The Tortoise and the Hare

I mostly pretend my life began when I got to St. Andrews. It takes the edge off being thirty and it’s easy to believe, because I hardly did a thing until I was twenty. I never knew what I was missing.

I hung with the wrong crowd at school and not in the cool way, where everyone smokes behind the bike sheds,  but in the uncool way where you’re a geek with no social skills and most of your friends are into collectible card games or masturbation. It was a time of insecurity, panic and confusion.

I hated every fucking minute of it. I spent a lot of time in the school library. I went right home at the end of the day, kept my head down all the way. I played video games and read books all night. I only kept in with a few friends after it was all finished up, and I thought the place and every memory of it could burn.  I was, essentially, a non person for two decades. I missed out on every good story the kids used to tell about those days.

I never felt anyone up on a pile of coats. I never made a crowd cheer. I never danced without a care. I never danced and made anyone else care. I never started conversations. I never got laid, never went out with girls, never dressed up, or got wild. I never let my hair down. I never grew it long. I never calibrated against the social scale.

And, even when I got to St. Andrews, I still didn’t know what I was missing; but I knew it was late in the day to be missing it. Something Darcy said brought all of this back to me.

‘You’re going fucking bald!’

She pronounced the word ‘bald’ as if it might have been of interchangeable credulity with ‘Clive, the incredible death-defying mongoose’.

‘Thanks, Darcy,’ I said. ‘It’s your sensitivity that I appreciate most.’

‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘There’s a patch as big as my fist with, like, no hair at all.’

I know, it doesn’t seem like much.

But it made me realise that I was at the end of being a teenager, and I still hadn’t done a single thing that teenagers are good for, except maybe sleeping too much and whining about the pain of being alive. There was clearly a world of shit to catch up on, some of which was always going to be a stretch, and some of which could be as easy as a trip to Superdrug.

I showed up at Darcy’s place around six, with a bottle of vodka, two litres of orange juice, and a pack of Garnett Red hair dye, with primer.

‘You busy?’ I asked.

‘I’m not ready,’ she said. ‘You’re about two hours early.’

She tapped her wrist, as if this was so fucked up that it might be her watch that was out.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But I had an idea.’

‘Does it involve me not getting ready? Because no go, sunshine. I’m not hanging out with your flatmates looking like a drag queen.’

I started unpacking the carrier bags onto her kitchen work surface.

‘It involves me getting ready. And you look fine.’

‘You could have got the decent vodka,’ she said.

‘It was an extra six quid. Have you got any other mixers in?’

‘Coke? So... what’s going on?’

I produced the hair dye with a flourish.

‘I have no idea how this works,’ I said. ‘But I’m pretty sure you’ve done it before.’

‘Seriously?’ she said.

‘How long does it take?’

‘Couple of hours? No, less. You’ve got less hair.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ I said.

‘I mean it’s shorter. God, you’re touchy. If you’re that sensitive, I don’t think Nuclear Orange is going to be your thing.’

‘It’s Garnett,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I can shave it all off right after if I don’t like it. It’s not like I won’t have to do that soon enough anyway.’

‘It’s your bag, hun,’ she said, taking the box off me, and browsing the label. ‘You bought good stuff, at least.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘So how do we do this?’

‘Start by pouring two of those.’

I guess it goes without saying, but she was pointing at the vodka.

The peroxide smell burned the back of my nose something chronic. I couldn’t stand it in Darcy’s tiny bedroom. I had to walk out onto the landing and waft away from my head with the old towel that Darcy had supplied.

‘Fucking stinks,’ I said. ‘Stings, too.’

‘It does, a bit,’ she said. ‘We should have done a test patch on your skin first, to make sure you aren’t allergic.’

‘But we didn’t,’ I said.

‘No time,’ she said. ‘You’ll be fine. Just say if it really burns.’

‘Only my eyes.’

‘Probably fumes, if it’s just making you want to blink. Don’t rub them, for fuck’s sake.’

We left the red stuff in for forty eight minutes, even though the instructions said no more than twenty five. The first forty minutes were planned, and the rest was because we were onto the fourth vodka orange, and arguing about how orange juice was made.

‘They make it back up with water,’ I said. ‘I swear.’

‘There’s no point,’ she said. ‘That would be like mixing... cream with water to get, like, ordinary milk.’

‘That’s why it says made from concentrate,’ I said. ‘Did you reckon they were just thinking about oranges really hard while they did it?’

‘Don’t be a fucking smartass,’ she said. ‘What, you going to go on mastermind, with fucking.... juice... as your specialist subject?’

She hiccupped, hard.

We went into the bathroom and I knelt at the bathtub while Darcy held the showerhead and massaged all the lather and goop out and down the drain. I felt my heart beat hard in time with Darcy’s rhythmic scrubbing, felt my pulse banging against the side of my straining neck.

We put the industrial strength conditioner in, and the hair began to feel a bit less like frayed electrical wire. I admired myself in the steamy mirror.

‘We’ve created a monster,’ Darcy said, stumbling on her feet.

‘I’m still me,’ I said.

But I didn’t feel like me, any more. I felt like someone who had done something, even if it was something as simple as changing the colour of my hair. I felt this self-aware smile tugging at my face, and it wasn’t my smile, either. It was thinner, and more assured.

‘I’m an idiot,’ I said.

‘But you had to let the world know.’

‘Hell, yes.’

‘Vodka’s gone. Gimme five minutes to change.’

When she called me back into the bedroom, she wasn’t properly dressed.

‘Sit down,’ she said. I did.

‘What’s up? You’re not done.’

‘You,’ she said. ‘You’re such my best friend.’

‘Sweet,’ I said. ‘You’re wasted.’

‘No,’ she said. Then more firmly. ‘No! Look at me.’

I looked back at her. Right into her eyes. Saw them focus at a half speed.

‘You know I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff,’ she said. ‘And you’re always there, and I need that, and I’m really happy for that.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You’re a friend.’

‘You make things alright,’ she said. ‘Come here.’

She leaned in and hugged me, squeezing my shoulders.

‘I never talk to anyone, except you,’ she said. ‘It’s important.’

‘Everyone has things going on.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not like really, really heavy things.’

She looked at me, meaningfully. I didn’t get it. I only saw my own meanings. I stared into her eyes, and felt like I had all the time in the world. I didn’t need to turn away, felt I could stare into those eyes until they couldn’t stare back. I felt excitement, control, anticipation. Anticipation, yes, but with an acceptance, and readiness, that was all new.

‘What?’ she said.

But I didn’t answer. There was no need. We held our eyes in a lock, so that the world fell away at the edges, leaving only a tunnel of light between us. Darcy leaned forwards, put her arms around me again. Her lips brushed at the corners of mine. I turned my head by the smallest fraction, and then we were kissing. I ran my hands up her side, and she grabbed my head. She pulled me down to the bed, closed her eyes.

Then she was unconscious.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I said.

I lay down next to her, stared at the ceiling.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world, now.’