Vapour Trail

On Saturday night I went to a friend's party, my first night out since I hurt my back. Exciting. I wore a black dress that I thought I'd lost but has in fact been crumpled up on the floor of my wardrobe for over a year, and yet didn't need ironing (result!), some red lipstick I once bought to match a pair of shoes I wore to a friend's wedding some time ago (she is now pregnant with their second kid) which I hadn't worn for so long that the tube had solidified, an African necklace bought for me by a German friend of my mother's, a pair of grey tights, and black boots with heels of a height and sturdiness pre-approved by my physiotherapist. For all this I looked pretty good. I was really nervous about the lipstick.

It was an excellent party. The people who I already knew were some of my favourite people, and the people who I met were funny and friendly and interesting. I drank too much wine, but slowly enough so that it didn't matter until the next day. I talked a lot. I danced a little bit - nothing the physio would have frowned upon.

Late in the evening, a couple were leaving and I was saying goodbye. I had spoken to her but not to him, but he was looking at me with some curiosity. Must be the lipstick.

"I think we've met before," he said.

I apologised. I have a terrible memory for faces, and I could have sworn I'd never met this man before. "But," I said to him, "if you think we've met, we almost certainly have. Please don't take it personally. What's your name?"

He looked slightly surprised - as it turned out, he's quite a famous actor, and is probably used to being recognised even by people who don't know him - and told me his name.

It was the father of a schoolfriend of mine who died in a car accident several years ago. I hadn't seen him since school. It was a blow so unexpected it left us both reeling, with tears in our eyes.

In some ways this chance encounter was a happy experience. I'm glad to be reminded to think about him. He was an incredible person. He was a year or two above me and I had an enormous crush on him, my first big crush on anyone. He was a teenage boy. He could have taken the opportunity to be vile to me, or to take advantage. In fact he was always unfailingly lovely to me. Even before we got to know each other the crush was an open secret, and he always had a smile for me, always said hello when we passed in the corridor. (I said nothing: I was too scared to speak.) He feigned not to notice his name on all my exercise books. When I wrote his name on the school driveway in huge letters with coloured chalk, he couldn't ignore it, or me scrubbing it off with a bucket of water as punishment. Now I can't remember what he said. I know that he smiled. He had a beautiful smile. (And a terrible haircut, in two flicks like a wildebeest. I have always gone for the bad haircuts.)

Later, we started going to gigs together as part of the same small crowd of indie kids. I was still too shy to speak to him. Instead I chatted to his little brother who I mainly remember for having glasses whose earloops went all the way around. I once sent them a joint Valentine's card which said:

I love you very very much
I'm really really serious.
The thought of having two at once
Has made me quite delirious.

I wrote it on the back of a postcard - their parents must have read it - and got a friend to send it from another part of the country so they couldn't track me down by the postmark. I don't know if they ever got it or if they knew it was from me.

In my last summer at that school when I was 16, we were cast in the same play, a farce based on Greek mythology (hmmm...) written by one of the teachers. He had the lead. I was cast as Cupid, but midway through rehearsals one of the other girls got ill and I was promoted to a new, bigger role, playing his mother. We performed it in the Greek theatre on the school grounds, and I was told you could hear my stage laugh from the top floor of the main building with the windows shut. We had lots of scenes together. Backstage we chatted, ran through our lines, styled our togas, smeared ourselves in dark brown make-up thick as boot polish. We were, really, friends. Then I left for a new school and I never saw him again. I didn't know then that I never would.

It's a long time ago. Mostly I remember the way that he walked and the way that he smiled (worth mentioning twice) and the way he used to call things "groovy" and the precise shade of pink lipstick that his girlfriend wore (of course he had a girlfriend). A fortnight ago I thought I saw him getting off the bus at Highbury Corner, and it took a moment for me to remember that it couldn't have been him. And then of course, at this party, I saw his dad.

Afterwards I was left feeling heartbroken all over again. But also incredibly grateful to be alive, and to have the people that I love in my life. We spend our time thinking we can control things, that if we try hard enough our lives will go exactly as we want them to. But we can't. We're just corks in the sea. And sometimes it's OK to let go and stop fighting the tide.

We both loved this song and went to this band's gig together. Seems appropriate.



Vapour Trail - Ride.