Yuri☆Kisses

1980 - 1985. Downhill In London

4. False Start

We took a cab from Heathrow Airport.

In the back of the black taxi, My Father let me hold his hand and he kept squeezing it and pointing out landmarks. He made the cabbie take a detour through the centre of town, so that he could show me all the sights. That was the beginning of a long line of firsts. To me everything looked so grey and cold, as if London were painted from a palette that had run out of the primary colours.

The little house in Mill Hill, a suburb in the North of the city, lifted my spirits. It was a typical Thirties semi-detached, white-painted with a bow front and leaded windows, garage at the side and unruly roses around the front lawn. Extreme suburbia. The strips of grass between road and pavement, and leafy trees, were not unlike our little piece of Kowloon, which was comforting.

It was a furnished let and so were able to move in directly, and the crates arrived a week later as my Father had paid a small fortune to have them air freighted. The larger items - a few selected items of furniture and the like, turned up a month later, after I had gone to school. But once my small bedroom filled up with the familiar detritus of my childhood, it felt much more like Home. Smaller, cosier, colder yes, but Father was there, so it was definitely Home. With no Jin. But before I felt settled, I had very steep ‘learning curve’ to negotiate: my Father expected me to run the house. To cook and be housekeeper and manage the laundry. Quite a tall order for a hitherto spoilt and clumsy twelve-year-old.

Right up until the moment we boarded the aircraft in Hong Kong, I’d been expecting it all to be another one of my bad dreams and I’d wake up in my little bedroom sanctuary and hear the sounds of Kowloon and it would be just another day. And now I was actually in England, where everything was so strange and new and frightening. Reality shook me by the throat. It really had not occurred to me that there would be no Audrey in our new home, to take care of all the practical stuff and keep us fed. And that I would be doing it.

I had a fortnight before starting at my new school, and my goodness, I really needed that time. There was so much to learn.

Shopping in an English supermarket, overwhelmed by walls of mysterious things with strange names and brands, which one then used in various unknown ways for cleaning and cooking. Paying for them with currency that had no meaningful worth. Even carrying the wretched things home in those flimsy bags. Searching my brain for things Audrey had muttered over the years, like how long to boil an egg, even what bits of vegetables to cook and what to throw away. It all kept me fully occupied from dawn to well into the night, teaching myself how to work the domestic appliances and clearing up after my culinary disasters before my Father discovered the mess. Why when I had followed the printed instructions to the letter, or read and re-read the recipe half a dozen times, did what emerged from the pan never closely resemble the picture on the packet? I persevered. No way was my Father going to be disappointed. Or angered.

No way was he going to be given a new range of reasons to punish me with his belt or length of cane.

Incredibly and much to my surprise, he was actually very good-natured about my random cooking, and dutifully ate whatever I presented him when he came back from his new work at his bank’s head office in the City. He even enthused occasionally. Yet very tactfully, he suggested that once I started school, he would instead have his main meal in the staff restaurant, and that decision rescued us both from the unappetising prospect of depending entirely on my cooking, even in the holidays.

The strangeness continued.

My Father was just so different when we came to England, which was a blessing and a relief. He appeared content with his position at work and was only occasionally grumpy when he came home in the evening.

He was surprisingly protective of me, taking an interest in my going out to the shops and listening to my accounts of people I had met. He was even determinedly practical about the house, which was a side of him I had never before seen. Best of all, he rarely even raised his voice at me and after a fortnight, I was warily amazed that he hadn’t even slapped me since we left Hong Kong.

I liked helping him to set up house. The massive upheaval took my mind off my Mother, or rather her absence.

In private moments, of course I missed her and I was still puzzled and angry that one moment she was still the calm, loving, stable bedrock of our family, the next she was under a shroud and I could no longer talk to her, or slip behind her and peek out at the world from behind her steady shoulder.

To this day, I'm still not sure precisely why we moved from Kowloon. In the light of subsequent events, it wasn’t for the best.

Perhaps my Father couldn't face the memory. He would have had to drive past the place where she had been knocked down each time he left the house, so maybe that was it: he wanted to escape the daily reminder. Although later I found some hints that his finances were not as sound as they should have been - had that anything to do with it? If I were a gambler (which certainly I am not - that is one vice to which I’ll never, ever, fall victim), I’d bet that the real reason we moved lay somewhere in my Father’s business dealings. But I never did learn the truth.

Whatever prompted the move made no difference, for we had done it and there was no going back and so I found myself in a very strange land, with no roots, or friends, or real understanding of the culture. The Hong Kong I left had more in common with the England of twenty years earlier. I was truly an innocent abroad.

Except of course that I was far from innocent. Jin had seen to that.

And although I had escaped him, it transpired that I was still fated to be a natural victim, albeit in a different context.

My Father decided that I would be better off going to a pukka girls’ boarding school. It was half way through the academic year and so the choice of school was limited, but off I was duly despatched, with a traditional trunk full of the prescribed uniform and games kit (including, to my secret delight, my very first entirely unnecessary yet much-coveted brassieres). Father drove me there and I was extremely nervous with anticipation as we pulled up at the huge, sprawling Edwardian pile buried deep in an Oxfordshire woodland. I was going to join the First Form. Having spent many Kowloon evenings devouring musty old volumes of Enid Blytons and WE Johns and the like, I really hoped that being at boarding school might turn out to be great fun, once I had settled in. I was so naïve.

Unsurprisingly I was so sad and lonely once he had dropped me off and driven away but I was swiftly swept up in the relentless routine of school life.

It was there that I began to confide my thoughts to a small diary -one of those five-year ones with a clasp and flimsy padlock.

Each evening, after I had closed my books and had a few precious minutes of privacy within the curtained cubicle provided for personal study, I would extract it from its secret hiding place behind the radiator and hunch over the desk to scratch a few lines. It was a habit I maintained, on and off, until my mid-teens, until I saw no more point in keeping a lasting record of my tedious little life.

That diary was one of the very few legacies of my childhood that I bothered to retain as an adult. When I finished writing what you are currently reading, and had saved the draft on my computer, I spent a cleansing few moments, reducing each and every page of that scruffy little booklet to tiny fragments and then I made a special trip downstairs to the communal wheelie bin outside my apartment block, where I scattered inside the shower of paper like ashes from an urn. I sat up until midnight, watching from the balcony of my flat until I had witnessed the municipal binmen take away those unwanted memories. That old diary had no place in my new life.

Too much unpleasantness lay behind the tiny childish scrawl I began at boarding school.

It didn't take them long. A clique of mainly Third and Fourth-form girls.

I suppose I invited attention: I was different, withdrawn, nervous and gullible. I had arrived late into the Year, after friendships and alliances had already formed. The easy-going blandness that had been my response to moving up to my first secondary school back in HK failed to protect me this time. I was singled out. I fell for their pranks constantly, and although I tried to accept being the fall guy with good grace, I'm afraid the niggling and teasing and laughing soon wore me down and once they'd seen how easy it was to make me cry, it only encouraged them to pick on me more.

It wasn't relentless - hardly 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', but it took its toll. 'Chink', 'Half-Caste', 'Suzie Wong' were not the nicknames I would willingly have chosen for myself. Before puberty brought out my Father's gangly genes to the fore, I was more obviously my Mother’s daughter, that is to say my oriental lineage was much more prominent than in early adulthood. I was the only Asian in the Lower School: an obvious target.

My belongings constantly went walkies; I had to remake my bed each night to remove the apple pies and rescue my soft toys from the window ledge of the dormitory. In narrow corridors, I frequently had to press myself tight into the wall, or else face an anonymous barrage of pinches and punches when the clique crowded past. And I had more than my fair share of enforced cold showers, with a couple of 'bogwashes' for good measure. That’s what I deserved for being different.

Yet although I was emotionally fragile after all I had been through in the previous year, I was determined not to let the stupid cows beat me. Perhaps if I stuck it out, they’d leave me alone, I reasoned.

That made me treasure the friendship of the small group of my fellow outcasts: the nerds and the oddballs. It was unfortunately, a weakness the 'in-crowd' exploited so effectively.

Very quickly I gained a best friend. Rather conveniently, she had the bed next to mine in the dorm. Gill was impossibly chirpy and it really annoyed the clique that they couldn't wear her down either. I think this was actually due to her natural unworldliness rather than any great moral strength: she was a twelve-year-old genius and eccentric and I wonder if she actually even realised half that time that she was being bullied. She was extremely clever, a gifted musician, and looked the part too: round wire-framed specs, frizzy hair, cute freckles. Her chest had begun sprouting, whereas mine was stubbornly flat, yet if she noticed it at all it was just to complain how inconvenient it was, having this unaccustomed encumbrance to contend with when she played her violin. She preferred Brahms to Duran Duran. We enjoyed each other's company hugely and when the oppressive school timetable allowed us a free hour, we would invariably spend it together.

Ours was an entirely innocent friendship. If there was any biological attraction, it passed us by unacknowledged. It simply felt good to be together. In retrospect, as far as I can recollect, I did feel physically good when I was close to her, and yes, we hugged as friends do, held hands sometime, but we didn't regard each other in any more meaningful way.

The gang of bitches clearly didn't see it that way. It riled them so see us cheerful in each other's company and so began a whispering campaign. I had to ask an older girl what a 'dyke' was, and the answer made me laugh before it made me cross. I knew all too well what men did to women but the notion of women doing it to women was ludicrous. How could anyone call us that? It was a disgusting thing to say about us!

Yet stupidly, not long afterwards, we played straight into their hands.

One evening, I had phoned home and my Father was less than sympathetic, listening to the litany of wrongdoings that had been perpetrated against me. I really only needed to talk to him, to get the words out: I knew I would have to handle the aggravation by myself but I still needed to tell him about it. The call went badly wrong - he went off on one of his pompous lectures and so I had a little tantrum and then he lost any remaining patience and hung up. To the fragile little thing such as I then was, that was one rejection too much. Back in the dorm, I hid under my sheets and cried for what seemed like hours. It must have woken poor Gill, and kept her awake, for after a while, she slipped into my bed and put her arm around me and held me to her. Considering how scatty she normally was, I can now see quite how wonderfully genuine and compassionate that gesture had been for her. She said nothing, just squeezed me and rubbed the back of my hand until at last I stopped sobbing and we both drifted off to sleep.

Trouble came the next morning. The House Prefect, doing the morning wake-up. And there we two were, huddled together in my narrow iron-framed bed. Not good form in a girls’ boarding school. The Prefect made a scene, the rest of the dorm looking on, scandalised and delighted with the early morning entertainment.

Remarkably, we were spared being reported to the Staff. Both of us pleaded tearfully, and the Prefect, who had other duties to perform, couldn't be bothered to waste any more time on us. But the damage had been done. Gossip like that takes only a few nano-seconds to reach even the farthest corners of a small school, on the way gaining impetus and losing accuracy. And of course our tormentors lapped up each sordid detail of the much embellished incident.

Why they decided we needed their particular punishment I don't know. The psychology of the bully is beyond me. The clique passed judgement and sentence in absentia.

It was the following weekend when they pounced.

Saturday afternoon, after Hockey. I think the rest of our Year had been tipped or warned off, for one moment everyone was chattering and showering and dressing in 'personal kit', ready to enjoy a few hour's relaxation, the next the changing rooms were deserted. Expect for me, Gill and a sneering group of about ten taller, older and altogether unfriendly girls. I knew most of their names, not that that mattered.

"Oh look, what have we here?" said one.

"It's the little queers from The First Form," sneered another.

"The dirty little pervs who snuggle up at night with their tongues down each other's throats."

"Or other places," sniggered the first girl.

"So they can feel each other up and do disgusting things to each other."

"Fuckin' disgrace!"

"Shouldn't be allowed."

"This is a good school. We don't want filthy queers here."

By now the girls had reached us. Gill was packing her games kit into a drawstring bag and one of them snatched it from her and hurled it across the changing room. Another pushed her roughly in the shoulder and dear, sweet Gill just looked bewildered, blinking through her specs.

Two of them circled round behind me and I decided to run for it, much too late of course. Hands gripped my shoulders.

"Not so fast, Suzie Fuckin' Wong. You can't come to our country and bring your filthy foreign ways into our school. Dirty little bitch.”

I can remember trying to say something and then falling hard on to the damp tiles as something hard was swung against the back of my head. Then a mass of arms and legs surrounded me and feet connected with my curled-up body and strong hands were tugging at my limbs and even my clothes. Heavy knees held down my legs and someone was sitting on my stomach. There was a ripping sound as my precious cheesecloth blouse lost an arm.

Across the changing room, Gill was much more vocal, screaming angrily in her croaky, precise accent, but I could tell she was undergoing the same treatment.

I felt the cold, hard wetness of the floor against my backside and was horrified to realise that these girls had stripped me naked.

“Is it true Chinks have sideways fannies?” one girl guffawed and as the others roared with laughter, my legs were pulled apart so that they could check for themselves. Someone had an arm around my throat and had my head in a lock against her body, forcing me to watch myself being prodded and poked.

Then without a signal, both groups of girls hauled Gill and I to our feet and we were propelled to the centre of the room, arms and necks still firmly grasped from behind. Gill had stopped complaining. Her face was red and her glasses had been knocked off or removed and she was visibly scared. The bullies pushed us together.

“Go on then, dyke. Kiss your girlfriend!”

Someone had a handful of my hair and was twisting it. I cried out.

“We said kiss her, chink!”

And so I did, to stop the pain. A peck on the cheek wasn’t enough to satisfy them. Full, on the lips, tasting the saltiness of poor Gill’s tears.

“Jesus! That’s disgusting.”

“Fuckin’ makes me feel sick.”

I must have been punched in the kidneys, for there was a great stabbing pain in the small of my back and my knees gave way.

As the aching fug cleared, I knew they had gone, leaving just Gill, sobbing, sitting on one of the wooden benches a few feet away. I staggered to my feet and made my way to sit beside her. She shuffled a foot away, to distance herself: I don’t think consciously, but something had definitely changed. Through her association with me, she had undergone this ordeal. I so wanted to hug her and comfort her, but now wasn’t the best time.

They had emptied the changing room entirely. We scoured the whole gym block, but it they had done a thorough job - not even an abandoned towel to be seen. Our hockey kit and clothes we found when we eventually got back to the dorm. After we had scampered naked, right through the school: across the Quad, past the Library, into the Junior Wing and up half a dozen flights of stairs. Past just about everybody in the entire school, it seemed. All of them shrieking with laughter and pointing fingers and whistling and yelling names.

I was mortified; Gill completely traumatised. We hid in the dorm until lights out, and were awarded several official punishments for our absence from supper. Chapel the next morning was torture, every face seeming to smirk knowingly at us.

Our notoriety soon passed. These things don’t last - there is always another bit of excitement or school gossip to take their place, but neither Gill nor I could ever forget. We decided it would be better if we spent less time together and sadly, our friendship dissolved quite rapidly.

I alone now became the focus for the bullies and there was some consolation that at least dear, scatterbrained Gill would be left alone. I put up with it for another month, before I could take no more of having my locker trashed and my possessions thrown out of the window and my arms and legs pinched and punched in every queue for the refectory or chapel. I had tried so very hard to brave it out, but the pressure was relentless and when my schoolwork suffered, I just couldn’t cope any longer. In common with prisons and military recruit training, it is part of boarding school culture that you don’t ‘grass’ on your peers, and even though I perhaps ought to have explained to the teaching staff that my late work and missing books were due to my being picked upon, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be believed and I would then suffer even more. The trouble with my chosen course of action, or rather inaction, was that inevitably I began earning extra punishments for a host of trivial things, and these, on top of the oppressively tight timetable, and the need to allow time always to recover my missing possessions, finally pushed me over the edge.

One night, I slipped out of the dorm and crept down to my secret sanctuary - the chaplain’s room behind the chapel. I remember quite vividly lying in a ball on the scratchy blue carpet, crying in total desperation until my throat was raw.

My Father wasn't best pleased to pull me out of that school after less than two terms.

But even he couldn't deny my obvious distress. In fact he surprised and delighted me when he accepted my pleading almost without objection and actually stuck up for me rather firmly when we met in the Headmistress’s office, taking her to task for letting such bullying take place. Much to my relief, we all three readily agreed that my leaving without delay would be in everyone's best interest. He even successfully demanded the return of part of my fees.

I dreaded going back home, in case my Father's supportive attitude had been only temporary and that as soon as we were back, he’d remember his belt, but he hardly mentioned the episode ever again and if anything was remarkably careful to ensure I had my own space at home. His new laissez-faire attitude made it so much easier. That it was actually born of apathy passed me by - I had not yet noticed how he had begun to lose his zest for life. Of course, I now know that had already begun the steady process of decline that eventually finished him off, but how could I have recognised the signs then? He had rescued me from the bullies and I now owed him a debt of gratitude.

He arranged for me to attend the local secondary school in Mill Hill and I was excited, if apprehensive. This time it was a traditional grammar school. Third time lucky?

It was. This time there was no bullying and I coped fine with the new surroundings and yet another set of classmates. It was an entirely normal and unremarkable period, apart from the additional duties I had at home, fulfilling the role of industrious, if inept, little housewife.

That Christmas, our first in England, I tried to hard to show Father how much appreciated his understanding and support. For weeks, I had secretly studied cook books at school and wrote up an entire plan to provide proper, traditional English food over the holiday: ingredients, shopping list, cooking instructions with split-second timing. My Father humoured me and issued me a little extra housekeeping, and though my cooking has never been anything more than barely adequate, I suspect that my first attempt at the full works - roast turkey and steamed pud (as separate courses I must point out!) - was possibly my lifetime best. Sad to think I peaked at only thirteen! Just the two of us, sharing the dinner, with crackers and some little presents afterwards, and he even helped with the washing up. Yes, I’d go so far as to say that Christmas was never bettered.

Joining the Girl Guides was also a masterstroke. I threw myself into it, eagerly trying to fill my sleeve with badges. Yet again I must have found comfort in wearing a uniform and I'm sure this foible led directly to my choice of career. It was also yet another factor in shaping my tortured sexuality.

It wasn't long before I had developed a crush on this fabulous girl. We’d been away on Camp, somewhere in Wiltshire, so it must have been 1981 - a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday, though emotionally I was still much, much younger. She was so perfect in every way. Sixteen, with a great figure, Celia was everything I longed to be, and knew I couldn't. Blue-eyed, blonde, with a crisp, rounded accent. She didn't endure the agonies of recurring spots on her chin. Her skirt and blouse fitted as if they had been tailored and she even marched with an effortless grace. I think all the juniors admired her, but I fell hopelessly in love with her.

Each week I would arrive early at the hall in which the Guides met, in the hope of exchanging a few words and a laugh with her. I plotted to ensure that I could be alongside her in activities, sitting as close as I could to her or best of all, being her partner. Her company was so easy and if my constant presence and doe-eyes annoyed her, she never let it show. I thought I had been so clever when I engineered her invitation to spend a Saturday afternoon with her: the first of several.

Celia's home was nearly as impressive as she, and I was chuffed to bits that her Mother took to me instantly. Despite the differences in our age, school and background, our friendship grew, possibly because I was happy to do whatever she wanted and agreed with everything she said. I became a regular visitor. I adopted her tastes, aped her mannerisms, aspired to her wardrobe, although my efforts to emulate the New Romantic look from what I could find in my wardrobe fell far short of Celia's cool standards.

And I felt so comfortable with her. Sprawling on her bed on a Saturday afternoon, listening to Radio 1 or her latest cassettes and enthusing over her latest clothes was as close to Heaven as I could hope for.

I loved watching her change and float around the room to show off her latest trendy new things. She couldn't have known how my throat tightened and my lungs ached each time she stripped to her bra and pants. I would study her as subtly as I could, inwardly dismayed at the way her full, firm teenage body filled her underwear in a way my awkward, skinny bits and pieces never would. I was acutely aware of my own feelings; even had a good idea why I had that warm buzz inside my tummy. I had yet to be conditioned by received thinking and social pressure and it simply didn’t cross my mind that perhaps I shouldn’t feel that way about another girl. How I longed to touch her and feel those delicious curves for myself. What I failed to appreciate, even by the age of fourteen, was that my feelings just might not be reciprocated.

So when I thought the opportunity had finally presented itself, and naturally I grabbed at it, the awful truth was even more devastating, for the possibility that my love would not be accepted or even appreciated was not something I had considered.

All I had done was take hold of her hand, as we huddled closely, sharing one of Celia’s magazines. She froze and examined her hand in my palm, then saw my pathetic expression, no doubt fixed in some adoring gaze, and she leapt away, flapping her wrist as if to shake an unpleasant substance from her fingers.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Pen? Oh my God, that’s disgusting! Jesus, I don’t believe this!”

She made a meal of it, so loudly that her Mother came tearing up the stairs, full of concern at the racket. As she opened Celia’s bedroom door, I dashed past, red-faced and about to howl.

How could I have been so stupid? I hated myself all over again, cursing my ignorance through the tears all the way home. Rejection is one of the hardest humiliations. I couldn’t bear to see Celia again. I don’t think my Father realised for many weeks that I had stopped going to Guides and then he passed no comment.

That came as a great relief, as I was dreading having to explain why yet again I had run away from something unpleasant. What would he think of me?

But by then, my Father had more than enough problems of his own.

---

5. Changing Fortunes

I was surprised to find him at home. He was sitting in the living room, in the dark. I pushed open the door and in the light from the hallway, I could see his head was in his hands. I quickly made to leave him alone.

But my Father waved me to join him, indicating I should sit beside him on the settee. Something had to be up. He never did that before. I couldn’t see his face properly, but his voice was cracking.

“I’m so sorry, Penny.”

Another first. I prepared myself for something serious, searching my brain for anything that I might have done to cause it. It had been a long time since he had hit me.

“We have to move again,” he said quietly. “My firm has let me go and we can’t afford to live here any longer.”

So that was it. I didn’t really understand, although I was already ticking off mentally the things I’d miss. But we’d done it before, we’d moved and set up a new home together, so it surely wasn’t that bad.

I was inwardly devastated at having yet again to change school, but Father was more important: it was my job to look after him.

It was such an unusual situation, sitting there like that. I put my arms around his neck and hugged him. And he hugged me back. Properly. I buried my face against his collar, filling my nostrils with the familiar scent of his aftershave. I didn’t want it to stop. I was just sad that it had taken something which had upset him in order to give me the opportunity to hold him.

There was a difficult period lasting a few weeks, when the house seemed different each time I got home from school. Furniture would be missing from a room. One Sunday, my Father’s beautiful car was driven away by its new owner. I said tearful goodbyes to my mates, handed back my schoolbooks. A man arrived with a big white van and my Father helped him load up what we were taking. I squeezed between them on the bench seat and we headed South.

It wasn’t that far, really, but in those few miles, the sky receded as the buildings grew taller and the trees became scarcer and I noticed the litter on the streets.

When we pulled into the estate, I didn’t realise we had arrived. It was dreadful – two vast quadrangles of dark red flats, piled on top of each other, with external balconies, gaudy doors and draughty stairwells at the end of each block. In the centre of each square was an area of dirty concrete, unencumbered by any greenery, just some abandoned washing line poles and the derelict remains of a children’s playground. The estate was ringed by cramped streets packed with all manner of vehicles in varying states of decay. We parked the van and picked our way through abandoned fridges and heaped rubbish and with a sense of disbelief, I followed my Father up to our new home on the second of four landings. The flat smelt sour.

Two bedrooms, my Father’s facing outwards, mine adjacent to the landing, a cramped and damp bathroom next to it, a dark living room and a small kitchen-diner. Dusty and stained carpet, peeling and missing wallpaper. A world apart from the spacious elegance of Kowloon or even the tired suburban orderliness of Mill Hill.

My disappointment was ameliorated by my improved relationship with my Father, who became more human each time life knocked him back. If the price I had to pay for that was living in this dump, well so be it.

I busied myself as the apprentice housewife again, unpacking and cleaning and late in the evening, he went out for fish and chips and we ate them together at the little kitchen table, just like a proper family. We tried to cheer each other up (“this flat isn’t too bad - we can make it nice, can’t we?”) and Father told me about the new job he had recently started in a warehouse behind St Pancras station, laughing about how mundane were his duties and unimaginative his managers. He had never discussed work before. Since that momentous evening in our old house in Mill Hill, when he announced the impending move, he hadn’t commented that I had been calling him ‘Dad’ rather than ‘Sir’. Or perhaps he hadn’t noticed.

At least neither of us had to spend all day in our new home, forced to reflect on our changed fortune: I had my new school to attend and he left for work early each morning, often staying out with his new friends and colleagues until quite late. It was no problem – I kept his supper warm for him and snoozed on the settee so that I could serve it up whenever. I felt a bit sorry that my Father’s new work didn’t have its own canteen (like the bank had), for it meant he now needed my dubious cookery to keep him sustained.

School was a bit of shock too. A typical inner-London redbrick rabbit warren, named after an enlightened turn-of-the-century philanthropist and which had only recently ceased to be a boys-only establishment. Its heritage showed. There were well-equipped workshops for training South Camden’s future mechanics and plumbers, but there was none of the heady academic aspirations of the County Grammar I had left. That said, I fitted in more easily than at any of the other schools. Half my new class were immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants. Crossing the playground at break, you could hear half a dozen different languages. And the teaching staff were in the main encouraging and competent, though clearly exhausted much of the time. Oh well, even if the surroundings were a bit daunting, I could handle it. School is just like me, I thought, looks aren’t that important!

It did take a while though, before I felt reasonably comfortable walking around the neighbourhood. During the day it wasn’t too bad, especially when I began to recognise other kids from school and could exchange a wave, but after dark it was unnerving, even if only popping down to the ‘open all hours’ to fetch my Father some smokes or a fresh bottle. My age was never questioned by the hard-working Sikhs who ran it - they soon marked me down as a good customer.

The random noises were the most unsettling aspect of living on the estate. At any time of day or night. Not like the general rumble in our nice part of Kowloon, or the soothing hum of traffic from the motorway in Mill Hill. This place could assault your eardrums at any time with anything from a drunken fight to a baby’s scream. Car alarms, random shouting - it took a long while before I had an unbroken night’s kip.

But you can’t dwell on these things and I soon enough began to feel settled. I made new friends and enjoyed being in the top set for all my subjects at school. Quite a novelty, and I took care not to be too smug about it. It was quite OK for a whole year. Parts of it were great.

Dad even took me away for a week’s holiday: a coach to Great Yarmouth and a caravan on the cliffs. It was amazing. We had a fabulous time, indulging in all the British seaside traditions – bags of greasy doughnuts, walking slowly around the model village and girly screams on the big dipper. And that was just Father - I yelled a bit as well! Bouncing along on a fleabitten donkey on the beach was not quite in the same league as posing on a lovingly-groomed pony in the New Territories, but I still enjoyed it.

One memorable evening, we went on a long walk right out of town, over the sand dunes. We paused and could see nothing but sand and sea and sky; not a soul around apart from the two of us. My Father lit up and for the only time I can remember, told me about something from his own childhood: a seaside holiday somewhere unpronounceable in Scotland. Staring out to sea and talking so quietly I had to lean close to listen, he confided to being an only child, and I could sense his pain when he mentioned his own parents, about whom I knew nothing and from whom I had been denied contact. He told me a few anecdotes and I caught myself beaming at him. I willed him to tell me more. But the second he trod his stub end into the sand, the door closed, almost as if he was extinguishing the flame of his own memory.

The next day, I braved a less than subtle question about his past, hoping to persuade him to resume his reminiscence and tell me of the family beyond. The moment had passed, though: he changed the subject automatically and I knew he would never speak about it to me again.

Back in Camden, my friends couldn’t understand why I kept going on about it: spending your fifteenth birthday on holiday with your Dad was hardly the hippest thing to do.

I just couldn’t explain how it was the best birthday present I’d ever had.

I wasn’t exactly ecstatic to be living in a run-down inner city estate, but as I began my Fifth Form - exam year - life was bearable. Schoolwork was interesting and I was consistently near the top of my class in all my GCE subjects. I had a good circle of acquaintances through school, and was included in a loose gaggle of girls that swept up most of the waifs and strays who failed to qualify for membership of the ‘cool’ gangs. We were a rare assortment of teenagers, almost all of us born outside the UK, or at best, second generation English. We had our own slang and a truly awful accent that seemed to afflict us all when we were together - a hybrid North London twang with double negatives and a West Indies via Karachi disregard for correct verb endings. “N’aht ah mean, innit?” In unguarded moments, I to this day catch myself thinking in it, even if I’ve successfully managed to regain my own neutral accent and received pronunciation. With a hint of a lisp.

Unlike the other gangs, my group’s principal topic of conversation was not usually boys. Several of the other girls were instinctively discouraged from such distracting thoughts by their cultural and family backgrounds - husbands would be chosen for them in good time - and quite bluntly, one or two others of us were just too damned ‘minging’ to have stood much of a chance of attracting any half-decent Sixth Former, even if we’d wanted to. Just as well then that I wasn’t in the least bit interested in that particular subject.

But that’s not to say my teenage hormones weren’t every bit as active as those of my classmates.

It took a long while to bounce back from Celia's rejection. I hated myself for being so stupid, for misreading the signs. When I finally restored my self-confidence, I was determined not to repeat my mistake. And as an added imperative, I was desperate for any reason to stay out of that miserable flat as much as possible.

For my Father seemed to be in freefall decline. His despair seemed to permeate the very walls of the place. And he was often an unpleasant companion, even if he was my Dad, snapping and moody. There were times when I began to be afraid of him again.

He succumbed to depression. The last of his confidence and optimism had deserted him and the constant drudge of his work, and the seediness of our surroundings, seemed to push him into a perpetual circle of bad temper and melancholy. I don’t think I appreciated quite how bad he was feeling, poor man. And I was certainly not as supportive as I should have been. But I was a selfish teenager now, wasn’t I? Didn’t he realise I had pressures too?

We found an acceptable compromise: steering clear of each other and sharing sullen mealtimes but little else.

It was therefore fairly understandable that when something good came along, I grabbed it and treasured and nurtured it.

And ‘it’ came in the form of a divine First-former who lived in the next block of flats. We'd shadowed each other to and from school for a couple of weeks before we fell to chatting. We had much in common: we hated where we lived, had difficult parents, and were less than impressed with many aspects of our school. Maz was always funny. She had a lovely accent, part nasal London, part sensual Mediterranean, from her Greek family, although she herself had been born and raised in the neighbourhood. Once it became clear we were destined to become close mates, I took time to study her as she prattled and joked and larked about, and I simply loved what I saw.

I was old enough to understand my own feelings. Why my spirits would lift when I saw her; why I had that tightness in my windpipe whenever our bodies were close. I had felt much the same with Celia, but this time I was determined to remain in control of my emotions.

There couldn't be another incident. I would have to be so damned careful.

As for Maz, well I never did quite work out how much she simply followed my lead, or whether she had genuine feelings for me too. The issue bothered me. I spent countless hours in my crummy bedroom, agonising over it. I tried to imagine myself three years younger, at her age, and wondered whether had the opportunity arisen, I could have been emotionally attracted to an older girl, but always the spectre of Kowloon destroyed my train of thought and I knew I couldn’t imagine how a ‘normal’ girl could feel. At twelve, I wasn’t given any opportunity to learn about relationships through innocent experimentation.

What was undeniable was my own infatuation with her, which was becoming more painful by the day. Maz became the unknowing focus of my existence, constantly in my thoughts. She represented the only human to whom I had any capacity to offer my love. The urge to hug and hold her became near- impossible to suppress.

I daydreamed about her, imagining the two of us in warm, exotic places, her beautiful dark eyes sparkling with shared pleasure. At night, I comforted myself to sleep, shoving a spare pillow down beside me and clutching it to me, stroking the soft cotton and trying to imagine the feel of her olive skin against my hands. And when I had whispered and planted soft kisses on my imaginary Maz's lips, I would lift the hem of my nightie and push the pillow between my legs and roll about the bed, squeezing my thighs hard around my hand and riding the ripples of warmth.

I knew exactly what I was doing. And I wanted the real thing.

We spent all our free time in each other's company, usually away from the wind-blasted flats and the embarrassment of our respective families. That said, I did enjoy Maz’s place - her Mum was friendly and funny and there were always loads of delicious snacks and treats to try, but more often, I would rather have Maz all to myself. We had a special place: she took me there and we claimed it for ourselves - a long-abandoned hut on the edge of a disused railway marshalling yard. We had to climb through two fences to get there. We knew others used it - sometimes the unpleasant traces of a tramp's overnight stay or a fresh pile of dog ends would indicate someone else had been there, but most of the time, it was our private sanctuary, where she could tell me all I needed to know about the Pop Charts and I could lead her astray by sharing the occasional Consulate menthol ciggy, filched from my Father's packet. It gave me a wonderful excuse to sit close, and enjoy the buzz from feeling her leg close against mine, or the touch of her fingers as we passed the illicit weed back and forth.

I simply had to do something about it. I was finding hard to concentrate on my schoolwork, willing the time to pass until I could seek her out in the melee of the playground and walk back home with her, hearing about her day and gazing at her lovely, animated face.

My Father’s unpredictable mood swings were usually too daunting for me to risk bringing Maz back to our place and there were too many noisy siblings crammed into her own flat, for us ever to have found time alone.

But for once, the Gods smiled on me, for my Father announced he was going to a reunion dinner somewhere in Town and would be late back. That was if he made it back at all, I thought unkindly, since he had taken to getting truly smashed of late. As the one who put out the trash, I knew just how much booze he was putting away these days.

Maz was very excited at the prospect of a sleepover - I'm sure it was much more of a novelty in those days, especially in the community where we lived.

I have to admit, it was a meticulously planned seduction. I had no moral qualms about plotting to take the twelve-year-old to my bed. In the many hours I had lain awake before the day, I had rehearsed and refined the gameplay and when the evening came (a Friday, I recall), I was as nervous as a West End stage manager on Opening Night.

We just larked about for the evening until I feigned tiredness to entice her into my room. I had laid out my old Guide sleeping bag on a mattress of blankets on the floor, but once we had changed for bed, Maz didn’t hesitate to take up my offer to snuggle down beside me on my narrow divan.

The whole thing took less than half a minute. One moment we were chattering, the next our faces were close together and silent, then I leaned to her and kissed her lips, watching her eyes close and holding her so very softly until they reopened with a sparkle of excitement. She smiled so happily, and it seemed so natural and right, easing her back on to the pillow and peppering her lovely face with my kisses.

That night I couldn't bear to close my eyes. To risk wasting any of those precious moments. Maz slept in my arms. Her hair was against my chin, smelling faintly of the menthol cigarette we had shared out of the bedroom window, after I had thrilled her by raising her top and kissing and licking her flat little breasts and shocked her when my tongue probed her mouth for the first time. Her small, hard body was pressed into my stomach, separated from my own by just the thinness of her oversized t-shirt.

I was wanton, naked, having tugged off my nightie agonisingly slowly, so as not to disturb her. In my crotch, I was aflame. I clenched my upper thighs and willed my inner muscles to be calm, to suppress the delicious throbbing within. I merely succeeded in making the back of Maz's shirt warmly wet. Even my scrawny little tits tingled when she shifted in her sleep and her back brushed the eager, sensitive nipples that were straining towards her. I cursed my own inhibitions, for I ached to reach around her and lay my hand between her legs. My bravery had found its limit.

I lay my face against her shoulder, my lips to the intimate warmth at the nape of her neck and eventually dozed, still wearing a stupid, contented grin.

After that first wonderful night, there was no subsequent embarrassment. No sheepish looks or avoiding each other. We continued as secret young lovers. Maz was as keen and willing as me. In our railway yard den, we could be together, alone and snatched minutes in each other’s arms made anything and everything fine again.

Which of course meant that life was about to kick me in the teeth again.

She came around to my flat as soon as her parents had announced their plan to move. We both cried. Her folks intended to set up their own restaurant in Aylesbury or Milton Keynes or somewhere like that, miles away. Before she left, I am pleased to say we had one glorious day together, playing truant and cuddling naked in my bed, and discovering at last and with mounting excitement the joys of full-on petting and mutual masturbation. It was exhilarating, made better by the guilt of being absent from school and I lost track of the times we aroused each other to elated, almost disbelieving climax. One of those unforgettable moments, sadly never repeated.

How empty I felt after she had gone. I had nothing to look forward to, over and above my boring routine of school and housework. Evenings spent sitting quietly in the corner of the living room, toying with my homework and watching whatever channel my Father had on, waiting to bring him his tea or find a fresh pack of fags. I had entirely lost direction and was very sorry for myself.

And so when my Father lost his job again, he slid down to an unprecedented level of depression, and I followed him. That was the last permanent job he had.

He now had excess time on his hands, to drink and let his anger fester. So that by the time I slipped into the flat after a day at school or, more likely, an evening hanging around the estate to prolong my return, he was ready to lash out at me. Better me than anyone else, I supposed, but it did seem unfair. At least his blows tended to be verbal at that time, although he had resorted to giving me a sudden slap if I really pissed him off.

We polarised into our separate, uncomfortable existences.

Father became secretive. Not exactly paranoid, but I suffered badly from his unpredictable mood swings. One day I thought he was out and went to his room to collect the laundry. As I opened the door, I heard him rush to the other side and he swore terribly, slamming it shut in my face. I had a very uneasy feeling that he was not alone in there, although I didn’t dwell on my supposition, in case I discovered something I would have preferred not to.

Reliant on benefits now, he increasingly resented giving me money for shopping and I had to hide my cash, after some notes went missing from my housekeeping pot. Another oddity was the mail. Normally the few items of post we had were left on the sideboard until one of us got around to dealing with them, but for weeks, there had been nothing there. I hoped that it meant he was getting our bills paid directly by the Social.

One bitterly cold day in February 1983, there was a van being loaded under the flats when I returned from school, and I was puzzled that the large teak dresser in the back looked just like ours. That’s because it was. My father had sold it: one of the few remaining links with our lovely home in Kowloon.

For all his faults, I still wanted the best for him, and if he found some casual work, I would try to enthuse and ensure he had a clean, ironed shirt and a decent packed lunch to take with him. It hurt me to see how he much he had lost faith in himself. I missed seeing him neat and tidy in his suit and tie; when he went without shaving it seemed to emphasise his decline, but it would have taken a much braver girl than me to have mentioned anything. And I always did seem to have a fading bruise somewhere or other, just in case I thought otherwise.

The unthinkable happened a week before the end of the Spring Term, when I was already preoccupied with the prospect of spending the Easter holiday with my head buried in revision books.

2001 - 2004: Self Destruction

11. A Shameful Episode

Arranging it all was remarkably quick. Within three days I was on the aircraft, heading somewhere in South-East Asia. For reasons that will become clearer shortly, I do not intend to be any more specific than that. This part of my tale is especially unpalatable, but I can’t miss it out, if I am fully to bear my soul. Here surfaced the very worst of my many weaknesses.

I had first come across the charity and its activities through an article in the airline staff magazine some years before. Employees were encouraged to assist charities overseas where there was potential PR mileage and I remembered a picture of two or three smiling off-duty cabin crew wearing sponsored sweatshirts, surrounded by a mass of cheerful nut-brown children. I phoned to make an instant appointment and made my way straight to the London office, where my earnest persistence and refusal to sit down bounced me up the chain of command in short order and soon I was sat before a very senior executive, explaining myself for the third time that morning. When it became clear that I would not be leaving of my own volition until wheels were visibly in motion and the odd rule bent if not snapped altogether, I was shown a chair in a corner and supplied with coffee as calls were made and faxes exchanged. The fact that I was offering more or less to pay my own way and to work in the back of beyond, well away from the usual backpacker trail in a frankly rather unattractive place, was plainly too good an offer to resist, for dubious documentation mysteriously materialised and a visa and work permit were conjured up with miraculous haste. Thus I left the building at the end of that day, an apparently properly accredited supply teacher of English as a Foreign Language, on my way to assist in the local school of a town I'd never heard of, in a country I'd only once briefly visited and was at the time very pleased to leave. Six months' initial contract, budget air fare provided, local accommodation with the job and the bare minimum of living expenses paid. I was more than happy to settle for that, offering to forego the going rate for wages, even though I would need to subsidise myself heavily from my savings. I treated the bemused cabbie to my first smile for almost a week.

One final day buying a rucksack and some odds and ends, sorting out my paperwork and I was ready. I sold the Fiesta to a backstreet garage for next to nothing, and converted all the cash I had to US dollars as my spending money. Goodbye England and good fucking riddance. Even my British coinage I sought to dispose of, in a brief but emotional call to Janet.

The first blast of warm air when you step out of the cabin is always good for the soul and was never more so as I stepped down into my new adopted land.

It was still a novelty, being a paying customer rather than cabin crew and I laughed at my own momentary confusion when I looked around for the crew bus to take me across the apron. At least I was well-prepared for the painful wait for my rucksack to appear on the old-fashioned roller conveyor, and for two long queues for my paperwork to be examined and re-examined. But finally I escaped into the chaos of the arrivals hall and peered for the little placard bearing the charity's logo and my own name.

My guide and driver and the charity’s local liaison rep were one and the same and I was reassured by the eager warmth of his handshake.

"Call me Rick," the tall, admittedly attractive young man beamed, flashing his perfect teeth and taking me by surprise with his well-formed Oxford accent. I later discovered that he had a Chemistry degree from the University there, which explained a lot. Rick kindly spent the evening with me in the lounge of the hotel, briefing me on my new post, and the trials and tribulations of living in his home country. Nothing he could have said would have put me off - the novelty of doing exactly what I wanted to do, not because I had to or needed to, that was more than enough.

After an administrative stop-off at the charity's main office in the capital, a small oasis of calm technology in the heart of the bustling capital, Rick guided his Landcruiser through the shanties of the suburbs and out into the lush greenery of the country. The small town in which I was to serve as an auxiliary teacher was almost three hundred kilometres of hard driving, in the foothills to the West. It took most of the rest of daylight hours to reach it.

The town was a confusion of basic huts, modern apartments, ramshackle sheds and a number of clearly colonial buildings, past their best but still essentially sound beneath the peeling paint and crumbling garden walls. And everywhere, people, milling rather than hurrying, grouped to chat or just watch those on the move.

We followed the remains of a once-grand avenue out of the centre and a short distance along, turned between two towering gateposts. I read the sign. This was the school in which I would be working: the only one in town, with slightly under four hundred registered pupils from about seven to fifteen-years-old, and a permanent staff of six, besides me. My digs were in a small cottage in the grounds to the side of the main school building - a single-storey construction with wonderful, large shutters and bougainvillea flanking the front door. Rick opened everything up and as the musty heat slowly dissipated, I surveyed my latest home with great satisfaction.

London, Simon and the spineless bastards who fired me could have been a million miles away. This was where I wanted to be.

After I had dumped my rucksack and rinsed my face, Rick showed me around, then insisted on driving the few hundred metres back into town, where with enviable efficiency, he loaded me up with provisions and whisked me back to the cottage. As I showered, he was busy on the phone, his clipped English replaced by a rapid and authoritative torrent in the local tongue. I'd tried to learn some basic phrases on the plane and was pleased to understand a few per cent of his words. Mercifully my teaching was primarily to be of English, in English, but I was determined to have a stab at getting by with the language. I have a strange capacity to pick up spoken languages quite quickly and then just as quickly forgetting them once I move on or have no more cause to speak them. I liken that part of my brain to a small sponge inside a cup, able to absorb and retain a very limited amount, and having to be emptied before anything else will fit in. It’s not a big cup either - I have a real mental block when it comes to writing in anything other than English.

Rick was informing the head teacher of our arrival and I soon had my first encounter with the serious but kindly Doctor K. Rick insisted on heading back at that point and I didn't envy him the long drive in the dark. Doctor K was charming, and walked me arm in arm across town to his own house, where I was introduced to his family and made guest of honour at supper.

I woke very early the next day, wanting to be fully prepared to create the right impression. Cotton slacks and blouse, face scrubbed and hair neatly tied back: all present and correct. Doctor K greeted me at the entrance and led me to the staff room, introducing me to the polite nods and smiles of my new workmates. I was placed under the protective wing of the senior master, confusingly called Lee, who was to ease me into the job over the rest of the week.

Lee had more or less finished taking me around the school and pointing out everything I needed to know, when we suddenly stepped out into a large courtyard of red earth. That three hundred kids were there was the most amazing surprise. Sitting cross-legged in straight lines, fidget-free and totally silent. Lee clapped his hands and introduced me in English, and I couldn't avoid blushing stupidly when the entire school yelled 'Good Morning, Miss Penny!'

I wanted to yell back at them, laughing. The rows of earnest, innocent faces. I was definitely going to like it here.

The school was full of contradictions. On the surface, there was a happy atmosphere and a lovely old-fashioned level of politeness that drew well upon the twin strands of that nation's heritage: oriental charm and imperial rectitude.

A little further below was controlled chaos: huge classes with insufficient books and teaching aids, a shortage of writing paper, and a very flexible attitude towards attendance. It was explained to me that if a family needed an extra pair of hands in the field or in the family business, school took second place.

And beneath it all were some very strange undercurrents in the staff room, that I could only sense, not comprehend. As in any team, there were bonds and rivalries, but here there was something else that took me much longer to identify - politics. Not petty internal stuff but the real deal. The younger teachers were every bit as dedicated as their seniors, but their motivation was in no small part due to their strong ideology. I'm most certainly no intellectual and I neither understood nor really wished to understand quite what was going on. That said, I knew before I arrived the awful recent history of the country and the lingering turmoil that kept it in a constant state of unease and poverty. What was unavoidably obvious was that to at least a couple of my new colleagues, the presence of a Westerner was a constant source of irritation. It didn't matter that I represented the goodwill of a respected charity, that I had no axe to grind nor brought any political or religious agenda of my own. Nor even that with my half-Asian parentage, I was not exactly a typical representative of either the New or Old worlds. Nope: simple little Miss Lee might have been the President of the USA himself, insomuch as her being there offended their nationalistic pride.

My fate was sealed early on – those same colleagues made sure of that. I did my best to be myself - the empty-headed grinning buffoon, who laughed off such heady matters, but a few words spoken deliberately loudly enough for me to overhear soon left me in no doubt that I was not universally welcome.

Sod it, I thought. Just get on with what you've chosen to do.

Which was two-fold. I genuinely wanted to help these children. To do whatever I could to extend their knowledge and improve their chances for self-improvement. Good, noble stuff, and I had no problem justifying it to myself as the reason for escaping London. I had no ambitions or plans beyond being there - this was a good enough refuge for the time being; maybe in time I would reinvent myself. Or possibly do myself in - properly. Either way, I intended to go down in flames and the jury was out on whether I would eventually choose to play the phoenix.

It is the second reason for my being there that is so appalling. The one I hardly dared admit even to myself. And confessing it here is no easy matter. But whatever I tried, to wrap it up in weasel words, or even try to deny it altogether, my deepest, innermost thoughts could not be ignored.

I was seeking sexual adventure.

There - I admit it. I wanted to do things that were immoral in the West, if not downright illegal. I shall understand if you abandon this autobiography right now, for the next bit makes for extremely uncomfortable reading.

What had emerged from my ongoing mid-life crisis was the dark, self-centred inner me, who had once before surfaced briefly in a hotel bedroom several years before, at the expense of that poor little Chinese girl, Lien Hua. From the depths had risen up this emotional cripple with no future, an unprincipled sexual misfit with a voracious appetite for physical pleasure at any cost.

I had every intention of gorging myself from this cornucopia of temptation.

With nothing left to aim for in my life, and my self-respect in shreds, I was going to pursue the deepest, darkest and most suppressed of my fantasies. And this was the best place I had figured I could do it. How the notion first concocted itself in my evil mind, back in my despair in Brighton, I'm not really sure, and I can't recall that there was much conscious consideration of what I wanted. My basest instincts were in command.

As I took my first class, and looked around at the beautiful smooth-skinned children studying me with curiosity, I felt the faintest of shivers in my guts. If I was to give in to my bad intentions, some of them would end up in my bed.

You read that correctly.

I can't offer any plea in mitigation, nor claim provocation: this was my own doing and though not especially proud of myself, I am prepared to be honest about it now, even if that condemns me to live out my days as a social outcast: that I wouldn’t do anything like that again doesn’t change the fact that I did it then and I deserve to face the consequences.

The casual way of life just made it that much easier to be tempted. I had a strategy, and the anticipation was delicious. Once I had established a rapport with my classes, it was easy to let slip a casual invitation to drop by the bungalow for a little extra tuition. In fact, a lot of the children did anyway, such was the way of life in that place, and I encouraged them to do so. Irrespective of my sinister motives, it was simply nice to enjoy their company outside of the formality of the classroom. We read, played games, talked and shared food and drink. I loved to learn about their country and culture through their innocent eyes. Most evenings and weekends, there would be two or three youngsters of all ages sprawled on my floor or curled up with a book in a cane chair, and I would sit close and savour the warm proximity of their bodies.

And yes, I did encourage some more than others, and when I was alone with the prettiest girls, the games would turn playful and ticklish and we would laugh and chase and hug. Quite enough to satisfy me, for after the last one had left for home, I could always slip down under the sheet and let my fingers exploit the arousal between my legs.

Yes, I was sick. I can’t deny it can I? I had reached rock bottom.

As time went on, I became bolder. I tended to wear little or nothing in the bungalow and my young visitors often followed my lead. I privately enjoyed their shy scrutiny of my adult body.

A few weeks into my stay, I went further, when I found myself alone with one particular girl, whose intelligence, grace and beauty set her aside from her fellow twelve-year-olds. She was a quiet, studious girl, who would hang back until the others left, then light up like a beacon when she had me to herself. She loved to read for me, showing off her expanding vocabulary and honing her English pronunciation, and I would sit close to her, my arm casually resting on her shoulder or idly stroking her hair. She liked that and I could see beyond her looks of happiness at my praise and encouragement, to the confused longing within: she had an unmistakeably massive crush on me.

It was mutual. So slim and lithe was her body beneath the thin dress and where it gaped about her throat, I could glimpse the tiny brown nuts of her nipples. It was unbearable. Her sing-song voice was forming the words, but all I could think of was the tantalising way her hem had ridden up to show off her perfect young thighs. She paused and noticed me looking adoringly at her. I smiled and laid my fingertips against her cheek and kissed her lips, soft and long.

There was no need for words - her moist, excited eyes said it all. We embraced and barely able to suppress our delighted laughter, explored each other's faces and necks with our lips, and stroked and petted and fondled. I stood and unfastened then dropped the thin cotton robe I was wearing. She took my hand and I led her to my bed.

Yes, I abused my position and did so in a calculating and premeditated way. Guilty as charged. But there was never any coercion or pressure. I was happy to share my time and company with these girls, and it mattered not if nothing happened. But if a girl responded to my subtle encouragement, then yes, I would take every opportunity to be affectionate, and with a tiny number of them, if they were willing, I went further.

My quarters became a little haven of Sapphic misbehaviour. I exaggerate – it was only for a couple of hours a week, as a rule, but that doesn’t diminish my guilt.

Rarely, I had the consummate pleasure of a girl staying over. I cannot put into words the total physical and spiritual pleasure of lying with an eager and loving young girl, helping her learn the joy her body can give her, and guiding her through the mechanics of sharing pleasure with another, through her mouth or her hands. Nothing sleazy or predatory. Genuine, honest, even innocent, pleasure shared. But if I disgust you, I am sorry. You would be right to condemn me and I can’t justify my actions – my mind wasn’t all there.

It was a basic understanding that what took place in the bungalow remained in the bungalow, and there was never anything more than a slight reddening of embarrassed cheeks if I spoke in class with a girl I had kissed the night before - beyond my little home, all relationships were strictly teacher-pupil formality.

My band of young guests saw no reason either to publicise their visits either, for they considered themselves a select and secret elite and did not want to dilute my attention by letting others in on the fun.

By Western standards, I was a degenerate, but I told myself that far from corrupting their moral values, I was merely supplementing their education in a rather unconventional way. In remoter parts of the country, many girls were married off in their early teens, and the cultural attitude to relationships was unlike anything we would recognise in the West. It was little more than a bit of fun.

One of the highlights was an impromptu orgy, that to most people would, I suppose, represent the absolute nadir of my moral decline. There was a trio of regulars: eleven, twelve and fourteen-years old, whom I had systematically seduced over the months and who were frequent volunteers to come to the bungalow for extra tuition or help with coursework. One weekend, perhaps half a year after I arrived, it just happened that just the three of them were with me for the afternoon and it was hot and lazy and we were having a great laugh and some how we all four of us ended up naked. It was the one and only occasion I encouraged girls to make love to each other. For one glorious, hysterical hour, my bed was a writhing mass of hot, moist, giggling girlhood, with me as evil bitch-dyke centre stage, subtly directing the show and in a state of almost perpetual climax. Undeniably shocking I cannot deny, but even now, when I am fully prepared to repent my sins, I would still maintain that nothing we did would have traumatised any of them, for they were fully aware of what we were doing and as determined as me to enjoy themselves.

Within a month of that, I faced retribution for those sins; you may think: justly so.

Bearing in mind that I made no special effort to conceal my overly keen interest in a small number of pupils, it was perhaps surprising that it took that long for me to attract closer scrutiny.

Both subsequent events that took place happened so close together and it is hard not to draw the conclusion that they were linked and being orchestrated by unseen hands.

It mattered nothing that I had given 110% as a teacher, that what I lacked in technical expertise I more than made up for in patience and dedication. That I had seen dozens of kids blossom and had nurtured in them an affinity with my mother tongue. I had even helped out with maths, which stretched my abilities to the limit. That had been a real struggle, trying to dredge up my knowledge of basic mathematics, for Dr K’s beaming suggestion that I could also help out in that subject was impossible to decline. Each evening, I had to re-learn old skills in order to bluff my way through them in class the next day!

If my motive for going there was abhorrent, then I would like to think that I made some amends in my teaching. I won’t claim to be a natural, but in the classroom and in small groups gathered under the shade of a tree outside, I found such tremendous fulfilment. We had limited books (it looked as if they had received job lots of obsolete teaching materials from the UK and elsewhere), some so old I remembered them from my own school days - ancient ‘Janet and John’ and for the older pupils, dog-eared editions of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and even some wonderful ‘Famous Five’ compilations. And from the US, those tongue-twisting ‘Cat In The Hat’ books, which were guaranteed to have the entire class in stitches, me included, by the end of the period. Heaven knows what the children made of some of the tales. I loved to break off and explain, and add little stories of my own, or anecdotes from the nicer side of my own childhood, to try to balance their perception of the West. I encouraged the children to write and especially charming were the one-page compositions of the older and more able ones, in which they would describe their lives and their families and their hopes and dreams for the future. I usually asked them to read them aloud to me and I would look into their innocent eyes, so full of life and energy and it slowly helped me get a grip on reality, and put my own silly troubles in perspective.

Hard to say if I could have settled down there, and perhaps learned to overcome my unsavoury tendencies - in many ways I was very content, spared from the anguish of relationships and leading a simple existence. And very importantly, knowing that I was doing something positive. The question is academic. My card had already been marked.

The two sour-faced politicos in the staff room had the sort of knowing expressions that would make any normal person uneasy. I had a free period to do some marking and one of them came over. That was odd. So when he sneered and announced he was glad I was going, he gained my full attention.

"We've been keeping our eye on you and we know what you've been doing. Bringing your filthy, decadent western ways here, indoctrinating our children and turning their heads with your loose morals and disgusting behaviour..."

I endured a swift and cutting speech of condemnation, which seemed to encompass not just my own shameful performance, but personal responsibility for everything from US imperialism to global warming. There was no point in rising to the bait, but between the invective there was an underlying thread of malice and warning, which could not be ignored. And a very unsubtle hint that I was about to receive a visit from at least one official agency. One that it was unwise to cross in that particular country. I listened in silence, disguising my growing unease, but beneath my passivity, my guts were beginning to churn.

I braved out the remainder of the day, two English lessons and one Maths, which I executed on autopilot. The phone was ringing when I returned to the bungalow that evening.

It was Rick, which was a relief, but after a few pleasantries, he said the charity's Country Director wanted a word. She was a fearsome French woman, whom I had never met, but whose reputation was almost as well known as the organisation's logo. She was curt and didn't mince her words. There had been a complaint made about me, the details of which she was not prepared to discuss on the phone: I was to pack my things and await Rick's collecting me in the morning - I was suspended pending investigation. It didn't do to press the matter. I simply agreed and acknowledged my instructions. The game was up.

That evening, I lay in the dark, my rucksack packed, pondering what next.

I was scared, now that I was suddenly back in the real world. How had I been so damned stupid? Had I really been so bent on going out with a bang that I had ceased to be a decent, rational, thinking being? Did I really think I could behave like that indefinitely? I had been indiscreet to the point of recklessness and beyond. What was I thinking? One can't live life day by day in the real world, nor pretend one's actions don't have consequences. Even if one thinks there is no future worth waiting for. Even if one’s mind was not quite right at the time.

And having laid myself so open by my actions, goodness knows what additional charges might be levelled against me. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Even escaping to what should have been paradise, I had ballsed it up once more.

This was actually much more serious than it first seemed. Paranoia set in. Having been the victim of Simon's comprehensive frame-up, I knew all too well how easy it can be to set up a stupid victim, and I was getting quite hysterical about what had actually been said about me. No smoke without fire again, and I had even supplied the matches. This time I wasn’t entirely the innocent victim. The fact that some unknown form of complaint had already reached a government department in the capital suggested that I might well find myself accused of things much more unpleasant or illegal than simply snogging a few willing schoolgirls, though that was of course bad enough. My lack of self-control was more than likely about to be blown up into something much more heinous, as I became a pawn to further the ends of those who resented the charity's presence in the country.

And although I no longer had any life plan, or ties or family, I wasn't yet prepared to sacrifice my freedom and complete my self destruction. The prospect of spending any time in one of the country’s notorious jails was both very real and very frightening. A Western woman would have an especially unpleasant time.

That left me in a real dilemma. If I went back to the capital with Rick, I had no idea what was in store for me. I might be put straight on a plane, to save everyone any embarrassment. Or I might just be able to explain myself, promise to be a good girl and get back to school straight away. Or I might be arrested on charges I hadn't yet dared to imagine.

As the first light of the dawn brought the room into focus, I had made my decision. Not a plan, for I was incapable of thinking more than a few hours ahead. Yet again in my wretched life, I was alone and having to clear up my own mess; except this time, I was alone in a remote country, with no friends or contacts, and just the few possessions I could wear or carry.

Just as I had done in Brighton only a few months earlier, I listened to the cowardly voice in my head and I chose to run from the problem, rather than face up to it.

I wrote a note of apology to Dr K and left it in the bungalow. In town, as the market was still being set up, I persuaded the sleepy driver of a battered old Peugeot taxi to deliver me to the country's second city. Further than the capital, it was a day's uncomfortable drive, and cost me almost my entire reserve of US dollars, but by nightfall, I was holed up in a cheap backpacker's hostel close by the port, anonymous and safe for a short while. By then, I was desperate to get out of the country, my mind having spent the exhausting journey conjuring up any number of scenarios, all of which had the common theme that I had become public enemy number one and was about to be set up as an aunt sally.

Fate is a very real concept for me - I’m sure that all I’ve been able to do with my life is stumble blindly through my various crises and that something else is actually deciding what’s really going to happen. And since I've consistently mismanaged my own contribution to the sorry saga, I've come to rely on fate to take the lead.

On this occasion, it had an almost unbelievable trick up its sleeve.

But thank the Gods, the lucky stars, Heaven, whatever, for it saved me from what I am convinced could have been an extremely unpleasant future in that faraway, beautiful, dangerous land.

He found me in a downtown bar, after I had drunk too much rough Japanese whisky to be able to tell him to fuck off, but before I'd had skinful enough to be a total pushover.

His accent was, and still is, bewitching - mid-German with a North American drawl, which he claims to have picked up when attached to some US government organisation when he was in the Bundeswehr - the German Army. True enough, he has some few framed photos in his current office, portraying a much younger version of himself, complete with crew cut and square jaw, preening in a number of uniforms; so although I'm no expert, I'll take his word that he's not making it all up. And when he gives you that ‘steely-eyed warrior’ look, you’d better believe it.

What he was doing in that place, I didn't bother asking. I've learned that it is best not to, with Ingo. I let him decide what I need to know, and what I don't, won't hurt me. That whatever he was up to was bound not to have been strictly kosher, goes without saying.

He tried several languages before English prompted my ungracious response and then ordered me a double, to keep me occupied whilst I slurred out the self-pitying tale of woe that had led me thus far. He was a fine judge of intoxication and was ready to catch me when I slid off the bar stool.

That I simply let this stranger lead me firmly to a large car waiting at the kerb and subsequently guide my unsteady frame through the lobby, straight up to his hotel room, didn't matter a toss to me. Nothing did any more. He could do what he wanted -what did I care? Couldn’t get much worse could it? I sat queasily on the end of the king-size bed, trying to focus on this athletic-looking German, wondering if all he really wanted really was a cheap fuck, or was I in for something else. Strange, in a city known for its inexpensive, beautiful, young hookers that he should prefer to pick up a thirty-something drunk of indistinct ethnic origin, who had clearly seen better days.

When he hadn't done anything but mess around in the corner for a few minutes, I decided I had better make his job easier, and I clumsily hauled my crumpled dress over my head and started to fumble with the strap of my bra.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he asked, turning round when he heard me muttering a curse at my own drunken, inept fingers. He brought over the strong coffee he had been making and thrust the cup in my face. To preserve my modesty, or more likely to save having to look at my body, he lowered a bath robe around my shoulders. I was propped against a column of pillows and force fed the strong coffee until the pot was empty. He was a skilled interrogator and by the time my eyelids could no longer stay up, despite the fix of caffeine, he had gained a comprehensive snapshot of the pathetic woman now fast asleep in his bed.

I awoke to the knocking of room service, bringing me breakfast, or rather brunch. My head pounded and I couldn't understand how all my belongings were neatly packed and my own luggage was now heaped in the corner of this hotel room. There was no sign of Ingo. In the bathroom, the cool shower revived my throbbing brain. Had he sent his driver all that way to get my things? Damned cheek - what the heck was going on?

He returned as I was towelling myself down, but hardly cast a glance in my direction.

"Come on, Ms Lee, you have work to do."

So that was it - not your typical job interview, but I've been with him ever since.

He explained my new role in the back of the car. Listening, taking notes, passing him papers and bulging envelopes from his briefcase. Even with a head thick with the-night-before’s booze, I could handle that.

And what alternative did I have? I'd burned all my bridges. I wasn't destitute, but there was nothing else in my life to look forward to. I had convinced myself that my next move had to be to make a prompt, low-key exit from the country, or else the authorities I had affronted might well offer me long-term hospitality in one of their more infamous penal institutions. It was so damned unfair - I hadn't actually done anything more than thousands of Western men who had visited here as sex tourists! A lot less in fact, for I hadn’t forced or harmed any of my young friends, or driven them to prostitution or made them pregnant or given them an STD. I'd looked after them very well and offered them genuine friendship in exchange for a little innocent lovemaking. Morally repugnant I can’t deny, but a lot less unpleasant than my own fate at a much younger age.

Notwithstanding any attempt at reducing my guilt, the fact remained: I was here on borrowed time.

So then what? Return to nowhere to live in England? With no job, and a carefully-phrased reference that ensured I wouldn't be hired by any half-decent airline? It was hard to see how much more I could have screwed up.

Fuck it! In for a penny, in for a pound and all that. If I was going to be branded a criminal, I might as well make a decent job of it. And this was as good a chance as I was ever likely to get. I had no ties, no family, no home and no responsibilities. Even to myself now: irresponsible was my new middle name. The only offer on the table was from this charismatic German, with his rapid no-nonsense way of talking and infectious enthusiasm: an irresistible way out of my latest mess. I didn't care if his line of business wasn't absolutely legal: such was my conviction that I was beyond the pale, that deliberately crossing the line of legality was no more than the next inevitable step in my descent into oblivion.

Despite that, I already had absolute faith in him to see me right, whatever ‘right’ was going to be. And I wasn’t about to be proved wrong. As we ploughed through the crowded streets, I caught my own reflection in the window of the car. Beyond the hangover, I was looking at a real hard-nosed bitch.

World - bring it on!

It became clear that his trip to this country was not his first and that the whole enterprise in which he was involved was very neatly organised and run. He was really only here in the role of visiting customer, feted by succession of seedy little men, who hid behind counterfeit sunglasses and who appeared to do the donkey work. I observed, I kept silent. I didn’t care that the sleazy men looked down my blouse as they negotiated with Ingo. Gangster’s moll? That was quite a career change.

Ingo must have been impressed with my adaptability, or more probably seized upon just the right flaws in my character to reel me in, for he seemed to have no doubt that I would accept his offer, when he made it. In the short time I had known him, I had quickly learned to do a mean impression of the three monkeys, and I could see, hear and speak no evil on demand. Over and above the sketchy allusion to Ingo’s activities I have to make in this written account (as much as is necessary to paint the picture, but absolutely no more), I would never relate my knowledge in any official context. I’m not about to become a grass. It never happened and I wasn’t there. Honest.

My conscience no longer existed. The world and I owed each other no favours.

When I agreed to continue to work for him back in Europe, it didn't matter in the slightest what my duties would be. Actually, I didn't even bother asking. His was the only door marked 'Exit', so I chose it.

I dutifully followed him back to Germany at his expense, a day behind him and in Tourist rather then Business, but I hardly doubted that he would be there at Frankfurt to collect me, tapping his foot impatiently as I struggled out of Arrivals with my battered rucksack and assorted bags. I snuggled down into the front passenger seat of his huge BMW and considered myself incredibly fortunate that I wasn't instead huddled in the corner of some heaving, filthy women's prison somewhere in South-East Asia.

2004 - The Present. Making Peace With Myself

13. Escape to Spain

I had come to know a French woman, who had rented a villa in the area, and had decamped there for the summer with her daughter, with her husband joining her for a few weeks in August. Laura was my own age, but a lady of leisure, whose idea of a good day was lounging by her pool. Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Sylvie, was bored stiff with such a sedentary vacation, and seemed to appreciate the times I called in or jollied them into coming out with me, as at least I represented a change from the monotony of doing nothing. I can't deny that I took a potentially unhealthy shine to her, but I honestly had no ulterior motives. Initially.

Everyone was happy with my innocent suggestion that Sylvie should have a day out with me, as I was planning to do some shopping in Tarragona. Driving in larger Spanish towns is so terrifying, it helps to have a co-pilot. I liked having some company, especially such pretty company; Sylvie leapt at the chance to escape the villa and her mother didn't really care what was happening, provided it didn't require her to venture from the sunbed. We had a super day, and got on well - I make a good surrogate 'auntie’, though I say it myself. I don’t understand teenagers, but I can usually manage to communicate with them, possibly because emotionally I’m still one myself.

At the weekend, I asked if Sylvie would like to come to my place and stay over, so that Laura and Jacques could have an evening together. Genuine altruism, I swear. We did nothing special -went to the market in town, lunched out at Paquita’s and went down to the beach in the late afternoon. By then, I was undeniably aware of quite how much I was attracted to this gorgeous teenager and I was already struggling with my emotions. It must have been so obvious, for several times I caught myself watching her too long and she looked away with amused embarrassment. I nearly died when we were getting ready to go out for the evening and she was wandering around the flat naked after her shower. I am convinced the sexy little minx had figured it all out easily and was actually teasing me. Yet I still suppressed the really bad thoughts.

We had a couple of drinks in town and wandered lazily arm-in-arm along the seafront. By then I was in a real fix - being so close to this fabulous young girl and knowing it would be madness to make a pass at her.

But I did anyway. My evil inner self prevailed.

I took her hand and we stopped and I laid my palms upon her cheeks and kissed her lips. Briefly. I looked right into her eyes and saw the sparkle of excitement beneath her astonishment.

We said nothing; just walked a little further and sat under a palm tree and I held her hand and my fingers stroked her soft, tanned skin. She smiled shyly.

When we got back to my apartment, I had the chance to stop it then and there. But I didn't. I poured us some chilled wine and seduced her on my sofa. Then I led her to my great big bed and kissed and licked her slim, hard body and caressed and fondled and loved her until we were both exhausted.

We made love almost every day until she had to return to Paris with her family.

Yep. I had fallen at the first fence.

I felt hollow when Sylvie had gone. There was a great moral vacuum which taunted me. For all my grand intentions, I had yet again been weak and pathetic and let myself be tempted by a pretty young girl. Quite rightly, I was as miserable as sin and deservedly guilty that once more I had taken advantage of innocent attraction. Sylvie wasn’t scarred by my wicked seduction - we keep in irregular touch by email and she’s a perky, normal teenager studying for her Bacc and discovering boys, but I still should not have done it. That autumn, as new work was at last just beginning to trickle in, and it was becoming apparent that my little business might actually be viable, I once again had to have a very deep and meaningful conversation with my conscience. I vowed to it that I would never, ever, be so stupid again. No matter what the circumstances, or the yearning in my knickers, I would never again even look at a girl under eighteen. This could not go on, if I were ever to achieve any degree of normality.

This time, I shall not break that promise.

I mean it. I am reformed. I can’t deny my past – I even decided that I wouldn’t try to hide it - if I have to be honest and candid, then so be it. No point in leaving those skeletons in their cupboards. If I ever were to have a normal, adult relationship again, then my future partner would have to know all about me, warts and all, and then decide if I were worth the effort.

What clinched it for me, my renewed determination to suppress any further weakness and force myself to be a good person (as far as I could), was my growing realisation that I could so easily end up like my late Father. I was well on the way already. The more I thought about it, the stronger the parallels became evident. We were both homosexual, yet had trouble recognising it. We were both weak - he had his gambling and drink problems, I my unacceptable attraction to girls and proven lack of moral strength, and in both cases, our failings had come to dominate and destroy our lives. We had both lost our careers and tried to run away from our problems, to another country, where we both struggled to get restarted. He had died in his forties, poor and I am sure, very lonely, the poor man. That I could follow his lead yet again was the most chilling kick up the backside I could have had. It shook me more than any therapy or counselling or punishment ever could. And I knew that the solution, if I were to avoid my own terminal decline, lay in my hands only.

I believed that I could do it, and I still believe it.

Day to day I was (and still am) quite poor, but I had achieved financial stability and I was earning enough to get by. I had identified my moral issues and I even knew what I needed to do to address them. I have been blessed still with good health, and even have most of my marbles, even if the odd one is chipped. Thinking positively was the order of the day from now on and so I forced myself around a local gymnasium two or three times a week when the place was empty. I even tried to trot a few kilometres each Sunday. Some discipline came back into my life.

What was missing, and what I think was the key to restoring my normality for ever, is the regular company and support of others. I really had to make the effort to gain some good friends again, who would accept me and my faults, and help me back into the world. A loving partner would be fantastic - icing on the cake -but that would not be easy.

My conclusions now left me with a further dilemma. If I was indeed to avoid ending up a frustrated and friendless old spinster, I needed to start putting myself about a bit. Carefully. What a daunting prospect.

The obvious solution was to pay a visit to Sitges, which is Catalunya's answer to Brighton. Smaller and less in-your-face, but apparently the nearest place for meeting ladies of like mind. I remembered the debacle in Brighton three years earlier, which had precipitated my fleeing England, and had mixed emotions. I find the whole gay and lesbian 'scene' thing really intimidating and wasn't that keen to go there. Even without the burden of being cripplingly shy. I struggled to overcome my entrenched reticence and even made a ‘dry run’. OK I’ll be honest: I drove all the way up there and all the way back, unable to find the guts to park up and go into any of the bars.

Ironically it was a straight woman who sorted me out.

We had quite literally bumped into each other in the yacht club, where I go occasionally for an upmarket cocktail - she tripped over her own feet and grabbed me for support. Behind the boozy apology was an unmistakeable Australian twang.

I had met my new best pal, my Janet in Spain, although this time there is absolutely no hint of hanky-panky!

Steph is the stereotypical larger-than-life Aussie sheila, who came to Europe to travel years ago and never worked out when to settle down. She had been in Spain a long time and landed in my town a year earlier and hadn’t got around to moving on. By profession a commercial photographer, she makes a more realistic living as 'Deputy Front of House Manager' in the flashiest hotel in town. As far as I can make out, that's just a posh job title for the person who mans the reception desk-cum-bar overnight (it is only a small hotel: when it is really quiet I expect she also cooks and cleans the pool in her teabreak).

She's a few years younger than me, and eats men for breakfast. We contrast so well that we make natural friends. That was apparent from the outset and Steph's easy-going extrovertism was just what was needed to counter my own shyness.

Steph thought it would be a hoot to go to Sitges with me.

She wasn't wrong: thanks to her, I had the confidence to go, and although I'm still not entirely comfortable with the concept of gay and lesbian bars and clubs per se, I am now brave enough to return on my own, should I decide.

New Year's Eve 2004, and as I had no better offers, a night out in Sitges seemed preferable to sitting on my own and listening to everyone else in town celebrate. I first noticed Ana earlier in the evening and she had made an immediate impression: not too tall, with a great, athletic figure and strong features. Dreamy brown eyes and easy smile. Very importantly, well into adulthood!

I was like a wretched teenager - I could feel my chest tighten and my mouth go dry when I sneaked another peek at her.

Was it coincidence that I kept spotting her? She was with some friends and I wondered if indeed she was lesbian - perhaps they simply liked the music in the small, discreet club we were in. My 'gaydar' has never been that good. Inevitably, she had seen me watching her - the odd-looking bint at the bar on her own - and when I risked a smile, she returned it and my heart skipped. I find the courtship ritual painful and actually quite absurd at my age, but I can't deny that my insides sizzled.

It was just before midnight and she got up and came over to me and took my hand, leading me outside, where everyone was gathering to watch fireworks and see in the New Year.

Afterwards, we found enough broken English and Spanish between us to find out about each other and establish that we had plenty in common. We danced, I joined her table, and by the end of the evening, our fingers were entwined. The atmosphere was right, everyone was in great spirits and I hadn't felt this way about anyone for many years. Although we had keyed our numbers into each other's mobiles, as I drove slowly back home in the early hours, I had little expectation that I should ever see her again. It had been a magical evening, but that was all.

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You can read Penny Lee's full autobiography here.