I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey (15 page)

One day in the playground I told a pretty bold-faced lie that would go on to haunt me. Yes, you guessed it. I used to say my mum was Shirley Bassey. Kids, as I've mentioned, will believe almost anything, and they believed me. For once everyone gave me loads of attention and not as a prelude to chasing after me and trying to hang me up by my coat again. And I milked it like any kid would. I talked about how she'd got to meet James Bond in the flesh and how next time she'd promised to take me with her on location. I was going to drive the James Bond car with her. I was going to go to America with her. I was going to meet Q, M and all the rest of them.

The story went around the school like wildfire and for the rest of the week I was a mini superstar. It was amazing and even the teachers got wind of it. On Friday the head teacher came up to me tentatively and asked me if my mum was really Shirley Bassey. I said, ‘Yeah she is you know! Shirley Bassey, that's just her stage name. Lots of singers use them.' Well, she was no genius herself, being a primary school teacher at a school that the local education authority classed as just one rung above a young offenders institute. She bought it and she asked me if I could get my mum, Shirley Bassey, to come and open the school fête. A teacher who would normally just ignore me in the playground or shout at me in class was actually treating me with respect. I have to admit that I got a bit caught up in the moment and I said yes, of course she would come.

It wasn't until several hours later when I was home that I had time to think about what I had said. I was only eight years old but already I hated school. Mum and Dad knew that I was being bullied by the other kids and it was going to get a lot worse if the school fête came around and there was no one to open it. I'd have to get her to come one way or another. That night at dinner I went for it.

‘Mum, there's something happening at school.'

‘Is it those white children again? What have they done to you this time, my boy?'

‘No, it's nothing like that. They're having a school fête next week. And they always get one of the mothers to come and open it. This year they want you to do it.'

‘This year? Why have I never been asked before?'

There was no point in mentioning Shirley Bassey or James Bond as Mum would have no idea who either of them were. She did, however, like the idea of being invited to the school fête. Mum and Dad never went to any school events. From parents' evenings to school plays, the Amos household were mysteriously left off the mailing list. So Mum actually jumped at the chance and agreed.

I basked in everyone's attention for the next week and quickly the big day arrived. It was the typical cheap school fête held under a tarpaulin cover in the rainy car park. There was a stale cake sale and a raffle and a little display of the kids' finger painting and that was about it. Normally, I wouldn't even have wanted to go, but this time I couldn't wait. It was a Saturday morning and Mum dressed up for the occasion. She arrived at the school gates in Dad's car and when she stepped out of the car all the kids surrounded her in awe. Mum has a way of oozing class when the occasion fits, but with all the adoration she was receiving she didn't let it get to her head. She knew that these were the kids who were bullying my sister and me and she made sure to say a few choice words to them.

‘Ah. You mouse-faced child. How sweet. Are you a boy or a girl? It is hard to tell with those clothes on.'

‘Ah, little boy. Tell me do you wash your hair every week or every month? Your mother should buy shampoo.'

‘Hello, little girl. You shouldn't chew chewing gum. It makes your cheeks fat. Oh! You aren't chewing chewing gum? Don't worry about it, little chipmunk cheeks.'

‘Are you looking for something on the grass or do you always have a hunchback?'

Mum was having a ball and when one of the kids (Hunchback) came up to her and asked if she could sing the James Bond song, she said ‘Sure, why not? Yes, my dear. I will sing you the James Bond song.' And then to the tune of ‘Camptown Races' she sang, ‘James Bond, James Bond, James Bond Bond! James Bond! James Bond! James Bond Bond Bond, James Bond Bond! James Bond Bond Bond Bond!'

The kids loved it! The teachers loved it! (They really weren't that smart at my school.) I couldn't believe that everyone bought it and really thought that Mum was Shirley Bassey. You have to remember that this was back in the early eighties and the teachers were always getting my sister and me confused. When we pointed out that we were not only different people but different sexes, they just said, ‘Well, all black people look the same. Don't they?' Well, guess what? To them all black people really did look the same because they asked Mum to come back and open the fête two years running.

Mum really stood up for me that day at school. After that fête, the worst of the bullies diverted their attention to pulling the wings off flies. It's a shame that neither your mum, your dad nor the sick notes that they used to write to get you out of shit can follow you throughout the rest of your life. Otherwise, the next time I have to perform at a rowdy late-night gig in Leeds and the compere says, ‘Amos! Get up on that stage and make the crowd laugh.' I'll just be like ‘No. I got a note from my mum. She says no way. Not in these shoes. They're brand new from the shop.'

L
OVE IS ONE OF
those elusive things that everyone is constantly on the lookout for. Pubs and bars exist to exploit the fact that we will do almost anything to find it. I mean, who hasn't walked down to their local town centre late on a Friday night and thought, Hmmm. Maybe love is in that Yates' Wine Bar. You go in, drink too much, and the next morning you wake up to find that Chewbacca is lying next to you? Or who hasn't woken up in a stranger's house, empty beer bottles strewn across the floor, Ginsters' pies smeared against the wall. You drag yourself to a stranger's bathroom mirror only to realize that YOU are Chewbacca. Just me? Oh well.

And what is love? Barry White seems to be the only person able to describe properly. Which is weird because it seems to be the number one concern of most music, art, theatre, films and everything else. It's something that we think we're going to like because everyone tells us it's so great but we have no idea what it is; it's a bit like using Twitter. There are a lot of odd sayings about love. You can be ‘lovesick', ‘love-struck', and Mum used to say, ‘Ah! Love! You'll know it when it hits you,' which makes love sound dangerous, violent and quite sinister.

But I have been in love. It struck like lightning, spun me out on a whirlwind of intensity, and then spat me out like the dried-up husk of a blood-drained corpse by a vampiress who ruined my life and tore my heart to shreds. BITCH!

Anyway, my love story starts in a branch of an Olympus Sports shoe shop based in Tooting. I had just turned eighteen and was doing part-time work in the evenings and at weekends to make a bit of extra cash and to get me out of the house. I had always taken part-time jobs ever since I was legally allowed to because if I stayed at home I was forced to work around the house for free. The money at Olympus was not really good and Mum and Dad always took most of it anyway to help them pay for bills and food, but it was better than nothing. I remember once asking Mum to let me have the whole pay cheque and she said, ‘Don't talk like that to me, I brought you into this world and I will take you out of it!' while holding up a frying pan just to make her intentions totally clear.

The best thing about the job was that Dustin or other school friends could come and hang around in the shop with me. Plus, I could get a good discount for everyone on cool trainers. I was in heaven in that shop, because my parents thought that when it came to shoes or trainers practicality always won over fashion. They thought it was a waste of money buying name brand trainers. I remember one time my mate got a fantastic new pair of Nikes and I went home and told Dad. The next day he bought me a pair of shoes from the market. They were called Abibas and they cost £3. They only had one stripe. I said, ‘Dad, you can't send me to school like this. I need two more stripes.'

‘You want more stripes? Then paint them on!'

And the kids had been cruel to me. They'd see my Green Flash plimsolls and come up to me in the playground singing, ‘Let us go to Tesco's, where Stephen buys his best clothes. De la la la.' Plus Green Flash made my feet look really big. They looked like clown shoes on me. To be honest, I do have totally massive feet and was sporting size thirteen shoes by the time I was twelve. I was so embarrassed about my huge feet that for two years I wore shoes four sizes too small and later on in life, guess what? I have a crooked cock. So let that be a lesson to you.

The work was not really interesting as few people came into the shop to actually buy anything. In that particular area of South London most of the locals were too busy concentrating on benefit fraud to worry about footwear. One Saturday, I was working in the shop when, completely out of the blue, this stunning blonde bombshell walked into the store with her parents. As they browsed around the shop, she kept looking at me furtively over the displays. I figured that she must like me, but with her parents in the shop we couldn't do much more than steal glances at each other. There was an animal magnetism at work whenever we made embarrassed eye contact. It was that slightly creepy teenage behaviour when you're trying to show that you like someone while resisting the hormonal urge to run headlong into each other's arms and start copulating wildly in front of the shoe polish section.

Her parents came up to the desk and bought her a pair of the newest Nike Air trainers. My heart was thumping when I took the shoe box from her. I thought I'd try to sound professional and stylish to impress her and so I entered into the sales pitch. ‘Oh. These come with a free pair of shoe deodorizing insoles.' I realized suddenly what I was saying. ‘They just slip into the shoe every night and stop any . . . y'know . . . bad smells . . . from . . . staying in the shoe . . . not that you have any need for them . . . They don't even work anyway. Just a gimmick really.' Oh please God! Let the world open up beneath my feet and swallow me whole. The girl went bright red and sort of laughed as her dad handed over the cash and they left. She gave me a little backward glance on her way out of the shop, though. Well, you fucked that one up, Stevie, I thought to myself.

The next day as I waited at the bus stop for school I was still daydreaming about that girl and imagining all of the impressive things that I should have said to her instead of offering her a cut-price remedy to smelly feet. I was so busy daydreaming that I barely noticed the really fit girl wearing a hot school uniform standing and looking at the bus schedule, until I saw that she was wearing the newest Nike Air trainers. Oh shit! It was her. What do I do? I should talk to her but what to say? ‘Hi there. Did I see you last night at Olympus Sports?'

‘Oh my God. It's you.' She had an amazing accent. The she looked me up and down in my school uniform (replete with my Dunlop Green Flash trainers). ‘You go to school? I thought you must be older.' I smiled broadly at that. It's odd that a phrase works as a brilliant compliment when you're eighteen but when you're twenty-eight it would get you a slap. The same principle works in reverse as well. Tell an eighteen-year-old boy he's cute and you won't get very far. Tell me that I'm cute now and it's different story – and you can find me on Facebook if you want to try.

‘Yeah. People often say I look older. I've always been pretty mature for my age.' An awkward silence descended as I played nervously with the lunch money in my pocket. ‘Those shoes are looking pretty fly.' She looked confused. ‘They look really good on you, I mean. Where are you from?'

‘I'm Hungarian.'

‘Wow. I've never met a Hungarian before. What brings you to the Big Smoke?' Bollocks! Even I knew that was lame. ‘I mean what brings you to London?'

‘My dad's got a job here. I didn't want to come. Look at what they have me dressed as. I look like a little kid. In my country you don't have to wear uniforms. That's why I asked them to at least get me some
fly
shoes.' She smiled.

‘Well you look great to me.' Was that pervy and weird? Probably. ‘I don't like wearing school uniform either, but at least it's my final year and I'll be out of there by summer. I can't wait.' That was better. ‘Yep. Out into the world on my own.'

She was warming up to this. ‘Me too. My parents want me to go to university but I just want to get a job like you and move out of home.'

‘Yeah. In six months' time my mum and dad won't see me for dust. I'll just be . . . blowing in the wind.' I didn't know what I was talking about.

‘Wow. So you're a free spirit. Just like me.' I was really falling for this girl.

‘Yeah. You can count on it. Signed, sealed and delivered.' Wait a minute. Was I really saying this?

‘Yeah, me too. I just need to pass the final exams.'

‘Don't you worry 'bout a thing.'

‘Hold on. Are you just quoting Stevie Wonder lyrics at me?'

‘No! Stevie Wonder? Who's he?' My foot tasted bitter in my mouth.

‘Maybe I can play you some of his songs sometime.'

‘I'd like that a lot. You could always come back to the store.'

‘OK, maybe I will. I like the shoes. It's just that I don't like the laces. They're boring. Maybe I should come round to your shop again and see if you have anything that is a bit more . . . funky.' If you've never heard someone with a Hungarian accent say the word ‘funky' then you should find one and get them to say it to you right now. Either that or I was delirious with desire. She could probably have said, ‘I have some really funky navel fluff,' and I would have still been completely bowled over.

‘Yeah. We've got loads of laces. I work there pretty much every day after school. And at weekends.'