The Boy I Loved Before (4 page)

Authors: Jenny Colgan

BOOK: The Boy I Loved Before

9.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

âAfter this, school is going to be
so
much better,' vowed Tash fiercely. We considered wrecking a few things anyway, just so my parents would think some people had arrived. But we didn't. We ended up watching
Dynasty.
It was the longest four hours of my life. My mascara ran down and soaked my Clockhouse dress.

A few weeks later, my dad left us. About this time of year, in fact, as far as I remembered. Well, that would be a nice anniversary for my mum tomorrow.

Tashy was still talking, but I wasn't listening. I was remembering the night I turned sixteen.

âYour problem is, you think you only have one true love,' Tashy was saying, bringing me back to earth.

âYes,' I said.

âNO!' she said. âThat's not it at all! What I mean is, it won't feel quite the same, but that's just because it's not new any more. It's just different.'

âLess exciting.'

âWell, you can't experience everything as if it's the first time round forever.'

âThat's why being grown up is so sucky,' I said. âI can't even remember what it was like the first time I read
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
But it was the most exciting thing that had happened to me at the time.'

âOh, you wouldn't want to be sixteen again, would you? It was hell. Oh God, do you remember that party â¦ ?'

âNo,' I said. âIt
was
hell then,' I agreed, thinking about all the times Tashy and I had sat eating lunch, worrying madly about whether one breast was growing faster than the other and whether Loretta McGonagall was talking about us (she was) and whether we'd get invited to Marcus's party (no, even though we asked him, the bastard. Just because we didn't wear stiletto heels and make out. Well, of course that was the reason). âIf I had to do it all again with what I know now I wouldn't make such a hash of it.'

Tashy sat up. âYou haven't made a hash of anything!' she said. âLook at you. Good job. Smart car. Lovely bloke.'

âYeah, yeah, yeah,' I said, staring at the ceiling. âDo you remember what you and I said we were going to do when we finished school?'

Tashy thought for a moment and then laughed out loud. âOh, yes. We were going to buy a car, travel through Europe, drawing cartoons and portraits, end up in Paris, rich and famous, live in a garret, buy a cat, then â¦ let me see â¦ I was going to marry a prince of some sort, and you were going to move to New York and look a lot like Audrey Hepburn.'

Since I've turned thirty I've become a bit pissed off with Audrey Hepburn. We all grow up with her, and it can't be done. Get your tits fixed and you could look like Pamela Anderson. Get cow arse injected in your lips and you could probably handle Liz Hurley. Wrinkle your nose and brush your hair a lot and you might get to marry Brad Pitt. But nobody, nobody but nobody, has ever looked as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn, and it causes untold misery in the interim. Have you seen the actress that played her in a mini-series? She looks like a cross-eyed, emaciated, buck-toothed wren compared to Audrey, and that's the best they could get from the population of the whole world. Anyway.

âAnyway,' I said, âcall me crazy, but maybe I'd have planned for that better by not immediately going to university to study accountancy then working for a company for ten hours a day for eleven years.'

âI am calling you crazy,' said Tashy. âThere are hardly any princes left in Europe, and we don't want Albert, thanks.'

âHmm,' I grumped.

âFlo, we did everything right, you know. Everything we were told. We looked after ourselves. And this is our reward. Good lives. Fun.'

âIf I was sixteen again â¦' I said wistfully.

âWhat?'

âI'd shag Clelland to within an inch of his life.'

âI wish you had,' said Tashy. âThen you could have found out he was a weedy little indy freak, as nervous and teenage and odd-smelling as the rest of us, and then you could have stopped going on about him every time you got drunk for the next decade and a half.'

âI do not!' I protested. âAnd anyway, you do not have a romantic soul,' I said, pointing at her.

âYeah? Well, what's that, BABY?'

And she pointed to the dress hanging on the back of the door.

âYou seem distracted,' Olly said as I slowly ironed my Karen Millen trouser suit. I'd loved it when I bought it, but did it now seem a bit â¦ matronly? Old? Not exactly the kind of thing I wanted my first love to see me in?

âNot at all,' I said, in a completely distracted kind of a way, staring straight out of the window.

âAre you pissed off your best friend's getting married?'

âYou know, I've heard of people who got married and survived,' I said. âNot many, though.'

âWell, don't worry,' he said, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, and suddenly I got a really strong feeling that he was planning something. In fact I knew he was. And I wasn't sure how that made me feel. It might have made me nervous, if I wasn't already incredibly nervous at the thought of coming face to face with Clelland again. Ridiculous, I know; so immature. It was just, I'd never run into him whenever I'd gone back home for Christmas or anything and â¦ well, it was just interesting, that was all. He wasn't on his Friends
Reunited page either. Not that I checked a lot. I checked all the time, mentally giving points to people I thought were doing worse or better than me.

âFor God's sake! Those bloody dry-cleaners have shrunk my trousers. Useless bloody bastards. I'm going to sue them.' Olly sucked his stomach in.

âYes, dear,' I said, suddenly realising, as I stood there with an iron in my hand, how much I was starting to sound like my mother.

Chapter Two

It was a lovely day for a wedding, if you like that sort of thing. This was about the eighteenth I'd been to this year, but it was still very nice. I suppose it was a bit different, being Tashy's. I was very glad Tashy hadn't pushed me about being the bridesmaid. When we were sixteen it was all we talked about, but brides over thirty have enough problems looking young and innocent as it is, without an Ancient Mariner hanging grimly by her side, trying to make light conversation with the ushers and ignore the whispers (âSuch a shame she's not gone yet â¦'; âThey do leave it so late, the lassies these days â¦') and Tashy's young niece, Kathleen, would do a perfect job of looking fresh and sixteen and completely overexcited, though trying to be too cool to show it â not entirely unlike we had been, it had to be said.

The church was cool and pretty as we slipped into seats near the front row, nodding and waving to everyone. No sign of
him,
and my parents weren't coming till later. There is something incredibly evocative about a traditional English
wedding ceremony, and this one was done beautifully; so much so that when they started up the Wedding March, I choked back a tear. Olly gave me a meaningful look.

Tashy looked wondrous, of course. She has excellent taste, and that eat-nothing-that-doesn't-taste-of-poo diet had certainly worked. Her ivory sheath was incredibly tasteful, with gorgeous embroidered shoes just peeping out the bottom, matching the long lilies she held. I wondered briefly if she was going to burst out of her dress later after going into a crazed frenzy at the vol-au-vents table, then remembered that the point of a wedding is that you watch everyone else consume vast screeds of booze and nosh you've paid for but can't partake in, in case you do something rash, like enjoy yourself. But here, in the peace and stillness of the old church, I couldn't be cynical.

The vows were very traditional, and Max looked all right too, gruffly uming and erring over the responses â not that anyone was looking at him, of course. Even when we were kids, grooms always had something of an interchangeable quality to them. It was Barbie who was important. Ken was neither here nor there.

My eyes had kept scanning the pews for Clelland, just in case, but I couldn't see him. Maybe he was that bald geezer over there â¦ or that enormously fat chap wearing the colourful waistcoat â¦

âGod, how long is this going to go on for?' whispered Oliver with a wink, although he had just been singing âJerusalem' loudly and off key, and was clearly having a sensational time. I swallowed, guiltily.

âI hope there aren't too many prawns,' Olly was saying as we walked into the large marquee, which was bedecked with flowers and ruffled decorations. The sun was glinting off lots of very clean silverware and shiny glasses, waiting to be replenished on into the night. One billion photographs later and I still hadn't seen Clelland.

âOr anything with nuts. Or salad cream.'

âI'm sure the Blythes are far too posh for salad cream,' I said, and squeezed his hand chummily.

Olly was the pickiest eater I'd ever met in my life. I thought they thrashed that out of you thoroughly at boarding school, but I was obviously wrong, because he refused to eat most things that weren't cheese or fish fingers, on various spurious grounds.

âWell, you know viscous things upset my stomach.'

âAll fluids upset your stomach.'

âGlooky ones most of all.'

I took a quick look at the hors-d'oeuvres coming over. Excellent â sausages on sticks, with a slightly pretentious veneer of sesame seeds over the top. He'd be able to cope with those, once he'd picked off the seeds. And I guessed I'd better make my way over to the bride as well, once I got half aâ

My heart stopped in my throat. There he was, about ten feet away from me. Clelland. Looking exactly the same. In fact, if anything, he looked even younger. Then he turned his head away and disappeared into the crowd.

âOh my God!' I said.

âI know. Sesame seeds,' said Oliver unhappily.

âNo, no. It's just, I've seen an old friend. I have to go and say hello to â¦ them.'

âOK. I'm off to pat Max hard on the back as a kind of non-gay way of saying well done,' said Oliver.

I walked over to where Clelland had been. But even as I got there, I felt something was wrong. Was my mind playing tricks on me? How could that be such an exact replica of someone I hadn't seen for sixteen years? I mean, people change in sixteen years, don't they? It would be completely impossible for it to be otherwise. I mean, of course, I'd hardly changed, thanks to the miracles of modern cosmetics â¦ well, maybe I had a bit. Suddenly I gulped and smoothed down my hair. Did he have a picture rotting away in his attic?

I spotted his dark jacket again. He was talking to one of the waitresses with his back to me. I took a deep breath and walked up to him.

âErm â¦ hey there!'

The man turned round. And at once I realised my mistake. The likeness, though, was absolutely extraordinary. The figure stared at me. This wasn't a man at all, hardly more than a boy.

âSorry, but â¦ oh, you look familiar.'

âI'm Flora Scurrison,' I said warily.

His face was furrowed in concentration for another minute, then he broke into an enormous smile. âOh my God! Don't you remember me?'

Something was ringing at the back of my mind.

âIt's Justin!'

Justin, Justin â¦

Suddenly it hit me.

âOh my God.'

âYeah!'

âYou're Clelland's little brother.'

The one with the baby monitor.

âYes! I recognise you from the photos.'

âI am SO OLD,' I said, almost without realising it.

âEveryone keeps coming up and telling me how much I've grown. I am nearly seventeen, actually. Quite grown up.' He looked petulant all of a sudden and I was reminded overwhelmingly of Clelland.

âYou look a lot like your brother.'

âI do not.'

âHe does not,' said a deep voice.

I looked up.

âHello, Flora. Justin, scram.'

âYou always treat me like a kid,' scowled Justin.

âThat's because you sulk and whine all the time.'

Justin sulked off, whining.

âHe'll be OK. He needs to eat about nine times a day, so the buffet's probably the best place for him.'

Clelland was â¦ well, it was impossible I'd have mistaken him for anyone other than himself.

He had filled out, of course; he couldn't possibly be as absurdly skinny as he had been; that would have been David Bowie and nobody else. But his black, unruly hair was just the same as ever.

âI thought he was you,' I said, not trusting myself beyond a short sentence.

âGod, really?' He glanced behind him at his brother, mooching off. âWas I such a slouching runt at that age?'

âWorse!' I gave a very peculiar slightly strangulated laugh. âAt least he's not wearing a Morrissey T-shirt. Every day!'

âI loved that T-shirt.'

âI know.'

I held out my hand. âClelland, it's good to see you.'

âOh God, it's John. Please. Nobody calls me that any more.'

âNo, really? I thought you swore you'd never get tied down into “bourgeois tying-down name fascism”.'

âYeah? And do you still spell your name P-f-l-o-w?'

âNo,' I said, going scarlet.

âSo â¦ what have you been up to?' He looked â¦ he looked great. And wryly amused to see me.

âOh, lots of things,' I said, as he easily lifted two glasses of champagne off a passing waiter.

âYeah?'

âNo!' I said. âWell, I went to university then got a job and moved back to London.'

âThat's three things.'

âOver quite a long period.'

We stood for a moment.

âWhat have you been doing then?' I asked awkwardly.

Oddly, I could see over my shoulder, Justin had bumped into Olly at the buffet and was pointing out foodstuffs to him.

Clelland â John, but I really couldn't think of him any other way â shrugged.

âWell, I went to Aberdeen.'

âI remember that,' I said quietly.

âYes, of course,' he said, looking slightly awkward for a second, which came as a big relief to me. From the way our conversation had been going, I was beginning to wonder if I'd made up the whole romance in a psychotic episode and
we were distant acquaintances greeting each other at a Rotary Club dance.

âThen I joined VSO for a couple of years â get out and see the world, you know.'

âOh yes. Where did you end up?'

âAfrica.'

âWow, that's amazing!'

âComplete and utter shithole. I hated every second of it. I wanted to catch malaria so they'd have to send me home.'

âGod, I haven't wanted you to die for ages,' I said, before my brain had properly engaged. It was not a good moment. Olly stumbled over.

âJesus, Flo, I can't eat a damn thing. Do you know they have almonds in the salad? You'd think they'd put on a few fish fingers just in case. This is going to be even worse than the Stricklands' wedding, and that made me sick.'

âYou were drunk.'

âGod, yeah.'

Clelland raised his eyebrows.

âThis is Oliver,' I introduced him. âMy, er, boyfriend.'

Why the âer'? I was conscious that perhaps I wasn't sounding as thrilled as I could.

Clelland put his hand out. âHi.'

âHi,' said Olly, holding out his hand.

âClelland's an old school friend.'

I'd never told Olly about Clelland. At first it was because I was obeying the âdon't tell new boyfriend about exes; they must think you're a virgin' type bullshit law. And then â¦ well, some things are private. Also, I think if we knew all about how people behaved when they were teenagers, no one would ever go out with anyone.

âNice to meet you,' said Olly gruffly.

Looking at them both, I felt very strange suddenly. I wasn't comparing them. Definitely not. This was not a competitive thing. Clelland still had a chance to appear a complete prick.

âOlly's a lawyer,' I said helpfully.

âReally? And I shook your hand?' said Clelland, and smiled.

I'd hardly ever seen his smile. Not something suburban rebels do very often, smile. They talk about suicide and Leonard Cohen quite a lot. It was lovely. His teeth were slightly crooked, and the incisors pointed in.

âOh gosh, yes, sorry about that. But we only really screw you if you're a multinational, our lot,' said Ol. âJust the sixth circle of hell really.'

âSo you're not one of those chaps that advertises on telly for fat ladies who fall off their chairs at work?'

âNo. Although I help Flo, you know, when it happens at home,' he said with a grin.

âYes,' said Clelland in the way people have to when someone makes a slightly off-colour remark. I couldn't tell if he thought it was funny either.

âWhat line are you in then?' said Olly, half eyeing a waitress carrying a bowl of prawn toast. He reached out a hand and took four.

âHow come you can eat sesame seeds on toast and not on sausages?' I said without thinking. Both the boys looked at me.

âBecause it's toast,' said Olly, as if explaining to a four-year-old. âAnything can be done with toast.'

Clelland stuck his bottom lip out at me.

âUm â¦ I'm an ethical logistician.'

âA what?' I said.

âOh. Do you perform on stage a lot?' said Ol. âPuppets and so on?'

âNo â¦'

âOK, what is that then?'

âWell, I try to direct aid through the best routes. Try to play down the possibility of it being hijacked by armies, that kind of thing.'

I admit it. My heart leaped. This was exactly the kind of thing I'd have dreamed he'd be doing. Well, that or some sort of tragic
Moulin Rouge
-style poet, obviously, but this â heroic, good for the world, manly â I had a vision of him standing on top of an elephant, for some reason. Then, I'm ashamed to say, one of me looking like Meryl Streep in
Out of Africa
-style linens, saying, âI hed a ferm in Efrica â¦'

Other books

Against the Tide by Elizabeth Camden

Prettiest Doll by Gina Willner-Pardo

The Shore by Sara Taylor

Vixen by Jillian Larkin

The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vazquez Montalban

Finding Me (Love's Not Easy Series Book 1) by Rickman, Nicole

Rocked by the Billionaire: A Billionaire's Club Story by Mandy Baxter

From Darkness Won by Jill Williamson

The Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents The Best of Saskia Walker by Saskia Walker

Trust Me by Melanie Craft