like her would have survived in my school. It was Catholic, but about as religious as a packet of prawn cocktail crisps. The girls rolled their skirts around their waists so many times to show off their legs that sometimes you could see their knickers. The lads would stand around in large packs, hardly speaking, wide stances in Kickers boots and hands stuffed into the pockets of Berghaus or Helly Hansen jackets, too expensive for most families to buy their sons, but they found a way anyway. It was either that or the bullying would kick off. The girls approached us way more often than we approached girls, the gender split across the school yard as bold as a lightning strike. Christ, it must have been hell on earth for the misfits.
I was lucky, I had good mates.
Then, when we got a bit older, I had Helen.
When you coupled off, and it was serious, it was a thing to stand off behind the science block, arm in arm. The daring ones would cop off, and yeah, Helen was daring. We’d kiss for the length of a lunch break, my balls aching to explode, the afternoon a fucking bastard to get through.
I was clever though. Not bragging, like. My reports and exam results can prove that.
But, hey, I wonder where I’d be now if I’d had the chance to go to Hogwarts.
25
Zara
‘Wow, I just talked a lot,’ I say to Jim, after a beat.
He blows his lips out. ‘Sounds like you were better off out of there.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Why?’
‘It was one of the world’s top boarding schools. Still is. That stigma stays with you. I’m not blaming my lack of career on something that happened when I was fourteen, but—’
‘You are.’
‘I guess.’
A sign for Heathrow airport indicates we’re getting close, although traffic is building up, moving, crawling, then moving a touch faster again.
‘Shall we play a game?’ I suggest. ‘To pass the time?’
Jim nods.
‘A–Z of a TV show?’
‘Which one?’
‘Friends?’
‘What is this? 1999?’
I scoff, a little shocked by how retro Friends has become. ‘Breaking Bad?’
‘Good choice. Me first. A – Albuquerque.’
‘B – Bryan Cranston.’
When we reach the letter ‘Q’ in our third round of the game, the latest topic being classical literature (Jim’s choice), the minibus crawls into gridlock.
‘It’s as if everyone has just accepted this is the way it has to be,’ I complain.
Jim switches the engine off, folds his arms across his chest.
‘Honk your horn, Jim.’
‘What good’ll that do?’
‘Nobody’s honking.’
‘It might come as a shock, love, but that won’t budge the traffic.’
I check the clock on the dashboard again. Thirty minutes ago, I was expecting to arrive at Heathrow precisely two hours before my flight is scheduled to take off. Now, I’m cutting it fine and moving nowhere fast.
Jim closes his eyes, resting up.
‘Jim?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I’m going to miss my flight.’
‘It’ll move soon, girl.’
‘This is so frustrating.’
‘I don’t know what your problem is. Can’t you just read a book?’
‘A book?’
‘Yeah, if I wasn’t a slave to this wheel, I’d just sit back and read.’
‘Oh, sure. And where do I get a book from?’
‘You mean you haven’t got a single book in all that stuff back there? In your life’s belongings?’
‘No, books are too heavy.’
‘Not even one paperback?’
‘No, Jim. Not even one paperback.’
‘You’d find that time passes by quite beautifully with a paperback.’
‘Beautifully? Seriously?’
‘In fact, here you go.’ Jim reaches down into the shelf in his door. ‘Read this. It’s the book Mary gave me. It’s more the sort me ma prefers, but hey, a book’s a book.’
I accept the book, some sort of thriller with the silhouette of a child dragging a teddy bear up a hill.
‘You brought this with you even though you knew you were driving?’
‘I always have a book with me. Always.’
‘You didn’t have one with you before we got to Mary’s.’
‘I did. I had the Gene Wilder autobiogr … FUCK.’
‘What?’
‘I left it in the fucking BMW.’ Jim slams his palms against the steering wheel.
‘Guess you’ll be needing this back, then?’
And Jim snatches back my offering, smoothing the crease in the cover, and returns it to the little shelf inside his door. As angry as he is, I have to admit that his temper is quite cute, how he cares so much for something as trivial as a book. I imagine drawing a little monkey with a red face, holding a bunch of books close to his chest, perhaps with a scholar’s hat and spectacles. Or, perhaps not a monkey. A frog. Yes, a little green frog, all protective