I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey (16 page)

‘All right. I'm coming to see you after school today.' The bus crested the hill and sped towards us. When it arrived she got on, but I told her that I had to wait for a different bus, which was a lie but I didn't want to screw it all up by continuing my weird and awkward conversation. She'd said she might come round to see me! That was enough of a result for me to actually float to school. Plus, considering the state I was in and the nonsense I was talking, another ten minutes in her company might have seen the potential for a date in the future be replaced with the potential for a restraining order.

All day at school I just wasn't myself. I had all of these strange new feelings. How do you know if you're in love? You can't concentrate. Your palms are sweaty. Butterflies in the stomach. You can't eat. Is that love? Or is that malaria? Well, whatever it was, I had it bad.

After school, I ran to the shop and for the next four hours my face was glued to the front door, but she didn't arrive. I was totally gutted. She didn't come in the next day either and by the end of the week the fantasies I'd had of our amazing first date, subsequent marriage and children were shattered. Other fantasies involving her persisted for a bit longer but I felt sure that we would never meet again.

I'd almost forgotten about her by the following week and was working as normal when the door rang and she entered. I don't want to sound bitter about it but there is a difference between the way that boys and girls flirt and date. When a guy says he'll come around and see you after school he either does what he says or he doesn't and you never see him again. Girls are different. They get you all worked up and excited to see them. Then they don't turn up and it's only after the whole thing has blown over and you're getting back to normal –
then
they turn up and throw you for six again. She sauntered up to the cashier's desk.

‘Remember me?' she said suggestively.

‘Of course I remember you. I didn't think you were going to come.'

‘Sorry. I was busy for the last few days.' Yeah, right, of course you were. Vixen who had my heartstrings twirled around your little finger. ‘So what colour laces do you think I should go for?'

I looked at the laces display and just said the first colour I saw. ‘How about green?' Green. The colour of bogeys and mould.

‘Do you think I'd look good in green?' She looked unsure and I corrected myself.

‘How about a nice pair of red laces? I'll even do them up for you.' It worked. The next thing you know I was in very close proximity to this lovely sexy girl, lacing up her shoes. Before I knew it, the conversation unfroze and we were chatting away very happily on those teeny-tiny stools that shoe shops and children's libraries seem to have the monopoly on.

She said her name was Viola Kovach. We chatted about the snooty English girls she had to go to school with and how she missed her friends back home. Talking to her, I suddenly felt very proud and grown up. I played the worldly wise man to this girl and quietly forgot that I still had a curfew at home and shared a bedroom with my younger brother Chris. I went for broke.

‘So. Would you like to go out with me sometime? I could show you around the area.'

‘That would be great.' She paused a moment. ‘How about this weekend? Saturday after you finish working here?'

‘Yes, great. I get off at five. Come around here and we'll do something fun.'

‘It's a date!' The magic words at last. She offered to pay for the laces but I said they were on me and she was out the door.

I couldn't believe how easy that had been! A date for Amos! By Saturday I was psyched beyond belief. She turned up on cue at five o'clock and it was on. I changed out of my work clothes and together Viola and I stepped out onto Tooting High Street. Now I have to point out that I was only eighteen and not a very worldly eighteen-year-old at that. Not knowing any better I decided to take her out to McDonald's. A pathetic date nowadays but back in the late eighties people still thought of McDonald's as a treat. Who am I kidding? It was a rubbish choice. But there were slim pickings to choose from in those days in Tooting. It probably should have badly backfired but it just so happened that there was still no McDonald's in Hungary at the time and so Viola was actually a little bit impressed.

‘A quarter pounder with cheese meal for the lady and for me. Hmm. Chicken nuggets. Six or nine nuggets?' I was completely broke but tried to style it out. ‘You know, I had a really big lunch. Maybe – can I get just get three nuggets?'

Viola laughed. ‘Hey! I'm from communist Hungary, remember. Back home the guy doesn't always have to buy the girl dinner. I've got this one.' And she produced a tenner. After we'd munched our way through the food, she suggested that we go and have a drink. Again, I had to plead no money and so we bought a few beers and went to sit in the park together. We got a bit tipsy and, as it began to rain, she huddled up with me under my big jacket. Just as I was about to suggest that we head home, she kissed me right there in the middle of the park.

There's something about a first kiss that is even more memorable and amazing than the first time you have sex. I think it's because before you full-on lose your virginity you do a bunch of other things that aren't quite sex but that feel pretty close. But your first kiss is the first time you have any sexual contact with anyone and it is completely mind-blowing. I remember meeting Viola in that park pretty much every day for the rest of the week and all we did was kiss. That was sort of a relief because when you're an eighteen-year-old conversations run a bit like this:

‘God, I hate school so much. It's such a drag,' I'd say.

‘Yeah, me too. I'm totally going to fail all of my A levels,' Viola would reply.

‘You know I haven't even picked up a book yet,' I'd say.

‘I don't even own any of the books,' Viola would reply.

‘Tell me about it. I don't even know
how
to read . . . Erm, wait a minute.' When I'd say something really stupid Viola would just pretend I hadn't and kiss me. It was probably the most hassle-free relationship I've ever had.

By the beginning of the spring term at school, we were hopelessly, disgustingly, in love with each other. We'd go to the cinema together and sit at the back giggling and being shushed by everyone. We'd hold hands and moon at each other. OK, it was pretty sickening, but when you're young and in love for the first time you don't have much of a frame of reference for how to behave. She said she wanted to meet my family and that she wanted me to meet hers. Obviously, it was totally out of the question for her to come to my place, but I was happy to go around and see hers.

Before I knew it, I was going around to her house for dinner often and I was on first-name terms with her mum and dad. Viola was an only child and so dinnertime at their house was a lot less hectic than at mine where you had to get in there quick or be left with an empty plate. Everyone took their time and they had conversations at the table while drinking wine and beer. Her parents were really permissive and they would make a lot of public displays of affection to one another. Actually her mum was a bit creepy when she met me at the door. She would kiss me on the cheek and give me a hug, which would linger for a bit too long. But I wasn't complaining and just figured that Europeans were flirtier than Brits. One night they even offered to let me stay round at their house over the weekend. I couldn't really believe what I was hearing. ‘Where would I stay?'

‘With Viola, of course.' Now this was so completely exciting that I almost spat out my soup.

I probably said, ‘That would be GREAT!' a little bit too eagerly.

The next day I visited Albert to get some advice. He'd moved out of the family home, was staying in university halls in central London and had always been a rock of stability in the maelstrom of our family. Ever since those days back in Nigeria, Albert was the kind of guy who had never had any problem getting girls even though he was a student of chemistry. How could a guy who wore protector specs and a lab coat all day be such a magnet for the ladies? I didn't understand it. I asked him straight out: ‘Albert. I've got a serious date. What do I do?'

‘How serious, Stephen?'

‘She's asked me to stay round at her place for the night! What do I tell Mum and Dad?' He punched me on the arm and gave me a huge hug of congratulations. He said that I could tell them I was staying with him over the weekend and I was virtually floored by the next thing he offered. He told me that I could borrow his car so that I could take her out for a drive on Saturday. I'd passed my driving test about a week after my seventeenth birthday, but in spite of my regular pleadings my dad had never ever let me use his clapped-out old Citroen. Albert even gave me sixty quid to spend!

When the weekend came around, I picked up Albert's car and virtually flew to Viola's house. I was drooling all night long and I can tell you that it wasn't the dodgy Hungarian goulash that they served for dinner. Viola's parents were being especially touchy-feely with each other that night and so when dinner was over we were pleased to be excused from the table and I went with their daughter up to her room.

We played music for a bit and started to play around. I can tell you I had never been so horny in my young life as I was that night. Just when things were getting very hot, we started to hear a weird sound. A kind of rhythmic beating sound, which at first I attributed to the music. Then we started to hear sounds that were definitely not on the Prince album I'd brought over that night (this was the
Purple Rain
period, before he turned into Satan's tiny sex doll with the New Power Generation). After a few minutes, it sounded like there was a full-on brass band playing next door. There's something about the thought of your girlfriend's parents screwing like Swedish pigs next door that can take the meat out of your bacon. Sadly, nothing happened that night.

It was a pretty uncomfortable breakfast with her mum and dad gliding around the kitchen like they'd been up all night experimenting with the
Kama Sutra
extended edition. It was a horrible feeling knowing that your mojo had been stolen by a couple of wrinkly oldies and so I was thankful when the object of my affection suggested that we go out for a drive. I jumped at the chance and the minute we were in the car together the atmosphere relaxed. I pushed play on the tape deck and Gary fucking Numan came on. A huge star in the late seventies, Gary Numan had had three number ones including the hit song ‘Cars' and he'd introduced electronic synthesizers into the pop mainstream. He was Albert's favourite singer (how
did
he get so many girlfriends?) and the speakers pumped out: ‘Here in my car, I feel safest of all. I can lock all my doors. It's the only way to live. In cars.' Lyrically, it's somewhere between what a special child and a hobo might say, if they were talking under water. Viola saved the day by producing a Stevie Wonder cassette and we sat back and relaxed to the beats of Stevie. Things were really beginning to look up.

We drove all the way to Hastings and stopped at a nice pub-hotel. Viola called home and told her parents that we were going to stay the night and asked me if I wanted to call mine. She was very impressed when I told her no, I didn't need to check in with Mum and Dad, I was my own man after all (quietly thanking Albert for covering for me). I had forty quid saved from work and with Albert's sixty it was a hundred pounds well spent as we ate together and went to bed together. It was, of course, fantastically short-lived, but as teenagers we had another go and in the end spent most of the night at it.

The next morning we got up very late and had a lovely pub lunch. It was gloriously relaxed and I had a couple of beers but Viola, who was on cloud nine, must have drunk most of a bottle of wine. We decided to head home and got back in the car. Stevie Wonder was blaring out of the speakers with the windows down, as we headed back up the motorway, stealing glances and letting our hands play over each other's whenever I changed gear. After about half an hour, Viola began to look uncomfortable in her seat. I closed the window and asked her if she was cold. She said she was fine, but soon began shuffling around. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she'd maybe had too much to drink and she was desperate for the loo.

We've all been there and so I did the honourable thing. I said that I'd try to pull over so that she could take a wee. She was embarrassed, but obviously extremely relieved when I pulled off onto a slip road. She gratefully got out of the car, thanking me profusely and made her way over to the verge. The grass verge had a sheer drop behind her and was very breezy, so I offered to shield her from the wind and the passing traffic, but she said no and that she was quite all right to go it alone.

It was quite precarious because she had to balance her body in a crouched position with her whole centre of gravity concentrated in one place. I too know that feeling because years later I travelled to India, a country which invented that devil's contraption called a squat toilet. I was using one of these squat toilets on a bumpy train and let me tell you I almost fell into the hole. But at the time I knew nothing of these things.

She asked me not to look, but it was hard not to as she squatted at the top of the verge. I will never forget the look of pure bliss on her face as she began to wee. Because it was the last thing I saw before her legs went flying up from underneath her as she tumbled backwards down the grass verge. Although I was madly in love with Viola it was still the funniest sight I had ever seen. She looked like a urinary Catherine wheel as she fell head under heels down what must have been an eight-foot embankment. I went running as fast as I could to the verge to make sure she was all right and there she was at the bottom in a heap. I couldn't keep the tears of laughter back as she slowly crawled up the bank. I helped her up the last few feet and she looked a right state. She had twigs and leaves in her hair like a wild bush woman and her face was smeared with mud.