The Mystery of Kelsey
By: Thomas Cleary
Tags: School, Memoir, Kelsey, 1990s, Childhood

The Mystery of Kelsey

Chapter 1: The Sighing Girl

‘Welcome to year three, everyone, my name’s Mrs Williams,’ announced our new teacher. It was September 1995 at Chalkwell Hall Primary School, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. I was finally in the big, important looking juniors’ building. At the age of seven I suddenly felt very grown up. School was not going to be the same as it was, I could feel it. Our new class room was much bigger with taller tables and chairs. The smell of the chalk and the teacher’s old dirty coffee fragranced that room no end, whilst the large, Victorian window filled it with warm, natural light.

The first week of the new school year rolled on with spelling tests, maths equations and PE in the assembly hall and in awkwardly short shorts. I was sat at a very large table at the front of the class between two other pupils. I had seen in them in the playground but never spoken to them until then; Joshua Bishop, who I am technically still in touch with today, and a boy called Vaughan. Vaughan was just hilarious to my seven-year-old self, I remember. Whenever there was a silence he would begin to chant something with the word ‘willy’ repeated a record amount of times. More culture than a yoghurt, back then. Plus, to top it all off, our school year’s ‘national anthem’ was our own take on Country House by Blur; ‘sitting in the bath with me finger up me arse in the country…’

One afternoon towards the end of our first week, we were all told to gather our chairs around the front of the class by the blackboard for Mrs Williams to read us a book. It was a ‘proper book’ compared to what we were used to in infant school. No Elma the Elephant or Biff, Chip and Kipper for us, thanks. This was… well, I don’t actually remember what book it was but it was probably Roald Dahl. We sat in silence as Mrs Williams read on. I heard a fairly expressive sigh from close-by on my right. It was so close I felt the air hitting my shoulder. I turned to have a look and saw it was a girl I had never seen before. To be honest I had barely noticed her even in the class until that moment, but she definitely was a brand new pupil to the school.

She had thick, very dark hair cut down to her lower neck and a fringe flopped over her eyebrows. A very pale face and slightly freckled. I took a second to look at her. She instantly looked back at me, to which I responded by immediately taking fright and pretending I was looking inquisitively at something on the wall past her, before turning back to Mrs Williams.

The weekend came and went and it was back to school on the following Monday. Again the day rolled on, I was trying to get some work done whilst busy suffering fits of laughter with Josh and Vaughan mucking about, thus, leading me to be the one getting told off. Always the way, that.

Just before home time it was story time again. We did the same thing, gathering our chairs around to take in the next chapter of Mrs Williams’ book. I was sat in exactly the same spot as last time as I have always had a bit of an obsession for routine like that.

As the story was being read I felt a single finger tickle the back of my neck for a split second. I ignored it, thinking it was probably Vaughan about to get me into trouble again. Ten seconds later it happened again. I tried to ignore it. Another few seconds and I felt a flick on my right ear. At this point I turned around to see it was not Vaughan. Nor was it Josh. It was the sighing girl. She was sat right behind me. I turned around to face her and she smiled with a quiet giggle. I smiled back at her and turned around again to face the front. She carried on poking and flicking throughout, leaving me in a state of slight panic; if I kept turning around I could get in trouble, yet, I didn’t want her to think I was a boring old stick in the mud. Eventually I did turn back around. ‘Hi,’ she whispered. ‘Hello,’ I mouthed back.

I heard the book slam shut, thinking that I was in for it again from the teacher. But no. Time had suddenly passed that quickly it was already home time.

As we were lined up and lead to the jungle decorated cloak room to collect our coats and bags, I kept a look out for her. She seemed to have gone.

Chapter 2: Playground Saviour

One thing that was often an issue, for me, was unwanted attention from the year five/six girls. I was very small, believe it or not, and I would often somehow end up completely on my own in the playground. Not always, mind you. This isn’t some great sob story of being a lonely child. But most of my friends were engrossed in a game of football which I never really was. This left me open to these ‘giant’ girls huddling around me with ‘oh he’s so cute!’ and ‘aww bless. How old are you?’ It was all a bit alarming and claustrophobic.

As a means of escape I once decided to simply leg it as I saw them approaching. As luck would have it I managed to run into this girl from my class. She was such a mystery. She always seemed to completely vanish in the playground. We/I made a bit of timid small talk and we told each other our names. ‘I’m Kelsey,’ she told me in a very exotic accent, which she explained was a South African one.

‘Oh you’re from Africa?’ I asked, ‘do you live near the jungle? Do you have lions and stuff?’

Kelsey laughed. I assume she got asked that quite a lot from us ignorant Brits. ‘We do have lions but I don’t come from near the jungle. We have towns and cities like you do here.’ I was fascinated in her from that moment.

Every story time we would be sure to be sat next to each other, except one time I remember another girl taking great umbrage in this, for some reason. She deliberately sat in between us and kept a very angry face on her throughout, seemingly protecting Kelsey. That was odd. I have no idea why I never remembered that until writing this just now.

Well, our friendship grew as time went on. We would often play ‘it’ together at lunchtimes and end up being the victims of the giant year six girls’ surprise attacks. I remember running, thinking I was being chased by her, to turn around thinking I had lost her, to turn and see she was stuck in the middle of these girls all giving her the exact same treatment they gave me. I can’t remember if I went over to help her, or not. Knowing me I probably didn’t.

After one lunchtime our next lesson was shared with another class next door to ours. We were all sat on the floor around a telly to watch the film of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Maybe that was also the book we were being read. Kind of makes sense.

Well, we sat down to watch it. I asked Kelsey if she wanted to sit next to me, but she insisted on sitting behind instead. I was a little worried, thinking I had lost something. I had never experienced those feelings before. Being only seven it was not the norm to feel a ‘relationship’ was building with someone in that way. As the film went on, I suddenly felt Kelsey behind me. Rather than the usual poking and flicking, she was now and then stroking my back. I remember liking that very much. I developed a butterfly feeling in my stomach and couldn’t get enough of her attention. Whenever she stopped I would subtly lean backwards slightly to persuade her to carry on, which she did. It was an amazing thing to feel genuinely ‘fancied’ I suppose, whilst feeling the same about the person in question. It was new and very exciting.

Chapter 3: Potato Smileys

After that lesson we went to the cloakroom again to collect our things. Something most unlike me happened right then. As we walked out together I asked her if she wanted to come around for dinner one day after school. She seemed extremely happy that I had asked her this and said yes immediately, before we spotted our mothers, said our goodbyes, and headed off.

‘Who was that then?’ asked my mum with a smile.

‘That’s Kelsey,’ I replied. On the way home I was talking to mum about the film we had watched, reciting parts of it that made me laugh, until we got home and I started talking to her about Kelsey. A few days later, out of the blue, it was actually my mum that asked me if I would like to invite her over for dinner. She told me Wednesday that week was fine if I wanted to. And so that was set.

The Wednesday came along. Rather than what would normally happen, the friend simply joining us on our walk home, Kelsey went home with her mum first and would get to ours for about 4:00, I was told. Mum also said for me to change into something smart. I think she had an idea of this being quite a special friendship too. I changed into a colourful, stripy t-shirt and red shorts.

4:00 on the dot, the doorbell rang. Mum went to answer it and I found myself hiding away in the doorway of my bedroom.

‘Tom!’ cried mum, ‘are you going to come and say hello to Kelsey?’

Shyly I walked to the front door to see Kelsey standing there in yellow top and blue denim dungarees. ‘Hello,’ I said, quite coyly, almost sounding a bit sarcastic.

As Kelsey headed in I stood awkwardly in the doorway thinking I was being very gentlemanly in letting her walk past. I led her to the living room while our mums stood and chatted at the door for a bit.

We sat down on the green settee and watched an episode of ‘Wolves, Witches and Giants’ on CITV, narrated by Spike Milligan. The awkward atmosphere finally dropped when we were both making funny, smart comments through the whole show and making each other laugh. The episode we watched was their take on Three Billy Goats Gruff, but instead of a troll under the bridge, it was a giant. ‘He doesn’t look that big’, I quipped, followed by ‘that bridge must be massive to fit a giant underneath it.’ Kelsey soon asked where the toilet was. I led her down our hallway and pointed it out to her, where mum was nearby in the kitchen getting dinner ready. As I turned to head back to the living room, mum looked at me with a knowing grin across her face. ‘You all right?’ she asked coyly.

I’d imagine we watched a bit more telly and/or played with some toys for the rest of the afternoon, before it was time for dinner. We had turkey dinosaurs, potato smileys and peas whilst watching The Lion King on video.

Once we finished our dinner, mum walked in to take our plates. ‘Now, we’ve got something rather special for afters today,’ she said before heading back out of the room. She entered the room again with her hands full of little colourful packets. ‘Kelsey has very kindly brought along some very nice sweets for us all.’ And she had. She had brought along some exotic looking packets of white chocolate buttons, one for me, one for Rose, and one for herself. How she knew how many to bring along I have no idea.

We continued to watch The Lion King as it reached its finale. It was the part where Simba roars from the top of Pride Rock to claim his place as king. I can remember Kelsey analysing this particular part very technically;

Simba: [Roar!]

Kelsey: He is saying ‘I am the king’

Lionesses: [Roar!]

Kelsey: They are saying ‘yes, you are the king’

Tom: Hmmm

I headed out to the kitchen with my packet of buttons and quietly gave them to mum because, I hate to say it and I am sorry, I didn’t really like white chocolate.

Later that afternoon, Kelsey casually gave me some devastating news. She told me that she was only going to be at our school for another week and she was leaving. I have a feeling we must have had a pretty heavy conversation. I remember finding out then that her actual parents were still in South Africa, and that her ‘mum’ was simply a nice Scottish lady looking after her as a guardian. What her actual situation with her parents was I have never known.

Chapter 4: It All Happened So Suddenly

The week of school went on. We carried on playing ‘it’ now and then and there was more ear slicking and teasing each other during book readings. Something I knew I would really miss, amongst everything else, was her simply just being there. Unbeknown to me at the time, she was genuinely making me feel happy in life. I remember having this extremely strange sense of feeling genuinely lucky to have been me, back then. Thinking that everyone else around me must have been absolutely gutted to not have what I had.

Well, our last day at school together came along. She told me that she was still nearby and she was not going to another school for a while. In fact, I think she might have gone to home schooling, although I’m not too sure on that. Shockingly I remember very little of that last day. I am sure we said goodbye to each other. I really hope I said bye, at least.

The following Monday everything felt so different. Our tables were reorganised, so I was sitting in a different place with different people. Not near enough for Vaughan and Josh to cheer me up, sadly. A few girls in the class, who were also friends with Kelsey but never really spoke to me, were coming up to me every now and then asking if I missed her. I think our blossoming friendship must have been more obvious to people than I thought it was. And actually quite a big deal too, to some. Even Mrs Williams briefly pulled me aside one day as we were heading out for playtime, asking the same question.

One evening that week mum and I were walking down the road to get something from the nearby chemist. ‘I’ve been talking to her mum about it, Tom, would you like Kelsey to come for a sleep over next week?’ she asked.

I could not believe it. I had no idea that our mums were seemingly working to keep things alive with us. But immediately decided to ‘play cool’ and stay aloof. ‘I don’t mind,’ I replied.

Mum seemed irked. ‘Well, do you want her to or not? “I don’t mind” tells me you’d rather she didn’t.’

I dropped the front immediately. ‘Ok. Yes please. Thank you.’

The night came that Kelsey was going to sleep over. Mum arranged a mattress with pillows and a sleeping bag on our bedroom floor and I got changed into some smart-ish clothes.

Kelsey arrived, once again looking extremely colourful and smiley with her ‘mum’. We did the same as we did last time she visited; watched CITV, had dinner (fish fingers, I think) and played with some of my toy cars. She once again brought some very exotic sweets. This time some very arty and enormous lollipops. They were translucent, sculpted into different shapes and very colourful. She gave me one that was in the shape of a love heart, I remember.

As the evening set in and it darkened outside, mum said it was time for us to get our pyjamas on. I let Kelsey into my room first to get changed. Once she came into the living room in her nightwear I headed into the room with my sister to do the same. I then walked into the living room to see her and my mum sat on the settee watching the telly together. I brought in a couple of soft toys from my room; a Tigger and a brown dinosaur that had a mouth you could open and close, pretending it was eating something.

I remember Kelsey and I sat on cushions on the wooden floor, whilst mum and Rose sat on the settee behind us. We all sat around for a cosy family viewing of Police, Camera, Action; a programme consisting of car crashes and chases caught on police camera, basically. I remember this being a great occasion. We were all talking to each other about what we saw and making light of it all. Kelsey was laughing, as was mum, and we went to bed feeling pretty good about things. Well, at least I did, but hopefully Kelsey did too.

Rose and I shared a bedroom with a bunkbed at the time. I had the top bunk and she had the bottom. Kelsey was lying on her floor mattress. We continued to talk to each other for a little while. I remember knowing that it could be a long time until I saw Kelsey again, so I was eager to grab her attention somehow. Every time I spoke to her, I made sure to be looking over the edge of the bed at her, keeping some vague eye-contact in the dark.

Our conversation devolved into a to-and-fro battle of ‘throw the teddy at each other’. The rules were simple, I would chuck a teddy off my bed, hoping it would land on her face, and she would throw it back. Complex, but good fun once you get the hang of it. A couple of times during the game she would climb halfway up the ladder to by bunk and slam the teddy into my face. Anyone else at that time, I would have thrown a huge strop and told on them. But with Kelsey it was just more priceless attention.

After a mighty throw again from me I noticed there was no retaliation. Everything went silent. I was about to sit up to see what was going on, but before I could, I saw Kelsey was climbing up the ladder. This time she climbed all the way to the top and crawled over to me.

Laughing and thinking this was going to be a mighty wallop to the nose, I hid under the duvet. ‘No! You’re going to hit me!’

Kelsey was not laughing back. She leant over me face to face, ‘no, I’m going to kiss you,’ she whispered. And with that, she leant down to give me a peck on the lips, followed by ‘we need to sleep now. Night-night.’ And with that she slowly climbed back down and got into her sleeping bag.

So desperate was I, though, for that to happen again, I persistently continued with the whole teddy thing. I think I might have got on her nerves, by this point, as she simply kept the teddies in the sleeping bag with her and tried to settle down. I found it very difficult to sleep that night. My mind was awash with emotions of all kinds; excitement, happiness and sadness at the uncertainty of the future.

The next morning it was a cold but sunny November day. We sat at the table to a bowl of Shreddies while watching The Big Breakfast on telly. Then the usual morning routine took place; I got my school uniform on, cleaned my teeth and mum did her thing of cleaning Rose’s and my noses out with a cotton bud in the kitchen, which I think I remember Kelsey walking in on. Never a good morning event at the best of times.

Mum walked us all up to school. Kelsey and I walked slightly in front talking to each other. We eventually reached the school slightly later than normal, so I pretty much had to go and line up outside to go into our class. Mum and Kelsey were both stood there waving me off while I stood there awkwardly in line not knowing how or where to look. Eventually we were called in and I saw mum and Kelsey walk off towards the school gates.

And that was that. That was to be the last of our time together. Sadly, Kelsey’s phone number went missing only a few days later. I don’t think mum was too sure on her exact address for us to go and see her either. I also remember her house being quite secretive from visitors, which added to the mystery of Kelsey’s backstory.

Chapter 5: Seven Years Old and Feeling Broken-Up With

That year, Christmas arrived as it often does. That December two of my great granddads sadly died, so mum was not in the right place for me to pester her for more details on getting back to Kelsey. However, the build-up to that Christmas I can remember being a sombre one, to an extent. Not just for the loss of grandparents, but realising what I had let slip. I decided to try and ignore how I felt, but nothing helped. I remember watching a Christmas video at my nan and other grandad’s bungalow. It had a selection of cartoons on it, all of which had either a character or a saying in them that reminded me of her.

Christmas day, Rose was given a video of the animated film All Dogs Go To Heaven. I had a look at the case and I could not believe it; the girl character in the film was almost identical to Kelsey, albeit a caricature of sorts. I was obsessed. Even though it was not my present, I was pretty eager to watch it. This became a regularity for the next few months afterwards.

I remember putting on a constant front wherever I was. Dad would take us to his local pub for lunch when we went to see him at weekends and I would do my best to look cool and collected at the juke box in case, just in case, she happened to walk in and see me.

A year or two later, mum and her then partner took us to a place called Kids Kingdom, a huge warehouse that had been transformed into a children’s funhouse. It was absolute heaven for us and we would be treated to a trip there about once a month. This particular occasion I was running around, turning red and waring myself out as usual when I reached the ‘flying fox’ ride (one of those ropes hanging from a rail that you propel yourself along on and bash into the foam at the end. I think that’s their name, isn’t it?)

I was on one and I saw two girls playing on the other. I paid no attention and simply minded my own business. As I finished a ride I sat there looking around and trying to catch my breath, when all of a sudden… ‘Tom?’

I up to see a girl dressed in yellow standing right in front of me. It took me a while to realise who it was, so I gave out an unsure ‘hi…?’

As I looked at her, it became clearer. It was a slightly taller, different hair-styled Kelsey. I fumbled on the swing, trying to get off with nervous legs.

‘I’m Kelsey. Remember me?’ she asked in her soft voice.

‘Yeah. Hi Kelsey,’ I said rather pathetically. Rather than ask ‘how are you? Do you want my number?’ I remember I just took a terrible fright and decided to play the ‘comedy’ card that worked with her before. I decided to pretend falling off the swing and banging my head, finished with sitting on the floor, rubbing my head and saying ‘ow’.

Kelsey had obviously grown up a bit more than I had. She wasn’t at all amused. ‘Oh Tom, you are silly,’ she said politely, before her new friend (a girl, luckily, I thought) came along to grab her attention.

‘Come on, Kelsey, they’re over there!’ she said, tugging at her arm to get her to follow.

‘See you later, Tom,’ she said, before turning to run at full speed with her friend. I was left standing there confused and feeling empty. Instantly beating myself up in my mind about how badly I had just handled our reunion.

I sprinted back to the canteen where the adults were sat bored and presumably desperate for a drink.

‘Mum! You’ll never guess who I ran into…’ I said, excitedly. After telling her, mum asked if I wanted to write down our phone number to give to her.

I think I took some deliberation over this. Being the shyest and least confident boy I knew of, I think I changed my mind over and over again. Eventually I came to my senses after seeing her again a few times from a distance and me trying desperately to hide, for whatever reason. What a stupid child I was.

I went back to mum and decided that I would like to give her our phone number. By then it was too late, of course. Once again she had vanished. Most likely she had gone home thinking she had possibly dodged a bullet with me after all.

Chapter 6: Life Occurred

Life went on afterwards, of course. Time passed and I grew up, slightly. We moved to a new town where I went to senior school. In year seven at that school I did have a very similar encounter with a girl called Chloe who was extremely flirty, very huggy with me in a particular IT lesson, but it just did not have the same feel to what I had before.

About ten years after our first meeting with each other, when I was seventeen, I was on a bus one day travelling from Seevic College on my way home. The bus was particularly crowded with all of the seats taken up, some even holding three passengers, while the rest of the bus was crammed with people from front to back in the gangway. By the time we passed the third stop, I once again found myself transfixed. There, standing near the front, was who looked like a seventeen-year-old Kelsey. Same hair style, but tied in a small pony-tail at the back. I looked at her and she would often look back. We would share a smile, but it was a smile that said ‘remember me?’ as far as I was concerned. The more I thought about it, the more I made myself believe it was her.

Eventually she got off the bus. I was far too slow to think about following to ask if it was her, plus by the time I had had the idea I would be too late still trying to battle through the crowd of pricks standing in the way. Also, the fear of it turning out not to be her engulfed me in its usual grasp.

Back then I was a volunteer for Southend Hospital Radio. I remember turning up to the studio and talking to my friend I hosted an evening show with about the occurrence before explaining the whole history.

‘What did you do?’ he asked.

‘Well… nothing,’ I replied with regret.

‘Oh you idiot!’ he said. He was right, too.

Chapter 7: 2015-Gate

Again, life continued. I was able to move on with a newfound social life and it eventually became just another distant thing that happened in my childhood. To cut it short, I turned eighteen, a summer fling here and there, holidays with friends, getting a job in Butlins, getting stuck in a relationship with a violent girlfriend, more dating, another short-lived relationship, going back to college, moving to Kent for university, getting involved in community radio, writing and publishing a series of comics, becoming a shop supervisor, quitting that job to do an MA in creative writing, losing my dad during the 2020 lockdown and ending up, so far, as a struggling poet. Funny old world, really.

In the midst of all this however, after my first stint of university had finished, came the year 2015. I found myself having to leave my new beloved life in Canterbury to move back to Southend. I went mad during this time. I desperately wanted my Canterbury life back. In the eight I moved back to mum’s, I decided to start an allotment in her back garden by burying all of the vegetables from her fridge. The next month, I became obsessed with making soup. Everything and anything could be made into a soup, I thought. At one point I had three different soups on the go, dominating the cooker and leaving very little utensils for anyone else to do anything. But what could anyone possibly need? Look at all the soup!

In December that year, I found myself a Christmas job stock taking in an aviation warehouse at Southend Airport. It was an okay job, to be honest. Just six hours sitting there counting tiny little light bulbs and nuts and bolts. This also left a lot of time for me to think.

The most prominent thought on my mind all day, every day at that job, was that it was the twentieth anniversary of meeting and losing Kelsey. While counting I would remember vividly every detail of everything that had happened; the ear flicking, the playing together, the back stroking, the sleep over and the feeling of loss in the following months. I honestly had not thought about her as deeply in years until that point

Well, one evening I decided to go online to see if I could finally do what I should have done ages ago and track her down. Just to say ‘hi, how are you?’ something I was actually given a healthy chance to do before but wasted it.

I went online and tried Facebook. Alas I had no idea of her surname. But that was okay as I thought there weren’t many Kelseys my age in the Southend area at the time. Well, it turned out to be harder than I thought.

The search rapidly became an obsession. I began asking people I went to junior school with. I contacted Josh thinking he would definitely know who I was talking about, except no. Although he did tell me that his mum still had our old class photos from junior school. Maybe I could have a look sometime?

I then decided it would be a good idea to email the actual school:

‘Hello, Chalkwell Hall. You may not remember me but my name is Tom Cleary. I was at your school from 1993–1999. I understand you have more important things to be getting on with, but I wonder if you could help me.

I am trying to find a long lost friend from twenty years ago. Her name was Kelsey and she was South African, I remember. She had black hair.

If you do have any information that you could pass on to me, it would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks for your time. Merry Christmas

Tom Cleary’

No reply there but, thankfully, no restraining order either.

I remember lamenting to another worker at the warehouse. He suggested trying out a ‘people finder’ website. I was not aware such a thing existed. By now my mind was telling me ‘Tom, this is getting insane. It was twenty years ago, you were both seven, and life has moved on. Get some help,’ whereas my heart was telling me ‘This is going to work, Tom. Imagine the day you finally meet up again. Wouldn’t that be special? You can go for a drink, reminisce and who knows what else could come of it? Plus she’ll definitely be so delighted that you finally got in touch.’

So that evening, I Googled ‘people finders’ and found several different results. They all looked very promising but most importantly empathetic. They took time to remind the desperate searcher that he/she has not gone mad and it is fine to do this. Their images tried to depict a euphoric reunion and possibly a long life of pure happiness together. I fell for it and applied to several of the sites and then I got drunk and decided to tell my mum what I was doing. She was not impressed at all, as you can imagine. She was either beginning to think I had completely lost the plot, or that she could not wait for me to finally move out.

One afternoon at the warehouse my phone rang. It was one of the websites. I went outside to ‘take this’ and got into a discussion with a man on the other end of the phone. Let’s call him Clive. The conversation went something like this:

Clive: Hello, Tom. Firstly thank you for your enquiry. Can I just ask you a few more questions?

Tom: Yeah sure

Clive: Okay. So when was the last time you saw this person you’re looking for?

Tom: About twenty years ago [I knew it was exactly twenty years ago, but I didn’t want to sound too obsessive]

Clive: Right. And why is it you want to find her? Is she a relative? Does she owe you something?

Tom: No, nothing like that. She was just a really good friend of mine in school and I’ve just grown curious in finding out where she is now. We had a really good bond with each other and she just sprung into my head again, basically

Clive: Okay. Well, I’ll be honest, the details sadly were a bit vague to go by, but we could potentially find her for you. You say her name was Kelsey, which I don’t think was a very common name back then. And she was South African, is that right?

Tom: That’s right, yeah

Clive: Ah, see that could also be helpful. I can’t imagine the South African population in Southend was, or even is, that big, is it?

Tom: No, exactly

Clive: All right. Well I will happily take on your case. Obviously we cannot leak any information to you until we’ve received your payment

Tom: Payment? Oh okay. How much will it be?

Clive: Well, given the extent of the details and the years you’ve been apart, this will take a lot of research, plus the man hours involved, so we calculate it at… £500

Tom’s Head: Put the phone down, Tom. This is crazy

Tom’s Heart/Tom: Oh okay then. I could do that, actually. Is it all right to pay that in instalments?

Clive: [chuckling] no unfortunately not. We would need the payment in full to give you any information. We can’t just give out little bits here and there, because you could just go by one little detail and that would be enough for you, and we wouldn’t get the rest of the payment

Tom: I understand, yeah. Okay, can I think about it and get back to you?

Clive: Of course, no problem…

That evening after work I told mum about the phone call. I was feeling excited, but mostly hoping everyone else would see it from my point of view. They didn’t. They thought I had completely lost my marbles. Mum even suggested counselling. It was a wake-up call, however, and I decided that evening that it was about time to give up on throwing teddy bears around and let it sleep.

Chapter 8: All’s Well for Now

Honestly, I was getting through life fair enough without her really crossing my mind. Sure, she always popped into my head now and then, but never to the extent as that Christmas. I was feeling deprived, though, that’s my excuse. I needed something positive in my life. Something had to work out for me. I was depressed, lonely and desperate. I had just had my happy life in Canterbury taken away from me and was doing anything I could to take my mind off that fact, as it looked more and more like I would never get that back. I lost Kelsey by not bothering enough, damned if I was going to lose my newfound happiness as well.

The following year I did, in fact, manage to move back to Canterbury and continue trying to make something of myself. It has been a process wading through several rather miserable jobs, but I think I have finally found my feet.

So that brings us up to now, 2020. Again she has popped into my mind, but this time I have learnt from the past. I am a bit more grown up now and have learnt to control my impulses. The reason she came into my memory again this year is thanks to a book I am writing for my MA, in which I have decided to base what I felt for her on the premise for the protagonist’s motive.

Still the little sparkle of curiosity glistens in me. What would I do if we were to get back in touch? Honestly, I have no idea. Does she remember me? Would she be interested? Has she tried searching for me too? The answer to all three is I doubt it. I imagine her now happily married with children, nice house, successful and had a good, fulfilling life since those days. I hope so. But really, anything could have happened; she could be as much of a nutcase as me at times. She might not be happy at all or, heaven forbid, she could be dead.

I have had girlfriends and flings since those days, of course, but none of them have left me with quite the same curiosity or feeling of being as loved as she made me feel. There has been no other urge to search and, to be blunt, most of them I could not care less what they’re up to as I know that they are not thinking the same about me. Plus, thanks to social media, there is no mystery to try to work out. So if nothing else; thank you, Kelsey. Those are some of the best memories of my childhood. The way you seemed to vanish into a puff of smoke just leads me to a lot of curiosity. I have to pinch myself now and then to check it even happened at all while making sure I keep it all alive.