Sixteen, Sixty-One

by Sixteen, Sixty-One- A Memoir (epub)

  And what’s this email about? Are you lighting a green candle?

  No, maybe, no. No, I just want her to know how I feel. Perhaps I won’t even send it.

  And if you do?

  Nothing. Then she’ll know I’ve chosen what I have with her over anything I could have with the others.

  How very noble.

  Don’t be so sarcastic. I mean it. I love her. It’s real. For the first time in my measly, ancient life, it’s real.

  A bubble began to rise in my stomach as I read. Suzie and Becky. Who were they? Why should I care? Matthew said he was not lighting a green candle, but still sent me the lyrics to the song. What could that mean? The basement room where I was reading was lit only by the light of the screen and I imagined myself engulfed by a turquoise flame. I pounded up the stairs to my bedroom and scrabbled beneath my mattress for my diary.

  After an hour sprawled on my bed with a biro in my hand and tears in my lashes, I paced back down to the computer, praying my brother hadn’t gone to play his stupid Age of Empires game and read the email I’d left open on the screen. Happily I passed the living-room door and saw James cross-legged in front of the PlayStation instead.

  Back at the keyboard, I hesitated. As much as my fingers tingled to reply ‘No, don’t! I’m here and, yes, I’ll be an Uncle,’ my throat longed to scream that this was unfair, that I was being handled and manipulated and an Uncle wouldn’t do such a thing.

  My fingers won.

  From: Natalie Lucas

  To: Matthew Wright

  Sent: 4 November 2000, 22:42:03

  Subject: RE: One of Us Cannot Be Wrong

  The flame is burning moss. I have an in-service training day a week on Wednesday – can we find a Bunbury?

  Later, in my room, I doodled in my notebook:

  Am I condemned to be

  Number sixty-four?

  Will you tell your next girl

  This one was a bore?

  That innocent little kitten

  You deflowered so well;

  My young naive mind,

  To the devil did I sell?

  Will you tell of the chase?

  The thrill of the game

  That finally won me …

  To discover I’m too tame?

  Not like Suzie,

  She was fun.

  Not like Becky,

  With the ‘nice bum’.

  Is it worth it?

  Will I disappoint?

  Will you regret the effort?

  Will I score a point?

  2

  At approximately 3pm on 15th November 2000, in room 107 of The Swan Hotel in Swindon, I lost my virginity. I’d been wearing three-inch heels and an oversized suit-jacket, too much make-up for a teenager and black cotton knickers bought in a pack of five from BHS by my mum. I’d known Matthew had booked a hotel room and I’d lied to my mother about going to the cinema with a friend, but I still padded to the bathroom, self-conscious about my nakedness, and looked in the mirror with surprise. As I peed, I wondered what I had thought usually happened when a sixth-former allowed a sexagenarian to spend £150 on a plush suite that would only be used for an afternoon. Had I thought we would simply continue what we had been doing in his top room? Had I imagined his hands and mouth would always work eagerly to please me without his belt-buckle ever budging? Had I believed we could stay in the no-man’s-land of technically doing nothing wrong? Had I hoped the past few months contained mere digressions that I could take or leave when the mood struck and walk away with my purity intact?

  Perhaps I had. It wasn’t as if my bookshelves, teachers or friends could provide a precedent; it wasn’t as if there were any rules. But I’d responded to his green candle, hadn’t I? I wasn’t totally naive: I’d known what he’d wanted. But I hadn’t thought about this while clipping my bra and brushing my teeth this morning. I hadn’t said goodbye to my mum thinking that the next time I saw her I’d be, what, a woman? I’d thought of my Bunbury: I’d concentrated on not overlabouring my lies but making them seem natural. I’d wondered how easy it was going to be to walk nonchalantly towards the bus stop, then dart off onto North Street and slip unobserved into Matthew’s waiting passenger seat. I’d deliberated over whether to hide my heels in my handbag and change into them while crouched in his car, or to risk my mother’s disapproving comments about unsuitable footwear for the cinema and just leave the house in them anyway. But I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be in a hotel room with Matthew, about his penis actually sliding inside me, about his body on top of mine, about whether it would hurt or whether I might have forgotten my pill even though I hadn’t once since I’d been put on it for period pains in Year 10, about all that advice in sex education classes to use condoms even if you’re taking contraceptives because you’re not protected from STIs that make your pussy resemble an erupting volcano. With the innocence of a teenager who has spent countless Maths classes giggling with friends and ex-best-friends over code-words for body parts and rumours that the girl at the back puts out for the price of a chocolate bar, I hadn’t thought we’d actually do it.

  I didn’t bleed and I didn’t cry. I didn’t even see his thing. Matthew approached it technically, disappearing into the bathroom and returning in his shirt and underpants, smelling like talcum powder, before undressing me and laying me on the duvet. Next, he rifled through his briefcase and pulled out a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Oil, placed it neatly on the bedside table. Then, climbing delicately onto the bed, he fixed his eyes on mine.

  ‘Do you love me?’ His demanding tone surprised me and I nodded meekly, letting only a nervous breath escape my lips.

  ‘Yes, I can see the love-light in your eyes.’

  And in a few minutes it was over. Matthew offered me a box of tissues to clean the stickiness from between my thighs and pulled his trousers back on.

  After I returned from the bathroom, we lay on top of the duvet for a while, me naked, him clothed. I wanted to appear mature, but my head was reeling with excitement and disappointment: Was that it? Is that what everyone whispers about in school? Am I different now? Will they be able to tell? Will my mother know? Will I remember this as special? Matthew withdrew his arm from around my stomach and walked to the dressing table to fetch his cigars. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged myself.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He turned back in amusement and horror.

  ‘Nothing. Just thinking.’

  ‘That’s what women do to get pregnant you know – lie back like that. You’re not trying to trap me, are you?’

  ‘What? No!’ I blushed and sat up straight, embarrassed that I’d let my ignorance show.

  ‘I was just thinking about Meursault,’ I said, defaulting to literature as a safe topic where we might speak as equals and forget the mundane realities of his grey hair and my smooth skin.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘He’s the hero of existentialism, the man who refused to play the game, let alone abide by the rules, and he highlights all that’s wrong with the world – all that makes this an impossible place for poets and Uncles to live in – but do you think he ever experienced love? Isn’t half the point of the novel that he doesn’t feel any passions, doesn’t understand the motivations of those around him or why laws must dictate x and y? He’s basically just an ordinary man: neither an Uncle nor a sheep. He sticks his head above the parapet, but not for any of the reasons that writers and lovers and you and I do.’

  ‘True. But he’s just a character. The point is that Camus was feeling all those things and rebelling through his creation.’ Matthew sat back against the headboard, a slight smile curling his lips.

  ‘But Camus didn’t actually challenge the law and expectations; he didn’t kill anyone and face punishment but not even experience it as punishment. For most of his life, he played society’s games and persona’d like the rest of us.’

  ‘So, you wanted him to martyr himself for a wo
rld that wouldn’t care?’

  ‘No, but it’s just, who should we celebrate? Camus or Meursault? Camus’s creation of Meursault almost serves to highlight how thoroughly trapped he himself was by the bullshit of the world.’

  ‘Hence why we have to Bunbury,’ he winked at me, exhaling a cloud of smoky air.

  ‘But, I want to know if any Uncles ever find the ideal, ever manage to live fully. That has to be the ideal, right? Otherwise what’s the point? Why would we continue? We should all wander into rivers with stones in our pockets or stick our heads in ovens. Because a little bit of poetry is not enough. This escape, being here, being with you is my reality and the rest is just gross, you know that? It makes me cry at night. And if I thought it was going to always be like this, I don’t know what I’d do. Sometimes I think I’d rather die on a happy note – that’s when I’d consider suicide, after the most ecstatic moment of my life, because the thought of falling after being so high would be totally unbearable.’

  Matthew smiled at me and I knew I’d redeemed myself. We were no longer in a plush hotel room with a Bible in the drawer and a disapproving receptionist downstairs; we didn’t have to leave in a couple of hours and drive back home to face parents and wives, neighbours and peers; instead we were sitting on a cloud with Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe, sipping tea with Simone de Beauvoir and Marcel Proust. And on this cloud, Matthew’s leathery lips tasted like March daffodils as they pressed to my own. My skin buzzed as he folded me back into his arms, whispering into my neck about Helen of Troy.

  We left Swindon around five, me sneaking past reception to the car while Matthew dawdled to tell the concierge he’d received a phone call requesting his immediate return, so alas would not be staying and would not require breakfast in the morning. He drove in silence and as we neared home I ducked my head between my knees in case the passing headlights of a neighbour or relative’s vehicle happened to illuminate our incongruous faces. He dropped me off at the other end of town and I changed back into my Nikes to plod home, past the Post Office, grocer’s and butcher’s, preparing my lies and not-quite-lies in my head.

  ‘Yes, Mum, Claire and I had a great time.’ Claire most probably enjoyed her day off too and I didn’t say we had a great time together, so we’ll call this true.

  ‘We went to this cool little café and had cream teas.’ True. It was called the Scribbling Horse and the woman gave us extra cream.

  ‘The Road to Eldorado is okay, it’s a bit childish, though.’ You don’t have to see the film to know this and, as my mother refuses to watch animations, it seems unlikely I’ll be quizzed about plot and character development. Therefore, true, plus extra points for successful Bunbury.

  ‘Hastings was really crowded.’ Also most likely true … I just wasn’t there.

  ‘No, I didn’t buy anything, but we did look in some book shops.’ True. Matthew bought a Collected Letters of Virginia Woolf and I fingered a first edition Oscar Wilde, but shopping wasn’t our main priority.

  ‘The bus was a little late.’ Okay, this one’s a lie, but unavoidable. Five truths and one lie – not bad.

  A few hours later, my mum, my brother and I banged our gate and walked the 300 yards to number fourteen. Lydia answered and led us into the sitting room. Annabelle was already sprawled on the floor with her work-friend Lucy, inspecting hand-made jewellery. Lydia’s sister, Hannah, was fussing over a teapot by the bay window, and their frail but sharp-eyed mother, Valerie, was characteristically bent double beside a bookshelf, hunting for a specific volume of her 1948 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica. These were my mother’s friends: people who had been kind to me since I was in single digits; honorary aunts and uncles who cared for my brother and me like children of a collective. Occasionally I felt a pang of guilty tenderness towards this extended family, but mostly over the past few months I’d begun to see them through Matthew’s cruel cynicism, noting their individual quirks and scorning their refusal to stick their heads above the parapet.

  ‘I’m so glad you could come on short notice,’ Hannah gushed in over-the-top hostess mode. ‘Lucy’s showing us her gems. Isn’t she good? I’m thinking of taking a course.’

  My mum had said we’d been invited to look at jewellery; a kind of Tupperware party with beads I supposed. I’d fancied a cup of tea and James had been bribed with biscuits. I shuffled into the room after my brother and noticed Matthew on the end of the couch, a book in his lap. He made eye contact and I turned away, willing my cheeks not to burn.

  My eyes landed on Annabelle’s patterned skirt. She’d coupled it with an embroidered shirt and looked sumptuously hippyish. In contrast, Hannah wore tight black jeans, ankle-boots and an oversized jumper that made less than subtle allusions to the 1980s, a period in fashion that had not yet returned to the likes of Topshop and H&M.

  Lucy, a tiny blonde woman swathed in coloured silk, was explaining how she chose each bead. Something about the karmic energy, I think. I watched her mouth as she talked for a while, but quickly turned my attention to her husband, Graham, who wore ripped jeans and sat with an air of boredom on the sofa next to Matthew. He and Lucy had a son two years above me at school, but Graham looked a bit like a floppy-haired George Clooney so I figured it wasn’t too bad to have a crush on him. I sat on the floor next to his feet and asked him about his motorbike, giggling when he said I should come for a ride one day.

  ‘If your mum says it’s all right, that is.’

  I flushed with excitement and tried not to notice how old Matthew looked beside Graham, how his leg rested effeminately upon his knee and his shirt fell over a muscle-less torso. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him or that I didn’t want to repeat what we’d done this afternoon, but something had changed today and I felt a new kind of energy coursing through my limbs, one that drew me instinctively towards the Grahams and Lucys of the world.

  I wasn’t the only one, though, and before the evening was over, Hannah was sat tipsily in Graham’s lap and Annabelle was fawning over Lucy’s earrings, brushing the skin on her neck as she fingered the green gems dangling from her lobes. My mum and Valerie were deep in discussion about the treatment of mental health patients in 1975 and James’s head rested heavily on his arm as Lydia spoke of the difficulties of getting out to do the gardening. On the way home, James growled at my mum that he’d never be forced to go to one of those things again and she muttered a reply along the lines of, ‘I don’t know why you have to be so antisocial; Nat seemed to enjoy herself.’

  3

  On dreary country days, when the air choked with the pitiful mediocrity of small town life, old ladies wheeled their trolleys through town to collect their pensions from Nicky at the Post Office and Ray listened to people natter about haemorrhoids in the chemist before dispensing Preparation H, I would sit in Matthew and Annabelle’s open-plan kitchen, playing cards and drinking tea from a pot. Sometimes I’d curl my legs under me on the awkward unpadded chairs while Annabelle doodled flowers beside the crossword in the Telegraph and Matthew consulted The Racing Post. He sat at the head, with the two of us on either side; these were unarticulated but set places and it was always odd when Annabelle was away and Matthew set my place for dinner at her chair.

  During term time, I spent six out of seven nights there and, on holidays, most days too. Eight front doors and eleven cars separated their house from my mum’s. The Grays, the Smiths, the Popels, Mrs Pratt, Mr Davis, Oliver and June, Beatrice and the Roberts lived in between. Our immediate neighbours, the Grays, had retired to tend their immaculate garden and always said hello when I passed them on the pavement, but would become more reserved in a few months once I moved in with my dad and my mum began muttering up and down the street about my being an ‘awkward teenager’. Mrs Pratt had been a teacher at my primary school and, although she asked kindly about my exams and future plans, I was still a little afraid of her and mumbled nervously whenever I encountered her on my way to the house on the end.

  Matthew’s study lay behind the s
treet-side window, so I could always tell before I arrived whether he or Annabelle would answer my knock first. Their post-box-red front door encased in its black frame now looms overly significant in my memory. Stepping through that doorway I would shed the unhappy teenager living in a deadly dull town that haunted me on the outside and enter the safe place of art, poetry, philosophy and love.

  A kingfisher I had drawn in pastels at the age of eight hung above their stove, the Piglet I had won Matthew at the fair was pinned to the whiteboard in his study, my cribbage board had found a permanent home on the shelf with his chess set, and Juno, Annabelle’s cat, paid no attention to my comings and goings. Towards the end, I might even have had a key, and, of course, volumes of my angsty diaries lay in a locked drawer of Matthew’s bureau because we’d agreed early on that this was safer than having them only perfunctorily hidden beneath my mattress.

  The three of us played cards, drank wine and sometimes smoked weed acquired from my friends at school. Matthew and I would touch feet under the table and sneak a kiss when Annabelle ran upstairs to fetch something. Sometime after 10pm Annabelle would pour herself a tiny glass of port and wish us goodnight. I would stay, wrapped in Matthew’s arms as we whispered secrets to each other or dared ourselves to forget Annabelle was only upstairs, until it got late enough that I worried a parent might come looking for me and I let myself out, arrived home and calmly watched some television repeat with my unquestioning family.

  My first memories of Matthew and Annabelle hardly involve Matthew at all. Annabelle and my mum were introduced through Ruth, a woman who had had her first marriage annulled and convinced a Methodist priest, despite her four grown children, to perform her second attempt to a childhood friend. When my parents were ending their messy though marriageless relationship, Ruth was the witch who stole my mother from me when she cried, but Annabelle was the angel who gently entertained my brother and me; she turned packing up our family home into a game of make-believe pirates and princesses.