Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Just five days ago I'd been in total ignorance – of the book, the notes, and Mystery Boy. Now Pandora's box was well and truly open, and all sorts of shit had flown out. Confusion, questions, shame, guilt, fear, panic, risk, danger … and real-life Electra talking to me and offering advice, apparently. Life had felt a hell of a lot easier before.

Despite that, I resented the weekend getting in the way of me being able to get back to the book and check for further correspondence. More of that cognitive dissonance! Hated what was happening, felt it was bad for me, but wanted more, telling myself that whoever it was really needed me and I would help them, and that was all that was happening here, that it was anonymous because admitting you needed help could be difficult, it could be seen as weakness by some, and so on, and on, and whatever other bullshit I was telling myself to justify all this.

Keith took me fishing on Saturday. He wore stonewashed jeans, a fluorescent windbreaker, and seemed genuinely excited, prattling on about bait as he drove us over. The old brick pits were located on the way out of town, behind the woods. When they took the clay away years ago to make bricks, they left huge pits which were now filled with water and were good for fishing, supposedly. It was probably about an acre in all, with reed beds and lily pads, surrounded by banks with wild grasses and beyond that, trees. The serenity of the place turned out to be just what I needed, and once Keith had set me up with a rod on a stand and attached a gruesome-looking maggot to the hook, I was able to sit back, stare out into the water, and think…

Scenario: following detective work, it turns out to be Dan.

"I've always wished from afar to be your best friend," he says. "I just didn't know how."

Cut to: friendship montage. He stays over, we talk late into the night; when he's tired, he drifts off to sleep next to me. He feels like he's different from other boys too, so we understand each other.

Scenario: it turns out to be Adam.

"I know I'm with Debbie, but that's because everyone expects boys like me to be in a relationship. I'm being crushed under the weight of societal expectations, Jamie!"

No, scrap that, more like:

"I don't know what I'm supposed to want, or who I'm supposed to be. Footballer. Hero. Role model. Great big fake?"

"I understand, Adam," I say.

And we don't need any more words, because we get it.

Scenario: it's bloody Jason and the whole thing is a trap.

Close-up: his sneering face, dripping with hatred.

"Queer little gay bender," he snarls, brandishing the book. "Now everyone's going to know!"

Close-up: me. Why was I so naive? How could I be so stupid?

I shuddered. Of course, those were only three options. There were about one hundred boys in the sixth form, and it could have been any of them. Although, I'm sure you're hoping I'm not such a bad storyteller that it ends up being someone we haven't even met yet. That would be cheating, wouldn't it?

Stories have rules.

Life, on the other hand, doesn't. It's a free-for-all. Chaos, basically.

I wonder if that's why I've always found real life to be so scary?

After an hour or so of silence, with no fish biting, Keith cracked open a Thermos and poured us both some tea, this also being a pretext to open a conversation with me, which is exactly what I'd been dreading. The idea of anything described as "man to man" turned my stomach. My own father had always steered well clear of any discussion about sex or puberty, and for that I was enormously grateful. I wasn't sure Mum was as convinced I didn't need some sort of "talk", though, and my fear was that that was what all this fishing business was really about.

I was going to get a "talk".

And I did get one, a bloody awful one.

Here are the highlights:

EXT. THE brICK PITS. AN OTHERWISE LOVELY DAY

Keith, a middle-aged man with an upsetting penchant for a slip-on shoe, is pontificating. Jamie our hero (even if he doesn't feel like it), stares out across the water, afraid to make eye contact because it's all too gruesome, but occasionally shrugging by way of some sort of response. He wishes someone would "kill him now". But they don't, so he has to sit there and endure it all.

KEITH:Your mum and I were wondering why you haven't asked anyone to the ball, Jamie?

KEITH:Is it because you're nervous around girls?

KEITH:That's normal, Jamie! Girls are mysterious. They can be intimidating. But … they can also be the most wonderful thing to happen to a man.

KEITH:Now I don't mean to boast, but my whole life, I've had a lot of success with women.

KEITH:Don't tell your mum, but I lost my virginity at thirteen.

KEITH:That's how successful I am.

KEITH:She was called Pam.

KEITH:Great legs.

KEITH:Are you a "legs man", Jamie?

KEITH:Well, you've got time to work out your preferences, anyway.

KEITH:Point is, I could give you the benefit of my experience. Give you some advice. Would you like that, Jamie?

KEITH:I'll take that as a yes.

KEITH:Never come across as desperate; women love a confident man. And never act like you have anything to prove to them. A good line is to approach the lady in question, say at a bar, or, in your case, the classroom, or wherever, and say: "You're not usually my type; I don't go for blondes, but for some reason you caught my eye." And, if you see what I'm doing there, I'm suggesting that she's lucky she's got my attention, but in a flattering way, like she's special. She'll love that.

Electra flopped down on the grass by my side. "She'll hate that, but I think you know that already, Jamie. For the record, though: this is horrific advice."

"I know."

Keith turned to me. "You do? Well, great! I'm glad you know. There's hope for you yet. And that makes me happy, Jamie! Know why? Because I want you to be happy. I want you to find a nice girl, settle down, have a couple of kids and … I dunno, be happy. Because that's what happiness is." I felt him studying me for a few moments. "Assuming you want a girlfriend, of course," he said quietly.

"Uh-oh," Electra muttered. "Up to you, but I don't feel this is the best moment to come out of the proverbial closet."

"Why would I come out?" I hissed.

"What?" Keith said.

Shit!

"Why wouldn't I want a girlfriend?" I asked him, but then immediately realized I'd only made things worse, furthering this conversation in exactly the wrong direction.

He shrugged and looked away. "I dunno. Some people are poofters, or whatever they call themselves." He stared out at the expanse of water.

"I don't think they call themselves poofters." I swallowed. "And anyway, I'm—"

"Oh! We've got a bite! We've got a bite!" Keith sprang into action, grabbing his fishing rod and starting to reel the line in. "It's a big 'un! I can feel it!"

I sat back in my chair and sighed, watching the fiasco. "I'm not—"

"Jamie," Electra said, touching my leg to stop me, "just leave it, OK? You don't have to explain yourself to anyone. You don't owe anyone anything. Unless you want to say something?"

I shook my head.

"Come on!" Keith was saying, still reeling. (We both were, in a way.) "Oh, she's gonna be a beauty!"

I turned to Electra. "But, just to say, I don't think I'm—"

She raised her eyebrows.

"No, OK then," I said, sitting back again.

"Carp!" Keith said, dangling the flapping fish aloft. "Nice one too!" He sniffed, unhooked the poor gasping creature, and chucked it back into the water.

I was glad the fish got to live, but at the same time I didn't understand what the point of this whole expedition was, because I'd naively thought we were going to catch a fish and eat it for supper, but apparently not.

"Good chat," Keith said, as we were packing up, half an hour later. "Good to talk. Man to man."

And I realized, maybe that's what real men did. They talked, but only if they had an activity to do that gave them an excuse to talk. And real men asked girls out, and they liked girls, and they found them sexy, and they might be "legs men" or other-body-parts men, I supposed, and they went to bars and they pulled "birds" and they went fishing and handed down man wisdom, generation after generation, because apparently the whole point, the whole reason we are here, is to find a mate and reproduce, and I know I don't owe anyone anything, and I don't have to explain myself, but…

What if you don't want to do that?