15-ish (Ages of David, Part 3 of 8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone’s parents have made the mistake of going out for a Saturday evening so we’ve all descended on their house, clutching our four packs of cheap lager, our plastic bottles of cider and maybe a half bottle of supermarket brand spirits.  Dad’s expensive stereo has been co-opted, all the levels cranked up the maximum to force the music to rattle the windows in their frames.  We’d go to the pub, but it’s both a touch too expensive for serious drinking and there are those who find it harder than others to get served.

The August night is hot in a way that life will never seem to be again.  The return to school is still far enough away to be abstract, but inertia has begun to settle in.  All those plans of doing something useful, something creative over the holidays have dissipated into a cycle of unconstructive hanging out, drinking too late and sleeping in until almost afternoon.

Just before midnight and I’m drinking gin and woodpecker cider, talking in a slightly incoherent fashion.  With a girl.  Drunkenness and nerves make my conversation veer around wildly in a way which I hope seems eccentrically interesting but probably is just as weird as my drink choice.  Not a choice really, but a necessity having drunk all the Guinness I arrived with.

‘I need to go,’ the girl says as it trips from Saturday to Sunday.  ‘Dad will go spare if I’m not back by twelve thirty.’ 

Half an hour is more than sufficient for her to get home.  I’m pretty certain she lives about two streets across.  My brain makes some leaps and despite it being perfectly safe to be out of the suburban roads alone I say, proper gentlemanly like: ‘I’ll walk you back.  If you like.’

She nods and stands up from the dusty grass.

I follow.

The night is so warm that I’m not wearing my long grey trenchcoat.  Normally I persist with it all year round, like armour.  Without it I feel exposed.  It’s both thrilling and disconcerting.  We talk about inconsequential things.  About Bowie.  About books.  I try to show off by making stuff up that sounds unusual but not completely darkish, although I’m stealing it off other writers.  I’m desperate to appear different.  I want to be the same.

Standing just along from her front door, up close to the high bushes and clear of the streetlight so we’ll be unobserved should anyone glance out of the window, the conversation lapses.  I’ve rehearsed this a moment in my mind a million times.  Not necessarily with this girl.  The face has always been interchangeable.  But this is the first time I’ve actually got.  It’s unmarked territory.  I know where I want to go, but not how to get there.

Eventually I feel obliged to do something.  I lean down.  She’s much shorter so the definite tilt of her head back is a sure sign and my confidence is fuelled through to the point where our lips meet. 

And they part, willingly but with just enough resistance to make it feel a conquest.  The sweet apple and juniper fizz licks back.  A tongue flicks and I realise I am actually doing it.  I am actually kissing a girl. 

We separate and look at each, and I find myself, for the first time, truly paying attention to her.  I have never considered this particular girl in this way before.  

‘That was nice,’ she says and, still feeling confused as to how we ended up here and whether both of us genuinely think it was nice or just something we were socially conditioned to do, I lean in again, without saying a word.  This time I slip a hand behind her head, just to keep her in place a moment longer, to keep kissing her, to avoid having to talk to her.  As we move and slide across each other’s lips, readjusting our heads, I hear a little gasp of pleasure out the side of her mouth and feel unduly pleased that it’s me causing it.

This time when we part, she says: ‘I better go inside.  Will you call me?’

‘Sure,’ I shrug trying to be nonchalant, already wondering what will happen next, what will be the next first.  ‘What’s your Dad’s name?  I’ll get it out the book.’

‘We’re not in the phone book.’  She tells me the phone number.  I repeat it back to her.  She smiles and goes inside, ushering me away from the light and back to the party.

The following morning I awake in my friend’s garden, sitting in a plastic chair, my jeans covered in vomit, a lightning strike through my head.  The rest of the house is still asleep so I hose my trousers down some and let myself out the side gate, wondering how I am going to sneak past my parents in such a state.  It is only a hundred metres down the road that I remember my midnight kiss and a small bulb of pride bursts in my gut.  I feel unreasonably smug with myself until I realise I have, of course, completely forgotten her number.

It takes a couple of days to build up the courage to knock on her door, but from then she goes from being my first kiss to my first girlfriend.  Three months later she thinks that I’ve broken her heart as I leave her crying in the drizzle under a weeping willow’s arms in the park.  I feel like an utter shit and it is, perhaps, the first time I realise that there are worse hurts than those fists can produce.  Although it wouldn’t be the last and nor would it be last time I felt ashamed for it.