Do You Remember the First Time?

brother.
    I was musing, sniffily, alternating between remembered pleasure at Justin’s young limbs and fresh sweet smell, and the absolute conviction that I’d done him no psychological damage whatsoever. Then I thought of Clelland, and what it must have been like to see the girl he used to kiss kissing someone else. Well, he should have thought of that before, I thought, mutinously. Pre Aberdeen might have been a good time.
    I wasn’t paying attention to anything around me. My mum had gone away to see her sister, and I seemed to manage to avoid running into my dad at all. Maybe this should have set alarm bells ringing.
    ‘You know, marriage isn’t easy,’ he said meditatively, doling out crispy pancakes on Saturday morning.
    Talk to someone who doesn’t know, I thought.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s a struggle.’
    I eyed him beadily. ‘One you’re definitely winning,’ I said firmly.
    He grunted.
    My little phone rang to the chimes of ‘Colourblind’. Perhaps I should change that. I picked it up warily and headed upstairs with it. It was Tash.
    ‘Don’t fall out with me,’ I said immediately. ‘If I loseanyone else who recognises me, I’m going to cease to exist altogether.’
    ‘What?’ said Tash. ‘Why would I fall out with you?’
    ‘Because I’m forcing you into marital slavery.’
    ‘Actually, I’m sorry.’
    Her voice was muted.
    ‘You’ve called off the wedding,’ I said, excited. ‘It’s OK. I understand. You’re right, in fact. It’s good. I’ve been farting about for far too long, this way and that way, coming back or staying here. But I should stay here. I’ve got an application to art college to finish. Fortunately, as I’ve worked on interview panels for five years, mine’s absolutely perfect.’ ‘Hang on. I haven’t cancelled the wedding,’ she said quietly.
    ‘Oh. I mean, Max is a lovely man.’
    ‘Shut up. I have, however, bumped up the wedding insurance.’
    ‘That’s probably wise.’
    ‘Anyway. It wasn’t that.’
    ‘What wasn’t what?’
    Tash let out a sigh. ‘Actually, be glad. I’m very glad you weren’t there.’
    ‘Weren’t where?’
    ‘Look, Flora, there’s no way I could introduce you, and it would have been so awkward, and you would have cramped people’s style and …’
    I almost laughed when the penny dropped and I realised what she was talking about.
    ‘You didn’t invite me to the hen night?’
    ‘No,’ she said ashamedly. ‘I’m really and truly sorry.’
    I did laugh. At last I felt distracted from my miserable problems.
    ‘Who gives a flying fuck about the hen night?’
    She sighed dramatically.
    ‘OK, I’ll pretend to,’ I said. ‘Were there L-plates?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And cheap polythene veils?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘A socially unbalanced mix of people from completely different areas of work and home and family who had to sit next to each other all evening despite having nothing in common except for knowing you, the bridge, and therefore responsible for making sure everyone had a good time, even with Heather organising it and your mum there chain smoking and watching everything you ate and drank?’
    ‘Do you know, I thought it was surprising you didn’t bug me more about this before,’ said Tash. ‘You knew when it was.’
    With the untimely disappearance of me, Tashy had been reduced to asking her bitter big sister, Heather, to do the honours. Badly.
    ‘I too have slightly other things on my mind,’ I said disconsolately.
    ‘Like what?’
    I leaned over. ‘I snogged Justin.’
    ‘Justin who?’ It took a moment for her to get it. ‘NO! That’s disgusting! He’s a baby! I don’t BELIEVE you! How could you not tell me all this time?’
    ‘How could you not invite me to a big celebration of all the closest females in your life? Anyway, I thought you might disapprove and think it was disgusting.’
    ‘Uh- huh .’
    ‘I’m a sixteen-year-old girl, I have sixteen-year-old hormones,do you hear what I’m saying here, people? Cut me some slack.’
    ‘What was it like?’ she asked suddenly in a low voice.
    ‘Fabulous,’ I said. ‘We snogged. He smelled unbelievably good. And you wouldn’t believe how manly his body felt. Well, boy/manly. In a good way.’
    ‘Was it like kissing—’
    ‘I’m not even considering answering that question.’
    ‘I’m coming straight over,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you the rest of the hen night.’
    She came straight over. My dad let her in when she told him it