I think I was always in love with Gary Dent, right from the time that I first saw him. And that was when I was seven so he must have been seven too because we were exactly the same age; in fact we were born on the same day so really we were twins. Not that I knew that then. I didn't know anything about him then except that we were both at the same primary school, that he had blond hair which needed cutting and which flopped over his eyes so that he would brush it aside irritably when it got in the way. He was racing across the playground when I first saw him in some sort of game that seemed to involve knocking over as many other kids as possible if they were in the way. Later I was to find it was called 'British Bulldog' and that they played it in the Cubs. He was wearing shorts and his legs were pink from the cold, and chubby. He was accompanied by another boy, smaller than Gary with black hair and a frown that made him look as if he was angry all the time but afterwards was found to be caused by the fact that he needed glasses. This was Dean Hunter. He was Gary Dent's best friend.

I, as usual, was standing on the outskirts trying not to be noticed. At that time I was very miserable I remember. My best friend with whom I shared all my secrets had moved away with her family to another part of London leaving me, as I felt, completely alone. I had decided I was destined to be so for the rest of my life. So there was no one I could ask who was the boy with the floppy blond hair.

I found out quite soon after though. We had been herded into class by a young teacher who looked anxious and whose name was Miss Pertwee. Understandably anxious with a name like that which was to give rise to numerous nicknames of an indecent nature from us pupils. She announced though that she was our teacher, that she would read out the register and that we were to answer 'yes, miss' as she called our names.

And that was when I found out that he was called Gary Dent, and, had he been the slightest bit interested, he would have discovered that my name was Sylvia, Sylvia Harrison. Later he told me that he hadn't even noticed me, and in fact he wouldn't do so for another six years until we both went to the comprehensive school and it became the 'done thing' for boys to have girlfriends who would follow them around, hang on their arms when necessary, provide them with chewing gum and, in extremis (i.e. to prove a point) give them chaste kisses on closed lips.

My best friend of that time, oh yes I did have a best friend by then, a girl with long blonde hair and pink lips that looked as if she was wearing lipstick even when she wasn't, was called Judy Weston. Judy told me that some couples went considerably further than this in private and indeed in public, and there were certainly two girls who in grade 10 left under a cloud and were later seen wheeling prams around the side streets with squalling infants in them. But Gary never asked for anything more and I was content merely to be with him for he was fun, always smiling, always had a joke or ready sympathy when life seemed at its lowest point like when I got a D for biology or when mum and dad split up.

By now of course Gary had grown. His knees were no longer chubby and were hidden by his long trousers. His shoulders were broader and his voice changed too. Sometimes it was deep and masculine and then suddenly it would crack and flute and he would laugh, not embarrassed like other boys at the onset of adolescence. We saw more of each other at this time not just at school where our separate inclinations for study took us to different classes but afterwards at the youth group, going to the cinema and sometimes, when we were fifteen, into those pubs where we thought we could get away with it and be served with alcohol.

So the three of us - didn't I mention that Dean was nearly always a third? It was so much the accepted thing that Dean and Gary went together, that I suppose it scarcely seemed necessary to say. When Gary came into a room, blond and smiling, if he wasn't immediately followed by the dark, frowning, in spite of his spectacles, face of Dean Hunter, we knew there was something wrong - illness or accident. He was his shadow, and accepted as such by everyone, including me.

Not that I didn't like Dean. Once you got beyond his slightly intimidating frown, he was a pleasant enough lad, bright too, with a brain that put both of us in the shade. Destined for Higher Things, said the teachers. University material, certainly - and that, from a pupil at Hanscombe Comprehensive, was something special indeed. Some people wondered what Gary and Dean saw in each other. Surely they had nothing in common, but I knew, for they were two halves of the same coin. Dean had the ideas, and Gary carried them out. And their opposite natures, serious and merry, cancelled each other out so that they never went too far, never, like some of the boys at school, got themselves into scrapes which led to the horrors and joys of suspension, and never, as far as I knew - and I got to know them pretty well - tried drugs, though the opportunities were certainly there.

So, all three of us went into the Sixth Form, though it was touch and go as far as I was concerned, as I thought that A Levels wouldn't really help me in my chosen career of hairdresser. (Well, I called it 'stylist'.) But Mum persuaded me, and Dad too. Even though they were divorced, I'm pleased to say that it wasn't a messy one, and they had remained on friendly terms. I even liked his new wife, Maureen, who was in the hair-dressing trade herself.

I quite enjoyed the sixth form. They didn't treat us so much like children. We had a Common Room where we could sit around and chat and drink coffee. The work was hard. I know Gary found it particularly difficult, but he never allowed it to get him down, and of course Dean was always there to help us out, even in subjects that he wasn't taking himself. He, of course, was doing Sciences, Physics, Pure Maths and, something I found strange, Music. But he explained that music had a lot in common with mathematics. I couldn't see it. I liked the Top Twenty and knew the words of all the songs but was hopeless at arithmetic so I couldn't see this. But if Dean said it was so, I'm sure it was.

Gary took Business Studies and Computing. That's where the future lies, he told me, and, as Dean sat there nodding in agreement and drinking coffee, I believed that too.

Well, we all passed, some with better grades than others. Dean of course got straight A's as expected, not that he was ever cocky about it. It was just something that was bound to happen. Gary managed C's mostly - and we were all thrilled with this. I got a C too, though my others were D, but at least we all had A-levels and could now go out into the bright new world and prosper.

Then the unthinkable happened. Gary and Dean quarreled. I never found out what it was about. Dean of course was going to University. There was talk of him going to Oxford. Could have, too, I expect, if he'd wanted, but he chose one closer to home. Gary was going to Business College and would be able to come home every day. Maureen offered me a job in her salon.

I remember that day so clearly. It was a Saturday evening and the three of us had planned to go to the local to celebrate, then perhaps we'd go up West to a club or something. Mum was out and I was waiting for the boys to arrive. They'd said seven o'clock but seven came and half past and then eight, and still no one called and I began to worry. Surely if something had happened, they would have phoned me. It was unlike Gary just not to turn up.

At a quarter past eight the doorbell rang. I snatched up my handbag and ran to open it. It was Gary on his own, looking strange. I don't know how to describe it but he was always smiling, even at the bad times he could usually summon up something that looked like a half a grin. That night there was nothing. His eyes, brown and normally sparkling, looked deep-set, the skin of his face drawn over his cheek bones.

"Where's Dean?" I asked, rather than what should have been the obvious 'What's happened?' or 'Why are you late?'

He didn't answer but just pushed past me into the hall and then into the sitting room where he threw himself down on the sofa and sat looking as I'd never seen him before, completely distraught, as if he didn't know where he was - or who I was.

I sat beside him and put my arm round him. We were always affectionate to each other, touching, though this still hadn't got past a certain point. Anyway, suddenly, he turned to me and grabbed hold of my arms, pulling me towards him so that we were in an embrace. I was so surprised that I gave a sort of startled cry but he didn't release me, just kissed me with an intensity that he'd never shown before.

Well, of course I've no excuse for what happened. I knew all the things about sexual intercourse and how babies are made, that condoms are sensible precautions etc. etc. But, with Gary it had never come up. Though I loved him, and I'm sure I did, I didn't plan it this way. But I won't say I didn't enjoy it, I mean, apart from the pain of the first time. His body next to mine, the feel of his skin, that was the good part.

And I didn't realise he was crying inside all the time.

Anyway, two months later, I couldn't ignore the fact that I was pregnant. And Gary did what he had to. Well, of course these days, there's fathers who don't do the decent thing but Gary wasn't one of those. And I thought he really wanted to marry me. Perhaps he did. He was different after Dean left, not less solicitous, just he seemed to be lacking something. A vital spark. He didn't smile as much.

But other plans went on as intended. He did his Business Course. I washed people's hair and tinted them blue, or green or red or whatever colour they wanted. The baby grew inside. We lived with Mum, which wasn't too bad as the house was big enough for three without getting in each other's way.

Gary was a lovely father and adored Jessica. He would play with her for hours and of course Jessica loved him. If I was holding her and Gary came home from work, she would hold out her arms for him and not be satisfied until he took her. It was such a shame that she was a Downs Syndrome baby. Mum looked after her of course while I was at the shop.

But there came a time when Gary was earning enough money for us to buy a house of our own. I was quite prepared to give up my job. By then I'd had enough of messing around with other people's hair. I decided that being a full-time housewife was what I wanted and we bought a house on the South Coast - Gary had recently changed his job to one in Winchester - overlooking the sea.

Jessica loved it when we walked along the shoreline, the waves at times pounding onto the sand throwing up great clouds of spray so that she chuckled and made noises, at others gently rolling inwards so that she and I could paddle in three inches of salty water. And at home I could watch through the big picture-window and see the horizon splitting the view in half, sea and sky, always in motion with the sea horses coming towards me and the clouds scudding across.

Then Dean came back. Gary got a letter one morning which made him go very quiet, not even, for a moment, responding to Jessica until she complained loudly and I saw him pull himself together and give her a cuddle.

"Not bad news?" I asked.

"It's Dean," he said. "He wants to come and see . . . us."

"That'll be nice," I said. "I always hoped you'd heal your quarrel." He'd never told me what it was about and I never liked to ask. I feared it might be dreadful so that I'd be sorry I knew, or so trivial that I'd laugh and upset him.

Dean came down at the weekend. He was about twenty-six then, a few months younger than Gary and me, but he still looked the same, slim and dark, with the same brooding intensity he'd always had. He worked for some scientific firm and was high-up in the company hierarchy even though he was still so young. Probably earned a good few bob too though you'd hardly know it from what he looked like. Not exactly scruffy but careless, and with his dark good looks, a bit like I imagined a pirate would look, without the earring of course. He didn't even wear spectacles any more though I know he had contact lenses, for I saw the case in the bathroom. He stayed the weekend, coming down on the Friday night when I made a nice meal and we chatted a lot and caught up on what we'd all done since our last meeting. It seemed as if the quarrel had never happened. Certainly Gary was jollier, more animated than he'd been for ages.

On the Saturday afternoon I left the boys to their own devices. They said they'd like to go out on their own and, though I felt just a little hurt, I said that would be fine. They said they'd probably go to the pub in the evening and not to worry if it was a bit late.

It was dark by eight o'clock. A full moon shone from a cloudless sky. I put Jessica to bed and she was a bit sad that Gary wasn't there to kiss her goodnight but I promised her he'd come in as soon as he got back and after a little whimper she went to sleep.

I went into the sitting room but didn't switch on the light wanting to look out at the moon and the way it lit up the beach and the crumpled path it made over the shifting water. I stood there looking out and was suddenly aware of movement. It looked like a single figure, though broader than expected, someone swaying in time to music that only he could hear. Then I realised it was two people, locked together and dancing, dancing in the moonlight, Gary and Dean, closer to each other than I had ever felt with Gary, physically and emotionally - except that once when Jessica was conceived. They seemed to dance on forever. It wasn't crude or erotic, just beautiful and close, and it made me very sad, and at the same time sort of understanding. Perhaps I had always known.

Much later they came in, together, like they always had been, and they looked somehow different, though they didn't say much, and Gary went up and kissed Jessica, and Dean was all prepared to go back the following morning early.

He never came down to see us again.

Sometimes, when the moon is full, and there's no one on the beach, Gary will go out there by himself and dance, dance with the moon, and I will stay inside and look out. He never asks me, though.

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So the three of us - didn't I mention that Dean was nearly always a third? It was so much the accepted thing that Dean and Gary went together that I suppose it scarcely seemed necessary to say. When Gary came into a room, blond and smiling, if he wasn't immediately followed by the dark, frowning, in spite of his spectacles, face of Dean Hunter, we knew there was something wrong.