Let's Start Again

The invitation came out of the blue, shortly after my thirteenth birthday. In the post, one day, in the middle of all the Christmas cards, was an envelope addressed to me. It could have been just another card; I thought it was and glanced at it with only mild interest. Indeed, when I slipped the brightly coloured invitation out of its disguise, I didn’t recognise what it was.

My mother apparently tells Dad about my invitation that evening as I am on my way to bed. “It’ll do him good,” I overhear, “it’s the first time he’s been invited to join in anything social at the new school. It worries me that he seeks to avoid contact with boys of his own age.” So that’s what they think. I stop and listen outside the door. My father agrees. I hear him say he’s been concerned for months at my solitariness and my preference for the company of adults. And so, too passive to challenge my parents’ opinions and unwilling to risk a scene or let on that I’ve overheard their conversation, I am committed to the unfamiliar.

I’m despatched, full of nerves, in my Sunday best and clutching a parcel, to the bus stop and put on the red single-decker which meanders through suburban avenues to the prosperous estate of pre-war mock Tudor detached homes where my friend Robert lives. I gulp twice, hesitate one last time, then ring the bell which chimes echoing through the hallway.

I’m swept inside, enveloped by Robert’s mother - I presume - who exudes jollity and decisiveness in overflowing abundance. A girl, a year of so younger than me, peers from a doorway at the end of the hall and disappears quickly. I hear her voice calling to someone,

“It’s one of yours!”

I look quizzically at Robert’s mother.

“That’s Robert’s sister, my daughter, Jane. Didn’t he tell you that she was having a few friends over as well?”

There are girls here?!

The door is opened wide and I’m propelled into the coloured chaos, candles, Christmas chains, wrapping paper and tinsel, a vast tree that takes up a whole corner of the room. Robert’s father is poised, ensconced in a paper hat, on tiptoe tacking back a streamer. There are bodies everywhere, darting around like scrapping kittens, falling over each other, snatching pieces of paper, laughing, giggling.

“Come over here and hold this end for me, Richard,” calls out the doctor. “We’ll introduce you to the others when they’ve finished this game.”

I clutch the streamer I’m handed and slowly sort out the scene before me. Robert and my other best friend, Cedric, are there and another younger boy I don’t know. There are a similar number of girls; I presume Jane and her friends. “This is Gordon, he lives next door. That’s Jane, Robert’s sister; Susanna, Annette, Topsy. Don’t ask me why she’s called ‘Topsy’; she’s been called that ever since we’ve known her!” Dr Baker indicates the girl perched on the end of a sofa who is grinning broadly from ear to ear.

After a few games and the party tea, we squash onto the sofa to watch children’s TV. It’s a novelty for me; Robert is the only boy I know whose parents have a set. Robert’s mother makes us boys sit and then drapes the girls decoratively on the armrests or in the tiny spaces between the boys. There is a lot of pushing and fidgeting.

“Settle down, you lot. Boys, don’t be so silly. Let the girls sit down. Here, Susanna, sit on Robert’s knees. And Topsy, you sit here on Richard.”

I hear Robert’s protest and I was going to add my voice when Dr Baker douses the lights and switches the television on. I try to make myself more comfortable, so that I can see the screen; Topsy is in my way, but she’s already so absorbed that she’s oblivious of my further movements.

For a while I stare at the black and white images, but I begin to grow bored with that. The girl on my lap shifts her leg, then becomes lost in the TV image again. I begin to feel peculiar, a strange sensation as she moves on my lap, I’m very aware of this person so close to me, yet so far away. Her brown bobbed hair brushes inches from my nose, the odd flying strand tickles my cheek. I am acutely aware of her bare legs pressing on my thighs until I am aching with her weight. I want to shift under her, yet for some reason I do not want to break the spell, I hold my breath and sit, uncomfortable, as still as a statue, lest I disturb her. I stare at the profile of her face, barely a foot from mine. I can see her turned-up little nose silhouetted against the light from the Christmas tree candles, her high cheek bones. Her face is flushed with excitement, perhaps she is just hot. And her eyes flash with reflections from the screen. I want to touch her brown arms. I can see the tiny hairs glinting in the dull light; she looks so frail, I am afraid to brush against her.

I bring up my hand to push the hair from my eyes and flick briefly against the girl’s shoulder blades which are separated from my touch only by her flimsy party dress. She reacts as if she’s had an electric shock, jerking her body away from my proximity. At first I think she reacted deliberately, in antipathy to my action; then I see she’s still absorbed in the programme, her withdrawal had been instinctive, as if sweeping an insect from her skin. I hold my breath and scarcely dare to move. When, eventually the programme finishes, and Topsy hops off my lap without a second thought, I am left awkward and stiff and my legs have ‘pins and needles’.

“Who wants to play ‘Postman’s Knock’?” Robert’s father advances on us with the air of a conspirator and produces a beaker and dice from behind his back. The others become highly excited, even silly, in their gambolling; I am puzzled.

“What’s that? How do you play?”

“Don’t you know?” mouths Jane, eyes wide in mirth and derision, “haven’t you ever played it? Dad, tell him how to play it!”

I’m told. I blush a beetroot red. I am both excited and appalled. In front of the other boys, kiss a girl, it is impossible to contemplate. I am flabbergasted that Robert’s parents would condone such a game; I can’t conceive that my parents would ever do so. But the others are jumping up and down, eager to be at it, they do not seem to have any such qualms. Then silliness reaches extravagant heights, to the point of hysteria.

It is as if the genie of the game has sensed my reluctance or fear of joining in and is conspiring to protect me from embarrassment. Time and again I’m excluded; I watch the others trooping in and out, while I look on with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Then, at last, my number is drawn; the dice rolls; ‘one’. Suzanne grabs my hand and pulls me out behind the door, her eyes rolling to the heavens for the benefit of her friends who are teasing her. I stand awkwardly before her, then shut my eyes and make a lunge, but she ducks out of my reach and squeals and runs back through the door with me lumbering after her.

“Here, Richard, take a number.”

Number ‘six’. Jane. I roll the dice; two kisses. My first kiss. It should be romantic, remembered for ever. It is very matter of fact. Jane takes command.

“Stand here. Shut your eyes, don’t look.”

And she pecks me twice on the cheek.

“There.” It is almost as though she is going to add, ‘it didn’t hurt, did it’!

And that is that.

Every time a girl’s hand goes in the cup, my heart pounds, my mouth goes dry. But I’m never chosen. Do they know which slip is mine - the uncreased largest piece of paper perhaps? Are they avoiding me on purpose? And to rub it in, Topsy is in the thick of the action; is she enjoying it so much? Is she avoiding me? Did I offend her when she sat on my knee?

“Last time,” booms Dr Baker, as his daughter slips her arm around his waist.

“No, Daddy, let’s go on some more.”

“Last time, I said - look at my watch, girl. It’s time for the others to go home, their parents will be worried.”

“Come on Topsy, it’s your choice.”

“Number ‘seven’, that’s you, Richard; and you’ve six kisses. That’ll make up for you not having so many turns.”

I’m in turmoil. Now that my longing of the last half hour has born fruit, I am petrified. When the door is closed behind me and I’m alone with her, I stand transfixed, staring at her until her image becomes imprinted on my mind for all time. Her golden grin which stretches from ear to ear. Her huge brown eyes which bore into mine, her smooth brown arms and legs, the delicate white dress with red polka dots all over it - I will never forget. I swallow hard and try to speak but I only croak.

Topsy is giggling with gusto. She comes up to me and puts her mouth to my ear, so that I can feel her breath down my neck.

“Let’s fool them,” she whispers hoarsely, “let’s stay out here for a while and make them think we’re doing it properly. Count to twenty slowly, do you think that’s long enough?”

I want to say, why can’t we do it properly? Why do we have to pretend? I want to ask her if she’s played the same farce with all the others, or is it only me she will not kiss? But I dare not risk such questions; I remain mute while every nerve within me begs me to open up.

“Right, that’s long enough. Pretend we’ve done it. Make them jealous of us.” So saying, she seizes me by the wrist and drags me back into the room of giggling children.

“Look at Richard,” calls out Cedric in amusement, “he’s bright red.” He nudges me. “I didn’t know you had it in you!” I look up in my embarrassment and catch Topsy’s eye. She winks at me and puts a finger to her lips. Is she mocking me or is there something else in her look? I’m confused and look away before the others can catch me out.

“Enough,” Dr Baker is announcing, arms akimbo as the doorbell shrills above their clamour. “Come on, pack it in, someone’s being called for.” The party breaks up swiftly, the closet door swings open once more and warm winter mackintoshes are retrieved.

The remaining children cluster in the hallway while other parents clump around in the kitchen exchanging pleasantries with the Bakers. Jane, Annette and Topsy are in a huddle, excluding all the boys. I watch wistfully, standing apart, nothing to say at that moment. Then suddenly, without warning, Topsy detaches herself from the rest and darts up to me, and before I can react to what is happening, she has kissed me, briefly, on the cheek. The other girls shriek in merriment and I gaze at them, vulnerable. Then I look at Topsy. She is not laughing. A pinkness is even suffusing her face, but then her mother emerges from the kitchen and they are gone, without farewells.

I never consciously saw her in my life again.

* * *

My younger sister is home from nursing college for a few days.

“Someone I know said they saw you the other day.”

“So?”

“Someone you haven’t seen for six or seven years. She thought it was you, anyway.”

“How does she know?”

“Did you catch the train into Woking on Thursday? Just before lunch?”

“Well, yes, I think I did.”

“There you are then.”

“You haven’t told me who it was yet.”

“She recognised your old school scarf at first; then she looked hard at you and remembered your face.”

“For goodness’ sake, girl, get on with it. Who was it?”

“She was going to speak to you, but you had your head in a book and she didn’t want to interrupt. And she wasn’t completely sure it was you.”

“Who…..was….it?!” I grit my teeth and try to force my sister to stop her teasing.

”A trainee nurse who is working with me at the moment.”

“What is her name?”

“She knew you from a party you both went to when you were kids. You remember Robert Baker, over in Esher? Well, it was one of his sister’s friends, Anita Morris.

“Who?”

“Oh, she said you’d probably know her better by her nickname, no-one ever used her real name then.”

“What ….was…it?” says I with menace and implied threats.

“Topsy.”

I try not to give anything away. I fight my emotion for a moment, then, in control of my voice, I say - as nonchalantly as I can:

“So she works with you now! Is she a close friend of yours?”

“So, so. I like her, but we’re often on different shifts, so I don’t see all that much of her.”

“I can’t remember anyone like her in the train. What does she look like now?”

“Oh, fairly ordinary. Average height, average build, shoulder length mousy hair. A bit of a snub nose. Only thing you’d notice about her are her eyes, they’re huge and brown. Anyway, she sends you her greetings. Did you know her well? I got the impression she used to be a bit sweet on you.”

Now she tells me!

“Not really. It was only a party, just an hour or two.”

My sister loses interest.

I wrack my brain, trying to remember that train journey. The train, the book, even the clothes I wore - yes. But my fellow passengers? I can recall none of them. And a girl that could have been Topsy? I feel like crying with frustration. To have been so close and missed the opportunity!

Can I, after all these years, start again?

* * *

She married a doctor and lives in Brighton. She’s a grandmother. My sister, who retired from nursing last year, told me this yesterday. And I never did contact her. Let’s start again? I never will now…