The Boy I Loved Before Read online

  And I was going to know everything. I’d seen three different productions of Hamlet now, so they could hardly catch me out on that, and anything sum-related should be pretty nifty too, what with the old accountancy degree. I was going to keep my head down, my mouth shut, and in a month’s time I’d go back to Tash’s wedding, and, well, and …

  ‘FLORA!’

  I was not nervous. I wasn’t.

  Fuck.

  My dad seemed a bit off in the car too.

  ‘I won’t be able to pick you up tonight,’ he said. ‘Tell your mother.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked, immediately suspicious. My mother had talked about how late he’d been for a year. Being so wrapped up in myself, of course, I hadn’t noticed at the time.

  ‘Just out, darling,’ he said, looking surprised I’d asked.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Nowhere you can go, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you should keep an eye on Mum, OK? She’s not feeling so good just now.’

  I watched him go slightly pink and grasp the steering wheel hard.

  ‘Don’t you worry about your mother and me,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t help worrying, Dad,’ I said. ‘You know, in the next couple of years I’m going to leave the nest, and that’s a real danger time for lots of marriages.’

  He looked at me as if I was a changeling. ‘What the hell do you know about it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Well, I’ve read a lot of the literature.’

  His face crinkled up in disbelief. ‘Right. OK. Well, why don’t you just concentrate on getting your A levels?’

  I suddenly felt a jump in my chest. How old was I? I was taking my GCSEs, surely, where you get points for spelling your own name right.

  Crap, I realised. It was September. Back at school. Lower sixth. Tits.

  Calm down, calm down. Breathe. Didn’t they make them super easy these days so the government can pretend they can magically make stupid people cleverer?

  Jesus Christ. Of all the years I could have picked I had to go for my sixteenth.

  Chapter Five

  When did kids get so big? This lot were, collectively, absolutely enormous. Huge, milk-reared giants. A lot of fat kids too. When I was in school there was one fat boy and one fat girl per class. It was like a government ration. Now, there were huge people everywhere. Everyone was either enormous – pink, ruddy, like somebody from Trumpton come to life – or skinny as a pick – mostly the girls – who, I was pleased to notice, were still rolling their skirts up. Not everything changes.

  I stood at the school gates and took a deep breath. I hoped the teachers hadn’t changed too much. I recognised Miss Syzlack, thank God. She’d been a brand-new junior English teacher when I’d been there, sixteen years ago. They’d given her all the shitty classes, and she had a reputation for running out of the class and crying. At the time I thought it was pathetic; now I thought if I was twenty-two and had fully grown boys shouting sexual abuse at me, I’d probably be out of there too. But she’d clearly stuck with it. A bit of me hated to think of her still there, and, by the sounds of things, not married either. Everyone knows that teachers always change their names the second they get married, because they realise their kids are completely unable to believe they have lives outside the classroom, and it adds (however slightly) to their disciplinary range if they sound a bit more grown up.

  I could remember where the registration classroom was too, assuming it hadn’t changed. Sixth form was a lot smaller than the rest of the school, and the two years shared a common room Tash and I were never cool enough to go to. But as to who the hell was who, I was fucked for that. I planned to hang around as long as possible and be the last person sitting down, so that I got the right desk.

  It was the smell that hit me first. It hadn’t changed at all. Gym kit, adolescent sweat, strange chemicals, poster paint, dust, formaldehyde, trainers and, overlaying it all, litres of sprayed-on cheap deodorant and aftershave, choking up the yellow hallways and sweaty plastic handrails.

  This place hadn’t changed an iota. I couldn’t believe it. The tiles were cracked in exactly the same places they had been when I’d left. Who could go sixteen years and not think to replace a cracked tile? The grim pink linoleum hadn’t changed. The supposedly soothing, prison-like shades of pale green and yellow still haunted the corridors, grubbied and coloured with years of Sellotape. Posters along the walls advertised the periodic table and how to say no to drugs (as usual, illustrated with a revolting shot of a needle going in to somebody’s vein rather than, say, a really good relaxed party with everyone having a nice time, the point at which someone is actually going to have to make a choice).

  I walked along in a kind of a wonder. For the first time, I really did feel transported. This was a world I hadn’t been in for a long, long time. There was a stern exhortation not to run on the stairs. There was a cabinet containing skeletons of animals. A line of kings and queens that I think had been there since I was at school. Some toilets with a telltale whiff of smoke. The school’s rather threadbare coat of arms, and its Latin motto for ‘Let us do our work this day’, ‘Get your homework in on time’, or whatever it meant. My head was spinning.

  ‘Miss Scurrison!’

  That was … I definitely recognised that voice. I turned round, conscious I was wearing that expression that people do when they listen to a ‘blast from the past’ on This is Your Life. I also suddenly felt my stomach seize up in a sort of panic.

  ‘Don’t you have a class to go to?’

  It was Mr Rolf, evil geography teacher incarnate. This man had scared the living daylights out of every one of us. Tashy and I always reckoned it was a possibility that he was actually just sizing us up so he could choose what would be the best moment to pull out a big machine gun and kill us all. If someone answered correctly, they got the piss taken out of them. If someone answered wrongly, they got the piss taken out of them. Shouting was unexpected, detentions arbitrary and shockingly swift. I have a vague recollection of someone once getting three thousand two hundred lines. This was a man who regretted the loss of corporal punishment and told us so, repeatedly. He often lamented the lost legal right to bang children’s heads against walls until they saw sense.

  One’s body’s ability to hold sense memories is extraordinary. I straightened up and flashed a nervous smile.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Rolf!’

  Even as I said this, I couldn’t help looking at him. The last decade and a half hadn’t been kind to him. Always scruffy, he was now unkempt and grubby-looking, and the ever-present teacher’s dandruff still covered his shoulders. I recalled that he wasn’t married. At the time we’d scoffed that we weren’t surprised. Now I was looking at a sad man, lonely and broken by years of butting up against people who simply would never be able to care about geography. It came out before I could help myself.

  ‘Are you OK? You look tired.’

  He stared at me for half a second.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said. Then I regretted that even more.

  ‘INSOLENCE!’ he shouted, in the off-key bark I suddenly remembered so well. ‘DETENTION!’

  What? I had my own secretary! I didn’t get detention.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, blushing. I’d never got detention when I was at school. Jeez, and how long had it taken me this time round? Four seconds.

  ‘I ask you again – why are you stalking the corridors looking for people to insult when you should be in class? Or have you been taken on as our new counsellor, hurr hurr?’

  Ooh, teacher’s sarcasm. There’s something else I’d missed. ‘I’m sorry.’ I tried to look penitent and stared hard at the floor. I suddenly felt as if I was going to cry. Must be all those teenage hormones whooshing about my body.

  ‘Honestly! And you’re usually one of the better ones! Get out of my sight.’

  I scuttled off down the hall.

  ‘That’s the wrong direction, Miss Scurrison.’

 
I scuttled back past him.

  ‘Additives in orange juice,’ he muttered obliquely, his sour breath hitting me square on as I passed.

  The entire class looked up as I took a deep breath and stepped inside. Everyone seemed to glance at each other. Or was I just assuming this in my new hell dimension?

  Miss Syzlack was recognisable, but, like Mr Rolf, looked tired. She was in the pits of fashion hell as usual. Her dingy cardigan and high-waisted floral skirt made her look like somebody’s grandma, and it was with a shock I worked out she couldn’t be more than thirty-seven or thirty-eight. I mean, God, Madonna had barely got started by that age.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  There were two empty seats in the room, and I followed her gaze to one of them. Next to it was a cheeky-looking dark-haired girl gesticulating under her desk. I rushed over and sat down.

  ‘Where you been?’ whispered the girl. She was very short, and had a long nose, black eyes and sharp, seesawing eyebrows. ‘Are you OK? Last night – it was OK?’

  I went to reply.

  ‘No talking,’ said Miss Syzlack, and started to read out the register.

  ‘It happens, OK?’ said this very familiar small person, sympathetically.

  ‘Constanzia Di Ruggerio, are you chatting?’

  The imp beside me tried to look contrite. ‘No, miss.’

  Constanzia Di Ruggerio? Cool. My friend had a really nice name. I shot her a smile, and she wiggled her eyebrows. From the back of the class someone did that thing where they pretend to cough but they’re actually saying something.

  ‘Lesbonerds.’

  I was a lesbonerd?

  The list of names through the register went on. Who were these people? And, more importantly, what the hell were they called? First time around, I had the most unusual name in the class, and nearly all of the girls were called Tracy, with or without an ‘e’, Claire, with or without an ‘i’, or Anne-Marie, in about one hundred different spelling combinations. All boys were called Mark, David, Kevin, Peter or Andrew, and quite right too.

  But who were all these Courtneys and Hayleys, Jessicas and Ashleys? We appear to have been taken over by an American sitcom. Fallon? That rang a distant bell. Surely not. Yes, someone had been named after a Dynasty character they would probably never see.

  I turned my head to see who Longworth, Fallon was, and caught sight of a tall, skinny dark-haired girl at the back of the class. Her long nails were painted silver, and she sneered when her name was called.

  ‘Nice of you to make it today,’ said Miss Syzlack.

  Fallon merely sniffed her response. Then she caught sight of me, and gave me what I can only describe as a look.

  I’d forgotten about ‘looks’. In my life – my old life, my thirty-two-year-old life – if you have a problem with someone you sort it out, or, well, you don’t really see problems with people, because you can choose your friends and you don’t fall out with them, and if it’s someone at work it doesn’t matter and you can tell your boss and complain and … Oh no! She was talking to one of her friends and now they were both looking at me and giving me a look! Crap! Bollocks! Now she was mouthing something at me. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it looked a lot like ‘dyke-oh’.

  ‘Scurrison, Flora?’

  I whipped round when I heard my name being called, but was confused and not sure what to do.

  Miss Syzlack looked at me too. Why did I used to remember her as nice? The years must have shrivelled her up, like fruit.

  ‘Have you forgotten your name, Miss Scurrison?’

  ‘No, Miss Syzlack.’

  She rubbed one of her eyes. ‘Stay behind and see me,’ she said.

  I wanted to crawl out of the door behind Constanzia, who shot me such a soulful and sympathetic look I wondered if there was maybe some truth in the lesbian stuff after all. For some reason, Fallon tutted loudly as she passed me. No no no no! I wanted to stop everything and say, ‘Guys, that was yesterday. I may, perhaps, have been a lesbonerd. But now, today, I’m supercool! I can help you out! I bet I have the necessary nonchalance to buy stuff in an off-licence, and boy stuff. Come to me, I’ve done it all.’

  ‘Flora,’ said Miss Syzlack. She was sitting perched on her desk, in that nonchalant, ‘mmkay?’ way teachers do when they’re trying to pretend they’re down with the kids.

  ‘Is everything all right? You had a lot of people very worried yesterday, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ I said. I’d have loved a confidante right now, but I hadn’t quite come up with a way of telling my story that wouldn’t end up with me in the secure unit, tied down on the bed next to the girl who makes the poltergeist appear, so I decided to keep my counsel.

  ‘Well?’

  I felt like saying, ‘Miss, I don’t want to come over all Trinny and Susannah here, but have you heard of highlights? Why don’t I show you this really friendly women’s gym? In fact, while I’ve got you here, why don’t you give up this teaching thing you so clearly hate altogether and go off round the world?’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose I just panicked,’ I said. ‘A levels and all that. Just had to blow off some steam. That’s pretty typical for my age, isn’t it? My hormone levels are all over the place. I’m surprised I don’t have a crush on you.’

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  ‘I mean, things change every second. I can’t even keep up with my own bra size at the moment, never mind the social, academic, biological and cultural pressures teenagers are under.

  ‘And it is absolutely not true that these are great years – anyone will agree with that. It’s unfair also to show us advertisements showing teenagers having the times of their lives, as if it’s good for anyone to end up like Britney Spears. They should really just say, “Keep your head down, your twenties will be fantastic.” Look at these people. They haven’t even got their personal hygiene sorted out and they’re the number one demographic zone-in for advertisers, convincing everyone else in the world that being sixteen is fantastic. Well, it’s not, I tell you. OK?’

  The teacher looked at me, stunned.

  ‘Um … yes. Perhaps, maybe you’d like to visit our educational psychologist.’

  ‘For what? Plunking it for one day in my entire school career?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, please, young lady.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s rude.’

  ‘It’s not rude! And you’re the one who just suggested I go see a bloody psychologist!’

  Miss Syzlack looked down at her desk. ‘Well, I had hoped this session might help you. But instead I see no choice but to give you detention.’

  ‘No choice? None at all?’

  ‘For insolence and truancy.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, raising my hands.

  Miss Syzlack watched me, shaking her head. ‘What’s got into you, Flora?’

  ‘Maybe I’m growing up,’ I said.

  I found the third class, thank God, and sat through a frankly baffling hour on community festivals, none of which I could hear or make any sense of. It was droned at us by a man I didn’t recognise, and fortunately everyone else was staring just as much into space as I was. Finally, the bell rang, and it was – Jesus Christ – playtime.

  I trailed out after Constanzia, who was still sitting next to me, my stomach hitting my stupid Spice Girl loafer shoes.

  ‘Well?’ she said, those crazy eyebrows of hers beetling up and down. ‘You show them you are miserable, huh?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nobody comes to your birthday party – so fucking what, yes? But you plunk it without me?’

  ‘My birthday party?’ I just asked stupidly.

  Oh no. Surely not. What unearthly fucking world had put me back in the WORST PERIOD OF MY LIFE.

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Constanzia, throwing her hands up. ‘It’s like the worst betrayal of all time. We have bad party, you don’t come to school. I think I’m going to hang myself, like all those kids who go to Cambrid
ge when they’re twelve.’ She looked at me, black eyes twinkling, clearly trying to pretend she was having a joke, but feeling bad all the same.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ I said weakly.

  ‘You wanted me to die? Is that why you did it?’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Well, if you wanted me to die, that’s exactly what you should have done. Take a day off without me, your best friend.’

  ‘You’re not dead,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes?’ she said. ‘You know when I am at school. What is it we say when we are not here?’

  With a sinking feeling I started to think back to when it was me and Tash. If she wasn’t there, I hated it, because I’d have to sit by myself in class, and vice versa. Fuck, fuck fuck. Why couldn’t I have been a cool kid this time round? Was that really too much to ask? As well as being trapped in this hellhole with no way out in sight, I had to be a complete smeghead at the same time – not that any of the kids here would even remember the term ‘smeghead’, although I’m sure they had something equally pleasant.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘I could have been dead. I was Dead Constanzia Walking.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I had lunch sitting in the stairwell. And for what? So you could go and become a drunk person in the West End. I am very happy for you.’

  ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ I said.

  ‘Oh sure.’ Constanzia kicked heavily at a piece of filthy, mud-encrusted grass, as we circled the grounds. Younger boys were running around and playing football, younger girls were touching each other’s hair and whispering. So much for an extra sixteen years of gender studies.

  ‘Oh, look, the gruesome twosome reunited, innit?’ came a low, drawling voice. For some daft reason, though it wasn’t posh, male or growly, it reminded me of Shere Khan in the film Jungle Book.

  We turned round. It was Fallon, and two acolytes, one blonde, one brunette.

  ‘Don’t tell me – you were on your way to school and you got picked up by the animal pound,’ said Fallon, looking straight at me. ‘Your parents were going to let you get put down and then changed their minds at the last minute.’