Bridging the gap years later

An e-mail from an old friend open the floodgates of memory. Soon I was caught up in the surge, recalling times which had slipped from consciousness.

We first met at a dinner to welcome her family to town. They had just returned from a posting at Laos. She was tall and slim and extremely poised and, after one glance, I hastily concluded that she must be much older. What misled me into thinking so, were the high heels she wore. As far as my experience went, no eleven-year-old would be allowed to wear such footwear.

So, I handed over the responsibility of keeping her entertained for the evening to an older sister. As I relaxed with a book, I was taken by surprise when she was escorted to my retreat with a disgusted: "She's your age, not mine."

Tongue-tied at her seeming sophistication and high heels, which I couldn't tear my eyes away from, the conversation floundered initially. But the ice was soon broken when we discovered a common love of reading. The discussion began on characters from Enid Blyton books and our favourites among them. The discovery that she was to join the school I attended, cemented the friendship.

Since I could count on my fingers, and still be left with spare digits, the number of people I knew who had actually been abroad, she brought with her a whiff of exotic lands. I felt one up on the others at school as I knew her from before and our parents had struck a chord and became firm friends.

Inseparable

Soon we were inseparable, spending as much time in each other's company as we could, an easy task given that our houses were close by and army life afforded innumerable opportunities to meet. There were sleep-overs at weekends where we talked late into the night, giggling as only eleven-year-olds can, seeing the comical in situations and people no one else could see or understand.

There was also keen competition in academics as we tried to gain the upper hand at each exam. But this never soured the relationship.

The idyll came to an end when her father was posted out. We communicated briefly after this, but distance didn't seem to lend any enchantment. At that age sharing the immediacy of events was what mattered. Snail mail was unable to bridge that gap. The communication channels soon dried up.

Some years later, I was surprised to receive an invitation to her wedding. Her parents had found a suitable match. She was going to enter another phase of life at an age when I was just beginning to savour the tantalising taste of teenage freedom.

I attended the wedding, but the girl I met was a stranger. Gone was the vivacious personality, replaced by a demeanour that could only be called "ladylike".

Somehow I couldn't imagine giggling late into the night with the person she had become. In my eyes, she had changed while I had remained the same. This was certainly a subjective view, but I couldn't help wondering what had happened to the bubbly girl I had known.

It was only years later that I was able to piece together this puzzle. She had been sent from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of an army setting, to a conservative town under the charge of relatives as her parents felt the constant moves provided no sense of permanence.

In a more formal setting than any she had known before, she had grown up much too soon. The carefree days of childhood were a thing of the past much before they needed to be.

The e-mail asking if it would be OK if she and her husband stopped over at Dubai on their way back to the US, made me feel a sense of joy. I am looking forward to giggling through the night once again.