But he did.  When it mattered: when I was lonely and naïve and in love with him…

Then, when I was no longer any of those things, he’d unexpectedly remembered me again – with the result that I now found myself, at twenty-eight-and-a-half, in a swarming pub I hadn’t frequented since sixth form, cleaving through a crowd who looked young enough to be my offspring, towards the boy for whom I’d once have died.

It was the most surreal walk of my life: one which conveyed me not just a couple of metres across a Brierley Hill bar but right the way back to my adolescence.  University, Neil, work, Jerry, mortgages…all the happenings, accomplishments and sorrows of my adult life evaporated to nothing, and Karl was all again.

But I did not want him to be!  I was not a soppy nineteen-year-old now but a shrewd, smart, sophisticated lady, and I must resist his charms at all costs.

I must not be hurt again.

Ooh, I could smell him now!  I could touch him; I could count the downy, sun-coloured hairs on his forearms.

I could also turn right round and bolt away if I wanted to.  He was still oblivious to my close presence.  I could slink out of the door through which I’d entered, and he would never know I had been there…

‘All right, Karl,’ I cheeped.

I cringed at the feeble wobble of my voice, but it made him jump all the same.  He virtually choked on the Fosters he had just experimentally sipped.  Oops, not the best of starts to our renewed acquaintance!  It was too sitcom-like for words.  Through coughs, his watering eyes appraised me with ‘Is it really you?’ perplexity.

Then a disturbingly knicker-dampening grin illuminated his impish, wrinkle-free face.

‘Zoe – maaate!’

‘Long time no see,’ I understated.  ‘Sorry I made your lager go down the wrong way.’  I slapped his muscular back until he ceased to splutter, amazed at how easy it was to be this familiar again.

‘Never mind that – it was a very nice way to be startled.  Thanks for coming.  I am so, so honoured.  Oh, come here, you!’ 

Brawny, reassuring, polo-shirted arms were around me.  The hug felt good.  Dangerously good, in fact.  It was a hug that said ‘I’m here, everything’s going to be all right from now on.’

Please don’t let me be seduced again!

‘You recognised me OK then,’ he asked, holding me at arm’s length and apprising me up and down with undisguised admiration, ‘even after all this time?’

 ‘I’d recognise you anywhere, Karl.  You still look about seventeen.  How do you do that?’

‘Must be all that farmyard air – either that or the baboon blubber I inject myself with every morning.’

‘I’ve missed your sense of humour,’ I chuckled, surprised how much I meant it.  I hadn’t belly laughed much since I split up with Karl.  Now, after two minutes with him, I was doubled up again.

‘I’m not joking about the blubber,’ he protested with mock umbrage, ‘it’s good stuff – and dead easy to come by for us veterinaries.  If you ever start to get a bit wrinkly, Zo, you just tip me the wink and I’ll arrange for a crateful to be delivered.  But I don’t think you’ll be needing it for some time – you look great.  In fact, that’s a lie.  You look drop-dead bloody gorgeous!  You certainly stand out in those flash red trousers.’

‘Always the charmer, weren’t you?’  I grinned cynically.

‘Well not quite always, eh?’ 

He held my eyes, his expression laudably sheepish.  It was me who looked away first and flustered, unsure how this new earnest Karl ought to be handled. 

‘I’m glad you went back to short hair at any rate,’ I twittered.  ‘That’s the one difference – it was quite a bit longer the last time we were together, wasn’t it?’

‘The last time we – oh yes!’  He had the grace to wince again at the memory.  ‘That look didn’t last too long.  Grunge never quite suited me.’

‘No,’ I said rather tartly, ‘it didn’t.’  Still, moving on…  ‘Am I the first to arrive?’

‘Er, yes.’

‘Who else are you expecting?’

‘Listen, can I get you a drink?’

‘That sounds like a bostin’ idea.  I’m driving, though, so best make it a spritzer.’

‘A spritzer, eh?’

‘White wine and soda.  I used to drink them when I was too young to drink legally, and wanted to appear sophisticated.’

‘I do remember.  Sure I can’t tempt you to a 20/20, though?’   He smirked and winked in pure Big Bad Wolf style. 

‘The last time you tempted me to a 20/20, Karl Corbett, I was violently ill.  It took my mother days to unclog all that radioactive green puke out of our plughole.’

‘Oh, happy days!’

‘Happy indeed.  I got a real sense of déjà vu, walking through the door then.’  (That was putting it mildly.)  ‘I haven’t been in here for years.’

‘Nor me.  Used to be one of our places, this, didn’t it?’  He clonked his pint against my fizzing glass.  ‘Anyway, we should drink a toast.’

‘To what?’

‘The past, the future – ’

‘To reunions,’ I interrupted swiftly, the word ‘future’ sending thrills of panic through me.

‘To reunions.  Cheers!’

‘Cheers!’

‘So how’s tricks then?  Work going well?’

‘Great, yeah.  Press officer at Tunney’s.  You remember that work experience I did there in sixth form?  I loved it so much, I kept going back for more, during all my uni holidays, making a total pest of myself, badgering them to take me on until eventually, when I graduated, they did.  And I couldn’t be happier.  It’s my fantasy job really.’

‘Chief taster would be mine!’

‘Funnily enough, we don’t get many vacancies in the tasting department.  You’re not doing so badly yourself, though, by all accounts.’

‘Well, I enjoy it.  Tending the poorly little moggies and goldfish of Halesowen.  Hardly Animal Hospital, but it’s a start.  There’s a chance I could be offered a partnership with another firm soon, though – ’

‘I can’t bear to watch Animal Hospital.  Not just ’cos I can’t bear to see sick little critters – but as a kid I used to be terrified of Rolf Harris!’

‘How can you be scared of Rolf?’

‘I was!  When I was little, I used to run out the room screaming if he came on the telly shaking his wobble board.  It must have been that beard and the big specs.’

‘Oh, Zo you are funny.’

Conversing with Karl was so easy.  Precariously easy.  The nine years I had lived since our heartbreaking parting peeled away like strips of leg wax.  They’d often been just as painful too.

Karl still possessed his knack of giving one his full attention; of making it appear nobody but the two of us existed.  We could have been quite alone then – in the park or the common room or one of our bedrooms.  The Friday night flock around us were but a fuzz; the dancey background music a mere hum.

I can remember exactly why I fell for you, I thought.  With dismay.

‘Isn’t it about time some of our classmates showed up?’  I frowned at my watch.  ‘It’s nearly half-eight.  You never actually told me who’s coming tonight, mind.  Not Tina Skidmarks, I hope.  I think I’d run a mile if she walked through that door, even now.’

‘I think I would!  She used to terrify me an’ all.’

‘Who’s coming then, Karl?’

‘Well, er – actually,’ he took a hasty gulp of Fosters and twiddled with his collar: atypically nervy Karl gestures, ‘I’ve got a confession to make.’

‘Oh?’

‘Nobody is.  It’s just the two of us.’

‘What – none of the others could make it?’  In retrospect, this was a pretty dense question.

‘Er – not quite.  You see, I didn’t actually invite anybody else.  Just you.’

‘Just me?’  You could have heard the penny dropping in Gambia.

‘Mmm.’

The sod had set me up!

What happened to shrewd and sophisticated, eh, Zoe?  I thought you weren’t about to be taken in by him again!  How could you let him do this to you again, you dopey bint!

‘Not much of a reunion, is it?’  I tittered innocently, making him suffer, not letting him know I understood him.

‘I haven’t organised a reunion at all.  I’m not interested in meeting up with Tina Skidmarks, or anyone else from Capewell for that matter.  I wanted to meet you.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I wanted to make amends, to explain myself – and maybe to, er,’ he scratched his head, bit a nail, swilled the foamy lager dregs round the bottom of his glass, ‘see if you’d like to go out with me.’

A beautiful firework display was going off inside my heart, but I stubbornly contorted my face into an expression of revolted disbelief.

‘Go out with you?’ 

‘Mmm.’  He looked so crestfallen at my reaction, it was hard not to want to hug him.  ‘I can see the idea doesn’t majorly appeal to you.  But then it’s probably come as just a teensy bit of a shock.  I’m not surprised really, after all the shit I put you through.  But I wanted – ’

‘B-but what about that e-mail you sent?  You said you wanted to see “as many Class of 93 members as poss,” if I recall correctly.’

(Not that I’d memorised it, or anything!)

‘Oh that?  I just worded it in such a way that you’d think I’d sent exactly the same invitation out to everyone on Friends Reunited.  I figured you’d never agree to meet me if I just came out and asked you.’

‘Too right I wouldn’t!  And I think I’d better get going now actually.’  I huffily hoisted up my handbag and made for the exit, virtually crying.  Two heavyweight emotions – disappointment and delight – were conducting a boxing match inside me.  ‘I can’t stay here and make an even bigger mug of myself.  How dare you set me up like this!  You haven’t changed a bit, have you?’

‘But I have.’  He clasped my bag-free arm and implored me with a gaze that was startlingly heartfelt.  This wasn’t Cocky Karl, to whom I said goodbye in 1994, but Caring Karl, who rescued me from bullies, held me when Granny died and helped me revise for my A-levels.  ‘Hear me out, Zo, please.  I want to apologise.’

‘Bit late now, isn’t it?  How could you drag me all the way over here under false pretences?  Didn’t it occur to your arrogant little mind that I might have had a million better things to do this evening?  Like – oh I don’t know – changing the cat litter, for instance?’

‘The reason I “dragged you here” was so I could tell you all this face to face.  It just seemed – I dunno – the best way somehow.  Putting all my thoughts down in an e-mail seemed the coward’s way.  And I’d have been too scared of you not replying – I’d never have known your reaction.’

‘Well you sure know it now!  Are you doing this for a bet, Karl?  You’ve got a sweepstake going on with your stupid mates about how long it would take you to lure your naïve bimbo ex into your bed?’

‘It’s nothing like that, I assure you.  I know you don’t believe me, but I am totally sincere, and there are certainly no “stupid mates” involved.  Nobody even knows about this.’

I scrunched up my face in embarrassment as another thought occurred.

‘Oh God, how could I have been so dim as to think you’d sent that e-mail out to everybody whose name is on the website?  You have to pay a fiver to contact someone through Friends Reunited – it would have cost you a bomb to mail everyone on that list!  Why didn’t I twig before?’

‘I’m sorry you feel so deceived, and I guess I’ve really cocked things up, but I would like you to know that I’ve never stopped regretting the way things ended between us.  I know I was only nineteen, I was a hot-headed lad from Sedgley who went off to vet school and suddenly thought he owned the world – but that’s no excuse for letting a lovely girl like you slip through my fingers.  There’s been no-one special since.’

‘Shut up Karl!  You expect me to believe that you – you! – have lived like a monk for a decade because you’ve been pining your little heart out over me?’

‘I didn’t say I’d been a monk – just that no other girl has made me so happy, so goddamn glad to be alive, as you did.  In fact, you’re gunna think this is very yucky, but I’ve never stopped, er – l-loving you.’

‘Loving me?’  I snorted as though insulted – whilst mentally doing the conga and whooping He loves me!  He loves me!  He’s always loved me!  ‘Don’t give me that old pony, Karl!  You never loved anyone but yourself.  God, this is like a scene from some dire mini series.  You’re cheesier than a – a cheesy Wotsit.’

‘I don’t deny being cheesy, but I’m not a liar.  I loved you very much – in my own, wallyish way, perhaps – and I’ve missed you ever since we parted, but when I’d heard you’d set up home with that chap – ’

‘Neil.’

‘Neil.  I forced myself to accept I’d lost you for good.  Then I recently heard on the grapevine that you were single again, and I thought – ’

‘I’d be so desperate and sex-starved that I wouldn’t be able to resist your boyish magnetism?’

‘I thought if I didn’t take the opportunity to say my bit, I’d spend the rest of my life kicking myself – and kicking yourself just gives you bruises.  But I chickened out of asking you out properly – that’s why I came up with the reunion idea.  The fact it’s exactly ten years since we left school was a handy coincidence that made the story seem more plausible.’

‘Yeah – nice touch, that!’

‘To be honest, I never for a minute thought you’d say yes – even when you thought I was asking you to a genuine reunion – and I was completely chuffed when you replied so quickly.  I’ve been worrying myself shitless about this moment for the last six weeks, but I haven’t built up my hopes.  I’ve prepared myself for you either going ape at me or telling me some other lucky guy has snapped you up – but I figured at least I could die in the knowledge I said my piece to you.’

‘Planning to die imminently, are you?’ I asked drily.

‘Not unless you’re planning a fatal whack with that handbag of yours.’

That grin!  That same one he’d used to disarm Granny in the market place, and teachers when he hadn’t finished his homework.

‘I ought to, you know,’ I sighed guiltily, ‘I really ought to.  But I guess it must have taken a lot of guts to say all this face to face.  And I can’t pretend I’m not flattered.  Things like this never usually happen to me.  It’s a bit like being in a chick flick.’

‘It’s still a no, though?’  He pouted contritely.

‘You know, fifteen years ago I’d have renounced chocolate forever just to hear you say you loved me.’

‘Renounce chocolate?  That’s quite an admission coming from the school dustbin.  It must have been serious!’

‘Is that what you used to call me?  If I’d known that, I might not have been quite so mad about you.  But I did spend years dreaming you would ask me out.  At the time, though, you were too busy necking with that bloody Hayley Jasper.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ he grimaced, ‘I haven’t always made the most prudent choices.  Only once, in fact.’

‘We’re older and wiser now, though.’  I forced myself to sound all sensible whilst fighting the urge to pout right back into those passionate green eyes, undo my buttons, fan out my hair and purr ‘Take me – over that table, big boy – now!’

‘No law says we have to be.  So what if we’re pushing thirty?  We can be just as young and unwise as we like.  Come on – at least stay and have a drink with an old friend.  It would be nice if we could part friends, if nothing else.’

My lips pursed into a ‘No’ shape – and then I checked myself.  What harm could it do?  Wasn’t I essentially in the same boat as Karl?  He had no desire to reunite with Capewell comrades – and nor had I.  He was – I realised, in a blaze of self-awareness – the entire reason I’d come to a reunion at all.

If Nasreen or Shane or Felix had invited me, I wondered rhetorically, would I be here now?  Of course not!  I’d be out with my mates – my grown-up mates – or in with Jerry.  Zoe, wise up, gal!  Karl wants to spend this Friday evening with you, and you want to spend it with him.  You’ve both got your wish, now stay and have a drink with him and stop being so churlish!

I took a deep, ‘What the hell am I letting myself in for?’ breath.

‘All right, you’re on.  You always could win me round.’

It was difficult not to be flattered by the naked joy on his ever-expressive face.

‘Ooh, I haven’t been this excited since the Baggies got in the Premiership!’

‘They’ve just dropped out of it again now, though,’ I said cruelly.

‘Zoe Taylor, you sure know how to wound a boy.’  He smiled, in that head-on-side, sincere manner.  ‘It really is great to see you, though – and you really do look fantastic.’

‘I kept the weight off, you’ll notice.  Which isn’t always easy when you work in a chocolate factory.’

‘Do you still like your food?’

‘Sure do – just in smaller quantities!’

‘That’s good to hear.  I can’t stand these finicky wenches who live on yogurts and celery.  Have you eaten this evening, mate?’

I shook my head.  ‘I had my hopes set on a few curled-up sarnies and soggy Monster Munches at the reunion buffet, but it seems I’m to be disappointed.’

‘Bet you’re hungry, eh?’

‘Ravenous.’

‘That’s good news, because I took the liberty of booking a table for two in this ’ere restaurant.  Let’s catch up on the gossip over a steak.’

‘You’re a presumptuous sod, Karl Corbett, you really are,’ I giggled as the waiter ushered us upstairs to a table.  This look set to be an interesting evening.