38. A School Dance

“Here come the cattle” I hear the boys call out as we step off the coach.

We have just arrived at Stowe and our chaperones are ushering us out onto the gravel driveway in front of the imposing stone steps that lead up to the school entrance. We are greeted by a line of boys standing, staring, smirking at each other.

I feel nervous. As I climb up the stone steps, lined with more boys and a few girls, I can’t help but feel dreadfully out of place. They are all in black tie, the girls in ball gowns. My simple white cotton dress with its smattering of embroidered red poppies feels out of place, too young, too immature, not nearly elegant or suave enough. I don’t look sophisticated like these Stowe girls do. As we file past them I catch snippets of their conversation.

“It’s Heseltine” and don’t you forget it, says a tall blonde girl sharply to someone who has just pronounced her name incorrectly. She looks scary, leaning nonchalantly against a huge stone lion. She looks a bit like a lioness, a thick mane of blonde hair framing her elegant features.

“What school are they from?” Asks a boy. I can hear the disdain in his voice.

“Oh, some minor pubic school in Bucks, Oakdene or something”

We are out of our league and we know it. Sharon, Mandy and I stay close to each other. We must look like rabbits caught in the headlights. I wish I felt more self assured.

This is our first ever school dance. Oakdene is on the list of girl’s schools to be invited to dances held by boys’ public schools. Usually it’s the minor schools, like ours, who invite us. Schools like Shiplake and Merchant Taylors. But we are also invited to some of the posher ones like Stowe and Marlborough College. And Stowe is our first.

“I can’t be Sharon at the dance” Sharon had said when the ball was announced. “I just can’t”.

“No!” Mandy and I agreed, in chorus.

If Sharon is Sharon at the dance there will be no end of sniggering and jokes. Public school girls just aren’t called Sharon. In 1983 the name Sharon is synonymous with working class, council estate, cheap, vacuous, loose… Sharon cannot be Sharon at the dance.

“What shall I call myself?” She says, staring at us both. “I need a better name, a posh name, one that will fit in at Stowe. What do you think?”

“Annabel?” I suggest, tentatively. I know she’s right but it feels so mad to have to change ones name just to fit in at a dance.

“Camilla? Or maybe Diana” suggests Mandy.

“I’m not a Camilla and I am definitely not an Annabel!” Sharon laughs but I can hear the nervousness in her voice.

“What then? I say?

“I love the name Chloe” she says “I have always really liked it.

“Be Chloe then” I say. “I like it. It’s got to be better than Sharon”. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Sorry Sha, I didn’t mean, you know, I like Sharon, it’s your name, you know what I mean”

“It’s ok” she says. “I know. Chloe. I’m going to be Chloe and you have to remember to call me that, ok”

We nod in agreement, thank goodness that’s decided. Chloe. I say it a few times, getting used to the sound of it.

As we walk into the ballroom (it really does look like a ballroom, marble pillars and statues and frescoed ceilings) I feel myself shrink a little more. What am I doing here? Everyone must be wondering the same thing, what are these girls doing here? There is music playing and tables are laid with tea, coffee, squash and biscuits. No alcohol of course, not officially. People are sitting round the tables chatting and a few are dancing in the middle of the room. It’s chart music. I’d like to dance but I feel shy and self conscious.

“Sophie Boss?! Oh my God! Sophie Boss!” I hear a confident but not overly posh sounding voice. As I turn to see who it is, I catch Sharon’s (sorry, Chole’s) eye, she’s looking at me with a puzzled ‘You didn’t say you knew anyone here’ kind of look.

But I don’t know any people here. These are not my people, any of them.

And yet it turns out that one of them is. Roderick Craig. Roddy from across the road  in Beaconsfield. Roddy who I’d played with sometimes when we lived in Hutchings Road before we moved to Paris.  Roddy who I thought was rather cute with his blonde hair and cheeky eyes. Memories of playing doctors and nurses in his attic bedroom flash though my mind and I’m blushing.

Roddy is being nice but he clearly has bigger fish to fry than me tonight. After a brief chat he makes some excuse to move on. I see him heading over to a tall, blonde, skinny, girl who is wearing a pavlova of a dress, all satin and bows. It’s more elegant than I’m making it sound, really. I look at Sha (Chloe) and Mandy. We look young and plain and not nearly glamorous enough. The evening drags on a bit. I’m too self conscious to let myself go and dance. I’d like to but I just can’t. I’m scared of looking like a tit but the sad thing is I probably look like a tit anyway.

The three of us loiter on the edges of the action, giggling and watching. I love them both, Mandy and Sha. I am so grateful for these two beautiful friends. They make school life bearable. With them I feel like I have family, like I am not completely and utterly alone.

I fall asleep on the drive back to Oakdene. Dances are not my thing, I am not that kind of girl and I don’t really mind.

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I have never worn a ball gown. Not once. No regrets!