This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood ...' 58

That week became REALLY complicated, really FAST.

My feelings for Scooby-doo were changing. (I seem to think his name may have been Mark… but I’m not sure, so it’s staying as Scooby-doo, ok?)

The excitement and first-flush of the relationship dimmed, settled-down, so to speak, and things were just not progressing like I thought they would. For a start, I began to avoid being on my own with him.

If we went out in the car, there would be at least one groping session – almost as though it was expected. Yeah, at first it was exciting, but once that started getting to feel like it was the brink of something, something bigger and more serious, I started getting wary and moving away from the edge of that particular precipice.

From Google Free To Use Images

I could absolutely not tell my parents! I don’t even think Sara, my best friend at school understood. She was way in advance of my exploits and asking her would be something akin to, ‘Should I jump into that fire?’ ‘Sure! I didn’t get too burned when I did it. Go ahead.’

So I kept my counsel and worried about it on my own. Of course, there was no internet back then, so I couldn’t Google it.

I started feeling uncomfortable… creeped-out, even. Like he was too old for me – suddenly.

This excerpt may be out of context with regards to the time-line I’m structuring, but bear with me.
My parents were out one night but I wasn’t working and he came over. I remember lying on the sofa, watching the television. The conversation started going weird. I was tired and I suppose, I was starting to make the transition between boyfriend and girlfriend to ex and single again.

I neither had the experience or the expertise to dump him in a sophisticated manner and so I waited…

I remember he said, “I’ve got a question for you.”

OK…

“Will you go out with me?”

Wait? What?

“I thought I was going out with you?” What the hell was going on? Were we ‘going steady’ or not?

“Oh, you’re obviously tired, I’ll leave it for another night,” he said.

Now, with the benefit of a few years, I’m looking back on the conversations as him patting me metaphorically on the head and saying, ‘This situation is obviously over your head, silly little girl, I’ll make the decisions for you in future.’

From Google Free To Use Images

Confusion reigned. I felt like I was being pushed into sex before I was ready, yet I wasn’t capable of making a decision about going steady. No wonder I was backing off, I suppose.

I worked at the club sometimes on the weekends and so Scooby-doo couldn’t come to see me that Saturday night.
He came round on the Friday and before he came round, I had a word with my brother and sister. I told them that I was going to send them to bed, but they were to keep an ear out for anything going wrong. I think, even then, I knew he wasn’t quite going to take rejection well.

He’d borrowed a piece of my CB Radio kit and I asked him to bring that back. I was mentally setting myself up, preparing for the dumping of my first real boyfriend.

I think maybe he knew it too.

He bought the SWR meter and I made him a coffee. Brother and Sister went up to bed to keep an ear out.

I gave him the whole, ‘This isn’t working, it’s not you, it’s me and I’m sorry,’ routine and he kinda went sullen and silent. We didn’t argue or fight, he accepted my decision and we agreed to be friends.

He left. Brother and sister came back downstairs, we watched a horror movie. They went back to bed and I went out to feed the rabbits and bed them down for the night.

One of our rabbits had had kittens and they were just starting to explore their cage. They were really cute.

From Google Free To Use Images

The back window to the living room overlooked the cage and if we opened the curtains, there was enough light to see by. Unfortunately, getting to that spot meant wandering around in the dark. Our back garden overlooked a wide-open field, I’d just finished with a boyfriend who was starting to look like he wasn’t 100% stable – nothing concrete, just a feeling – and I’d just watched a horror film… My imagination is awesome – and not always in a good way…

Tension mounting, I went around to the back of the house to feed the rabbits.

Horror of horrors! The wire mesh on the front of the cage had been pushed open a little – not a large enough gap for Mummy rabbit to escape, but it was big enough for a baby one to get trapped and die.

I opened the door to try to rescue the baby bunny and it had been dead a while. It’s little body was rigid and it stuck out at 90degrees to the door.

I removed the little corpse, apologised to the Mummy rabbit and burst into tears.

Probably all the emotions running into each other helped with that state of affairs.

Anyway, I locked-up the house after putting the baby bunny in the bin (nothing else for it at that time of night) and went upstairs.

My brother and sister shouted me, excitedly. “There’s someone calling for you on the CB!”

“Oh joy… I bet it’s Scooby-doo…”

“No… it’s someone called ‘Wheelie-man!”

Trev…

I answered the call next time he ‘shouted for me’ and we took the conversation off Chanel 19.

A little bit of small-talk and he just came out with it.

“You’ve finished Scooby-doo, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah… actually, I have. How did you know?”

“You sound upset. It sounds like you’ve been crying.”

“I’m not upset because I dumped him… one of my baby rabbits has died…” and off I went again, sobbing.

Oh he must have wondered what kind of heartless bitch can dump her fella and not care, but one small corpse and I’m in bits…

“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“No, I’m working.”

“Oh, I’ll give you a ring tomorrow then…”

“OK.”

It’s been almost 37 years since that night and I have JUST wondered where he got my phone number from.

I didn’t give him my number that night at the club and I certainly wouldn’t give it out over the CB. The only place I can imagine he got it was from Sara.

I can’t ask Sara if that’s what happened and Trev will never remember… I guess I’ll never know.

To be continued...

This is me a few months after these events...