Samenvatting per hoofdstuk
A is for Apple. A bad Apple.
Jack picked his own name from a book; The Big Book of Boy’s Names.
Jack is going to live in Manchester with Kelly and Marble. The next two weeks are an
orientation time for Jack; an opportunity to adjust (aanpassen) before he starts his new job.
It’s under Terry’s careful gaze that the events of the next two weeks will unfold. Terry is going
to pick Jack up at 7:30 am, each day for fifteen. Every day, whether with Terry or alone, Jack
will practise his story.
B is for a Boy. A Boy named B
Child B was exactly the kind of boy that your mother told you not to play with. Ignorance
(ontwetendheid) was his armour (schild). He was a loner.
Once child A had walked home with one shoe. He had ripped junior Y-fronts (jeans) into the
pocket of the trousers that he’d managed to rescue. His other shoe was still thickly lodged
(ingeklemd) in a tree. It was long dark when he made it home. His mother was angry
because he was so late. Child A had rehearsed the story in his mind; he couldn’t tell the
truth; he knew that they wouldn’t understand his fear and he believed that his tormentors
(pesters) would increase his suffering if he went to adults. He tells his parents he was
playing football, the ball got caught in a tree and they all threw their shoes to get it down, but
his shoe got stuck, and there’s where he’s been, trying to get it down. Child A and his father
went to the tree to collect the shoe. Child A worried that his father would see the ripped
pants in his trouser pocket.
It went on for months like this. He was a small boy being bullied by a group of such diversity
and size that he seemed to have no moments of freedom. At home, he tried desperately to
hide his engrossing happiness. He lay awake much of most nights, plagued (gekweld) with
anxiety. Sometimes he fell asleep in class.
Soon A stopped going to school; he wandered the streets of an old coal town; Stonelee.
‘How d’you get five hundred cows in a shed?’ said a boy that A vaguely recognised. A was
not sure if it was a trap and turned around, poised to flee. But he was too curious. A says; ‘I
don’t know. How?’ He wanted this to be a real joke, not a trick or an excuse to punch him.
The boy picked up a grown glass bottle and sailed it through the trees over the church wall,
towards an unseen road. Before it had even landed, A felt an attraction of this abandon
(verlatenheid), the exhilaration (opwinding) that it could offer him. The boys runned away.
They fled to the church; a place of safety for criminals. Not that boy A was a criminal, but he
was beginning to feel the appeal of crime. A’s newest and only friend, a boy named B, stole
a hymn book in the church.
The thing that brought A and B together was separation from the world. They were united by
their difference, intrinsically linked.
B’s abandon (overgave) had lured A into unaccustomed (ongewoon) bravery (moed). B
protected A against his bullies.
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,That night B went through the hymn book, scribbling out God and writing his own name
above each reference. B did not believe in God; his brother had told him that God didn’t
exist, one night while B pleaded for his help. And that God didn’t help seemed to prove his
brother’s case. Perhaps, though, there remained a trace belief.
C is for Coast. Can you See the Sea?
Jack is tense (gespannen) in the open, where so many eyes are upon him, where someone
might recognize him.
Terry got Jack a distribution firm job, delivering supplies (benodigdheden). Servicing service
stations (tankstations beleveren). Chris is Jack’s driver's mate at work. Chris decided that he
moved up here to escape bad influences down South. Michelle, Jack's colleague, flirts with
Jack. Jack likes her too.
The British media uses the latest techniques their scientists have aged the face of the
“Evilest Boy of Britain”, and published it at the paper News of the World, to show what he
looks like now. The paper claims that parents have a right to know who’s living down their
street. The photo introduces Jack, but it doesn’t look like Jack, because he had changed so
much; for example, he had acquired (gekregen) new front teeth after they had been knocked
out. His front teeth used to be very crooked (scheef), the new teeth, on the other hand, were
very straight.
Terry and Jack go to the pub, named Fighment and Firkin. The ‘figment’ in question (in
kwestie) is presumably (vermoedelijk) one of the imagination, because supposedly
(zogenaamd) a lot of writers used to drink there.
Terry likes going out with Jack; treating him to meals, buying the drinks, just sitting and
talking; all the things that he was never able to do with his own son. Terry was living in a
different city when his own son started going to pubs; down in London.
After Terry returns from the pub, he realises that he had forgotten the birthday of his son
Zed. Zed left Terry. Terry felt very guilty.
D is for Dungeon. Dark and deep
A started to come around with an uneasy feeling; a creeping anxiety that somehow
everything wasn’t going to be quite right when he was fully awake. He couldn’t put his ginger
on who he had offended (beledigd), or what he had broken; but there was a muggy
(benauwde) certitude (zekerheid) that he was in trouble. Then someone slapped him and it
was almost as being born again. A akwoke lying on the bottom bed of a bunk (stapelbed)
with a lot of pain. ‘They killed him’, moaned a voice in A’s ear. The ‘screws’ put his cousin in
with a boy, who he thought was a white racist. The man had said that they shouldn't put a
white boy in with him, because he would do the same to him as they did to his cousin. The
man didn’t have anything against A, but then he started choking A. He said it’s not A’s fault,
but he had to do it; he promised his cousins mom and his baby-mother; he said he would
look after him. A started yelling and screaming and tried to pull the hands away from his
neck, but they were too strong.
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, He felt himself weakening and a door opened and bright light came washing in. He
wondered if this was death. Three figures poured in with light. The pressure eased (nam af)
from around his throat. He thought they had come for his tormentor (kwelgeest) and not for
him. They were beating the tormentor with truncheons (wapenstokken) and pulled A away;
he thought they were guardian angels (beschermengelen). ‘Welcome Feltham’, said one of
the ‘angels’.
E is for Elephant. White Elephant
This was Jack’s first night out ever, if you don’t count with Terry, and it’s all going wrong.
Jack was grilling fish fingers, but meanwhile he was busy with the washer-dryer, cause he
couldn’t get it to work. The switch of the washer-dryer comes away (komt los) in his hand,
leaving a hole; water starts pouring out on the floor. Suddenly he sees flames coming out of
the grill. He throws the grill pan in the sink. Although the water is barely trickling out and the
floor is already flooded (onder water), he screws the plug of the washer-dryer back in. He
burned his hand and cheek through the spitting fat.
A is used to picking himself up, never giving up and never giving in (toegeven). But the
power to be able is important; it gives a choice to the choiseless; it makes going on a
decision. Sometimes Jack believed that the option of suicide was all that kept him alive.
B made his choice too; he made his bed-sheet and hanged from it. His final felony (strafbaar
feit); according to A, suiciding is a crime.
Jack is going on a night out with Chris and Steve the mechanic. At the second bar, he sees
Michelle, he’s still in love with her. At the bar, he is a little unstable on his feet, but despite
the strangeness of everything, he’s more at ease (op zijn gemak) than he can ever
remember being. He’s spent the last 7 years in a state of permanent tension. Now he feels
relaxed.
F is for Family. Fathers, Fidelity
It was the twelfth of december, the twelfth month and A was twelve. A was waiting for 12:12,
he hoped that there would be some sense of comic rightness (komische juistheid) when it
did. At 12:11 there was a knock at the door, it was Terry. Terry told him that A’s mom had
died. A had known for 3 months his mom was dying, but he was still in shock. He hadn’t
seen his mom for long periods and they made him miss her only more. He cried for her, he
cried from guild, he cried from self-pity (zelfmedelijden) and he cried for the loss of his last
link to love. Mom had ovarian (eierstok) cancer. When she told it A, he couldn’t dismiss
(negeren) the feeling that he was the seat and cause of this: the original cancer came from
those ovaries.
A’s father had never visited. The first time that A saw him in eighteen months was at the
funeral. He looked smart at the funeral, and he looked a lot smarter than he looked pleased
to see A. There were not many mourners (rouwenden); both A’s parents were only children,
and A their only child. The whole family was genetically inclined to disappearing. And a lack
of relations had helped his parents vanish too. The motorcade was only one car long. Terry
and A rode with A’s dad. Terry was crying. He wished that Terry would comfort him, but it
was his dad’s job, not Terry, even if dad didn’t want to; and he didn’t.
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