After school, I’d get off the bus and then chase home to the flat and drop off my briefcase and get changed out of my blazer and shirt and tie. Then I’d run back up the hill to a fence by the side of the church where the newsagent’s van would have left the bag of papers. I soon got to know the round like the back of my hand, and I’d jump over fences, cut through alleyways, all the time working out even quicker ways to get the papers delivered. Some people got fed up with me because they used to be early in the round, but now, because I changed things to make the round go faster, some of them were getting their Evening Post up to half an hour later than usual. The only bit that really slowed the round down was when I had to go into the new sixteen-storey block of flats. If a flat was below the fifth floor, then I’d forget the lifts and just race up the stairs. Above the fifth floor it wasn’t worth it; it was better to just wait for a lift, but they were really unpredictable, and usually at least one of them was out of order. If I had to use them, I’d start at the top and leave my bag blocking the lift door and work my way down. Once in a while I’d get caught by a resident who wanted to know what the hell I thought I was playing at messing around with the lifts. I’d have to use the stairs after that, but sometimes, maybe once a week, I’d get all the way down to the ground floor without being interrupted by anybody, and that sped things up a lot. I gave Mam most of the money from the paper round, but I don’t remember her ever saying thank you. Twelve and six, and then when the new money came in, I got a pay rise to thirteen bob because it was easier to give me sixty-five pence as opposed to sixty-two and a half pence. Six nights a week I did the round, and I got it down to just under an hour. However, after I’d given Mam her fifty pence, I was left with pretty much sod all, and so I began to think about getting another job, and then I got lucky.
One day, when I was picking up the bag of papers from beside the church, Father Hanson asked me if I wanted to be an altar boy on a Sunday, which not only meant dressing up in a white surplice and following him around with a goblet of wine and some wafers, but it also meant handling the collection plate. A lot of people gave money in envelopes, and after the service was over, it was my job to take the collection plate into the vestry. I thought, well, God helps those who help themselves. Mam was pleased that I was going to church because it got me out of the flat on a Sunday morning, and it gave her some time for herself. Occasionally her friend Derek Evans would come to visit, and the two of them would be off out to the moors for lunch. He’d often knock on the door and then use his own key to let himself in and wait in the kitchen until Mam was ready. He usually dressed well, in a jacket and shirt and tie, but for some reason he shoved too many things in his pockets so he always looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He didn’t have much to say to me because he could see the way I looked at him, but he liked football, and he always had a word for our Tommy about United’s latest game or some such thing. Even though he was only eleven, Tommy had been recruited by Farsley Celtic, and he was doing really well and playing with kids two years older than him. I was proud of him, and on Sunday mornings I liked to stand on the balcony and watch when the minibus came by to pick him up, and then I’d be off out to my collection plate caper. Whenever I left the flat for church, Mam had real peace and quiet and the place all to herself unless, of course, her podgy-faced friend had come around.
I remember it was a Monday night when the two scouts from Pudsey Juniors turned up and knocked at the door. Mam was in her bedroom, and Tommy and me were watching telly, although I was also trying to do my homework at the same time. Tommy had a feeling some scouts might be around as he told me that two men had spoken to him after Sunday’s game and asked him where he lived. He’d scored twice and made the third goal, and according to him, he’d played a blinder. I called Mam and went back into the living room while she stood at the door and spoke to them both. Me and Tommy sat on the settee and looked at each other, and then we heard the door slam shut. Mam had a tube of lipstick in her hand as she came through into the living room. I told them no, you’re concentrating on your schoolwork, alright? Our Tommy nodded his head. And besides, we’ve already spoken about you playing for Uncle Derek’s team, haven’t we? She puckered up without waiting for an answer, and then lobbed the lipstick onto the sideboard. For heaven’s sake, be good. And don’t be up when I get back. She snatched up her coat and closed in the door behind her, and it was then that our Tommy began to cry. A single tear ran down the full length of his cheek, and eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak to me. She says Uncle Derek’s involved with Scott Hall Juniors, and he wants me to play for them. But they’re crap, I said. There was no need for me to say that, but I couldn’t help myself, and it just slipped out. What I really wanted to say was I could tell the beady-eyed bastard wasn’t treating Mam right, for she always made an effort to look nice for him, but he still had a wife. He was just using her to get at Tommy, for he liked nothing more than to impress kids, and football was his way of doing so. Without football he was nothing but a sad, desperate balding fucker who liked rambling on the moors with an anorak and compass, and he knew it. Our Tommy said nothing, and he just got up and went out. I heard the front door click shut, and I knew that he’d be off down the garages with his football until it got too dark to see.
I began to think about what exactly Steve Pamphlet might have meant when, earlier in that week, he’d asked me, How many uncles have you got? I was going to smack him, but I didn’t want him to think that I was bothered because I knew he thought he was better than me. If United were at home on a Saturday, he usually went to watch the match, and he always bragged about this. So, on the following Saturday, I decided to spend some of my church money and take myself off to watch United for the first time. At halftime they played “Band of Gold” really loudly out of the speakers. I’d never heard music played that loud, and I loved it. Not just the loudness, but the fact that the song was telling a story. But now I had a dilemma. I had enough money so that I could actually buy the record if I wanted to, instead of nicking it from the open market. I was a bit torn as to what to do.
“Ride a White Swan”—T. Rex
We stood together outside of the Civic Hall with the other kids and their parents and waited for the coach to come and pick us up. Mam never asked Tommy and me if we wanted to go to the seaside; it was just announced. We were going, and that was that, and we’d be spending two weeks at Silverdale Holiday Camp near Morecambe. I could tell by the type of kids who were waiting for the bus that this was a trip for poor people. They were the type of lads and lasses who were plagued with boils and spots, and who queued for free dinners at school, and who knew all about dodging the rent man or going down to the post office to pick up the family allowance money. And we were no better. I was nearly fourteen, and the emotion I was most familiar with — besides anger, that is — was shame. Mam tried to act all upbeat while we waited for the coach, but there was no getting around the fact that she was letting us go again. However, at least this time it wasn’t to a foster home. It was obvious that her nerves were not getting any better, and we could tell that she needed a rest. These days, she seemed really thin, and she’d begun to act even more weird than normal. We knew that we weren’t allowed in her bedroom, but now she was always asking us straight out, Have you been going in that bedroom when I’m not here? Of course we hadn’t. Why would we? But it felt wrong that she should be shouting at us and accusing us of something we hadn’t done. And then there were the nights that we had to spend by ourselves in the flat. In the morning we’d be having our Weetabix in the kitchen, and in she’d come, wearing the same clothes that we’d last seen her in, and she’d rush by us, stinking of cigarette smoke, and we’d carry on spooning the Weetabix into our mouths as we listened to her clumping about in her bedroom. We both assumed she’d been out with Derek Evans, but it wasn’t for us to ask.