Jam Tops, the Fonz and the Pursuit of Cool Read online

  The Law of Cool (which applied to all people over the age of twelve and under the age of twenty) clearly stated that no one should ever go anywhere with their mum and nan unless it was A) Christmas Day B) A family wedding or C) A funeral (but only of an immediate relative - an auntie or an uncle, perhaps, but a great aunt or the little old lady from down the street? Then no, definitely not). Also, it was only okay to be seen out with your dad if it was D) At the football or E) Down the pub on a Sunday lunchtime in the hope of necking a sly half of ‘Watney’s Red Barrel’ if the landlord turned a blind eye. It was The Golden Rule and Gordy had knowingly and quite blatantly broken it.

  He then had to face even further embarrassment when, after the store manager told him they had no work, he heard his mum say, much too loudly, “Never mind, sweetie, don’t be upset - Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is on telly this afternoon so we can go home and have a good sing-song instead.”

  And then, much, much worse, hear his nan add (referring to herself in the third person as always), “Yes, it’ll be fine, Oddbod, Nanna will make you a nice cakey to make it all better.”

  Now ‘Oddbod’ was his nan’s pet name for Gordy (and also, quite worryingly, the name of the Frankenstein type monster in Carry On Screaming), which sounded sweet when he was five (if you ignore the Frankenstein connotation), endearing when he was eight and downright cringe worthy when he was fourteen - especially when said out loud in a crowded Woolworths in front of a panel of his pustulant peers.

  Hoping God would immediately strike him dead, Gordy slunk out passed the Pik ‘n’ Mix and made a hasty exit from the shop via the side door next to the photo booth - which was only really meant for people going ‘in’ not ‘out’ and therefore inadvertently causing even more of a kerfuffle, leaving his mum and nan floundering in his wake among a chorus of pubescent sniggering.

  Also, had Gordy stayed just a moment longer, he would have seen the huge Crystal Tipps type hairdo of Daisy Flynn peering out from behind the posters, having just found a picture of The Fonz and thus answering the question of who the hell this phenomenon was with an apparent penchant for saying, “Heyyyy!” at every available opportunity that everyone was talking about at school. Daisy, however, was more concerned about the chubby boy with glasses who had just turned bright red before rushing from the shop.

  Gordy’s mum and nan came rushing out of Woolworths moments later. “What’s the matter, sweetie? What’s wrong?” said his mum.

  “Yes, what is it, Oddbod?” asked his nan - both of them genuinely perplexed as to what was wrong and why instead of being a nice, healthy pink his face was now the colour of a ripe beetroot.

  “Nothing!” Gordy said in a tone that clearly suggested otherwise. “Nothing’s the matter. Now can we just go home? Please.”

  “Of course, sweetie,” said his mum, “But what about your little job?”

  “Doesn’t matter anymore,” Gordy replied, now sounding rather surly, “I just wanna go home, that’s all.”

  “Righto,” said Mrs. Brewer in her typically upbeat ‘jolly hockey sticks’ type manner, “No problem. Nanna just wants to pop into Mr. Bailey’s shop first and then we’ll get going.”

  “Aw, Mum! Do we have to?” Gordy complained, his tone having gone from ‘surly’ to ‘spoilt’ in one swift gear change but he couldn’t help it as he was dying inside. Gordy’s first skirmish in the battle for Planet Cool had just ended in the total annihilation of all his imaginary, uncombat-ready, raw recruits. So he was desperate to retreat to the safety of the Phantom Zone (home) and the familiar, comfy safety of Spaceship Nerd (his bedroom) where he was the undisputed captain.

  “Yes, I’m afraid we do,” said his mum. “Nanna’s new Mantovani has come in and she’s got to pick it up.”

  “Won’t take long. Promise,” his nan added, trying to placate her grandson. “Tell you what, we’ll call in at the chip shop on the way home if you like, for a battered sausage and a bottle of pop - how’s that sound?”

  Immediately Gordy’s mood lightened. “Oh, all right then,” he said with fading belligerence (after all, who could resist a battered sausage?).

  As the three of them started walking up the street in the direction of Mr. Bailey’s shop, the swing door of Woolworths opened and the slightest strains of ‘Help... it’s The Hair Bear Bunch!’ could be heard being hummed by several members of the Saturday staff as Daisy Flynn exited the premises and stared up the street after Gordy Brewer. Something inside her told her that she may just have found a kindred spirit.

  ***

  Mr. Baileys shop was actually, Bailey’s Bandstand, which was a small, almost invisible, grey fronted shop that was squashed thinly between Radio Rentals and The Wimpy. The sign outside, clearly written, or so it seemed to Gordy, sometime before the First World War, declared it to sell ‘Gramophones, Radiograms, Long Playing Records and Sheet Music.’ A footnote at the bottom of the sign said; ‘Bernard Bailey: Proprietor.’

  Mum, Nan and Gordy entered the dark mausoleum like interior, which smelt fusty and damp and a bit like ‘old people’, their arrival announced by the tinkling of a little bell above the door.

  The shop had no visible lighting except that which shone dimly through the front windows. But in the gloom, Gordy could see it was packed with neatly arranged boxes full of LPs stacked on tables that filled almost the whole floor space. The walls looked like a library with floor to ceiling shelves stuffed full with row upon row of sheet music, music books, song books, books on how to read music, how to play the guitar, how to write lyrics - almost anything you could think of within the musical sphere.

  Saxophones, trumpets, clarinets and numerous other instruments hung on wire suspended from the ceiling and along the wall of the narrow walkway, that ran from the door to the ancient mahogany counter, was a range of record players and radiograms that seemed to belong to a bygone era. These were all of the ‘sideboard’ variety, with cabinets made from oak, walnut and dark ash veneer and knobs and dials moulded in cream Bakelite.

  Behind the counter was an old desk with a tilted lid that had a large, ratty looking order book opened up on it and on the counter itself, along with several boxes of ‘singles’ sat a huge, very impressive old gramophone - like the one on the His Master’s Voice logo.

  In short, the very essence of a musicians music shop but to Gordy, possibly the dullest, saddest, most old-fogey place he’d ever set foot in.

  Never mind The Twilight Zone, this was The Twilight of Your Life Zone and was no doubt where old people came to die - a bit like an elephant’s graveyard but with less tusks and more zimmers.

  The only upside that Gordy could see, was that there was no chance of running into any of his school mates in here as no one in their right mind, under the age of sixty, would ever dream of crossing the threshold. Also, the front of the shop was so drab and inconsequential that Gordy doubted that a large percentage of the Bradley populace even knew it existed (not including the old folks of course, for whom it was undoubtedly famed for being God’s waiting room).

  Happily for Gordy, who loved his nan, she had opted not for death but for the new Mantovani. Given the choice himself, Gordy would be hard pushed to select the more preferable of the two - after all, Mantovani might be alright for some but he was certainly no Jimmy Osmond!

  Anyway, there they all were in the darkness, the only thing missing, Gordy thought, was an usherette selling ice creams by torchlight, when, as if by magic (as they said in the children’s TV series, Mr. Benn - not that Gordy watched that because it was far too childish - which is what his dad thought when he caught Gordy watching it), Mr. Bailey appeared out of nowhere. On further inspection Gordy noticed a door to the left side of the counter which he assumed led to a stockroom, where the aforementioned Mr. Bailey had obviously been skulking before springing out genie-like into the shop itself.

  “Ah, Mrs. Lancaster (which was Gordy’s nan’s surname and h
is mum’s maiden name), so nice to see you again. And Mrs. Brewer, too, how lovely.”

  Bernard Bailey was possibly the tallest man Gordy had ever seen, with a long, rosy-cheeked face and dark, receding Brillo-Pad hair. He wore an ill fitting grey suit with a green ‘V’ neck jumper underneath over a white shirt and burgundy tie (all with the remnants of last night’s steak and kidney pud still on them). He stood awkwardly with his legs tightly together, feet splayed apart and his ample stomach pushed out in front. He also spoke as if he had something stuck in the back of his throat.

  But he looked jolly enough - like an overgrown elf - although Gordy detected a hint of melancholy behind his eyes.

  “Hello, Mr. Bailey,” Nan said. “How are you?”

  “Oh, not too bad, thank you. Mustn’t grumble.” He replied. “Too much to do, not enough time. Usual story.”

  ‘Could’ve fooled me!’ Gordy thought.

  “And Mrs Bailey? Is she any Better?” Asked Nan.

  “About the same I’m afraid Mrs. Lancaster,” said Mr. Bailey, “But we must be grateful for small mercies.”

  Against his better judgement, Gordy was immediately intrigued. What was the matter with Mr. Bailey’s wife?

  “You must be tired,” continued Nan, looking into the tall man’s sad eyes, “What with running the shop and taking care of your wife?”

  “A little, yes, Mrs. Lancaster, but as I said, mustn’t grumble. Things could be worse.”

  “Sounds like you need an assistant,” Gordy’s mum interjected.

  “I do, indeed, Mrs. Brewer,” Mr. Bailey said, “It’s just such a palaver having to advertise. I’ve tried putting a notice in the window but people just ignore it - it’s really quite peculiar.”

  ‘Not that peculiar!’ Gordy thought again, before hearing his nan say, “Oddbod’s looking for a job - aren’t you, Oddbod?”

  If looks could kill, Gordy’s nan would have died right there on the spot (well at least she was in the right place), as he immediately shot daggers at her, his eyes silently begging her not to continue. But Nan was impervious, her skin thicker than a rhino’s hide and her ability to pick up on the signs willing her to shut up about as effective as using a catapult on a battleship.

  “Ooh, yes,” Gordy’s mum piped up. “That’s true he is. Isn’t that right, sweetie. You’re looking for a part-time job aren’t you?”

  And now his mum had brought him into it too. Bloody brilliant. Why couldn’t they both shut up? Gordy didn’t want to work at Bailey’s Bandstand! No one in their right mind would want to work at Bailey’s Bandstand and certainly not anyone hoping to rise swiftly up the ‘stairway of cool’. Indeed, working at Bailey’s Bandstand would undoubtedly root him in the foundations of ‘nerd’ - way, way, way lower down the pecking order than even those spotty oicks at Woolworths. If they had categorised him as ‘bogie’ after seeing him out with his mum and nan, then finding out that he worked at Bailey’s Bandstand would put him somewhere between ‘pube’ and ‘piss stain’ on the school’s evolutionary table.

  But instead of saying all this, Gordy heard himself saying, “That’s right. I am.”

  “Well that’s smashing!” said the jolly Mr. Bailey, putting Nan’s brand new Mantovani into a grey Bailey’s Bandstand carrier bag and passing it to her over the ancient counter as he spoke. “I couldn’t think of anything nicer than having such a splendid young gentleman working here.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Mum, “Isn’t it, Gordy?”

  “Yes. Brilliant,” Gordy replied, his sarcasm lost on the three adults.

  “Well, then,” said Mr. Bailey, “That’s settled. Shall we say every Saturday from ten until five?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Gordy said, feeling decidedly sick and wondering if this day, or indeed his life, could get any worse.

  “Marvellous. Ten pounds a week sound alright?”

  “Yes. Fine, thanks.” Actually, ten pounds a week really did sound alright. He was thinking perhaps a fiver (which seemed to be about the going rate for Saturday jobs from what he could gather from his mates at school) - so ten quid a week, forty pounds a month, sounded pretty good indeed, in fact possibly the only good thing about working at a dark, mausoleum of a place like Bailey’s bloody Bandstand. As it now appeared, thanks to the interference of his far too enthusiastic, much too pushy mum and nan, that he did.

  Gordy Brewer had landed himself a job working for Bailey’s Bandstand, the most deathly, dire, dull, totally naff, thoroughly uncool establishment on the whole planet.

  Fucking. Bollicking. Bastarding. Great.

  Chapter Four

  Something very odd had happened to Daisy Flynn’s pyjamas. It was the week before Daisy (and the rest of the school) were due to break up for the Summer holidays when all in the world should be right - six whole weeks off from Poplar Park and just one week to go until the bell rang for the last time in her Third Year at the school. When she returned in September she would be a Fourth Year - just one below the Fifth which was top of the school hierarchy (not counting Sixth Form - which no one did because they were just a bunch of superior swats).

  But things in Daisy’s world were far from right. For starters, Steve Cool was presently a Fifth Year and unless he was intending to stay on in the Sixth Form (which was frankly unlikely), then it was quite possible that this next week, before the holidays, would be the last she ever saw of him.

  If that wasn’t stressful enough, something had gone seriously wrong with Daisy’s pyjamas. Not just the one pair either, but all three pairs!

  For a moment, Daisy thought they might have shrunk in the wash, after all, her mum was not exactly aux fait with all the settings on the new fangled washing machine that her husband had treated her to upon their return to England which slowly and rather aggressively juddered itself across the kitchen floor whenever she set it on spin speed (it also vibrated rather pleasantly when she sat on it during her more unGodly moments but that’s another, slightly more X-rated story). Previously, when in Africa, Daisy’s mum had washed all their clothes in the river, just as the tribes women did, rubbing them between rock and stone to remove any stains, which was a method she much preferred. But where that was quite ‘the norm’ in Swaziland, it looked a little out of place (not to say bloody mad) in the River Nene - so Glynn had bought her a swanky new twin tub.

  Anyway, as it transpired, the pyjamas had not shrunk but they were decidedly tighter. Normally Daisy would have to pull the drawstring tight around her waist to stop the bottoms from falling down but somehow now they were staying up on their own unassisted, without the use of the pull-cord. Also they were inexplicably tighter across her bum and hips. But that was not the end of this strange turn of events as her pyjama top was tighter too, under her arms and around her chest.

  Daisy immediately thought she had put weight on but when she weighed herself the scales made her exactly the same, if not slightly lighter. It was all very queer and all very annoying. Until the real reason suddenly dawned on her.

  Quickly, Daisy ran to the bathroom and studied herself closely in the full length mirror, her eyes scanning every inch of her body extremely carefully making certain that her suspicions were correct.

  The change, although as yet not massive, was definitely apparent - maybe not to the untrained eye and maybe not through her rather garish Barbapapa pyjamas, but it was definitely there. Without question things were developing and there was absolutely no denying it.

  At long last, after being convinced it was never going to happen, Daisy’s hips had kicked in and along with them (pause for a brief fanfare), her boobs had arrived!

  Daisy was ecstatic and jumped up and down with joy (secretly hoping that her budding new boobs would jiggle just a little bit, but they didn’t). But it didn’t matter, nothing could spoil this long awaited moment of elation.

  No more vests, no more boy’s jeans, no more endless nights wor
rying about whether she would spend the rest of her natural life looking like a ginger haired ironing board - no, those were all things of the past because now, at long last, Daisy Flynn had finally become a woman and the relief was immense.

  But then it struck her. The absolutely dreadful timing of the whole thing. Why had her new womanly bumps and curves chosen this late date to make their first tentative appearance on her pale, freckly stage?

  Yes, her equipment had arrived and thank God for that, just when she was beginning to give up all hope (and starting to wonder if she was, in fact, a boy whose penis had somehow got mislaid). But that very same equipment had been required weeks ago when it was so desperately needed to attract the object of her affections. But now the object that she was so desperately trying to attract (we’re talking about Steve Cool here, just to be clear) was possibly leaving the school and was likely to never be seen again.

  What a complete and utter shitter.

  ***

  The final week of the school term went by in a flash and Daisy didn’t get to even see Steve Cool before they broke up let alone give him a glimpse of her impressive new rack (actually, not impressive at all, in fact hardly noticeable but to Daisy it was every bit as magnificent as that of the magnificently mammaried Dolly Parton). Furthermore, not one person seemed to notice her fabulously fuller figure - not even in P.E. when, in the changing rooms, she took great delight in showing off her brand new Josie and the Pussycats training bra (which was not really new at all and had been hanging in her wardrobe for over a year gathering dust, just waiting for the moment when it would finally see the light of day. It had been a long, long wait - indeed, if training bras were people it would have packed it’s almost empty bags and pissed off long ago! To complicate matters even more, Daisy had absolutely no clue as to who Josie and the Pussycats were, thinking that ‘Josie’ was maybe a sweet old lady with a penchant for furry pets - which seemed like an odd thing to put on a teenager’s training bra - however, that was by the by). But anyway, nobody noticed and Daisy felt quite deflated - although thankfully not in the boob department as she couldn’t face going back to a flat chest now.