Barry Walsh - The Pimlico Kid

‘My dad, he’d kill me if he knew I’d let you in here.’

The look on his face made me as keen to get out of there as he was.

John and I used to play with toy soldiers but Swole deploys armies. Today, John is eyeing them longingly. If he were on his own, he’d happily lead them into battle. Swole regularly rearranges the formations and we would much sooner help him to do this than look at his dick, again. Rooksy, however, is persisting.

‘Come on then Swole, let’s see if it’s got any bigger.’

I hate these moments because they can lead to Rooksy suggesting cock comparisons, which only involve establishing whose is next biggest after Swole’s. I always refuse. Although things are starting to happen for me down there, progress is depressingly slow. Rooksy and Swole have pubic hair. So do I, but unlike them, I know exactly how many I’ve got. We’ve seen Swole’s dick before because he likes showing it. He spends a lot of time in his bedroom, making do with his solitary games of soldiers, reading American comics, playing chess against himself and, we suspect, playing with himself. Rooksy says that it couldn’t have got that big without hours of attention, something that could work for us if we do the same. We’re obviously not devoting enough time to it.

Swole looks like Alfred E. Neuman, the kid on the cover of Mad Magazine ; his ears don’t just stick out but are cupped towards you by invisible hands. He’s aware of his less-than-film-star looks but his dick is a consolation and, although his ears turn deep red when others refer to it in front of girls, he’s secretly pleased and fondles it gratefully in most idle moments.

Rooksy gives him a shove. ‘Give it some air Swole or it might stop growing.’

Swole grins. ‘OK, shut the door Billy.’ He unbuttons his trousers. And there it is on his open palm, like Mr Bevan our butcher showing a lamb chop to a customer. Only the greaseproof paper is missing.

‘You lucky bastard,’ says Rooksy, poking at it with a German lieutenant. ‘Can you make it bigger?’

Swole is ahead of him and everything is swelling nicely until we hear his mother coming along the hall. He grabs a comic from the shelf and throws himself face-down on the bed. Rooksy stands bolt upright. John and I whip round to study the soldiers but crash into the battlefield. The resulting earthquake sends the British and German armies bouncing into one another. Mrs Dunn flings open the door to the silence of illicit activity rapidly abandoned.

‘Four nil!’

Mrs Dunn raises an eyebrow. ‘What’s that, Billy? I hope it’s not four nil to the Germans.’

She’s a sharp one is Mrs Dunn, a skinny woman with short, violently permed hair. She purses her lips while her darting, nervous eyes probe the room.

‘Now what are you up to, Raymond?’ she asks, in the way mums do when they really mean everyone present.

‘Nothing, just playing.’ The choked squeak betrays his excitement.

‘Why don’t you go out now and get some fresh air.’

‘OK Mum.’ His voice is closer to normal.

‘Well, up you get then.’

‘In a minute, Mum, I want to finish something off.’

Rooksy snorts. Mrs Dunn’s eyes flash but she says nothing.

‘Quick about it then, Dad’s home you know … and that comic is upside down.’

Very sharp, Mrs Dunn.

Swole won’t be finishing off anything. Mention of his dad has drained the colour from his face. After his mum closes the door, he rolls on to his back, frantically doing up his fly buttons. John starts setting the soldiers in khaki back on their feet to show a British victory. Rooksy looks disappointed enough to ask for his money back.

‘Let’s go,’ says Swole.

In our house, ‘Dad’s home’ means noise and what Mum calls ‘foolery’; at Swole’s, it brings a scary hush. Even when out with us, Swole behaves as if his dad were standing behind him, and whatever he’s about to do, he takes a look around first.

Mr Dunn is a cabinetmaker. He hates running the yard and the business of buying, cutting and selling wood when all he wants to do is work with it. According to Swole, he’s happy only when he’s making his own furniture. But most of the time, he seems to be waiting to get angry and the red marks that we often see on Swole’s face show that he doesn’t wait for long. Sometimes it’s worse: a black eye that Swole swears comes from being bashed up by kids from the other side of Vauxhall Bridge Road. Even if this were true, they would never hit Mrs Dunn. So where does she get her bruises?

It’s not as if other parents don’t hit their kids; some fathers even use their belts. John and I have been spared this. While Mum used to slap out spontaneously at whatever part of us was closest, Dad has never hit us, or threatened to. His own father beat him and Mum says we’re lucky that he’s decided to be different. Not that he doesn’t make his disapproval clear: he can freeze you with a look. But it lasts only long enough to make a point before a tilt of his head and, sometimes, a smile tells us it’s over.

At the foot of the stairs, Swole’s wide-eyed warning brings us to a halt by the open door to the wood yard. On the workbench, Mr Dunn, in his white apron, has the carcass of the trophy cabinet on its back and he’s rubbing it with sandpaper wrapped around a small wooden block. His work-thickened shoulders and Popeye forearms couldn’t be moving more gently. After each pass, he runs his fingers over the smoothed surface and holds them close to his face to examine the white dust as if he’s about to taste it. He wipes it on his apron and rubs again.

He hasn’t looked at us but he knows we’re here. He stops working. We’ve interrupted him and he isn’t going to start again until he’s told us so. He closes his eyes, tilts his head forward and stretches his neck by easing it from side to side. We wait. Swole is shaking. His dad opens his small, dark eyes and his instantly accurate gaze makes me want to run away.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ His soft, menacing voice makes me forget he’s only our mate’s dad.

‘Just going out for a bit,’ says Swole.

‘No you’re not, upstairs.’

‘But Mum said I …’

‘Now!’ His whisper is more frightening than a shout.

Swole’s head dips to his chest and he climbs the stairs to his room.

Rooksy, John and I stand there, waiting to be dismissed.

‘Well?’ he says and shows us the way out with an angry flick of his eyes.

‘Miserable bastard,’ says Rooksy, once we’re in the street. ‘Do you think Swole’s mum told him what was going on?’

I shake my head. ‘No, she’s scared of him too. He blames her for anything Swole does.’

Rooksy shrugs. ‘Jealous then, Swole’s got a bigger dick.’

Wooden crates of R Whites and Corona empties are stacked four high on the Big Step outside Plummer’s corner shop. The sun has turned the black-and-white tiles into a chequered hotplate. I’m sitting on its edge holding a Jubbly that was frozen ten minutes ago but is already turning to orange juice in its collapsing tetrahedron carton.

‘Hello Billy.’

Sarah’s slender silhouette stands before me. A gentle fizzing in my chest has me rising to my feet. But a bigger outline moves alongside her and I sit down again. It’s Kenneth ‘Kirk’ Douglas. He’s blond, very blond. Girls like him, giggle when they see him, send him anonymous notes, and the younger ones use his name in their skipping games.

On a mountain stands a lady

Who she is I do not know

All she wants is gold and silver

All she wants is a nice young man

The rope turns faster.