A Likely Tale, Lad by Mike Pannett

Author:Mike Pannett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Country Publications Ltd
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Just Hanging About

‘You know what they come here for, don’t you?’

We were sheltering under the lych-gate. Me and Kev, just the two of us. He was carrying a bamboo cane he’d picked up in the churchyard. After a hot afternoon the thunder-clouds had gathered and a few large drops of rain had started to lay the dust. We’d been to the chippy after choir practice, but although we’d eaten our chips and drunk a can of pop we were in no hurry to get home. By this time Mum and Dad had relaxed their rules. I could stay out after tea so long as I got back before dark. We had another half an hour, at least. And if it rained properly, well so what, we’d just get wet.

‘Well, do you? Do you know?’

I pondered Kev’s question. I wanted to tell him I knew the answer, but the fact was I hadn’t a clue what he was getting at. He was a year ahead of me in school – and, if I was to believe all his boasts, about three years ahead in life experience. It was all thanks to that brother of his. Several years older than us and, as Mum once remarked, ‘altogether too forward’.

‘Necking. They come here for necking and that,’ Kev said. ‘You know, lads with their girlfriends. Having a snog. Kissy-kissy.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Sometimes I found Kev’s superior attitude a bit insulting. As if I didn’t know what necking was.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you bring a girl here she has to kiss you. It’s a tradition.’

When Kev made a statement of fact, you were expected to take it as the Gospel truth – whether you believed it or not.

‘But why?’ I said. The place seemed a bit dingy to me, not at all romantic. ‘Why here?’

He looked up at the timbers, heavy with dust and cobwebs. Reaching up he poked at the remains of a swallow’s nest with the cane and brought down a light shower of pale dry mud.

‘It’s traditional, like I said. In the old days, see, girls weren’t allowed to kiss fellows – not till they got married. They never had the back row of the flicks like we do. Or youth clubs, or owt like that. So they came here. To the kissing-gate. Still do, as a matter of fact. Me brother brings all his girlfriends here.’

He pulled out two more cans of pop and handed me one.

‘Cheers,’ I said, then asked, ‘You seen them?’

‘Sure I have. You can get a ringside seat. Look.’

He clambered onto the top of the gate, swung his legs up and there he was, perched in the timbers that supported the pitched roof, his feet dangling.

‘Come on up,’ he said. ‘You sit here you can spy on people. I do it all the time. Seen all sorts, me. Grab a few stones and get yourself up here.’

‘Stones? What do I want them for?’

‘You’ll see. I got some in my pocket. You need some of your own.’

I did as he said – you always did what Kev said – and then tried to climb up to where he was.

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