I knew after looking carefully that the woman could not have been my friend; she looked exotic and well groomed. And my friend had never been groomed or exotic.
I began to think about my friend who twenty years ago had been taller than me, with short bright red hair which went in every direction; her style was as absurd as her hair. She always reminded me of someone who had just woken up and got straight out of bed and put on whatever happened to be nearest to her. Another thing was she was always late, never on time. I use to hate it I would always be waiting for her everywhere. Even when she did arrive on time or was early we always gave the impression of being late because she was always dressed so haphazardly but she did have was the best and most brilliant excuses. She was such good fun that no one ever got cross with her. She didn’t worry about being late so none of us worried either. That did not always please our parents or boyfriends at the time when we began to copy but my excuses for being late always sounded so fake.
As I sat in the restaurant in a slight daze I suddenly became aware that someone was standing by the table and before I could react a vaguely remembered voice from my past said “remember me?”
I tried to stand up quickly but in doing so knocked the table leg and the glasses on the table fell over. Here I was as usual doing the same things I always did in school even though my mouth was hanging open and I could feel myself begin to mumble with embarrassment it broke the ice as we both moved to put the glasses upright on the table
Suddenly we both hugged and kissed each other on the cheeks, it was a good feeling and once I had pulled myself together I said “I was sorry that I was so deep in thought when you arrived, I got quite a shock to see you standing there as I had been trying to imagine what you would look like after all his time.
Kim laughingly replied “I hope I have changed in the last twenty years because I remember that I was renowned for my scruff bag looks and I now think that would not be a very complementary look for me now at my great age.
We ordered wine, and as I sipped the wine, the initial wariness that I experienced began to fade. It was a long time ago that we had been friends and we had much to catch up on and we were soon talking together as though it had only been a few weeks since we had last met.
Whilst the waiter hovered Kim took charge of the menu which was I French and my school day French had never been good and now I could hardly remember any of it. I could not remember that Kim had been so fluent or confident in French and wondered where she had learnt to speak French so fluently but I was so grateful that she took charge and did not let me seem stupid because I could not understand the menu. But she had always been like that at school. She was extremely clever with no ambition to be seen to be top of the class and was always content to be part of the main gang
Kim said to me “do you remember the fair?”
I replied “what the one when we were in are second year at school”
“Yes” she responded and then told me as if it was yesterday every detail of what happened “when we went up in the Ferris wheel and it got stuck”. She thought it was hilarious but I was petrified. I kept shouting and screaming down to the men on the ground to sort at the machine but she just seemed unbothered and told me they would fix it soon, I soon calmed down then. I was quite shocked that Kim remembered the details of how everything had been that day when it was so long ago, but it made me feel like we were best friends again. Also it made me think that I should have got in touch sooner. I said “At least we got off it, even though we were waiting and stuck on the wheel for two hours”.
Kim then began to reminisce about the other times that we had been waiting and we tried to list all of them, some of these where vague memories and I am sure that they didn’t always happen as we remembered but the funniest time that we both remembered was on a school field trip to Wales. Three mini buses full of our science classes went for a whole week to Dale which is a coastal town on the West coast of Wales. It has brilliant rock pools and other sea creatures that we were supposed to be studying.
On the trip down we stopped for a break at a café. As there were 40 people it took some time to get food and drink. We were given a specific time to board the mini buses and as usual Kim decided to go to the Loo at the last minute. We both became quite hysterical whilst we remembered that Kim had been stuck in the Loo as the door had jammed. Nobody noticed that she wasn’t on any bus because we had changed seats and even buses so nobody noticed that Kim was missing, even the teachers. It took some time for some of us to ask which bus Kim was on and became vaguely concerned but it was only when we stopped at the next stop that we were able to raise the alarm. Eventually the teachers managed to track her down and one of the buses had to return for her whilst the other buses went on to Dale. None of us could settle until she arrived safely.
Kim began to giggle a this point in the story and said “ I remember banging and banging on the door of the Loo and it was about ten minutes before somebody come into the loo and got the manager to let me out. I was so shocked that everyone had gone but shrugged my shoulders and went and sat back in the cafe but the manager was great and they kept me amused by talking to me, feeding me, providing me with papers and sweets so in the end I had a great time just waiting for somebody to return. I remember that it was that very strange woman scientist who returned for me but the next year left the school and went to work for Greenpeace.”
I said “Yes’ I remember her, I wondered if she lost anything ever again although she managed to get us all through our exams”.
Kim and I finished our meals and found that we had spent over four hours together and both realised that we had kept our families waiting for us at home when we had both said we would be home at least one hour earlier. We promised to meet soon and not leave waiting to meet again for another twenty years.
