Funny, stupid, brilliant

'My name is Andrew Black and I'm king of the lands; If you want to f--k me just clap your hands.'


Newport Railway Station wall, 1989.

When I loved Andrew Black, it was a mighty love. It was the love of someone aged 16, who didn't know a thing about holding back. Fully formed and unafraid.

Andrew Black. I can't quite picture his face now. I'll get a flash of his features, but then a hot line goes through the memory and he's gone. Reddish-blonde hair, jeans, rough skin. That's as far as I get before he goes.

Something hard had happened to Andrew Black. He was sharp, like wire stretched tight on a cold night. At 16, we'd all had hard things happen but his thing was something harder.

The kids that moved in packs moved past and around him. They'd touch his sides and move away. I was a loner kid, and I had the luxury of time. I had time for Andrew Black's sharpness, his hardness, his hot-lined face. For all of him.

He was alone too. His friends scattered, his allegiances weak, his oddness compelling to only a few.

Of course, I was in that few. And so, as it turned out, was Beth Murdoch.

Beth was my first friend at school. She was very kind. When she told me she loved Andrew Black, I could picture her love's shape. A pebble in her lunchbox. A rock in her pocket. A brick in her rucksack. Something she'd carried with her forever.

So when, a few weeks later, Andrew Black came to my locker, slid his fingers through the strap of my sports bag and looked me in the eye, it wasn't the moment our lives began.

Instead, it was the moment I told him a lie. The moment I shattered his gentle certainty. The moment he knew I was unworthy.

And, just like that, I became his enemy.

Andrew Black was not my enemy, I loved him as much as ever. More, even. Because now he showered me with the attention his feelings warranted. And I knew what I had lost.

In class: 'Remember I used to *like* you? I *liked* you.' His voice incredulous.

In my friend's homework diary: 'My name is Holly. I saw Michael Hutchence in a nightclub. I went up and said hello, and he said, 'I didn't know rank dogs could talk.'

I laughed as I wept. His cruelty was beautifully honed, a carefully crafted love letter, designed to pierce my heart with every word. It worked, too.

I told you he was sharp.

He eventually started going out with another girl, Joanne. They held hands at lunch. And I changed schools.

I never saw him again. A few years after I finished school, I saw some of his words written on a railway station wall.

Funny, stupid, brilliant words, written by Andrew Black.

And that, I knew then, would have to be that.

ponygirl summers