The Colony de vacances trip that my mother sent me on isn’t going as anticipated. I have made terrible decision after terrible decision, and now I am in my bed and I want to die. Dear God. Please. Please let me die. I can feel my leg burn because they smeared toothpaste on my sheets. I can hear them sniggering like human size gremlins in their own beds in the dorm. Let me die.
It begins on the coach from Paris. I am sizing everyone up, trying to make friends. They speak French so quickly, I am struggling to keep up. I look for markers of what I know, and when we finally get to our resort somewhere near Grenoble, they ask who want to share together, I put up my hand to share with boys who are older than me. They are wearing Breakdance T-shirts. Breakdancing in France is called Le Smurf. They are cool. They remind me of my friends from school and also like Olivier and Aleksandre and Pascale. I have made one other friend on the bus though. Her name is Vanessa. She sits next to me. She wears thick glasses with see-through plastic frames. When she takes them off to remove the steam after a loo stop, I see a face of impossible beauty and more than anything in the world I want to kiss her on lips. It would be my second kiss.*
*If you’d like to find out about a first kiss you can click here, but it kinda gets in the way of this week’s episode - so only if you want bonus story and can be bothered.
Back on the bus to the Ski resort and I am snatching glances at Vanessa. She exudes the fact that she is a completely sensible young woman. I am simply happy in her presence. When we arrive, she puts her hand up to share a dorm with girls her age. I put my hand up to share with fifteen-year-olds.
The skiing is truly wonderful. I have never been this high before. I really adore the mountains. They seem like huge libraries of knowledge to me. They know the true history of the earth like no one else does. They are big enough to let me play on them and I sky down them like a 13-year-old Lilliputian. At night we collapse exhausted into our beds our thighs aching from the heaviness of the boots.
Our dorm is on the second floor and there are six of us in total. I don’t see much of the other boys during the day. At first, I am interesting to them. I am British. I am cool. I feel cool for being different. I can’t quite keep up with all the banter, but I try. Fifteen minutes into Lights out and once them whispers…
On va Branler.
It takes me a while to work out what is going on, but suddenly they have a game.
I soon see what it is. They are all wanking under their sheets. Oh I get it. First person to come wins. Six duvets shuffle. I hadn’t known about orgasms for long, but having discovered them at a similar event at another friend’s house, I knew that they were a distinct wonder and could be achieved if you were patient enough at it.
I don’t know why, but as I get going, I begin to breath heavily, so the others can hear that I am playing. I think it’s what people do, in sex, I think. This time I am fast and furious, and it is done, solution in hand. My breathing calms. I have won! Yah!
I hear sniggering.
Quoi?
More sniggers.
Quoi!!!
The biggest boy gets and leans over me in my bed.
Tu etais le seule qui jouait, mon brave!
Horror sweeps over my heart. Shame beyond shame. I pull the duvet over my head. I was the only one playing. I have just had an orgasm in front of six strangers. I try and melt like the ice itself. Please let me slide away and exist no more, but my body doesn’t melt. Come nuclear weapons, Come nuclear war now. Please.
I sleep maybe an hour. I have become shame. In the morning, I am so tired. As I get ready for the day’s lessons, my I hope that is that it will be all be forgotten. But on the bus, in the cable car, as I get on the ski lift the boys come up to me and do heavy breathing. I am distraught, sick to the core of my very self. I no longer ski. I slide down the sublime mountain like an upright boy corpse.
The next night I have to go back to the same room with the same boys. They don’t tire of heavy breathing. I think they are all asleep but then one of them starts again.
The next night I try and get into bed, but it is impossible they have done something to the sheets so I can’t get in.
The next night they smear toothpaste on my bedsheet, and I don’t realise until I am burning. I get up and another boy gets up and gives me a massive dead arm. I run from the room and try and get the supervisor. The lights get put on and I show them my sheets. Everyone pretends to be woken up by the light. The supervisor gets me a new sheet, but the toothpaste has seeped into my pyjamas, and it still burns cold.
The next day I stop eating because I am in hell. The rest of the day is a blur.
The last hours as we drive back to Paris on the coach I begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel. All hells must pass. This has been going on 5 days. All I had to do was stare out the window and ignore everyone and everything. I sit alone. Suddenly Vanessa is next to me.
Bonjour. Ca va?
She looks at me through her shop windows.
I don’t answer. I look at her and smile. would speak, but I am dead in my chest.
I don’t want to kiss her anymore. I just want to go home.
She gets out all her sweets.
Bon Bon, Caramel, Chocolat?
I take a toffee.
She goes back to her seat.
I’m still enjoying the taste, when a small boy, no more than eight sits next to me. He looks at me, and then starts heavy breathing. I tell him to Fuck Off. He isn’t t even one of the original cabal. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t even know what he is doing or why he is doing it. He doesn’t even know about sex. He has been dared to do it. He goes back to his seat and I can hear the sniggering behind me. I didn’t think it possible to do die once you have already been dead. This is like shooting a corpse for no reason.
My mother is waiting for me in Paris. I should be pleased to see her but it isn’t really me anymore. We share a hotel room. I ask if I can have a bath. I get in and hold my knees up to my chest and stay still until the water goes cold. I look down between my legs. I see I have pubes now. They are growing quickly. I hadn’t really noticed before. My mother knocks on the door to see if I am okay.
Ca Vas?
I should have told her that I was both dead and wanting to die of public shame. But I don’t. I don’t because I hate her at that moment. Hate her for being French, for sending me to this hell.
I never want to go to France ever again I tell my Nan when I eventually get back to Normanhurst Avenue.
I tell her nothing more.
Your grandfather said the same thing to me once. When he was demobbed and got back from Malta. After the war.
I am never leaving this country again. He says
Not even Scotland I ask?
Not even to the Isle of Wight She replies.
We settle down to watch some snooker.
I’ve got a new toyboy she says. I met him while you were away.
Who now I ask?
She points at the new JVC TV specifically bought to watch the Snooker.
A young man walks up to the baize, slim wooden queue in hand.
David Icke introduces him.
It is the whirlwind that is Jimmy White.
The snooker sooths me and helps me put France from my mind.