Out of nowhere, a scarlet bead appears on my thumb and begins to swell.
‘Ow!’ What could cause such indescribable pain?
My attention moves to the blade of grass I have just dropped to the asphalted pavement, and I notice a smear of blood along its edge. Can grass cut you? Is grass sharp? When will this world stop springing unpleasant surprises?
‘What’s the matter with your brother, Teresa? Why is he blubbing?’
‘Oh my godfathers, he’s cut his finger. Anyone got a hanky?’
‘Not if he’s going to bleed all over it.’
I’m sitting on a roadside verge at a bus stop with my big sister and her cool friends. We’re either on the way to see, or on the way back from seeing, the latest Cliff Richard film. I’m four or five. My sister’s cool friends have been doing duck calls – picking blades of the broad, coarse grass that grows by the roadside and stretching them taut between their thumbs to form reeds. Monkey see, monkey do: I was trying to copy them, but they’re five years older than me and better acquainted with the treachery of nature. I fucked up, and now must bleed. Such is the rule of the world I have landed in.
‘Maybe this will shut him up … Here John-John, look at this.’ I am passed a magazine. ‘Press the hanky tight: don’t get blood all over it.’ The magazine is packed full of pictures of Cliff and his cool gang. In one of these, they are draped around a park bench eating chips. That’s what it’s like when you’re a teenager: you lay around the place eating chips, looking cool and wearing American clothes. Cliff’s bird has a fuzzy angora sweater. One of the guys sports the most fantastic pair of cowboy boots. It must be great being Cliff, I think: you walk into the room and you say ‘Hey guys, what’s up?’ —Just like an American. And everybody pays attention to you because you’ve got brilliant hair and American teeth, and you’re not just a normal boring person but some kind of god.
Elsewhere in the mag there are pictures of Cliff’s band, the Shads, and his specky mate Hank, who looks like a horse and plays the guitar. Hank’s guitar is all echoey, like he lives in a tunnel, and he makes the sound wobble with a thing called a tremolo arm. I love the sound of Hank’s guitar. It’s the music they play at the pictures when the lit curtains are still closed, and you’re humming with anticipation. They play those tunes (Apache, Wonderful Land) even when it’s not a Cliff film you’ve come to see. So in a way, the Shads are even better than Cliff. Now I want to be Hank.
The magazine is full of useful, vital information. But perhaps the most startling fact I learn is that Cliff isn’t really called Cliff, and he isn’t even American. He was born in India and his real name is Harry Webb. Cliff Richard is really Harry Web.
So I’ve learned two things today: a blade of grass really can be a blade – and a person can be two people.
