Hat
A charity shop story
“But Muuum, everyone else will be in fancy dress,” Steve complained, as his mother tried to corral him home. “I don’t want to be the only one wearing normal clothes, it will be so embarrassing.”
“As much as I would love to drive an hour to the nearest fancy dress shop and spend twenty quid on a polyester costume you’ll never wear again… we don’t have time. I wish you’d told me earlier; we could have made something.”
“What do you expect me to do? Embarrass myself in front of everyone? Be the laughingstock of the school?”
“I really don’t think you’d be the -”
“I would,” his voice was reaching new heights of pitch and volume with anger and fear. “What do you know about it?”
“Fine. Okay. Fine.” She was trying to compose herself. “How about we pop into this charity shop and see what they have?”
“A charity shop? Do you know how embarrassing it would be wearing a costume from a charity shop? Ben’s going as Batman, and his mum bought him a proper costume with a utility belt and everything. It looks sick.”
“Well, maybe if Ben’s mum spent less money on fancy dress costumes and invested in therapy, Ben’s home life wouldn’t be what it is,” she muttered to herself.
“What?”
“Nothing. No harm in looking in the charity shop and seeing what they have. Look, there’s a whole rack of costumes over there.”
He flicked through them dejectedly. “These are crap.”
“How about this?” She pulled out a clown costume with a multicoloured wig.
“I’m not dressing as a clown. You know what that would make me? A clown. Clowns aren’t cool.”
“Since when was fancy dress about looking cool? I thought it was supposed to be silly and fun.”
“It can be silly and fun if you’re already cool, but if you’re not, you need a cool costume to make up for it. Most of these are for girls, anyway.” He turned away in disgust. It was true that there weren’t many costumes for boys his size. He was the smallest in his year, smaller than most of the girls, and was never allowed to forget it. She was doing her best to raise him without a chip on his shoulder about masculinity, but some things were out of her hands. It didn’t help that his dad, when he bothered to show up for visitation, spent the whole time talking about his gym routine and rugby triumphs. The height, brawn, swagger, and lack of critical thinking skills which had made him the perfect candidate for a casual fling, also made him a terrible role model.
“Mum,” he shouted from the other side of the shop. “Look at this look at this.” He turned towards her grinning, a slightly too big flat cap drooping on his head.
“You like that?” she said, unsure. “What are you going as, a Yorkshireman?”
“Mum, it’s like Peaky Blinders.”
“You’ve never seen Peaky Blinders.”
“But I’ve seen pictures of Tommy Shelby online and he’s dead cool.”
She Googled Tommy Shelby while he admired himself in the mirror, posing in whatever way he imagined Tommy Shelby might pose, having no idea who he was.
“Well, you’ve got a suit,” she chewed her lip. “No waistcoat, but maybe your brother has something you could borrow.” She snatched the hat from his head and looked at the tag. “Small price for an easy life,” she muttered. “Fine, you can be Tommy Shelby, let’s buy this and get home.” Steve jumped and kicked the air in celebration then ran to the door, whining at his mum to pay faster so they could get home and assemble his costume.
“And we have to watch an episode of Peaky Blinders so I can learn his catchphrases.” She Googled the show as they walked back to the car, hoping he wouldn’t get her in trouble with the other mums.
They arrived at the party late. Steve’s costume was mismatched and ill-fitting, but his enthusiasm more than made up for it. His classmate’s house was one of the big detached ones up the hill with a very distant sea view adding an extra chunk to its value. It was unseasonably warm. The sun shone begrudgingly.
A sign on the front door directed them round the side, doubtless to avoid mud tread into the cream carpet. The garden stretched before them. There was a trampoline, a bouncy castle, a long table of snacks and a group of men huddled around an imposing barbeque. Steve looked at his mum expectantly. She nodded, and he tore off to play. The garden was bigger than her house and yard combined, even excluding the deep, perfectly manicured flower beds ringing it.
She spied the mother waving to her, a sickly smile plastered across her taut, tanned, wrinkle-free face, and she made her way over. Might as well get this part out the way early. Everyone there was identified this way - mother of so and so, wife of whoever - she didn’t know the name of a single woman before her. She made a wide veering detour to the drinks table to pick up a glass of wine on the way. May as well make the most of the few benefits of being here.
Steve quickly found his school friends comparing costumes. Declan, the tall, beefy lad who picked on Steve’s size, nodded approvingly when Steve told everyone who he was. James, Declan’s sidekick, was little bigger than Steve but the most vocal about his weediness. He was the gobbiest kid in class, and hid behind Declan’s brawn to do it. Steve feared Declan, but he hated James, the snivelling little rat.
“Who even is Tommy Shelby? Must be from some kids’ show we don’t watch,” sneered James.
“It’s actually from Peaky Blinders. My dad watches it and so does yours because I’ve heard them talking about it. My dad lets me stay up late to watch it with him. It must be on past your bedtime.” This was a lie, but he sensed that no one else had seen the show, so couldn’t catch him out. Everyone jeered and laughed at James. It was a cheap shot, but Steve took every opportunity to divert the abuse away from himself.
“It’s a sick costume,” said Declan, putting an arm around Steve’s shoulder. “I’ve seen it too, with my brother. These guys wouldn’t get it.”
Pride swelled in Steve’s heart. Something only he and Declan could share. “Want to play Peaky Blinders on the trampoline?” Steve asked, confident the show was vague enough that it was impossible to get wrong. “I’m sure there’s some kids’ things for James to play with.” Everyone laughed again, and Declan and Steve sauntered towards the trampoline, wordlessly bonding over their maturity.
Steve’s mum was holding court admirably with the other mums. She had already deflected three comments about her job - two about its low status, and the third asking why she bothered to work at all - when she saw her fella round the corner. He waved to her, pointed to the men swarming around the barbeque, and headed to the icebox of beers. She should have known he would be no help.
Across the garden, a woman headed straight from the group of girls to them. The kids were just old enough to split down gender lines and rarely intertwined. Most of the kids didn’t even understand why, but blindly followed the sudden disgust at the prospect of the opposite. The woman strode closer and asked in a high, questioning voice. “Steve’s mum?” Her stomach sank. For a split second, she considered looking around, confused, trying to locate Steve’s mum, but she knew it couldn’t last more than a moment.
She cleared her throat and braced. “Yes?”
“You might want to have words with your Steve.”
“Why? What’s happened?” She resisted the urge to ask what he had done. Keep the blame away from him for as long as possible.
“Him and Declan,” she shot daggers at Declan’s mum, who was suddenly engrossed in the stem of her wineglass. “Are hogging the trampoline.”
Relief flooded her. “Oh, well, if that’s all -”
“And my daughter,” the woman cut her off. “Politely asked if she could have a go. Your son,” she managed to infuse the word with lashings of contempt, “asked what was in it for him. He asked her for her week with the iPad.” The class had one iPad, chock full of educational games, which each kid got to take home for a week to use for their studies and help with research. The idea was to give anyone who didn’t have a home computer the chance to learn technology in their own time. Of course, it didn’t take into account that that only applied to about three of the class, and half of them had an iPad of their own. Steve was one of the few who could actually benefit from more time with the iPad.
“Okay, well that doesn’t seem so…” Steve’s mum trailed off under the glower facing her.
“He said, and I quote. ‘Everyone is a whore. We just sell different parts of ourselves.’ Right to my daughter’s face.”
Steve’s mum withered. They weren’t overly careful about swearing at home, but she genuinely didn’t know where that had come from.
One of the other mums let out a nervous, high-pitched giggle then threw her hand over her mouth. All eyes swivelled to her. “It’s a Tommy Shelby quote,” she explained. “From Peaky Blinders. His costume.” All eyes back to Steve’s mum.
On the drive home, she berated him over her shoulder.
“Never speak to a girl like that ever again, you hear me? Do you even know what a whore is? Do you understand what you said? Well? Do you?” Steve shrugged silently. “I hope for your sake that you don’t - although context suggests you might have some idea. You are never to speak to a girl like that again, you hear me? You’ve embarrassed me, you’ve embarrassed your father.” Luckily, his father had stayed at the barbeque, so wasn’t there to disprove her. “And you’ve upset that poor girl.”
Steve sulked under the onslaught, but inside he was glowing. Declan had cracked up when he’d said it and given him a hard pat on the shoulder. All the other boys had looked on in awe as the girl ran off crying. Unfortunately, he liked her. They used to be friends, but this was the new world, and sacrifices needed making. He was conflicted. Guilty for having upset her, but hopeful that it would put him in good stead with the boys. School was like the jungle. He had learned that the bottom of the food chain was a bad place to be, and he would do anything to scrabble his way up it. Making girls cry seemed to be a shortcut to the top. It undercut the glow, however.
When he was younger, a lot of his friends were girls, but he had learned recently how uncool that was, how incongruous with the ever shifting society of primary school. Friends were great, but not being picked on was better, and Declan’s good books were the place to achieve that. Being mean to girls seemed to get you firmly into Declan’s good books. Declan’s older brother was the captain of his secondary school’s football team, so Declan had learned a thing or two about what it meant to be cool.
The first half of the party had been utter bliss. He’d felt the respect of his peers, and a self-confidence hitherto unknown to him. All stemming from a charity shop flat cap. That was pure, it was unadulterated. When he made her cry, he’d felt the respect grow, but guilt offset the warm feeling, as did the telling off from his mum. Maybe it was a tactic to use sparingly. He pulled the flat cap harder onto his head, no longer listening to his mum’s rant from the front seat. This was the source of his power, the avenue to respect. Reserve abusing girls for a last resort. The flat cap, and everything it represented, was the way forward.
Part of my Charity Shop Anthology