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realise,’ I said to Toni one lunchtime, as we were loafing rather unconstructively on the sixth-form balcony, ‘that we’re part of the Anger generation?’
    ‘Yeah, I’m really cross about it.’ His familiar squint-grin.
    ‘And that when we’re old and have … nephews and nieces, they’re going to ask us what we did in the Great Anger?’
    ‘Well, we’re in there, aren’t we, being Angry?’
    ‘Isn’t it a bit off, though, that we’re reading Osborne at school with old Runcaster? I mean, don’t you think some sort of institutionalisation might be going on?’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘Well, heading off the revolt of the intelligentsia by trying to absorb it into the body politic’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So, I just thought, maybe the real action’s in Complacency.’
    ‘Scholasticism,’ Toni sneered comfortingly. ‘Pinhead-dancer.’
    The trouble was, he had a much cushier time being Angry than I did. Toni’s parents (partly, we guessed, because of their ghetto experiences) were (a) religious, (b) disciplinarian, (c) possessively loving, and (d) poor. All he had to be was an idle, agnostic, independent spendthrift, and there he was – Angry. Only the previous year he had broken a door handle at home, and his father had stopped his pocket money for three weeks. That sort of gesture was really helpful. Whereas when I wasdestructive, petulant or obstinate, my parents, shamefully well-heeled in tolerance, would merely identify my condition for me (‘It’s always a tricky time, Christopher, growing up’). That identification was the nearest I could get them to come towards reproach. I’d be in there, jabbing away; I’d throw a feint, then sink one right in up to the wrist – and what would my mother do? Get out the iodine and lint for my knuckles.
    Scorched Earth didn’t go the whole way, of course. With a perspicacity beyond our years, we appreciated that merely rejecting or reversing the outlook and morality of one’s parents was scarcely more than a coarse reflex response. Just as blasphemy implies religion, we argued, so a blanket expungement of childhood impositions indicates some endorsement of them. And we couldn’t have that. So, without in any way compromising our principles, we agreed to carry on living at home.
    Scorched Earth was part one; part two was Reconstruction. This was on the schedule, anyway; though there were many good reasons, and good metaphors, to back up our reluctance to look at that part of things too closely.
    ‘What about Reconstruction?’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘Do you think we ought to plan for it a bit?’
    ‘That’s what we’re doing now – that’s what SE’s about.’
    ‘Mmmnnn.’
    ‘I mean, I don’t think we should commit ourselves too strongly at this stage to any particular line. We are only sixteen after all.’
    That was true enough. Life didn’t really get under way until you left school; we were mature enough to acknowledge this point. When you did get out there, you started
    ‘… making Moral Decisions …’
    ‘… and Having Relationships …’
    ‘… and Becoming Famous …’
    ‘… and Choosing Your Own Clothes …’
    For the moment, though, all you could do in these areas wasjudge your parents, associate with the confidants of your hates, try to become well-known to smaller boys without actually talking to them, and decide between a single and a double Windsor. It didn’t add up to much.

7 • Mendacity Curves
    Sunday was the day for which Metroland was created. On Sunday mornings, as I lay in bed wondering how to kill the day, two sounds rang out across the silent, contented suburb: the church bells and the train. The bells nagged you awake, persisted with irritating stamina, and finally gave up with a defeated half-clunk. The trains clattered more loudly than usual into Eastwick station, as if celebrating their lack of passengers. It wasn’t until the afternoon – by some tacit but undisputed agreement – that a third noise