Boyracers Read Online Free

the floorboards groan. Downstairs, Dad is arranging toast on chipped plates. He nods, gives a perfunctory ‘morning’ as I drip through the back pages of the Sunday Mail, find a report on the lazy Rangers defeat to Hibs, see Frannie zapping barcodes on his next shift, muttering about it. I finger some toast into my mouth and offer Dad the paper, which he refuses.
    ‘Did I ever tell ye?’ His eyes alight on the sparrows on the fence outside, and I know what’s coming. ‘That me and yer Mum saw Elvis Costello live?’
    ‘Elvis Costello? When?’ I have to keep sounding surprised when he mentions this.
    ‘1979?’ he muses. ‘1980? It was at the Maniqui.’
    I dump a carton of orange juice on the breakfast bar – installed during Mum’s formica phase, never removed. A nail-varnish smudge still decorates one end, a quick image of Mum spilling it, her mouth an O of horror, the Baywatch theme playing in the background.
    ‘Elvis Costello at the Maniqui,’ I marvel woodenly.
    ‘Well, it was called Oil Can Harry’s back then. Docksy’s before that. But it usedtay attract a lottay big name acts. Costello, the Jam, the Buzzcocks. Nay artists that stature playin Fawkurt now.’
    ‘Nope.’ I start pulling on my Simpsons socks. ‘Was he, uh, any gid?’
    ‘Aw aye,’ Dad begins, nodding like a toy dog in the back of a car on a long, long trip, ‘really gid.’
    ‘Elvis Costello in the Maniqui,’ I say again, as Dad’s mind and mine dance druggedly around each other. When I cross to the fridge there is a pause which seems as fraught with danger as an Arctic journey. ‘The Jam as well?’
    ‘The Jam as well.’
    ‘ And the Buzzcocks?’
    ‘And the Buzzcocks.’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    ‘Just goes tay show.’
    ‘Yup.’
    Dad takes a pensive sip, transporting himself to the fag-end of the seventies, where he is gayly trashing some phone-boxes. I’m waiting to see if there’s more of the Maniqui story to escape those coffee-tinged lips.Queueing for tickets in the rain? An interrupted kiss on Mum’s doorstep ? But no, he is treading towards the stereo and the off-button.
    We’re so pretty, oh so pretty
    We’re vac
    The portable kitchen TV. Ghosts flicker on its screen, slide, merge into images of a cricket match, a great white shark, an awards ceremony, Lorraine Kelly. ‘Brad Pitt!’ she says, gleeful as a kid, then probably ‘table tennis banana prince william huddersfiel,’ for all I care.
    I Love My Coffee, Dad’s mug declares, like a placard raised at some pro-caffeine rally.
    ‘See you fell asleep on the couch,’ I mention, for conversation’s sake mainly, but Dad quickly tries to justify it.
    ‘Aye,’ he coughs, ‘I was watchin a film.’
    ‘Aw aye. Which wan?’
    Dad takes a gulp of coffee, his eyes on Lorraine Kelly. ‘Clash of the Titans,’ he says.
    ‘Good movie,’ I say. ‘Good special effects for its day.’ Their wedding video is perhaps half an inch further out than the rest in the cabinet. ‘I like the bit with the army ay skeletons.’
    ‘That’s Jason and the Argonauts,’ he says.
    I muse about the kitchen for a bit. The tap is working again. Dad is not going to the job centre today. Or the doctor’s. I move the lid of the breadbin up then down, noticing tiny beige crumbs that have accumulated over months. Lorraine Kelly is saying
    and later we’ll be making a picture of Ronan Keating from Boyzone using needlecraft.
    Dad calls from the living room, ‘So whit did you get uptay last night?’
    My reflection shrugs in the mirror. ‘Stayed in at Brian’s,’ I call back, with a composure I should’ve reserved for the Rosie’s queue, ‘Watched Saving Private Ryan. Played the Playstation.’
    ‘You no too auld for Playstations?’
    ‘Are you no too auld for the Sex Pistols?’
    Dad comes into the kitchen, a wry little snort shuffling out from him.
     
    monday. Schoolday. Graffiti on the bus shelter: FRANNIE + GREEDO JABBA JAR JAR BINKS. Funnily enough, I end up sitting on the