Nostalgia/Memoir Competition - Winner

It had become tradition fairly quickly although I don’t think that was ever the intention. Summer and six of us piled into the car in a sticky flurry of pillows and tennis racquets and a Michelin atlas stuffed in the seat pocket. A ferry crossing and a long drive and steak haché at the service station, more driving until we arrived at a campsite that looked and felt and sounded and smelt the same as they always did. They were unremarkable holidays in many respects but I can remark on all of them and I can do this because I remember the boys.
First there was Ruud and I met him in the Dordogne. Beautiful, Dutch, year younger than me. Blonde hair and angel eyes, too young to give a shit but I put the work in nonetheless. He was good at table tennis so I got good at table tennis and I got his address and wrote to him but he never replied. The next year was Redmar. Taller, older, also good at table tennis but I was too now so that was fine. We stole a slimy kiss outside the wash block and then he whispered goodbye, pressed his Limp Bizkit business card in my hand.
I emailed him at the address provided on the Limp Bizkit business card, too bad we are not yet eighteen, he replied. I’m 27 now and it’s still too bad really. Bas was after Redmar and he was Dutch too. Darker hair and browner eyes and another secret snog as the Pyrenees groaned in the background and the rain came in a tunnel that was as damp and delightful as the snog.
This year it was the Ardèche, hot, dry, lethargic. It was my last summer holiday with the family but I didn’t know it then, thought I had a few more left. The last Eurocamp and the last predictable cacophony of giggles as four children in one small tent compartment became increasingly hysterical until a shout would come from my parents’ room, shut up, stop talking, grow up.
I was a bit older now so the threats to shut me up were a withdrawal of beer or no kir at the restaurant or you can’t stay out late tomorrow if you don’t bloody stop. They remained the same as ever for my younger siblings, no pizza snacks, no sirop de menthe, I’m not taking you to the pool tomorrow, well I don’t even like the pool anyway, more giggles, thunder, sleep.
We went to the kermesse at the campsite but we didn’t know what a kermesse was. I hoped there would be alcohol and my older sister hoped the same I imagine but she never said. Some younger kids hung around, it was 10pm and I envied the lackadaisical parenting they enjoyed. Even now my curfew was 11 and I thought this unjust but we had to get up early to climb a mountain, which seemed an odd choice of holiday activity really.
A French teenager commandeered the pin the tail on the donkey. He had a long flop of hair and a symmetrical face, looked like a pop star but he wasn’t one because he was commandeering the pin the tail on the donkey. Would you like to pin the tail on the donkey, he asked. He must have spoken English because my French wasn’t great back then and I don’t think I knew the word for pin, or tail, but I can’t remember what his voice was like.
Anyway, go on then I said. He spun me round and round and round four times or even five. Held my hand with the pin and tail in it and manoeuvered it gently onto his crotch which was silly really because I was holding a pin. In any case I knew that wasn’t where I was supposed to pin the tail so I wrestled out of his grasp. I caught his eye and it was the first time I ever saw that glance, or at least saw that glance thrown so forcefully and with such intention. Now I’m much older it scares me when I see that glance.
I didn’t care though and I wanted to snog him. I wanted to snog everyone as it happens, because there’s nothing much else to do when you’re a teenager and keeping a tally of house party hand jobs seemed to be the most efficient way of giving life a semblance of structure. We found a group of kids and wandered to the basketball court where we may have played basketball I don’t remember. But I do remember it was cold and I said I’m cold.
His name was Clement, which I knew because someone called him Clement, not because he told me, and he decided to be noble and give me his clothes. He took them off still looking at me and I thought he would stop after his jumper but he didn’t he just kept taking off his clothes until he had no more on. I was unsure if I was supposed to put on all the clothes or just the jumper so I put them all on and to be fair it was warmer then. The younger kids laughed and pointed at his naked shivering body, which was illuminated every now and then by a dying lamp.
It was quite funny to be honest and I really fancied him and he gave me a hug in the dark and I felt his penis press into my leg but I didn’t think much of it, in fact I just wanted him to kiss me so he did.
It was 11 though and I had to go back to the tent. I don’t know why I stuck so solidly to the curfew as it wasn’t really in my nature to obey these sorts of rules but maybe I wanted my kir tomorrow so I left him in the dark by the basketball court and thought I will never see him again, which was satisfyingly poignant.
Me and my sister grabbed our toothbrushes from the tent and headed to the wash block. She slipped into a cubicle, me next door, but I couldn’t close the door to my cubicle. I pulled it hard but he’d followed us and he stopped it closing with his foot, quite assertively actually, and pulled it open and squeezed in.
I tried to think of something to say but I didn’t have time because his tongue was in my mouth and he tasted like Pringles so I guess he must have just eaten some. In all honesty I was a bit taken aback because this meant I had to rearrange the ending of this particular tryst in my mind and I thought it had been quite romantic until now.
But anyway we snogged for a bit then he picked me up and put me in the sink and pulled off my pants and clawed at my insides. This in itself wasn’t particularly novel and I thought maybe we would have sex but he just kept on clawing in motions that became increasingly frenetic and I wondered if he really knew what he was doing because I didn’t know what he was doing.
The tap in the sink jabbed in my back and I was actually getting quite bored and it hurt a bit and the tap kept jabbing and his fingers got rougher and my wash bag fell on the floor and my pink toothbrush lay by the door of the cubicle, which was quite poetic really.
I could hear my sister frozen, stifling a cautious giggle next door until she said I’ll just see you back at the tent okay and she left. I couldn’t reply because I didn’t know if I would go back to the tent to tell the truth. But then it still hurt and I said okay I have to go and he said why and I couldn’t be bothered to tell him about the mountain so I said I just do and pushed him off and put on my pants and left and ran back to the tent. I forgot to get my toothbrush so I had to pretend I had it for the rest of the holiday, which was annoying.
The next morning a faint scent of barbecue still held and steam was rising off the tents giving the entire campsite the air of a prehistoric village. I saw him again which was a surprise because I hadn’t been looking out for him. He was clutching a croissant, which was very French of him I thought.
I said hello, gave him a hug and his sweatshirt smelt like the kermesse. I made a stranger take a photo of us together although I’m not sure why and now I’m quite embarrassed that I did that. He gave me his email address and we parted ways for the third time and I thought I must have loved him. I planned out our future together and counted the hairpin turns as my dad drove us to the mountain that we had got up early to climb.
A week later we arrived home and I emailed Clement and told him I missed him, which in hindsight was an odd thing to say as we hadn’t ever really had a conversation. I was happy when he replied but when I opened the email it just said I’m sorry I don’t know who you are.