Tuesday 28th March 1978
Robbie’s hope was tied to the dentist. He’d dressed like he might meet someone on the way home. Hair washed, he’d even used conditioner and used Kizzy’s dryer. He’d tried his Mum’s eyelash curlers too. A girl had mentioned his eyes. His best feature.
He was akimbo in the dentist’s chair. Mouth agape when Dr Bletchley dropped the bombshell.
“Another three months and you’ll have teeth like Donny Osmond,” Dr Bletchley said, inspecting the metalwork with professional detachment. “We need those central incisors to come together.”
Robbie had no desire to look like Donny Osmond and didn’t share Dr Bletchley’s opinion on the gap between his front teeth. He could feel tears welling up and hated that Dr Bletchley’s assistant had noticed.
The entire Easter Holiday stretched out before him like a cruel joke. At least Kizzy had promised to meet him. They’d planned to go shopping in Eldon Square and get him something snazzy to wear for the rugby club disco on Wednesday. Those hopes were now dashed. Robbie felt like going home.
Returning to the waiting room for his coat, he was horrified to find Fenella Penny all perky and bright. She approached him. Eager. She’d had her brace out at half-term. She’d had a few weeks of freedom.
“There’s my sunshine boy,” she said, “I decided I’d be the first to kiss you now that your mouth has been released!”
Robbie revealed his brace, still very much in place.
“Oh no!” Fen declared. Like her entire Easter holidays depended on Robbie not having his teeth wrapped in orthodontic barbed wire.
“You can still kiss me” Robbie said, hopefully.
“I think I’ll pass” Fen said.
Kizzy turned up, late as ever. She knew something was up as soon as she read the body language between her brother and Fen. She looked like she’d just stumbled upon a pdead sheep.
Kizzy heard Robbie’s story. She wasn’t going to have it. Bletchley had confessed to being a perfectionist. The brace was due to come out today, and so it would, even if it meant she’d get Grandpa involved with a pair of pliers, along with the files, burnishers, and other watch repair tools she knew he had. He told Dr. Bletchley this while he tried to fill one of Mrs. Simpson’s crowns.
Eventually, Kizzy and Bletchley made a deal. She’d stump up the coast. £300. He’d not tell their mother. He’d get the brace back on in a few weeks, if needed at all, to see him through the summer term back at boarding school.
Robbie was relieved. Once again, Kizzy had saved the day.
It wasn’t quite as perfect as he’d imagined. There was a noticeable gap between his two front teeth. He liked to think of it as charming. Fen pointed out that Mick Jagger had a gap in his teeth. He did, Robbie thought, he also had lips like a toilet plunger. Fenella kissed him, in public, mouths closed. It didn’t hurt. That was a start.
“I’ve been practising,” Fen said. Robbie was unsure if he wanted to know when or with whom.
Fen joined them on the 45 bus.
Back at his place, sitting in his room, Robbie made the mistake of referencing Manwatching and discussing the subtle behaviours of courtship stages in primates; if it were a biological practice, he might try that Easter. Fen listened politely, sipping her tea, but something changed. She said something about ‘virginity,’ which silenced Robbie. Not least because he felt his mum would be listening somewhere and picking up every word.
This was a subject his mother was keen to bring up in short bursts. Not quite ‘not before you’re married’, but indeed a line about ‘living in sin’ about her late husband and the ‘strumpet’ that lived with him in Manchester.
That afternoon, bolstered by premature self-belief, he went to the cinema with Fen to see ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. No Kizzy. She knew when to stand down. She fancied seeing the film, but not sitting alongside Robbie and Fen as they tickled each other’s tonsils. She’d feel a right gooseberry.
Robbie tried the arm-over-the-shoulder move during the trailers. She didn’t flinch, which was a sign of a step towards something, so he thought. But when he turned, hesitating on the cusp of a kiss, she wrinkled her nose.
Nothing. Something had changed. She was having second thoughts. The arm was too much as well.
Back at home, Robbie sat on his bed, gap-toothed and rejected, and stared at the ceiling. The future had begun, yes—but not quite the one he’d hoped for. It felt like Fenella had turned him down. They weren’t about to saunter off down the Yellow Brick Road of discovery arm in arm.
Robbie was adamant. He and Fen were off. No go. Never happening. She had other ideas. Or someone had put ideas into her head. Either way, Robbie was a ‘persona non grata’. Something to do with their father’s reputation, he had understood. Like father, like son for more than one generation.
Kizzy worried for her brother. Being away from school and away from girls for weeks on end must have been a strain; she couldn’t have handled it. It made these boarding school boys a little desperate. Too quick off the mark. Unable or unwilling to take the time to get to know a girl.
But Robbie was her brother; he’d had his brace off for a reason, and it was costing her all her savings. Money she’d saved up for a new saddle. They had to do something about this. And in her opinion, the best girls, Fen now excluded, were in her class, upper Fifth B with Miss Rowbotham.
He had Robbie follow her to her bedroom.
Kizzy’s Room: Later that day
Kizzy found it filed with her records. The Eastfield Lower 5th B Form Photo. Mounted on a card. Seventeen girls in matching skirts, arranged in rows like a floral firing squad. Miss Rowbotham stood in the middle, hands clasped, her mouth set in its usual line of polite bemusement about being responsible for the delightful specimens of womanhood around her.
Kizzy smoothed the photo of a discarded sock and secured it to her wardrobe door with Sellotape next to a publicity poster for Bowie’s ‘Alladin Sane’. She stepped back and nodded, satisfied. She then held up a set of brass-tipped darts.
“This,” she said, “is how we sort out your love life.”
Robbie squinted at the line-up. The girls were familiar, in that hazy, back to school after the summer hols way. Smile too wide. Ankles awkwardly crossed. Some had blinked.
“I’m not sure if randomly targeting girls with darts qualifies as romance,” he muttered.
“Please. You’ve tried natural selection. It takes too long. We’ve a few weeks to set you up with someone before the summer term, and then you’ll be off again for three months. This is art. Science. Strategy.”
“First throw,” she said, handing him one.
Robbie hesitated. “What if I hit Miss Rowbotham?”
Kizzy shrugged. “Then you deserve everything that follows.”
They look pretty grim; some of them, he thought. He only recognised a few faces. He wanted to black out Fenella with a permanent marker.
“Some of them look”, he struggled for the word, “moody, are they usually that grumpy. You’re about the only one who looks like you’re laughing.”
“On their period, most likely,” Kizzy said.
Robbie pretended not to hear. He spotted another girl who appeared to be smirking.
“Is that Momo? She looks as if she is going to collapse with laughter,” He pointed out.
Kizzy takes Robbie over to take a look. “Sadly, impossible to make out, but there’s a bra hanging from the flag pole”.
Kizzy is right. It’s impossible to see. But he believed her. Kizzy and Momo were best friends and had been up to mischief since they’d learnt to ride a bike. She went on to say how the two of them had got into the bell tower early, before assembly, knowing that the form photos were being taken. “We need to think bigger, next time, like Miss Murch’s bloomers!”
“Ok”, Robbie decided. He was up for this. These teeth were to be seen; this mouth put to work.
He stood well back. And was about to aim when Kizzy stood up on her toes from behind and covered his eyes.
“Oh, that’s impossible. I’ll hit Bowie.”
“Ok, so, use your other hand.”
Robbie was OK with this. He’d probably hit the photo, and there’d be an element of chance—the girls’ faces were fairly closely bunched together anyway.
He was on the verge of throwing the first dart when Kizzy had another thought. “Not Momo. She’d not appreciate the attention. Anyhow, you’ve known her forever, so she’s more like a sister.”
Finally having his chance, Robbie hurled the dart with some skill, and it whizzed through the air and thudded into the laminated photo. Hit the school. No score. Try again.
Second dart as useless. Into the grass. Maybe this approach wasn’t so good afternoon all.
Third time lucky.
First row, third from the left. A glancing hit, but definite contact.
“Cece Noble,” Kizzy declared. “Strong start. Ballerina legs. Wears too much lip gloss. In Art, she gets more paint on her clothes than on the paper. Has a dog. Older brother is a Captain in the Army. Never met him, I’m told he’s a bit of all right but old”
“How old is old?” Robbie wondered.
“21,” Kizzy said.
“Yes, that’s old, old,” thought Robbie.
Robbie considered this. “Anthony Noble. He was my dorm prefect in my first year. Had his head put down a toilet during a dorm raid.”
“Well, it didn’t put him off the Army,” Kizzy, the all-knowing, replied as she wrote down Cecelia ‘Cece’ Noble as No.1 on her hit list.
ONE DART. ONE GIRL
Kizzy stood back and surveyed the results like a general reviewing her battle map. “Cece. One missions. One opportunities.
“And you’ll be what—cupid?”
“I prefer ‘Director of Emotional Strategy,’” she said, grinning. “Des! Like Desmond Morris without the comb over.
Robbie went in search of their copy of Manwatching. He sat on the edge of his sister’s bed and stared at the Form Photo and Manwatching.
“Targets. Strategy.” he said. “Love a campaign”.
“Rules,” Kizzy announced. “Rules of engagement. Rules of behaviour.”
Robbie looked concerned. He let his sister continue.
“One, you must talk to her—words, not grunts. And listen. For every single word that comes from that sweet mouth of yours, at least five are to come from hers. One to seven. Got that?”
Yes, seven to one.”
“No, that’s what you’re like at the moment. You’re worse. I’ve heard you. Seventy to one, if they even get a word in edge ways: They’re not interested in public school antics, punishments, rugby game scores against Ampleforth, your mock O’level grades, underage drinking or the ‘home clothes’ you keep hidden in your bottom drawer should you decide to ‘escape over the wall’.
“One, to seven, or say nothing at all.”
“Exactly. Man of mystery. The less said, the better. No quoting Macbeth either. David Bowie, yes. Bob Dylan, yes, David Soul, no. ”
“Should I be taking notes?” Robbie asks. Kizzy thinks this is a good idea, but doesn’t press him on it.
“Two, eye contact. No looking at her left ear, or worse checking out her boobs when you think she’s not looking, or oggling her bum when she’s heading for the bathroom. Hold eye contact, but not in a creepy way. Looks like you’re interested, but not too keen.”
“Not too keen. Eye contact.” Robbie makes a mental note.
And try to remember what she’s saying!
Robbie’s mind has wandered, and Kizzy has to grab his chin to get him to focus. “And finally. Yes. A kiss! Which is the job done? As far as it goes. If you like kissing each other and she doesn’t have bad breath or tastes like an ashtray, you’re halfway there.”
“Halfway to what?”
“Halfway to the rest of it!” But halfway is far enough at least for this implausible scenario, she adds, waving a hand at her wardrobe, now replete with a form photo stabbed in many places with dart holes.
Spring was in the air. So was madness. Robbie felt like a new man.
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