LITMIR.BIZ

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inessential scenes had been edited out, and perhaps some essential ones as well. He remembered the smell of the fence – of rotting wood warmed by summer sunshine, of old creosote, of abandoned compost heaps and distant bonfires. Somehow he and Alison had become friends. He remembered the smooth, silky feel of her skin. It had amazed him that anything could be so soft. Such softness was miraculous.

      Left to himself, Eddie would never have broken through the back fence. There were two places behind the Graces’ garden, both of which were simultaneously interesting and frightening, though for different reasons: to the right was the corner of the plot on which the council flats had been built; and to the left was the area known to adults and children alike as Carver’s, after the company which had owned it before World War II.

      The council estate was too dangerous to be worth investigating. The scrubby grass around the blocks of flats was the territory of large dogs and rough children. Carver’s contained different dangers. The site was an irregular quadrilateral bounded to the north by the railway and to the south by the gardens of Rosington Road. To the east were the council flats, separated from Carver’s by a high brick wall topped with broken glass and barbed wire. To the west it backed on to the yards behind a terrace of shops at right angles to the railway. The place was a labyrinth of weeds, crumbling brick walls and rusting corrugated iron.

      According to Eddie’s father, Carver’s had been an engineering works serving the railway, and during a wartime bombing raid it had received a direct hit. In the playground at Eddie’s school, it was widely believed that Carver’s was haunted by the ghost of a boy who had died there in terrible, though ill-defined, circumstances.

      One morning Eddie arrived at the bottom of the Graces’ garden to find Alison examining the fence. On the ground at her feet was a rusting hatchet which Eddie had previously seen in the toolshed next door; it had a tall blade with a rounded projection at the top. She looked up at him.

      ‘Help me. The hole’s nearly large enough.’

      ‘But someone might see us.’

      ‘They won’t. Come on.’

      He obeyed, pushing with his hands while she levered with the hatchet. He tried not to think of ghosts, parents, policemen and rough boys from the council flats. The plank, rotting from the ground up, cracked in two. Eddie gasped.

      ‘Ssh.’ Alison snapped off a long splinter. ‘I’ll go first.’

      ‘Do you think we should?’

      ‘Don’t be such a baby. We’re explorers.’

      She wriggled head first into the hole. Eddie followed reluctantly. A few yards from the fence was a small brick shed with most of its roof intact. Alison went straight towards it and pushed open the door, which had parted company with one of its hinges.

      ‘This can be our place. Our special place.’

      She led the way inside. The shed was full of rubbish and smelled damp. On the right was a long window which had lost most of its glass. You could see the sky through a hole in the roof. A spider scuttled across the cracked concrete floor.

      ‘It’s perfect.’

      ‘But what do you want it for?’ Eddie asked.

      She spun round, her skirt swirling and lifting, and smiled at him. ‘For playing in, of course.’

      Alison liked to play games. She taught Eddie how to do Chinese burns, a technique learned from her brother. They also had tickling matches, all the more exciting because they had to be conducted in near silence, in case anyone heard. The loser, usually Eddie, was the one who surrendered or who was the first to make a noise louder than a whisper.

      There were other games. Alison, though younger than Eddie, knew many more than he did. It was she who usually took the lead. It was she who suggested the Peeing Game.

      ‘You don’t know it?’ Her lips formed an O of surprise, behind which gleamed her milk-white teeth and tip of her tongue. ‘I thought everyone knew the Peeing Game.’

      ‘I’ve heard about it. It’s just that I’ve never played it.’

      ‘My brother and I’ve been playing it for years.’

      Eddie nodded, hoping she would not expose his ignorance still further.

      ‘We need something to pee into.’ Alison took his assent for granted. ‘Come on. There must be something in here.’

      Eddie glanced round the shed. He was embarrassed even by the word ‘pee’. In the Grace household the activity of urination was referred to, when it was mentioned at all, by the euphemism ‘spending a penny’. His eye fell on an empty jam jar on a shelf at the back of the shed. The glass was covered on both sides with a film of grime. ‘How about that?’

      Alison shook her head, and the pink ribbons danced in her hair. ‘It’s far too small. I can do tons more than that. Anyway, it wouldn’t do. The hole’s too small.’ Something of Eddie’s lack of understanding must have shown in his face. ‘It’s all right for you. You can just poke your willy inside. But with girls it goes everywhere.’

      Curiosity stirred in Eddie’s mind, temporarily elbowing aside the awkwardness. He picked up a tin. ‘What about this?’

      Alison examined it, her face serious. The tin was about six inches in diameter and had once contained paint. ‘It’ll do.’ She added with the air of one conferring a favour, ‘You can go first.’

      His muscles clenched themselves, as they did when he was about to step into cold water.

      ‘Boys always go first,’ Alison announced. ‘My brother Simon does.’

      There seemed no help for it. Eddie turned away from her and began to unbutton the flies of his khaki shorts. Without warning she appeared in front of him. She was carrying the paint tin.

      ‘You have to take your trousers and pants down. Simon does.’

      He hesitated. His lower lip trembled.

      ‘It’s only a game, stupid. Don’t be such a baby. Here – I’ll do it.’

      She dropped the tin with a clatter on the concrete floor. Brisk as a nurse, she undid the snakeskin buckle of his elasticated belt, striped with the colours of his school, green and purple. Before he could protest, she yanked down both the shorts and his Aertex pants in one swift movement. She stared down at him. He was ashamed of his body, the slabs of pink babyish fat that clung to his belly and his thighs. A boy at the swimming baths had once said that Eddie wobbled like a jelly.

      Still staring, Alison said, ‘It’s smaller than Simon’s. And he’s a roundhead.’

      To his relief, Eddie understood the reference: Simon was circumcised. ‘I’m a cavalier.’

      ‘I think I like cavaliers better. They’re prettier.’ She scooped up the tin. ‘Go on – pee.’

      She held out the tin. Eddie gripped his penis between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, shut his eyes and prayed. Nothing happened. In normal circumstances he would have had no trouble in going because his bladder was full.

      ‘If you’re going to take all day, I might as well go first.’ Alison glared at him. ‘Honestly. Simon never has any trouble.’

      She placed the tin on the floor, pulled down her knickers and squatted. A steady stream of urine squirted into the can. She raised the hem of her dress and examined it, as though inspecting the quality of the stitching. So that was what girls looked like down there, Eddie thought, still holding his penis; he had often wondered. He craned his neck, hoping for a better view, but Alison smiled demurely and rearranged her dress.

      ‘If you keep on rubbing your willy, it goes all funny. Did you know?’ Alison raised herself from the tin and pulled up her knickers. ‘At least, Simon’s does. Look – I’ve done gallons.’

      Eddie looked. The tin was about a quarter full of liquid the colour of pale gold. Until now he had

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