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| Edd Bagenal Imaginary Landscape 2013 |
The
rivalry and mutual loathing between the boys in my year and those in
the year above was legendary. As a shared experience it was an
elemental constant, with no beginning or end, but each of us would be
able to name a personal genesis; an event earlier in our childhood
that proved to us that the year above were utterly loathsome scum.
For me it involved a magic wand and my first experience of true
injustice. I had taken up an interest in conjuring, and unwisely
brought my magic wand to school; a piece of yellow and black plastic
from a Paul Daniels magic set. Thusfar the wand had exhibited no
magical properties but that would surely change with the correct
incantation. Inevitably the wand was lost, in the morning break. This
was distressing enough, but at lunch time I saw that it was in the
hands of a boy in the year above called Bradley Reese. This was the
worse possible outcome. I protested that it was mine, and in response
he just exaggerated the mannerisms with which he luxuriated in his
enjoyment of it, enhanced immeasurably by my loss. He leaped about,
casting spells. I could have told a teacher, and if he was a younger
boy I would have done exactly that. But I knew in my heart it was
utterly hopeless. He was in the year above. No-one would believe me.
Events
a few weeks later magnified the loathing. My best friend Will and I
were trying to throw stones onto the roof of the school. I was a poor
thrower. My stone hit a window. The glass cracked. A cold wave of
terror ran through me, and I turned to see Bradley behind me (it
would be Bradley, of the hundreds of children in the school, it had
to be Bradley), his hand immediately shooting up into the air as he
ran calling to the teacher on playground duty. Ratting us out. The
kind of thing that would get you jugged in prison; treated worse than
a nonce, but in the playground was felt to curry the favour of
authority. In the distance I saw Bradley with the teacher, pointing
at me and Will, the teacher rushing towards us, Bradley's eyes
shining with the exquisite pleasures of schadenfreude, his strange
hateful hooked nose, Bradley telling everyone, everyone watching as
Mrs. Braille dragged us to the Headmistress.
It
was impossible trying to explain that we weren't trying to smash the
windows, but only trying to get stones onto the roof. Like with the
magic wand, it was useless. As far as me and Will were concerned,
Bradley would be believed because he was a year older than us. All
credibility rested on age. I don't remember the dressing down we
received from the Headmistress; I have no ill memories of the woman.
But Mrs. Braille was absolutely terrifying; the incident seemed to
transform her whole face into an ogrish rictus. It was this I
remember, because it was this that I saw at the moment of our total
betrayal at the hands of Bradley Reese.
It
got worse. Within weeks we knew we were to find out who our teacher
would be the following year. There were two possibilities – Mrs.
Brennan or Mrs. Braille. I prayed -my earliest memory of desperate self-directed
prayer- that it wasn't Mrs. Braille, the witch who surely hated me
and would make my life hell. Every night I prayed. On the last day of
term, a golden day of fun and laughter, a day full of giddy
possibility, the summer stretched out before us with the promise of
base camps, tree houses and endless adventure; on this last day my
fate was sealed. I was going to be in Mrs. Braille's class. Bradley
Reese had ruined my life.
Of
course I now realise that he hadn't – but he certainly ruined
my holiday. Every day I would wake up, absolutely ecstatic that there
was no school, and within seconds that feeling was overshadowed by despair, in the way only a child's heart can be. Every day
brought me closer to the beginning of the autumn term, the beginning
of a living hell at the mercy of the sadistic Mrs. Braille. Every
bright thought was darkened, every spark drowned, every leap dragged
down into darkness. All because of that malevolent coward Bradley
Reese.
One
of the strange things about my childhood, and the child's wildly
crooked perspective, is that it was never an option to tell my
parents about these fears.
Had
I done so they surely would have explained that I had nothing to
worry about; that Mrs. Braille would be a very nice teacher and she
wouldn't hold the incident against me. But I didn't tell them because
I didn't want them to be mad at me for throwing the stones. At the
heart of my anxieties was the secret of a terrible crime, so the
burden would remain mine alone. But none of it would have happened
had it not been for the tell-tale rat Bradley Reese, stealer of
wands, ruiner of summers.
It's safe to say I had many reasons to hate Bradley Reese.
It's safe to say I had many reasons to hate Bradley Reese.
Mrs. Braille turned out to be a very nice teacher who probably didn't
even remember the incident and certainly wouldn't have held it
against me. But it still took me months to shake off the feeling that
the crime wouldn't be whipped out at a later juncture and used
against me. For now though, things were good. Will and I were able to
rejoice, as we were in the top year at school; the year above had
left for Middle School. But that held a greater fear. The following
year we would have to start there – surely a place of routine
bogwashing that we were convinced still used the cane - and worst of
all, we would have to face the year above, their smug authority, and
the myriad injustices that befell us in their wake.
The
Middle School years saw Will with his genius for mischief repeatedly
winding them up by running off with their tennis ball and hiding
their bags. Intervention from the headmaster just saw the matter
transferred to outside of school hours. A face off between Us and
Them in the streets of Bookham saw the front wheel of my racer
buckled. One of Bradley's friends rode into it intentionally with his
vastly more expensive and vastly more rugged mountain bike.
By
the time we had reached secondary school one might have expected us
to have grown out of this but instead the rivalry was magnified by
hormones. They reserved a special loathing for my friend Ben because
he was screwing girls in their year. That was never going to play
well. Their greatest crime, to me and my self-consciously
counter-cultural friends was that they were jocks; they were beer
boys. At sixteen many of them had already begun to resemble their
fathers, scowling pub leopards with nascent beer bellies, blokeish
banter and received right-wing opinions. We smoked weed and took
acid. Alcohol was for these wankers who voted Tory in the school
election. At 36 I now know that alcohol is very much for me as well,
and drugs are not counter-cultural, but it was the early nineties, I
was a teenager and at least I fucking behaved like one.
Looking
back I have no firm idea of what they talked about when they stood
huddled, sniggering at me and Ben and Ben's girlfriend(s), affecting
an air of removed cynicism to mask their glowering jealousy. Ben was
taller, suaver, more handsome and a shit-load cooler than any of
these pricks, and the girls liked that of course. I wasn't tall,
suave, handsome or cool but Ben is one of the most loyal people I
have ever known and had no problem with my being a sartorial sinkhole. Greasy curtains, four eyes, spots, tie-dyed items. It
didn't occur to me at the time but it likely enraged the beer boys
that someone so radically disastrous-looking was even in these
girls' orbit. It was only because of Ben, but I'm sure it stuck in
their craw nonetheless.
It
may strike you that from my tone it seems I haven't entirely moved on
from my loathing of these people. You'd be right. These issues run
deep. (I found myself reflexively doubting the testimony of
whistle-blower Bradley Manning as a result.) I looked up Bradley Reese on
Facebook. He's there, and it seems he's making up for those lost
years; his profile photo shows him holding court, surrounded by six
women, all laying their hands adoringly on his chest. Harmless.
Normal. Perhaps. But I'm inherently suspicious of self-irony that
plays the same hand as self-aggrandisement. It's a way for people to
get away with indulging bad behaviour. Maximum deniability. Hey!
Don't take it so seriously. Can't you take a joke? The
conservative who says they just enjoy winding up liberals, and does
this by espousing their sincerely held conservative beliefs. The
wolf in wolf's clothing.
Bradley
– give me back my summer holiday 1985 and I'll give you the benefit
of the doubt. You can keep the wand.
(Names
have been changed to protect the guilty stealer of wands and ruiner
of holidays Bradley Reese.)
