Anita and Me - Extract 1

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As I got closer, I realised why I had not recognised them straight away. Sherrie was shivering in a short denim skirt and high heels, and had applied mauve eyeshadow all the way up to her eyebrows. Fat Sally was squeezed into a psychedelic mini-dress with a shiny scarf tied round the waist, and her lips looked wet and shimmery, like a goldfish.

"That's nice!" said Anita, pointing her finger at Fat Sally's mouth. "Giz some. Mum locked her door today, couldn't get nothing off her dressing table. Mean cow."

Sherrie and Fat Sally giggled, Fat Sally rummaged in a pocket and brought out a small tub of Miners Lip Gloss which Anita grabbed and began smearing over her lips with a practised finger. They did not seem to have noticed me.

All three girls then scrutinised each other's faces, toning down a streak of blusher here, wiping a wet finger over a lipline there, whilst the three by now sweaty blokes stopped work and straightened up, looking over at us curiously. Anita, Fat Sally and Sherrie immediately pouted to attention, flicking their hair and digging each other in the ribs. Not to be outdone, I took my anorak hood down and wiped my nose. I could see the three musketeers clearly now, in a uniform of dirty denims and skinny rib sweaters, streaked with engine oil. The tallest of the three, a lanky, mousey youth with a poetic mouth, scratched his crotch absentmindedly, and muttered something to his companions, a short Italian-looking guy and a stockier blonde bloke with a smear of acne lying across his chin like scarlet porridge. They must have been about Sam Lowbridge's age, eighteen or so, just growing into their clumsy long limbs and carefully groomed bum-fluff upper lips.

Anita hissed, "I'm having the tall one, roight?" and sauntered over towards them, her thin hips swaying to some far off radio which was playing "This is the captain of your ship, your soul speaking..." I wondered if a soul was the same thing as a conscience and if Anita Rutter was following or ignoring hers at this moment in time. She sat down on the half-erected stage, right in the midst of them, and began talking to the Poet, each question punctuated with her short barking laugh. Pretty soon, all three guys were smiling along with her; I stood open-mouthed in admiration, wondering what spell she had cast, to turn these boy-men, whom I would have crossed streets to avoid had I seen them hanging around any corner near my school, into grinning, pliant pets.

Sherrie and Fat Sally were similarly impressed. "Her always gets the best one," muttered Sherrie, pulling her skirt down so that it momentarily covered her goosepimpled thighs.

"Look! He's only putting his arm round her! Cow!" breathed Fat Sally, who pulled her scarf tighter around her belly, as if constant optimistic pressure would finally reveal a waist as tiny and perfect as Anita's.

Anita suddenly seemed to remember we were waiting, and after a brief exchange with her new admirers, beckoned us over. I hesitated at first, wondering if it was five o'clock yet and if I should be getting back, but I sniffed something unfamiliar in the crisp late afternoon air, something forbidden and new, and I did not want to miss out.

"These am me mates, Sherrie and Sally..." Anita said, her hand resting proprietorially on the Poet's knee. "This am Dave, that's Tonio, he's Italian like me dad, and Gary..."

Sherrie immediately plonked herself next to Tonio, once she realised she towered over him by about six inches. They seemed as relieved as each other to have not drawn the short straw and ended up with either spotty Gary or Fat Sally, who now faced each other sullenly over an empty dodgem car. There was an uncomfortable silence in which anger and pity overtook both their faces as they realised fate and their appearance had consigned them, inevitably, shamefully, to each other. If spotty Gary and Fat Sally had any illusions that they deserved better, they only had to look across and see their own miserable reflection in the other's eyes.

For one brief, mad moment, Gary's gaze flickered round wildly, seeking an alternative, hoping there might be someone else on whom he could hang his rapidly diminishing status. He came to rest on me, took in the winter coat, the scabbed knees, my stubborn nine-year-old face, and dismissed me with amusement and yes, relief. He had not got the short straw after all and I knew, I knew that it was not because I was too young or badly dressed, it was something else, something about me so offputting, so unimaginable, that I made Fat Sally look like the glittering star prize.

Meera Syal, Anita and Me (Fourth Estate, 2012)