But it wasn't why I was asking her, or telling her. It wasn't the hops or how you picked them, it was who. It was who picked them.
So then I said what I was meaning to say. It wasn't Jack and Amy who picked my hops, they picked someone else's hops. She was called June. So it was true what the other kids said, the ones I hit. Vincey's got a sister. But it wasn't true as well, because my hops were picked by someone else, they were picked by—
And she said she knew, she knew that already.
So I hit her. She wasn't laughing but I hit her like I hit those other kids.
And I didn't stop hitting those other kids, I carried on hitting them, more and harder. Because I knew now it was true what they said, and not true. Because she wasn't my sister. June aint my sister, I aint got no sister. And though it was true she wasn't my sister, I hit all the harder because of her, I hit on behalf of her, because she couldn't hit for herself. Because before, when I never knew about June, I didn't have no one to hit on behalf of, I just hit.
I thought, It's one thing I can do for her. Because though she wasn't my sister I reckoned I was like her anyhow. Not like her like they said, funny in the head, but like her for having been played a trick on. So I hit.
The boys I hit. Alec Clarke I hit, Freddy Newman I hit. The girls I didn't hit, except Sally. You aint supposed to hit girls, they're different. But they know about hitting, they aint so different. So when one or two or a whole pack of 'em started up at me, same stuff as the boys only worse sometimes, I wouldn't hit them, I'd say, 'Show us your knickers.'
That was when Sally joined in, I noticed that, when it got like a game, when they'd start skipping and jigging and hopping in front of me, 'Look, Vince, look at all these hops,' trying to make me get to the point where I wouldn't be able to hit them.
Because up to then she'd kept her distance, we weren't speaking. Because I'd hit her.
But she didn't just give me a quick flash and run off screaming and shrieking like the others then sneak back for more. She said, 'Come with me, Vince.' We were picking our way through the bomb-site, through the weeds and bricks and rubbish and I aint ever thought what a bomb-site was before, it was just a word. Then she stopped and stood and looked at me and lifted up her skirt with both hands so the hem was touching her nose, like a veil. And it wasn't so much her knickers. They were dark blue, they weren't so interesting. It was the fact that she was standing there in front of me with her skirt held up like she was folding a tablecloth, all ready for inspection. So I said, 'Show me your pisshole.'
It was all different now with Sally.
She said, 'No.' So I said, 'Or I'll hit you.' So she said, 'If you show me yours.'
I said, 'I aint got a pisshole, I got a willy.'
She said, 'You piss through it, don't you?' So I didn't say nothing and she said, 'Well?'
Her face was all big and serious. I thought, She aint like a girl now, she's like a woman with a life.
So I hoisted up a leg of my shorts, quick, maybe half a second's worth, but she said, 'Again,' like she was in charge. She looked, then she put her hand on it. She put her hand on it and felt, like she was feeling something she might want to buy, a tomato or something, like it was something her dad sold. Don't Squeeze Me Till I'm Yours.
So I hit her.
She was the only girl I hit. She must have known she was special. But the boys I hit unselective. I hit Terry Spencer. I hit Dave Croft. So the headmaster hauls me in for a talking-to. He was called Mr Snow and he used to breathe heavy and slow through his nose whenever he was angry, so we called him Snorter. I suppose it wasn't so simple for him, if he knew that I knew what I knew. Which I think he did. He said, Could I tell him the meaning of the word 'bully'? When you're that age there's a whole lot of things you can't find no words for, but what I said to him, one way or another, after he'd snorted a bit, was could he tell me the meaning of the word 'orphan'?
And I'd say that was a good answer, I'd say that was one of the best answers I ever give.
So he leans back in his chair and snorts and twiddles his pen. When I went in to see that surgeon I thought of Mr Snow. Life's a process of going before geezers who want to see you crawl.
He says, 'What do you want to be, Vince? What are you going to be?'
I think, That's a daft question because I'm something already. He looks at me, twiddling his pen. But the point is I aint even sure what I am in the first place. So I don't say nothing but I ruffle up and he can see it. There's playground noises coming from outside. I'd like to be Gary Cooper but I can't. I'd like to be all kinds of people, I'd even like to be Mr Snow putting some other poor kid on the mat, but I can't because I'm me. I think, This is what it must be like for June. There are all these people around her who aren't like June, because she's different, and if June thinks at all then she must think, I don't want to be like me, I want to be like them but I can't I can't I can't.
But maybe June doesn't think at all, she aint got a thought in her head, and supposing what you want to be is not like anything. Supposing what you want to be is a drive-shaft.
They said a flying-bomb killed them all so I was lucky.
He says, 'What I mean is, what do you want to do? He smiles, like he don't mean no harm really. "What job do you want to do?'
And I see them all hanging up before me, like clothes on a rack, all the jobs, tinker, tailor, soldier, and you have to pick one and then you have to pretend for the rest of your life that that's what you are. So they aint no different really from accidents of birth. I didn't know that phrase then but I learnt it later. It's a good phrase.
I think, He wants me to say 'butcher' but I aint going to say it. I aint going to say 'butcher'.
I said to Amy, 'Take me to see her, take me to see June.' I did something he never did, even if it was only once. Vin-cey's got a sister, face like a blister. And it was Amy who told me that he never wanted to tell me, never at all. Though how he thought he could keep me fooled beats me. It was Amy who told me that June was an accident, an accident of birth. She didn't mean the way June turned out, she meant that they'd never meant to have her.
So June was their accident and I was their choice, tinker, tailor.
He says, 'Well, how do you see yourself?'
He looks at me, knowing I've only got one answer. The whistle goes outside for play to end and the room goes quiet as cotton wool, except for his breathing. It was times like this I'd think, If they can see me, they must be watching me now.
No one ever kissed her, no one ever missed her.
I don't say nothing, and maybe he knows what I'd like to do is hit him.
Then I say, 'What I'd like to do, sir, what I'd like to be, is a hop-picker.'
Ray
It was Amy's voice but what I heard just for a moment, was Carol's.
She said, 'There's nothing they can do, Ray'll heard the bravery in her voice, just like Carol's.
She said he hadn't come round proper from the op yet and Strickland wasn't going to spell it out to him till he had. But he'd spelled it out to her, and to Vince, loud and clear. Nothing doing. Opened him up just to sew him back together again. Then, while she was there by his bed afterwards, he'd come round anyway just for a bit and she hadn't said nothing and he hadn't asked but he'd looked at her and all he'd said was, 'I want to see Lucky.'
I said, 'So do you think he knows?' And what I meant was: do you think he knows it's all over? But I thought, and maybe Amy was thinking it too, how you could take it another way, and maybe that's why he wanted to see me, because why do people get called to bedsides? I'd been going in to see him anyway, most days, but now he was asking: I want to see Lucky. What you never know won't hurt, but it's different when someone's dying, because it's not like you can say least said soonest mended, because there aint going to be no soonest or latest and you won't ever get the chance again to tell or not tell nothing.