An Experiment in Love

The scholarship was the Eleven Plus. Almost everybody didn’t pass it. If boys failed, they sank below my horizon for a few years, then cropped up in a wedding photo, suit sleeves hiding any tattoos; oh, it’s a pity, my mother would say, he was a bright little lad, and now look at that trollop he’s landed with. If girls failed, they went to St Theresa’s up Pennyworth Brow, where they wore navy berets and laddered nylons. Sister Monica, who was in charge of us in the top class, was already priming us for it. ‘You will find there is first-rate equipment for domestic science,’ she said. ‘Electrical sewing-machines. A fully equipped laundry with steam-presses, and a model kitchen fitted out with a range of electrical cooking ranges. In point of fact, everything the heart could desire.’

A thought occurred to me: ‘If I go to the Holy Redeemer, I’ll have to go on the bus.’ A needle of anxiety probed my ribs; a bus, I thought, could get a child lost.

‘Two buses, at least,’ my mother said. ‘Three, if you’d like to save a long walk.’ She sounded proud, as if I had already been exalted. ‘It’ll be worth it, mark my words. Make no mistake about it. An honour and a privilege.’

I wanted to run and put my hand over her mouth. I didn’t know why she was saying such things.

It was nearly Bonfire Night. The evenings were dry and cold, and smelt of the fires to come. If you’re a Catholic you don’t burn Guy Fawkes; the Pope says you mustn’t.

We went from house to house, cob-coaling.

‘We come a cob-coaling for Bonfire Night, Tally-ho, tally-ho

Some children hoped that after two lines the person would come out with money in their hand ready, because they didn’t know any more words. If the householder was slow they had to stand there just shuffling their feet and droning ‘Tally-ho’.

But I liked the words, the complete set. They had no meaning and yet they were crawling with it. I would have sung them for no money at all.

‘Down in yon cellar there’s an old umberella

And in yonder corner there’s an old pepper box.

Pepper box, pepper box, morning till night:

If you give us nowt we’ll steal nowt

We wish you good-night.’

By the time it came to the 5th of November, the weather was cloudy, damp and unseasonably warm. The Catherine wheels, nailed to coalhouse doors, twirled brokenly as if they were burning under a towel. Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius sputtered and coughed, giving a poor impression of their lethal past, and rockets shot into skies ready to receive and extinguish them. My grandad would always give a good firework display, whatever the prevailing conditions: Karina and I stood side by side in his backyard, two among a small crowd, cramming our mouths with parkin. I whispered, through the crumbs, ‘I’m going to sit for the Holy Redeemer.’

She turned on me, her eyes narrowed. If she had been less greedy she would have spat out her softening mass of oatmeal and treacle; but as it was she chewed vigorously till most of her cake was gone. ‘YOU—ARE—A—LIAR,’ she hissed. ‘You’ll have to tell it in confession.’

‘I am not a liar,’ I hissed back. ‘Susan Millington passed her scholarship and then she passed her entrance exam. I’m going on two buses, if not three. I’ll be getting a tennis racquet.’

‘If you believe that, you’re even dafter than you look.’

The lethargic bonfire put out its tongues: reaching, dull crimson, into heavy air. It was built nice and high—Joan of Arc, I thought—and I could see figures moving against its light; I could see Karina, as she swung her face away. One plait swayed out from under her pixie hood, like a sucker reaching for food. Envy, I thought. One of the Deadly Sins. We were having them in catechism. Cardinal Virtues: Justice, Fortitude, Temperance…My memory failed. There was grey smoke going up my nose. Four Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Vengeance. Murder. Sodomy. Oppression of the Poor. Defrauding the Labourer of his Wages.