After all, Dougie had just spent six weeks in prison – ‘total horror show’ – after being convicted of selling batches of stolen knives and forks while working at Viners’ cutlery factory. He had been working in various jobs all through the last year. The carpet factory, steel works, gas works, liquorice factory, even a week at the Queen’s Head until their mother caught him with his hand in the till. He had bought a second-hand Vauxhall Cresta. A few months after he’d started working at Viners it turned out that he had been selling cutlery for cheap all around Sheffield.
‘This is it, lad,’ Dougie was now shouting in his brother’s ear as the concert got into full swing. His beer sloshing over the glass onto Wilbur’s shoes. ‘This is the world. Right here. You don’t need that Oxford shite. You don’t need your duffel coat and your Shakespeare. You don’t need to become a southerner. Look! The Rolling Stones!’
‘Dougie, they’re from London.’
‘Aye. But now they’re right here, aren’t they. And next week the Beatles are back here. We have it all. Right here.’
‘Dougie! I’m not going to Oxford for the scene. I’m going to get a degree.’
‘I’ve met southerners, Wilbo. They’re not right in the head.’
The Ghost remembered silently thinking that maybe the inhabitants of Ford Open Prison might not be entirely representative of the inhabitants of Balliol College. And the thought was never spoken because someone was tapping on Wilbur’s shoulder.
And not just any old someone.
Maggie.
She was there with two of her friends.
Doreen Taylor, looking very different now she had reached womanhood and discovered eyeliner. And Claudette Campbell, a person Wilbur hadn’t met yet, but who had heard about that day in the park.
‘Hello, stranger!’ she shouted into his ear. ‘I hear you’re off to university.’
‘Yeah! In September.’
Dougie leaned in between them, cradling his beer. ‘Bloody everyone knows except me. We’re not good enough for him!’
‘Bugger off,’ Wilbur said, pushing him playfully away. He then turned to Maggie. ‘How’ve you been?’
Maggie strained to hear. Brian Jones and Keith Richards were in full force on the stage. ‘What?’
‘I was just asking, how have you been?’
‘What?’
‘I WAS ASKING HOW YOU HAVE BEEN.’
‘Oh. Fair.’ She smiled. Reassessed. ‘Fair to good. Can’t complain.’
‘Are you still doing your drawing?’
‘Not really.’
Maggie noticed Wilbur’s face fall.
‘I’m at college now.’
‘College!’ he said, pretending to look breezy again. ‘Amazing! Which college?’
‘Teacher-training. In Broomhall. I want to teach little ones.’ She realised he hadn’t heard. ‘I WANT TO TEACH LITTLE ONES.’ She pointed at herself. ‘Glutton for punishment.’
‘That’s fantastic.’
‘Says Mr Oxford University.’
‘Well, I’m not a toff yet.’
It was quite something to watch this. It had been completely clouded in his memory by what was to come.
