Sweet Sorrow(85)

‘Workshopping it.’

She laughed. ‘Exactly! Workshopping it. Anyway, Ivor was looking at me like I was mad. ‘It’s not that sort of play, Fran,’ he said, and I said I disagreed – if Shakespeare’s right about what first love is, why wouldn’t he be right about first sex too? Of course Miles just flatly refused to accept the existence of sex that wasn’t transcendent and life-changing because, you know, he’s Miles, and I was so near, so near to telling them.’

‘About?’

‘The first time.’

‘Go on.’

‘The first time – you really want to know this? The first time was with this guy a couple of years above me.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Fifteen. It was Christmas time, the one before last. Anyway, we used to have this thing called Battle of the Bands at Chatsborne – yeah, I know – and when I’d been in the first year, this fifth-year – Patrick Durrell, his name was – had gone up and sung “Roxanne”, you know, “unplugged”, just a boy and his acoustic guitar and we thought it was really daring because red lights and all, in front of the teachers too. So cheesy but at the time there was this amazing hush, like we were in the presence of this teller of tales. About prostitutes. So. Three years later, we’re doing Battle of the Bands ourselves, playing our covers no one recognises, everyone shrugging away in time with the beat, and word gets out that he’s in the audience. So we finish our three songs – “Goodnight, Chatsborne Secondary, you’ve been amazing!” – and at the party afterwards, there he is, chatting away with the headmaster over a glass of mulled wine, because he’s one of those weirdos who’s always coming back to school at holidays, a success story, Chatsborne at its best. Anyway, he sort of tracks me down. “Nice gig,” he says. “Shame it was all covers, you should really write your own songs,” and a little bit of me thinks, piss off, you didn’t write “Roxanne”, but even so, I’ve been fantasising about this boy for years and he looks at me and says, “I think you’d write great songs,” so I say, “What makes you think I’d write great songs?” and he says, “You just look like you’ve got something to say.” And of course I should have just barged out the fire exit right away, but I was younger then and he’s telling me all about university – Manchester of course – and how amazing it is, and how wild and mad, and how he’ll have to watch himself next term, what with all the clubbing and ecstasy he’s been doing, and he does look a bit ragged to be honest, a bit spotty, but still, it’s Patrick Durrell! I’ve written his name on my exercise books! In three dimensions! So the party ends at nine thirty, which it just so happens is when Patrick Durrell comes alive. He’s got a hip flask – a hip flask at a school concert, God, what a dick – and he makes a big deal of pouring vodka into my orange Sanpellegrino. “Now it’s called a screwdriver,” he says, and I know that’s not strictly accurate but I let it go. “D’you want to come home? My parents are in but we’ve got a granny annexe.” Well, I’m only human. “Can I bring the rest of the band?” I say. “No, I can’t bring too many people back.” “You don’t want to wake Granny?” I say. “She just died,” he says, “that’s why I’ve got access to the annexe.” “So it’s swings and roundabouts,” I say, and he looks all offended but he says, “Are you coming or not?” Anyway, I find my mum and dad and say I’m going to stay at Sarah’s, and we meet in the car park and go to the granny annexe, self-contained, very nice and … that’s where I lost my virginity. Seventeenth of December 1995.’

‘And how was it?’

‘The granny annexe?’

‘The experience.’

‘Well, it was … an experience. There was this little living area, which was really floral and frumpy and it still had her knick-knacks on the TV and he’d tried to sort of club it up with candles, like a chill-out lounge but, you know, with doilies and little figurines of clowns and photos of Granny Durrell, staring me out. And we had more screwdrivers and he yammered on about his mates in Manchester, people I’d never met and never would meet, all in this slightly nasal mad-for-it accent, which annoyed me because I knew for a fact that he was born in Billingshurst. His guitar was in the corner and without stopping talking, he reached for it and just started picking out little melodies, like he was accompanying his own monologue, and then he started singing.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘That cheesy Van Gogh song, “Starry, Starry Night” or “Vincent” or whatever. And I thought, well, this is a bit weird, because he was really going for it, eyes screwed up tight. And you can’t do anything, can’t get up and have a wee or anything, you’ve just got to sit there, and it suddenly seemed like a very, very long song. I thought, at the end, do I clap? What if he does “American Pie”? So I clapped but just a little, and he said, “Did you know that song is about Vincent Van Gogh?” And I said, “Really? Is that why he cut his ear off?”

‘And he laughed but he was a bit offended. He still kissed me though, and I reminded myself, it’s Patrick Durrell! So we kissed for a while and I kept telling myself he’s still that boy, isn’t he? That one I used to really, really love, so I just sort of – went for it, and then our tops were off and then the rest and then we were on his dead granny’s bed. He asked me, “How old are you?”, which, generally speaking, should never be a part of foreplay – you know, establish that way beforehand – and I said fifteen and I’m not sure what he thought about that because we still did it. So.’