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Macsen

If I was being honest with myself, I’d fucked up a bit - well, a lot.

But being honest with myself was very different to being honest with other people.

So I’d taken out my frustration with a science teacher who was clearly giving me lower grades because of where I came from and how I looked by graffiti-ing ‘Mr Owens is a Twat’ on the wall of the school, and gotten myself excluded.

It hadn’t long stopped raining and the mud under my feet was working its way up the sides of my shoes.

I tugged at my tie as I wandered down the country lanes, pulling it off and stuffing it in my pocket.

No matter how little we had, our mum had always made sure we were impeccably dressed for school, even if she had to dye old school jumpers in the sink to make them look newer.

And now I was going to have to go home and explain to them what had happened and what I’d done.

A tractor drove past me. I pressed my back up against the hedge but still didn’t manage to avoid getting myself covered in dust and gravel as the driver didn’t bother to slow. “Dickhead!” I shouted after him, but he didn’t stop.

It was an hour or so walk down country lanes to get home.

I probably could have waited for the free bus but I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to sit with the other kids and endure their stares when they knew what I had done.

The smug whispers and the side glances over at the freak of a kid.

Another car drove past, this time catching a puddle and splashing me with muddy water. I dreaded the thought of having to go home to my parents and explain everything looking like this.

The lanes opened up on one side to a big old brick building open on one side and a yard filled with tires and spare parts. There were a couple of men working out front and one, Alun, looked up at me and frowned.

“What’s going on, Macsen?” he called over to me. He was about 6 years older than me — he had been in my brother’s year at school, but in a completely different group of friends — but he must’ve known my name that way.

I kept walking and bowed my head rather than look up at him, but to my surprise he jogged away from his work and put one hand on my shoulder, forcing me to turn around.

I saw the genuine concern in his big blue eyes that were set into a round, pale face. His teeth were slightly crooked, and he was growing a pretty bad moustache made worse by the fact his hair was so blonde that the facial hair was hardly even visible.

“I asked if you were OK,” he said.

I shrugged him off. “Fine.”

“Well, you don’t look particularly fine to me.”

I could feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes and an overwhelming sense of shame. One tear betrayed me by leaking out and running a track down my cheek. “Got expelled,” I finally managed to mumble.

“Come on,” said Alun. He led me past the other men working and into the garage.

It was greasy and dirty inside and cars were propped up without wheels or with stuff being fixed about them.

I looked at an old Ford Fiesta enviously.

My parents and brother had promised me they would try to scrape some money together for a car for my 17 th birthday if I stuck at school and did well.

My 17 th birthday was 3 months away and I had no chance of that now.

Alun had brought me to a little kitchenette on one side of the workshop.

It was greasy and dusty like the rest of the workshop but the sink and mugs on it had been cleaned to a shine.

Alun sat me on a little chair and boiled the kettle.

After a couple of minutes in which neither of us spoke, he pushed a cup of tea into my hands.

“Don’t drink tea,” I said.

“Well, you do now. Tea makes everything better. That’s what my mum says.” Alun leaned back on the countertop. I noticed his hands were dark with dust and grease, emphasising the scars and wrinkles in black.

“Well, my mum says that she’ll only love me if I get good marks in school. So let’s not pretend that mums are all right.” I saw Alun’s eyes widen and wondered if I’d revealed too much.

“Does she really say that?” he asked.

“Well, no. Not exactly. Just that I’m not as good as Gruff at school. I won’t go to a big university or get a good job like Gruff has.”

“University isn’t for everyone,” Alun smiled. “You know Alaw? A couple of years below me in school?”

“Yes,” I said. She was a very pretty and very clever girl who like my brother had gotten a place in university.

“Well, she was my girlfriend til she went off. And though she went to university and I took up an apprenticeship here, that didn’t make me less than her in any way. I’m proud of what I have here and I have a trade. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I was still sullen. Why did he have to rub his success in my face? He’d gotten an apprenticeship and his family was happy with that. There were fuck all other options for me.

“So. Have you considered it?”

“Considered what?”

“Asking. We’re rushed off our feet at the moment and could use the hands on the job. You might be making tea and catching sparks in a bucket for the first few months, but you’d earn some money and get a qualification out of it at the end.”

“Are you…offering me a job?” I asked. I could feel my lips curling up into a smile.

“Nah. You’ll have to ask the boss-” Alun pointed at an older man who was working on one of the cars at the other side of the warehouse “-but he’s looking for people at the moment, and if you’re polite and can promise to work hard, I can’t see why he’d say no.”

I felt myself smile then, properly smile for the first time in ages.

I could earn money — buy a car for myself, even — and make my parents and brother proud in another way.

Maybe they’d be happy to see me succeeding, even if it wasn’t in the same way as he had.

After they’d gotten over the disappointment of me being expelled. Obviously.

At my nod, Alun had talked to his boss, a smiley but scruffy man named Steffan who had a big beer belly and a kind voice.

Steffan headed over to the little kitchen area and introduced himself to me, asked me if I was willing to work hard, to turn up on time — and whether I was any good at making cups of tea.

Once again, I found myself smiling. Which wasn’t something I did much at the time. “Yes,” I said. “I can do all that.”

“Then it seems you have a job, young man.” Steffan smiled and Alun held his hand out for a high five.

When I left an hour or so later having been taught the very basics of how to lift a bonnet, check oil levels and pump up tyres, I felt like I could fly home.

Even if my parents weren’t thrilled at first, I could be something and make them proud without treading the path my brother had.

I wandered down the country lanes slowly.

My parents lived in one of the few council houses in the area, so our home was owned by the local authority and they paid a small amount of rent to keep it.

Mum wouldn’t have anyone else know that though and had always forbidden us from mentioning it to anyone.

As the estate came into view and the road transitioned from dirt track to tarmac, I spotted my brother’s car out in front of my parents’ house. Great . As if this wasn’t going to be difficult enough without him being there showing everyone the benefits of a university education.

I opened the front door. From the living room I could hear voices — my father’s, calming. My mother, slightly hysterical. And another familiar voice cutting through it all. Him .

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do with him!” Mum said. “Expelled hours ago, so the school said. So where the hell is he?”

I opened the door tentatively. I hadn’t known the school was going to call, and high emotions weren’t about to make this any easier. The living room was painted magnolia, and though a lot of the furniture looked expensive, most of it was second hand.

“Hi Mum, hi Dad, hi Gruff,” I said to them each in turn. And then to the last member of the group. “Hi, Hywel.”

Hywel was my brother’s best friend, fellow high achiever…

and the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life.

I’d had a crush on him since before I even knew what it was to have a crush on boys, and after I’d figured out what I was, it hadn’t gone away.

He’d stayed at our house nearly every weekend for years and starred in my own wanking fantasies from when I was thirteen up until…

well, I hadn’t exactly stopped with those fantasies.

He was tall, though I was fast catching up, and had dark golden hair that grew to the nape of his neck, tanned skin unlike anyone else in the village and gorgeous green eyes.

Today, he and my brother were in matching suits, both grey with pink shirts.

Though my brother still looked like a village boy trying to play big in the city, at least to my eyes, Hywel looked like he had been born in that suit.

Every time I saw him I felt like I was about to explode.

Or run off upstairs for a sneaky wank. One or the other.

“I said , what the hell do you think you’re playing at?” In my daydreaming about my brother’s best mate, I had completely forgotten about my current issue.

“Um,” was all I could think to reply.

“Bloody hell, I knew you were doing badly at school. I didn’t know you’d gone completely illiterate!” My mum was shouting now, and my father swiftly interjected with a hand on her leg before she could stand up.

“Now, Caroline. I don’t think we need to get personal about this. I’m not thrilled about the news, but perhaps if we let Macsen tell us his side of the story….” My father was forever a voice of reason to my mother, and I was glad that in this at least he seemed to be following his usual role.

“Well, you know how horrible Mr Owens has been over the years…he gave me back my work with red all scribbled over it, and I know I’m not that bad at maths. I mean, I’m not good, but he made me look like an idiot.”

“So you took to vandalism?” My mother’s voice was lower and calmer now, but no less threatening. If she’d been a banshee two minutes ago, she was a snake coiled to strike now.

“I…yeah, sorry Mum. Sorry Dad. I know I shouldn’t have.” I knew what I’d done was bloody stupid.

“And what’s your plan now? How are you going to finish your A Levels and get to university without a school? The nearest college is miles away and you know we can’t afford to drive you there.”

“Well, I stopped off at the garage and…they offered me an apprenticeship. I’m going to be a mechanic.”

The silence in the room was deafening. The snake coiled in ever tighter and I could see my mother weighing up her options. I looked silently, pleadingly to my brother, but he kept his eyes firmly averted. He had never rocked the boat and wasn’t about to start now.

Hywel was looking at me though. Sea-green eyes bored into mine and I couldn’t make out his expression. I had no idea if he thought I was absolutely insane.

“Well, you can think twice if you think we’re buying you a car now,” said Mum. “It was all well and good when you wanted to be a lawyer but certainly not if you’re going to squander your talents fixing cars.”

“Caroline.” My father’s tone was a warning now, and Mum closed her mouth and looked at him in betrayal.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Hywel said quietly. All four of us turned to him in shock, but he didn’t shrink back. “If it plays to your strengths, go out there and get some money and experience behind you. University was for me and Gruff, but it might not be for you.”

“Thanks, Hywel,” I said.

Silence stretched out again for eternity. “Fine,” my mum said. “But you can either pay rent or get out.”

“Fine.” I said. I had made up my mind on that front the second she said it. “Am I done?”

“For now,” Mum said.

I got up and left the room, closing the door as quietly as possible behind me.

I ran up the stairs into my pretty messy bedroom.

I grabbed a few pairs of pants and socks, some t-shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans and stuffed them in a hold-all bag.

I was sure my grandparents wouldn’t mind me staying.

I was still glowing internally from Hywel’s praise, even if everyone else was against me. That one person didn’t hate me or judge me for what I’d done was enough. That it was a man I fancied was ten times as good.

I walked back down the stairs with hold-all in hand. I was ready to storm into the living room just so I could make a dramatic exit from the house for the last time, but then I heard Hywel speak and stopped for a second.

“Not everyone is good enough for University,” he said. I felt my heart sink into my stomach. “You know as well as I that Gruff was always going to do it. Mac though? You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Rather than the dramatic exit I had planned, I just turned away from the living room, walked down the hallway and slipped out of the front door.

I had no idea where I was going. But I was going anywhere but here .

My heart was in a million tiny pieces but I faced the outside with a brave smile.

I’d prove him wrong. I’d prove them all wrong.