Remember Sally?
Reminded of a teenage crush culminating in a summer of love, Jane reflects on her biker boy of 30 years ago
Isaw you again today and 30 years fell away as if they had never happened. “Come on, Sally,” you’d call to me, a 14-year-old schoolgirl with pigtails flying, racing to catch you up to walk the half-mile to the village bus stop. You were two years older, with shining black hair and brown eyes that crinkled when you laughed. You carried a heavy briefcase because you had important exams looming, but you could still find time to walk with a girl who had a crush on you. I never remember one unkind word from you. You never broke my heart. At least, not then.
My name isn’t Sally – it’s Jane – but you called me “Sally” because we’d all just revelled in Sally Gunnell’s victory at the 1992 Olympics and you teased me that, with all my running, I’d be like her one day.
Every day I’d watch for you in school, passing you in the corridor, but I was always careful not to embarrass you in front of your friends.
I’d just long for the day to end so that I could walk home with you. One year I was even on the same dinner table as you. I lost a lot of weight that year because I could scarcely eat a thing with you so close.
And then you and your family moved away and I thought my heart would break, but every summer you came back to visit our little seaside village, riding through the quiet lanes on your noisy motorbike. And each year you found me a year older. But for me, growing up was taking too long. Though the pigtails were gone and I’d grown tall and slim, time even now wasn’t on my side. I was still “little Sally, who ran everywhere” and from a safe distance hiding in the sandhills, I’d watch you walking hand in hand along the beach with some girl, some holidaymaker.
It’s only a holiday romance, I’d tell myself. Next year…
Through the long winters I trudged the lonely route to the bus stop, not running now. Not now you were gone. And then, after Christmas when I’d just turned 18, a letter arrived telling me you would be visiting at Easter. If reading could wear the paper out, then that letter would have long since been dust. I wrote back to you – not too quickly, being careful to keep the tone bright and breezy, telling you the village gossip and about the people you would remember from school. And then it was Easter. Every motorbike that passed caused me to hold my breath and run down to the gate. By the time the weekend was over, the grass on our small front lawn was almost worn away.
You didn’t visit that weekend and for weeks there was no word. But now I had my own exams to worry about. A-levels. Once they were over, there was time for tennis and beach parties and other boys trying their luck. But somewhere inside me the hope that you would come back refused to die.
And then, there you were, roaring up on your motorbike, your black hair slicked back, the smart maroon blazer and white shirt emphasising your tan. The smile was still as friendly, but there was that extra something in the look you gave me.
“Little Sally all grown up,” you murmured
I have no regrets. You made me no false promises
and invited me to climb on to the pillion.
Was that summer really so warm and cloudless or was it because I never noticed the rain? Hand in hand by the sea we walked, talking and laughing, followed by dark velvet nights in the dunes making love to the sound of waves caressing the sand. We rode your motorbike, my arms clasped tightly round your waist, to the nearest seaside town. We wandered along the seafront, rode the roller-coaster and the waltzer, ate sticky candy floss and wore Kiss-me-quick hats, had our photo taken with your arm around my shoulders. Then you took me to the town’s nightclub, arriving home much later than my strict father’s curfew.
I defied his anger and my mother’s anxious eyes.
“You’ll be in by 10pm, my girl, or I’ll stop you going out at all,” he said. “And you can wipe that muck off your face this minute.”
“Darling, you shouldn’t be getting so wrapped up in just one boy,” my mother warned. “If you’ve done well in your A-levels, you’ll be going to college.”
“It’s just another holiday romance,” my friends warned me.
“You know what he’s like. He picks a different girl every summer and then he’s off home again until next year.”
I laughed in their faces. “It’s not like that – not with me. This time it’s different.”
But it wasn’t different. At least not for you, was it?
How many miles did I walk alone by the sea, retracing our steps in the years that followed? How many hours did I sit in our favourite spot in the dunes, just listening to the sound of the sea? How many tears mingled with the salt of the ocean? How my friends must have jeered behind my back and what sadness I brought upon my parents. Nothing was ever quite the same after that summer. I wrote to you, just the once, but you didn’t reply. You didn’t visit that year or through all the summers that followed. You never came again – not ever. But as for me, I have no regrets. You made me no false promises. I know we loved each other, even if it was only for such a short time and you left me a legacy of love that has stayed with me down the years…
I saw you again today, walking along the shore, hand in hand with a girl. The same handsome young man, the same black hair and smiling mouth, the same love in his eyes that I once knew.
You would be very proud of your son. He has grown up to be just like you.