July 16 – Le Freak, c’est chic.

I squeezed a massive spot behind my ear the other day. It was probably a day off being absolutely ripe, nevertheless, or perhaps because of that, it was, by a country mile, the most satisfying thing that’s happened to me in the last five years. No, I tell a lie, seven years.

Before I’d even located the landing ground of the pus, there was a knock at the shed door. It was my father, with Mrs Robinson. He, as usual, deploying his uber-narcissist toolset, didn’t speak. His business at my door, with that expression set in to his already sour face, meant that all ordinary people, like me, would implicitly understand the important matters he’d called to discuss.

We stood in mute stand off for a moment, until, eventually, I gestured for them to come in. They hesitated halfway through a tentative step forward, and ended up retreating a little. Of course, I am used to the smell, and they are not. It’s a pity, because I think Mrs Robinson would have enjoyed the shabby chic soft furnishings I’ve assembled.

Neil and I, our foundation course in shabby chic already complete thanks to watching Performance, soon upgraded that experience with a real-life experience, and sealed the deal as far as interior decorating was concerned for a lifetime, for both of us. It was about that time when we made our university choices, and, I doubt this still exists, we used to visit them on open-days to check them out. We hit upon this idea to select three London colleges each, and to visit them all (of which we only went to one between us), and secure a week’s holiday in London, courtesy of the state.

The day before we were due to set off, Hisom, a sois-disant down to earth type, challenged Neil about our plans. Hisom had some sort of status, like third assistant deputy, in the newly built sixth form college in which we found ourselves. He was the sort of joyless cove like my father, who, we suspected, didn’t even commentate and cheer on, his own bowel movements.

“Aren’t you due to sit the Oxford entrance paper next Thursday?” he asked him.

“Oh that?” said Neil. “I haven’t bothered to look at their prospectus, or whatever they call their brochure, or done any of the research that people like you think is valuable, but based on my own empirical observations, I’ve decided that everyone I know that has ever gone there, is an irredeemable cunt.”

The thing we liked best about it, was the way that Neil, just continued to look him in the eye, as if they were two similar status adults discussing who the weather, or who they thought should open the batting in the test match.

Hisom was furious beyond words, then he re-gathered himself, straightened up, and started talking the school, and its traditions and heritage, but good old Neil cut him off before he got going, saying, “This? It’s like being educated in a motorway services station.”

Only now, as I reflect on that scene, do I see those words, which I thought were so smart at the time, coming out of a child’s face, in a child’s voice.

I have an adult’s voice now, so I said to Mrs Robinson, who was either too polite, or too scared, to say out loud that which she’d complained to my father about, “I’d tell you to shut your face, if you had the courage to open it in the first place.” I tried to do my best impression of Neil, as I returned my father’s furious glower.

I don’t know what had caused the complaint. It had happened that day when I was out of it, at the party she’d organised – I do know that.  I’d have probably said something like, “Are you up here too,” Nothing horrible, or insulting. I don’t talk to people like that, it’s not in my nature – I have to force myself to be like that. I know this about myself now. I have rediscovered the confidence to stick to my guns – I know again that nobody knows me better than I understand myself, and that it is up to me to love and cherish that person, because nobody else cares to. Retreating back into those memories of my time with Neil, has regalvanised me, a little, and I sense that it’s turning into something good. I wasn’t a deferential twit, scared of living, back then. I’ve found something good that I used to be, and whether that turns out to cause social friction or not, I’m going there.

Father considered returning to the issue on his own, later. But it’s too little, too late, for that cove to show any interest in my welfare, or nurturing now. Besides which, his motivation was probably more about destroying a little bit more of my remaining self-esteem. That’s why he found the shed area roped-off, and a small flag, establishing independence of the territory, hoisted.

You’d think I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself, given what has happened. You don’t know about that, yet, of course. But bollocks to that. We independent now. We big, we bold. And we bad if we have to be.

On that trip to London, Neil and I took our first bold steps into adulthood. I achieved more in that week than my father had ever given me, in all those years sat in front of the tele. He didn’t like what came back at the end of that week. But I did. Do.

We went as passengers of Nobby Clarke, in his lorry. And I’ll tell you all about that, next time.