The Vale - Part 4 (Adam Believe)

By Jane Hyphen
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I can remember the exact moment I saw Adam Berry. It was on the first day of secondary school and we had been instructed, via a letter in the post, to gather and wait in an outdoor corridor, indicated on a map, at half past eight in the morning. The letter had also told us which houses and classes we were going to be in, mine was Western B.
There were a couple of other boys from primary school who would also be attending, familiar faces but they weren’t really my friends. My closest friend at that time had moved away to Kent, his parents told my dad they were moving to an area which was better for their children and I never saw him again. A few other mates were sent to another school across town because it had good sports facilities. I wasn’t particularly sporty, my sister got into grammar school but I didn’t. My mind was restless and double-crossing, it was always destined to betray me at verbal reasoning.
My dad thought it was simpler to just send me to the closest comprehensive school. I was mostly a sensible boy. What could possibly go wrong?
I felt the pressure of my first day, mostly because family members kept poking me and saying, ‘Oooh, first day at big school!’ It was different for me though, everything was different for me. I was acutely aware that this would have been Gary’s first day at school too and I felt him with me from the minute I woke up that morning. As I straightened my tie in the mirror, I saw him standing next to me laughing. I’d never worn a tie before and had spent all weekend practising how to do it up. It was almost as if he was laughing with relief that he wasn’t going through it himself.
My mum kept sighing and stroking my hair. ‘You’ll be alright,’ she said, simply because she couldn’t think of anything helpful to say. I could see in her face that she was thinking of Gary too and that was draining any energy she could have put into making me feel reassured. It was no great loss, that’s how she always was, from the moment I was born and I never expected anything more from her.
It was a cool sunny, September morning as we stood in our black blazers in a great throng. We looked tidy in our, mostly new uniforms. It was evident that some kids were dressed in hand-me-downs but most of us were smart. The quality of our clothing on that day was at odds with the standard of education and guidance we were about to receive for the next four years of secondary education. Most of us with our heads screwed on, myself included, had a suspicion that things weren’t going to be great and those with older siblings knew what they were in for, containment mostly.
There were groups of girls and boys who stood in groups talking and laughing without a hint of apprehension, they clearly already knew each other and had the great advantage and protection of being part of a ready-formed shoal. I stood alone, vulnerable in a sea of strangers, all except for Gary who smirked and Adam Berry who was positioned a few feet away from me, gulping air.
Adam had the appearance of somebody who had, thus far in life, completely avoided the influence of his peers. We stood now among kids who were altered by the pressures of fashion, with highlights in their hair, a single earring or a few along the outer edge of their ear. Subtleties in clothing which belied a trendiness, an edge. I had convinced my dad to allow me to get some trousers with pleats at the front from Foster Brothers. I was wearing white socks and had put gel in my hair which put me somewhere in the middle of the edgy kids and the soft, embarrassing ones.
Adam was short with hair which appeared inexplicably pale, almost white or colourless but also greasy and creeping in curls across the pale flesh of his face, clearly in need of a good cut, he was slightly pudgy and was wearing a dreadful pair of chunky lace-up shoes. He kept on looking at me, raising half a smile then looking away. Having caught his eye, I decided that he wasn’t the type of person I had in mind to be hanging out with in my first few months of school.
I had quickly realised, based on the feral body language of the kids around me, that this new school was a dog eat dog place, a junior version of the nearby estate where most of us lived so I was going to have to give the impression of floating above the ground and being thoroughly untouchable. Adam Berry had the presence of a boy who could drag me down with him, straight into the jaws of sharks so I decided I was going to avoid him completely. I felt a bit mean as I turned my back on him.
It was going well. Inside I felt strong, resilient, I often did because I had the power and the inner strength of my twin but I wanted to appear strong too. I had managed to manipulate my face into a look of hard apathy, curling my lip slightly and looking up into the windows of the upper floor of the school since I had observed that many of the lone children were looking down at the ground; this made them appear weak and vulnerable.
We stood there, trying to hide our insecurities for about half an hour until teachers began dribbling out, grey-faced, clutching mugs of coffee and making hushed jokes, probably at our expense as they lined up on some steps above us. One of them, the deputy head, a guy with a very loud voice began to shout out our class names and in turn we had to follow the relevant teacher, onwards to our destined classrooms.
We stood still, just watching as thirty to forty kids at a time, fought their way through the crowd and were led away to their fates. Adam Berry remained next to me until the numbers thinned out, there were only around seventy of us left from the original intake of three hundred or so. I saw him look at me and lift his head in a slight nod, as if to say, ‘Hey, we’re both still here,’ but again, I just ignored him.
Then the deputy shouted out, ‘Western B’, and my heart sank as I watched Adam enthusiastically picking up his plain, black rucksack off the ground. I walked behind him as he strode towards our new teacher, an older man who resembled an angry badger, hunched over, already crushed perhaps by the prospect of another school year.
My surname being Bagshaw and Adam’s, Berry, we were next to each other on the register, by coincidence we’d stood next to each other in the crowd on that raw first morning of secondary school, we were seated together for form time.
‘Hi, I’m Adam,’ he said, holding out his clammy white hand for me to shake.
I held back for a few seconds but my apprehension felt cruel, then my hand met his and I let out a sigh of resignation. I couldn’t avoid him, from that morning on, I was never going to be a supercool, hardman. I was friends with Adam and our fates were sealed.
Adam lived on the fringes of our estate, in a small, two bed-roomed terrace which looked out onto the expanse of grass and the high-rise blocks. His house would have been considered a superior place to my own dwelling but in reality it wasn’t, not really. Yes, it was closer to the ground and you didn’t have to descend in an awful lift or down a piss splattered staircase to get outside but the views were inferior. I could see for miles from my bedroom window, I had a view of the city, the railway lines, hills in the distance and of the long straight roads which ran through our estate, the runways which later came to be the greatest entertainment.
Adam’s property was near the little shopping precinct which consisted of a betting shop, newsagent, a chip shop and an off licence. His home frequently had dodgy characters hanging around the front at all times of the day, sitting on the wall drinking, chatting, loitering. The internal walls were paper thin and whenever I was round, there always seemed to be arguments or loud music from one of his neighbours. Though he had the luxury of a small garden, the fences on either side were low and you could see random items piled up in the adjoining gardens, a filthy mattress, a sofa. It didn’t matter how tidy his parents kept their patch, the view they had was always a mess.
His parents were quite a bit older than mine and softer around the edges, with thick curly hair, fleshy faces, they wore layers of fuzzy unfashionable clothing and golden crucifixes and smiled a lot, a twinkly smile, more catatonic than sincere. I noticed Adam spoke to them in a different voice, he had a special voice just for them, maybe that was his real voice, who knows.
The inside of their home was rather like his parents, a sweet, treacly padded cell. Everywhere you went you sunk a little, into brown swirly carpets, big sofas covered with cushions and crochet blankets. Adam was an only child but he had a big black and white cat who was permanently stationed on top of a cabinet, blinking in disbelief at the state of things.
The family were in the habit of eating dinner all together, around the table with faux flowers in the centre. I dreaded their invitations for tea. I was a very queasy eater. I am loath to call myself fussy because that isn’t how I saw it. Fussy, implies an element of choice but the majority of food made me feel sick and I didn’t like the Berry’s strange food, always drenched in hot, salty gravy and their well-meaning questions regarding my parents and sister made me squirm. Those days of dinner time at Adam’s were fleeting, gruelling but precious nonetheless.
The worst thing about it all was that Adam had been brought up to trust and think the very best of every person that he encountered. In a make-believe world with the complete absence of evil, this would have been a wonderful thing but that wasn’t our world, it’s not any world. I’m not really sure why they did it. This fluffy philosophy which they programmed into their son could only ever end in disappointment or even disaster.
He hadn’t been given any freedom either, having been driven to and from his small, catholic primary school. I’d never seen him around at the newsagents or even at Cubs or Scouts. I know his mother had helped out at Sunday school and I suspect his social life had been limited to weekly craft sessions with other children from religious backgrounds.
The worst thing was, as soon as he began secondary school, his parents suddenly gave him a free pass to the outside world.
His soft, open face made him a target for all sorts of wind-ups. The other boys would tell him how one of the teachers was a porn star or that some poor girl had three nipples or our school care-taker had killed three children. This went on for about six months until Adam grew the first sprouts of cynicism which later flourished into a lawn of doubt regarding any stories told by certain boys. It was sad to see him lose his innocence but at least he didn’t give up his trombone lessons.
A couple of times he invited me to come and watch the brass band practice, to listen to their rehearsals in the hall at the end of school but I couldn’t do it. There was something about live performances which caused me to haemorrhage stress hormones to the point of mortification. I learnt this when my dad used to take us to the local carnival and we stood on the edge of the pavement as the floats went past with steel bands and belly dancers, brass bands and cartwheeling gymnasts. It was supposed to be fun for all the family but I hated it.
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Comments
Some brilliant description in
Some brilliant description in this part - especially poor Adam. Nicely done Jane
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You brought back my own
You brought back my own school memories with this part Jane: from learning how to put on a tie, and reading about him and Adam finding out they were in Western B. I was always in Beaufort house, but always wanted to be in Berkley house where the cool kids were, or even Churchill would have been better.
Funny how history repeats itself, and we always know someone from stories. I certainly knew an Adam when at school, except Adam was a she.
You stir the memory with your characters Jane.
Jenny.
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