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Authors: Alex Matthews
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appeared to me that day in the playground.
Have I mentioned that the school was divided along gender lines – the boys taught at one end, the girls at the other, and ne’er the twain shall meet? A year or so down the line we’d all be thrown together like conflicting spirits in a heady cocktail. But till then we had our own Berlin Wall to prevent such a premature integration; a white line painted down the centre of the playground over which neither sex was to cross. And you’d think someone had set up a glass wall or an invisible force field of sorts, because even if a tennis ball strayed over the line the child would do no more than run up to the white line, stop dead and stare hopelessly as the ball trickled to a halt deep in enemy territory. There would be many a forlorn expression until it was picked up and tossed back, if you were lucky. There were regular patrols of teachers, stalking unseen, behind windows if the weather were inclement, their eyes probing like searchlights for those transgressors audacious enough to step over the boundary.
Max was rooted to the line when I came up to him. Watching. His concentration was intense, for he started visibly when I came up to his side and spoke to him.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
He lowered his brows, and his face was wreathed in that dark, resentful expression I came to know well. “Nothing,” he insisted laconically, turning back to stare at the girls playing. He seemed to be following one in particular, but I couldn’t make out which one, and indeed why he bothered to stare at all. Noisy, irritating, giggling girls, that’s all. He chewed at his bottom lip, glanced quickly at me and said, “Ever wondered what they’re like?”
I frowned. “Girls?”
He nodded. “Girls. Do you reckon they’re as soft as they look?”
I shrugged. It was a pointless question. I knew what they were like. I could see and hear what they were like. They were raucous, shrill, alien beings that had nothing in common with me or my kind and caused me often to wonder why we had to be protected from each other by a white line when neither gender was the slightest bit interested in the other. Unless we had to be protected, some sort of contamination in the offing, or it was to prevent unwanted pregnancies caused by passing spit when a boy and girl kissed – the thought repulsed me. So Max’s fascination was itself a curiosity.
“I’m gonna try one some day,” he said.
Try? I thought. I was innocent, even at that age. Most of us were. I struggled with the word.
He cast a prolonged mysterious eye over one girl who ran with pale gazelle-like legs across the playground. He followed her intently until she was lost amongst… Amongst the others in the herd, I thought.
“Her name’s Ruby,” he remarked, reaching out and pointing to the throbbing mass of bobbing pigtails and hair slides.
“Oh yeah?” I said, half-heartedly, deliberately not paying attention. I didn’t ask him how he knew.
I managed to drag him away, but he continued thereafter to scan the groups of girls on a daily basis, always searching out this girl called Ruby, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d assured himself she was there. It seemed a pointless exercise, like so much that Max undertook so gravely.
How the hell was I to know that Ruby would eventually become my wife? You just can’t predict that kind of thing, can you? Oh, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!
But back then, quite frankly, I was desperately jealous that his attention was elsewhere, for friends were getting progressively thin on the ground since Max’s arrival, and I didn’t relish the idea of his interest in me being diluted in any way, least of all by a scrawny pin-legged girl.
Trouble was, I was never one to make friends at school, though I did once have three that, although they weren’t close, had always been there for discussing whether England had a chance in the next World Cup; or whether Pele was indeed the greatest
Have I mentioned that the school was divided along gender lines – the boys taught at one end, the girls at the other, and ne’er the twain shall meet? A year or so down the line we’d all be thrown together like conflicting spirits in a heady cocktail. But till then we had our own Berlin Wall to prevent such a premature integration; a white line painted down the centre of the playground over which neither sex was to cross. And you’d think someone had set up a glass wall or an invisible force field of sorts, because even if a tennis ball strayed over the line the child would do no more than run up to the white line, stop dead and stare hopelessly as the ball trickled to a halt deep in enemy territory. There would be many a forlorn expression until it was picked up and tossed back, if you were lucky. There were regular patrols of teachers, stalking unseen, behind windows if the weather were inclement, their eyes probing like searchlights for those transgressors audacious enough to step over the boundary.
Max was rooted to the line when I came up to him. Watching. His concentration was intense, for he started visibly when I came up to his side and spoke to him.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
He lowered his brows, and his face was wreathed in that dark, resentful expression I came to know well. “Nothing,” he insisted laconically, turning back to stare at the girls playing. He seemed to be following one in particular, but I couldn’t make out which one, and indeed why he bothered to stare at all. Noisy, irritating, giggling girls, that’s all. He chewed at his bottom lip, glanced quickly at me and said, “Ever wondered what they’re like?”
I frowned. “Girls?”
He nodded. “Girls. Do you reckon they’re as soft as they look?”
I shrugged. It was a pointless question. I knew what they were like. I could see and hear what they were like. They were raucous, shrill, alien beings that had nothing in common with me or my kind and caused me often to wonder why we had to be protected from each other by a white line when neither gender was the slightest bit interested in the other. Unless we had to be protected, some sort of contamination in the offing, or it was to prevent unwanted pregnancies caused by passing spit when a boy and girl kissed – the thought repulsed me. So Max’s fascination was itself a curiosity.
“I’m gonna try one some day,” he said.
Try? I thought. I was innocent, even at that age. Most of us were. I struggled with the word.
He cast a prolonged mysterious eye over one girl who ran with pale gazelle-like legs across the playground. He followed her intently until she was lost amongst… Amongst the others in the herd, I thought.
“Her name’s Ruby,” he remarked, reaching out and pointing to the throbbing mass of bobbing pigtails and hair slides.
“Oh yeah?” I said, half-heartedly, deliberately not paying attention. I didn’t ask him how he knew.
I managed to drag him away, but he continued thereafter to scan the groups of girls on a daily basis, always searching out this girl called Ruby, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d assured himself she was there. It seemed a pointless exercise, like so much that Max undertook so gravely.
How the hell was I to know that Ruby would eventually become my wife? You just can’t predict that kind of thing, can you? Oh, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!
But back then, quite frankly, I was desperately jealous that his attention was elsewhere, for friends were getting progressively thin on the ground since Max’s arrival, and I didn’t relish the idea of his interest in me being diluted in any way, least of all by a scrawny pin-legged girl.
Trouble was, I was never one to make friends at school, though I did once have three that, although they weren’t close, had always been there for discussing whether England had a chance in the next World Cup; or whether Pele was indeed the greatest
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