Sweet Sorrow(86)

‘And … how was it?’

‘Oh, you know. Painful. In every sense. At least it was short.’

‘Did he know you were …?’

‘A virgin? Yeah, I told him, and he said, I’ll never forget, “That’s okay, I’ll put a towel down,” which, again, wasn’t the ideal response, but still.’

She went quiet for a moment. ‘Anyway. Everyone tells you it’s disappointing, but he went very thoughtful afterwards and I thought, maybe this is that melancholy thing men are supposed to get, so I said, “What’s up?” and he said – it was quite beautiful, really – he said, “You do realise that, technically, that was statutory rape?” And – idiot – I told him that I wasn’t going to go to the police, don’t let it spoil your Christmas, and can you drive me home, or at least put me in a taxi, and he looked really put out by that but he called the cab and offered me five quid and I said, “How dare you, I’m not your Roxanne,” and he looked confused and said, “No, for the mini-cab,” and I said, “Yes, I know, I was joking – never mind, I’ve got money,” and I waited outside ’til it came and I thought, why am I making all these jokes? Why am I making him feel better? Anyway, I cried all the way home and I never saw him again.’

She shuddered and flexed her fingers. ‘Sometimes I wish I had gone to the police, not ’cause I was fifteen but just to report him for being a selfish shit or his singing or something. I mean he’s ruined Van Gogh for me now. Not to mention Don McLean.’

We were quiet for a while, the hurt radiating off her, a kind of vibration. I’d had no conversations of this kind and wanted very much to be a certain kind of boy – ‘man’ would be the term – who knew what to say, a living antidote to the boy in the story. I was still in the grip of my resolution, to be exemplary at all times in her company, but the practical demands of this often escaped me, the right thing to say only occurring to me on the journey home. Certainly, I felt a desire to track this boy down and seek vengeance that was almost Tybalt-like in its fury. I wanted, too, to comfort her, but a hug, an embrace, felt wrong and all I could think to do was take her hand. She lifted our interlaced fingers and examined them, curiously, as if she’d not seen them before.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need to get all sombre, it just wasn’t ideal. I don’t think it ever is, but I just wish it had been with someone – stupid word – kind. I don’t mean soppy and scared and all sensitive, that’s the worst. Just … careful of your feelings. Anyway. Thankfully, soon after there was this Swiss boy on a ski trip, Pascal, we had a much better time. I mean, that was more like it. It wasn’t a meeting of souls but it was very … slick and professional.’

‘That’s your review.’

‘“Highly recommended. Would come here again.” But you don’t want to hear about that one, do you?’

‘Not really. But maybe you could count that as your first time.’

‘I don’t think it works like that. But you, my virgin friend, you need to wait for someone special, someone you can work it out with and have a laugh.’

‘Workshop it.’

‘Exactly. Workshop it.’

‘If only there was someone like that.’

‘I know,’ she said, and laughed. ‘If only.’





Press and Publicity


But now we had a plan. I returned from the river, dizzy with it, head full of preparations. It was a good plan, a great plan, and the thought of it carried me home in darkness, grinning all the way.

More often than not my father would be in bed when I returned and I’d check the glass in the sink, sniffing to see if it was whisky or water. The words ‘do not combine with alcohol’ haunted me, and I’d rehearsed a conversation in my head, matter-of-fact, non-preachy, in which I’d point them out. We’d yet to even acknowledge the existence of the medication, but when the time was right, we’d have that conversation in real life too. Now I was with Fran, surely there was nothing I couldn’t say.

But on this particular night, the night we made the plan, the music was loud enough to hear from the lawn, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, every second of it known to me. When I entered, he was standing at the turntable, the album’s sleeve in his hand, his head bopping at tremendous speed as if bouncing over cobbles.

‘You having a party?’ I shouted, to let him know I was there.

He turned, his shirt unbuttoned, his hair crazed. On the lid of the turntable, a garage tumbler of Scotch. ‘There you are! You just missed them.’

‘Who?’

‘Your friends. Whatshisname …’

‘Harper?’

My father didn’t like Harper, thought him glib and shallow. ‘And the others.’ He liked the others even less and in turn Dad was a source of curiosity and, I suspected, derision for my friends. It still caused me physical discomfort to recall his attempt at hospitality, as he played them the whole second side of Bird and Diz, the beers warming in the boys’ hands, desperate glances shooting between them like passengers about to disarm a hijacker. They even had a nickname for him. He was The Jazzer, and the thought of them together, unsupervised, made my heart race.

‘Did you tell them where I was?’