Billy Elliot (9 page)

That’s when she slapped me. Whack, right round the chops. Really hard. It bloody hurt. I was shocked. I never thought she’d do that. She had no business doing that. I put my hand to me face. She looked as shocked as I was. I took a step back; she took a step forward and held her arms out.

‘Billy, love,’ she said. Well, I was ready to run. I was ready to go out that door and never come back. But ...

Well, it wasn’t her fault, was it? If I didn’t keep her, what had I got? I didn’t want to stop dancing, you see. So I couldn’t
leave. And because I couldn’t leave, I started crying instead. She took another step towards me and reached out for my head when she saw my eyes go wet, and I let her put my head on her shoulder. I leaned against her like a pudding and just cried.

‘I’m sorry, Billy,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’ And me, I just cried my head off while she stroked my haircut. It went on for about five minutes.

‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘Have you done?’

‘Yes, miss. Sorry,’ I said. She pushed my head back up and I wiped my eyes on my T-shirt.

‘Good lad,’ she said. She pulled out a fag from the packet in her pocket and lit it in the corner of her mouth. ‘Let’s get back to it, shall we?’

You’ve got to hand it to her, haven’t you? And you know what? She never even asked me what the matter was.

Well, but I was glad she did make me, because the dance was the one thing that was going right for me. I wasn’t doing well at school, either. I mean, not bad, but not all that good, you know? But the dance was going well and I felt good about that.

On the other hand, the audition was getting closer and I felt really bad about that. It was scary, you know? Trying for something like that. If it worked, if I passed, what then? I’d have to tell me dad and he’d go mental. And even if he let me, then what? Leave home? Go to live all the way in London on me own? No way! It was bonkers. What was it going to cost? Christ!

But I had me dad right fooled. I was doing ballet every night and he never had a clue. He thought I was out playing
with Michael. I had it all arranged. Michael’d come and call for me, or I’d go round to his, and we’d go out together as if we were just hanging around together. He’d even come into the Social with me, but then he’d sneak out the back way and go off to do whatever it was he did with himself on his own – dressing up or whatever, I expect, the big pansy.

You know, I wonder about Michael. I wonder if maybe he really is a poof and maybe he thinks I might be one too, because I like ballet. Well, I’m not, no way, but something happened a little while ago that worried me, with that Debbie. She used to come along sometimes to watch me do my stuff. She was jealous because Miss was her mam but she wasn’t putting Debbie in for the Royal Ballet School. When I asked her why not, Miss just shrugged and said she wasn’t good enough. Anyhow, this one day, I was pulling my top on after the dance, I was all sweaty and stinky, but I was happy, because it’d gone really well that day. Debbie was sitting there sucking a lollipop and watching me.

‘Billy,’ she said. ‘Do you not fancy me at all?’

‘I dunno,’ I said. I mean, I’d never really thought about it. It made my heart start beating, though, because I was scared she was going to ask me to go out with her. One thing I was clear about, I didn’t want to go out with Debbie Wilkinson. Debbie’s pretty bloody odd herself, if you ask me. If I had to have a girlfriend, it wouldn’t be her, that’s all.

By the week of the audition, I was more scared than I’d ever been in my whole life. I still hadn’t told me dad. The
audition was on the Saturday morning at half ten. He didn’t have to know, I didn’t need time off school or owt. I just thought, Well, if I don’t get in, he never has to know, and if I do – well, maybe he’ll bloody kill me, but maybe he’ll be so amazed that I’ve actually gone and done it that he’ll let me go.

Anyway, I couldn’t believe I was ever going to get it. I kept saying to Miss, ‘It’s a waste of time, miss, I won’t get in.’

‘Yes, you bloody will, Billy Elliot, you’ll get in if it’s the last thing I do. You’ll sail in. They’ll never have seen anything like you, and that’s the truth. Right! Let’s get on.’

There was no one to talk to about it. She was no use, all she ever did was push. There was Michael, he was OK, but ... well, it made me miss Mam, that’s all. I could have talked to her about it. She’d have known what to say, what to do. She was the only person in the world I could have talked to, and she wasn’t bloody there. See, all that stuff in her letter was just tripe, really. She was dead. Dead and stopped. She couldn’t tell me anything, could she? She couldn’t even hear anything. I don’t blame her for writing that letter. I suppose it was to make her feel better, and to make me feel better too, but it was tripe all the same.

And then this thing happened. It was just a couple of days before the audition. You won’t believe me. I don’t believe it all that much myself, but it did happen and there you go, and I’m going to tell you anyhow.

The audition was half past ten on Saturday morning, and this was the Thursday before. The Social was being used for a fundraising event for the miners that evening, so we drove out to this school where she knew someone and used their gym and we had to go across on the transporter bridge. It’s
an old iron thing made of girders, and instead of spanning the river it has this carriage which gets hauled across, first one way, then the other.

On the way back, we were waiting in the car for the transporter to come and I was bored, so I asked if I could put a tape on. Miss was fagging away as usual. She smoked as if the whole world was waiting for her to finish her fag and she had to really concentrate on it to get it done properly.

‘If you must,’ she said.

There was one lying on the dashboard. It didn’t have any name on it, it was one she must’ve made. I put it on. It was classical stuff – not something I’d ever usually listen to. Rock and pop was more my kind of thing, but – maybe it was because I’d been hearing that sort of thing on the piano from Mr Braithwaite during class, I dunno, but I listened to it this time. And you know what? I liked it. Once you got into it, it was really something else.

She sat there watching me listen for a bit. Then she stubbed her fag out and turned the sound up. The transporter came over and we drove on, then we sat still and listened.

The thing was, I knew that music. I’d heard it before, I’m sure I had. Maybe I’d heard it on the radio years and years ago when I was still a little kid, and I’d never paid any attention to it. Not like now. Now the music came out and filled up the car, and it filled me up too. It was beautiful. It was fantastic.

Then the tape ran out.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s off the radio. I didn’t get all of it.’

‘It’s cush, innit?’ I said. ‘What is it? Is there a story?’

‘Swan Lake,’ she said. ‘It’s a ballet. Of course there’s a
story. It’s about this woman who gets captured by this evil magician.’

I pulled a face. I might have known. ‘Sounds crap,’ I said. But Miss was on a roll. It really meant something to her.

‘This woman, this beautiful woman, she’s turned into a swan, you see, except for a few hours every night when she becomes alive. I mean, when she becomes herself again. When she becomes real. And then one night she meets this young prince and he falls in love with her, and she realises that this is the one thing that’ll allow her to become a person again. A real woman.’

I looked sideways at her. She was really looking flushed. I don’t know why some old story should make her feel like that.

‘So what happens?’ I said.

‘He promises to marry her and then goes with someone else, of course. The usual.’ I had to smile to myself, because she looked all sour again – back to her usual self.

‘So she has to be a swan for good, then?’

‘She dies.’

‘That’s a bit steep. Because the prince didn’t really love her?’

‘Come on, it’s time to go. It’s only a ghost story.’ And she started up the car and drove off.

It was dark by the time I got home. It was getting cold – the leaves were all off the trees, it was just about winter. The house was freezing cold because we couldn’t afford to turn the central heating on. We’d finished burning up the old shed ages ago. I put me dressing gown on over me clothes to keep warm. Dad and Terry were out, which was odd; I remember wondering, where on earth were they? Dad was always in at
that time. The do at the Social should have finished. Nan was in, that was all. I went to peep in through the sliding door to her room to see if she was all right.

‘No!’ she shouted when she heard the door open. ‘No. No.’ It was one of her bad days.

‘It’s only me, Nan,’ I said. I waited for her to recognise me, but she just stared. ‘It’s Billy,’ I said. She lay back down.

I went back to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I don’t know why we bother keeping the fridge on, it costs money and the place is so cold it’s like a fridge anyway, you could keep the food on the table and it wouldn’t be any colder.

I took out some milk and had a swig.

‘Oi. Little ‘un.’

I turned round. It was Mam. She was standing there with a glass bowl in one hand and a cloth in the other, wiping the bowl clean. ‘What have I told you about drinking out of the bottle?’ she said.

‘Sorry, Mam,’ I said. I thought nothing of it. It was just like normal. I took a glass from the table and poured myself a glass properly, like, and put the bottle on top of the fridge while I drank it.

‘Well, put it back,’ she said.

I picked up the bottle, opened the door, put the milk back, turned around and she was gone and ...

It was only then that I realised. It was only then. Mam. She’d been there. The bowl and the cloth were lying there on the table where she’d been. I walked over and picked up the bowl and it was still warm where her hands had been on it. See? It wasn’t a ghost, she was real. I looked behind me. I wasn’t scared. I knew she wasn’t there any more so I didn’t
call for her or owt. I just stood there, not thinking. Then the sliding door opened and Nan came out.

‘Now, Billy, it’s in here,’ she said. I thought, typical, I’ve just seen me mam and now Nan’s having a barmy. She tottered over to the cupboard near where Mam had been standing and bent down to open the door.

‘What, Nan?’

‘The records, you dope.’ She took a record out of the cupboard and grinned at me. She tapped her nose. ‘I know,’ she said. Then she turned and went next door.

‘What do you know, Nan? What do you know?’ I asked her. I followed her. She was in the front room putting a record on.

‘Listen,’ she said. The needle came down, the music came on.

Swan Lake. Same as I listened to an hour before with Miss.

I just stared at her. How had she known? You see – that’s where I’d heard it before. It was one of Mam’s old records. She had a box of records she used to play from time to time when I was small. No one ever played them now, they’d been put away to keep them safe for years.

‘Did you see her too, Nan?’ I asked. But Nan was gone. She began moving around the room, dancing. I’d seen her do those movements loads of times before, but I knew what they were now. Plie. Ballet. She used to do ballet when she was a girl.

‘Like this,’ I said. I came over to her and took her arms and we went through a few moves together, me and me nan. It was amazing. She was slow and stiff, but she knew what she was doing all right. Maybe she was right, maybe she did use to be good, once upon a time, long ago. We did a slow dance
together, and it really was quite beautiful.

Then the door banged and before I could do owt, there was Tony standing in the door with me dad peering in over his shoulder.

‘Who told you you could use my record player?’ he said.

‘It’s not yours, it’s Mam’s,’ I complained.

‘You don’t have any records, it’s no use to you,’ he said. He went over and took the needle off, all rough so it scratched.

‘Oh, we were dancing to that,’ complained Nan.

Then me dad joined in. ‘You be bloody careful,’ he yelled. I thought he was shouting at me, but it was Tony he was cross with for scratching Mam’s record. ‘You take a bit more care with things that aren’t your own,’ he told him. He took the record off him and wiped it carefully on his shirtsleeve.

‘No one ever plays it anyhow,’ said Tony.

‘And you,’ said me dad to me. ‘Who told you to play this?’

‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

‘I could have been a professional dancer,’ said Nan, and she did a little curtsey. Dad turned away and banged the door on his way out. It was horrible the way the two of them came banging in like that. I felt more sorry for Nan than anything, but it didn’t matter to me, not just then, anyhow. I knew what it was about, see. Mam wanted me to go for it. That’s what it meant. And I knew then, if Mam thought I should go for it, that maybe it wasn’t just a stupid dream. Maybe it really could come true.

On the other hand, maybe I was just going bonkers meself, like Nan was. But now I was going to go for it as hard as I could. I was going to do me best. The audition was the next morning at half past ten, and I felt ready to do anything
for it – for me and for Mam. I went in on Friday afternoon after school to do the final practice, and it went perfect. I was up for anything. And then on the way home, there was a bloody riot.