Title: Boy Meets Girl

Author: Linda Burgess

In: Sport 13 Spring 1994

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, October 1994

Part of: Sport

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Sport 13 Spring 1994

Boy Meets Girl and Loses Girl

Boy Meets Girl and Loses Girl

Let me tell you a story. First you must remember a day; the day that you knew for sure that this life isn’t a dress rehearsal for the real thing. It is the real thing. This road is strictly one way; it will not be walked again. Suddenly, there is desperation in our nostalgia. What if…? we think. This is such a story. What if? he thinks. What if?

At seventeen he meets Megan. Oh what a girl, from the valleys she is although she could have come from the pages of Dylan Thomas. Eyes so brown they snap. Red red cheeks. Black curls that bounce and toss and tumble. Does he love her? He supposes so. Does he want her? Oh yes yes yes he does. He does he does he does. He stays awake all night trembling just thinking about her. His hot breath against the pillow blasts him back full in the face as he rubs against his mattress. Oh Megan please Megan oh Megan. Please.

No, says Megan. And it isn’t just because she’s chapel, although there’s that too. It’s more that Bronwyn up the valley had gone all the way just the once they said with the number 8 from the Pontypool rugby team and she’d got in the family way and he wouldn’t marry her and she’d ended up in the home for unmarried mothers in Cardiff. The shame, the shame. And if you buy protection you have to go into Huw the chemist, and everyone will know, won’t they. The town is too small.

But after chapel on Sundays she comes and takes tea with his mother and him, in the special room at the front of the house which they use only on Sundays. And his mother laughs with pleasure at the sight of her. A lovely girl Megan and her David could do so much worse for himself. A lovely girl for her David. How I wish I’d…she sometimes thinks but we’ll go into it later. Remember though: How I wish I’d…she sometimes thinks.

No, says Megan. No, she says, and she says, David it’s over.

Over? He cries in despair. Over and it hasn’t even begun! But he’s a clever boy and goes away to study science at the University in Cardiff and slowly he forgets her. Well, stops thinking about her.