Page 9 of Things We Never Said
When I look at this photo, I see a chavvy Margate lass with a Chewbacca hairstyle, and a skinny, spotty boy with a fringe. But I did like you. I liked you instantly. And when I try really hard, when I close my eyes and try to remember, the two things that keep coming back to me are how shy you were and how familiar you seemed. Of course, we came up with a reason for that strange sense of familiarity much later on, but at the time it seemed magical.
But your shyness was very attractive to me. I remember, for instance, how when I winked at you, you averted your gaze. And the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that you were simply the first shy boy I had ever met.
That will sound strange, I expect, but there weren’t any shy boys at my school. They were all too busy being tough and jack-the-lad, even when it was just pretence.
I remember asking you how you liked your hot dog and you saying that you didn’t know, and then blushing when I laughed at the fact that you’d never had a hot dog before.
I thought that was so sweet! Not that you’d never had a hot dog before but the fact that you were embarrassed about never having had one. You actually apologised.
Your voice was really soft, too. That was partly your West Country accent, I suppose, but I loved how quietly you spoke. Half the time I wasn’t sure if I’d heard you correctly.
I remember that tic you had, where you tipped your head all the time to get your fringe out of your eyes, and I remember that your eyelashes seemed huge.
You’ve still got long eyelashes, of course, but your face got wider and more rugged as you grew into manhood, and the lashes somehow got lost in the whole. But when you were twenty, they seemed huge. I remember wanting to kiss your eyes. I don’t think I ever told you that. Isn’t that funny?
So, you jumped the queue and we got our hot dogs. You smothered yours in mustard and then raved about how good they were, which was funny and sort of cute, as well.
You asked me about my job and I told you it was just for the summer, and you asked me if I had a boyfriend and then stared at your feet when I said no. You talked about me. You wanted to know all the silly, boring details about my life in Margate. You wanted to know what pub I went to and if I lived with my parents. And that was new to me, too. Boys generally seemed to spend all their time telling girls about themselves, in my experience. But you – you wanted to know all about little old me!
We walked past a photo booth and you said you needed a picture for your student railcard or something, and I ducked in halfway through to join you. The first two were of you looking all serious and the third one was blurry, but this one came out. I can’t believe how young we look. And I can’t believe our hair! Still, it was 1982. Bucks Fizz were in the charts, so clearly no one knew what bad taste meant.
When we got back to the mirrors, I asked you about you, and you said you were at college, that you were studying to be an architect, and I remember being really shocked. I remember not quite grasping it. I think I must have said something daft like, ‘What, you’re going to build houses and stuff?’
The people I knew worked in Dreamland or Tesco’s. Mum’s boyfriends tended to be bricklayers or car mechanics or, more often than not, on the dole.
So your being at college, your intention to design actual houses, seemed incredible to me. You were like no one I had ever met.
You spoke softly, you blushed, you were learning to design buildings and you wanted to talk about me! And I thought,Oh God. This is the one I want!
That might sound ... what’s the word? Mercenary? But it wasn’t like that at all. I felt, almost instantly, as if I’d known you forever. And I felt, suddenly, as if I’d been a square peg in a round hole all my life.
You had this whole different way of talking and listening and existing, and it was as if you’d opened a door I had never noticed before and I peeped through it and suddenly realised that I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life in the wrong room.
So by the time your friends came by and swept you up with them, I knew. You were everything I wanted.
Actually, it was more, even, than that. You were everything I had ever wanted. I just hadn’t known it until then.
As you went off with your friends, I got all tongue-tied. I watched you leaving and felt a sensation of utter panic. And as you turned the corner, I realised that I might never see you again. I imagined myself twenty years down the line still thinking about you, still regretting. So I abandoned my turnstile and I ran after you.
I caught up with you in front of the skating rink.Skate on plastic, it’s fantastic.Do you remember the plastic ice rink?
I grabbed your arm. ‘Sorry,’ I panted, ‘but are you coming back later?’
‘Um, if you want me to,’ you said, blinking madly and blushing again. ‘At nine, right?’
Your friend Glen made a stupidoooohnoise and you told him to shut it.
‘Yes, nine,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you there, by the exit. OK?’
Then, ignoring Glen, who was still being an idiot, I asked you to promise you’d be there. And you did. And you were. And I was so relieved that I kissed you.
It’s Wednesday evening and Sean is in the process of unloading shopping from the car when Maggie’s little Fiat pulls up.
He carries the shopping bags he’s holding to the front step, then returns to greet her.
‘Hello,’ he says as she steps from her car. It’s baby blue with leopard-print trim. Sean always thinks it looks more like a handbag than a car and had been mortified the one time he was forced, by circumstances, to borrow it. ‘Have you come to check up on me?’
‘Well, if you won’t return my calls ...’ Maggie says, closing the car door behind her.
