Que Sera
A short prose piece
He stands ready to be run over.
A clean hankie in his pocket, clean underwear over Sunday bathed body. Aertex underpants, his mother’s latest fashion fad. Bought from the Co-op.
“Don’t forget the Divi mind, What’s our number?”
“Two, oh, three, one, mum.”
“And don’t forget the change.”
If he was run over, they would know who he was for his name is everywhere, from top to toe, from cap to shoes via white shirt, blazer, and aertex.
K Barker. The K is for Kenneth, another of his mother’s fads, for his brother and sister have Scottish names too; brother Stuart, sister an even more unfortunately named Morag. The results of a Scottish holiday perhaps. He doesn’t like his name. Neither does his father or perhaps it is Ken himself he doesn’t like, for he sniggers “It’s beyond our Ken” when he fails at football but never praises his successes.
On the floor is his satchel, second hand, dim imprints of other inky names. On the inside flap is “I love Elvis!” properly punctuated with an exclamation mark but little red hearts for quotation marks. It contains a silver tin “Helix Oxford Mathematical Instruments”, his name duly scratched in, using the pair of compasses, across the logo of dreaming spires. Although apart from the pencil (2H) and rubber he hasn’t a clue what the others are for. A cardboard box of colouring pencils, his name befittingly picked out, letter by letter, in different colours. No books yet. His books are strewn across his bedroom floor. He is a regular at the library. He had recently left Biggles behind, allowed books from the adults’ section on his junior tickets and now nightly was a Watson to Holmes.
Beside the satchel is his gym bag. Contents: White gym vest and shorts, football shirt in house colours (he had yet to learn the class telling difference between football and soccer) and a pair of unyielding leather boots, which despite hours of dubbin remained stubbornly unsupple. A pair of strangely industrial smelling gym shoes which he calls daps but the school insists are plimsolls. All but the boots bore his name.
From the kitchen came the sounds of his mother’s radio. Doris Day was singing “Que Sera”.
He calls “Bye, mum.”
Doris’s “Whatever will be” his only answer. No wishes of luck or love for they are a best foot forward, smile in the face of adversity, grin and bear it family.
Floreat semper schola
School song
He puts his best foot forward, undecided whether to grin or smile and opens the front door, letting in September sunshine to warm the Mansion polished tiles of a small railway town semi. He savours the last moments of summer freedom.
He looks at his shoes shining in the sunlight, for you judge a man by his shoes. He pulls his cap straight, no hint of the later jauntiness. His blazer is too big, and the breast pocket badge is inexpertly sewn on by his mother. The sleeves cover his hands, but he’ll grow into them; the trousers are too short, but they were good enough for his brother and waste-not want-not.
He wonders how to carry the unfamiliar satchel, should it go over his neck or just hang on a shoulder. He opts for the shoulder. He slings the gym bag over the other shoulder, and the tough boots kick him in the back.
He walks down the avenue and turns onto the main road. He passes the bus stop and looks in the window of Ginger Brett’s sweet shop, pink shrimps, blackjacks and love hearts. In the years to come, he will buy behind the counter Domino cigarettes sold in fours or twos. The cough they will give will make Woodbines seem a luxury.
Basil the barber, Woodbine stub behind his ear, tunelessly whistling while he delivers a short back and sides no matter what is requested and sells mysterious things for the weekend to his father.
He turns right through the double wrought iron gates and on to the drive, filled with temporarily buffed blazered boys and permanently polished girls, some in gingham check skirts, two inches below the knee, white socks and berets. Others in gym-slips ready for the winter.
He is ushered into the huge hall, directed to seats by man-boy prefects.
“Stand”. A disembodied voice from the stage.
The Head makes his entrance. A crow with gown flowing wings and a curious pecking walk takes centre stage.
“Sit”. Sunlight glints off the crow’s horn-rimmed glasses.
He is told of the school song, school rules that he must obey, school traditions that he must uphold and then a list of the names allocated to each form.
“Barker, 1U”.
He is desolated. Primary school was graded A, B, C and D. How bad must he be to be in U?
Into the form room, boys on the right, girls on the left. Seated alphabetically. Barker is right at the front, no hiding place.
Now, the register roll call. He may answer his name with “Adsum”, which he later learns is Latin, although it is destined to be the only Latin he will remember.
“Barker? Barker?” enquires the gaunt-gowned master.
“Sir”
“Do you have an elder brother here, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you are Barker Minor. We shall call you Puppy,” and is convulsed by self-congratulatory laughter.
His first lesson in the tools of a Grammar school teacher’s trade. Sarcasm, humiliation, and red ink all applied liberally to stifle imagination and any hint of individuality, for this is a temple to conformity and uniformity.
He learns about margins, dates carefully underlined, and he copies out his timetable. Subjects he has never heard of, in rooms he will struggle to find.
Daunting Geometry and Algebra, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, but he likes the sound of French and English and reserves judgment on Latin, History and Geography.
The day passes in unrelenting mystery. The home time bell rings, but you may not move until allowed. They are held straining like greyhounds waiting in their traps and then released row by row.
Home and the person who has become Barker Major asks, “What form are you in?”
He mumbles the answer in a minor key.
“Oh! Well done”.
“U is for Upper. The top form, the brain boxes, the swots. Who’s your form master?”
“Mr Holroyd”.
“Holy Joe Holroyd? He’s a perv!”
He doesn’t know what a perv is and assumes that it is like a Jehovah’s Witness or perhaps a sect like the Moonies.
“It’s all science and Latin for you”.
He forgot to mention the misery.