Getting to know people wasn’t hard. There were only ten of us in our hall, five young men and five young women. Next door had exactly the same split. None of us had been away from home before and as a result we quickly became reliant each other for companionship and support. Billy took a shine to one of the girls in the hall next door called Annie Munroe, who sat with us in our sociology lectures. She was great and, like Billy and myself, was one of the few northerners at Nene. Annie had a depreciating sense of humour, looked younger than her age, but at the same time appeared to possess an inner wisdom beyond her years. She always wore simple, loose fitting, shapeless clothes which when combined with her long, free flowing auburn hair, accentuated her unaffected appeal. Annie played the guitar and wrote bits of poetry – reinforcing the initial impression I’d made that she looked like she’d just stepped out of a folk band from the sixties. I’d always thought poetry was a safe place for a shy person who wanted to express themselves. It was widely understood Billy had a bit of a crush on her and while she was very fond of Billy, she regarded him as a mate. With both of them wanting different things they tended to blow hot and cold with each other and after a few drinks Billy would sometimes get quite belligerent with her and I’d have to jump in to prevent things getting out of hand. To complicate matters, Annie and I went through a few stages where one of us would fancy the other, but the other wasn’t as keen. As our infrequent attraction for each other never coincided, it never went anywhere. So accepting this was our fate, we initially parked such messy matters and went on to become great friends.
Our ease with each other was based on an openness we shared and on the packets of Silk Cut cigarettes we relied on each other for. I’d never met anyone who made smoking look quite so effortless, quite so cool, as Ms Munroe. She would light up and explain about her frustrations with Billy, who sometimes was lovely to her, sometimes really hurtful. In turn I would listen, suggest we had another ciggie and then would tell her about the latest girl I fancied, asking for tips about how best to approach them.
“There’s this one girl in Kirkby Hall who’s lovely, but doesn’t know I exist,” I said.
“How can you tell?” Annie replied, passing us both another cigarette.
“Well, I keep looking over at her in the bar and she never looks back.”
“Maybe she’s shy, or maybe she’s too self-conscious. I hate it if someone ever stares at me – not that it ever happens!”
“Oh, I bet you’ve plenty of admirers – I know Billy doesn’t stop talking about you.”
Annie side-stepped getting pulled into another discussion about Billy.
“Maybe the girl in Kirkby has another admirer Charlie, maybe she has a boyfriend at home, maybe she sees the two of us sitting together in the bar at night and thinks that we’re a couple?
I side-stepped getting pulled into a discussion about this intriguing possibility.
“You know, one of the things I like about you Annie, is that you’re literally the only person in the whole of the college who still uses my real name. Even my lecturers call me Flash these days. I wish everyone was like you. I mean...”
“Careful Charlie, or I’ll think you’re trying to flatter me…”
The turning point in our friendship was one evening when we’d arranged to meet up with mates for a themed disco. Although it was on campus, we’d forgotten the strict requirement for everyone to dress up as the opposite sex in order to gain free admission. Refused entry, Annie and I legged it 200m across to the sports hall and climbed through an unsecure window to swap clothes. Giggling away in the changing rooms as we undressed behind different sides of a frosted shower door, we were barely able to keep our eyes off each other.
Our relationship developed naturally as we spent more time together, teasing and taunting each other the way mutually attracted people do. Before we knew it we’d stopped discussing our thoughts about others and began to talk about the affection we had for each other. I started to pay more attention to her pale blue eyes, her pencil thin ankles, how she tilted her head to the side for a photograph and the way her voice went up at the end of a sentence, as if she was asking a question. While Annie put herself down for not being sufficiently interested in girly concerns and was frustrated by an involuntary stammer which happened whenever she was flustered; I loved the way she never wore (or needed) any make up and found her almost inaudible stutter, especially captivating.
Still hampered by feelings of low esteem, I was convinced Annie couldn’t possibly fancy me. She was always so open and friendly with everyone. Also, I was conscious that Billy may still be harbouring feelings for her. However as the weeks passed, our strong attraction for each other became too compelling and by the spring term we had started to see each other. On hearing news of our relationship, Billy pretended to be cool about it, but ultimately things changed between us all. Although he remained cordial with the two of us, the dynamic was never the same, the unqualified support for each other which had characterized our friendship was gone.
I assumed after a couple of days to get his head around the news, we would all carry on as normal, but I was wrong. Although we followed all the same conventions – sitting together in lectures, going to the bar together, almost saying the right things, an invisible connection was broken. Billy had always known Annie wasn’t interested in him as a boyfriend, but the knowledge we were now together and involved in a much more serious relationship than the succession of one-night-stands which had until this point been our agreed template; was too much for him. The whole painful experience taught me that even when there is a powerful desire to maintain the most important of relationships, the intensity of another interest can sometimes overshadow everything that has gone before. This lesson would be brought into much sharper focus after graduation, as Pennie Fenton came crashing back into my life, exercising her exceptional ability to weaken the strongest of established bonds.
My new girlfriend made it especially easy to be together and tolerate the cold shoulder treatment from Billy, along with some slightly more restrained criticism from other friends. Ordinarily, people who are consumed with a degree of self-reproach tend to be attracted to partners with a similar inclination. The net result of this cloning effect is of course that these dysfunctional relationships rarely last. However my relationship with Annie was different to any I’d experienced before. On the surface, she may have appeared to mirror many of my own insecurities, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. She was perhaps at worst a little under-confident, which simply made you feel like you wanted to protect her.
Annie was very grounded and seldom questioned her own instincts; one of the few people I knew who wasn’t in any way haunted by their own history. Honest and trusting, she always saw the good in people. There was a refreshing lightness to her, she wanted nothing from me, had no edge and no agenda and as a result there was nothing to push back against. I’d always ended up bored with other girlfriends - even the licentious Lucy, but not this time. In truth, I was flattered that someone so attractive and straightforward could possibly like me. Up until this point, I’d firmly believed the girls I fancied and girls I could trust were mutually exclusive. Annie was the first one who was both.
Importantly we made each other laugh and instantly felt comfortable together. We also kissed like we invented it. Sometimes while pressing our lips together, we would take it in turns to breathe out while the other inhaled. Sharing air in this way provided us with a feeling of real connectedness. Interdependent and inter-related in the most intimate way. The only problem was after few minutes ‘mutual breathing’ all of the exchanged oxygen would be used and we would end up collapsing in fits of laughter. During those early months we regularly stayed up all night talking about our values, our hopes for the future, our families and our friends. We discovered we’d much in common as we dissected the serious and celebrated the trivial. It was clear we owned many of the same records and had both resisted the eighties’ trend to dismiss the work of
older artists such as Patti Smith, Melanie Safka and Leonard Cohen. Christ we had even both bought (and enjoyed) the much vilified Live at Budokan by Dylan. We would talk as long as we could stay awake and then in the early hours reluctantly fall asleep in each other’s arms, fitting miraculously into my single college bed.
It wasn’t just music we had in common, the more we talked, the more we realised we shared many other guilty pleasures such as a passion for the 1976 television series Rich Man Poor Man. It was a relief to hear how both of our teenage worlds were rocked the week Nick Nolte’s character was brutally slain by the evil Falconetti. Finally we’d both found someone to talk to about this terrific show and how disappointed we were with the sequel Beggarman Thief.
Being in a relationship which works makes you feel a whole lot perkier and after a couple of months together, I was feeling as happy as any breathing human being could be. I also noticed that Annie’s signature stutter had all but disappeared. Confidence temporarily boosted, I immersed myself in the college social scene and formed an alternative events society with a couple of mates. Our aim was simple – to extend the range of entertainment available on campus. By attracting a sizable fee-paying membership, we tried to exert pressure on the students union to secure better quality acts. All of us had attended the diabolical selection of aging C-list bands, performing ninety minute sets of unknown songs every few weeks in the central hall. We were bored to death with Alvin Stardust, Ruby Turner and Roy Wood and so our initial booking was deliberately at odds with this routine. In particular, we wanted to launch the society with a high profile showcase event, more in tune with the social unrest evident outside of our cosseted student existence. Convincing Students Union President Matt Buckley to release virtually all of our membership fees to finance this first function; we invested a substantial sum on the first ever Nene College Comedy Festival. Of all the union executive, Matt was the one I got on with best. He was a bright and focused bloke who was really committed to his job and the student community. He was one of those people who you thought would succeed in whatever he undertook. You knew he didn’t want to let people down and as a result you wanted to do right by him.
Ambitious plans eventually approved, everyone worked tirelessly during the build-up to the show. Tapping in to the emerging alternative comedy scene, our final bill was made up almost exclusively of satirical stand-up comics who came onstage one after another telling a succession of (very similar) left wing, anti-thatcher jokes. Needless to say they all went down a storm.
To ensure the event was financially viable – or at least broke-even, one concession was made. I’d agreed with the union that our headliner would be a mainstream big-name act, someone well known who was capable of pulling in punters from Northampton and beyond. We were lucky to get him. Currently riding high on the back of a hugely popular television series, the quick-witted comic added our show onto the midlands-leg of his mammoth nationwide tour. Unfortunately the lugubrious celebrity was in the clutches of a serious substance addiction at this time and ended up arriving hours late. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he then insisted on locking himself upstairs alone in the darkened student’s union office. With the audience getting restless and many demanding a refund, Matt Buckley made it clear it was down to me to extricate him from the corner of the unlit office. Conscious of the lambasting I’d received when I tried to ingratiate myself with the diminutive David Rappaport and quickly recognising Mr Funny was perhaps not at his most whimsical; I trod very carefully.
After a very long period, characterised by the novel experience of having all of my senses deprived of any stimulation within the blackened office; I nonchalantly announced, “Right then, everyone is waiting to see you…ready as soon as you are.”
Nothing... not even an acknowledgement as he remained immobile, slumped on the floor.
Next: a whopping lie, “Err, full house waiting to see you downstairs.”
Again nada. This went on for a while and I began to think I’d have to cancel our much-hyped final routine. In a last ditch attempt, I tried to engage him in a simple un-contentious conversation. Accepting this was going to be problematic with someone who was sprawled out on the floor and now busy licking the carpet; I asked him a series of inane closed questions.
“So was it a good journey over from Birmingham?”
“Are you staying overnight after the show?”
Followed by, the most banal enquiry of all, “Do you enjoy touring?”
I didn’t consider it at the time, but I think that in my terrified state the strategy was a subconscious attempt to wear down an already weakened man with superficiality. Perhaps I was hoping I could rile him into activity by being so un-incisive, so inarticulate and so bland.
Remarkably, these low value questions did provoke a response, as Mr Funny began to snort and then chuckle to himself, muttering away in his trademark dulcet tones, “You know lad, you should give up all this education malarkey and apply for a job at The Daily Mail as a hack - your questioning style would fit in perfectly with those tossers.”
Then, no doubt humbled at the thought of being in the presence of a future Pulitzer Prize winner for investigative journalism, he began to rise precariously to his feet. Steadying himself on my shoulder he staggered forward.
Pulling a pen from his jacket pocket, like a sword from a sheath he positioned himself ready to sign yet another autograph, before shaking his head a bit and then saying, “Sorry, to answer your last question, touring night after night is a bit like drugs - to start with it’s great fun, then it’s no fun at all, then it’s fuckin’ shite.”
I didn’t feel the need to ask which stage he was at with either of them.
Pen re-housed in pocket, we tottered downstairs and after another ninety minutes spent reassuring him he would be fine, I watched as he stood centre-stage delivering an uneven, but sporadically brilliant set of acerbic monologues to the handful of enthusiasts who had waited patiently to see him.
It was an incredibly stressful evening. I didn’t have a drop to drink until our headliner secured his first wave of applause, but then must have crammed in quite a few bevvies because I can hardly remember anything that followed. I do know there was a disco later and was probably really pissed by this point because I was sure I caught sight of Pennie Fenton out of the corner of my eye in that dimly lit concert hall. Next day I put this unlikely apparition down to the pressures of the night, but I must have been convinced it was her because I pogoed across the dance floor a number of times just to see if she was actually there.
After the substantial losses had been calculated following this first alternative event, we decided to play it safe and invest all our remaining funds into going to see shows rather than organising them for ourselves. This proved far more successful. Concerts were always the most popular. We would block-book tickets for various bands – Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, The Pogues and of course the mighty Echo & the Bunnymen. Until forming the society, I’d never managed to see the Bunnymen in concert. College would therefore provide me with yet another milestone event.
Live, the Bunnymen were breath-taking, with all four members of the band bouncing sounds off each other, attacking every note with an unequalled ferocity. Almost visceral in their delivery, they managed to be dramatic without being theatrical. Each song seemed distilled – as if no note was ever wasted. Appealing to my left wing values, I liked the way on stage they all lined up across the front in a row as equals, drums as important as vocals. It was like musical communism, with everyone equal in status; equal in song writing royalties and equal when it came to band decisions. They were a true band, with the sum of the parts greater than each of their separate contributions. I dragged everyone in our hall of residence to see them so many times in the early eighties that they all knew the names of every band member and most of the roadies.
The only downside to the increasing number of events we were promoting was that we had
to prepay for transport to take people to the venues. This additional cost pushed up the price of the trips, sometimes out of the reach of many students. The solution was simple. I needed to become a registered driver of the students union minibus. The union was understandably protective of its singular vehicle and heavily relied on the barely roadworthy bus for promotional purposes and transporting sports teams around the county. Any drivers therefore had to be carefully vetted and were required to undertake a skills test before being added to the college insurance. Matt was really supportive of my application. He loved driving, enjoyed the freedom it brought. He’d saved hard as an undergraduate to buy himself a soft-top sports car which he’d then spent the best part of a year lovingly restoring. The thought of having to drive again filled me with anxiety, but I went ahead with my application to use the bus and somehow managed to pass the skills test (conveniently failing to disclose I hadn’t driven since all those disastrous tests in Harrogate). Achieving authorised key holder status, I decided to let my driving speak for itself. Unfortunately for me and everyone I drove, it did – very eloquently. The rather unstable combination of poor ability mixed with my innate nervous disposition lead to a succession of unfortunate incidents in that damned minibus.
Drowning in the Shallow End Page 7
