The Boy I Loved Before

by Jenny Colgan

‘Well, it’s true,’ I said sulkily.

  ‘It’s also not the way we talk about literature in this class.’

  ‘What, the true way?’ I said, half under my breath.

  ‘Flora Scurrison, when I want you to answer me back I’ll ask a question.’

  ‘Ooh, Flora’s going over to the dark side!’ came a voice I identified as Fallon’s from the back of the class.

  ‘Eyes down, everyone.’

  ‘What – Fallon cheeks me and it’s OK, but I say one true thing about this book and it’s serious trouble?’

  ‘Drop it,’ said Miss Syzlack. ‘Please, just drop it,’ and I looked at her face. Tired, weary; worn out from too many people that didn’t want to learn. She was so brave, she really was. And I felt so sorry for her. I felt so sorry for grown-ups. You never believed for a second it was tougher going as a grown-up, but there were times when it bloody was.

  ‘I have to nip out at lunchtime,’ I said. ‘And maybe longer. I have a free period after lunch and I need to do something in town.’

  ‘To kill yourself,’ said Stanzi immediately. ‘No!’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘To make some mischief.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  Let me see. I could do with a partner in crime.

  ‘Yeah, alright.’

  ‘Hooray!’ said Stanzi. ‘That’s almost as good as being invited to Justin’s party.’

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot to say. We’re invited to Justin’s party.’

  No wonder Darius looked tired. I was nearly swept away as a tide of tiny Italian gave me a lurcher-style running hug.

  ‘What are we doing?’

  I could see Stanzi was slightly worried about the imposing building we were standing in.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Consider yourself a special operative, working undercover.’

  ‘We’re wearing the uniform of our school.’

  ‘Trust me, adults can’t tell the difference between different school uniforms.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s true,’ I said.

  ‘Huh …’ said Stanzi, looking confused.

  ‘OK, are you ready?’

  We leaned over the plant-filled atrium we’d sneaked in to when I knew Jimmy, the reception guard, was off watching the Matthew Wright Show. As usual, grey faces were streaming in and out of the doors. When did someone tell all men they had to wear checked blue shirts and purple ties? It wasn’t as cheering an effect as you’d think. And the man who runs Pret à Manger must have more money than God. But there was one bald pate … one odious, arrogant, unpleasant head I was waiting for more than anyone else’s …

  ‘Fire!’

  We dropped the water-filled balloons solidly on Mr Dean’s head.

  ‘That,’ I said, under my breath, ‘is for when you made me make the coffee for those clients.’

  Perfectly, both balloons hit their target: one on his dandruff-flecked suit, one right on his bald bonce.

  ‘Ohmigod!’ screeched Stanzi in surprise, as I dragged her into the tiny store cupboard I happened to know was up there, because Mr Dean had tried to drag me into it when he’d had a few too many at the 1998 Christmas party.

  We waited till we heard the cross noises die down, then emerged from under the butler’s sink in the cupboard.

  ‘Who now?’

  I hushed Stanzi as I rapidly took off my tie and my blazer.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I have to pass for staff,’ I said. ‘Just for a minute.’

  ‘I’d get rid of the satchel,’ said Stanzi.

  ‘OK.’

  She took her tie off too.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is a solo mission.’

  ‘So I just have to hide here and panic while you do something naughty? How is that fair? What if I get caught? I’ll have to give them your name under torture.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be fine.’

  I snuck out of the cupboard, clutching the maths folder I’d removed from my bag. It should look like work. Then I spotted someone I recognised: Mike, a bearded timeserver who never knew what anyone was up to.

  ‘Mike!’ I shouted jovially, head up. ‘It’s Rachel from M&A. We must have a word about the Phillips case.’

  Mike looked bemused, but, as I hoped he would, immediately panicked that this was something he hadn’t done and, without pausing, started to nod and stutter and automatically waved his security pass at the door.

  ‘Are you new?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Work experience,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping to shake up the whole place.’

  ‘OK …’ He looked worried, as if a teenager might be able to do his job better than he could. Which was true, and not just this teenager either.

  ‘I’ll call Margo later, set up a meeting,’ I said, worryingly.

  ‘Um, yes, very busy, but …’

  I peeled off to the left. The door to Mr Dean’s office was open.

  ‘It’s just so disrespectful,’ he was saying to his long-suffering PA, shaking down his jacket. ‘I just don’t understand it.’

  I knocked on the door. ‘I’m sorry … Mr Dean?’

  ‘Yes?’ he said abruptly, trying to hide what he was doing.

  ‘I’m Rachel – John’s new work-experience person in Mergers and Acquisitions.’

  ‘Yes?’

  I looked at the ground. ‘I’m really sorry, sir. I don’t quite know … he sent me up to tell you …’

  ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘That someone’s tipped paint on your car, sir.’

  ‘WHAT!?’

  Dean grabbed his soaking wet jacket and tried to put it on. The material twisted and grabbed onto his neck, and he was a ridiculous sight, trying to force himself into something that clearly wouldn’t go.

  ‘Shit, bugger. What the hell is happening to the world?’ he grumbled, face red and sweaty with exertion. As he struggled, I could smell some familiar BO from his damp shirt. His PA was trying to hide her giggles.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, leaving, as he half tripped, half ran out of the office. Now the coast was clear.

  My desk was almost exactly the same as I’d left it. No, it was tidier, that was for sure. Instead of a model of Bart Simpson looking annoyed, there was a model of Calvin and Hobbes looking annoyed. The picture of Tashy and Max and me and Olly, on holiday in Italy, had gone, of course, replaced by one of two couples who looked remarkably similar.

  My doppelganger was looking at her computer screen but, with the skill of long practice, I could tell she wasn’t working. Her hand clicked at her mouse occasionally. Every so often she’d click on something, lean back and look at the screen. That must be her latest spreadsheet. She was probably doing what I’d used to do at work: know what had to be done, but be staring at it in incomprehensibility that she actually had to, good salary or no good salary.

  She let out a quiet sigh. I didn’t have long until Dean came back. I walked up to her desk and stood in front of her.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, not unpleasantly, very quickly switching applications, I noticed. ‘Can I help you?’

  I looked straight at her. ‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ I said, ‘if I told you who I really was.’

  She looked to the side. Fair enough, I did sound completely dopey, and not in a good way.

  ‘I’m a ghost of the future. I’m here to tell you you hate your job and you should go and do something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But I knew you wouldn’t believe that.’

  ‘I don’t hate my—’

  ‘And I’d think very seriously about that boyfriend of yours.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I think … who are you?’

  The politeness of the English when confronted with insanity had emboldened me. ‘I told you,’ I said cheerfully. ‘A warning from your future. Or past, I’m not sure.’

  Her brow lowered.

  ‘Yes, and I’m Johnny Vegas. Can you excuse me, please?’ She turned back to her work. I
didn’t move. ‘Or I’ll have to call security.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me,’ I said. ‘So I thought the best thing I could do would be to give you a day off.’ And I picked up my specially secreted bottle of Tippex and poured it into the vents on her computer.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screeched, standing up suddenly.

  But I was away. I’d never done anything even slightly bad before, and the pounding feeling of adrenalin was kicking me into gears I didn’t know I had. At the door, I could see Dean steaming up the stairs looking furious. I couldn’t go out that way – it would have to be the fire exit. And on that note …

  I hit the glass window as hard as I could. Ow! This was why they had tiny hammers, damn it!

  The woman was encroaching on me now, pointing me out to the secretaries, who were shaking their heads. Dean was behind me, his face puce with fury. I found the hammer and banged as hard as I could against the glass.

  ‘DDDDDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR …’

  The noise shocked even me, and caused everyone to pause. I paused for less time, though, as I’d been expecting it, and I had the reaction times of a peak-fitness teenager. I sprinted across to the fire exit and bombed it down the stairs like a wet cat, as the hubbub of an unexpected time off at lunchtime came rising up behind me.

  I banged out the doors at the back of the building, and heaved round to hide behind the bushes to see if Stanzi would make it out in time. She did, heavily camouflaged in the careful meander of bodies, as people tried to pretend that if it was a real fire they were being completely brave and unconcerned about it all. I used some of my precious phone card to call her over.

  She giggled. ‘We do this? Is an initiation?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I muttered. ‘Let’s get back.’

  Dammit, if I was going to cease to exist, I wanted to have done some good in the world.

  Chapter Eleven

  I had a problem. Well, of course, I had many, many, many problems in the scheme of things, and proper ones too, not those along the lines of worrying about picking the right time in the London housing market, or being unable to hire the right cleaning lady or the kind of guff that I used to hear at dinner parties all the time in my old life.

  So this, for me, was more of a mini problem. It was Saturday, and I had simultaneously promised to go shopping for a bridesmaid’s dress with Tashy, to go shopping for something hot to wear to Justin’s party that night with Stanzi, and to go bonding shopping with my mum and dad as part of some ropy ‘keeping the family together’ session. I hadn’t meant to mix it all up, but if I (possibly) only had three weeks on this earth, I wanted to make the most of it and see as many people as I could. Plus, it was shopping times three. We’d decided to go to Kingston; Mum couldn’t cope with the West End, and Tashy didn’t mind.

  ‘Hurry up, Flora!’ said my mother. Normally Olly chivvied me along with my breakfast too. Clearly I had some sort of breakfast speed disorder.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, spooning my cornflakes round their bowl in what I best remembered as a sullen teenage manner. Oh no, hang on, I used that one with Olly too.

  My dad looked a bit mournful, smoothing down his polo shirt in front of the mirror.

  ‘You all right, Dad?’ I said.

  ‘Yes … yes, of course I am. I’m taking my favourite girls out, aren’t I?’

  I felt sorry for him, eyeing himself up in the mirror. I knew how much more weight he was going to put on than that too. He was probably wondering if he’d ever get good sex again … well, I couldn’t think about that.

  ‘You look great, Dad,’ I said as warmly as I could.

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. ‘If you think that means I’m going to buy you lots of tarty outfits, you can forget it.’

  ‘Just a little bit tarty?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘What about sluttish?’

  He smiled. ‘No.’

  ‘Forward?’

  ‘Flora Jane, please don’t make me have this conversation.’

  ‘I’m a good girl really, Dad,’ I said, with a stain-free conscience.

  He half smiled.

  ‘Well, I try,’ I said, guiltily thinking about the previous week’s activities. In addition to work-related mischief I had also eaten sixteen cartons of Pringles, worn odd socks and snuck out all night to go dancing at the local nightclub, even though it was rubbish and I got hit on all night by the same stupid tossers I remembered from Mr Dean’s office.

  Kingston High Street was mobbed. It wasn’t nearly as much fun coming here without a credit card. Tashy had subbed me again, but I wasn’t entirely sure how much fun that was for her. Still, it would probably be enough, seeing as my parents insisted on constantly steering towards Marks and Spencer’s and Bhs. I kept sneaking glances around. Then I realised that I was actually surreptitiously checking to see if Clelland might happen past and see me out shopping with my parents. Curse these blasted hormones! I caught sight of my reflection in a shop window and shook my head in disbelief at my knobbly knees and baby pout. But I couldn’t help but wonder where Clelland was. Probably buying muesli and planning a baby with Madeleine.

  ‘Can’t we at least go to Gap?’ I said. ‘They’re not sluttish.’

  ‘Gap,’ said my mother, tutting. ‘Totally overpriced …’

  I remembered why I told my mother everything I bought cost a tenner in the sale.

  ‘ … and nothing I couldn’t make at home.’

  ‘You don’t sew at home,’ I said crossly.

  ‘I know, but I could. Just as well as they do at Gap.’

  I let this go and followed them inside dutifully, as my mother fingered racks of elastic-waisted slacks and tried to tempt me into the plainest pair of jeans (which she called denims) she could find, to show she wasn’t completely not down with the kids.

  Stanzi and I had a dimly formulated plan to bump into each other in Bentalls at noon or so, and try and encourage our parents to go and have coffee together. Apparently they all got on very well, although, of course, this was completely news to me.

  However, as I struggled in and out of different shirt and cardigan combinations I started to doubt the wisdom of this plan.

  ‘You’re being very well behaved,’ observed my mother. ‘Usually by this stage you’re swearing blue murder and insisting on those combination trousers.’

  Combination trousers? Had I missed something monumental in alternate universe fashion?

  ‘Like those ugly things,’ said my mum, pointing to a girl my age with a full Christina Aguilera going on – dreads, parts of which were blue, pierced nose, shredded top exposing navel, and short combat trousers.

  ‘The worst thing you think about that girl is her trousers?’ I said. ‘Whatever.’ I’d heard Charlotte Church say this, so I reckoned it was down with the sixteen-year-old lingo.

  ‘Quite right,’ said my mother. “Try on this nice poloneck.’

  As I was struggling to get my head through the very small hole at the top of the poloneck, I heard a familiar shrieking.

  ‘Mrs Scurrison! Mr Scurrison! Hello! What a surprise!’ screeched Stanzi, in possibly the worst reading of a line requiring ‘surprise’ in the history of the universe.

  I finally popped my head through and looked over. With Stanzi were two chubby parents, to whom she was clearly related.

  ‘Bella, buon giorno!’ said her dad, engulfing me in a huge and somewhat sweaty hug. ‘Come stai?’

  Everyone looked at me as if I was required to say something at this point, which was a little awkward as I didn’t speak a single word of Italian.

  ‘Ah … sì,’ I said

  ‘Si? Si? Oh, your daughter,’ he said to my mum and dad. ‘She no play any more, no? She grow up so, she think?’

  My mother nodded. ‘Well, you know how it is, Gianni. They’re always going through one of those phases.’

  ‘I know. My daughter, she is marrying a pop star now, yes?’


  ‘Da-ad,’ squealed Stanzi.

  ‘They too old to be teased by their daddies? Never!’

  And he pinched my cheek hard, which made me wince, particularly as everyone was looking at me as if I’d done something terribly rude, even Stanzi.

  ‘Just joking,’ I said brightly, and quickly moved the conversation on before anyone could enquire what that meant. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Oh, coffee,’ said Stanzi’s dad. ‘They say “coffee”; they mean “old parents please sit down out of the way and let us buy things with your hard-earned money”, yes?’

  Stanzi grinned. ‘Prego, Papa.’ And she stuck her hand round his waist and pulled out his wallet.

  ‘Do you always act like a nine-year-old round your dad?’ I asked her when we were safely away.

  ‘It always works, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not—’

  ‘I didn’t see you complain before …’

  True enough, as I looked down I reminded myself that I was holding an enormous ice-cream cone.

  ‘What about this?’ she said. We were in Topshop – of course! In fact, I know Kylie Minogue and Davina and other cool-looking thirtysomethings are always saying they shop there, but personally I can’t handle it. It may say size twelve, but it certainly never looks it. Plus, all the teenage girls swanking about, looking groovy in the communal changing rooms … too depressing. Shopping with people younger and slimmer than you, no matter how much time you may spend thinking: ah, but you’ll end up a lumpy-thighed accountant too, is just not fun.

  ‘Let’s try on one of everything,’ I said.

  OK, it was Topshop, not a Rodeo Drive boutique, and OK, I had pocket money, not Richard Gere’s credit card. But I have never felt more like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman than I did then – a movie, I was almost unsurprised to learn, that Stanzi was only dimly aware of, it having been released when we were both three years old.

  I could wear everything. Well, not those Atomic Kitten white catsuits, because nobody can wear those, whatever Stanzi thought she was doing.

  ‘It’s a school party, not an invitation for the whole room to get you pregnant,’ I hissed to her, when she came out wearing the full white waistcoat and camel-foot pants.