‘Two teas, please, Smiler,’ Nupi said to me on the very first day, and the nickname stuck.
I have to be honest here; a lot of the time I was smiling about something else that was going on in my life, rather than at the joy of frying bacon and making tea. I had a boyfriend, who I kept secret from just about everyone. I have never spoken about him before, but he was actually my first proper boyfriend, and he affected my teens in a massive way.
Dave lived locally and I’d seen him around the estate for years before we started dating. I bumped into him in the street one day on the way home and I swear that something literally went ‘boom’ between us. I hadn’t seen him for a while and I had never fancied him before, but I fell for him in a big way, right there and then. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life before. He was absolutely gorgeous looking, and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he fancied me too.
‘Are you going to let me take you out for dinner?’ he asked after we’d done a bit of flirty catching up.
The question took me completely by surprise. I’d never been taken out to dinner before. I knew Dave was quite a bit older than me and I felt very flattered. I’d kissed a couple of other boys since my very first kiss with John Courtney, and I’d been out with one or two other boys for a week or so here and there, but nothing serious.
I’m sure I blushed, and I excitedly agreed to let Dave take me out.
‘How old are you?’ I asked on our first date.
‘24.’
I gulped.
‘Don’t worry,’ Dave smiled. ‘I will take good care of you.’
We were in a fancy restaurant and I felt incredibly grown up.
Dave really knew how to treat a girl, or so I thought. After that he took me out for lots of candlelit dinners and he regularly bought me flowers, CDs, teddy bears – you name it. I fell for him in a huge way, and I mean huge.
I didn’t tell a soul at first, because I was only 15 and still at school, and I knew my dad and Joe would go absolutely mad about Dave’s age. It was easy to meet in secret anyhow. Everyone was used to me going to Metroland on my own for hours on end, or to the local recording studios. It meant I didn’t have to lie or even sneak around when really I was going out with Dave.
‘Would you like to learn to drive?’ he said one night when he picked me up near school in his car.
‘I’m too young. How can I?’
‘I know where we can go. Hop in.’
He took me to an empty car park in town, and that’s where I had my first driving lessons. It was so exciting. I’d still be in my school uniform, but I felt like a proper grown-up woman, madly in love for the very first time. It was a really amazing feeling.
‘Go on, have a smoke,’ Gillian said one day, passing me a joint. She was 19 and had left home by now and moved into a flat of her own, but she was in the kitchen of our house at Langhorn Close, smoking weed, with my mam standing right beside her.
Mam knew Gillian smoked weed and just let her get on with it, saying: ‘You’re old enough to make your own decisions.’ But I was four years younger, and I would never have dreamed of smoking in front of my mam. I started shaking my head and looking at Gillian as if to say, ‘Are you mad?’
‘Go on,’ my sister said cheekily. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t smoke it, Cheryl. I know you do.’
I was mortified, but Mam just looked at me and said very calmly, ‘If you’re going to do it, Cheryl, I’d rather know, and I’d rather you did it here.’
Gillian passed me the joint and I had a smoke. I didn’t enjoy it and I was furious with Gillian, but at least we all knew where we stood. I think my mam’s open-minded reaction that day helped me confide in her about my relationship with Dave, not too long afterwards. I was relieved when she didn’t seem too bothered about his age and was only concerned that he was treating me well. ‘He’s amazing,’ I reassured her. ‘He can’t do enough for me. We’re so happy together.’
It wasn’t long before Dave and I became intimate, and I wanted to take precautions. I confided in my mam again and she listened patiently and agreed to take me to the GP for the Pill.
‘I’m not one of those girls who sleeps around,’ I told her. ‘I’d never have a one-night stand.’
‘I know that, Cheryl. I’m glad you’re being sensible.’
I was telling the absolute truth. I had always been ridiculously protective and respectful of myself, to the point where I’d been accused of being a prude many times.
‘We really love each other, Mam,’ I said. ‘He’s just the best.’
‘As long as you’re happy and safe, Cheryl, that’s what matters.’
Dave and I were together for about 12 months, and he became the centre of my world. I lived and breathed for him, to the point where even my singing and dancing took a back seat. I’d write lyrics in my bedroom and I always had music playing, always. I couldn’t imagine a world without music, and R&B and soul were my favourites. I still loved pop music, especially anything by Destiny’s Child, but I’d been drifting away from Metroland for months now, and I’d also stopped going down to London.
‘What are you doing about your singing?’ Joe asked when I left school in the summer of 1999 and turned 16 a few weeks later, at the end of June. ‘Don’t you give it up! You need to sort your life out.’
I’d tell him not to worry. ‘I’m working more days in the café and it’ll happen when the time is right.’
‘No, you need to make it happen,’ he’d argue.
‘I will … when the time is right.’
Working in the café did leave me less time for my singing and dancing, but the real reason I wasn’t pursuing my career was Dave.
Thankfully, nobody else questioned me like Joe did. I think other people in the family just assumed things had changed in my life because I’d left school. There was also plenty going on in the family to take the focus away from me. For one thing, we’d just found out that Gillian was pregnant. She had a really strong relationship with her partner and everyone was very excited that there was going to be a new baby in the family. Mam was very pleased. It’s always been the done thing where I grew up to have your kids young, and it wasn’t unusual to become a grandmother in your late thirties or early forties.
‘Eee, I can’t wait,’ Mam told everyone who would listen. ‘A new bairn in the family. What could be better?’
‘Will you be with me for the birth?’ Gillian asked me the minute her pregnancy was confirmed.
‘Of course I will!’ I replied, although I didn’t have a clue what I was letting myself in for.
We were both staring at the pregnancy test, and we worked out her baby was due in January 2000.
‘Oh my God, you might have the first Millennium baby!’ I shrieked, promising to hold Gillian’s hand every step of the way.
The other big distraction for the family was Andrew. He was in Durham Prison now, having been moved there as soon as he was old enough to leave the young offenders’ institution. Garry and I went with Mam for prison visits sometimes. I always found the trips upsetting, even though the routine was soon so familiar it quickly became commonplace.
‘I’ve brought all your favourites from the machine,’ Mam would say, passing Andrew some Pot Noodles, fruit jellies and hot chocolate drinks.
You had to put all your belongings in a locker before you went into the visitors’ room, but my mam would always make sure she had plenty of change in her purse for the vending machines once we got inside. Nobody talked about what Andrew