This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You. Jon McGregor

lot taller than me so it would look longer than that on me. I started to say something but I didn’t say anything. We had quite a queue by then. We never normally have a queue. I said I hoped we’d be able to locate the item for her. I told her someone would be in touch. She told me the collar was brown. She was trying to remember the name of the material. She said what’s it called, it’s like inside-out leather, you have to brush it, it’s soft to the touch, it smells like leather but it’s soft to the touch when you stroke it, it leaves marks if you stroke it the wrong way. I asked her did she mean suede and she said yes, that was it, suede. I wrote on the form that the coat had a brown suede collar. I asked her was there anything else I could help her with today.

       Looking Up Vagina

      Welton

      He was the first boy in his class to get pubic hair. He’d vaguely assumed that this might be something the other boys would be envious of. Perhaps even awestruck by. Something which would make them see him in a new light. But it turned out to be just one more thing they could use in their campaign of vilification against him.

      Vilification was a word he’d come across recently. It was a word he’d found easy to understand.

      Virile was another word. It was something to do with sex. He knew pubic hairs were the first step on the way to getting sex, so he thought this might mean he was virile and the other boys would be impressed or maybe even intimidated or at the very least would reconsider their apparently venal opinions of him.

      He’d had the pubic hairs for over a year now. He was used to them, and had almost forgotten that they might be an issue. The subject had never come up. But this was the last year of primary school, and they were starting weekly swimming lessons, and at the swimming pool there was a communal changing room. One of the boys saw, and pointed it out to the other boys, and soon enough all of them were looking and asking him questions about it.

      And for a moment everything seemed to hang in the balance, like when a bus hangs off the edge of a cliff and everything depends on whether the passengers rush to the front or the back. It would only have taken one boy to say something like, ‘cool,’ or, ‘nice one, Smithy,’ and everything would have been different. There might even have been some quiet veneration, before everyone put on their trunks and got into the pool. Word would have spread around the school, and he would no longer have been vulnerable to being tripped in the corridors. People would have talked to him on the bus, or between lessons. But instead, someone pushed the balance the other way. Robin was in the vanguard. He shouted something, pointing at the pubic hairs and turning to the other boys for support. They all joined in, and the shouting continued for the rest of the day, and for some days after that. Weeks.

      ‘Bush’ was the word that got shouted. Bush, and its many variations, with everyone trying to think of a new version: bush, bushy, bushwhacker, bushmonkey, bushman, bushy bushman, busharama, bushface, bushmuppet, bushalicious, bushbum, bushbunny, busher, bushayre, busherara, busheba, lord bush, president bush, sir bushwhacker of bushingdon, bushmonster, bushbilly, bushwilly, bushknocker, bushiel-san, bushelman, bushalackalonglong, bushy-bushy-bush-bush.

      It wasn’t even as if his pubic hair was unusually verdant.

      

      Someone told the girls, and so then all the girls knew that he was the first boy in the class to get pubic hair. One of them came up at lunch-time and asked him if it was true. She looked like she was on the verge of being impressed, but her friends were laughing so he said it wasn’t. He said he vigorously disputed it. Robin and another boy heard this, and pulled his trousers down in order to publicly verify the facts. There was a certain amount of vicarious laughter from just about everyone in the vicinity.

      

      He stayed home from school for a few days after that. Mostly he lay in bed, looking up vagina and vulva in the dictionary.

      

      He understood, already, that in a few years’ time these same boys would get, or claim to be getting, sex, and that he would be mocked and called a virgin. Virginal. Someone would realise that virginal sounded like vaginal, and he would be called a vagina; a vagina-head. He could visualise it precisely. There was no logic to it. It was vindictive. There was no way he could win. There wasn’t really any hope of winning. It made him feel vexated.

      But he also understood that one day he would leave. Eventually, he would leave. And when he was gone they would still be here. He would move to a big city, and go to university, and be friends with people who didn’t feel the need to mock and belittle him, people who were interested in reading and art and philosophy and those varieties of things. And Robin and everyone else would all still be here, with their limited vocabularies, working in the chicken-processing factories and vegetable packing-houses, looking for someone else to victimise.

      

      Victorious would be a word he could use then. Vindicated.

       Keeping Watch Over The Sheep

      Alford

      They told him he wasn’t allowed on the school premises. They didn’t even use the word allowed to start off with, they just said they thought it would be better if he didn’t come in. Better for everyone concerned is what they said. Only that didn’t even feel like an everyone which included him. He wasn’t really bothered what they thought, he said, he just wanted to come in and see his daughter. That’s when they actually stepped in his way and said he literally wasn’t allowed on the premises.

      For Christ’s sake, this was the school nativity.

      When would he get another chance to come and see his little girl in her first ever school nativity? Never is when. But the man just stood there all immovable and what have you, his arms folded to show just how totally immovable he was. Said his name was Carson. Mr Carson. Wasn’t even the headteacher or anything, but the other teachers were obviously all women so he must have been sent out to deal with the situation.

      That’s what he was now. A situation.

      He said to Mr Carson, he said, look, it’s only the school hall we’re talking about here. He was only going to stand at the back. He wouldn’t try and talk to her. Rachel wouldn’t even have to know he was there, he could hide behind another parent, he could slip out before the end. There didn’t need to be a problem here, he said. Mr Carson just stood there and said it was out of his hands.

      Yeah I’ll take it out of your hands you four-eyed fucking twat.

      He didn’t say that. He knew better than saying something like that, these days. He wasn’t there to make trouble. He was just there to see a nativity play. The shepherds were mightily afraid. The wise men followed yonder bright star in the east. All that. There weren’t no room at the inn. He held up his hands in surrender. A conciliatory gesture. He’d been learning about those, at the sessions. He even attempted a smile. He told Mr Carson, he said, okay, he was leaving now, he was sorry to have caused any disturbance, he hoped the performance went well and could someone perhaps tell Rachel that her father had said hello? Mr Carson did this disappointed shrug and said for him to take care. Not saying whether he would or he wouldn’t pass on the hello to Rachel, take note. There were other parents hanging back behind him, waiting to get in the school, not wanting to get involved. But standing just about close enough to hear what was going on, and then none of them meeting his eye when he turned and walked away. Like they didn’t know him or they didn’t know what was going on.

      They knew though. They all did, round here. Some of them had even known certain things before he had, when it would have been useful for him to have been told. They all like to hear stuff but they’re none of them that keen on passing it on.

      He got to the corner before he looked back. The other parents were all safely inside, and Mr Carson was closing the door. Bolting it, probably. Even saying something about how they couldn’t be too careful. He walked off. Calmly. He followed the line