Ever since we met you had a hold on me

When we walked into the sunroom, they could see it all over my face.

I could see Aunty Joy, Uncle Bill, MumnDad just stop everything they'd been doing up till that time and freeze in their armchairs, the only living thing in the room the smoke twirling out the end of their cigarettes and the little beads, inside their glasses of beer, racing to the surface. It was like time had stopped and they all just looked into my face together with one set of eyes and then I saw all their eyes—the eyes inside—turn to look at Lemmy.

'This ... this is Lemmy,' I said to UncleBiltAuntyJoyMumDad. Dad and Uncle Bill expect Lemmy to come into the room, to shake them by the hand. But Lemmy doesn't move. He doesn't even come into the room. He stands by the door. By me.

Aunty Joy who is six foot three (Uncle Bill, five four) uncrosses her long legs and places her stilettos on the carpet as if for support. She taps the ash off the end of her cigarette and says to Lemmy, friendly-like, 'Hello Lenny, love,' I feel Mum wince at Aunty Joy's lower class speech.

'It's Le-mm-y, Aunty Joy,' I say in a low voice so the others can't hear. 'Not Lenny.'

Aunty Joy pulls one of her 'Aren't I a mug' faces, rolling her eyes up to the smoky ceiling when Dad cuts through.

'That's a funny name. A very funny name.'

You can tell he doesn't think it's funny.

Uncle Bill doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to. I can see by the way page 102 he's straining to look at Lemmy, he doesn't think he's exactly normal.

I turn to Lemmy and suddenly I see Lemmy as they might see him. To me, all night, he's very smart in his cut-down second-hand double-breasted herringbone tweed jacket and leather gloves. The powder on his face is barely discernible. His eyes darkly glitter. But to MumDadUncleBillAuntyJoy, to whom English Vogue's Winter Styles are all still a mystery, Lemmy looks like danger.

I can see all their eyes change suddenly and they're all looking at each other, quickly, darting some foreign intelligence between themselves like a bird which leaps and bows and stabs its bright bloody beak into the watery pools of all their eyes and suddenly the birds start to fly at me.

But I know like Lemmy now. I know how to make my eyes, my heart, into an iron plate where the birds can't go.

I have learnt how to play a part.

I turn away and playing my new part which Lemmy taught me tonight I pretend to be the same person Jamie I was—and because I look like the same person I was up until I changed—they believe it.

I turn around and pretending to still be Jamie-the-good-boy I call out, 'I'll take Lemmy into my room and show him my records. Then I'll make you a cup of instant if you like.' And I look at Lemmy and Lemmy looks at me as I hear Mum say, 'That's a good boy Jamie,' and we go into my room and shut tight the door before we break down into helpless crazy laughter because the play has begun.