Billy Elliot (6 page)

Christ! I just froze in me tracks. I thought I was going to die. I thought he was going to rush out and kill me. Miss was still going on ...

‘Up two three, swing two three. Like a princess, Deborah. Beautiful necks! One two three ... what’s up with you?’

She said that when she saw me standing still. Then the music stopped and she turned round and saw Dad. He’d gone blood red.

‘You! Out! Now!’ he snapped.

I could see her out of the corner of me eye, leaning forward towards him as if she could eat him for breakfast – and she would have done, and all. Well, she’d’ve tried anyhow, she doesn’t take anything sitting down. The last thing I wanted was a screaming match between her and me dad. I started walking towards him. ‘Please, miss. Don’t,’ I hissed as I went past. It was so embarrassing. Dad thought I was a pansy
for dancing; she thought I was a pansy for not standing up to him. I’d had it.

The door banged behind me. He grabbed my arm and pushed me in front.

‘Right, you’ve got some explaining to do,’ he said. And he marched me home.

He didn’t say a word all the way back. That’s how he does it, he makes you sweat. All the way home, down Union Street, up the High Street, along Macefield Road. Not a word. The bastard.

Back home he pointed at a chair behind the table, staring at me all the while he was taking his coat off. Then he sat down opposite me. And he still hadn’t said a word. See? The longer he goes without saying anything, the worse trouble you’re in. This time I was wondering if he was every gonna speak to me again.

I knew what he wanted. He wanted to me to say sorry. Well, I wasn’t going to. He could wait for ever. It was stupid! What had I done wrong?

‘Ballet,’ he said at last.

‘So what’s wrong with ballet?’ I said. Me nan was sitting on a chair by the window eating a pork pie and watching us like we were on the telly. I looked at her. It was easier than having to look at him. I could see him turning red again out of the corner of my eye.

‘What’s wrong with ballet? Look at me, Billy. Are you trying to wind me up?’

‘It’s perfectly normal,’ I sad, turning to face him.

‘Normal?’ I was scared. He’d gone all white around the lips.

‘I used to go to ballet,’ said me nan.

‘See?’ I said.

‘For your nan. For girls, Billy. Not for lads. Lads do football or boxing or wrestling or summat.’

‘What lads do wrestling?’ I asked, and I had him there, because no one I know does wrestling round here.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Don’t start, Billy.’

‘I don’t see what’s wrong with it, that’s all.’

‘You know perfectly well what’s wrong with it.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You do.’

‘No, I don’t!’

‘Yes, you bloody well do. Who do you think I am? You know quite nicely.’

‘It’s just dancing. That’s all. What’s wrong with that?’

The thing is ... All right, I knew what he meant. At least, I used to know. Ballet isn’t what boys do. It’s not football and boxing and being hard. And it’s not going on strike and standing up for yourserlf and sticking it out with your mates and all hanging in together. It’s not mining. It’s not the union. It’s not what we do.

Well, maybe I’m not mining either. And even if I was, so what? Why isn’t it what we do? Just because no one’s ever done it before, that’s all. Well, once I’ve done it, it is what we do, because I’m one of us too. It doesn’t have to be like him or not at all. Just because I like dancing doesn’t mean I’m turning into someone else.

Does it?

‘You’re asking for a hiding.’

‘No, I’m not. Honest, Dad, I’m not!’ As far as he was
concerned I was just being stubborn, but I really didn’t under-stand why it was so bloody important that I shouldn’t do ballet.

‘You are, Billy!’

‘It’s not just poofs, Dad. Some ballet dancers are as fit as athletes. It’s hard work. What about Wayne Sleep?’

‘Wayne Sleep?’

I wish I hadn’t said that. Wayne. Even as I said it I remembered how it sounded when Debbie first said the name to me. Wayne Sleep? Poof! That’s what it sounded like.

But now he’d had enough. ‘Listen, son, from now on you can forget about ballet dancing. And you can forget about the f***ing boxing as well. I’ve been busting my arse for those fifty pences. You know how tight money is. You can stay here and look after your nan. Got it? Good.’

‘I could have been a professional dancer if I’d had the chance,’ said Nan.

‘Will you shut up!’ Dad turned round and roared at her, the sod. He had no business speaking to her like that.

I jumped right up and screamed in his face, ‘I hate you! You’re a bastard!’ He made a lunge for me but I was away.

He was up and after me. ‘Billy!’ – but I was gone. Suddenly I had tears streaming down my face and I knew he’d just think I was being a poof all over again. I could hear him bellowing, but I’d had it with him, the bastard. I was out the door and up the street and across the field and down the beck and gone. Bastard! It was the only thing I’d ever been really good at and he was stopping me doing it. Bastard! Bastard, bastard! I ran for miles. That was it, that was really it. He meant it. If Dad says something like that, he sticks to it. If he caught me anywhere near the Social, he’d leather me.

I ended up down on the beach, miles away. It was a big windy day, waves coming in crashing on the beach. I can understand why me nan comes down here. Just listening to the water munching away on the stones – it clears your head, calms you down. Helps you think. I started chucking stones at the waves and watching the water swallowing them up. The sun was going down. I’d been out hours.

There was Everington behind me on the hill. I was on the posh side of town. Miss’s side. I wondered, if I’d been posh like her, I’d’ve been allowed to do ballet. But it wasn’t that. I was the only boy in the class. Middle class, working class, it makes no difference. Boys don’t do ballet, full stop.

There wasn’t anything she could do about it.

Actually, her house was a lot smaller than I thought it’d be. I’d only ever seen those houses from the beach before. It was more of a bungalow than a house when you got up close. It had a garden at the front and a garage and all that, and it was on its own, not a terrace like ours, but when you got inside it was a lot smaller than you might think. I don’t know why they bother building houses on their own unless they’re bigger. I mean, what for?

I went up and knocked. I didn’t know why. Me dad was me dad. What could she do? Middle-class Millie.

The door opened and there she was, breathing fag smoke.

‘Oh. It’s you, is it?’ she said.

I said, ‘He’d kill me if he knew I’d come here.’

‘He’s stopped you coming to classes, has he?’

‘It’s not his fault, miss,’ I said.

‘And that’s fine by you, is it?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose so,’ I said. I wasn’t going to slag
Dad off to her, I don’t care what she thought of him. He’s still me dad.

‘You should stand up to him,’ she said.

‘You don’t know what he’s like, miss.’

‘Well, that blows it,’ she said, and she dragged on her fag and blew smoke all over me.

‘Blimey, miss!’ I said, trying to waft it away.

‘Sorry.’

‘Blows what?’ I said, but she’d already turned back into the house.

‘Debbie!’ she yelled. ‘It’s Billy. Come and see to him, will you?’

I followed her into the sitting room. I don’t think I’d been in a middle-class house before. It was funny. It was, like I say, not much bigger than ours and the furniture wasn’t any better either. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, antiques or something. But it was just normal stuff. Quite old. Tatty, really. I thought, Maybe it’s not so bloody marvellous being middle class after all.

I sat down on the settee and in a bit Debbie came down and sat next to me. Her dad was sitting there hunched up in a chair with a drink in his mitt.

‘Well, well, well,’ he went. ‘Everington’s little Gene Kelly, isn’t it? I’ve heard a lot about you. Your dad down the pit, is he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Must be hard on the family being out on strike. He is out on strike, is he?’

‘Course,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, son.’ He stuck his nose in his drink and swallowed a mouthful. ‘It won’t take long.’

‘Long as it takes,’ I told him, and he glared at me.

‘Tom, be quiet,’ said Miss.

‘If they had a ballot they’d be back tomorrow. It’s just a few bloody commies stirring things up. Let’s face it, they don’t have a bloody leg to stand on. It stands to reason. Some pits just aren’t economical. If it costs more money to pay blokes like your dad to dig the stuff up out of the ground than you get when you sell it, well. What does that tell you?’

I shrugged. I don’t know what he was so cross about. You’d’ve thought my dad was out on strike just to get him. What difference did it make to him anyhow? I suppose he thought that just because I liked ballet, that made me think like him. Well, it didn’t, did it?

Miss came out of the kitchen and started setting the table. ‘Tom, don’t go on at him.’

‘Well, you wanna think about it, son. What sort of country is this going to be if people keep jobs that don’t make any money, eh?’

‘Tom!’

‘If it were up to me, I’d close the lot of them down tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, but it isn’t up to you,’ I said.

‘Now listen, son – ‘ he began, but Miss jumped in right off.

‘I said leave him be, Tom,’ she snapped. ‘He’s a guest here, not one of your friends down the pub.’

‘What do you do, Mr Wilkinson?’ I asked him.

‘He’s been made redundant,’ said Debbie, before he could get a word in.

‘Didn’t you go out on strike to save your job, then?’ I said and I swear, he blushed red like a little kid. I thought he was gonna jump up and lump me one. But he sat there scowling and frowning and he never said another word.

I had dinner there. Later on, up in her room, Debbie told me all about her mam and dad. We were sitting next to each other on her bed, and she had this little doll sat on her lap she was playing with, and she told me everything. It was none of my business really. She said her dad drank too much. She said once, he drank so much he pissed himself in the armchair and they had to get a new cushion for it. She said he’d had an affair, and he was unhappy because Miss wouldn’t sleep with him.

‘They have separate beds and everything,’ she said.

‘Does she not like sex, like?’ I asked her.

‘I think she used to like it,’ Debbie said. ‘Don’t you miss your mam?’

Well, but I didn’t want to tell her about my mam. I don’t think about her most of the time. Sometimes I forget that she’s dead. I go into the kitchen or one of the other rooms and I think she’s just gone out to the shops, or that she’s next door with my nan, or even once that she was bending down on the other side of the table picking something off the floor that had fallen down. But then she never stands up, and she never comes back from the shops, and when I go next door, my nan’s in there on her own. It seems impossible that my mam’s not there any more. Maybe that’s what she means in her letter, when she says she’s there for me for ever, even though she’s dead. Maybe she really is there all the time but I just can’t see her.

But I never said any of that to Debbie. ‘So does your mam not have sex at all, then?’ I asked her.

‘No. She’s unfulfilled. That’s why she does dancing.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. I said, ‘You mean she does dancing instead of sex? Your family’s weird!’ I always thought
that if you were middle class and you had a mam and a dad and all, then that was all normal, like. But instead of that, here I was in a middle-class house and it was all completely weird.

‘No, they’re not,’ said Debbie. She put her doll down and shifted over closer to me. She was so close we were almost touching and it made me feel uncomfortable. I moved away slightly.

‘They are, though,’ I said. ‘They’re all mental.’

She shuffled up closer again, so I bonked her on the head with a pillow. She ducked round to grab one and we had this great pillow fight, whacking each other with the pillows. I didn’t do it too hard, though. She was just a girl, I didn’t want to hurt her. I kept pushing her away and holding her wrists with one hand and bopping her with the other, and then I climbed on top of her and sat on her legs. She was screeching and giggling. And then, you know, while I was struggling for her hands, my hand brushed against her top and I felt her tits. I never realised she had tits yet, they were only small. It was a bit of a shock. I stopped and she stopped and we looked at each other. It felt funny, then, sitting on top of her. She reached up and stroked my face. It felt nice, she was very gentle but it was embarrassing because – you know – it made my willy go stiff.

I got off.

‘See. You’re a nutter, you,’ I told her.

She sat up and looked the other way. I didn’t know what to do. There was feathers floating on the air where the pillow had leaked. I wafted them at her so they landed on her jumper, and she sat there picking them off.

‘Debbie, it’s time for Billy to go home.’ It was Miss calling up the stairs. I jumped up. What would she say if she thought
I’d been touching her daughter’s tits in her bedroom? Even though I never meant it.

‘Come on, Billy, I’ll give you a lift to the corner.’

‘See you, Debbie.’

‘Bye, Billy.’

She sat there with her hands on her lap not looking at me as I walked out the door.

Miss gave me a lift just round the corner from where I lived. She would’ve taken me all the way home but I didn’t want to get caught in her car. She pulled up on some waste ground near our house.

‘Right then,’ she said. I didn’t move, though. I just sat there for a bit. We hadn’t said anything about it, not really. She turned the car off, sighed, and took herself a fag out.

‘This’ll sound strange, Billy,’ she said. ‘But I was thinking of auditioning for the Royal Ballet School.’

I thought, Jesus, she’s keen on that dancing then. I thought – I know this is stupid but it was just after that talk with Debbie, like – I thought it must be having no sex was making her want to do something stupid like that.