Fenella was the dependable one. The girl you could always count on to turn up early, bring a hymn book, and apologise if her shoes squeaked on the church floor. She had a brace that squeaked louder, mind you — every smile sounded like she was opening a rusty gate.
I first noticed her at choir, mouth wide on the Gloria, orthodontics gleaming like a lighthouse off the coast of North Shields. She waved at me mid-verse, nearly swallowed a hymn sheet. I waved back, dropped my candle, and set fire to the Order of Service. “Peace be with you,” indeed.
Fenella liked me, I think. She invited me to the Christian disco. That’s where things went sideways. She turned up in her Sunday best — pastel skirt, hair done neat — and I turned up looking like a geography supply teacher on probation. While she was gently clapping to “Spirit in the Sky,” I was trying to invent a dance move called The Resurrection Shuffle.
She never complained though. Not even when I left her on the dance floor to chase after India in red cords, like a spaniel spotting a rabbit. Fenella just smiled through the brace, like she’d been expecting it all along.
Later, she kissed me goodbye — gentle, like a butterfly trying not to cause offence. It was the quietest kiss of my life. If Sharon was an ashtray in a heatwave, Fenella was a teaspoon of Angel Delight. Soft. Sweet. Gone before you noticed.
I tried to draw her once. Got the mouth wrong. Ended up looking like a medieval knight in a visor. She laughed. Said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done.
Fenella wasn’t a dart, not really. She was the safety net under the trapeze act. She’d catch you if you fell — and I always did.
That was Fen. Faithful, brace-clad Fenella. The posh girl who smiled through everything, even when the joke was on her.
Leave a Reply