running away

“Can I borrow your kajal? I forgot mine”

It was so exciting. We were in the loos at the tube station. We’d ditched the school shoes (two inches maximum heel height), the beige socks, the navy blue skirt (no shorter than one inch above the knee – tape measures will be used), the white shirts, the red and blue tie, the hideous shapeless pullover (cherry red – Dickens and Jones School Uniform Department), the horrible blazer, the overcoat and finally the nasty hat - navy blue velour, with the school ribbon around it.

Imogen handed over the little cone of black and the brush, and I unscrewed the top.

She was my best friend – she hadn’t been at my school long; her father was a Wing Commander and they’d recently moved from West Germany. We’d been inseparable almost from the start – we felt exactly the same about the unfairness of life and the need to do something about it. It was definitely time to move things along a bit.

At Christmas we’d twisted silver tinsel around the hats and danced to Slade’s number one, but it wasn’t enough. School was so boring. It was such a stupid place to waste our time in when we could be having an adventure instead.

We’d stopped reading Jackie magazine months before and instead, at break times, we poured over the NME and Melody Maker, cutting out photographs, and looking longingly at the ads in the back for clothes our parents wouldn’t let us buy.

We were only in the upper fourth – there were years to go before we could escape, so we decided to take matters into our own hands and force the issue. It had taken months of planning; secret discussions in our bedrooms, during which we always turned the music up so no one else could hear, and burned joss sticks to hide the smell of cigarette smoke.

Actually we hadn’t discussed much; there was no plan as such, beyond running away, but we thought most of it would be plain sailing once we arrived, so we concentrated on talking about how exciting it would be, listening to Mott the Hoople and David Bowie, singing along with Ian Hunter to the lyrics of “All The Young Dudes” – we knew them off by heart.

While we lay on the floor talking, I drew pictures of people I would like to go out with, and they always ended up looking like him - big shades, big hair. I could still remember the thrill of seeing him live. It was the first proper gig we’d been allowed to go to, although even then it was strictly supervised.

We’d been driven to Oxford; wherever they played in London was not thought to be suitable for us – so deeply unfair! All the same – it was wonderful seeing them on stage – even Queen had been quite good as the support, although Freddie Mercury obviously wasn’t as impressive as Ian Hunter.

I looked at myself in the mirror, holding one eyelid down as I plastered the black as thickly as I could along the inside rim. When I’d finished, I passed it back to Imogen. I did the mascara quickly. We’d taken so long to get changed, I was worried someone might come in before we looked sophisticated enough not to be recognised as schoolgirls.

“How’s that?”

“You look perfect.”

“So do you.”

“This is so exciting!!!”

We admired each other. We were more or less identical now - as we’d been before – except not in uniform. Long hair, afghan coats, jeans with patches on, and clogs with very high wooden platform soles. We’d customised the jeans and clogs with glue and glitter. It wasn’t exactly easy to walk in the clogs, but you could manage if you remembered to go slowly.

That wasn’t the point anyway – the point was that they transformed us from fourteen year-olds into – oh at least sixteen – possibly more. We were running away and so we needed to look as old as possible.

A quick dab of patchouli oil, the hurried stashing of the uniforms behind the radiator, and we were off, laughing, down the stairs (carefully), to catch the next Metropolitan Line into town.

“What time is it?”

“Half nine”

Imogen smiled.

“They’ve probably read the letter by now.”

It was a brilliant letter. We’d spent ages writing it. It began with “Goodbye Colditz”, and went on to list in full all the things we wouldn’t miss. School lunches, the stupid napkins we had to carry to the hall in bags, lacrosse, the indoor shoes, the uniform, cross-country runs, needlework, assembly – everything basically.

“I bet they’re livid.”

We laughed.

“Where shall we go then?”

“Town of course”

“Yes obviously, but where in town?”

“Oh ….. how about Trafalgar Square?”

It sounded like a good place to begin the adventure. I liked all the pigeons there.

We settled back in the seat, putting our feet up on the one opposite, and waited to get there so we could start really living.