The next time we met was on the steps of the old Rialto.
On Wednesdays I had a free afternoon. Free afternoons were a sixth form privilege and one which I was in danger of losing. They’d had this meeting about me in school and my mum had said that maybe they should make me stay in school and work. But the Head of Sixth and Mrs Dawes had said that might make matters worse. That’s what my dad told me.
He’d sat me down a couple of evenings ago like we were at some sort of business meeting. I just want to take a cool look at the facts, he’d said. We’ll keep emotions out of it. You need to know that your mother and I are puzzled. Puzzled and angry. Puzzled and angry and upset too. The facts are that we’re paying for your education, you’re wasting the best years of your life. Christ! We’ve done everything we can for you! And this is the return you make! His temples throbbed in rhythm to his words and made him look ridiculous. I wanted to laugh.
Forget about him. Luckily – very luckily – I still had my free afternoon. I didn’t want to go home so I wandered into town to get an Easter egg for Lucy. The newsagents were full of them, Cadbury’s and Nestlé and mountains of Creme Eggs and Creme Egg Easter eggs, and chocolate button Easter eggs, Smarties eggs, Easter bunnies, chocolate rabbits, masses of choice, so much choice I just couldn’t choose. In the end I went for Galaxy.
Chocolate’s not a big thing with me; I can take it or leave it. But the girls at school are silly about chocolate and make a big fuss about not eating it, or eating it, and some of the Christians have given it up for Lent. But then they’ll have loads of Easter eggs once it’s Easter. I reckon it’s the way some people give their lives meaning. They deprive themselves of quite boring things so that when they can have them they seem exciting. But they’re not, in actual fact. A bar of chocolate. Cocoa powder and loads of chemicals. Big deal.
So I got the egg and looked at the magazines in the newsagent’s, then went to browse in Our Price. Nothing much there. Outside, a breezy day, blue sky, white clouds scudding about, bits of sunshine. I was in a blank mood, a state of absolute neutrality, not one thing or another. Just didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to think of the prospect of the school holiday.
I thought I’d go to TK Maxx and look at the clothes. I had to pass by the old Rialto. Once it was a dance hall, they said, then it was a bingo hall – I think I remember that. Then the bingo hall shut down and someone tried to turn it into a club, but there was scandal about the bouncers and drugs. So it was boarded up again. But the problem was, it was a Grade II listed building so they couldn’t knock it down. And in the afternoons the moshers hung out on the steps.
As I passed them I gave them a glance, and you were there.
My heart started thudding. I walked on, turned the corner, and stopped. I knew I should have gone over and talked to you. I mean, I knew you and everything. But over a month had gone by since Brad’s party, and I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me. And it was embarrassing, really, because I’d been thinking about you a lot – I wouldn’t say I had a crush on you, exactly – but you’d kind of grown in my mind. But I was pretty sure you hadn’t given me another thought. I was worried that if I talked to you I’d probably be dead self-conscious and give myself away.
Then I did that really stupid thing that girls do – and boys, probably. I decided to walk back and pass the steps again – slowly, hoping you’d notice me and make the first move.
So I turned, slung my bag with Lucy’s Galaxy egg in it over my shoulder and passed the steps again. You were sitting down, your elbows on your knees, not talking to anyone. I looked at you and our eyes met. I could see you were trying to place me. I ventured a little smile. You frowned for a moment then your face lit in recognition. I walked up to you.
“It’s Taz, isn’t it?” That gave you time to remember me.
“Cat?”
I was so relieved.
“Yeah,” I said. “From that party you crashed.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Bunked off school early.” That was a bit of a lie but it sounded right.
“You still at school?”
“Sixth form,” I said.
By now your mates had noticed me and were looking in my direction. I felt awkward. I’d seen the moshers hanging round town lots of times but I’d never paid them much attention. I suppose if I was absolutely honest I looked down on them. I wasn’t into heavy metal and thought all their rebellion was a pose – they all dressed exactly alike, for starters. Only now I was so close to them I saw they were individuals, like you. I remember Steve and his grey baggy pants, Mac’s braided hair – they were both there that day – and Bex in that enormous parka that swamped her. They looked pale and tired, but close-up, not much different from me. Steve’s hair was dyed a bright red round the edges. Mac had combats with chains on the side.
“Cat,” you said to them, by way of introducing me.
They all said hi, quite friendly, not curious. I felt really straight and boring in the tailored trousers I had to wear for school and the grey coat my mother had got me from a department store.
“How’ve you been?” you asked me.
“Fine,” I said. My parents thought I had problems, and so did school, but I didn’t.
We chatted a while and I re-familiarised myself with you. You wore torn jeans, a baggy sweater two sizes too big and a blue streak in your hair that was spiked up. Your clothes were hard but your face was soft – I think that was because of your eyes. They had depth. I forget what we said to each other but there was still that weird feeling that we knew each other well. I just prayed we could keep the conversation going as long as possible. I didn’t want to lose you again.
Then your mates got up and said they were going on to someone or other’s place. You looked at them, then at me.
“Fancy a coffee?” you asked.
“Yeah, OK.”
So we wandered off together. I was happy to go wherever you wanted and to my surprise we ended up in the covered market. It was a smelly old place because they had the fish and meat markets at one end. The stench was rank. You went over to a little snack bar where they sold burgers and suchlike as well as hot drinks. I said a black coffee would be fine. You said you were hungry and you ordered yourself a ham sandwich.
That got me curious. Once we’d sat down at a little Formica table with little pots of salt and pepper and a plastic sauce bottle, I decided to ask you.
“I thought you didn’t eat pig meat.”
“I do,” you said, and grinned. I was pleased I hadn’t offended you.
“Aren’t you religious, then?”
“It’s all stupid.”
I was pleased to hear you say that. It was what I’d been secretly thinking. All the people I knew at school who professed Christianity were some of the most judgmental, smug, hypocritical people I’d ever met. And God is only another version of Father Christmas, to me, at any rate. But I guessed it would be slightly different for you. I knew Asians were more into their religion. And that it was more of a family thing.
“Do your parents give you grief about eating pork?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a proper Muslim, am I?” You seemed jumpy and cracked your knuckles. “My Mum was a Muslim, but she married my Dad who wasn’t. So that was it as far as her family was concerned. She was a non-person.”
I’d heard of that kind of thing happening and I was appalled. I tried to encourage you to tell me more but the coffee arrived.
“So were you brought up as any religion?”
“My mum tries to teach me stuff about Islam but she’s wasting her breath. I’m just not into it.”
I asked you what you were into. You told me you played bass guitar and were looking to be in a band. That you were at college and doing Media Studies and Art and Photography. That you wanted to do an art foundation course somewhere next year. That you worked some evenings in a petrol forecourt helping a mate of your dad’s. That you were fed up with this crummy country and one day you were going to live in the States, New York, probably, or Chicago. It must have sounded like I was interviewing you or something.
Then you asked me about me. I didn’t tell you much because I thought anything I’d say would put you off. Little Miss Boring, that was me. Still at school, living at home. And I reckoned you didn’t want me pouring out my heart about how everyone was hassling me. I was perfectly happy sitting with you in the snack bar being Cat, drinking foul black coffee with its bitter aftertaste.
“Are you still hungry?” I asked you, once you’d finished your sandwich.
“I’m always hungry,” you said.
“Hold on.” I brought Lucy’s egg out of my bag and began to unwrap it. I saw your eyes light up. I wanted some chocolate too, to take away the taste of the coffee. I broke you off a huge fragment and you shoved it in your mouth the way boys do.
“Oy!” said the woman from behind the counter. “You can’t eat that here!”
She was looking at you, although I was eating too.
“Sad old cow,” I said.
“Bugger off, the pair of you!”
You were on your feet in an instant. I was cooler than you and collected my things together dead slow on purpose. I thought she didn’t have any right to talk to me like that. In a few moments we were pushing our way through the market eating chocolate and laughing, dissing the woman in the snack bar. It sounds corny but being told off had brought us together. Not in a romantic sense, but we’d both been victims. We stopped at a second-hand tape stall and you told me about some of the bands I hadn’t heard of. I asked you about Transponder.
“No,” you said. “They’re not heavy metal. They’re more – have you ever listened to Pink Floyd?”
I hadn’t, but resolved to.
“Like that. Not that they’ve been signed up yet. But they’re effing brilliant.”
You went on about them and it was great to see you being so enthusiastic. Like a kid. To look at, you were quite hard and threatening with your leathers and punk hair. You were twitchy, like they were out to get you. And it didn’t sit right to me, because all the Asian boys I knew hung round together and were into hip-hop and rap and bhangra. You were by yourself but looked like them. We passed an Asian posse just outside the market and they eyed you oddly too. You walked straight past them. Maybe that was because you were with me, a white girl.
Part of me was wondering what was going to happen next between us. I felt really comfortable with you, and liked the person I was when I was with you. I was pleased you weren’t all over me and just seeing me as a girl. I sort of fancied you then, but I didn’t want to risk having a relationship as such – I knew relationships came with sell-by dates. I wanted more that that; I wanted to have you securely in my life. I was interested in you. I hadn’t met anyone like you before. You were the only good thing to have happened to me for months.
When we got to the bus station there was an embarrassing silence.
“Where are you going now?” I asked you.
“Home. Then down the pub.”
“Yeah. Me too. I mean home.”
“We’re going into town on Saturday night. We’re meeting in The Pickled Rat at nine. Do you know it?”
“Yeah, I think so. By the Odeon.”
“Can you come?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Great,” you said. “See you there.” And waved as you walked off to your bus stop.
It was enough. We were going to see each other again. It would be easy to lie to my parents. At last I had something to look forward to.