Big School

My final year of junior school ran from September 1976 through to the summer of 1977, during which I assume I must have been the oldest kid in the whole place. There were only ten children in my year, including myself, and my birthday was in September. Having taken up half of my entire life by that point, it felt as though junior school had lasted forever, and it felt like it had been a long, hard journey getting to the age of eleven; but it had been worth it, now that my bunch were Lords of the playground. We'd done the time. We'd put in the hours. We had the experience. The only cloud on our horizon was big school. Big school would send us all back to square one, reducing us to the smallest fish in a bigger, more violent pond.

Actually, it wasn't the only cloud. There was also the end of the world to consider, or to do one's best to avoid considering. Old Mother Shipton had predicted that it would come in 1980, just three years hence. Paul Moorman told me this and I absolutely believed him, having heard of Old Mother Shipton and her predictions. She had been a sixteenth century witch who had foreseen all sorts of stuff according to something or other which had been on the telly. Our school was Ilmington C of E Junior and Infants, Warwickshire, at the edge of the Cotswolds, a locale with a rich history of witchcraft and the like, and none of us were entirely sure of that epoch having fully passed. There had been a witchcraft related murder in the fifties over in Quinton, and I never quite summoned the courage to climb Meon Hill, which is where it had happened. It was said that one could only cross Meon Hill from east to west, or possibly west to east. If you attempted it the wrong way around, whichever way that was, you just wouldn't be able to do it, or you would die, or you would meet the devil. All of that stuff was still pretty close to the surface, so I spent the last three years of the seventies really, really wishing that Paul had never told me about Old Mother Shipton.

I tried to dispel his sponsorship of the prophecy by inventing a load of other events she'd predicted which hadn't happened, predictions which Paul could hardly refute, not having heard of them.

'What about the flying saucer invasion that she predicted would happen in 1975?' I scoffed, but my laughter rang hollow. I was fooling no-one but myself.

Still, a year - September to July or thereabouts - was one hell of a long time, so there didn't seem much point in worrying about the end of our era. My friend Matthew had gone to the big school in the nearby town of Shipston, and Mark McFarland had gone to the one in Stratford-upon-Avon. I spoke to Matthew and he seemed to be getting on okay, although it nevertheless sounded terrifying to me. There were hard kids at Shipston High School, like you saw on the news. They got into fights. Shipston was a town, and towns had gangs. Worse still, Old Mother Shipton was buried under the drinking trough at the end of Telegraph Street, although I much later discovered that not only was this untrue but that she had lived in Yorkshire and had no actual association with Shipston aside from a similar name.

We went swimming at the big school every Wednesday morning, all piling onto a coach which took us the three and a half miles to Shipston. I was crap at swimming, but eventually mastered a version of the breast stroke which was mostly just floating, for which I was duly awarded a swimming certificate dated to the 9th of March, 1977. I didn't actually see any fighting in the vicinity of the swimming pool, so maybe it was going to be okay.

We had an American boy in our class during that final year, Jamie Keating. He had an older brother, Sean, and an American father who lived in the village for no reason I was able to discern. More recently I learned that Jamie and Sean's father was Charles Keating, an English rather than American actor who had moved back, having grown up on the other side of the Atlantic, and who presumably chose Ilmington because it was handy for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Stranger still, when I moved to America I discovered that he was fairly well known over here, and had played my wife's favourite character in a long-running soap opera called Another World.

I didn't know Sean or Jamie too well, but recall Sean as being pleasant, funny and laid back. This was in contrast to Jamie who was kind of lively, as I suppose younger brothers tend to be. He always seemed to be getting into confrontational situations with other kids who took exception to his being American, or with one other kid who was a bit of an all round pain in the arse, If I'm to be honest. The confrontations mostly took the form of red-faced yelling with heavy emphasis on the terms yank and limey as pejoratives. I don't think anyone really won, and Sean seemed thankfully too elevated to involve himself with such foolishness.

I gave Jamie a wide berth, mainly because I was a bit withdrawn and he was fairly loud, or so it seemed to me. The only conversation I recall having with him was on the way back from a book fair at the big school. We were back on the coach and somehow ended up sitting together.

'Did you see the life-sized Doctor Who cut-out?' he asked me.

'No,' I said bewildered, because I definitely would have noticed something like that.

'Oh man,' he said, wide-eyed. 'I can't believe you didn't see it.'

'Where was it? I was only in the big hall.'

'Yeah, that's where it was. There was a competition too.'

'A competition?'

'Yeah, if you won you could be in Doctor Who. I can't believe you missed out.'

He invented a whole load of other non-existent Doctor Who things which I really should have seen. He'd really honed in on my weakness and kept on pushing that button all the way back to Ilmington. I knew that his testimony couldn't be true, but at the same time I understood that he wouldn't tell a lie or make something up, so whatever he'd seen must have inhabited some sort of potential reality, perhaps the same one in which Dan Dare had lived as an actual historical figure, possibly. I was trying to get my head around it but not doing very well.

On the other hand, we'd been right inside the school and still hadn't seen any shootings or stabbings or however it usually went down.

I took the eleven plus, failed, and didn't get to go to Stratford-upon-Avon like Mark McFarland. Only after taking the test did I understand that this had apparently been desirable. I was therefore destined to attend big school in Shipston with all the other farmhands and labourers of tomorrow, but Matthew insisted that it would probably be okay, and that he himself hadn't been in a single fight that whole year. I wasn't reassured because Matthew was more worldly than me, and knew, by way of example, where his older brother kept his stash of bathroom magazines. Also I suspected I was probably a bit more punchable and would have to keep my head down. Nevertheless I tried to keep myself from worrying over what was still an unknown.

My final idyllic year at Ilmington came to an end, opening onto a long hot summer of garish pop music and mucking about on bikes. It was the last good thing for a while.

On the other hand, it turned out that Old Mother Shipton had got her dates wrong, so swings and roundabouts...

Englishmen (pl.) in Texas

When I first got here, my wife feared that, deprived of the companionship of my own countrymen, I might wither on the vine. Whenever she heard of some English guy in the vicinity she would joke about setting up a playdate so we could meet and talk about Coronation Street and figgy pudding, or something. This was how I met Clive, whom Bess encountered through Toastmasters. Toastmasters was a lunchtime club at her place of work to which she found herself volunteered. It sounded a little like a writers group, but a writers group specialising in after dinner speeches, motivational or otherwise, and as such an unfortunately significant draw for those who enjoy the sound of their own voice without necessarily having much to say. On one occasion of my being away in England, Bess went to some Toastmasters weekend in Houston for the sake of something to do, and there she met Clive.

'He's English,' she told me, clearly energised by the discovery, 'and he lives in San Antonio!'

Clive and I met at La Madeleine, the French style bakery and cafe. It turned out that he was originally from Eastwood, the town in which D.H. Lawrence grew up. He had childhood memories of a few more ancient neighbours scowling about how that young David Herbert had been a rum bugger and no mistake. As an admirer of D.H. Lawrence, I found this quite exciting. Clive was in San Antonio because, like me, he'd married an American. He'd recently bought a disused diner which he was planning to reopen as a hot dog restaurant.

That's all I can recall of Clive. He seemed like a nice guy, but I'm just not very sociable and we didn't stay in touch, possibly because there was never any strong reason to do so. His diner remains vacant. Each time Bess and I drive past, we wonder what happened, and then why anyone would consider a hot dog restaurant a good idea.

There have been others, but once we've established our shared point of origin, there hasn't usually been much else to be said; possibly excepting Chris, another person my wife met through her job. Chris was from Catford in south-east London, specifically from an address to which I almost certainly delivered mail at some point during the early nineties, so that was funny. Chris is all right, but he's about ten years younger than I am with very different priorities.

The celebrated writer Michael Moorcock spends some of the year at his American home in Bastrop county, which is about an hour's drive. I've read and enjoyed plenty of his novels, and we communicate on facebook, but otherwise I'm a bit too starstruck to introduce myself directly; besides which I'm told he tends to avoid the company of expatriate English people. I'm beginning to see why.

Malcolm is Brook's long-distance boyfriend. They met on the internet and now he's flown all this way to visit her, so we simply have to meet - as everyone keeps telling us. Our first exchange is on facebook, through Brook. I tell him Newcastle Brown Ale can be purchased from HEB, our local supermarket chain. I tell him this because American beer is undrinkable, and it's the sort of information I would appreciate were I in his shoes.

Newcastle Brown Ale is even worse than American beer, he tells me with what I imagine to be a sneer. He prefers Pabst.

This places me in the position of fearing that I have become a real ale bore whilst resenting what felt like Malcolm telling me to stick my friendly advice up my arse, whilst additionally resenting the retort on the grounds that Pabst is fucking awful, the 8-Ace of the Americas.

'I haven't even met the bloke,' I grumble to Bess, 'and I already think he's a dick.'

Nevertheless we meet, and much to my relief he seems okay. He works in the oil business and travels the world as part of his job. He's visited the United States many times before, so I can see my attempted friendly advice may have seemed condescending. He's from the north-east and therefore speaks with one of my all-time favourite regional accents. He has none of the abrasive quality I had begun to anticipate.

On the other hand, he begins a sentence with the words, 'one thing your Mr. Trump has got right…'

I have two bikes so I invite him to come over and join me for my daily twenty miles. He's clearly into exercise and agrees because it will be fun.

The morning comes and he's at my house at the agreed time, having jogged three or four miles from where Brook lives. Clearly I don't have to worry about whether he'll be able to keep up.

I make him a cup of tea - something I don't get to do very often - and we talk; or rather Malcolm talks. I don't even know how he got onto the subject, but it's something about long distance relationships. He once had one with another American, someone in the north-east. She told him she would be seeing other people in between his visits.

'That's how women are,' he tells me. 'They're all like that. I don't care what anyone says.'

'Okay,' I submit, before abruptly changing the subject.

He picks the mountain bike and we head out. He doesn't seem to experience any confusion regarding which side of the road we should take, which is a relief. We cycle a mile or so to Holbrook, then onto the Tobin Trail, leaving the traffic behind. He cycles at my side and talks. I realise there's been no point during which he's shut up since he arrived thirty minutes ago. He's been talking all this time. I'm not even sure what about.

His work takes him all over the world.

He's been to Mexico several times, specifically to Tampico. He was reluctant to sample much of the night life due to the visible presence of the drug cartel, something beginning with s, whatever they're called...

'The Sinaloa Cartel,' I suggest.

'That's the fellah.'

We cycle to Los Patios, then on to Morningstar Boardwalk. He says hello to everyone we pass. Some respond. Some don't. I recall how I too greeted almost everyone I met when I first came here.

We're off the boardwalk, heading for the bridge at Wetmore, then up the hill, and all the while he's been talking. He never fucking shuts up. Yap yap yap the whole bleeding time.

We come to McAllister Park, and we're back to sharing the thoroughfare with the occasional truck. I realise - as just such a vehicle approaches - that I've been in the middle of the road, politely attending to Malcolm's never ending monologue.

Blah blah blah…

I pull back and slip to the side of the road to get out of the way, but as I do so, Malcolm inexplicably turns right. My front wheel grinds into the gear assembly of the mountain bike he's riding and I'm off.

'Oh fucking hell,' I scream.

I land on a knee and an elbow and roll onto my back in the grit. He's shouting oh no and I'm so sorry.

We gather ourselves together in a daze. The gears on the mountain bike look fucked, but the wheel is good so we should be okay; except my front tire is somehow flat, which makes no fucking sense at all.

I fitted both bikes with brand new tires and tubes about two weekends back. We push the bikes over to the picnic area. I invert mine and make ready with the puncture repair kit.

'I'm so sorry, Lawrence.'

'Yeah.'

I try to pump up the tire but it's not having it, and I realise the valve has somehow torn itself away from the tube during the collision. 'How the fuck does that even happen?'

'Do you have a spare inner tube?'

'No. I'll have to call Bess, get her to pick us up.'

There's a station wagon parked across the way. The guy comes over. Just what we need.

'You need help.'

'No, you're all right, mate.'

'You're not from around here?'

'No,' we both answer.

'Where you from? Australia?'

'England,' Malcolm tells him.

I'm saying nothing because I'm not having this fucking conversation again given that I actually live here, and anyway I'm trying to call Bess.

'What's up?'

'We've had an accident.'

'Oh no!'

'Can you—'

'I can't. You know I have that thing.'

'Shit.' I'd forgotten. 'Maybe—'

'Let me call Byron. He owes me.'

She calls Byron, then Byron calls me, and I try to describe our location. Malcolm is still talking to the driver of the station wagon. I just want the guy to fuck off and leave us alone.

'Byron's going to come and get us.'

'Okay.'

'I have to take Gary to the vet at about three, so I need to get back.'

'I'm so sorry about this, Lawrence. I feel terrible.'

'Don't worry,' I say. 'It's just one of those things. I shouldn't have been so close behind you.'

'I didn't realise that we were going straight on, so I turned.'

'I'm just collecting wood,' the guy from the station wagon announces. He has half a tree in the back of his truck and a branch held in one hand, recently chosen from the ground nearby. He's clearly having a whale of a time. I wish I were at home, having an ordinary day.

There's a huge crater in my arm, just below the elbow, and yet there's no pain beyond a little soreness. I compare it with the other elbow and realise something is very wrong. A few more minutes of flexing leads Malcolm and myself to conclude that it's simply a bruise. The crater is actually the illusion of a dip formed by the side of lump such as you would ordinarily see on the head of the teacher in the Bash Street Kids after Plug, Danny or one of the others has dropped a housebrick on him from a great height; except it's on my elbow.

Byron turns up after about twenty minutes. My directions were not the best. We lift the bikes into the back of his truck and he drives us back into town. Byron's company comes as unusually welcome. He talks, but not constantly, and I at least feel I understand him. He's a known quantity. Malcolm sits mostly silent in the rear seat.

He feels terrible about the accident, and I'm still not convinced it was particularly his fault, but all I can recall is the constant fucking yap yap yap yap blah blah blah…

Byron drops us off at my place. Malcolm leaves after another few minutes. He's not a bad guy, but it will be nice to not have to think about him for a while.