“Maggie May”—Rod Stewart
Beverley Armitage was the name of the first girl I ever kissed. She lived in the same block of flats as us and she went to John Wardle’s. She used to come and knock on the door and wait for our Tommy so they could go to school together, but he started to leave early so that he didn’t have to be seen with her, and I started to miss my bus into town so that I could be there when she came knocking. After the third time that it was me who opened the door, I could see that Beverley Armitage was getting the idea that our Tommy was doing his best to avoid her. She was twelve, a year younger than me, but I’d noticed that the age gap didn’t make much difference with girls. With a lad a year could be a massive gap, but lasses always seemed a bit older than what they really were. I’d also noticed that Beverley Armitage had started to develop a chest that I couldn’t take my eyes off, and I reckoned I’d better ask her out before she stopped coming around. So after failed attempt number three, and just as she was turning away to go back to the lifts, I blurted it out and asked her if she’d seen Diamonds Are Forever. She looked at me as if she hadn’t heard properly, and so I had to go on. It’s showing at the Clock Cinema, I said. We could go on Friday. She still didn’t say anything, so I thought I’d better finish. If you’re not doing anything, that is. Like most thirteen-year-olds, I was the bashful sort when it came to girls, and a smug, grinning Steve Pamphlet had summed me up in front of the whole class: too slow to catch a cold, let alone a lass. Of course, I had to pretend that I was in on the joke, so I laughed, but inside of myself I knew he was right. However, that morning on the doorstep, I surprised myself. In the afternoon, during the boring chemistry double period, I wrote “Beverley Armitage” on my exercise book in big swirling letters and coloured her name in with red, green, and blue felt-tipped pens. Inevitably, I missed everything that the teacher was going on about. Something to do with potassium and copper, or something like that, but having finished my doodling, I was busily now trying to work out how to pay for Friday night without it coming over like I was Mr. Moneybags.
It turned out that I needn’t have worried so much, for when we got to the head of the queue, she stepped in front of me and said that her grandma had given her half a crown and told her that she had to go dutch and pay her own way. I didn’t argue, but I was a bit surprised. I’d managed to save up about two pounds over the past year, mainly by nicking money out of kids’ pockets when we got changed for games. I’d go to a lot of trouble to make sure that I was the last out of the changing rooms, or first back in, or both, and I soon learned whose pockets were worth going through. To start with, I’d use the money to buy comics, usually Hotspur or Victor, but sometimes The Dandy too. But then I decided I wanted a red Chopper bike, and so I stopped buying comics or going out anywhere, and I started to save up, but I quickly cottoned on that it was going to take me forever to save up enough money for a Chopper, or a bike of any kind, and that’s when it became clear that stopping in and saving every penny for a bike I’d probably never own was a waste of time. I’d be better off buying a bag of chips and hanging out by the off-licence and watching the older estate boys smoking Woodies and doing their impressions of Rod Stewart singing “Maggie May.” Getting together two pounds hadn’t been easy, but every time I saw Beverly Armitage’s chest, I knew that I’d be prepared to spend whatever it took to impress her.
However, it didn’t take long before I began to get the message that she wasn’t interested. I steered Beverley Armitage towards a double seat at the back of the front circle, but I didn’t lay a finger on her during the film. I just sat ramrod still and stared at the screen. I didn’t even offer her a spice, even though I had a packet of fruit pastilles in my pocket. The couple beside us seemed intent on getting thrown out as they were all over each other, and it was pretty distracting, as you could actually hear them kissing and their tongues were involved. I didn’t want to look, and it was sending me spare just thinking about it, but I realized that Beverley Armitage didn’t seem to be put out by their snogging, and I even caught her sneaking a peek at the courting couple. We both stood up for the national anthem at the end, and then I walked her home and started to make small talk about the film, and she tried to look interested in whatever it was that I was going on about.
It was still light when we got to her flat. I stood by the door, but I didn’t know if I should ask her out again, because it’s not like she’d been acting completely offhand or anything. However, she didn’t give me much of a chance to properly weigh things up in my head. She leaned forward and pecked me on the cheek and said good-night in a kind of cheerful voice as though the whole evening had been okay, and then she disappeared inside. And so that was it, but there was something about the way she kissed me that let me know that she didn’t want to go out with me a second time. Once was enough, and I knew I wasn’t going to embarrass myself, or her, by asking again. It was only later that night, as I looked over at our Tommy, that I began to accept what was going on. I may have been a bit older, but I was a crap substitute. From her point of view, it was all a big mistake. It was our Tommy she was smitten with, and maybe she thought she could get his attention if she was nice to his brother. The Beverley Armitages of this world were not interested in boys like me, but I decided that when Steve Pamphlet asked me if I’d got anything from her, I was going to tell him, yes, a quick feel, and then shrug my shoulders and say she wasn’t my type of lass, and try and leave it at that.
“Band of Gold”—Freda Payne
Things began to deteriorate after the fostering with Mrs. Swinson didn’t take. At the end of the day Mam was always tired, and sometimes she didn’t even have the energy to talk to us, so to my way of thinking, she needn’t have bothered making the effort. Most nights Tommy was at football practise, and so I was left by myself with her as she poured a drink, then scribbled a bit at her stories, then poured another drink. It was painful to watch, and I was always happy when she gave up and just went to bed. I worried a bit about Tommy, for he didn’t seem to have any time for Mam, and he even told me that he wished he was an orphan. Apparently there was a lad in his class at John Wardle’s who lived in a children’s home, and according to Tommy, he had more fun than we did. In fact, some of the grown-ups from the children’s home even came to watch Tommy’s mate play football. The one bright spot in all of this was that I managed to get a job delivering the Evening Post, but not before I had to practically beg the newsagent to give me the round, and even then I got myself a lecture. You just shut your gob and listen to me. I’ll not tolerate any slacking. You’re an estate lad, and it’s a scab of a place. There’s well-brought-up lads from farther out who’d kill for this job, and I always have to keep an extra bloody eye open with you lot. Always on the cadge, aren’t you? I mean, face facts, nothing good will ever come of you kids. They should build a trunk road between that estate and the local lockup because that’s where most of you are heading. And just because your lordship’s at the grammar school, don’t be thinking that you’re any better than the rest of them, because you’re not. I’ve got your bleeding number.