Thanks to their ridiculously big smiles and kind manners when taking me to lunch, I quickly felt my worry at being in a new school melt away. I was also thankful not to have been completely rejected by my new classmates.
Although, saying that, I was more than surprised when the pair turned up at my door that night, asking if I could go out to play as they both sat on their matching blue BMX bikes, using the tips of their trainers to rock forwards and backwards on their wheels. I couldn’t help but smile back excitedly at them. It was the first time anybody had ever stood at my door asking after me.
Unfortunately, Mum decided it was too soon for me to be wandering the streets of Peaswood with two boys she didn’t know. So as a compromise she invited them inside to play instead – once they’d called their mums and told them of their whereabouts, of course. The boys gleefully accepted the offer and discarded their bikes in our front garden without a moment’s hesitation. I can remember looking down at their bikes and smiling to myself at the thought of how safe our new neighbourhood must be, before shutting the door and joining my new friends inside. I’d felt wanted and included.
My relationship with the boys kickstarted with great gusto and enthusiasm, whereas trying to strike up a friendship with the girls in my class was much more problematic. They were a tight bunch, made all the cosier by the fact that they (Laura the ringleader, Michelle, Becky and Nicola) had a special name for themselves – the Pink Dreamers. A name that was also used for the girl band they were in. I can’t express how much I wanted to be included when I heard that, but it seemed the friendships I’d already sparked up with the boys were going to put my chances of primary-school popstardom and any friendship with the girls in jeopardy. Yes, even at nine years old, social politics were rife.
They hated the fact that I hung around with the boys and would tell me so while asking if I fancied one of them or had kissed them. It was horrible to feel so interrogated and like such an outsider. Unfortunately, when my brain was taken over by some crazy acceptance-needing twerp, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to cut all ties with Robert and Ben. I’m ashamed to say I ignored them, sat away from them at lunchtimes, ran away from them at breaktimes – I figured it was the only way to make the Pink Dreamers (I can’t believe I cared so much for a bunch of girls who called themselves that) want me to be a part of their group.
And I thought I’d succeeded at one point.
One day at lunch I was called over by Laura to join the girls. At last, I thought, I’m in.
Oh what a foolish girl I was.
The whole thing was a set-up.
I sat on the spare plastic orange chair, ready to enjoy my first lunch with my new BFFs, only to feel the chair give way beneath me. I flew backwards through the air with an almighty screech and landed on my back with my legs in the air – white cotton knickers on display, my dignity splattered alongside me on the floor. I’d never felt so humiliated.
Off I ran to the toilets, riddled with humiliation, only to be followed by Robert and Ben. Bless them, they even came into the girls’ loos to see if I was okay. Not many little boys would venture into such formidable territory, without caring whether they were caught by our peers or not.
In that little loo our friendship was restored. We pinkie promised that I’d never be such a loser again and that the three of us would stick together as a threesome until the end of time. It was a deliciously cute moment and one that firmly cemented us as a united force.
I had my boys, I needed nothing more.
Ben
Nine years old …
It wasn’t long after that uplifting moment of friendship that my dad walked out on me and my mum. He just upped and left with no explanation, no apology and no emotional farewell. It seemed easy for him to sever his family ties and start a new life elsewhere. Not caring that he may never see the innocent little boy who worshipped the ground he walked on, ever again.
He’d found another woman. Someone he worked with in the police force – another officer. I don’t think she was younger than my mum, as is the usual stereotype. I don’t even think she was prettier, nicer or more intelligent – but then, I wouldn’t, would I? I’ve always thought of my mum as beautiful with her short raven bob and dark brown eyes, her tiny frame making her seem delicate and breakable – but, in actual fact, her bones were made of steel, something I learned over the years. She was tough enough to take a few knocks from life. Perhaps the new woman in Dad’s life understood the pressures of the job better than my mum had, but then I don’t want to justify what he did by admitting that.
The thing that hurt me most was that she had a kid of her own, this new woman. A son named George who was a couple of years younger than me. Dad took him on as his own – as though he was a replacement for the son he’d left behind. It was that easy, it seemed.
Obviously, we didn’t know any of that information when it first happened, we just heard bits of gossip from my nan and aunts as time went by. They weren’t meant to tell us, of course, but it slipped out occasionally. Little nuggets of information that I managed to piece together.
You know, he didn’t even leave a note to inform us that he’d left. We only knew because most of his stuff had disappeared. He’d done it when I was at school and Mum was at work. What a coward of a man.
When Mum collected me from school that afternoon I asked if Robert could come over for dinner (Maddy was busy doing something, I can’t remember what), and not knowing the void that was waiting for us at home, she happily said yes, as usual. Robert was always welcome.
We knew that something was wrong as soon as we walked through the front door. It felt colder, or as though something was missing. The same feeling that might be aroused if you were to come home and find you’d been burgled. It was unsettling and different.
Mum sighed. That was her reaction to the whole thing, to sigh as if she knew it was coming. Knew that the waste of space she called a husband would desert us in such a loveless manner after thirteen years of marriage.
‘Boys, do you want to play out in the garden while I put dinner on?’ she asked, managing to keep her voice strong and steady.
‘Should I get changed out of my school stuff?’ I asked. I was never allowed to play in my uniform, usually my t-shirt was in the wash as soon as I’d taken it off – Mum ran a tight ship.
‘No, you’re all right, love.’
She wanted to stop me from going upstairs in case Dad’s getaway was apparent – wardrobes left open with no clothes in, empty hangers splayed across the room carelessly as he made his quick escape. She’d wanted to save me from that hurt, that embarrassment.
I knew, of course. They always say kids have a sixth sense about those sorts of things, and I certainly did.
I nodded and shuffled outside with Robert. Silently, we went down to the bottom of the garden, away from the house, and climbed up into my treehouse. Dad had assembled it as a present on my previous birthday, the last one he was ever around for. It was a four-foot-by-four-foot square of timber, completed with a flat roof and small window looking back at our home – Mum had offered to put curtains in it at one point, but I thought that would take away the boy-ness of it all. Hanging from the roof, through a hole in its base and to the ground below, was a thick, knotted blue rope – perfect for me to scramble in and out of my new den. Dad had told me I was big enough at nine years old to have my own bit of space – although Mum was always fretting about my safety, unable to cope with her little boy being capable of climbing up and down freely with confidence.
While we sat up there on that bleak afternoon, I turned and looked at Robert. I noticed that he was anxiously pulling his bottom lip through his teeth and it dawned on me that he knew too.
‘I think my dad’s gone,’ I said quietly. It felt odd to say it out loud. Hearing the words come from my mouth forced me to see the truth of the matter, allowing the sadness to creep in and grip firmly around my heart. I felt so … disappointed.
‘Yeah …�
� Robert said, looking at me with concern.
We sat in silence for a while, side by side, looking up at my family home. Until that moment it had always been a place of safety, but it quickly and violently became a place of uncertainty. Of course, we’d all heard about parents getting divorced; I wasn’t the first one in my year it had happened to. One girl in our class hadn’t even met her dad, he’d buggered off before she was born, so, yes, we knew about it, and we feared it. Every time there was a squabble at the kitchen table or a disagreement in the car about bad directions, we’d feel the worry tiptoe in. For me, in that moment, the nightmare had turned into a reality. Millions of questions floated around my brain as I wondered why he’d left, if I’d done something wrong to upset him, if we’d have to move house and leave Peaswood, if I’d ever see him again and whether he still loved me.
I thought about that morning with my dad, the last time I ever saw him, and searched it for clues – a task I repeated over the years whenever he made an unwelcome appearance in my thoughts. I wondered whether he had done anything to suggest he was anxious about the big decision he was about to make, whether he showed me any more affection than normal or if he seemed sorry to leave me. As far as I could tell there was nothing. No looks or strange utterings to decipher. Just the normal morning routine – breakfast while he read the newspaper, then off he went to work.
‘You’ll be okay,’ Robert eventually said with a nod.
‘Yeah …’
‘You’ll always have me.’
‘Thank you,’ I managed before bursting into tears, no longer able to keep the sadness in.
Robert put his arm around me and firmly held me, silently becoming my anchor of support as I crumbled.
We sat like that for the next thirty minutes.
Nothing more was said.
We never talked of my tears once I’d finished, but that afternoon had altered things between us. We’d been exposed to something our fragile young minds weren’t ready for, a grief that, in an ideal world, we should have been protected from. My dad had left me, discarded me like a worn and used jumper. He’d done nothing to try and save me from the pain of his leaving – in fact, Robert, at just nine years old, did more to comfort me than my own dad had. How pitiful. It was the vulnerability that the situation provoked in us both which caused a firmer alliance to be built between us. From that moment Robert had turned from my best friend to my rock, and I worshipped him for it.
Maddy
Eleven years old …
Two years after stepping through the doors of Peaswood Primary School I was happily settled thanks to my two bestest buds, Robert and Ben. We went everywhere and did everything together. It was rare to see one of us without the other two in tow. This was helped by the fact that our parents had become close too, meaning that while they had their grown-up dinner parties and weekly Friday nights at the community club, we were allowed to wander off and play. On top of that, hardly a day went by without us doing something together after school. Our mums would come and collect us at the school gates, take us to our individual homes, and within minutes one of us would be knocking on the others’ front doors, asking if they wanted to play out.
Thankfully, things had changed in class – mostly because I no longer had any desire to become a Pink Dreamer, although it wasn’t an easy conclusion for me to come to. After various spats, I suddenly saw sense – much to the boys’ relief. In turn, because I stopped caring so much, Laura and co stopped picking on me. Thankfully we’d come to some sort of truce.
On 15 May, in our final year at primary school, our whole class was stood at the bottom of the school playing field in the spring sunshine, next to the great big fir trees, waiting to watch Becky Davies (one of the nicer girls in the Pink Dreamers) and Greg Reed (the most popular boy in class) do a very grown-up thing … get married. It was all taken very seriously with Laura as the priest and the rest of her gang playing the bridesmaids (hardly a surprise).
‘I don’t understand why we have to watch this,’ huffed Robert from my right.
‘Because! It’s romantic!’ I said back.
‘It’s stupid.’
I didn’t respond any further to his moaning because I was pretty sure that Robert had a bit of a soft spot for Becky. That was the real reason for him thinking the whole thing was ridiculous. He was jealous.
‘I like it …’ said Ben from my left with a beaming smile.
‘Really?’ questioned Robert in disgust, flicking the ends of his hair out of his eyes with irritation.
‘Yes,’ Ben nodded, eagerly.
Laura was standing beside Greg in what was our childish makeshift version of a romantic spot to get married in – a collection of sticks, daisies, bluebells and dandelions had been arranged into a circle, like a little love nest.
We edged a little nearer to them when the ceremony was about to start, much to Robert’s annoyance.
‘Please welcome the bride and her bridesmaids,’ Laura shouted, as she theatrically swept her hand in the air towards the incoming group of girls, who’d been hiding behind a few of the trees.
Nicola and Michelle, the other two Pink Dreamers, walked up to the circle carrying small bunches of daisies, as they hummed ‘Here Comes the Bride’ with great enthusiasm. Behind them walked Becky wearing a big white shiny dress over her school uniform.
Laughter came from my right.
I turned to see Robert with his hand covering his reddening face as he failed to suppress more mocking laughter.
I elbowed him in the ribs.
‘Ouch.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ Laura boomed louder, her voice sounding more serious and grown up than normal. ‘Thank you all for joining us here today. Becky and Greg are delighted to be sharing this wonderful moment with their friends.’
Robert sighed next to me, unable to hide his irritation.
‘Marriage is about two people saying they like each other very much and showing it to the world,’ she said to the crowd. ‘It’s them saying they love each other more than anyone else they know. That they are happy to be there for each other from now until the day they die.’
I couldn’t help smiling as I glanced at Robert, who was flicking bits of grass around with his foot in boredom, and then at Ben, who was paying close attention – his expression full of awe as he soaked up the meaning of the words.
Once Laura had come to the end of her speech and the bride and groom had finished repeating Laura’s words, she came to the finale of the service. ‘Becky and Greg, by the power in me, I now call you man and wife … Greg, you may now kiss the bride.’
We all watched in stunned silence as Greg placed his hands on Becky’s cheeks, pulled her into him and kissed her straight on the lips. It was, and still is, the friskiest first kiss I’ve ever experienced at a wedding. It lasted a couple of seconds and was followed by a big grin from the newly married couple as the gathered crowd erupted in whoops and cheers.
‘That was a bit much,’ huffed Robert, rolling his eyes.
While the crowd continued to go crazy, a warm and clammy hand found its way into mine. It was Ben’s. He gave my hand three little squeezes before pulling his hand away.
I looked up at his face as he flashed me a bashful smile.
Ben
Eleven years old …
I.
LOVE.
YOU.
That was what I’d wanted to say in those three little squeezes.
I knew I meant it.
I really did …
Being in that setting, with the emphasis of the occasion one of love and happiness, it was hard to escape the intense desire that took hold of me – making it impossible to ignore. I had an overwhelming urge to open my mouth and say the words out loud, but I couldn’t. Instead I found another way to express what I was undoubtedly sure I felt. The words pulsed through my body and out of my hands into hers, the one I loved inexplicably.
Of course, it would be easy to brush the whole thing o
ff and insist it was a crush, a silly little case of puppy love, but it wasn’t. It was far more than that.
From the moment I saw Maddy she’d captured me. She had me completely gripped. I was fascinated with everything about her – the way she looked with her fire-like hair and flushed cheeks, the way her heart-shaped lips spoke with a softness and warmth, and the way she appeared so vulnerable as she exposed her caring heart. I adored her – it was that simple.
With Maddy in my life I felt whole. She added a magical sparkle that I’d never want to live without. And so I told her, with those three little squeezes. I had no agenda, no hidden plan or desire for anything to change between us – my only thought was to relieve myself of those feelings by communicating them in the only way I felt I could.
Three squeezes of love.
From me.
To her.
Being friends with two boys wasn’t always the easiest thing for Maddy to have to put up with. There were times when just being friends with us cost her more than a few tears and heartache. Especially since, as everyone knows, girls and boys can’t be just friends. But we liked to think of ourselves as an exception to that rule. And when the shit hit the fan, which inevitably it did, we decided – over a pinkie promise, if I remember rightly – to stick together like glue. It was a symbol that we would always be there for each other and that we’d never waver on that promise, no matter what life threw our way. Of course, as soon as puberty struck, our teen years were filled with wild misdemeanour. Well, hanging from trees counts, right? But, for Maddy and me, a school trip to Paris was where our story really started. Whether there had been something between us all along, or whether the city of love cast a spell and claimed our hearts, it’s hard to say. All I knew was that things would never be the same again …
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