Our Love Was

Slates toppled from the roofs, and with a great crash Linwood Secondary School was no more. Torn down in the everlasting pursuit of modernity. And in this world there was no room for the withering, vegetating, (and to honest quite vulgar) building, an artefact of the brutalist 70s. A few tears were shed from the visitors; old pupils, brought in for posterity to see the building that had been the home of their education, and for some the roots of their being in which their character was moulded from the rough clay and slip into the shape many of them held firmly to this day. Among these visitors was Agnes MacMillan. She stood stony faced as the dust settled around the newly formed heap of rubble. She remembered when the school was built; just a year before she started there at 12. Coming from Bricksden Primary where the year 6 class whiled away the days in stitches about this or that without a care in the world or a concern about the hardships the future might force upon them. She could still remember the walk to school along the potholed roads to arrive for not-quite-9 o'clock. She would try to arrive early, so that she could play with her friends a little before the 'work' began.

It came, then, as a shock when she moved onto Haghill and found most of her friends had gone to different schools, and that playing had ended. Her slacking in Primary school had served her poorly as she was suddenly left miles behind everybody else in the class. This was the backdrop to what Agnes considered the worst few years of her life, skiving classes in the afternoon on a Friday - English with Ms.McKenna; Agnes had always hated that uptight cow and taking the easiest courses to pass and move on with life. 

The procession was 40 or so people, gathered beyond the construction site behind a chain fence. Some were in their late fifties, some a little younger in their forties and very few younger still. They were quiet for a while before a few murmured voices began to spread. A few people departed, clearly having seen all that they came to see, while others became entwined in conversation with old classmates and even older teachers. Agnes had just turned to leave when she walked square into someone coming her way. It was a rather short man, with a poorly groomed beard and moustache and a mass of hair on his head that would have made the 1980s jealous. 

"Oh, sorry!" Said the man, his accent was local and rough. "Were you here for the demolition?" He asked. Agnes' mind trailed for a second before she shook of her confusion.

"No." She said. "I just like to hang about near construction sites in the middle of nowhere."

"Ah, right. My bad." The man seemed embarrassed. "So, er, what year did you start?" He smelled of cheap aftershave and tobacco that frayed the edges off of the palpable odour of 40 years worth of dirt, dust and hairspray that wafted over the crowd. 

"1978." She said.

"You're joking?" A grin sprung into place across the mans face. "Me too!" Which house were you in?"

Agnes paused for a moment. She really didn't want to speak to anyone from her time at the school. Certainly not anyone from her year. But the conventions of polite conversation compelled her to continue with the engagement.

"Johnstone." She said. The gentleman's expression changed from delighted curiosity to surprise. His eyes narrowed. "What about you?" Asked Agnes.

"Lochwinnoch." There was something in the way he spoke that seemed disturbingly familiar. Perhaps it was the way he rolled his r's. or his unapologetic up-talk. "You didn't know Kathryn Woods. did you?" 

Agnes feinted an expression of thought, raking her eyes high in her head. She knew full well who Kathryn Woods was. And she hated her. Kathryn had always been more intelligent than her. She would come out of the top set maths class, passing Agnes waiting to go into Art and give her that damned annoying smile that said "have fun getting a job with art."

"Yes." Agnes said, eagre to move off of the topic and leave the now desolate location. "I knew her." She could remember vividly when she saw Kathryn rush to the girls toilets in front of a stream of tears. Hah. Andrew Smith broke up with her. That's what you get. Agnes would never forget the sense of joy when she saw that Kathryn Woods was genuinely hurt.

Although, she did feel guilty and even somewhat empathetic when the same thing happened to her in her 5th year at Linwood. That puppy-chucker Michael Green. Agnes grew angry even thinking his name. She swore to herself she'd never let what happened with him happen again. She wished he was here now, so she could tell him what he meant to her. She'd have to wrench out, from the old dusty bookshelf, 'Jock MacKay's Guide To Telling a Cunt Whit Fur', but even then she might not be able to get enough swears and slurs to throw at the scum. Maybe, if he were here, she'd throw him a punch - like she wished she'd done back in 1983. She relished these thoughts, as if they could give her something.

She remembered the first time she met him. She had been coming out of Home-Economics class (an easy pass) and was heading down to the canteen when she nearly ran head first into him. He was about her height - and not particularly handsome. But Agnes had recognised him from her English class. He was quite smart. He always answered questions. She apologised to him and went to shirk quickly away when he started some light conversation. And so began a pattern that continued for the next few weeks of Spring 1982. They would meet outside of the Home-Economics class and talk for ten to fifteen minutes before individually heading off for dinner. She began attending English class, just for a chance to talk to him before and after the class. It meant running into Kathryn Woods. But she didn't mind that so much then. Then one day, not long before the Summer holidays, he asked her out to see a film. E.T - not the most romantic movie a young couple could go see but Agnes fell in love with it. She held onto his arm as they walked to the train station that day after school. And all the way to the cinema. Then all the way back again. She had been smitten.

"Really? She was in my English class." Spoke the man, snapping Agnes back to the present. "Were you friends with her?" He asked her, lighting a cigarette in his long fingers, hard aged and yellowed with nicotine. Agnes watched him inhale the smoke before looking up to her, "You wan' a fag?" He held out the carton in an apologetic manner. Agnes shook her head and he pocketed it once more.

"No." She said. Adding quickly - "We were never friends."

"Yeah." He said exhaling loudly. "She was a bit of a bitch. Mind, I had to put up with it when she was going out with Andy. Did you know him? Andy Smith?"

"No." Said Agnes.

"Hmm. He was a bellend an' all."

"Lot of those went to this school."

The two shared a look. The man inhaled another breath of his cigarette, throwing the butt on the ground. He spoke again, now with the age in his voice far surpassing the lines on his forehead.

"That is true. But I think a lot of people - when they're young like - they do stupid things. They act selfishly. They do as they please with little thought of those around them. I know I did."

His hair, now grey, gave the indication that it had once been a deep brown. Agnes could hardly imagine him as a kid her age with a gallon of product in his hair.

"You did?" She said.

"Oh yeah." Came the man's reply. "And I should never think for a second that I don't regret it. I suppose everybody regrets the poor choices they've made in their lives."

"And what about the poor choices they made in other people's lives?"

"Well." He sighed. "There's no doubt that those are to be regretted." He paused. "But they are for us to carry with us for the rest of our days. Be they long or short. You can forget what you've done to yourself"

"And you think that everyone carries them." Agnes studied the mans face. His wrinkles and lines - each a year passed and a regret embedded on a life in passing.

"I think so."

She looked at the man, hunched and pot bellied. And tentatively asked "And what are yours?"

He grimaced as he watched the sky. ""A girlie. I promised her so much. And I'd have given her everything but for the fear that I would be left with nothing." His eyes travelled right through Agnes. "So I left her with nothing."

A long silence befell the pair. The long crowd now dispersed and moved on. On the building site lorries and diggers went to and fro collecting debris and detritus. The pitter patter of infrequent rain began to appear on the rough ground around them.

"Well." Spoke the man at last. "I think it's time we'd best be on our ways. Otherwise we'd spend so long chasing the shadows of the past that we'd never live the new life waiting for us."

Agnes smiled. "Always so philosophical."

The man reciprocated the smile. "I do try."

Agnes wrapped her scarf tightly around her neck. And began walking away. She thought about what the man had said. About being able to forget what you do to yourself, but not to others. She stopped, and turned.

"Goodbye Michael." She said. Looking at the withered image of a summer long lost.

"Cheerie Agnes." Said Michael, waving a last goodbye to the love that was.