I went into the bathroom soon after I moved in with Ray and couldn’t find anything from my toilet bag — no cologne, no anti-perspirant. I was going to ask him where he’d put my stuff when I saw them in the bathroom bin. He’d thrown my things away without saying a word to me. He’d also left the evidence of what he’d done in plain view, as if he wanted me to understand something.
I was put out, but I had enough sense to lock myself in the bathroom for a moment to think about the message Ray was sending me. He’d thrown away everything in my toilet-bag that carried a fragrance. He didn’t want me to smell of anything but myself, that was pretty clear. I suppose he wanted me to take pride in my body, or not to be ashamed of it at any rate. Easy for him to say: if I’d had his body, I’d have been proud of that. And he’d thrown away my aftershave but not my razor. Disposable razors were on the market, but they gave a pretty brutal shave. Razors only had the one blade. Nobody would have known what you meant if you said ‘shaving system’. Most people in those days had safety razors that you unscrewed, though I had one of the new cartridge ones, so that the blade wasn’t exposed while you changed it. Having a chemist’s in the family brings some benefit.
My razor was still where I’d left it, by the basin, but my aftershave was in the bin. I stopped, trying to work out the inconsistency. It wasn’t that he wanted me to stop shaving, he just didn’t like my aftershave. He wanted me not to use any cologne or antiperspirant, but he wanted me to use a nicer aftershave, one that he liked. So what was I supposed to do, use his?
So I started to use his, and he never said a word. And if it was a test, then I suppose I’d passed it. I wish I could say I learned to take a pride in my body. But though there was a lot I could learn from him, I couldn’t learn that. There was no prospect of me imitating him there. In the short term, of course, I was more ashamed if anything — ashamed in a more complicated way that included being ashamed of being ashamed. But perhaps some of Ray’s underlying message got through after all, over the months and the years. That if I was good enough for him, then unlikely as it might seem I must be good enough for me.
One Saturday morning about a month after I’d moved in, Ray went downstairs to clean the bike as usual, and I borrowed a tall stool from the kitchen and sat in the lounge window watching him do it. Cardinals Paddock was a quiet cul-de-sac, the sort of place driving schools send their cars on a Sunday afternoon to practise three-point turns, but I was always amazed at Ray’s trust in the world. He never even locked the bike. Essentially it was protected by its beauty. It didn’t even have a lock on the petrol tank, so all it would take would be a teenager with a match and the thought, ‘Why should he have that if I can’t?’ in his head, and Ray’s great treasure would be all flame and melting.
I took up my position on the kitchen stool and watched him at work. He was very thorough — he even drew a clean cloth tenderly back and forth between the spokes of the wheels. I saw a motorcycle being flossed long before I ever knew you could do the same thing with teeth.
For the hour or so it took him to clean the bike to his standards he never once looked up. A few minutes after I’d perched on my stool it began to bother me that he didn’t show any signs of noticing me — as if I was so insignificant I was invisible. But he knew I was there. Obviously he knew I was there.
It was like those Russian experiments in the paranormal we used to hear so much about. If someone predicts the cards being turned up one hundred per cent of the time, then it can’t be coincidence. That’s proof of ESP, proof that mind-reading is a reality. But if someone never guesses a card right, not ever, it can’t be coincidence either. That proves ESP too, it’s just not so crude a proof.
Obviously Ray knew I was there watching him the whole time, otherwise he would have had to look up at least once in a solid hour. Law of averages. So he knew I was there the whole time, and he chose not to acknowledge me. As for why he preferred the subtler way of showing we were attuned to one another, well: one-way sharing was the sort he liked best. I can’t explain it any better than that. One-way sharing was the sort he liked best.
As for why, I have no idea. It’s what worked for him. And in fact, after Ray had paid me no obvious attention for a while, it seemed to me that the atmosphere below me had changed. The air gradually thickened and clotted with secret excitement. Ray’s movements never speeded up or became flustered, but they were more and more loaded with sexual consequence. By the time he had polished the last square inch of elegant and potent metal, my heart was in my mouth. By now I was dreading his looking up as much as I had wanted it to happen when I started to watch. If he looked up, oh God if he winked at me, the whole extraordinary moment would fall to the ground and blow away.
Luckily Ray was not a man who winked, and he never looked up, never broke the spell. I stayed watching him until the bike was gleaming, but before I heard the front door open I’d returned the stool to the kitchen. Keeping my side of the bargain, so there was no visible evidence of the whole little drama played out between us, in the lounge and below the windows.
I enjoyed the weekends. I’d have Saturday lunch over at Mum and Dad’s, so even if I hadn’t seen them during the week, which I usually did, I kept in touch. I liked the poker club and the bike club. This was the first group I’d had anything to do with that actually seemed to work. They looked out for each other, and they shared things. They took turns choosing the music that was played on a Saturday night. Paul would choose and then Little Steve would choose and then Mark would choose, turn and turn about, an LP at a time.
Up to then the group I knew best had been my Wolf Cub troop, and I was one of those Wolf Cubs who don’t go on to be Boy Scouts, who draw a line under the experience as soon as they can. I’d try not to be noticed in the church hall, hoping no-one would tease me for the fact that the buttons on my uniform kept flying off, and I still had stabilisers on my bike.
If there’d been a needlework badge I could have got that. Obviously I didn’t ask if there was such a thing. But I’d taught myself to sew the buttons back on my uniform, and learned to reinforce them. I was too ashamed to ask Mum. Then when the buttons were secure the weak points became the seams, and I had to learn how to repair them and even shift them a fraction to get a little more room.
We kept on being told by Akela to Do Your Best, Do Your Best, Do Your Best, and we were forever bellowing back that we would Do Our Best, Do Our Best, Do Our Best, but no-one gave me the impression that my best was worth anything. By the time I finally got my knots badge Akela had pretty much given up on me.
I know not every Cub can make Sixer, but at the end of every session after the pledge two Cubs are chosen to take down the banners ceremonially, and I was never one of them. I must have radiated incompetence and the absence of leadership skills in an organization that only existed to build them up. It doesn’t really make sense, though, I don’t think. If there are to be leaders then there must be followers, and I had followership skills in plenty, just waiting to be tapped.