Dredger

She looked exactly the same as seven years ago, including the
hairstyle; I attributed this to the possibility that I had caught her
at
the same point in her `hair-cycle'. Thankfully, I had changed
sufficiently that I was safe from any glance of recognition.

I knew her, K, from school back home. She cultivated an air of
respectible desirability at school; she wouldn't just go out with
anyone, and had the personality, wit, and above all, looks to sneer
whilst still remaining aloof. The last thing I remember her
saying was that she wouldn't leave Dundee because there her clothes got
washed and food made.

Our school had dead holes in the curriculum filled with `worthwhile'
endeavours meant to prepare us all for work and the world.
Those of us who intended to do better than leaving after four years
regarded this is as insulting; I found it somewhat scary, since
it
reminded me that I may not escape. One of these lessons amounted to
what we regarded as community service: visiting a local
kindergarden for an hour, unsupervised, in groups of three or four. I
was in K's group.

Despite willing the bus to drag its feet, we arrived. The childrens
playgroup was a flat grey cuboid lying in a recess amongst a
typical assortment of tall grey-white cuboids. Once inside, all the
time hoping that our collective unconsciousness had helpfully
led us to the wrong place, we were taken through to the main area. This
consisted of a large collection of smelly kids in various
states of play; we were expected to interact. This was like Houston
asking some astronauts to "go play with the aliens". In fact, we
moved amongst them as if they had concealed ray-guns.

The main reactions I remember are my own and K's. We feeded off each
others distaste for the situation, gradually working
through the building; a tour of what we regarded as a zoo. We wandered
out into the yard and pointed at the children playing in
the mud with a skipping hoop as if they were elephants in Africa. I was
playing up to her snobbery and my own unease.

What brings the most guilt was the effort I made to make my companions
laugh, in particular to win browny points from K. At
the time, I was discovering an ability for sarcasm and here I used it
as if the ammunition lay all around me. I may not have said
anything directly to the employees and children but the laughter of my
companions amplified the insults sufficiently to register
on the surrounding faces.

It is this cowardice in the face of a little diversity that I thought
of, sitting there, darting glances from behind shoulders. She is
the
first person I've seen from home since leaving and I'm not sure I want
to meet to discuss old times: I'm afraid that I haven't
changed at all.