Teenage Blues

Claire had two reasons to feel miserable in autumn 1963. She had just started the third secondary school she had attended since she was eleven; and her mother had put her on a strict diet, after Claire had returned from a youth club camp fourteen pounds heavier.

She was given a boiled egg and a Ryvita for breakfast; a Ryvita thin slice of cheese and an apple for lunch and meat with piles of greens and no potatoes for supper.

All the way through her morning lessons Claire stared at the clock willing the time to pass quicker as her stomach was rumbling from her meagre breakfast. She could not concentrate on her lessons.

She had the misfortune also of finding herself in a class with Sara, a bully, who had taken an instant dislike to her. “Why do you think we want you hanging around us. We don’t like creeps like you.” Sara snapped at her on her 2 nd day at break time.

The rest of the girls obediently obeyed everything Sara commanded.

Claire slouched off to read a magazine and felt a depressive cloud settle around her.

She started complaining of stomach pains and her mother allowed her to take time off from school.

After a few weeks of this a truant officer visited their house.

Yvonne, her mum, was shocked. Why do you think Claire is playing truant. She’s upstairs in her bedroom complaining of a stomach ache.”

Undeterred the Truant officer Mrs Bloomsbury asked to talk to Claire.

Claire entered the room staring at the floor wringing her hands.

Have you had any trouble at school?” she was asked.

I can’t tell you. I’ll get into trouble.”

The truant officer must have had a discussion with the headmaster at Claire’s school because on Wednesday morning he emerged, from his office, an imposing figure in his black gown, standing in the on a raised that rose six steps up from the corridor; and looking down on the group of girls waiting to go into the hall for PE.

“I’ve heard you’ve been bullying Claire” he boomed at Sara.

“Oh no” thought Claire, "I’m dead meat now."

“How would you feel if someone bullied you when you started a new school?”

To Claire’s astonishment Sara replied

“I didn’t think about it like that sir”

I’ve got to get out of this place, thought Claire

After two days of living in fear of Sara’s retribution, Claire was summoned to her head of year’s office.

Mrs Rutherford told her smiling warmly. “You’re going to be given a chance to go up to the top stream if you can pass this test.”

She was handed a folder and sent to a small room on her own.

It was an English test. The comprehensive was a doddle. She loved précis and whittled the story down from 500 words to 250 in no time.

Then she read the title of the essay she had to write.

“Lost at Sea”

She spent an enjoyable hour describing the feelings of a man in a small boat helpless amongst giant waves that pushed him 30 feet into the air and then dropped him down into foaming chasms.

After half term she received the news that she had passed the test and was welcomed into the top form by a new group of girls who were very kind to her. Claire had a feeling they had been told to welcome her, but she did not mind as she had left behind the hell of form B.

.Claire came down from her bedroom hideaway one Saturday morning to find her mum and dad waiting to surprise her. A small puppy sitting on the tiled floor wagging his tail with excitement.

He had shiny eyes, a dark brown coat and a white furry chest. Claire knelt down and stroked him gently.

We bought him to cheer you up” her mum told her smiling at he delight. “He’s going to be your responsibility. All right? You’ve got to house train him and take him on walks.

I’ll be at work all day and I won’t have time to look after him.”

After a family discussion her mum decided the dog should be called Monty.

The next few weeks Claire mopped up after Monty mess, breathing through her mouth so she did not have to smell it; until he was fully house trained

She took him on walks, getting to know her new town in the process and really appreciated find Monty eager to see her and wanting attention, when she arrived home from school to an empty house. The phone rang eleven o’clock one night and Claire’s mother answered picking up the receiver next to her bed.

“Claire!” she yelled. “There’s someone on the phone for you!”

“Who rang at this time of night?”

“I’ll take it downstairs mum” she called as she stumbled down the stairs picked up the receiver in the hallway.

“I’ve got a date lined up for you” her friend Jenny told her.

Claire’s heart sank.

“What. My parents won’t let me go out now!” Do you know what time it is?”

Claire heard giggles at the other end of the phone. “Bill’s dying to meet you. We’ve told him all about you!”

“It will have to be tomorrow night. I’ll say I’m just walking the dog.

Bye”

Claire hoped her mum had not heard the conversation.

As she went back upstairs she heard both her parents snoring. So it was Ok her mum would do her nut she thought if she knew she was going to meet Jenny’s gang.

Her friend Jenny had a very sweet natural personality. At school she and her friend Jane wore their school uniform and conformed to all school rules.

But out of school, they both belonged to a gang of bikers. Claire could not understand how they could make such a transformation just by putting on their leather gear.

Last week they told her merrily that they were going down to the “Ace of Spades” for a rumble.

The last thing Claire wanted was to be involved with people who thought violence was fun. But Jenny and Mad had been such good friends to her since she moved up into their form. Most people had their own cliques and did not want new friends. But they had been open hearted.

The next evening at 8 o’clock Claire finished the washing up and called out to her parents,

“I’m just taking Monty for a walk. I’ll be back in 40 minutes. “

“Ok her mother responded not taking her eyes off the television.

Claire was very nervous. She did not want to let her friends down but neither did she want to be part of a gang.

It was bad enough wearing a uniform at school let alone one to advertise what gang she belonged to.

She crossed the bridge over the railway lines and saw the rockers assembled outside a large house on the main road.

“Hi Claire, Bills not here yet.”

Monty stood pulling at his lead, wagging his tail happy to be out and wanting to carry on walking.

“Here he is,” called Jenny.

Claire looked up and saw a large motor bike roar up the road to them. Man and machine were one.

He steadied the bike and hopped off walking towards her as he took off his helmet.

revealing a long thin face with bright red spots vying for attention round his long pointed nose.

“Ello Claire” he said in a high pitched squeak.

Clair tried to summon up at least a tiny bit of attraction for him for Jenny and Mads’ sake but she just felt scared. She was only fourteen..

Say something intelligent she told her self. “High”, she said blushing; “I’m just walking my dog.” Monty growled at him.

“That’s nice he said. “Have you just moved here?”

“Yes” she answered trying to stop her hands from trembling “Well I’ve got to go now. He’s used to at least two miles walk every night.”

“Oy what are you lot doing outside my house! Move off” A man shouted from the house behind them.

Jane and Mad leapt on the back of their boyfriends’’ motor bikes and zoomed off.

“See you another time” Bill told Claire and followed his friends.

Clair took Monty on his favourite walk down to the river to thank him for being her ally.

Two months later Claire’s mother yelled up the stairs.

“Come down. We need to talk to you.”

What’s going on now Claire thought.

She reluctantly switched off her record player halfway through a Beatles EP, walked down the stairs and into the front room.

Her mum and dad were sitting together smiling nervously.

Here we go again Claire thought. Once again they are conspiring against me.

“I’m afraid we had to give Monty back to the woman who sold him to us.”

Her mother told her.

Claire’s heart started beating faster.

“She came back last night after you went to bed. She desperately wanted Monty back because his mother had died.”
. Help, I need somebody

Help, not just any body

Help, I need somebody now!”

She sung along with the Beatles.

Later that month, because Claire continued to lose weight and complained of tiredness and stomach aches, her mother took her to the Doctor.

“Let me talk to her alone” the doctor told her mother.

Grudgingly her mother left the room.

“Now let’s see. How are you?" the doctor asked Claire who was sitting slumped and sulking in front of him.

“How are you?”

“Hungry,” answered Claire.

“Hmm” the doctor responded. “Have you had any dreams lately?”

“Yes,” Claire answered.

What a joke, thought Claire. He thinks he is a psychiatrist.

I will give him something juicy.

“Yes, she said relaxing back into her chair.

“Last night I dreamt I pushed mummy off the bridge onto the railway line.”

The doctor diligently recorded this in his notes.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Yes” Claire said defiantly.

“Alright... Go and ask your mother to come in and wait outside for her.”

Claire panicked. He was going to tell her mum what she said.

As she joined her mother in the waiting room she hissed into her ear.

“He thinks he is some sort of a psychiatrist. I told him I dreamt I pushed you of the bridge onto the railway line. I just made it up to surprise him.. I didn’t really.”

Her mother looking shaken went into the office.

Ten minutes later she came out smiling.

“The doctor says I shouldn’t keep you on a diet any longer. He said fourteen year old girls should eat whatever they want to.”

A feeling of relief flooded through Claire.

“Let’s go down to the baker’s shop and get some cream buns.”
 Two months later, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Claire sat watching the film Rebel Without A Cause,. She was very moved when Natalie Wood rushed up to her father, who is seated at the dinner table, sits on his lap, throws her arms round him and says “hug me like you used to Dad”

He shows disgust and rejects her and tells her to act her age.

Claire felt sad that her own Daddy felt uncomfortable hugging her since she started wearing a bra . Claire felt isolated. Of course she would never make him feel even more uncomfortable and fling herself on his lap like Natalie Wood. Her father had been the only constant in her life. When she was a child at large family gatherings it was acceptable for her to sit on her father’s lap and hide her head in his shoulder feeling protected and sheltered.

Now she had to fend for herself.

The day arrived when Claire had to take part in a rite of passage and give a reading to her community wearing a white shirt and turquoise skirt. She was very proud to be one of the group of girls who had been studying the bible and taking a course named A woman of worth.

Her mother had invited her whole family, five uncles and aunts and numerous cousins down from London to their new house in Surbiton.

She walked into synagogue with the group of girls she had been taking lessons with all year and took her turn to read out

“With abounding love hast thou loved us, O Lord our God, with great and exceeding pity hast thou pitied us. Oh , our Father, or King for our fathers sake, who trusted in thee, and whom thou dist teach the statutes of life, be also gracious unto us and teach us. Oh our father, merciful Father, ever compassionate have mercy on us; oh put it into our hearts to understand and to descern, to mark, to learn and teach, to heed, to do and to fulfil in love all the words of instruction in thy law.”

Blushing scarlet she made her way to the reception area where all the girls giggled and praised each other or rolled their eyes wishing they hadn’t made a fool of themselves.

Then they bitched about who read worst.

Then it was off home.

As she went in through the front door her cousin Jeffrey with wife in tow gave her an appraising look and told her.

“You’ve got nice legs Claire.”

His wife hit him on the shoulder.

“leave her alone,” she snapped.

That was weird, Claire thought.

It made her feel a bit funny that her body was getting attention.

She went into the kitchen and took a tray of sandwiches her mother had made to offer around in the front room as her usual duty.

The room was full of men who had been temporarily deserted by their wives and girlfriends, awkwardly holding a cup of tea in one hand and a fragile best china plate in the other hand or balanced on their knees.

All eyes turned to her as she stepped in. They had not seen her for 2 years so had not had the chance to see her morph into a woman. At the last family gathering she had been a little girl running around with the other children now she had a woman’s body.

Claire froze. She was suddenly acutely aware that every one in the room had a penis. Uncle Fred had one, Bill her cousin had one, Al had one and even her ancient great uncle Moriss had one. She felt very uncomfortable. "Don’t look at their crotch’s," she thought to herself, "don’t look." The men carried on smiling at her. Just look at their faces," she told herself. Feeling very uncomfortable, she gazed into their faces and in her heightened awareness, to her horror, their noses seemed to come rushing towards her, crowding her out of the room,and she ran to her bedroom in a panic.

Her Uncle Frank called out innocently. Don’t run away Claire.

It had been a very long day. It was all very confusing.
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