debate, and they slipped their shoes off and tucked them against the skirting board, nervous to show politeness in a stranger’s house.

“This is real nice of you to let us in like this,” Mark said, ever the gentleman

“It’s alright, really, I’m happy to teach anyone interested. You’re the only kids who haven’t called me Freaky Fielding and ran a mile at the sight of me,” She smiled blithely at their bewilderment, clomping through to the kitchen with heavy boots still on her feet.

Astrid’s mum was statuesque and solidly built; Pete thought she looked quite beautiful for someone’s mother, in her long skirt with lots of little swishing pleats and kitchen apron. Both shared the same dark curls of hair and even face with its measured expressions.

“Oh, rather a lot of lads here today!” She exclaimed, squeezing Pete’s cheek which, oddly, he didn’t mind when she did it. Unlike the plethora of matronly aunts come to pinch and prod every birthday, there was flesh and warmth on the bones of her fingers and baby blue polish on the nails.

“Hello,” Ed glanced hungrily at the casserole in the oven and put on his most charming grin, suddenly putting a safety pin through his ear took second priority. They sat around the kitchen table with hot mugs of tea which they gulped down gratefully.

“So, what school are you both at?” Mrs Fielding asked Ed and Mark “That’s not the Grammar school uniform, is it?”

“No, we’re at Birley,” Mark explained,

“Oh, right, how did you lot come to meet then?”

“Pete introduced them to me today,” Astrid nodded to the shrimp of a boy sat shyly between her and Ed.

“Don’t you look young for a fourth year? Oh, don’t worry about it now though, in thirty years time you’ll be wrinkle-free.” Her mother told him

“I’m only a second year,” He confessed

She chirped with laughter “Oh, well, that would explain it!” then a look to the oven, one Ed followed keenly. “I’ve got plenty of casserole in there if you’d want to stay for tea,”

“Yes please!” he replied hastily, before Mark could politely decline, and savoured the thought of a good hot dinner. His mum really wasn’t much of a cook, something he’d inherited, and tea was normally something from a tin with toast or smash.

Astrid lead them up the stairs to her room once they were done, kicked open the door and finally wrestled the Doc Martens off. Her white-socked feet looked tiny in comparison, and she motioned for them to sit on the rug while she un-tacked a few items from the wall and cherry picked from her desk and book shelves. There was a generous collection of articles, posters, record sleeves and photographs taped up across the jade wall paper and a heap of books and washing mingling in one corner.

“Ok, then, this is ‘New Rose’ by The Damned,” She presented them with a single in a well-used but well-kept sleeve.

“The Damned?” Ed echoed, studying the milk-faced and black-clad group on the cover

“They played a supporting act for the Pistols, with The Clash. That was a couple of months ago, and this is their only single. It’s the only thing been released so far, want to listen?” She was already slotting it into the record player which filled most of the desk. Even Mark, who wasn’t too bothered either way, pricked his ears up and straightened his spine as she dropped the needle and they waited out the first whistling crackles.

“Is she really going out with him?”

Drums thrashed out, Pete’s eyes brightened, and a humming riff kicked in. The next hit, the singing like nothing he’d ever heard allowed onto vinyl before.

“I’ve got a feeling inside of me, kind of strange like a stormy sea!” There was utter, stupefied silence throughout the duration of the track, as the distortion scratched and the lyrics emerged raw-throated. When it was done, the instant, Ed looked into each of their faces, Astrid’s was smug, Pete and Marks swelling with admiration.

“That was weird, you know, but, I liked it.” Mark professed, keen to break the silence.“That was really good. Really quite good.”

Ed asked Astrid where she got it from, and she told him there was a records store called ‘Spin In’ where they had it. Only 60p which wasn’t too bad. Ed earned 50p from the paper round, which he knew was crap, but he reckoned he had enough saved. He needed that record.

“Is that all you’ve got then?” He asked her “Is that the only song?”

“They covered the Beatles on the other side, here,” She played them ‘Help’ too, warped out of all recognition. They agreed to meet up on Saturday to get their hands on it; Astrid was the only one who knew where the record store was. Mark wasn’t normally willing to spend the money he earned stocking shelves, but this was a special case somehow. There was some big wave round the corner in his life and he wanted to ride it out and say he’d been there and done it as best he could.

Pete finally mustered the courage to speak, “Where did you get your ear done?”

“I went to boots and had them pierce it in just the one ear. See?” She gestured to the pair of safety pins sticking through the small hole in one ear. “Why?” She laughed “You want one too?”

Pete turned seven shades of crimson “Yeah, I might,”

“Well, you can pierce it if you want, but the safety pins are taken; find something else to stick through your ear lobe.”

“You’re just copying Johnny Rotten,” Ed remarked before he could stop himself, but she didn’t seem offended.

“Yeah, and that’s how you do it. Look, here’s the band,” She showed them a cut out from “Sounds” reviewing their gig with the Buzzcocks and Slaughter and The Dogs “I’ve got plenty of pictures for you to look at, get some ideas about how to punk yourselves up a bit. That’s how I do it.” She let the boys leaf through, noting the need for rips, spiked hair and disarray.

“I was there,” She told them firm and straight. “It was amazing.” And they all believed her.

 

Reviews

[asdarkeyesclose]

I liked this more than the first chapter, nice easy flow, more dialogue, good characterization. I have seen the damned live but I never saw the sex pistols. I would have liked to though. fantastic.