He wasn’t perfect, though. When he was ten he went through a weird phase of not talking to me in class. We caught the big coach to school together but he wouldn’t sit next to me on the lurid red and purple-patterned seats. He’d sit at the back with all the other boys instead, so I sat next to Tatiana Prickman who was pale-skinned with bright blue eyes, and appeared homesick from the moment she stepped on. She was slight with long blonde hair caught limply at the sides of her head with plastic green hairclips. My hair was in a pudding-bowl cut. I have never forgiven Mum for that look, but she told me it was the most practical style to maintain. Tatiana was a gymnastics freak. She could bend and twist her body into any shape and would fly across the gym mats in a slick combination of somersaults, bends, flips and cartwheels while the rest of the class did handstands and forward rolls. We didn’t talk much on the school bus. Her arms were always firmly crossed as if she were guarding herself from any intrusion into her world.
I couldn’t understand why Clarky didn’t like me at school when we’d have such fun at the weekends. We’d watch Mum’s Bed and Breakfast guests from between the banisters at the top of the stairs. There was a Japanese man who patiently taught us origami. There was a rich American couple who couldn’t get the hang of our old-fashioned loo chain. Clarky and I would listen to them pulling it and then holding it down without letting go. We’d giggle as we watched Mum and Dad take it in turns to stand outside the door telling them to, ‘Release! Let go!’
‘Embarrassing to have to serve them eggs sunny-side up now,’ Dad had laughed as he skipped downstairs, loose change rattling in his trouser pockets.
Dad called us ‘Justin ’n’ Josie’. ‘You’re like two peas in a pod,’ he’d say. ‘I almost think of him as my own son now. Might send his parents a bill for his food.’
‘Why don’t you talk to me at school?’ I’d confronted Clarky one Sunday afternoon when we were singing and dancing in our sitting room. I was dressed up as Madonna with black lace gloves that I’d pinched from Mum’s drawers and an old pink suede mini skirt. Clarky was Freddie Mercury, dressed in one of my dad’s Hawaiian shirts. He looked nothing like him.
‘I do talk to you,’ he’d lied, jumping up and down on the sofa with an old white and navy Slazenger tennis racket held in front of him as a fake guitar.
‘No, you don’t.’ I stumbled in Mum’s knee-high black boots.
‘I certainly do.’
‘You don’t.’ I placed one hand on my hip. ‘One day, Clarky, I might not be around, then you’ll be sorry.’
He’d laughed. ‘Where will you be?’
‘Just … gone.’ I lifted my chin high and with a dramatic sniff turned away from him.
‘Dead?’
‘No, stupid, I mean I might play with someone else.’
Clarky stopped jumping. ‘None of the boys talk to the girls at school,’ he had reasoned. ‘It’s the way it is. It’s not because I don’t like you.’
‘Show me then,’ I’d said.
*
There was a definitive moment when I decided I would love Justin Clarke for ever. I was terrified as I stepped onto the coach one morning wearing a strange orthodontic helmet with thick black elastic bands and wires looped through hooks at the front of my teeth.
I took my place next to Tatiana, knowing she wouldn’t say anything but even she had looked shocked, putting a hand over her mouth and asking loudly, ‘Blimey, does it hurt?’
I’d turned to her in surprise. ‘Kills,’ I’d replied, enjoying the sympathy. ‘I have to wear it at night too.’
We were sitting in the front seat, level with the driver, Terry, who looked like he ate too many doughnuts.
‘Did you see Josie?’ I heard one of the boys saying, followed by roars of laughter. I stared ahead. One of them was walking back down the middle of the bus; my heartbeat quickened. Then he stuck his pimpled face right in front of me. It was Kevin, the leader of the pack. ‘Can you kiss with that thing? Wanna give it a try?’ More laughter from the back. ‘Are you a virgin?’ he’d continued. Terry ordered the boy to return to his seat immediately but Kevin ignored him.
I hesitated. ‘Of course I’m not!’ I finally replied, sure my voice had a lisp.
‘She’s not a virgin!’ he shouted down the bus.
‘Shut up, Kevin,’ Tatiana shouted back. ‘Crawl back into your dirty hole.’ I turned to her with amazement, almost envy.
‘What did you say, Prickman?’
‘She said, shut up and push off,’ I told him with renewed confidence.
‘SIT DOWN!’ yelled Terry, one eye on us, the other on the road. The coach swerved, tyres screeching against the tarmac. I heard more footsteps. Kevin grabbed one of the straps on my head and gave it a sharp yank.
‘Kevin, leave Josie alone.’ I turned round and there he was. Justin. My hero. Through the wires, I smiled at him and he smiled back. I was glowing inside. It was true love. But there was something equally pressing on my mind. ‘What’s a virgin?’ I whispered to Tatiana when the boys sat back down.
‘Someone who hasn’t had sex, stupid. You know, kissing a boy and all that stuff. Justin wants to kiss you,’ she’d added with a sharp dig in my stomach from her bony elbow.
‘No, he doesn’t!’ But I had felt an excited kick inside me, a punch of pure happiness.
‘I can tell you all about sex,’ she’d informed me before pulling a horrified face. ‘I saw my parents doing it.’
I gained another lifelong friend that day in Tatiana Prickman. She told me she’d always been quiet and self-contained because other people thought she was weird. ‘Do you have an invisible friend?’ she once asked me. I said yes, his name was Casper and he wore a green velvet cap. ‘He’s your guardian angel,’ she’d confirmed. ‘What’s your star sign?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m a Capricorn, a mountain goat. And, by the way, call me Tiana.’
Tiana taught me a game that would help me calculate just how much Justin Clarke loved Josie Mason. It worked out at 12 per cent. ‘It’s a stupid game,’ she’d assured me afterwards. ‘He definitely likes you.’
But she’d been wrong. We never went out together. Instead he went out with Rosie, a quiet mousy girl. I was consumed with jealousy when they shared a desk together, passed secret notes or exchanged coy glances.
‘Why don’t you fancy me?’ I’d asked him once.
‘You’re like my sister … ugh!’ So I went out with Kevin instead. It turned out his attention had been for a reason.
*
I had a rich uncle in Cambridge who had given Clarky and me his home to ‘housesit’ during our gap year. He had bought a three-month round-the-world air ticket. We watered the purple pansies in his window boxes, forwarded his mail, made sure the house didn’t get dusty and smell like a nursing home, and in return stayed there rent-free. He lived on a long residential road that ran into the city.
We needed to earn some money before we bought tickets ourselves to travel across Europe. I wanted to go to Barcelona, Madrid and Paris; Clarky wanted to go to Venice. He was working in the shop at the Fitzwilliam Museum, taken on for the run up to Christmas. His main job was stacking cards on the shelves and working the till.
I found work in a baking hot Italian restaurant called Momo’s. It was on a street running off King’s Parade, opposite King’s College. Momo’s was small and rundown, I was sure there were mice, and the walls were more like cave stone with small crystals visible inside them. It was romantic at night, lit by white candles stuck into dark green bottles with great wedges of wax spilling over the sides. The food was simple, flavoured with lots of garlic and chilli. There was constant noise from the students huddled around the tables. Momo looked like a giant bear with his dark hair and bushy eyebrows.
‘Josie!’ he roared across the room one day.
‘Yes?’
‘What’s wrong with this table?’
He was standing in front of a wooden table laid for four. Knives and forks wer
e in the correct places. Olive oil bottle refilled. The menu was wedged into a loaf of crusty bread on the middle of the table.
‘I can’t see anything wrong.’
‘Look again,’ came the gruff response.
Another of the waiters, Mikey, came to the table and examined it carefully.
‘Take a look at the coasters,’ Momo commanded, his breathing fiercer than usual.
Momo had just been to Italy and had returned with new coasters depicting Italian scenes. The Ponte Vecchio graced this table, as did the gondolas of Venice.
‘The leaning tower of Pisa is upside down!’ he said, gesticulating vehemently. ‘Don’t laugh.’
‘There, it’s tilting the correct way now.’ Mikey winked at me. He was a year older, had worked at Momo’s for six months and liked to look out for me.
‘Very good.’ Momo nodded his head, tension gone, before he started to inspect the other tables. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’m having a meeting any minute. Some student wants to rent downstairs for his music.’
‘His music?’ I was interested. ‘What do you mean?’
He shook his head stubbornly as if to say, don’t ask questions, wait and see.
*
A group of students piled through the door. I was in the kitchen operating the cappuccino machine. It loved to break down just before the lunch rush.
Chairs were scraped back. I peered through the crack in the door and saw one of the boys who’d just entered taking a wooden chair, turning it round and sitting on it back-to-front. He was wearing a dark hooded top with jeans and trainers. I wanted to see his face. Take your hood off, come on, what have you got to hide? And it was as if he heard me because he did, before briefly turning around as if aware of someone watching him. Momentarily I edged back from the door before leaning close to it again. He had dark brown hair with a shock of peroxide blond falling across his forehead. He was wearing dark jeans that showed off the top of a pair of checked boxer shorts and a patch of bare skin. He waved one arm expressively, saying that Momo’s was perfect for what he had in mind.
Through eavesdropping, I established that these students were in their second year and all thought that Cambridge’s nightlife needed a serious boost. The man in the hooded top was called Finn. ‘There’s only one disco in this town,’ he complained, ‘and not even a good one at that. I don’t think we’d have any trouble pulling a crowd in here, Momo.’ His voice was authoritative; his manner persuasive. He circled the Pisa coaster with his fingers before tossing it into the air like a pancake. I wanted to warn him to put it down. ‘Keep still, boy, and give me that,’ Momo demanded.
Finn started to tap his foot under the table instead. They wanted a venue with a liquor licence, he explained. They had their own decks, just needed to hire someone for the door, to take the money and the coats. They wanted the club to operate once a week, on a Thursday night. Entry to be three pounds for the Cambridge students, five for anyone else.
Momo took them downstairs. It was a dingy, dark-walled space; at a pinch you could fit in about one hundred and twenty people. Cobwebs hung from the ceilings and the room smelled musty but it had definite potential. The idea excited me; every Thursday lots of students coming in here, grabbing a pizza and something to drink and then going downstairs to dance.
*
‘Mikey, one lasagne, one pizza with mozzarella and tomato, one pizza with anchovies and olives.’ I gave him the order while fetching drinks from behind the bar at the back of the restaurant, just in front of the kitchen. I could now see all the students properly. There were two boys, one of them black with dreadlocks. His name was Christian but they called him Christo for short; his profile was handsome and strong. He looked as if he played hard gruelling tennis matches on clay courts every day. Finn was taller but more fragile in physique. He looked as if he dipped in and out of exercise, like flicking in between television channels. A stylish blonde girl dressed in black sat next to him. She was pretty in a polished way; the kind of woman who would pout perfectly, even on a passport photograph. I wondered if she had lent Finn her peroxide. She was called Dominique.
Momo beckoned me over. ‘A bottle of red,’ he said, ‘and four glasses.’ Finn looked at me, his eyes narrowing as if he had seen my face before and was trying to put a name to it. There was a small faded scar beside his left eye. I wanted to ask him how he’d got it. ‘Well, go on, Josie,’ Momo ordered impatiently, looking at me and then Finn.
I returned with the glasses and opened the bottle of wine in front of them. Christo took a sip to taste. ‘Not bad,’ he grunted, without a thank you. ‘Now, names for the club?’
‘So pretentious,’ I muttered under my breath as I walked away, knocking a menu off the table.
‘Sorry, what was that?’ Finn called out.
I picked up the menu and continued walking.
‘Waitress girl! What did you just say?’
I stopped and turned, catching my breath. ‘Think we’re pretentious?’ he asked. His eyes flickered with delight that he had caught me out. I was drawn to those brown eyes. I felt there was a whole story behind them.
As he rolled up his sleeves, waiting for a response, his eyes locked on to mine. He was wearing an old leather plaited bracelet around his wrist. The overall look was scruffy but thought out.
‘Come on, Finn,’ Dominique said, touching his arm. He shrugged her off.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded
‘Josie.’ He was not going to intimidate me.
‘That’s a nice name.’
‘We’ve got business to do,’ Momo reminded him, telling me with the wave of his hand to scarper.
‘So what do you think our club should be called?’ Finn called loudly after me. ‘Josie?’
There were groans around the table. ‘Come on, Finn,’ they all said.
‘It’s music to get down to. Break into a sweat.’ He was still teasing me with those dark eyes and I could feel the redness creeping up my neck.
Everyone was staring at me now, even Momo.
I cleared my throat. ‘Something like, Dare to Dance? You know, it’s “Care to Dance?” but …’
‘No, don’t like it,’ Finn pounced.
‘Lame,’ Christo agreed.
‘Born to Dance?’ I knew it was bad the moment it came out of my mouth. ‘Dance to Death?’ That was even worse.
There was stifled laughter.
Christo looked frustrated. ‘Leave her alone, she doesn’t have a clue.’
‘Well, I don’t hear you coming up with anything better.’
Christo looked up at me in surprise, caught in the headlights unprotected.
‘It’s not exactly impressive to come to a business meeting without even knowing what you’re going to call your club, is it?’ I continued, enjoying myself now.
‘She has a point.’ Finn tilted his head to one side. He looked as if he was just about to smile but didn’t quite do it, as if someone had pressed Pause just in time.
I walked back into the kitchen, proud of my own courage in standing up to second-year students, and briefly looked over my shoulder once more. Finn was still watching me. I pushed through the swing doors and leant against the sink, hands tightly gripping the enamel basin, head bowed. ‘Fuck, what was all that about?’ I muttered under my breath, turning on the cold tap and splashing my face with water.
*
I met Clarky in the evening at one of our favourite pubs on the bridge near the river. It was a relief to be back in familiar company where I understood each gesture and look and it did not matter what came out of my mouth. ‘I’m not a bad dancer,’ he answered my question. ‘Why?’ He was circling the rim of his glass with one finger.
I told him about the students in the restaurant. ‘And this guy, Finn, asked me what I would call it and …’
‘You fancy him, don’t you?’
‘He’s in his second year,’ I said, ignoring the question.
‘So?’
‘He’s a medic
.’
‘You know what he’s reading too?’ Clarky leaned closer towards me.
‘Well, only because I overheard him talking to Momo. Stop looking at me like that, Justin Clarke.’ I started to fiddle with the beer mat.
‘Josie, you’re looking great at the moment. Any man in his right mind would be mad to turn you down.’ He picked up his drink and took a gulp quickly.
‘You think?’ I was fishing for another compliment.
‘I mean it.’ He looked gratefully at my flat shoes. ‘But don’t wear high heels, makes me feel insignificant.’
By the age of twelve I was five foot nine and still growing, with what seemed to me abnormally large feet. ‘I had to go to a specialist shoe shop,’ Mum would remind me. ‘Honestly, darling,’ she’d say, holding my face between her hands, ‘you are going to be lovely and tall so stop hunching those shoulders and be proud of your height.’
‘You are going to have such straight teeth.’
‘You are going to be beautiful.’
I was always ‘going’ to be something. Thankfully I had stopped growing by now at just under six foot. Clarky was five foot ten – ‘and a half’ he liked to point out. My teeth were straighter. My feet were in proportion to my height at size nine. It was as if I had finally stopped stretching and all the bits were falling into place. I had long dark hair that was healthy and thick with a natural curl. When I was working I coiled it into a ponytail and stuck a hairpin or pen through the middle to make sure it didn’t get in the way, but long strands always strayed and fell across my eyes. They were large and grey-blue, the colour of the sky before a storm broke, my father always told me.
You, Me and Him Page 3
