Eleven

For some strange reason, this morning I’m thinking about being eleven. Sparked by C in car on way to work talking about the homework her year 7 class had done, where they had to write a descriptive piece about some person they knew really well. Most of them had done their mum, which she found odd. So she asked who I would have written about, and I didn’t know. She said she’d have done her best friend. I said I didn’t have one at that age, but that’s actually not true. It was only after I was twelve or thirteen that I didn’t have any friends, and that was until I was seventeen or so I guess. And really that’s a lie too, because I had people I was friends with, just… well, it was mainly school friends I guess. I didn’t socialise when I was that age, not out of school. Not that I can remember anyway.

But being eleven… I started thinking about that year. It’s a cloudy memory. In Scotland you’re still in Primary school at that age. Not like here in England. The English system is better in that respect, but hey… we used to have report cards in primary school, and the Headmaster would look at each report for each child, and add his initials to areas where we had done particularly well. So obviously it was a status thing to count the number of initials you got. Anyway, this year, the last at the primary school, I got something like 11 initials (I think 12 was pretty much the max, and no-one ever got 12) on my report card. I was amazed… I didn’t think I was that smart really. I mean, I always had low self esteem, but anyway… So I had this great report card, and in the town I grew up in, right, you have to understand this, okay, there were really strong divides between kids depending on which part of town you lived in. Which in turn meant how rich your parents were, effectively. So yeah, there I was with these 11 initials on my report card, and all the boys, the ‘smart’, rich, popular boys from the expensive parts of town, they were all just SO nasty to me because of it. They were all so used to being the ones who got the good marks and reports and all that shit, and suddenly here I was, this geek kid from ‘the estates’ being better than them. I was really confused by that, I didn’t get it… maybe just because I’d never been put in that situation, I dunno. I mean, I was used to the kids from the council houses beating me up because I was smart and went to the school in town rather than their one by the estates, but I dunno… suddenly I was rejected by EVERYone. It felt strange. Maybe that’s the root of my feeling like some weird outsider all my life. That fucking 11 initial report… Ha ha. I should frame it or something. That would be cool, like an art statement.

So that was being eleven, part one. But it wasn’t all crap that year. I mean, I had my first girlfriend when I was eleven. Dawn Crawford. Sheesh… it all comes flooding back. She came to our school a year earlier, and I was immediately besotted. I guess maybe that’s an age where these things happen, I dunno. And maybe the ‘new girl’ is always the object of boy’s attentions, but whatever. She had come back from several years living in Australia, so she was impossibly exotic of course. Plus she lived in the woods outside town, in a strip of large houses that we used to cycle past and dream of one day living in. Idle dreams.

Dawn Crawford. I had no chance when I was ten. I really didn’t. This other boy, John Warren, he used to be my friend back then, although we were already drifting apart because all he cared about was football and clearly I didn’t, well anyway John took a fancy to her too, and that was that. John was popular and was way better looking than me, so, well, you know how it goes.

I don’t remember how things came together with Dawn when I was eleven. Looking back it makes no sense, but then most things don’t when you have a quarter century in between.

We ended up sitting together in class. We had desks arranged in a strange way, as I recall. There were groups of six, and for some reason in our group there was a tier of three desks that were slightly higher up than the others, so there was a high back row and a lower front one. Dawn and I sat in the higher row, me on the end and her in the middle. On the other end was as girl who no-one liked. I don’t know why I remember that, maybe I feel guilty about falling in with the rest of the class and being vaguely nasty about her. See, I was a hypocritical shit in those days too… Anyway, Dawn and I sat together in class, and we would hold hands under the tables. I guess we thought we were being secretive but I’m sure everyone knew, including the teacher. The teacher, incidentally, being the wonderful Mrs McGuiness, the best teacher I had in primary school alongside Miss Black, who I had in the fourth grade and who if I knew about such things at that time I would say I had a crush on. Except at that age you don’t have crushes, just… well, you just know there are connections I guess. Even at that age you somehow know what you want to do with your life, you know what matters and what doesn’t. Perhaps. Perhaps too there are those who go through life lurching from one thing to another, never really discovering that thing that makes their heart sing.

So Dawn and me, holding hands under the tables. What a special memory from being eleven.

We had a school dance that year, at Christmas time. It was only the grade sevens who had that, as I recall. We had dancing lessons in gym for a month or two beforehand, or at least that’s how it felt. It may have been only a week or two. We had to do this horrible Scottish country dancing. It was all very nationalistic. Scotland is like that, hence me living in England now. (cue ballboy’s ‘I Hate Scotland’). So I asked Dawn if she would go to the dance with me. Actually maybe that’s how it all happened. I asked her and she said yes, and then followed the hand holding in class. I don’t really remember. I don’t remember the dance either, although I do remember my mom driving me down to her big house to pick her up, and I remember standing on the doorstep waiting for her and feeling somewhat out of place, like I was somewhere I didn’t belong. Well, when you’re eleven you do, don’t you?

I don’t think I ever saw Dawn outside of school. I don’t think I really saw anyone outside of school when I was eleven. Or twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… you get the idea. I think all I saw were the walls of my bedroom. Which was fine, of course, and says a lot.

I think I asked Dawn to go the school dance when we were in our first year of secondary school, and I think she said yes again, although I might be confusing that with the primary school dance. I don’t know. I do know that in secondary school we really didn’t see each other; we weren’t in the same classes. We certainly didn’t hold hands under the tables again. Instead she went out with boys who were much better looking and more popular than I could ever dream of being. At least that’s how it felt. For all I know she, and they, felt as much isolation and desperation as I did. I mean, it’s possible, right?



posted by duke harringay at 8:55 PM