Old Friends in Paradise Ch. 01

He looked around and grinned at the crowd waiting for their adoring laughter. Only there wasn't any.

The silence was deafening.

Not only wasn't there any laughter there was rather a lot of raised eyebrows, rolled eyes and disappointed head shakes especially from the girls. Not two weeks before, a really nice and popular girl in our year had 'come out' bringing her girlfriend to the prom, and the 'gay' jokes now seemed horrible and Simon had either not noticed this change or more likely just didn't care.

"Oh give it a rest won't you Simon?" said Rachel who had obviously taken more of an interest in Christian in the last few hours, "anyway," she said grasping a handful of the shirt she'd just signed (AND written her phone number on) in the small of his back then tucking it in down his belt, "I don't think you can call him Stick-thin anymore."

Indeed he couldn't.

The shirt 'bunch and tuck' was the trick all we girls pulled in year eight and nine when we developed boobs and wanted to show them off on our walks home in the summer sans jumper and blazer, and all of a sudden Christian's burgeoning new torso was on display and Rachel could obviously feel a stand-off in the wind.

Simon couldn't let a challenge like this go by and looked around the room for his friends;

"I'll eat you for fucking breakfast Stick-thin fucker..."

"Go on then..." said Christian with a simple yet confident tone none of us had heard before, "Or are you too scared now you don't have your trained monkey Brett at your side?" Gavin was away across the hall trying to be charming and get a few phone numbers before we all went our separate ways, he was a comic and punching and kicking really wasn't his forte without Brett's muscular frame next to him.

The same obviously went for Simon's other rugby teammates, deprived of the reassuringly threatening ape-like presence that had been so much a part of our last year they ignored their captain's look that would previously have had all hands on deck - that and huge Mr Maguire, fast Mr Jones and nasty Mr Hobbs all being in the room.

It was just Simon then, and Christian continued.

"And I'll know you're coming of course. I know that brave boys like you always prefer to be brave when no one can see and your victim doesn't know you're coming -- Chrissie, you know that the Year Ten's called him and Brett 'Barbara and Pearl' don't you."

There were some quiet giggles hastily shushed, and Rachel stepped closer to Christian as if she was waiting to hear this revelation.

"A rather clever GCSE World War Two History pun Chrissie, as in 'Operation Barbarossa' and 'Pearl Harbour' -- because they're nasty baddies you can't really trust or turn your back on who then either pretend to be your mate or just wait until you aren't looking to attack you."

There was a chuckle from those around us, I had heard the names used by younger kids behind Simon's back but never knew why, shame on Christian for being so mean...

"Anytime Tucker fucker," hissed Simon, "and you know I'll wipe the fucking floor..."

Christian took a pace forward, his arms extended.

"So you said before Simon, in your own time mate..."

The air could have been cut with a knife but the inevitable was forestalled.

"So ladies and gentlemen," said Mrs Reynolds appearing at my side, "have you all signed what you want to sign, and have you all cleared your lockers and tutor rooms, this is your last chance you know?"

There was a universal mumbling of 'Yes Miss' and the group split in various directions, most noticeably the boys that had hung around Brett and Simon almost religiously before.

"I'll fucking HAVE you Fucker..."

Simon pointed a finger at Christian and mumbled a threat looking round to check who else was there, eliciting the faintest tremble in his voice new to all there while Christian stood his ground, smiled, shook his head and made the 'yackety-yak' hand movement suggesting to the rest of the audience that actions spoke louder than words and there was a wave of giggles - the kind that Simon had always inspired before.

The King, it seemed, was dethroned and was being abandoned by his previously loyal 'sworn rugby playing brothers' after a single punch. Many were probably preparing their 'we were only following orders' speeches as they slunk away from Simon's very own and very personal burning Reichstag for final handshakes and pictures with the staff.

The skinny quiet one wasn't so quiet anymore and I was worried, although not sure for whom. Simon walked away with his head bowed and alone, the silent and miserable one for once.

"Oh..." I couldn't think what to say, "Oh... Leave him alone Christian..." I hissed

Christian, Rachel and about half of the year group stood stunned for a moment at my response as the leader of his tormentors of the last two years walked away sullenly. Christian more than most when he looked at me and mouthed a silent and surprised "What?" at me.

*

We had all cleared our lockers and tutor rooms of course and none of us really had anything to take with us and we all shook hands, hugged best mates -- many of whom we'd see at our colleges in September or in town on Saturdays -- as if it was the last time ever. Hand in hand Simon and I stepped out of the gates for the last time and along the quiet service road beside the school.

Simon used to walk me home, something my old nearly next door neighbour Christian did in better days gone by and before he moved house and things changed, and we happened to see him wheeling his bike with two flat tyres and carrying a table of all things, a school woodwork exam project that had been marked and graded and was now ready to take home. I guessed that someone had done for his tyres as they so often had before.

"I'm gonna fuckin' have him, once and for fuckin' all!" said Simon whispering almost to himself, dropping my hand and trotting forward silently on his toes and raising his right arm with bunched fist ready to strike.

For a moment all I could visualise was Christian's comments about Simon only being brave when his victim wasn't looking and I wanted to shout out to Simon to stop, to leave Christian be with his own troubles of which he had many, but it was too late. Simon leapt off of his feet raising his arm high in the air to come down with maximum force of his pointed knuckles on Christian's head. I wanted to shout, to stop...

He brought his fist down at speed, only for it to crash into the hard oak top of Christian's handmade coffee table that had moved from his shoulder.

Simon howled and dropped to one knee clutching his hand.

"Arrgh!" he shouted in frustrated anger, "you did that on purpose, I'm gonna have you for that you gay bastard!"

"Of course I did it on purpose you fucking moron!" Christian beamed at his would-be attacker with his injured hand tucked under his arm, "mirrors!" said Christian almost as if it was a surprise and pointing at one attached to his bike handlebars, "who'd of thought they'd ever be that useful -- and this coffee table! Fuck, but my Mum's going to love it even more! Look!" he said pointing, "there's an imprint of your knuckles, might want to get them looked at Si-Si."

Simon snarled and took a pace towards Christian who simply raised a hand, kicked out the side stand of his pushbike and put down the offending coffee table and stood.

Christian had untucked the spare shirt that Rachel had so dramatically bunched and tucked for him but his new shape was still evident. More than that there was something else. A new Christian, a confident Christian that wasn't going to put up or shut up anymore.

"Thank you Simon, ready when you are... mate?" Christian stood tall and ready - very, very ready in fact; something that obviously made my boyfriend think twice and there was a long pause. Christian looked at his watch, "we haven't got all day look? Sorry," said Christian with a smile, "did you want to call Brett? If you do, make sure you stick to short sentences - no big words, his keeper hasn't taught them to him yet."

There was a few chuckles, I looked round and saw that a bit of a crowd was forming, both in the service road near us and through the chain link fencing in the school grounds.

"Don't... don't need fucking Brett..." he said moving around a bit, bouncing around on his toes like a boxer but not getting close enough to do anything and occasionally rubbing his bleeding and skinned knuckles.

It turned out that Simon really was only used to getting the first unseen punch in and dropping his opponent, then daring his victim to stand up and fight back, flanked by Brett and several big lads from the rugby team.

But those days had gone and this was one on one and what followed was a series of feeble threats and equally feeble punches made by Simon and a corresponding series of parries and defensive moves from a smiling Christian that left the aggressor more out of breath, often on his arse or his bloodied knees visible through the holes torn in his expensive school trousers by the number of falls he'd taken on the gravelled road and a long, dirty, oily, wet puddle-patch on the back of his designer shirt he hadn't let anyone sign.

Furiously frustrated and seriously outclassed my boyfriend was now the laughingstock of an increasingly large audience of kids from our school happy to watch the smart-arse, pretty-boy bully from Year 11 through the fence, for once not surrounded by his gang of rugby mates or the caustic class comedian and finally getting his own medicine at last. They started cheering with each fall, confident that he had that day left the school and was no longer a threat to them at break time or over lunch.

"Fuckin' stand still, fuckin' fight me!" snarled Simon in useless frustration.

"I AM fighting you Si-Si, just Look at the state of you!" said Christian, not a mark on him and waving a hand around to his giggling audience, "trouble is I'm winning Simon - winning because you're fucking NOTHING when it's just you - and I saw you coming of course mate!"

Simon fell back on what he knew and tried a final charging tackle, but Christian had been expecting it from the start and used Simon's own momentum against him and his attacker was pushed easily to one ending up with his face slammed into the brick wall of the adjacent garages and his right arm bent up behind his back. Christian, to add to his revenge would give the weakened limb a twist whenever Simon tried to struggle free, whispering more vengeful glee into Simon's ear.

"Christian!" I screamed moving closer to them both, finally snapped out of my stunned shocked inaction by the look of angry agony on my boyfriend's face.

"What?" he growled back at me, "What the fuck Christina? Awwww... Is this upsetting for you is it? Should I be letting your pretty boyfriend beat me up should I? Would that make you happy would it? So sorry, I'll lay on the ground and let him kick me, yeah?" he looked straight at me and into my guilt, "Just as soon as you tell me one thing Christina, what did I ever do to you huh?" He growled staring accusingly into my tear-wet eyes, nearly two years of anger finally surfacing, "I don't know what I did to this twat to make him want to make my life such fucking misery, but shit Chrissie we were actually best mates, what did I EVER do to YOU?" His shout had an accusatory finger added, pointed straight at me.

My mouth hung open as I struggled for a response.

"Alright, that's enough." The crowd star-burst in a dozen directions as the huge and now reassuring figure of Mr Maguire, deputy head of school, head of our House and my favourite teacher appeared from his car beside the crowd.

Christian let go of his captive who fell to his knees with a cry, tears of embarrassed, frustrated rage as much as the pain, and a trickle of blood from his nose this time.

"Sir!" I squealed through my tears, "it was Christian..."

"No it wasn't!" snapped Mr Davies from the other side of the car with an air of contempt. "We watched the whole thing from the staff room Miss Mair, I'd say that Simon is bloody lucky that Christian only fended him off." He picked up his freshly retired team captain by the front of his now messy shirt, a look of disappointment mixed with disgust in his eyes, "I always tried to tell people you weren't as bad as they said you were Williams, now I see that you are; and attacking a man from behind? Spineless that is Williams, wholly-bloody-spineless..." he hissed at his one-time champion.

"But..." hissed Simon pointing at an unrepentant Christian that looked taller now somehow.

Mr Davies slapped a hand to his cheek.

"Shut up boy!" snapped the angry and disappointed Welsh PE teacher, his hand still holding Simon's jaw.

Simon looked across at me then at an untouched Christian,

"I'll still fuckin'..."

"You'll do what Williams? You attacked him but somehow we're here to rescue you, yah bloody idiot!" said Mr Jones.

"And that's just what we'll tell the police should we need to," said Mr Maguire.

"But Sir..." I said, desperate to stand up for my wounded and wronged boyfriend, "it was..."

"Give it a bloody rest Miss Mair! We watched Simon's cowardly attack from up there!" Mr Maguire shouted angrily at me probably for the first time ever and not calling me by my first name, pointing over his shoulder to the first-floor staff room windows with recognisable faces at each. His tone changed, "You disappoint me Christina," he looked down his nose at me, "I thought better of you, especially with your old mate Christian; I really did think better of you."

Three years later I was taught many of the moves that Christian had used, and the violence, the blood, the swearing and aggression of that five minutes eventually passed; but the disappointed look in Mr Maguire's eyes stayed with me for years.

"Sorry Chrissie," said Christian with a look that suggested he'd had a bit of an epiphany as well.

"Stay away from me," I screamed at a boy I'd grown up with and had once been my best friend from the cradle to just a couple of years before, who'd known all my secrets, my hopes and dreams, "I never want to speak to you again!" I hissed at him.

The sympathy he'd felt disappeared as he finally gave up on whatever good feelings about me he had left.

"What?" his look suggested some contemptuous disbelief and I bit at that.

"Just... leave me alone OK?!" I snapped.

"I'll explain the concept to you in the sweet and pretty terms you'll understand Chrissie, shall I? You're convinced that you're part of the heroic Gryffindor's and that I've injured poor Quidditch star Simon there."

That struck immediately home. Christian and I had both discovered Harry Potter at the same time and had shared the books, the toys and our opinions and when the films came along cinema trips. All the time I'd likened myself to Hermione while bespectacled Christian, the life-long 'Lord of the Rings' nerd, just referring to himself some anonymous Ravenclaw.

"but the trouble is your sweet little gang have been the Slytherin bullies for the last two movies, but you can't see that can you..." Christian hissed back, his derision was almost as stinging as that from the teachers, "CAN YOU?!"

Mr Maguire raised an eyebrow at that and had half a laconic smile at Christian then looked at me for a response.

With that simple supposition it started to become clear.

I ran home in tears. I never saw Christian again after that day but our... no MY treatment of him stayed with me.

*

"Took you long enough Chrissie!" His voice was jolly but I was sure had a slight edge to it, "I wasn't sure it was you until yesterday morning, then it all came back to me, and I thought 'that's Christina! Then I remembered Mum mentioning you'd joined the RAF years ago. Bloody hell mate, how long has it been?!"