LITMIR.BIZ

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at all, but you did look as if you were at the wrong party. For a start – you don’t mind me saying this – you were the wrong colour. All of the crowd I knew was white. It wasn’t that we excluded people who weren’t, but the Asians we knew at school formed their own little clique, and they didn’t socialise with us out of hours. So I noticed you for that reason. And the way you knotted your hair. And the dirty leather trousers. But most of all for the look on your face. Slightly defiant, a little ill at ease but totally self-contained. Your chin was lifted, you held yourself still, Taz, and you neither smiled nor frowned. The blokes who came with you did the talking.

      “We’re mates of Brad’s brother Rick. From The Pit. I DJ with him.”

      I saw Brad hesitate. He explained to Chris that it was true; Rick did DJ at The Pit, and he might have seen one or two of these blokes before.

      “Is Rick coming later?”

      “Yeah. When he’s finished work. We’ve brought some stuff.”

      Another of your crowd had a Threshers’ bag with cans of Special Brew. That decided Brad. He moved aside and you all came in. Still, he kept an eye on you all, and was relieved when your mates sat on the floor and just drank quietly.

      You didn’t drink. You didn’t sit down either, but were chewing, standing by the door that led to the kitchen. Then Fliss and the boy she was with sat down beside me and carried on touching each other up. It made me feel sick. I stood up to give them more room and that was when our eyes met. You smiled at me, not flirting, but a smile of understanding. I smiled back. But something happened then – you know it did. We made a connection.

      I forget how long it was before you came over to me. I knew you would. Together in silence we watched the party like it was on a screen. It was so noisy we couldn’t talk much. You asked me what I was called, and I said, Catherine. Cat, you said. I liked that. Cat. A shadow in the night. Yeah, Cat. Who are you? I asked. Taz. I questioned that. I didn’t say so, but I thought it sounded like one of those kids’ chocolate bars. You said it was short for Tariq. Cat and Taz. It sounded good. I liked the way that being called Cat made me feel like someone new.

      Then you cut through all the bullshit about school and college and exams and said, was I having a good time? Not particularly, I said. And you laughed, but more to yourself. You said you thought I looked fed up. You said, any reason? None at all, I said, but I am fed up. Totally.

      Me too, you said.

      We didn’t have to say anything for ages after that. Then you asked me if I wanted a drink, and I said I didn’t drink. You looked a bit surprised, but I saw you weren’t drinking either. I smelt cigarette smoke on you, but that could have been because you’d come from a bar. Standing close to you I noticed the gold stud in your nose and I could see you were cracking the joints in your fingers.

      I know what you’re thinking. Did I fancy you then? The truth: I don’t know because you were so different. I coveted your difference. I wanted to be you, with knotted hair and a pissed-off look and leather and piercings. I realised I’d had enough of being me and that was the trouble. I was worn out. Like a train out of fuel in the middle of a tunnel. Imagining being you was such a relief.

      You asked me what music I was into. I blustered, talked about The Smiths, Tupac, Green Day. You mentioned some bands I’d never heard of and I felt small. One of them was Transponder. I remembered that afterwards. I asked if you hung around at The Pit, and you said, sometimes, if you had the dosh.

      In between our snatched questions, I could see people stealing glances at you. Some were curious, some a little suspicious. When Lucy came up for air and saw me with you she grinned, thinking I was in luck too. I liked her then because I could tell she hadn’t judged you. You were a bloke and that was good enough for her. But if I was you – and I wanted to be you, remember – I would have hated the way sneaky eyes labelled me as different and dangerous and somewhat disgusting. My crowd, you see, for all that they acted so cool, were just like their mums and dads: middle-class, conventional, into exam grades and good jobs and settling down one day. It was OK to be wild on Saturday night because that’s what Saturday nights were for. But you had to be steady for the rest of the time.

      Only it was Sunday morning now and for the first time in ages I felt totally awake. Every sense of mine was sharpened. I was living again. Someone shoved you by accident and you fell against me, but when you righted yourself you stayed close. Cat and Taz.

      And then your mates re-appeared and said, come on, nothing doing here, and you cast me a regretful glance – see ya, you said, touched my hand, a rush of cold air as the front door opened, and you were gone.

       To Mrs Dawes (2)

      Was it a week later? Or two weeks? I forget, and it doesn’t matter now. I had to see you to discuss my progress at school, or lack of it. It wasn’t my choice. I hadn’t asked you for help. The fact I had stopped working only made me panic occasionally. For the rest of the time I enjoyed feeling slightly mutinous. There was something brave about not working, a kind of passive resistance. Only none of my teachers saw it like that. I presume that was why we had to have the little talk.

      You tried to make it as cosy for me as possible. You borrowed the deputy head’s office and took her chair – with its extra cushion giving support for her bad back – and carried it round to the front of the desk, so you could sit close to me, but at an angle. So I knew you cared, but that you meant business.

      First there was the small talk about the weather and the noise from the builders who were constructing a new Chemistry lab. I joined in but wished you’d get down to it for your own sake – seeing the uneasiness in your tired, puffy eyes.

      “Well, Cathy,” you said. “You know why I wanted to see you.”

      I decided to act along with you, feed you the lines you wanted to hear. It was easier that way, and besides, I didn’t want to upset you. It wasn’t your fault.

      “Because I’ve got behind with all of my work,” I said.

      “Yes. Yes, that’s right. Do you want to run through with me what you’re owing?”

      You didn’t mean to, but you made my essays sound like deposits in a bank. Things that I owed. A debt to my teachers.

      “Well, I’m late with an Othello essay, and I don’t think my poetry assignment will be ready tomorrow. There’s a couple of pieces of History, and one of Economics, and a Geography test I haven’t revised for.”

      “This is not like you, Cathy.”

      That was such a weird thing to say. As if you knew the real me I wasn’t being. But I didn’t want to argue.

      “No, it’s not like me,” I said.

      Vertical blinds shading the window. A smear of polish along the ledge where the cleaner hadn’t done her job properly. The distant sound of drilling. In-trays and out-trays full of files and folders and papers and a blotter spattered with coffee stains. My shoes, regulation black but with high platforms and frayed laces. Your shoes, flat Hush Puppies, distorted by the shape of your foot. Your black skirt just fringing your knees, which were pointed towards me. Your hands clutched tightly in your lap.

      “Is there any problem, anything you want to talk about? As far as possible, I’ll keep any confidence. And if I have to pass on what you say, I’ll tell you first.”

      Standard school counselling stuff. I remained silent, playing for time. I debated whether to try to make something up. I could say I hadn’t been feeling well, but the trouble with that was having a doctor for a mother. She’d know I was pretending. And even if I was ill, she wouldn’t take me seriously. I could go on about some boy letting me down, or say I wasn’t eating. If it were any other teacher, I probably would have. It can be fun to lie. But because it was you, and despite your pathetic fear of not conforming, I liked you. I had to try to hit at the truth, and see what you would make

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