First Kiss (2008)

 It was an odd time for me. That year I was turning fifteen, leaving school and in my first play, but that year had other surprises for me too. It was the beginning of term, and a general calling went out for pupils of my secondary modern school to volunteer to be in the school play – Toad of Toad Hall. I hesitated, lacking self confidence, but as some of my friends were putting their names down I decided “what the heck” and put mine down too. My life changed, forever, with that signing. First came the choosing of victims to play the characters. Being a newcomer I got the insalubrious part of court usher, for Toad’s courtroom scene, my friend landed Toad, other friends wild wooders, and one particular girl got the part of Phoebe. Throughout the term we got together to learn lines, act and dress the part. The girl ‘Phoebe’ was evidently ‘going out’ with Toad, my friend, but frequently gave me ‘the look’. How do I explain ‘the look’? I was fifteen, she was probably fourteen. At that age neither of us should be aware of ‘the look’, but she gave it and I received it. In the seeing I felt my body just melt into my moccasins, sapped of all will and practically all consciousness too, the pubescent me had no defences for her gaze, no shield for her glance and so I fell haplessly and helplessly under her spell. I was well aware that Phoebe was dating Toad, he was older, more mature. Toad smoked and had the lead part in the school play - these days he would be ‘cool’, but I guess back then he would have been likened to Rowdy Yates from Rawhide or Kookie from 77 Sunset Strip, this was the early 1960s. In those bizarre school days a girl’s friend would come up to you in the school corridor, or in the playground and say something like “My mate fancies you”, naturally you would shoo her away while secretly harbouring a great big grin inside your head, you might, in your heady condition, stumble somewhat, but that was ok, that was natural. The next day phase two of the mating ritual would begin in the school corridor, she would look at you, you would look at her, she might giggle, you blush, and that was that, you were officially ‘seeing’ each other. At some point there would be the offer to walk with her outside the school gates on the way home, maybe casually suggest that the days of the week equalled seven and not five as school children were led to believe, and that it was entirely possible to see each other at the weekend too. And so it was. The lowly court usher was upgraded to king by the love of Phoebe, well actually I stayed as court usher but felt like a king, and a little guilty that I had unwittingly stolen Toad’s girl. Amidst the head turning romance which had just had its embers fanned I somehow had to function at school. It was difficult I confess, I knew little of girls except that if you don’t vote for a particular girl in class you receive her scorn, for no apparent reason, for the rest of your school life, well, at least that had been my experience up until Phoebe. Of course I found out years later, just why, again that little cupid and his stupid arrow. Phoebe and I met after classes. We met at weekends, and one Saturday evening she took me for a walk to the back of the town. Here I have to explain that I lived out of town, whereas Phoebe lived with her parents and siblings in the Garrison, in the army quarters, right in town. Phoebe knew the town better than I, much better it turned out. We walked hand in hand to the old Augustinian Priory ruins, normally inhabited by drunks and tramps, but on this magical evening there was just the two of us. We ran around the tombs, we played tag, where one runs and nominates the other and then the game begins again, one chasing the other around the tombstones until both are tired. Phoebe seemed tired, she sat, then laid down on the raised stone tomb. It seemed like the stone and red brick pillars looked down at us as the evening took on a rosy glow, she whispered something huskily which may have been “Come here”, I leaned over her, she pulled my head to meet hers, and, we kissed. Within those few seconds I went from “mmmm odd”, to having no conscious thoughts whatsoever. We kissed maybe for a few seconds but it seemed like a millennium, coming out of that kiss I was an altogether different person from the one who had gone into it. It was as if I had shot up in size, if not stature, aged about twenty years, grew a beard, grew old, died and was reborn into that kiss. It was truly momentous, I had no idea that is how it would feel, the physical weakness as if drugged or drunk. I knew a little about drunk, but not drugged, not then. I felt warm, close with her, and I think lost a little of myself that evening, lost a little but gained a lot. I confess my naiveté. I never knew then what I know now. I never knew that my innocence in that old Priory would lose me my first real girlfriend within a few weeks. I realise now that she was much more mature than I was, even though she was younger, I realise too that she wanted more than just a kiss, not then, I was too immature to know that then, too immature to understand about girls and sex, I barely understood what kissing was, and that, really, she had taught me. We ‘saw’ each other for a while after that kiss, walked footpaths around the town, played in children’s playgrounds acknowledging perhaps that we had hardly grown past that stage, and repeated kissing whenever we had the chance. But time moved on and Phoebe moved on too, to an older ‘man’, a teenager, not at school, who could, no doubt, give her what she had really wanted from me that evening on the tombstone, in the old Priory . Later I learned that her father’s regiment had gone from the Garrison, she, her mother and siblings followed, I know not where.