1994.  Salford.  A hot day.  The heat

wriggles up from white concrete.  Dogs

stretch on cracked pavements.

I’m 15 and going out.  I don’t know where.

Leanne is a new friend – hasn’t

yet realised I’m the weird girl.

She’s a liar, so the others say.

I’m wearing white stretch leggings

and I don’t yet know that they show

my knickers.  A T shirt.

Mum and Lucy express surprise

from inside a pother of

blueish smoke

but they’re too polite to say.

On Gore Avenue the men stop

working.  There’s Laughter.

Shouting. Eyes down.

Hurry past.  Don’t stop.

To Weaste Lane, to Buile Hill Park.

But it happens again and then again.

Shouting.  Whistling.

By the time I reach my friend

I’m bewildered – I tell her

but she doesn’t believe me.

She thinks everyone lies, like her.

We go to the precinct, past,

through tunnels of dirty yellow bricks.

Groups of boys by the flats. Eyes

and words following us.

More shouting.  A mix of

shame and pride. 

Because they see me,

they at least see me as

something more than the

weird girl from school.

Then we’re walking and talking

through sunny Salford streets,

the two of us.  It feels like

friendship.  Joyful.

Finally night comes and

we’re walking home.  We walk

back through the yellow tunnels,

back past the piss smells

with a woman who’s

scared to walk through them alone.

This is freedom and independence

and real life, at last.  It’s

exciting and fun and horrifying

and it is friendship.

The next day at school

Leanne tells everyone I made it all up.