Do You Remember the First Time?

said Olly. ‘She’d never heard of her.’
    ‘She never liked me,’ I said.
    ‘No, I mean – well, that’s true, she never liked you, but she really had no knowledge of your existence. Apparently I’ve never had a girlfriend called Flora.’
    ‘Why didn’t she like me?’
    ‘She thought you took me for granted. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, I think we’re the only people who know about you.’
    ‘That’s stupid,’ said Clelland. ‘I haven’t even seen her in … well, a long time.’
    ‘That’s because you’ve been off being a goody-goody in Africa,’ I said.
    ‘Ghost! Psychic ghost!’
    ‘I have a theory,’ said Tash. She took a deep breath and looked around sincerely. ‘OK. We’ve all known Flora for years, right?’
    There was a mutter of assent from Clelland and a deep groan from Olly. I remembered, again, meeting him that night in that noisy bar next to the law courts, when he was the only man gentlemanly enough to help me with my coat and buy me drinks. I’d thought he was so charming. He was. I looked at him, and he caught my eye, and I could tell he knew what I was thinking. He looked away. Pity was futile. Tash was still talking.
    ‘Well. OK, I’m not looking forward to saying this out loud. But it seems to me that the only people who can “see” Flora are the ones who’ve known her the best. For the longest. The people who love her. Her true friends, if you like.’ She gave a little laugh, embarrassed at having to use the expression ‘true friends’.
    I, though, was looking at Olly and Clelland, the two dearest men to me in the whole world, and Tash, my best friend.
    ‘What the hell am I doing in this picture?’ said Olly bitterly.
    Tash shrugged.
    ‘Hang on – is it right that I only have three true friends in the entire world, one of whom I’ve just dum—broken up with, and one I haven’t seen for a decade and a half because he’s been trying to find water for starving nations?’
    ‘Surely it’s much more sensible if we just assume she’s a ghost,’ said Clelland.
    ‘I mean—’
    ‘OK, OK, I’m sure that’s not it,’ said Tashy, looking at my downcast face. ‘It can’t be.’
    ‘Three!’
    ‘I’m sure that’s not it at all,’ said Tash. ‘If anything, maybe we’re the people you like the least.’
    ‘Yeah, I’ll go for that,’ said Ol.
    ‘No! That’s worse!’
    Everyone was looking at me.
    ‘Have you tried anyone else in your address book?’ said Tash.
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t exist and never has.’
    ‘OK, we’ll have to assume it’s just us then.’
    There was a pause while we all struggled to take this in.
    ‘Ignoring the pointlessness of that just for a moment,’ said Olly, ‘what are we going to do? I mean, there’s no point in taking you to a research base – nobody’s going to believe us.’
    ‘So, no living autopsy for me,’ I said.
    ‘Disappointed?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Unless you could prove something that would happen in the future,’ said Tash.
    ‘As a lucky guess for two and a half weeks, mostly centring around highly predictable Big Brother evictions,’ I said.
    Clelland snapped his fingers. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take some photos.’
    ‘That’s right,’ Tashy said. ‘Because in the history of magazines, nobody’s ever done anything to a photograph to make anyone in it look younger.’
    ‘And I won’t be in it,’ said Olly. ‘Or if I have to be, I’m not smiling.’
    ‘You’re right – stupid idea. Hmm.’ He shrugged. ‘ Okele Manoto ,’ he said suddenly.
    ‘What?’ said Tashy.
    He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That came out prickish. It’s an African expression you hear a lot where I’ve been working. It means “take it as a gift”.’
    ‘It means what?’ said Olly.
    ‘Take it as a gift. Just let it happen and try and get the best from it. Well, I think that’s what it means. It might just mean: “crap, we’ve been shafted by international colluding governments again”.’
    ‘What do you think I should do?’ I asked Clelland, looking into his dark face. His features, now I could examine them again, were a lot more pronounced. He looked great as a man, much better than he had as a skinny boy.
    ‘Take it as a gift,’ he said. ‘I just said. Weren’t you listening?’
    ‘Oh,’ I said.
    ‘I’m teasing,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t anyone take the piss out of teenagers any more?’
    ‘Everyone does,’ I said. ‘We’re the