When school resumes, every lesson starts with a lecture about how academically crucial this term is. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? It has to be a secret.” And listen: don’t tell anyone.” She grabs my sleeve. Just walk straight out and down the road. I started to speak but she beats me to it. When can I see you again? I want to ask, but I am afraid of the answer. “Have a lovely time in Italy,” she says, as I go out the door, after that first time. It is in the spring of 1992 that what starts as a casual flirtation between me and Miss P becomes rapidly more intimate – partnering her in the dance revue, the lift home in her car, the goodbye kiss, and finally, just before the end of term, the invitation to her flat, where one thing leads to another, and an afternoon on her sofa sees a lot more than kissing. Everything has changed again, but it feels good. That evening I put my clothes back on and, this time, when we hold each other by the front door, I am not sad or frustrated. I tell her about my uncle and that I want to go sailing with him when I’ve finished school, perhaps even across the Atlantic. That I haven’t spoken to Dad since Christmas. That she will be moving house in the summer so that I’ll be living with her for my final year. That my parents enrolled me in this school, or the “top public school” as Mum insists on telling everyone, 150 miles from my home. I tell her again about my parents’ separation and how that came so soon after my mother’s cancer treatment. That I’m excited about trying for an Oxford scholarship next year, but crapping myself about the entrance exams. So, I tell her mainly about my dreams and ambitions to be a singer or an actor and that, when I was younger, I wanted to be a ballet dancer or racing driver. Really, I haven’t started living it properly yet, and she’s 35 after all. At 17, I don’t have anything like as much to say about my life. I tell her quite a few things as well, but I can’t compete. By the third morning, I know all about her family where she went to school and what she did at university that she had a serious, long-term relationship when she was in her 20s, but it ended badly how she fell in love with Spain and would love to show me Barcelona. We do exactly the same the next day and night and I’m in heaven. We listen to music, talk about books, eat and drink and fuck, then, as the sky darkens, we return to the bedroom. Miss P doesn’t open the big shutters, which I find exciting, like we’re fugitives. When at last we venture out of the bedroom, it’s already after midday. I tell her how I felt being so far away and that I was aching to get back, even though I didn’t know what would be waiting for me. But then she says that in one of my postcards I wrote about going to a party with some Italian teenagers and she didn’t like that, and then she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She tells me she wrote to me not long after I went to Italy for the Easter break to tell me to forget about her and that nothing could happen between us. Probably a good thing, because anything more energetic and it would be all over very quickly, for me. “You’re completely naked and your skin’s all olivey and milky.” I say the first thing, anything, that comes into my head. I don’t care that I’m looking her up and down, I’m probably salivating like a cartoon dog, but I can’t believe she’s all naked in front of me. You’re … ” I want to say something nice in return. “It’s the sun, I expect, and my sister dyed it … it really doesn’t matter. Perhaps sensing my self-consciousness, she speaks, and her voice is warm and sexy. I want to make excuses for looking ridiculous with swimming trunk tan lines, and not being built like the first XV boys. Then, without hesitation or any look or pause, she takes me to her bedroom and undresses me. I forget trying to find words to say and let myself soar. Once or twice she holds my head and looks at me intently, then kisses me again. We stand in the hallway for ages, just snogging. She grabs my hand and pulls me in, kicking the door shut behind me, and before I can say a word or take off my jacket, she’s kissing me. My Spanish teacher, Miss P – Ali – is standing in the doorway, looking flustered. ‘Just going out to see Nick, friend from school, might stay over, bye!” Ned and Celia, the family friends I’m staying with, barely look up from their enormous dining table.
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