coming over.
‘Thank you. We aim to please. Not going to see your mother tomorrow?’
‘No, I’ll go next week. If I didn’t go at all she wouldn’t know. She can’t remember my name and two minutes after I leave she’s forgotten that I’ve been. It’s a tragic way to end your days. Where are you taking me?’
We sat in a corner, near a gas fire with realistic logs ablaze on it, and shared our week’s triumphs and disasters. Rosie told me all the school gossip, which mainly concerned the diversion of funds from the schools sports facilities into yet more computers, and I told her all about the funeral. It was really cheery stuff, so I decided to change the subject.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘three of us from the office are going to the Town Hall for a lecture by Tony Krabbe.’
‘The mountaineer? That should be interesting. He’s climbed Everest, hasn’t he?’
‘Mmm. I never thought to invite you along. In fact, I was invited myself. If you’d really like tocome I could tell one of the others that I needed his ticket.’
‘Ha ha, you wouldn’t, would you?’
No, but I could have wheedled and pleaded with Sparky, told him how much it meant to me, until he handed his ticket over. I said: ‘I’d’ve tried, but they’d probably have told me where to go.’
‘It’s made of limestone, you know. It was at the bottom of the sea, once.’ Rosie knows stuff like that.
‘What, Mount Everest?’
‘Chomolungma to the locals. Mother Goddess of the Universe.’
‘That’s interesting. So presumably it just popped up out of the sea when India crashed into Asia?’
‘Um, well, yes. Not the language I’d use, but the essence is there.’
I said: ‘I know him, Tony Krabbe, went to school with him. We were in the same football team.’
‘Were you? What’s he like?’
‘He was OK, a bit of a golden boy, even then. Literally. He had fair hair, which was always on the long side. All the girls thought the world of him, as did most of the teachers. He was in the year above me. I quite liked him.’
‘Don’t tell me: you had a schoolboy crush on him.’
‘Ha! You can read me like a book.’
I took Rosie home, left the engine running as westopped outside her house, thanked her for coming out with me. She said it was nice to have a change of scenery but didn’t invite me in for a coffee. There was an awkward silence as she opened her door to go, then she leant over, pecked me on the cheek and was gone.
I drove home feeling pleased with myself. Rosie has had her bad times, but was coping well, had her life under control. She once told me about the lines she’d drawn in the sand, beyond which she wouldn’t trespass. No alcohol in the house and never drink alone . That made good sense, and just the odd drink at other times. Go to work, even during the bad spells . Quit once, ring in to say you couldn’t make it, and the bar would be that little bit lower the next time. Shower and change knickers and bra every day . I’d pulled a face, saying I thought that was excessive, and we’d had a laugh. By being a friend, but not making any demands, I hoped I was helping her. My motives were suspect, entirely selfish, but it’s the practicalities that count.
I hadn’t had a crush on Tony Krabbe. In fact, the idea of boy-boy relationships of a sexual nature never occurred to me back in those days. Homosexuality was thought to be a product of the public school system, and just wasn’t on the curriculum at wholesome, coeducational Heckley Grammar. But I had admired him.
Once every year we had a plum football fixture against the local private school, which we looked forward to for a variety of reasons: their pitch was level; the grass was short; they had hot showers; they fed us lemonade and biscuits after the game. But most of all we liked going there because they were useless.
We were leading four-nil with a minute left to play when Krabbe was brought down in their penalty area. He’d scored two of
‘Thank you. We aim to please. Not going to see your mother tomorrow?’
‘No, I’ll go next week. If I didn’t go at all she wouldn’t know. She can’t remember my name and two minutes after I leave she’s forgotten that I’ve been. It’s a tragic way to end your days. Where are you taking me?’
We sat in a corner, near a gas fire with realistic logs ablaze on it, and shared our week’s triumphs and disasters. Rosie told me all the school gossip, which mainly concerned the diversion of funds from the schools sports facilities into yet more computers, and I told her all about the funeral. It was really cheery stuff, so I decided to change the subject.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘three of us from the office are going to the Town Hall for a lecture by Tony Krabbe.’
‘The mountaineer? That should be interesting. He’s climbed Everest, hasn’t he?’
‘Mmm. I never thought to invite you along. In fact, I was invited myself. If you’d really like tocome I could tell one of the others that I needed his ticket.’
‘Ha ha, you wouldn’t, would you?’
No, but I could have wheedled and pleaded with Sparky, told him how much it meant to me, until he handed his ticket over. I said: ‘I’d’ve tried, but they’d probably have told me where to go.’
‘It’s made of limestone, you know. It was at the bottom of the sea, once.’ Rosie knows stuff like that.
‘What, Mount Everest?’
‘Chomolungma to the locals. Mother Goddess of the Universe.’
‘That’s interesting. So presumably it just popped up out of the sea when India crashed into Asia?’
‘Um, well, yes. Not the language I’d use, but the essence is there.’
I said: ‘I know him, Tony Krabbe, went to school with him. We were in the same football team.’
‘Were you? What’s he like?’
‘He was OK, a bit of a golden boy, even then. Literally. He had fair hair, which was always on the long side. All the girls thought the world of him, as did most of the teachers. He was in the year above me. I quite liked him.’
‘Don’t tell me: you had a schoolboy crush on him.’
‘Ha! You can read me like a book.’
I took Rosie home, left the engine running as westopped outside her house, thanked her for coming out with me. She said it was nice to have a change of scenery but didn’t invite me in for a coffee. There was an awkward silence as she opened her door to go, then she leant over, pecked me on the cheek and was gone.
I drove home feeling pleased with myself. Rosie has had her bad times, but was coping well, had her life under control. She once told me about the lines she’d drawn in the sand, beyond which she wouldn’t trespass. No alcohol in the house and never drink alone . That made good sense, and just the odd drink at other times. Go to work, even during the bad spells . Quit once, ring in to say you couldn’t make it, and the bar would be that little bit lower the next time. Shower and change knickers and bra every day . I’d pulled a face, saying I thought that was excessive, and we’d had a laugh. By being a friend, but not making any demands, I hoped I was helping her. My motives were suspect, entirely selfish, but it’s the practicalities that count.
I hadn’t had a crush on Tony Krabbe. In fact, the idea of boy-boy relationships of a sexual nature never occurred to me back in those days. Homosexuality was thought to be a product of the public school system, and just wasn’t on the curriculum at wholesome, coeducational Heckley Grammar. But I had admired him.
Once every year we had a plum football fixture against the local private school, which we looked forward to for a variety of reasons: their pitch was level; the grass was short; they had hot showers; they fed us lemonade and biscuits after the game. But most of all we liked going there because they were useless.
We were leading four-nil with a minute left to play when Krabbe was brought down in their penalty area. He’d scored two of
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