Do You Remember the First Time?

working as a prostitute to earn more money for drugs? You’re a crack whore now? That is why you are too ashamed to see your best friend? All the whoring, yes?’
    Her accent seemed to get ridiculously strong when she was annoyed. Stanzi was wearing a hideous off-the-shoulder grey top with a pair of white combat trousers covered in ribbons, and little white ankle boots. To my eyes she looked like a crazed baby slut. She was clearly furious with me.
    ‘Stanzi,’ I said, trying to give Tashy a rueful smile but not quite managing it, ‘this is Tashy.’
    Constanzia looked at her with what I realised was a glazed expression she kept for grown-ups. ‘Very nice to meet you,’ she said cursorily. Then she leaned over to me and whispered, ‘Is that your crack whore madam?’
    ‘Ssh!’
    Tashy gave the tight smile she normally reserved for traffic wardens and people who work in electrical appliance shops. ‘Hello. Nice to meet you.’
    ‘And what is your connection to Miss Scurrison,’ said Stanzi in a ludicrously polite voice.
    ‘Um … this is, er, an external guidance person my parents hired for me.’
    Stanzi looked suspicious. ‘Oh, how lovely!’ she said, as if she had just been invited to a castle for tea.
    ‘And this is Constanzia,’ I said.
    She was tugging on my arm again. ‘You have a head shrink and don’t tell me?’
    ‘She’s very boring,’ I whispered back.
    ‘Yes, Constanzia, I have the authority to have Flora sectioned if I want to,’ said Tashy loudly.
    ‘I have to talk to her in private for a second,’ I said to Stanzi.
    ‘She’s insufferable!’ said Tashy, as soon as we were in the corner alone.
    ‘She’s alright,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, right.’
    ‘I wish you were there with me.’
    Tashy smiled. ‘Look. I’ve got an appointment with the dressmaker this afternoon.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘Well, I always wanted to ask you, but I never felt I could because you’d hate it so much. But now it’s all so weird that I’m going to.’
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘Would you like to be my bridesmaid?’ She laughed as she heard herself say it.
    I stared at her. ‘But I might not still be …’
    ‘Well, let’s deal with that when it comes up, shall we?’
    We hugged. ‘Will you phone Olly for me?’ I said. ‘See how the land lies?’
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It was the first thing I was goingto do. And you take a good long think about a damn fine man.’
    Stanzi wanted to talk, to ask me things about school, but it wasn’t working. I felt numb. I was worrying about Olly, I was worrying about Tashy, and I was worrying about myself and what I was doing, and where.
    ‘You don’t listen to me any more,’ complained Stanzi, as we sat in the bumpy carriage back to Highgate. ‘You don’t want to be my friend any more, is that it? You never chat. We never play Pogcode any more.’
    Oh God, I doubted very much if there would be a time in all the histories of the world that I would understand whatever Pogcode was.
    ‘You don’t even want to try and crash Ethan’s party?’
    ‘Grounded.’
    ‘Yes, so you wait till your dad goes out and talk your mum round, like always.’
    ‘I’m not really in the mood for a party.’
    She stared at me. ‘Are you sick?’
    ‘I haven’t been feeling myself lately.’
    Ha-ha.
    ‘OK, what about we go and hang around outside his house again? You know you love doing that.’
    ‘No I don’t!’
    Constanzia shrugged. ‘Felt like you did all those other times we did it.’
    Oh, for God’s sake. I stared out of the carriage window.
    Finally I felt a quiet push at my elbow.
    ‘You still want to be my friend?’
    ‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You shouldn’t love Ethan any more.’
    ‘I don’t,’ I said.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Couldn’t pick him out of a line-up.’
    Stanzi smiled. ‘And we’re still in the We Hate Fallon club?’
    ‘We invented that club.’
    Then Stanzi did some kind of funny hand-punching motion towards me that I was clearly supposed to know how to reciprocate. I ducked, grinned and punched her on the shoulder.
    My dad was in the sitting room, putting on his shoes. My mum was clattering out of sight in the kitchen. I checked my watch.
    ‘Oof, work!’ I said loudly, stretching. ‘They said I was putting too much in, so they sent me home early.’
    My mother leaned out of the kitchen to give me a searching look, but I did my best imitation of total innocence. My dad didn’t look up at