Billy Elliot (11 page)

‘I didn’t come round here to defend myself,’ she said angrily.

‘I think you might be some sort of nutter. I could get the
social on you, yer cow.’

‘I think you should calm yourself down, sonny.’

Sonny! The smarmy middle-class bitch. I tell you, I was just dying to thump someone. Dad was being his usual useless self, just stood there staring like we’d all turned into blue cheese or something. Well, someone had to tell them what was what. I grabbed hold of Billy. She took a step forward as if she could stop me, but I pushed her back. I picked him up and dumped him on the table.

‘Right, you want to dance? Go on then – dance! Come on. Let’s see this f***ing dancing.’

The woman took out a fag from her coat pocket and rolled her eyes. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she hissed, like the poisonous old snake she was.

‘Oh, aye? Go on then. If you want to be a f***ing ballet dancer, do it! Let’s see yer. Dance!’

‘Don’t you dare, Billy.’

I’d really lost it by that time. ‘What sort of a teacher are you? He’s got the chance to dance and here you are telling him not to. Dance, you little twat! No? Right, so piss off! He’s not doing any more dancing, and if you go anywhere near him again, you middle-class cow, I’ll smack you one. Got it?’

Well, all right. I’m not right proud of meself. I could have handled it a bit differently, but you can’t blame me. Give it to her, though, she stood her ground.

You sanctimonious little shit,’ she hissed. ‘What are you so scared of? That he won’t grow up like you to race whippets or grow leeks and piss his wages up the wall? Listen, I’ve been with him every night for the past two weeks and you haven’t even noticed, that’s how much you care for him, so don’t lecture me on working-class solidarity and the British class
system, comrade. Got it? Right, so piss off yourself.’ She blew a nice big lungful of smoke at me and gave Billy a nod. ‘See you, Billy,’ she growled. And she walked out.

‘You f***ing bitch!’ I yelled after her. Then I looked around for Billy, I needed someone to twat, but Dad was standing in between me and him.

Billy stuck his horrible little face round under Dad’s arm. ‘F*** you!’ he yelled at me, and he turned and ran out the house. I took a couple of steps after him, but Dad moved to one side. In the way again. Always in the way!

‘And f*** you too,’ I snapped. I pushed him to one side and banged out of the house. ‘I’m going down the pub,’ I said. ‘See you later.’

You’d think you’d get a bit of solidarity in your own house, wouldn’t you? It’s them I’m doing this for, as much as meself. And if I ever catch him dancing, or if I ever see that horrible old bitch anywhere near him again, I’ll smack the pair of them till they bleed.

C
hristmas. The turkey, all the trimmings. The crackers. The port, the brandy, a fridge full of beer. Gin and tonics for the wife. My lovely Sarah. The tree, the fire crackling, the tinsel glittering, the presents all heaped up in coloured paper. Nice and warm inside even though it’s cold enough outside to freeze your feet to the ground.

Well, not this year.

They had a do down the Social for the striking miners on Christmas Eve. That’s us. A nice big tree, kids running round, Christmas dinner. It was OK if you like your Christmas with about sixty other families. We had a banner up: ‘Merry Christmas. Nine months. We shall not be moved.’ Too right we shan’t be moved, we’re all too bloody cold. Then we went home.

All it did for me – this shows you what a miserable old bastard I am – was to make me feel sorry for meself because there was so much more that charity could provide than I could. The house was as cold inside as it was out. I went in
and had a cup of tea and before I knew it, I found myself staring at the piano. I should never have done it, I know that. But I just thought – well, at least I’m going to make sure we stay warm this Christmas Day. So I dragged the old piano out into the yard. It’s not worth anything, no one plays it anyhow, except Billy used to pick out a tune from time to time, but even he’s stopped lately. We’re all miserable bastards in this house.

My dad used to say, it warms you twice, cutting wood – once when you cut it, once when you burn it. He knew about being cold, his generation, but I never thought me and my kids would have to suffer like that. Oh, aye, it’s a cold house, this one, and not just because the heating’s off. We’ve all grown cold hearts over the last months, and that’s the truth.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for my two lads with no mother. Just me to welcome them back when they come home.

I got the axe from the spare room and I chopped the bugger to pieces. Billy came out and sat in the snow watching me. Sarah used to love the snow. It was going to be a white Christmas. It was going to be a blue Christmas, freezing. I kept having to tell Billy to stay back in case he caught a bit in his eye. The strings were lashing around the place, pegs, bits of metal flying everywhere. I was wrecking the axe. I should have pulled all the metal bits off first but I couldn’t bring myself to be bothered.

‘Do you think she’ll mind?’ he asked me. I could have killed him. It was the one thing I didn’t want to think about.

‘Shut it, Billy. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

I swung the axe. I could see his nan sitting inside watching. I could do without her and all. There was nothing on her face, nothing you could read anyhow. She was cracking nuts with
the crackers and then lining them up on the windowsill. She can’t eat nuts, she never puts her teeth in. She hasn’t got a clue what’s going on. I thought, Lucky for her. Lucky for her!

Well, so we had a nice fire on the day itself. Tony did the dinner, he let Billy have the day off. ‘No chores for you today,’ he said. The way he gets on at Billy drives me mad some-times, but he did his best to make Christmas a good one for him. Did all the dinner. Gave him a new pair of football boots as a present.

‘Where’d you get those from?’ said Billy.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Tony. He gave me a pair of decent slippers, and I didn’t ask where they came from, either. And me? I don’t do shoplifting. I got Susan Harris to knit jumpers for both lads. Happy Christmas! Nice and thick and warm. You need something like that in this house. She knitted them, I gave them. It was good of her to help.

And then. And then. I was sitting there in my chair. We had the bits of the piano all piled up, it was warm but it gave a lousy fire, all cracking and spitting on the rug. I was watching Billy sitting there watching it burn. And I was thinking of all the things I couldn’t give him. No big presents, no bright tree, no, well, no mother. Where was my lovely Sarah now we needed her? And God knows, we all needed her.

Tony came in with the chicken. It smelled lovely. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.

‘Merry Christmas,’ I said. And I couldn’t help – I didn’t mean it – I burst into tears. I just sat there and wept and all three of them staring at me, but I couldn’t stop myself weeping. I let the tears roll down my face and I let them watch them rolling. I’d just had enough. I’ve just got nothing left to give.

‘
T
hat was a bloody awful Christmas,’ I said.

‘Did you not enjoy it, then?’ said Michael.

‘I’ve had the worst Christmas I can remember,’ I told him.

‘That’s not so bad.’

‘What?’

‘Well, you’re only twelve, so even the twelfth best isn’t too bad, is it?’

‘Oh, ha ha,’ I said. I was in no mood for jokes.

‘Sorry.’ He stood up and stared at me with his big eyes. He looks like a bloodhound sometimes with those big brown eyes.

‘Here.’ He took a bottle out of his pocket and passed it to me. ‘Have some of this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Cider.’

‘Where’d you get it?’

‘Me dad’s got loads in the kitchen.’

‘Won’t he notice?’

‘He never notices. He has gallons. Go on.’

I had a swig. It was sour! ‘Tastes of piss,’ I said.

‘You get used to it,’ said Michael. He took it back and had a swig himself.

It made me want to spit. ‘Who’d want to?’ I said.

‘Well, it warms you up, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose.’

We stood there, passing the bottle from one to the other.

‘You could run away from home,’ said Michael. ‘You could, I dunno, join a dancing troupe or something.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Well. Maybe it’s all for the best.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you won’t have to go away, then.’

‘F***ing hell, Michael! Anyone would want to get away from this shite.’

We were building a snowman. What else was there to do? The piano was all burned up already. Like Michael said, it could have made music for ever but it didn’t make heat for even one day, the house was freezing again. Me dad’s a miner and we don’t have any coal to burn. Joke.

It was a good snowman, except he was filthy dirty. We’d rolled a giant snow tube all up and down the ginnel to make his body, and then we’d gone up the other ginnel and rolled another one for his head and stuck that on top of the first one – it was enormous, but it had picked up all the mud and dog shit and stuff, so it was filthy dirty. We patted clean snow on all over it to cover up the stains.

By that time my hands were freezing. Have you ever had that, where suddenly your hands are so cold they hurt? I started dancing about and moaning.

‘God, my hands, my hands! Ouch!’

‘Do you want some more cider?’

‘I couldn’t hold the f***ing bottle. Ah!’

‘Give us ‘em here.’ He grabbed hold of me hands and stuck them underneath his jumper, right in under his clothes
onto his skin. It was lovely and warm, but. Well. You know? We were standing dead close to one another. Michael glanced up and down the road to make sure no one was looking. We were under a streetlamp and we had to sort of shuffle a little bit out of the light, without saying anything.

Then we stood there looking at each other.

‘What are you doing?’ I said.

‘Nothing. Just warming your hands up.’

It felt very warm. It was nice but – I had this feeling it was nice for Michael in another way.

‘Aren’t my hands cold?’ I asked him.

‘I quite like it.’

I thought about it a bit and then I said, ‘You’re not a poof or owt, are you?’

‘What gave you that impression?’ said Michael. He stood there blinking at me, then suddenly we both started laughing. I mean, was he a poof or owt? Of course he f***ing was! It was funny. Then he leaned across and kissed me on the cheek.

‘Just because I like ballet doesn’t make me a poof, too.’

‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘Course not.’

We stood there a moment longer. I didn’t mind having my hands there if he liked it, so long as I didn’t have to do anything else. I suppose I was flattered really, even though I never fancied him. He was my best friend, Michael. It was nice to be ... well, nice to be fancied, I suppose.

Then I had a stupid idea. ‘Tell you what. Come on.’ I grabbed his arm and pulled him away with me to the Social.