I was suddenly taken aback. Such thoughts? Where were they coming from? What the hell did I care what I looked like? What was happening? This was new territory. I was bothering about my looks for the first time in years. I had long since come to terms with the mirror in my bedroom. I was still searching for an answer when I realised the queue had cleared and we were at the counter.
The handsome man spoke. ‘Next, please,’ he said to my mother, who handed him her pension book. He was looking at me. The old and familiar crimson flush reached from my breastbone to my forehead.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ I stuttered, turning away quickly.
A rack of newspapers to my right had become utterly fascinating. I stole a glance at him and he was still looking, his smile full of the knowledge of the effect that he was having. I was discomfited. I had never had a boyfriend and I had given up the notion that I ever would. But there was just something about this man that touched me in a way I had not experienced – something in the way he looked at me. I knew instinctively that he was ‘interested’. He was good looking. Why would he be attracted to me? I must be misreading the signs, I thought.
I tried to shrug off the feeling that secret signals were passing between us. But when I looked at him again, I could still feel the tension. I wasn’t mistaken. If I had been required to speak at that moment, I don’t think I could have. I would have babbled like an idiot. I was torn between emotions. One half of me wanted to tell my mother to hurry up and get out of here; the other wanted this moment to last. The spell was broken by the thump of his stamp validating her pension book. She was, as usual, chattering away as if she had known him all of her life.
‘You’re new, son, aren’t you? What’s your name?’
‘Ash,’ he said, to me as much as to her.
‘Ashley,’ she replied.
‘Close enough,’ he said, laughing.
‘See you next week, son,’ Ma said, gathering up the cash and pushing it into her purse.
‘See you,’ he said. He was talking to me.
I managed somehow to utter a strangulated ‘cheerio’ and fled. As we left the shop, Ma took my hand. My sense of regressing into a love-struck schoolgirl was complete.
‘Seems nice, that boy,’ said Ma, adding, ‘Ashley’s such a lovely name.’
There was a moment’s silence, no more than a heartbeat, and then she said, ‘You liked him, didn’t you?’
Nothing much gets by you, Ma, I thought. Is it possible to keep a secret from your mother? I went an even deeper shade of crimson. Was I really so transparent? I looked over my shoulder. Ash’s eyes were still on me. He smiled.
As innocent and naïve as I was in the rules of courtship and love, I knew that he had chosen me.
June: This wasn’t going to be any Mills & Boon romance.
‘I’m Rab!’ he said.
Pink Floyd was silent now, replaced by Tavares. ‘Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel’ flowed sweetly from the speakers.
‘I know who you are,’ I said.
‘Hate this disco shite,’ he bawled.
‘Me, too.’
I didn’t know why I had automatically agreed. I didn’t ‘hate this disco shite’, but he had spoken the words with such confidence that they defied disagreement. For some reason, which I had yet to fathom, I so wanted to please this young man. With his long hair, he might have looked like all of the others, but, unlike them, there was about him an alluring air of menace that set him apart from the crowd. I did not fear him – not yet – but I sensed that the anger in him simmered close to the surface.
Wilma had retreated to the wall opposite where Rab’s friends were congregated. She was scowling. She did not like Rab. That was clear. I shrugged in her direction and she stomped off towards the cloakroom. I didn’t need to tell her that I would be leaving with him. It had been a foregone conclusion from the moment he tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Let’s go,’ he ordered.
I obeyed. He strode off, giving a thumbs-up to his mates. They smirked, acknowledging the signal that Rab had ‘clicked’. I tottered behind him on my Saturday-night heels. The peremptory nature of this encounter might surprise some women, but where I came from there were no hearts and flowers, no softly spoken words of romance. You were chosen and you were taken. That was the way it was. No Mills & Boon novel has ever been set in Kilbirnie.
‘See you outside,’ he said, walking to the dance-hall door. I was left to retrieve my coat. Wilma was in the cloakroom, waiting for me.
‘What are you doing with him? You know he’s a pig.’
‘He’s lovely,’ I said.
‘He’s trouble!’
The truth was that everyone knew Rab was trouble, but Wilma realised that the more she protested, the more I would dig in my heels. In those days I rarely listened to anyone, an attitude that had got me into more than a few scrapes. I always knew best. I didn’t, of course, but such are the follies of youth. And anyway, I reasoned, what did I have to lose? London beckoned. The more bad things said about Rab, the more I was determined to have him, if only for a short time. He had a reputation for fighting, stretching back to his schooldays. He was fearless, a hard case who wore his aggression like a badge of honour. Scrapping was a rite of passage where we grew up and it had won him the ‘respect’ of his peers.
Wilma was of course right, but I couldn’t countenance that anyone could know better than I did. I was contrary. I hate to admit it now, but the fact that my best friend disliked him was precisely what made Rab even more attractive.
‘Everyone hates him. They think he’s a thug,’ Wilma said.
‘I don’t care what everyone thinks,’ I told her.
‘They’ve got good reason,’ she warned.
‘Well, I don’t care. I like him, and what does it matter anyway? I’m going to London.’
I terminated the conversation by turning on my heel and walking away. I would defy them all. I’d show them. In the years to come I would be haunted by that conversation – and by my recalcitrance. If only I had listened. But I didn’t. I left her that evening, determined to prove everyone wrong.
Rab was waiting for me on the pavement, his blond hair shining in the light of a street lamp. I walked into his arms.
‘Chips!’ he said. No Mills & Boon hero.
‘Okay,’ I replied, as if he had just suggested that we fly to Paris for the weekend.
‘I hate salt and vinegar on chips.’
Another unequivocal statement that brooked no argument. I liked salt and vinegar, but I said, ‘Me, too!’
Once again, I had fallen into step behind him. I couldn’t analyse why. I just had.
‘The car’s over there,’ he said.
I was impressed. I didn’t know any other teenager who had a car. Rab jumped into the driver’s seat of the Ford Cortina. I still remember the registration number – TAG 350J. The things you remember. It didn’t occur to him to open the passenger door for me, but it didn’t matter. I slid in beside him as the engine roared into life, breaking the stillness of the night.
My friends, who were either walking home from the dance or waiting for the late-night bus, turned in the direction of the noise. As we drove past them, I could see envy in their eyes. I knew then that this was what I had been missing, what I had longed for. I felt different, important … special. I stole a glance at Rab’s profile. He was looking straight ahead. His face was set,