eighteen 

Most girls seem to share strange and intimate friendships that never occur been men. Men form packs, teams, gangs. Girls pair up like infatuated lovers, showing a vicious (almost sexual) jealousy should a relationship with a best friend ever be threatened. They consummate their friendships by a sharing of hair tongs and bracelets, sentiments and secrets, the gifts girls would like from boys but never get.

The girls even carry little pictures of each other taken together in photo booths, like the snapshot a soldier keeps of his sweetheart or the crumpled print in a businessman's wallet of a wife who doesn't understand him and two beautiful children he never sees.

Girls like to discuss pictures of boys, the decapitated heads of singers cut from magazines, or holiday snapshots of older youths, all bulging shoulders and swimming trunks. A smile captured on film, a smile to hold in the hand and file away in the heart for a week-long love affair of fitful dreams full of the bitter-sweet sleep-disturbing churnings of simmering sexuality. Such carefully trimmed images, such clumsy desires, could only be admitted to a best friend, one who's trust is beyond question, who's reassurance is guaranteed.

Sitting on the steps of the war memorial I watched and listened fascinated at one such intimate exchange of photos. I spectated the exchange as one might spectate the tribal ritual of some time-forgotten race, or the mating display of some bizarre island insect, some quirk of evolution so divorced from my comprehension it might just as well have been from a different planet. The girls in question were named Linsy and Mandy. They were so alike they only really merit a single description - baggy Harrington jackets over garish T-shirts (bulging with average breasts), pedal pushers, white socks and mousy hair flicked back and dyed pink at the sides, with gold-studded ear lobes and too much lipstick.

"Who's that?" asked Mandy.

"Who?" said Linsy shyly.

"Him in the photo."

"Just someone."

"Let's have a look."

The photo was reluctantly handed over.

"What's his name?"

"Sean. He's in my brother's football team. He scores all the goals."

"His ears are a bit funny."

"No they're not."

"Look at that one. It sticks out more than the other."

"Oh."

"He's like that one off Star Trek"

"Who?"

"Spock!"

"He isn't."

"He is."

"Sooo?...He's just a friend."

"What do you want to be friend's with him for?"

"He's really nice to talk to."

"Yea?"

The photo was returned casually to the purse (to be disposed of later, gouged apart ear-by-ear). And their attention turned, with the aim of swift reconciliation, to a copy of Smash Hits, glossy pages packed with pop stars who's looks were beyond debate, each newly revealed image punctuated by little shrieks and squeals of, 'Oh my God, he's soooo good looking,' and, 'He's totally gorgeous!'

"He looks a bit like Gary," said Linsy, pointing to a smirking drummer.

"A bit," replied Mandy.

"He's really nice."

"Who him?"

"No, Gary."

"He's all right..."

"You know Michael Dawkins?"

"Dawky?"

"Yea. He told Debbie that Gary fancies you."

"Really?"

"Yea, she gets on the bus at the same place as him at the end of Wilmington Road, and he said Gary's got this big heart on the inside of his rough book with GF 4 MW."

"Urrgghh, God."

"Don't you like him then?"

"No way. He's worse than Doctor Spock."

"I think he's quite nice."

"He's too young."

Mandy started to talk about men she'd met at a three floor disco her mum had taken her to. How she'd put on tons of make up and high heels, and the doormen hadn't even asked her age. How her mum'd got pissed and got off with some bloke, adding darkly 'but don't tell me dad he'd fucking kill her.' Apparently this bloke was quite nice but too old, Mandy concluded. Her ideal partner should be 'quite old' (which by Mandy's juvenile definition meant somewhere between eighteen and twenty-one).

"You know Tracy Morgan?" said Linsy.

"Yea."

"She's going out with this really old guy."

"Really? Tracy Morgan?"

"Yea. He's twenty four."

"No!"

"He's got a car and everything."

"Doesn't her mum mind?"

"Her mum don't know. She goes round to his flat, see."

"Where's that then?"

"I think it's above that shop with all the pipes in. He works in the record shop next door."

"Which one's that."

"You know, the one with all the poster's in."

"Reckless," I said interrupting their conversation.

"You what?" said Mandy nastily.

"Reckless - that's what the record shop's called."

"Soooo?"

"What's his name then?" I asked, "this bloke Tracy's going out with."

"What's it got to do with you?" said Linsy snootily.

"I was just interested that's all," I said. "I know most of the people who work there. Is he the really tall one with the rings and the shaved bits at the side of his head."

"Mind your own fucking beeswax," said Linsy.

"Yea don't be so bloody nosy, acne carriage," snarled Mandy.

"Piss off," I said.

"Piss off yourself pus face," said Mandy.

They thought that was hilarious, and linked arms, shaking with mirth like hysterical Siamese twins.

I retired hurt, wandered down the steps of the memorial and kicked a stump of wood about for a bit, stealing a glance in a puddle to see how bad my spots were. I didn't look too bad in the puddle, my face rippled by leaf drips falling from the oak's overhanging branches, like a face on some semi-psychedelic sixties album cover. I wondered how easy it would be to take a photo of my reflection in a puddle. Would I need some special kind of lens or filter? Or could you just take it with a cheap instamatic?

As I stood there still gazing into the puddle, my photographic speculation was abruptly ended by a finger prodding my ribs (the suddenness of which made me shudder all over like I'd had an electric shock). I looked up and was pleased to discover that the finger belonged to Teresa, or Terri as she preferred to be called.

"Christ, you made me jump," I said.

Terri was another of the girls who used to hang round the memorial on a Saturday afternoon. In fact she sat there on the steps so often it was like she was part of it.

On holiday once I saw a mime artist who'd painted his entire body (hair and everything) slate grey. It was in a little town in Devon. The town had no beach just a harbour, but it was quite attractive with fudge shops and cafes with canopies and a large rather gothic fountain.

The mime artist (who I guess was a student at the local art college) stood on the edge of the fountain, frozen in position (quite literally probably as there was a brisk sea breeze that afternoon as I recall and the harbour was very open). He would wait until someone stopped nearby and would shift position slightly, slowly moving an arm or sitting down or standing up when no-one was looking.

After a while, someone would notice the change and just as they were about to say 'hey wasn't that statue on the other side of the fountain a minute ago...?' he'd pounce out at them and they'd run off down the street. That mime artist always reminded me of Terri, the way she always sat so quiet and still on those steps.

Terri didn't get on with the other girls particularly well. It was pretty obvious that she found their trite chitter-chatter rather tedious, and much preferred the more down to earth company of boys. However, she did sometimes sit and talk to Mandy and Linsy (out of a kind of politeness, I guess). Although Terri looked and often acted totally wild, beneath it all she was, in many ways, unusually well mannered.

Terri was very skinny, and invariably wore huge, brightly coloured and loosely knitted jumpers which hung on her (rather aptly) like camouflage netting. Her narrow frame was further swamped by a huge army surplus jacket and huge boots, unlaced like a little girl 'trying on daddy's shoes'. She wore narrow black jeans that would have been incredibly tight on anyone else but actually hung free from her stick like legs. Thinking back she was so thin she must have been anorexic or bulimic or something. But she seemed so confident and boisterous all the time I never would have considered it possible that she could suffer from anything like an eating disorder.

I did see Terri naked once (well bra and knicker naked anyway). However that was a couple of years later and doesn't have a whole lot to do with what I'm telling you now, except to emphasise that unclothed she did look extremely frail and brittle. As it happened, her appearance was rather deceptive, as she was in fact surprisingly strong and tender to touch (but, like I say, that's another story).

Had she not been so gaunt, Terri would have been extremely beautiful. But the angles of her face, accentuated by a lack of flesh, made her look rather masculine (perhaps deliberately so). Her hair was quite short, dyed black and spiky. She was trying to look like Siouxsie of Siouxsie and the Banshees. But her hair looked to me more like that of some wild animal that had recently lost a fight, or a much-used badger bristle shaving brush.

Terri was much trendier than me, but by some strange chemistry we always seemed to get on really well together. And I was really pleased to see her, as she'd been away for a while at a clinic for glue sniffers and drug addicts. I guess that makes her sound like some kind of junkie. But, as it happens, she didn't really sniff that much glue at all, and had ended up in the clinic kind of by accident.

What happened was, she'd stolen her foster mother's Access card and brought her loads of presents from a mail order catalogue with it (nothing for herself, just jumpers and jewellery for her mum - she was strange like that). Anyway, puzzled by this seemingly bizarre behaviour, the Social Services sent her to see a psychiatrist. And during their discussion Terri (rather sillily) let slip that she sometimes sniffed glue (which everyone used to do). And before she knew it, she was doing a four week stretch in the rehabilitation clinic.

In any other social circle attending such a clinic would not have been viewed as something to boast about. But to the rebellious fraternity who met on the war memorial steps, it was akin to having attended a Royal Garden Party, and merely added to Terri's anarchistic eminence.

In fact (without being too biased) I think I can safely say Terri was our Queen. She was always into the latest fashions before anybody else was. She was even homeless before anyone else was, sleeping rough when it was still unusual to trip over comatose fourteen-year-olds in shop doorways (not like it is now when the streets are plagued with runaway kids; the well-to-do no doubt blaming the mild winters for their ever increasing numbers).

There are a million stories I could relate regarding Terri's various antics. But (for now) I shall confine myself to telling you about that Saturday she did our hair.

As I've indicated, at the time I was very self conscious about my skin. I guess my spots were no worse than many other boys my age but with my rather large features and gawky build they seemed to me the final touch that turned awkwardness into ugliness. When Mandy and Linsy called me pus face and acne carriage I could never tell whether they were being needlessly cruel or just bluntly honest. However, I knew I could rely on Terri to tell me truthfully how bad I looked.

"Terri," I said. "You know I've got a few spots."

"Yea, I had noticed."

"Well are they worse than everyone else's?"

"Spots are spots aren't they?"

"Yea, I know. But are mine like really bad?" I asked.

"No, not really bad," said Terri. "Not really really bad."

"So, I look OK then?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"It's that crap haircut," said Terri.

"Mum does it," I muttered apologetically.

"I never would have guessed," she said.

I craned my neck to sneak another quick look in that puddle.

"You never said anything about my hair before," I said.

"You never asked," said Terri.

"Oh," I said.

"I could do it for you if you liked," she offered.

Now, at this point if I'd had any sense I would have had a good look at Terri's own savage and unkempt coiffure and politely turned her down. But such was my desire to make myself look more attractive I accepted her offer. I realised afterwards, as I peered disconsolately into the bathroom mirror, that the reason Terri looked OK with ridiculous hair was that she was a very beautiful person to start with. It didn't occur to me at the time (obvious as it seemed afterwards) that having ridiculous hair would not magically make me as handsome as Terri was beautiful, but would in fact only make me look more awkward than ever. Still, you live and learn.