Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm still splashing about in the kiddy pool, while all the grown ups are busy jumping off the high board.
I spend a lot of time scrutinising the social skills of my flat mates, I suppose with a vague hope that I might improve my own through some sort of observational osmosis. Perhaps I'm imagining it but a comfortable, middle class upbringing, with two interested parents does seem to give you a bonus ticket in the lottery of life. I'm not saying that my friends are without fault or flaw, it's just that, they seem to have an innate self-confidence, and that displaying that amount of poise and assuredness then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meanwhile, my defining virtue, and I hear it often enough to believe it to be true, seems to be that I am viewed as 'nice'. I really am starting to detest that insipid word.
Holly puts me to shame with her networking; she knows all the right people and, if she doesn't, she goes out of her way to track people down and throw herself in their path. Of course, she has so many arrows in her quiver too. Her music takes up most of her spare time but she is also so well organised that she finds the energy for the Young Conservatives and a number of offshoot committees that she sits on. Then there's the tennis club in summer and supporting her beloved Harlequins Rugby in winter. As a result of her packed social calendar, a succession of good looking young men, well spoken and clearly benefitting from their public school educations, call at our flat. Occasionally, one or two return but most are discarded as unsuitable because Holly has the most outrageously ruthless set of standards and simply refuses to compromise in her hunt for The Perfect Husband.
I feel like I'm hovering in the background but occasionally Toni will move in on a cast-off. She has hyena-like senses when it comes to cornering Holly's discards and, dare I say it, slightly less lofty ideals. One Sunday morning, bland, affable Giles, with his floppy hair and elegant scarf, appears in our flat, stroking his overnight stubble thoughtfully, and running his long slim fingers through his curly mop of perfectly dishevelled hair. He drapes himself elegantly over the couch and smiles pleasantly at all of us. Toni pounces and, from that day on he becomes an almost permanent resident in the flat and follows her around like a grateful puppy, such is his devotion to her. Behind his back, somewhat disparagingly, Holly calls him Jasper, after her mother's favourite Labrador.
Giles has beautiful manners and a credit card, and is quick to offer to pay for everything when we wander to the off-license or the chippie so we all become quite fond of him. Sadly, he appears to have no opinions at all but he's very decorative and very sweet so he soon becomes a fixture and none of us mind in the least. Except Holly, who rolls her eyes behind his back but tolerates him to his face in the hope that his social contacts will somehow be of assistance in her quest to find her Mr. Right.
Of the four of us, Libby turns out to be the most voracious. She was never shy but, as her confidence grew and her social circles expanded, there was literally a parade of young men through our flat. She didn't seem disturbed in the slightest if they slipped away early in the morning, she still emerged from her bedroom later, looking gratified and unabashed, with smudgy eyes and spectacular bed hair. She had no preference for any particular type; the only common denominator I could see was that she preferred her conquests to be tall and muscular, and a bit full of themselves. As a result of her undoubted success, we did get to share our Sunday mornings with a few interesting young men including a selection of international scholarship athletes, several professional rugby players and a couple of second division footballers. One particularly bleary morning, we were all introduced to a very tall, well built bloke leaning on the wall of our tiny kitchen, admiring Libby, a dazzlingly white smile on his tanned face, as she made a pot of tea.
When I wandered out, he had said something to me that sounded like "Geddoy" and I smiled at him, as just another anonymous man joining us on a Sunday morning. I greeted him in the most friendly, yet neutral, way I could manage, and hoped that we had enough milk to go around. Giles appeared, and he pulled up short in front of the grinning stranger, with a theatrical but unintentional double-take. Later, after the cheerful, tousle-headed bloke had gone, Giles informed us that he was in fact a member of the Australian Cricket Team who was over here playing County Cricket. Sadly, despite it exciting Giles beyond all reason, Holly and I were unimpressed, and Libby was her usual calm, post-coital, seemingly indifferent self. In fact, if you asked her now, I don't think she'd probably even remember his name.
Furthermore, and as a complete contrast to the three confident blondes with their healthy physical appetites and strong sense of aplomb, there was me, Louisa, the one who could never quite get it right. As much as I was enjoying life and doing well in my course, I just never felt like I was quite in synch with the world in the way they were. With Libby and Holly especially they did seem to glide through life and each passing week seemed to see them grow more sophisticated and at ease. We still had a lot of fun together and I was always included in everything so perhaps the awkwardness was in my head but I did always feel just that tiny bit out of step; half a beat behind the rhythm and, always, emotionally clunky and uncoordinated, as if I were attempting to peel carrots with an axe.
After a few wines one Friday night, when there was only the two of us at home in the cold flat and we'd shared baked beans on toast, topped with whatever cheese we'd been able to cut the mould from, Libby turned her attention to my seeming lack of interest in the opposite sex. She gazed at me thoughtfully before reaching out and squeezing my arm affectionately.
"Louisa, has your hometown boy, oh god, can't for the life of me remember his name, has he scarred you for life?" She said, frowning at me sadly. "I mean, if you wanted to, you could have anyone but you just don't seem interested. I don't understand."
I smiled at her sadly, wondering where this line of enquiry had sprung from, and I didn't know what to say. Should I tell my poised and elegant friend that I felt like a freak? That I'd become the only girl at college who didn't seem able, or even had the inclination to, make the most of the hordes of up-for-it, available boys that teemed around campus, leering at us and bantering encouragingly in the pubs and nightclubs we frequented.
"I don't really understand either actually." I replied, laughing and trying to deflect her intense stare.
"I think he did put you off you know." She said thoughtfully, topping up both of our glasses generously. "But, god Louisa, you need to find someone who knows what they are doing. You don't know what you are missing, really!"
"No, I don't think I do." I said with a mirthless laugh.
And then she gave me a look of such concern and sadness that, as soon as I placed my glass down on the table, she enveloped me in a reassuring hug.
After a moment, I pulled away and I felt suddenly forlorn. What could I say? That what I felt was a pointless and unrequited desire for someone who saw me as not just a child, but as a charity case. And that I did have strong feelings, or at least I'd had them, physical feelings that had confounded me at the time and hinted at all sorts of deeper, disconcerting ideas I couldn't possibly have understood at the time.
My lip trembled. Did she need to know that, as hard as I tried to rediscover them, I had never felt anything even remotely close to the unnerving desire I'd experienced all those years ago as a gawky adolescent.
"There was someone, but it's hopeless." I said quietly.
"Oh, right." Libby replied, looking at me, her huge hazel eyes brimming with sympathy and, dare I say it, pity.
I suppose she was hoping I'd explain but I just couldn't. It was an infantile crush, and I was destined to never have my feelings reciprocated so what was the point? Libby would, I'm sure, be sweet and kind and understanding, but secretly she'd think I was an immature idiot. She'd console me, and then tomorrow night she'd be having an amazing time with some gorgeous man and I'd be sitting in the pub, fending off compliments and wandering hands in equal measure, letting them buy me drinks but staring, disinterested, over their shoulders as they spun me some old chat. After sharing a few packets of pork scratchings and, faced with my discouraging facade, they inevitably gave up and moved on to the next potential conquest leaving me, once again, an observer on my own chaste, unremarkable life.
"Are you sure it's hopeless?" She said softly, stroking my hand, as a worried little frown creased her perfect forehead. "I mean, is he back in Cornwall? Oh my god, Louisa, he's not married already is he?"
I laughed bleakly. "Ummm, no, not married. I mean I think I'd have heard if...ummm, and, no, he's not in Cornwall."
I paused for a moment, reluctant to share anything more of my secret. I'd kept it to myself for so long and it felt so private and precious to me that I couldn't bear to let it surface again. Libby regarded me with her cool stare, her elegant eyebrows arched questioningly.
I bit my lip and stared back at her from under my fringe.
"And, yes it is hopeless. Totally and utterly. I don't even really want to talk about really."
She sighed and let go of my hand.
"Look, I hope you don't mind me saying this but I really don't understand why you don't have more confidence in your self."
She waited for a moment, I suppose to check my reaction, and then she tentatively continued, her concerned frown returning with fierce intensity.
"Whoever this mystery man is that has broken your heart, he's not worth wasting another second of your time over if it's just not meant to be. You know, when we first met, I was so jealous of the way boys looked at you. Everywhere we went, heads would turn. But, once I realised that you were totally oblivious, I stopped being jealous because I know now that you are just a lovely, sweet girl who has no idea of how attractive she is. What was that boy's name you went out with."
"Danny." I mumbled, as I felt my lip tremble again.
"Well, Danny saw it but he was clearly just a pathetic excuse for a man, the way he treated you. And the mystery man, well if he can't see how gorgeous you are, then he doesn't deserve you either."
I smiled weakly, and nodded, as I remembered the awkward, opinionated, emotional teenager that poor Martin had encountered on that strange weekend at Mrs. Norton's. If he'd ever given me a second thought after that, it was probably accompanied by a shudder of horror and vow never to return to Port Wenn.
"Just a thought, Louisa, but maybe you should just forget about him if it's as hopeless as you think. My god, there are some gorgeous boys out there that you could be having the best time with and, trust me, once you find one who knows what's he's doing, you will have the best time."
She gave me an encouraging smile and picked up her glass, taking an elegant sip without taking her eyes from mine.
"If we could figure out what was so special about him in the first place, then maybe we could find someone with similar traits, hmm? And preferably the last of the red hot lovers so we can erase that appalling arse, Danny, from your memory as well! What do you say? It could be fun!"
I thought about it for a moment. In theory, it sounded sensible, especially the part about erasing Danny Steele. Defining what I had found so appealing about Martin was another matter completely though. I took a large, noisy gulp from my glass and sighed deeply. I didn't want to let it go, but Libby was right, I had too. I needed to pull myself together and get over him once and for all. I was nearly twenty years old and it was time to stop hankering and dreaming over something completely and utterly unattainable. I looked up at her and gave her an encouraging smile.
"Okay." I said. "I'll try."