Helen was the only girl I knew who arrived at every disco in a Ford Cortina and left in the same Ford Cortina, bang on ten o’clock. Not a minute past. Her dad would pull up outside like a taxi driver who hated teenagers, lean on the horn, and that was that. Midnight didn’t turn Helen into a pumpkin — 10pm did.
She was sharp, clever, and had the kind of eyes that said “Don’t even try that line, Robbie Foster, I’ve read it in Jackie already.” I liked her immediately. Naturally, Kizzy nicknamed her “Cinderella Gateshead.”
The first time we danced, I thought I’d nailed it. Soft lighting, “Three Times a Lady” on the turntable, her perfume somewhere between Yardley lavender and Pledge furniture polish. Then BEEEEEEP! Dad outside. Helen pulled away mid-sway, muttered “Sorry, that’s me,” and was gone, coat half on, like romance had a time slot you had to book in advance.
I tried again the next week. Different disco, same story. We’d just found a quiet corner, my arm daring to brush hers — BEEEEEP! Like Pavlov’s bell. Off she went, straight into the Cortina, door slammed, gone. I swear her dad had a radar fitted to her pulse.
The closest we got to a kiss was outside the youth theatre. She leaned in, lips just parting… and her dad flashed the headlights twice. It was like trying to snog under police interrogation.
Helen wasn’t a dart, she was a mayfly. Beautiful, clever, and gone before you’d worked out where to put your hands.
That was Helen. Cinderella with a curfew, the girl you never really got — because her dad always did.
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