Precocious Read Free

like a badge pinned from a birthday card. It towered over me, gave her height.
    ‘This is Fiona,’ you said to her. ‘The Genius.’
    You both chuckled. She was not surprised – by my presence there, by your description. So you had talked about me.
    I always thought teachers made fun of only the very dull (because they don’t get it) or the precocious (who can give it back). Which was I supposed to be?
    I left, and I left school, and until today I hadn’t seen you since.

two
    Tell me about Dave
, you said. Okay, I’ll tell you. About him, about me, about falling in love.
    These are the things that did it:
    The First Night Out. We argued. An amazing thing: to be relaxed enough to disagree instead of preening, lying and straining to impress.
    The First Night In. The way we stayed up all night and talked and talked so urgently, desperate to
find out things
, and the way every uncovered shared interest or belief seemed incredible, natural, destined. Coincidence and magic in everything.
    The First Morning After. He left, wearing stale clothes and shocked hair, drove round the block then came back, and stood on the doorstep, smiling.
    It was about money. That first argument, that first night.
    Dave never earned much, but spent less and borrowed nothing. I couldn’t believe he’d never had an overdraft; mine seemed to have lingered after university like a hangover. The thing is, it never really bothered me, but Dave was different. He was cautious; but then, he’d shelled out nearly fifteen grand for a wedding that didn’t happen. That would make anyone err on the thrifty side.
    ‘Most couples end up arguing about money anyway,’ he’d said. ‘Might as well start now.’
    ‘You’re assuming we’ll become a couple,’ I’d pointed out. I slurped up my spaghetti, I remember, not caring if I got sauce on my chin.
    Dave didn’t say anything but I think he knew, even then, that we would end up together. That’s the way Dave works – and he’s the same in every area of his life, there’s no ‘side’ to him, no secrets – he sees something he wants and slowly, methodically, with no drama but with the utmost determination, he goes after it.
    What is it to fall in love? Is it a different thing from being in love? At what point does falling become being? When do you land?
    Some say love is security. It’s a comfort thing. It was like that with Dave. It was feeling utterly relaxed, melting into him the way a cat pours its every muscle onto a table or a chair arm, or someone’s leg, moulding it to them. It’s almost impossible to get up once a cat has sat on your lap, because they just make themselves belong there.
    Love is: butterflies; a warm feeling; fear; jealousy; a grin you can’t shake; sleeplessness; tears; hours of staring at the wall, staring at the window, staring at his photo, staring at his face; love is change. Security, insecurity. Passion, fights. Chatter, silence.
    Love is chaos.
    Dave and I didn’t so much fall in love as stumble into it, both dazed and war-torn, like survivors of some disaster who cling to each other in their shock and find years later they are still holding on. He was stinging from the slap of the aborted wedding, I was tired and dispirited from a string of no-hopers, badly-suiteds and just-not-quite-rights.
    I remember when it was just Love. Before it was Family, before it was Commitment, before it was
Arrangements
.
    I remember wanting to say the word so soon but not wanting to say it first.
    And when it was said, feeling strangely disappointed.
    I love you.
    Because it’s the same thing as everyone else says, and I felt an odd sort of traitor to my heart, and cursed my own lack of originality, and thought,
    I love you
, followed by
(that’s all).
    And I had, and still have, an uneasy feeling that once you’ve said ‘I love you’, the only way is down.
    When I finally sleep, dreams bring the sea, and a replay of our first holiday together. The pebbles hurt my feet, but