The Boy I Loved Before

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘No! Let’s go now! Go now! Go now! Then we can chat to Ethan first! He will be early too.’

  ‘I don’t think you should get your hopes up too much about Ethan, Stanzi.’

  ‘Why not, huh?’

  ‘I just … you know, I think he might be gay.’

  I watched Stanzi’s face as it struggled to come to terms with the unlikeliness of this.

  ‘But … but he is so pretty!’

  I nodded.

  ‘And so clean and neat!’

  I nodded again.

  She grimaced. ‘This is all Will Young’s fault,’ she said darkly.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not,’ I said.

  ‘Now I’m going to have to end up with Kendall.’

  Kendall was a sweet-looking boy with spots and glasses, who sat behind us in English and looked longingly at Stanzi all the time. I thought he was going to be lovely when he grew up, but he equalled us for nerdiness at the moment.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Kendall.’

  ‘He’s a dweeb.’

  ‘No he’s not. He’s a superhunk in waiting, and he still doesn’t deserve you.’

  We were at the gate. Inside, we could see lights glowing red, and heavy rap was distinct. A couple of uninvited ratboys were hanging around, looking pissed off.

  I swallowed hard. I looked at Stanzi and she was just as nervous as me. This was stupid. I could happily go to scary client meetings, large corporate parties, strange weddings, and get along at all of them fine. Everyone was always nervous at big events, and it was easy to break the ice and find someone to chat to.

  But this was different. This was a jungle; a completely alien civilisation with rules I had never understood. School at least had a veneer of adult control; this was full-on social warfare. In a world where everyone knew both the rules and everyone else. Except for me. Goddamn, I was nervous.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing quite as good as having fun, is there?’ I said to Stanzi, who looked absolutely terrified, as if she was facing a lion’s den. Which we were.

  ‘Maybe we walk around the block,’ said Stanzi quickly.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘this is going to be fine.’ I nodded, trying to convince myself. ‘Think of it as kicking off our life of party-going, and they will get more and more fun after this, I promise. Then you’ll get to a point when they stop being so much fun any more and they deteriorate and everyone talks about house prices and au pairs. Rut you can worry about that later.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Stanzi.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  And just as I said it, we opened the gate, and the door of the main house opened up to let us in and the smoke and the heat and the noise were almost welcoming.

  Chapter Twelve

  The first thing I saw was a couple pressed up against the wall, snogging. Well, looked like I hadn’t had to worry so much about the niceties of timekeeping. Kids were everywhere; hanging over banisters, dancing in the sitting room. It was a long time since I’d been here, but Clelland’s parents place hadn’t changed at all. There was … oh my God, a picture of Clelland that I recognised and had always loved. He’s eighteen, and he’s holding a squirming toddler in his arms. He looks sulky and embarrassed, but completely thrilled at the same time. It was very strange to see it yellowing in a frame: I remember the day we picked it up from Boots. The house was still full of the ornaments and mementoes that we had found so hilariously bourgeois at the time, but now I found them reassuring, and it was more than a little peculiar to be seeing them again after all this time.

  Stanzi was clinging on to my coat, and I patted her on the hand to make sure she was OK. An older boy I didn’t recognise – though I guess that didn’t matter much – came up to me.

  ‘Hi, Flora. Glad you could make it!’ he said. ‘You look cute.’

  Well, well, well! Inside my heart leaped with the praise. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such an ordeal after all.

  ‘Hey!’ said a couple of the other guys. ‘Looking good, chica.’

  I smiled broadly at them and headed to the kitchen. Someone wolf-whistled loudly as we went past.

  Stanzi caught up with me in the kitchen.

  ‘Something is wrong,’ she said suspiciously, as I swigged my first alcopop and tried not to gag on all the sugar.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Once you get everyone out of school they’re really nice.’

  A gawky boy with a couple of pimples pinched me on the arse.

  ‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I said coquettishly.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Stanzi. She leaned over. ‘Are you sure everything is quite OK?’

  ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Lighten up.’

  And I swigged my alcopop, and this time it tasted better. Stanzi didn’t stop eyeing me up, though.

  Maybe because I’d had nearly two weeks of constant stress; maybe because the world might be going to end for me very shortly; maybe because I was young and crazy and foolish and I could do these things; maybe because I didn’t want to be the wallflower any more. I can’t say what it was. But I drank, and danced, and flirted, and was flirted with, and talked to everyone, and was loud, and waved to Justin, who waved back, looking slightly uncomfortable, and I decided to have a fabulous time. He couldn’t possibly be embarrassed about asking us, I thought, when we were being the life and soul. Well, I was being the life and soul. I kept losing track of Stanzi; mostly because every time she came up and sensibly suggested we have a bit of a sit down, I waved her away.

  The last party Ol and I went to was a dinner party. Two of his work friends had just had a baby, and kept being incredibly ostentatious about it, like it was a real achievement on their part. They kept getting up to phone the babysitter and, for fuck’s sake, express milk. Why would you even tell people that’s what you were about to do? It was absolutely crap. I wanted to get drunk but Ol wouldn’t let me in case two of the other people at the table wanted to become clients of his (they certainly spent the entire evening asking for his advice free of charge). I’d called Tash halfway through and she was at Max’s parents, and we fantasised about stealing the boys’ credit cards and doing a speedy Thelma and Louise.

  The music here was loud and fantastic. After all, it was indeed Saturday night, and the air was getting hot like a baby! I remembered this from first time round! I loved alcopops, especially the blue ones, and all these boys from school; they were just lovely, even if they had to keep reminding me of their names all the time. They thought this was terribly funny, and so did I. ‘I can’t even remember your names!’ I was bawling, in absolute hysterics. Why had I ever thought everyone was horrible? Everyone was great! It was great here! Life was cool. I whirled in delirium, letting the sleeves of my jersey roll down to reveal my bra straps; dancing as sexily as I knew how. Everyone wanted to dance with me, it was fantastic. Time was passing in the blink of an eye. Suddenly I knew what I must do. I reached over and clambered up on the highly polished wooden dinner table that I used to make polite conversation with Clelland’s parents round on alternate Sundays, and which had now been pushed to the wall, and started dancing fit to bust.

  ‘Wooo!’ shouted the boys. They could see up my skirt. I didn’t care. The music came louder and louder and I was whirling and whirling and …

  ‘FLORA?’

  The voice cut across the noise of the sitting room like a whipcrack. Everyone stopped and turned round. Clelland, and his horribly gorgeous girlfriend, were standing, staring at me from the other side of the room. Next to them was Stanzi, gesticulating wildly at me.

  ‘Get down from there at once.’

  ‘Make me!’ I said, suddenly feeling drunk, powerful and defiant.

  ‘We’ll all make you, Flora’, said another voice, and there was grubby male laughter.

  Clelland didn’t take his gaze off me.

  ‘What – if I don’t get off your table you’ll go to Aberdeen?’

  He looked around. The music was still playing, but everyone was watching the dram
a.

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ hissed his girlfriend. She was looking distinctly pissed off. Mind you, I wouldn’t be that thrilled to have to give up my Saturday night to patrol a kiddy party.

  ‘Please, Flora?’

  I held up my skirt saucily. ‘Make me.’

  There was a mass wooing at this.

  ‘Goddamit, Flo, stop titting about.’

  I stuck my tongue out at him, and danced around.

  ‘Were you always this annoying?’

  ‘Were you always this boring?’

  ‘Goddamit …’ At that Clelland bit his lip and lost his patience. As all the other people in the room watched, he came up to the table, lifted me up and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

  There was a massive round of applause. Someone shouted, ‘She’s up for it, man!’ and someone else shouted, ‘Upside down for it, man!’ and my face went very red as I was, in fact, upside down on Clelland’s back and I knew my knickers were showing. Which didn’t seem as hilarious an idea as I’d thought a couple of minutes ago. I felt sick and embarrassed and stupid and patronised. At the same time, there was a strange sense of familiarity in being pressed to Clelland’s shirt, with his smell taking me straight back to our time together. Nothing can punch you back into the past as quickly as that.

  Suddenly, there in front of me (or behind me I guess, as Clelland marched me out the door) was Fallon. She and three of her henchmates, dressed up to the nines in little bikini tops and tight trousers. They were laughing their heads off.

  ‘Oh Jesus, did you see her!’ Fallon was gasping, practically wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she looked at me and gave me the most malicious grin.

  ‘Oh, John, is Flora alright? Would you like us to look after her for you?’

  Clelland just grunted, passed through the door and deposited me on the third step of the stairs.

  ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Having crazy teenage fun,’ I replied, aware that my face was so red it must be scorching the walls.

  ‘You’re supposedly a grown woman, for fuck’s sake. What was that: pole dancing?’

  ‘Table dancing?’ I said in a small voice.

  He stared at me. ‘You’re losing it.’

  I sank down to the stair and wrapped my arms around my knees. ‘No I’m not,’ I said. I realised how woozy I was feeling. Then I realised I’d been dancing like a slut on Clelland’s parents’ table.

  ‘Yikes, I’m sorry,’ I said suddenly.

  ‘Your tolerance is way down,’ he said. ‘Quick, drink some …’

  But Stanzi had already rushed up with a full pint glass of water. She was practically gibbering.

  ‘Flora, you have to listen, you have to …’

  ‘Could you give us a second?’ said Clelland, not unkindly.

  ‘Noooo! It cannot wait or I explode.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to explode …’

  I looked up. ‘What is it?’ I said. I seemed to be sobering up rapidly into a very bad mood.

  ‘Fallon started a rumour! She said you were wanting to lose your virginity tonight! She told all the boys this was your first and last party and you would definitely, definitely have sex! Kendall told me.’

  I sat bolt upright. ‘Oh my God. That bitch!’

  Clelland looked at me. Oh no. Bloody hormones again. I felt suddenly incredibly ashamed – almost like I might start crying.

  ‘So that’s why everyone was being so nice … all those boys I don’t really know. I thought maybe underneath they were just shy, and … oh GOD, I’m such a fucking idiot.’ My voice was a bit wobbly.

  Clelland looked amused. ‘You mean … please don’t tell me you were showing off so the boys would like you?’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ I said. ‘It was a horribly cruel thing to do. It can scar people for life.’

  I gulped down more water.

  ‘Maybe I just wanted it to be different than the first time round. And it was. It was worse!’

  He was still suddenly. ‘What was so wrong about the first time round?’

  ‘I threw it away on you, remember.’ I’d meant to sound flippant but it came out as though I was bitter.

  Clelland blinked slowly.

  Suddenly all I wanted – all I wanted – was to be back in my own little flat, with a bubble bath, a magazine and the phone off the hook.

  ‘I want to go home,’ I said suddenly.

  Stanzi nodded.

  ‘You want me to walk you?’ said Clelland.

  ‘OK,’ I nodded my head. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘OK.’

  Our coats and bags had disappeared. I had a shrewd idea of where they might be – stashed away by any number of those so friendly and charming boys who might plan to help me go look for them later, in a dark recess of a dark bedroom.

  As I mounted the stairs I heard Madeleine saying to Clelland, ‘Really, they’re awful at that age, aren’t they?’

  I made a face above her head.

  ‘They’re just kids,’ said Clelland, in an amused tone.

  ‘Well, I certainly didn’t behave like that when I was a kid.’

  I bet you didn’t, I thought.

  ‘I bet you didn’t,’ Clelland said. ‘Another drink?’

  ‘No thanks, darling.’

  I don’t like you, I thought. I hoped that would trigger Clelland to say the same thing again, but it didn’t.

  My bag wasn’t in the first two rooms I looked in, although there were plenty of other suspects entwined in gruelling balls of spit and the occasional expostulated, ‘No, not there.’ In one room, the school hippy kid was lighting a joint, surrounded by wide-eyed acolytes desperately pretending they were really cool about this but actually looking like five-year-olds waiting in line to see Santa Claus. I was wandering up the corridor, feeling like some horrible tart – the elastic in my top had almost totally gone now, and I was holding it up with both hands – when I came across Justin, barring a doorway and looking completely miserable. His face lightened when he saw me.

  ‘Oh, Flora, can you help?’

  ‘What, give blow jobs to the whole football team? No, Justin, that was Fallon’s little lie.’

  He looked confused for a second. ‘What are you talking about? Is this one of these bitchy girl things?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I never listen to those anyway. Listen, we need help. And I think … well, I think you might be the only one who can understand.’

  Fantastic. What was this, some kid was late filing his tax return?

  ‘What is it?’ I said

  ‘You’d better come in,’ said Justin. I walked in. This was the room at the back of the house that used to be Clelland’s. In his day it was covered in Sisters of Mercy posters, with shelves lined with dog-eared orange Penguin originals and a black-and-white-striped duvet, and small pieces of crucifixion jewellery hanging around. Now there was a bright green iMac, a basketball hoop, several pairs of trainers lying around and a rather smart Paul Smith striped duvet. The room had clearly been tidied up specially for the occasion. I wondered who Justin had his eye on as the lucky lady who was going to share his bed at his party.

  At any rate that was immaterial at the moment, because sitting on the bed crying his eyes out was Ethan.

  ‘You’ve come out,’ I said immediately.

  Ethan and Justin looked at each other dumbfounded.

  ‘I told you people would understand,’ said Justin eventually.

  Ethan sniffed and eyed me suspiciously. ‘Why were you writing me all that love poetry then if you knew?’

  ‘Often gay people are more sensitive and love the poetic arts,’ I said on the spur of the moment. ‘Of course, that’s a terrible overgeneralisation. You can be whatever you want to be.’

  I seemed to be handling this about as well as the Mmkay guidance counsellor on South Park.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I promise it really doesn’t matte
r.’

  ‘Scared the life out of him,’ said Ethan sullenly.

  ‘Hey, man, it was a shock, OK?’ Justin looked guilty.

  ‘Justin, if you go through life thinking every gay man you meet is going to fancy you, you’re going to be pretty bored,’ I said. ‘Now, are you going to tell your parents?’

  Ethan shook his head. ‘What’s the point?’

  I nodded. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘you shouldn’t tell anyone until you’re a bit older.’

  Justin raised his eyebrows.

  ‘They’ll all know,’ wailed Ethan.

  ‘Well, that’s OK. Here’s the thing. School is notoriously homophobic, right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But you’re going to university, right?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Next year?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I’d keep shtoom until then. People at university – they love gay people. There’ll be competitions to see who can be your best friend.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. Being gay at university is very, very fashionable.’

  ‘That can’t be true,’ said Justin.

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Oh, everyone knows,’ I said with the kind of bored sigh guaranteed to buy the instant agreement of a teenager who’s afraid of seeming as if he doesn’t know very much.

  ‘But, you know, I’ve accepted my true nature.’

  ‘You can accept all those kickings too,’ I said. ‘I’m just telling you what I’d do under the circumstances. And tell your parents just before you go to college – maybe as you’re walking out the door – otherwise they’ll be convinced it’s just some kind of a phase.’

  Ethan was nodding. ‘It’s going to be really hard.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘You’ll have a great time. Just be careful.’

  ‘I’m really scared of … you know, doing it and stuff.’

  ‘We all are,’ I assured him. ‘Doesn’t matter whether you’re going for the doughnut or the pork sword.’

  They stared at me.

  ‘And now I’d like to apologise for that disgusting analogy.’