The Man With His Head in the Clouds

by Richard O. Smith

  People really do still make love among the cornfields, the wind sweeping patterns on the wheat, allowing the swaying corn stalks to resemble a tidal wash. Corn offers a good place to hide, devoid of patrolling parents standing on sentry duty outside bedroom doors, ready to barge in like a police drugs raid if they suspect any suspicious noises from inside may indicate illicit snogging activities within. In former times it was not uncommon during harvest season to see hastily re-dressed couples fleeing from the chasing blades of combine harvesters when their afternoon’s wheat-hidden amour risked ending with a different sort of thrashing than that envisaged by angry parents.

  A girl I knew in my hometown told me on the one daily bus that linked my parochial small town to London (and any semblance of cosmopolitan ambition) that her parents had once called her downstairs for a “meeting”. She had only ever previously been summoned to “chats” so knew this must be important, particularly as there was also Battenberg cake - which passed for middle-class aspiration in a pre-Waitrose age. This was clearly meant to be a meeting where portentous life advice was about to be dispensed - and with it would almost certainly come awkwardness.

  Sure enough, she was asked, aged sixteen, by her parents: “Are you still chaste?” Being unfamiliar with such an archaic expression, she genuinely thought they meant “chased” to which she replied, “don’t you think I’m a bit too old for that?” Before adding, “in the past with my schoolmates, obviously, I did it all the time with every girl and boy there. But I’ve grown out of it years ago.” Her parents nodded disapprovingly but agreed that “in the modern age” she probably was behaving consistently with their fears implanted by Daily Mail columnists. The best their generation could hope for was that there would be some downhill stretches as they resignedly lugged their handcarts towards hell. “But,” they insisted, “we hope you gave the matter serious thought beforehand.” Perplexed, she took some Battenberg back to her room.

  Years later she realised what they must have actually said, but only after her parents had died - and left their house to her two brothers.

  Frankly virginity, and subsequent loss thereof, is overrated. Here’s a glove-slap-in-the-face challenge to that perceived status quo: the first time you do something is unimportant. That’s because the initial time you do something is rarely the best, any more than the second or third. It takes time, practice and experience to become competent at something, and to extract meaning and purpose from that evolved competence.

  Quite why people willingly believe they should save their virginity for a special occasion, ratcheting up the pressure higher than James Sadler ever literally reached, is illogical. The first time you cook an omelette, drive a car, draw a picture or ascend in an untethered balloon is unlikely to represent the pinnacle of achievement in that chosen discipline. The same is indisputably true of sex.

  Understandably, for a sensitive individual, this experience in the cornfield meant a lot to me, though probably less to my “conquest” - a term laden with gender politics - and inaccuracy in this situation - as I am certain I was her conquest, probably to win a bet. Her whispered amorous sweet nothings drifting like scented blossom petals in a refreshing summer breeze: “Hurry up, I want to watch Brookside. Oh for God’s sake, it unhooks here - bras aren’t that difficult to remove, surely!” My eyes darted across her bare chest, flickering like lizards’ tongues. When we had finished - the beginning and ending time could only be separated by an atomic clock - I received the traditional post-coital enquiry: “Is that it?” Then she realised this might be construed as an insensitive remark to a boy currently feeling vulnerable after failing in an activity in which culturally no boy or man is allowed to fail. “That was very... um... enthusiastic,” she said, fumbling for a compliment.

  My conquest was a few years older than me, and clearly doing this out of a not entirely misplaced sense of pity. Her mechanical actions displayed the emotional investment she would have spent in defleaing her dog. Rather than gushing affirmations of romance whispered like droplets of poetry into lovers’ ears, she uttered that unintentionally discerning line that women often say during post-coital intimacy: “So, do you feel better now, sweetie?” - rather confirming the clinical, almost medical, procedure that has just been overseen. Before pausing to ask, “are you sure that’s it? Shouldn’t it take longer?” Luckily I have no feelings.

  She was a nice girl who was basically being very kind to me, unaccustomed as she was to discovering unfamiliar hands inside her blouse. And I was relieved to have shaken off my virginity, ridden myself of that “loser” badge which the condition appears to pin to boys - although without goal-line technology in those days to prove otherwise, there’s still a chance I hadn’t done enough to lose my virginity.

  And losing one’s virginity can be difficult enough for socially awkward, shy boys, but it is particularly complex for those constrained by the inability to negotiate stairs, given that bedrooms rarely tend to be located on the ground floor. A few days earlier she had suggested we go up the tower of one of highest spires in Lincolnshire - a formerly welcome landmark for sailors on the Wash built high enough to contain a lantern for shipping in ancient times. I actually made it up the first two flights of stairs such was my determination to hide my phobia from her. Then I hyperventilated, and had to descend the stairs literally sitting down. Maybe she just felt sorry for me, but she was sympathetic and understanding. Her kindness still impresses me, and resonates, today.

  Post-coital under a pewter sky - one of those endless, melancholic skies of the featureless Lincolnshire flatlands. Then two strange things were suddenly noticeable on the horizon, both becoming larger in that sky as they came towards us. Someone had just set fire to the stubble of the neighbouring cornfield that had already been combine-harvested. Making love at the side of a burning cornfield ought to provide a rich palette of descriptive colours, tones, and imagery for a writer - but all I can recall is that smoke really does get in your eyes. That song was right.

  They’re not allowed to burn cornfields any more. And they seem to have passed a similar ban on woman having sex with me dating from roughly the same period. The old adage, adopted for the twenty-first century: “Red sky in the morning shepherd’s warning, red sky at night shepherd fined for pumping cacogenic pollutants into the atmosphere with illegal stubble burning in contravention of EU legislation.”

  Fleeing from the field, she lost a shoe. Running over stubble is difficult, but it’s more than just precarious if barefoot. Already trickling blood was visible below her ankle. I called out to her to stop running, and stay stationary against her instincts to avoid the approaching acrid smoke and her fear of discovery. Nobly, I went back like a soldier returning to a fallen colleague, and retrieved her shoe. Moments later we shared an affectionate Cinderella moment as I re-shoed her. Then, at a time when we really needed to start running again, before smoke and embarrassment consumed us, we stood looking upwards marvelling at the sky.

  For there was the other strangely unaccountable object in the sky looming larger by the second as it soared towards us. A giant hot air balloon.

  “Do you think they were spying on us?” asked my “conquest” picking straw out of her hair and tutting as she discovered more and more tell-tale ears of corn and husk on her angora sweater. “My dad will kill me if he finds out,” she added - the implication being that he very much would find out from the accumulated crime-scene evidence in her clothing and hair. Or from the voyeuristic balloon informants. “Well, I’m sure that just because you’re covered in corn is merely circumstantial evidence unlikely to lead to a sex conviction,” I said, sagely. “He’ll kill you too,” she confirmed. “Oh, OK, I’ll help brush down your clothes once we’re out of this field.” I allowed a respectful two seconds to pass before adding, “Do you think we could, er, try again? I think I might be better at it the second time.” My implication being that although I’m unlikely to have evolved into an expe
rienced provider of female gratification in the last five minutes, there is a small chance that at least the next time she will actually notice we’ve had sex.

  “No!” was her, in my view, unnecessarily firm response. “Why not?” I whined. “Three reasons,” she countered, eagerly listing them: “This field is literally on fire, there’s a balloon full of voyeurs and Brookie is on soon.”

  Fortunately the balloon was red and white, but without any identifying marks. It would have been an unpalatable yet scrumptious irony if the balloon had taunted me with one giant word emblazoned across it: Virgin.

  The (lost) cherry on top of this particular experience was that she did say she had enjoyed the afternoon and wanted to see me again. The problem was the next time I saw her she had got a new boyfriend, who was older, taller, richer, wittier and handsomer than me and had a car, job and house. I don’t know what she saw in him that I didn’t have.

  I assume he also got asked if he “felt better now?” and his answer would be invariably much better than mine. Oh well. You lose some, and you lose some. Then you lose some more. Maybe it was understandable she didn’t want to rendezvous in a cornfield for bad sex. Perhaps I had caused her to become wheat intolerant.

  Much later, knowing what I do now about balloons, it was strange to the point of being inexplicable to see a hot air balloon in the location I did that day. Although the weather conditions (relatively windless) and time of day (dusk) were consistent with the optimum conditions for balloon flight, it should not have been there - perilously close to the sea. We were only a mile from the seafront marshes and next stop, The Hague. Fly over the North Sea with a prevailing, inescapable westerly, and you’re in trouble of the potentially fatal variety. And boy, can that wind blow off the Wash into the Lincolnshire Fenlands. I distinctly recall one day when I was eight years old, that for the fist time ever the wind briefly stopped blowing, and everyone consequently fell over.

  It was debatable whether I truly lost my virginity in that field, but undebatable that something else was lost in that field: the balloon crew. My kind de-cherrier was wrong about the balloonists being voyeurs (voyeurs who had certainly been prepared to go to a lot of expense and trouble). Instead, they had picked up a stronger wind than anticipated and been blown miles off course with the result that the coastline was approaching menacingly fast.

  This was almost exactly the situation that Sadler experienced in this part of the world too. Akin to Sadler nearly two hundred years previously, they were aware that they had one choice of action to avoid an unsatisfactory plop into the Wash - get the balloon to earth as quickly as possible, even if that meant hitting the ground at shuddering velocity.

  Balloons had been associated with carnal longings several centuries before my cornfield experience. Convenient for a press just as intent on salacious gossip 250 years ago as now, the first English female to fly was a glamorous actress, who reportedly shocked eighteenth-century ground viewers by becoming prostrate with her gentleman aeronaut before disappearing into the cloud line. Although a more innocent and entirely truthful explanation for her sudden horizontal position was produced upon landing - namely she fell over into the basket when attempting to swap places with her male co-pilot. You can guess which version the press preferred. Years later I spotted in the local paper that my “conquest” had married. It was in November 2003, the exact same month that the final episode of Brookside aired. Presumably she now had time for marriage.

  ***

  Even today stairs retain the capacity to cause me potentially fatal levels of embarrassment.

  Sitting in reception at a highly prestigious private school I am experiencing two primary concerns. Firstly, since I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes, do I risk aggravating the stern matriarchal receptionist again to check if I’ve been forgotten? The second is a pervading regret in this august academic establishment, that I resisted any attempts in my life towards receiving a formal education. The autodidactic route is okay, but the reunions are rubbish.

  I am using my trip to Gloucestershire to go scouting for locations that Sadler would have seen - he once famously closed the entire town’s schools, shops and factories when he brought his balloon near here.

  Eventually, a flustered teacher greets me. Panting like an over-exercised dog, he is only capable of pronouncing words one at a time: “So... sorry... been... mad... here... today.” I’m ushered through a door, and then descend shallow steps into a long corridor, natural light flooding in from the left to illuminate an immensely long, seemingly endless corridor. So, this is what arguably one of Britain’s most famous private schools looks like. Unlike Eton, or rather my perception of Eton, everyone is dressed comparatively normally - the utilitarian green uniforms wouldn’t look different on kids on any school bus around the country throwing peanuts at each other. Whatever they spend their near £30,000 per annum school fees on, it’s not uniform designers.

  “The girls are really looking forward to hearing you speak,” he confirms. I suspect that’s a lie, but I’m still immensely grateful for the remark. I am here to address some of the Sixth Form.

  After we’ve walked for so long that I am ready to ask if we can stop for a sit down, I’m about to be led up another flight of stairs. Problem! I am being directed to the edge of the stairs, towards a low banister and, even worse, a high balcony that overlooks A Sheer Drop. A chain of book carrying pupils are busily descending on my right, like a group of leaf carrying worker ants. So switching staircase sides to ensure I’m safely away from the edge is impossible, as I cannot block their path. “If you’d like to follow me,” he chides, perplexed as to why I am suddenly frozen and glancing at his watch in a more aggressive side of passive aggressive gesture.

  Once again, I feel powerless to admit my predicament. Shame gushes over me, soon occupying my entire being. My emotions mottled with several shades of anxiety. What if I did say something? “I’m scared of being on this side of the staircase.” He’d probably ask some of his pupils to help me. Requiring a schoolgirl to hold your hand to enable you to go upstairs is probably the ultimate life fail for a forty-something independent adult male. Cowardly, I pretend to adjust and re-tie my shoe lace, which noticeably involves untying it first, in order to pointlessly re-tie it. Which I think he may have spotted me doing. Until a train of pupils have descended and I can cross to the far side and ascend next to the wall, I remain frozen. Then I do the traditional phone check, which the modern age has given me as a face-saving justification for waiting for stairs to clear before I can grab a hand rail and go away from the edge. The teacher notes this eccentric behaviour and deducts me respect points - though I doubt if he’s worked out why. My shame remains hidden.

  I am ushered into a panelled room covered with prints. Recognising these from Christ Church, Oxford - the only place in the world where a college chapel doubles as a city’s cathedral - they form the Edward Burne-Jones window depicting the story of St. Frideswide the patron saint of the city. Only they are not prints. This being a plummy public school, they’re originals. They have about twenty Pre-Raphaelite originals, ignored on a classroom wall. All we had on the walls at our school was graffiti proclaiming: “Nobby is a bender.”

  The teacher introduces me by declaring, “Richard never went to university,” ... thanks for that... “or did A-levels”...was it truly necessary to impart that?... “or passed any O levels or GCSEs at all.” (Special thanks, cheers for that, mate.) The girls visibly wonder why they’ve booked a speaker whose non-qualifications are being paraded with such emphasis. Is it to show them that slavish dedication to study coupled with academic application is to be discouraged because you can be successful anyway? Maybe next week they will book a female speaker who can tell them: “You don’t need to study, girls, or focus on going to university. Instead just take a two litre bottle of cider to the park and get fingered on the swings. Then become pregnant by some bloke who works at the fa
irground. Worked for me.”

  Or perhaps I am here as a warning: a visitation from the Ghost of non-study Past, showing how people inevitably end up when rejecting education i.e. pitiful, cheaply dressed struggling writers forgoing professional haircuts and intent on taking biscuits for later from school staff rooms. And unable to go upstairs.

  “Richard is a successful author and scriptwriter,” the teacher continues. “And he’ll also tell us about the real Oxford, from the Town’s perspective not the University’s prospectus.” I wrote that last line for my intro - flattered he used it.

  Then it dawns upon me that I’ve never spoken to eighteen-year-old girls before. Depressingly, that was also pitifully true when I was eighteen myself. “Hello,” I begin. No one says “hello” back. This reminds me that eighteen-year-old girls ignored me when I was eighteen, and they appear to be doing exactly the same now. They stare at me. I stare at the Pre-Raphaelites. This is awkward. I need to say something, but have no idea what. “So... er... who boards here?” Most hands shoot up. That’s a lot. They seem to be keeping their hands up for a long time. Then it hits me: I’m supposed to ask one of them to speak. “Er, yes,” I say pointing to a plump oriental girl at the front. The others put their hands down. One pupil exaggerates the strain, while a blonde rubs her arm muscles to show how uncomfortable it was having to unnecessary keep her hand raised for fully four seconds. I rightly predict she will be causing trouble later. “What’s it like being a boarder?” I ask.

  “It’s alright, I suppose,” the Asian girl replies. I ask another sixth former. “It’s OK. Suppose it’s alright,” is her response. This is the upper sixth crème de la crème English set and so far their vocab extends to four words. Another Asian girl puts up her hand. “Yes?”, “It’s alright, I suppose.”