Hot Scot...

It is nineteen eighty four...

The first time that I saw her She was ten years old and wearing a striped lemon pinafore. She has long white socks on, and is sitting on the second of three steps that are outside her back door.

Her feet have been cut off- so I can't see if she is wearing sandals, but I have always doubted it because it's cold where she lives; even in Summer, and because She'd never be so uncool as to wear white socks with sandals at the same time, even if it was the Eighties. I never knew who took the photo. It might have been Molly or George, her parents, or her big brother James. I think he'd already moved out of the family home because he's a lot older than she is- by about ten years- I believe.

Her long blonde hair has been plaited recently, it has been brushed out now, but I can still see the wavy crimps. She's beautiful, with a shy smile; her small hand is cupping her chin thoughtfully as she rests an elbow on her knee, and I am automatically jealous of this girl, almost as soon as the photo slips loose from the envelope, for we look nothing alike; not even a whit; sadly.

The picture is accompanied by a single flattened Thistle- the floral emblem of Scotland- the purple of it's flower still vivid. I realise that I'm going to have to choose a nicer photo to send to her than the one I had originally intended to- my year four school picture- as I can't let her see the massive cow-lick in the centre of my uneven fringe. I'd rather die than have her think I look like an ugly little boy. What was I even smiling for, I wonder...

I greedily read her letter at least a thousand times, so that even today, many moons later, I can still remember almost every word. She tells me that her middle name is Avril, which was way before Lavigne's time, and that her birthday is on the seventh, the day after mine but in the same month and year still, so that I am older than her by one whole day. She tells me that she got a Cabbage Patch Doll for Christmas, which is on December the twenty-fifth where She lives, and that it cost twenty-five pounds, which is a LOT of money in 'their' money. She starts a game of 'knots' and crosses, beginning in the middle, herself, with an x. How ridiculous, yet typical, of me to remember a spelling mistake- made twenty one years ago, no less.

She signs off 'Your Best Pen-Pal' at the end, alongside two postscripts reminding me to write back soon. Sooner. She's drawn me a picture of a koala in lead pencil, and makes mention of a drawing that I had sent her, also of a koala, that would have been absolute rubbish compared to hers. It says- 'your koala was beautiful, not crap like you said'- but I know she was only being kind because I can't draw for shit. If I could draw I would draw stuff all the time. Like, oil-slicks and stuff...

But Her letters are always full of colour, drawings and plenty of stickers. She designs her own note-paper and envelopes a lot of the time too, and sends me homemade cards at Christmas time and on my birthdays. This is in stark contrast to my letters to her because I almost always just use plain white paper and envelopes. Occasionally I would try and draw a picture of Garfield, or horses or various marsupials, to send to her; but they never really got much better, so my letters grew even more colourless and boring over time as we grew up.

I've mentioned elsewhere, another time, that I didn't get a boyfriend until after I had dropped out of high school, so it's been very lucky for me that I've had my very Hot Scot for a pen-pal over the years, so that I could at least live through her vicariously. I've only ever had two 'real' boyfriends in my life; my Bastard Ex and my Hubby- but I couldn't tell you how many men she's been out with. Frankly, I doubt that she could tell you either. I think it's unreal though, and wish I had led the love-life she has sometimes, even though I'm fairly happy now with my own.

Well, some of the time...

But anyway.

The first boyfriend that I remember her having was little William Harding, who she was in love with when we were both aged eleven. We were both in fourth class, and I remember that she didn't like her teacher Missus Robertson very much. I didn't have that same problem. I liked my teacher very much indeed. My problem was that I didn't have a boyfriend to tell my faraway friend about. So I made one up.

Our usual teacher was on long-service leave, for three whole months, and so we had a replacement- named Mister Cox. I reckon it would have been his first teaching job straight out of college, because he was young and his face was still covered in acne- my Sister would have had a field day with the black-heads on his chin- though even that didn't stop him being attractive to us; Me, Perky and Lorraine the Foster Kid- my two particular best friends in life at the time.

I hate having to describe Lorraine in that way, but that's all I can really remember about her, as she didn't stay with that family very long, so I never really got to know much at all. Anyway- at lunchtimes the three of us would hide behind the big chopped off tree-stump in the playground, which was sort of between the basketball court and the cricket nets, watching Mister Cox as he dutifully patrolled the kids at play.

One particular day we got some old Paddle-Pop sticks off the ground and wrote our names on them- intending to leave them under the windscreen wipers of Mister Cox's yellow Datsun that he parks out on Bender Street. He doesn't park alongside the other teachers' cars in the school grounds 'cos he likes to duck out, occasionally, for one of the quick cigarettes he often reeks of. See; I told you he was cool. We jump the fence and race over to where his car is, and on a scribbled note we wrote 'Whoever you like the most, leave Their stick here tomorrow'- or something like that- just as the warning bell tells us that it's time to go back into class.

That afternoon when school was over we watched from the safety of the bushes as he took them from his windscreen. He puts the sticks, and the note, on the passenger seat beside him, before driving off, a trail of thick black smoke billowing from his exhaust pipe. Me and Perky both agree that he was smiling as he started the engine, and can't wait until tomorrow to find out what his answer will be...

Unsurprisingly, there was no reply, but this young man who had just embarked on his teaching career , unknowingly, was also my make-believe first boyfriend in the letters that I wrote for the next six months or so. I've always preferred older men. Now I had someone I could talk about, too, just like She talked about William Harding.

In her responses to me, she would ask how things were going with Stephen, the name I had given him because I didn't know what it really was- and after I had finished reading the letters she sent me I would carefully Liquid-Paper over all of the references she had made out him, just in case my nosy Sister's decided to go through my stuff, a fairly routine occurence if you happened to have three of them like I did. Do.

I'm pretty sure that has been the only time that I've lied to her, but I've never told her about it I don't think, so I'm telling her now. She'll forgive me for lying, too, because she's still my friend- one of the few. One of the best...

And even though we've still never met in person I know She'll read my little story one day because she thinks that I'm funny and clever. Really. It surprises me all the time as well.

So I'm calling this story With Friends Like You...and She, the Hot Scot, alongside a few other select Champions, are the focus of it.

Because with friends like Her, I'll be just fine.