Kevin, the ginger cat, walked into my room this morning, said “excuse me” apologetically, in a clear, soft voice, and woke me up. As I bumbled around sleepily trying to find a dressing gown in the heap of duvets and clothes that makes up my nest, I tried to allow my mind to slip back to a few moments before, to try and capture a fragment of the dreamworld I had just been visiting.

School, I remembered. Another bloody school dream. But this was different. I went into the kitchen, filled the kettle and fed the cats, and realised I was grinning. This was a school dream with a difference.

About five years ago, one evening I found myself walking past my old suburban secondary school. I had not been there since the last day of the Leaving, when I ran out as fast as I could, vowing never to return. But I decided to ignore the vow and investigate. The buildings had changed a lot, the facilities seemed much improved, but the old main house was still there, containing the much-dreaded headmaster’s study. After about ten minutes, I left, for the feeling that predominated was one of musty fear. I did not want to revisit that time – those last tortured years of adolescence, when nothing made sense, and no-one could explain why it was all so difficult.

waited calmly

In the dream, I found myself going through those gates and up that driveway once again. But this was different. I felt like an adult, not a child; for the first time I could gauge the difference on all levels, as if I were two people, the pimply Seventies’ school kid and the Nineties’ man. There was a brass intercom embedded in a tree, beside shelves of books bathed in candlelight, and I waited calmly for someone to talk to me. Sure enough, a voice that used to send shivers down my spine crackled through. I confidently announced my name, and that I was back to visit. He became (some dreams are really sweet) respectful, almost reverential. But I didn’t care.

As I sauntered up the drive, I realised that there was some sort of reunion going on. The school was en fête with fairy lights and music. But classes were still going on, despite the fact that it was dark. The place was full of vitality, laughter and plenty of women, which was a great relief. (It was single-sex when I was there.) The classrooms were full, and I could look in on them all, each hives of industry, enthusiasm and imagination. I smiled at the teachers I liked, waved magnanimously at the new ones, and cheerfully ignored the rest.

The main event was happening in the playing fields, where there was a fairground in full swing. It seemed that every former student was there, not just the bores who go to class reunions. This was made all the more enjoyable by the certain knowledge that everyone there had made successes of their lives, and were returning full of pride at their own achievements. One by one as I made my way through the carnival I was greeted by members of my class, who had each turned out to be handsome in their own way, full of good wishes and joie de vivre.

Later, as I was soaking up the celebratory atmosphere on my own, I saw someone across from the candy-floss stall who made my heart skip a beat. The boy on whom I had the most intense unrequited crush of my youth, no longer a greasy-skinned acne-ridden shy dork with skin-tight grey slacks, but a vision of charm, compassion and warmth, with twinkling Latin eyes. He was dressed in denim, with a black Stetson hat and sleek black shoulder-length hair in a ponytail. He was leaning against a white picket fence, looking over at me, grinning, with an intensity and clarity that made my spirits soar. I walked over to him, and we hugged, the first physical contact we ever had. He was taller than I remembered, and twice as broad. Words were unnecessary, as I felt the warmth of his hand through the fabric of my jeans.

unmistakable endowment

And that’s when the hungry Kevin interjected, so politely. I’d been obsessed with this boy for at least two months. He was an early maturer, shaving before the rest of us, with an unmistakable endowment which put me in a cold sweat. I had written a letter to him. In it I explained how we all had phases that we go through, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of, and that I hoped he would understand if I told him that I wanted to have sex with him. I arranged a time and a place, where he could show up if he were interested, but that if he didn’t, I would understand, and I wouldn’t hold it against him. I asked him to appreciate that I was taking a great risk in writing to him like that, and that if he were upset or angry, then would he PLEASE (underlined many times) give the letter back to me, or burn it, and never mention it again. I wasn’t trying to insult him, I only wanted to pay him a compliment, I wrote.

I had a tenuous reason for hoping that he would turn up. The campest boy in the class, (no, not me, dear reader), was a boy who grew up in a house full of women and spent his time brushing his hair and pouting provocatively. He was not the brightest, academically, and left school as soon as it was legal, to work full-time in a hair salon. I’ve seen him around on the scene over the years. He and I were messing around one day at breaktime in the classroom – I was “pretending” to turn him on and he was “pretending” to moan in orgasmic delight. (The quotes are necessary – at that time, I didn’t know whether I was pretending or not. It was all one big fumbling experiment.) To my delight, I noticed that my young cowboy, who was watching us, was visibly, and impressively, aroused. And so began my obsession. For I had never seen another erection before.

I never sent that letter. I never let it out of my grasp, but rewrote it as each rendezvous date passed by. I fantasised in exquisite apprehension about how he would react when he opened the letter – would he recoil in horror? Would he bring it to his parents or (worse) my parents or (worst) a teacher? Or would he shyly show up at the bicycle shed one Friday evening after school and calmly unzip and smile? I never knew. I never dared.

And so, half a lifetime later, without having given him another thought in the intervening years, I wake up this morning lusting after him, with my school transformed into the set of Carousel. What’s been the source of much bitterness and resentment for all my adult life, my post-adolescent schooling, now seems to be a source of a bizarre Hollywood version of Utopia. What Might Have Been or What Still Could Be?

Dream on.