Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,92
afterward, that’s why. You want to fucking watch him. Turn your back on him and he’ll stick it up your arse in a second.” He made a sweeping gesture with his cigarette and launched it toward the buttocks of a pudgy-faced younger boy. The boy had entered the cloakroom a few moments earlier and, his back to Stan, was hanging his coat on one of the hooks on the wall. The cigarette end landed against his backside, sending out a small shower of sparks and ash. Everyone around him burst into fits of bellowing laughter. I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him from school. He was a first-year, and I’d sometimes seen him eating at the same table as Malcolm and Dizzy in the dining hall.
“Bloody hell!” the boy yelled as he leaped away, dancing around the cloakroom while he brushed frantically at the seat of his pants. Stan, Greg, and the rest of their friends roared, doubling over and slapping one another on the back as they watched. Next to me, Tracey giggled, digging me with her elbow again as the boy tried to look over his shoulder to assess the state of his rear end. Though I was determined not to find anything that Stan Heaphy did amusing, I couldn’t help laughing. After all, the boy looked ludicrous, leaping around like a character in a slapstick comedy.
“Christ almighty,” the boy said when he’d managed to ascertain that his trousers weren’t on fire. “What the hell did you have to do that for? These are brand-new bloody trousers. If you’ve scorched them, my mam will kill me.”
His trousers, with their unfaded fabric and perfect creases, did look new. But the rest of his clothes—frayed denim jacket, shrunken sweater, and scuffed shoes—looked sad and worn. He didn’t look as if he came from the kind of family that could afford to replace clothes easily. I felt a fierce pang of guilt for having joined in his humiliation at the hands of Stan.
“Just trying to teach you a lesson, Ken, that’s all,” Stan said, stepping over to where the cigarette still burned on the floor and grinding it under one of his black Dr. Martens boots. “It’s for your own good. Got to keep an eye out for those poofter types. Can’t turn your back for a second. I mean, not with a delicious chubby little arse like yours.” There was another ripple of laughter. This time I did not join in.
Greg, whose laugh was by far the loudest, slapped Stan on the back. “Good one, Stan. Hah, that’s a bloody good one,” he brayed, hooking his arm over Stan’s shoulder and leaning into him so closely that he was almost hanging off Stan.
“Yeah, Stan, that was a good one,” Tracey echoed, gazing hopefully at Greg.
Grabbing the whiskey from Greg and shrugging him off, Stan took another long drink, removing at least an inch of the copper liquid from the bottle. As soon as he finished, he let out a theatrically loud belch and grinned proudly at the crowd assembled around him. Then he handed the bottle back to Greg, folded his arms, and regarded Ken with an arcing grin. “What’s up? Getting poked in the arse like that, did it bother you, Kenny boy?” The joking tone was gone from his voice, and his words came out in a slow and lazy snarl. I saw the muscles in Ken’s face tighten. He glanced at Stan’s face and then toward the door. I noticed how the air in the room felt stale with cigarette smoke and the heat of all those jostling boys’ bodies. Like Ken, I wanted to get out.
“More like nancy boy,” Greg Loomis crowed.
“Yeah, he’s definitely a nancy boy,” Tracey agreed, barking out an awkward, overloud laugh. “A fat little nancy boy.” Her eyes darted over to Greg, and for a moment her features seemed stung with intense neediness.
“Yeah, he’s got to be a fucking poofter,” Stan said. “Doesn’t like me messing with him ’cause he’d prefer it up the arse from the vicar, wouldn’t you, nancy boy?”
“That’s not true,” Ken said, his voice flimsy and suddenly higher, precipitating an immediate chorus of vociferous laughter—the boys, mouths wide, lips curled, showing teeth and tongues and gums, and Tracey, clapping her hands together as she tossed her head back. I took a step back from the heaving circle, aware of how the stillness of my own face and my secrets set me apart.