by Paul Charles
‘Do you really think so?’ she asked as we walked along the shop-packed Broadway over Wimbledon Bridge – the location of Goodness Records, now securely locked up – and into Wimbledon Hill Road in the general direction of Wimbledon Common. We’d left the restaurant shortly after the final flow of tears. The waiter had been hovering with one of his ‘Is everything okay, Madame?’ lines. But it’s true: men, boys, whatever, we all hate to see a woman cry. There’s something instinctually protective in all of us and we always react to it. We’d paid the bill and left; sorry, make that she’d paid the bill and we left without saying much more. She said she’d like the evening to continue and that she’d like to walk around for a while, which I believe to be shorthand for she wouldn’t be inviting me in for a coffee.
As we were turning into Worple Road, which even though it was close to the main high street (better known as Wimbledon Hill Road, very busy and buzzy in working hours), was pretty suburban, I shared my profound knowledge with her.
‘ Well, you’d have to admit it would account for how bad you feel.’
‘You know,’ she said, stopping mid-footpath and turning to face me, ‘I think you might be right. I mean, I know I’m over John Harrison. I’m probably better off without him, but maybe I am allowing myself to dwell on our good times a little too much for my own good. You know what, I think you’re absolutely right, David. That’s so heartening, you know, to know why I feel so bad inside, why my insides are still being torn to pieces.’
‘Do you think you wouldn’t be feeling so bad if you and he hadn’t made love?’ I asked. Perhaps it was a bit of an insolent question but I wanted to know: Did making love with a girl create an additional bond or was it all just physical?
‘No,’ she replied succinctly, ‘we weren’t in love because we made love. We made love because we were in love in the first place and it seemed the most natural thing for us to do. So I guess what I’m saying is that whatever it was that we had, which I felt was special, was already there before we made love.’
We walked on into the still of the night while we both thought about what she’d just said.
‘David,’ she began a hundred yards or so later, ‘I thought it was very beautiful what you said in the restaurant, about being my friend. That’s what finally did me in. That’s what made me cry so uncontrollably.’
During this part of the walk she’d taken my hand.
‘It’s not that I need a friend, although, as I said, I certainly don’t seem to have too many of them floating around London. It’s just that I do like you, and you’ve already showed your support in spite of your friends. So just for you to want to be my friend… well, that’s beautiful.’
Mary seemed to be struggling with her words now. I kept quiet, willing her to continue.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I think from the little I know of you, that when you say you’d like to be friends you don’t mean it as the first step to you know–’
I made a grunt of some sort to interrupt her because I felt I knew where this conversation was going. I didn’t know if I wanted her not to say it, just because if she even just thought those words, well, that would be enough to draw the line in the sand above which the relationship could only work. I’d have preferred us to avoid discussing the fact that we were only going to be friends, and not in the romantic sense of the word. True, it was understood that nothing would ever happen, but if the words were never actually stated as a fact, well, who knows what might happen in the future? But people – girls mostly – like to address this issue immediately, to state the obvious. Perhaps it’s just so you know never to ever overstep the mark. But she’d started, and she certainly wasn’t going to stop.
‘No, no!’ she protested. ‘Let me get this out now or I’ll never get it out! I know the whole speech about being “just good friends” – my mother had me well versed in that one.’
‘Look it’s fine, honest,’ I said squeezing her hand, hoping I still wasn’t too late to avoid those dreaded words. Because of what I felt she was about to say, that may not have been the most appropriate thing to do.
‘David, let me get this out,’ she protested again, this time gently squeezing my hand in return. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m still very confused over the John Harrison thing but I’d love for us to be good friends.’
Great, we’d got there. I was convinced this was more embarrassing for her than it was for me and I was happy now that she was off the hook; it’s horrible witnessing people wrestling so tirelessly to free themselves.
‘But the important piece is,’ she continued, when I thought she should have finished saying her bit, now the damage was done. It’s one thing putting a boy in his place, but then proceeding to rub his face in it? Well, that was just a little bit unnecessary now, wasn’t it? Don’t you think? ‘I’m not entirely sure that I want us to be just good friends.’
Okay, I thought in italics, but didn’t dare speak.
I walked her back to her flat in Gladstone Road. And that was it that night, apart from her saying she still had to figure a lot of things out, and her giving me her home and work phone numbers. And her giving me a goodnight kiss on the cheek. She said she liked being with me because I made her laugh. I loved her laughing; she had one of the most beautiful mouths you’d ever seen and, for one so sad, the most heart-warming laugh I’d ever witnessed.
She had this other thing I noticed that night for the first time; when she was feeling sad, her lips were closed, but when she was happy (and I’m not sure she was even aware she was doing this) the middle third of her beautiful lips was permanently parted, just slightly mind you. This made her appear to have a hint of a gentle smile on her face at all times. In fact, it was incredible, not to mention endearing, just how much her features were transformed by the slight opening and closing of her mid-lips.
Chapter Thirteen.
I have to admit, and I know it’s not a very nice thing to say, but I was initially still a bit preoccupied with Mary Skeffington when I went to pick up Jean Simpson the following Wednesday evening for the Jethro Tull gig. Once inside the Jeans’ first floor flat on Alexandra Road, my mind started to wander.
First off, Jean Kerr wasn’t there, thank goodness; she’d taken another of her turns and had gone home to recover. Apparently work wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. Second off, Jean Simpson went out of her way to show me another of John Harrison’s caricatures. This particular one was a bit ‘ooh, la la.’ Actually, it was a lot ‘ooh, la la!’
John, from his vantage point, had obviously spotted Jean bending over to pick something up. As I’ve already mentioned, Jean liked to wear nothing but miniskirts. Sorry, let me just pause there a wee while: I mean of course she wears other clothes (tops, shoes, socks, even underwear…). What I mean to say is that she’s always wearing those clothes with a miniskirt. Now, when you bend over in a miniskirt, well, there’s not much left to the imagination, is there? I suppose I should have actually said when a beautiful girl in a miniskirt bends over, there’s not much left to the imagination; if it was Frank Carson, Hilda Ogden or Harry Secombe wearing said miniskirt, well, I’m not so sure the overall effect would be quite so pleasing. I think you know what I’m on about.
John Harrison had just the eye for catching Jean Simpson’s beautiful legs on paper. Of course, he’d used a bit of artistic licence, as though Jean had turned her head around to the artist/voyeur, and she’d an expression on her face that was a combination of being caught unawares and enjoying it. Maybe that’s how they got their rocks off with each other, by imagining various saucy scenarios. With the vision before John, I wasn’t sure he’d be able to last the two years or so to marriage. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to.
But to me, the surprising fact in all of this was that it wasn’t John who was showing me the drawing, but Jean herself! It’s a bit like someone taking saucy photographs of their wife and then the wife going off to show it to another (frustrated) boy. Now I don�
�t generally get frustrated, I just get on with life, but I have to tell you that this sketch did send my imagination running wild.
Even more so, why was she showing this drawing to me? And while we’re on the subject, why had she put on that performance when she’d come round to my flat to tell me that Jean Kerr was ditching me? I mean, I wasn’t complaining, no way. I suppose I’d just started to think that if there was a link between the two incidents, well perhaps… you know? On the other hand, maybe it was just a case of putting two and two together and coming up with five.
However, all that being said, she neglected to give me another of her twirls this time. Although she was wearing the same tartan mini and so, being thankful for small mercies, I thought no more of the subject. Lie! I thought about little else but her beautiful legs on the journey over to Tolworth. I even started to imagine that she’d made herself up better than she did when she went out with her future husband. What was that all about?
We talked a lot on the journey. Well, she talked mostly; I listened and thought about the sketch and the twirl. She told me all about John: how he was an only child; he’d just turned twenty; he hadn’t had a big birthday party; and he was saving for his twenty-first! She wished he’d stopped smoking. She wished she could flatten his ears. She wished he could do something with his hair – it was so thick and curly that when he tried to grow it, it looked quite pathetic. I remember this bit the most, because she said that she liked my hair, she liked my eyebrows and she loved my eyelashes.
While that was all incredibly flattering, it seemed to me that for someone who was going to get married, she appeared to be paying quite a lot of attention to someone other than her fiancé. Who, I hear you ask? Oh that’s very flattering, thank you very much; why me of course. But then again, maybe that wasn’t actually the case if you had to ask the question.
Anyway, I’ve already said that John was an only child. His father had died when he was twelve – a hit-and-run victim, and the police had never traced the driver. John’s mother had never remarried, choosing instead to enlist the invaluable help of her two sisters in raising Jean Simpson’s chosen one.
He drove her mad with his meticulous planning and saving. Apparently he’d been saving all his life and at one stage had actually suggested to Jean that she give him all of her salary for safekeeping and he’d give it back in the form of an allowance! Though he was sussed enough not to persist when she refused.
But he dressed terribly. He didn’t even think about it; wouldn’t think about it, according to Jean. As long as he was warm in winter and cool in summer, he was happy. If last year’s clothes still fit, he was happy to continue wearing them. If they didn’t quite fit, his mother was an absolute demon on the old sewing machine.
According to Jean, she wished that John would dress a bit more like me! She particularly liked my waistcoat. She even went as far as to ask if I could give John a few pointers! I kind of laughed it off, as you do. Flattery and all of that, it’s hard to know how to deal with it. Not that I’d much practice. But I can tell you, Jean Simpson was doing wonders for my self-confidence.
Mind you, I started to think – and I imagined you are probably thinking the same thing as I talk – if she liked me so much and she barely seemed to like John Harrison all that much, how come she wasn’t with David Buchanan?
Well exactly, my sentiments entirely!
What else did she tell you about John, David? Well now, let me think. Yes that’s it – she thought he was good enough with his drawings, cartoons and caricatures to do it professionally, to make a living from it. She thought he would make more of his life and, by association, their lives and, by indirect additional association, her life, were he to try to seek his fifteen minutes of glory with his drawings.
‘There’s no future in the Civil Service, you know – I’m forever telling Davi… sorry, so sorry, I mean John, of course I meant John. I’m always telling John that there’s no future in the Civil Service and he should get out of there before it’s too late.’
‘And what does he say?’ I felt compelled to ask.
‘He always sings his wee Civil Service song:
A Civil Servant’s weapon be
A cup of boiling scalding tea
One at ten and one at three
A Civil Servant’s life for me.
I tried to laugh but I couldn’t. It was just too painfully true.
We were in a quiet corner of the Toby Jug bar, having this wee chat before Jethro Tull went on. You could tell the band had quite a strong following of blues fans by the number of duffle coats on display in the gathering audience. The duffle coat brigade probably started this circuit in the first place, as they sought out venues to watch and listen to their true hero, John Mayall, and his ever-changing band the Bluesbreakers. So we have to be very thankful to them.
Anyway, where was I? I got distracted there, as I was going to list for you this ever-changing list of Bluesbreakers members, people like Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, most of Fleetwood Mac… but if I keep on with this you’ll start to think I was a duffle coat, aka a trainspotter, myself, which I most definitely wasn’t.
Jean was looking at me again, and I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me, as in feasting her eyes on me (okay, okay, I hear you sighing again, but as they say, stranger things have happened at sea), or if she was looking at me to see if I was looking at her. Or perhaps she was just looking at me to see if I was going to respond. (Wow, it took a long time to get there with that one, didn’t it?)
‘You see,’ she continued, after a few seconds, ‘they lull you into a false sense of security with this “You’ve got a job for life” business, but it’s only because they suck all the life out of you. And they do pay reasonably well, I know, but that’s also part of the plot. No wonder working for the Civil Service is driving our Jean to distraction. But I can’t get John to listen to me. He looks at me in disbelief, he really does. He looks at me as if to say “Are you mad or something?” But he never does of course. He never says that. He’s in love with me and he’d never say that. I know he’s thinking it but he’d never say it.’
‘Listen,’ I started, trying to sound like the voice of reason, ‘you know there is something to be said for doing your hobby as a hobby. I think the enjoyment factor is so much greater when you’re doing it because you want to, rather than having to do it to make a living. Turning your hobby into the thing that earns you money puts a different kind of pressure on things, Jean. Pressure can take the enjoyment out of something you once loved. Pressure also leads to compromise. What I’m saying is, I wouldn’t push him too much.’
‘God you’re such a romantic! You’re meant to be saying “Yeah, that’s right, he’s boring; get rid of him and jump into my bed!”’ Jean gushed, as she finished another half pint of lager – her third of the evening (those northern girls sure knew how to knock it back. It didn’t show on their figures though. Well, I’m referring to Miss Simpson and not Miss Kerr. Miss Kerr could have done with a few extra laps of the track, if truth be told).
‘My round,’ Miss Simpson gasped, and off she went to the bar.
I watched her up there – the barman tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she just nodded, ordered our drinks and dropped her head. A Welsh duffle coat, obviously attracted by her exquisite legs, also moved in for the kill – three of his best chat-up lines all shot down in flames. She ignored him completely as she paid, put the change away in her purse, lifted the drinks, turned from the bar and walked back towards me, all in one synchronised movement which gave out the ‘I don’t want anyone talking to me!’ signal. So although she was chatty and friendly with me, part of her was still as shy and retiring as the girl who’d hidden behind Jean Kerr the first time I’d met them in the residents’ lounge of the hostel.
‘You’ll never believe what that Welsh git just said to me!’ she began, as she handed me my drink. Before I’d a chance to guess, she continued, ‘He said, and get this, with a
Welsh accent and all, “I may not be the best lover in the world, but number seven isn’t too bad, now is it?” Can you believe that?’
‘What did you say?’ I replied, laughing because I did think it was rather funny. Mind you, that could also have been because I’d a rather limited repertoire of chat-up lines, as in zero, none.
‘I ignored him,’ she beamed proudly. ‘Our Jean says that’s the best way to deal with these gits. Ignoring them is also the most painful treatment you can give them; it makes them look really small in front of their mates and then maybe they won’t do it to another girl.’
‘Mmmm,’ I replied, not quite getting a word out. I was trying to work out whether or not it was better to keep quiet on the subject. You see, it was a subject I had thought about a lot.
‘What? Mmmm what, David?’
‘Well, you see, there’s another side to that isn’t there?’
‘I believe I’m about to hear it,’ she said, laughing good-heartedly.
‘Well for starters, just look at yourself – you look amazing,’ I said, a little self-consciously. ‘I mean, all the observations I’m about to make here are made only for the point of this argument, but you do look absolutely gorgeous. There’s not a boy in the bar who hasn’t stolen a few glances of you. In fact, even if Ray Charles himself came in here I bet he’d sit down in our corner of the bar.’
