Although, saying that, I was more than surprised when the pair turned up at my door that night, asking if I could go out to play as they both sat on their matching blue BMX bikes, using the tips of their trainers to rock forwards and backwards on their wheels. I couldn’t help but smile back excitedly at them. It was the first time anybody had ever stood at my door asking after me.
Unfortunately, Mum decided it was too soon for me to be wandering the streets of Peaswood with two boys she didn’t know. So as a compromise she invited them inside to play instead – once they’d called their mums and told them of their whereabouts, of course. The boys gleefully accepted the offer and discarded their bikes in our front garden without a moment’s hesitation. I can remember looking down at their bikes and smiling to myself at the thought of how safe our new neighbourhood must be, before shutting the door and joining my new friends inside. I’d felt wanted and included.
My relationship with the boys kickstarted with great gusto and enthusiasm, whereas trying to strike up a friendship with the girls in my class was much more problematic. They were a tight bunch, made all the cosier by the fact that they (Laura the ringleader, Michelle, Becky and Nicola) had a special name for themselves – the Pink Dreamers. A name that was also used for the girl band they were in. I can’t express how much I wanted to be included when I heard that, but it seemed the friendships I’d already sparked up with the boys were going to put my chances of primary-school popstardom and any friendship with the girls in jeopardy. Yes, even at nine years old, social politics were rife.
They hated the fact that I hung around with the boys and would tell me so while asking if I fancied one of them or had kissed them. It was horrible to feel so interrogated and like such an outsider. Unfortunately, when my brain was taken over by some crazy acceptance-needing twerp, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to cut all ties with Robert and Ben. I’m ashamed to say I ignored them, sat away from them at lunchtimes, ran away from them at breaktimes – I figured it was the only way to make the Pink Dreamers (I can’t believe I cared so much for a bunch of girls who called themselves that) want me to be a part of their group.
And I thought I’d succeeded at one point.
One day at lunch I was called over by Laura to join the girls. At last, I thought, I’m in.
Oh what a foolish girl I was.
The whole thing was a set-up.
I sat on the spare plastic orange chair, ready to enjoy my first lunch with my new BFFs, only to feel the chair give way beneath me. I flew backwards through the air with an almighty screech and landed on my back with my legs in the air – white cotton knickers on display, my dignity splattered alongside me on the floor. I’d never felt so humiliated.
Off I ran to the toilets, riddled with humiliation, only to be followed by Robert and Ben. Bless them, they even came into the girls’ loos to see if I was okay. Not many little boys would venture into such formidable territory, without caring whether they were caught by our peers or not.
In that little loo our friendship was restored. We pinkie promised that I’d never be such a loser again and that the three of us would stick together as a threesome until the end of time. It was a deliciously cute moment and one that firmly cemented us as a united force.
I had my boys, I needed nothing more.
Ben
Nine years old …
It wasn’t long after that uplifting moment of friendship that my dad walked out on me and my mum. He just upped and left with no explanation, no apology and no emotional farewell. It seemed easy for him to sever his family ties and start a new life elsewhere. Not caring that he may never see the innocent little boy who worshipped the ground he walked on, ever again.
He’d found another woman. Someone he worked with in the police force – another officer. I don’t think she was younger than my mum, as is the usual stereotype. I don’t even think she was prettier, nicer or more intelligent – but then, I wouldn’t, would I? I’ve always thought of my mum as beautiful with her short raven bob and dark brown eyes, her tiny frame making her seem delicate and breakable – but, in actual fact, her bones were made of steel, something I learned over the years. She was tough enough to take a few knocks from life. Perhaps the new woman in Dad’s life understood the pressures of the job better than my mum had, but then I don’t want to justify what he did by admitting that.
The thing that hurt me most was that she had a kid of her own, this new woman. A son named George who was a couple of years younger than me. Dad took him on as his own – as though he was a replacement for the son he’d left behind. It was that easy, it seemed.