First Touch

The next morning, the girls crowded around Helen, pushing back chairs and sprawling over desks. Breathless, she said again, “I could see the flames outside the window and the smoke. My Dad’s car. On fire.”

Neil sat, eyes averted.

He’d first heard her talk about her anger at her Dad’s affair during an Outward Bound weekend in the Pennines. She was the only girl he’d ever liked, the other were all spots and bumps.

It was harder to light a car tyre than he thought. Kneeling on the driveway, propping himself against the shiny sports car, he’d broken firelighters like Kendal mint cake, stuffing them around the wheel, leaving the blue camping stove flame pointing at where the tyre met the driveway.

Finding his place in an alley, he waited, heart pounding, expecting a huge explosion.

Instead, there was an orchestra of pops, dinks and whooshes, as if, loosened by heat, the car was stretching tired limbs. The smoke, paint thick, rose straight upward.

Choosing his moment, he grabbed Helen’s arm outside the Science Block.

“I did it for you,” he said.

The impact of her palm on his cheek was the first time a girl ever touched his skin.