Do You Remember the First Time?

wrinkles.’
    I let out a great big teenager’s sigh.
    Max came in to the room and stared at me.
    ‘Who are you?’
    He was looking tired and grumpy, and he thought his IT reputation meant he didn’t have to polish his social skills.
    ‘Hi, Max!’ I said cheerily.
    He turned on Tash. ‘What is this? Who is this? I can’t believe you’re still trying to—’
    ‘Max, it’s me. Flora. Don’t you remember? That time I lost your car keys, and the time I broke the glass and you stood in it, and …’
    He shook his head. ‘Tash, this is a crappy bloody joke.’
    ‘It’s not a joke,’ said Tash.
    ‘It’s not,’ said Olly, going to stand beside her.
    Max looked at us. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re upto,’ he said, ‘but it’s really fucking unamusing.’ He stormed out.
    ‘Well, what should I tell him?’ said Tash.
    Olly patted her on the shoulder. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’
    ‘What are we going to do with you?’ said Tashy to me.
    ‘I’m not a child!’
    ‘No, we know that. Technically. But there are lots of childish prohibitions on what you can and can’t do.’
    ‘I’m running away to New York and/or Paris,’ I said. To myself.
    ‘Don’t be sullen,’ said Tashy.
    ‘Why are you telling off that child?’ said Max. He’d paused at the door and was leaning on the radiator.
    ‘I’m not fucking telling her off, and if you’d listen to me for five seconds, you’d realise that.’
    ‘Do you have to swear quite so much when we have people in the house?’
    ‘Why not? It doesn’t seem to bother you when you’re shouting at Cherie Blair on the television.’
    ‘I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Cherie Blair.’
    ‘Do you hate all working women, Max, or just successful ones?’
    I looked at Olly. Christ, we were never this bad. He could clearly read what I was thinking, because he put his arms apart in an ‘I know!’ gesture.
    ‘Erm, there’s only three beers, Tashy … and … sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’
    The black curly-haired head peering round the door was talking to Olly.
    ‘Oliver.’
    ‘Of course. Sorry,’ said Clelland. Then he caught sight of me and gasped.
    ‘Oh Christ.’ He took a step back. ‘It’s the wolverine.
    ‘Wolverine!’ I said. ‘Apart from the other day, I haven’t seen you in sixteen years and one reverse month, and you call me a wolverine!’
    Clelland moved cautiously into the room. Oliver was watching him closely. Clell moved over to me.
    ‘Oliver told me you were a wolverine. Also, I thought that by ridiculing you, you’d go back into the fiery pits of hell from whence you came,’ he said, trying to shoot me an apologetic grin and only succeeding in looking nervous. ‘I mean, what the fu—’
    ‘Does Clelland understand I didn’t die?’ I asked Tashy, who was still glowering at Max. ‘I can’t convince him,’ she said. ‘I can’t convince anyone of anything.’
    Max let out a long low sigh and disappeared.
    ‘Tell Clelland I’m not a wolverine,’ I ordered Olly.
    ‘Grrr,’ said Olly.
    Well, if Clelland was allowed to stare at me, I could stare back at him. His dark eyes were still as hooded and interesting as ever, even as obviously confused as he was now.
    ‘How’s Madeleine?’ I asked.
    He jumped backwards. ‘So you are a ghost,’ he said.
    Nobody said anything for a minute.
    ‘Erm, she’s fine,’ he said then. ‘Wants us to move to Africa permanently. Kind of missionary thing.’
    ‘Position?’
    ‘Job.’
    ‘OK,’ said Tashy. ‘Shall we sit down?’
    Everyone sat down carefully, except for me. I sat down cross-legged on the floor. Then I jumped up again, angry with myself.
    ‘OK,’ said Tashy. ‘We were just going to meet to discuss what’s happening in our – ahem – friend’s life. And also, in ours because of it.’
    ‘Without me here?’
    Olly looked at me. ‘Yes. You know, amazingly, we thought you might interrupt and be very intrusive.’
    ‘I thought you never wanted to speak to me again,’ I said. ‘Luckily that lasted almost nine hours.’
    ‘So,’ Tashy addressed me, ‘your mum and dad are younger than they were.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But they’re the only people who went back with you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And they don’t recognise you as ever having been any older?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘And neither do the teachers at school?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘But we do.’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘But nobody else?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘I asked my mum about her,’