Ideologies
Chapter 32 – Divergence – 1981 to 1982
WARNING – CONTAINS EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT
Poem to Jules – 2020
You pull back your curtains
Birds blur the clouds
The scent of wet grass fills the air
Time and space
Separates
Our unhurt laughter
1982 – Jules
For a few months after Jules and I split up I continued to feel emotionally raw, and even a year later when we’d bump into each other, there’d still be a bit of a charge between us. Generally, though, the trajectory was towards recovery where both of us moved on and lived our lives without each other.
* * *
1982 – Recovery After Jules
There’s often a temptation after a relationship ends to seek solace in the arms, or legs, of someone else, even when we know doing so won’t ease the pain for long. In fact, sometimes it just accentuates it. During the first few weeks after we parted, I turned back to Lorna who’d just split up with her new boyfriend. I’m not sure whether it was something physiological or just me telling myself not to do it, but when we kissed, it felt wrong, and this caused me to back off.
Lorna was very pretty, we got on well, and she liked me. It would be tempting to say it was a pity I reacted as I did, but I get the feeling I’d have done so whatever the extenuating circumstances. As you may have already guessed, I was probably more attracted to rejection, so if someone wanted me, that was the kiss of death. It didn’t take long for Lorna to realise I wasn’t investing much into the relationship, so, each time we met up, things became a little more dislocated and within a week or so it was over.
* * *
Untrue Love
People might complain girls are taught to wait for a Prince Charming to rescue them, but likewise, boys believe a fair maiden will bring them true happiness. I wanted to believe in a narrative of love and romance, but if there was anything to take from these times it was the revelation that who I was, did not match up with the dreams I wanted to be a part of.
The question that still perplexes me though is, did I corrupt the path to true love because of who I was, or was my vision of true love too idealistic in the first place? Maybe it was a bit of both?
* * *
Leonard Cohen Live in London
If you’ve never heard Leonard Cohen’s introduction to Ain’t No Cure for Love on the Live in London album, then I’d recommend you have a listen. If you’d rather experience what he says afresh without the following ‘spoiler’ then please skip to the next section. Otherwise, read on.
In the introduction, he tells the audience that it’s been a long time since he last performed on stage in London, that it was about 15 years ago when he was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. The audience laughs. He then discloses that since then he’s tried a lot of medications including Prozac, Ritalin, and Focalin as well as studying deeply in the religions and philosophies of the world, but cheerfulness kept breaking through. Nevertheless, there’s one thing he says can’t easily be contradicted, there ain’t no cure for love, and at that point, the band start playing.
* * *
1982 – Seventeen
In 1979, a band called The Regents released a song called Seventeen. Its first lines declared being seventeen meant not yet being a woman. In a way, the same went for boys, this was still an in-between age. Throughout my teens, I felt as if I was waiting to live, whereas now in my 50s there’s a sense of waiting to die.
During the early years of the 1980s, there was a change for good in the air. The music scene was vibrant and outlandish fashion styles danced their way through the streets. Even in Sutton Library, people talked of androgynous guys called Marilyn and Boy George whom they’d met in clubs in London’s West End.
After the library closed for the night, those who didn’t want to go home right away would head to the Whistle Stop pub which was a short walk away. It was a shadowy place, even on bright sunny afternoons. Daylight barely got two feet through the door before being subdued by darkness, and by sundown, it would often feel as if a dark sea of people was swirling around within. As it turned out this was rather convenient given most of the customers were underage and practically speaking it was Sutton’s version of a late teen youth club. The police probably let it be, as it kept the kids off the street and at least it meant they knew where most of the delinquent kids could be found.
* * *
1982 – Meeting Julia
Once I’d had my seventeenth birthday my world enlarged. I’d regularly have to take myself up to Roehampton Hospital to get my leg repaired or have fittings for a new one and it was during one of those visits I got talking to a nurse called Julia who invited me to a party she was having at her place that weekend.
A few days later I cycled to Morden Underground station, took my bike on the Tube to Fulham Broadway and then through a cold, rainy Friday night, followed the route I’d marked out in my A-Z map book up to Shepherds Bush Green.
I met up with Julia in a pub where she worked to make ends meet, and at 11 pm she, along with some of her friends and I went to a Chinese restaurant. After the meal, we piled into her place where we chatted until the sun came up, at which point we went to sleep. There wasn’t even an inkling of a romantic spark between Julia and me, but she welcomed me wholeheartedly into her world.
In Wallington, my hometown, I was constantly looking for company and was conscious I was a bit of a pest, at least in some people’s eyes, but as I was driven by a desperate loneliness, that didn’t stop me. A year or so later I’d move away, which allowed me to reinvent myself a little, or at least cast off some of that feeling of being a bother. Someone once told me the famous singer George Michael would often come around to her house when he was a teenager because he felt so alone and needed company. Had I known that when I felt the same, I might not have felt so bad. I may have believed I was doing these less-than-grateful people a favour by ringing their doorbell unexpectedly. After all, if I was to ever become famous, they’d have looked back and been glad of the imposition.
* * *
The Fear of 1984
After World War 2 ended, the late 1940s and 1950s were periods of recovery, where the emphasis was on rebalancing the world. For some, there was an aim to take it back to how things had been before, but for others, this was an opportunity to build a brave new world.
By the late 1950s, the pendulum hovered, motionlessly hung in the air for a moment, then through the next decade swung so far in the opposite direction it became known as the swinging 60s. Okay, that’s not what that phrase means, but for many people who lived through that period, the ’60s saw more social and cultural changes than any other decade in the 20th Century.
As we shall see, from this era onwards there was no going back. Culture wars were declared and through the ’70s and beyond the battles continued, however, by the time we got to the ’80s, the direction had become much clearer. There was a general acceptance that solving social issues was of paramount importance. The ’80s also saw the onset of technology and computers entering our homes and everyday lives. Still, for all the hope that things were changing for the greater good, now, almost 40 years later, there’s a sense that something went awry and some of the things forewarned in Orwell’s book 1984, had now come to exist. Somehow, all those roads we’d paved with good intentions had led us to a dangerous arena of division and fear.
* * *
1997 – Therapy
Therapist: When they pulled up the tram lines in London, it felt symbolic to me. It was as if the clear guidelines that society followed disappeared too. It was both frightening and freeing at the same time. It was as if we were entering an unknown world.
* * *
1982 – Wilson’s School – General Studies
After my O-level results had come through in the summer of 1981 some of the teachers were just as surprised at how well I’d done as I was. One of them whom I particularly liked, Mr Jenkins, said of my success, “I guess miracles do happen after all.”
The headmaster, who had always been somewhat aloof, not just to me, but to everyone, decided to take a small group of us once a week for General Studies. This could be on any subject, so for instance, one week we might be looking at architectural styles, and the next the issue of the global North-South divide. In one, we looked at cryptic crosswords, which I aptly renamed Kryptonite crosswords because I would fall to pieces as soon as I came into contact with them.
One of the lessons he taught us that came in very useful and stuck in my mind ever since was about ideologies. His main theme that day was the assumptions made within the foundations of most ideologies, once accepted, make arguing against them very difficult. Therefore, it’s these initial assumptions that should be most focused on when trying to assess an ideology’s value. He also pointed out that most systems when put into practice meet challenges their creators never envisioned, and consequently, they tend to fail in many ways, especially when they start trying to “fix” those challenges.
* * *
1982 – On the Buses
Between school and home was the bus journey. Unlike other bus journeys, this one not only included other kids from Wilson’s whom I wouldn’t normally have interacted with but also pupils from other schools. Highview was a school situated a few hundred metres from Wilson’s, so there’d be a few co-travellers with us from there. One called Brenda would often sit with me and have a chat on the way home. There were a few times when to a chorus of “ooh” from my schoolmates she’d give me a snog. Maybe she felt sorry for me, maybe she just liked kissing me, I wasn’t too worried about her motivations, there was never any promise of anything more, it was a ‘this is happening now… enjoy it’ moment.
As the bus journey would get closer to Wallington High Street loads of girls from Wallington Girls School would jump on, and there’d often be continuations of previously abruptly paused conversations from the day before, the giving of Christmas, Birthday and Valentine’s cards as well as the resumption of the occasional feud.
While we connect eras in our lives to certain buildings, it’s easy to forget how often transient settings act as backdrops to our lives too. Buses, trains, tubes, bus stops, platforms, waiting rooms, cars, parks and streets all play their part. These were our ‘between worlds’.
Some of the buses and most of the trains we rode were of old stock that still had the feel of the 1940s, although the buses we took to school were quite modern at the time. You’d get on at the front, show the driver your pass or pay for your journey then get off via the middle doors. But as you got closer to the centre of London it would be far more likely you’d hop on an old bus via the continuously open doorway and platform at the back. Once on, you’d be bathed in yellow light from little bulbs which had a theatre dressing room feel to them. Soon after sitting down, if you could, a bus conductor would sway in front of you, maybe dance a few steps to keep their balance, and as they took the money, they’d give back a ticket in return from a steampunk-like machine strapped to their torso.
Diary entries:
Tuesday the 2nd of March 1982: On the way home from Roehampton Hospital, the bus conductress looked me straight in the eyes, it sent a shiver up my spine. She gave me a lovely smile.
Tuesday the 4th May 1982: On the way to school, I saw Penny and Hazel, and as usual, we had a giggle. Well, it’s better than admiring dirty windows or looking at one’s reflection.
* * *
1982 – Lessons in Belief
In one of our English literature lessons, our teacher told us we were naive because while we could criticise our government, what difference did it make? We all nodded in agreement. But now, in 2021, my opinion has settled somewhere between his and our naïve ones. There are indeed lots of barriers to changing our world, especially the political one, but things do change, both dramatically and not so. Some for better and some for worse, and partly because of or despite our actions. While we were naïve back then he may also have been somewhat jaded.
Although teachers were not supposed to bring their political or religious beliefs into the classroom, by the time we hit the sixth form they certainly did. Whether this was because we became more interested in politics and therefore provoked such discussions, or the teachers felt freer to bring up the subjects, it’s hard to know. Either way, politics and religion became common topics within our daily lives both in and out of the classroom.
One day, in another English Literature class, we were studying a section of Virginia Woolf’s book, To the Lighthouse. The bit we focused on was about religion. Woolf was an atheist and at one point in the text we were reading, it was inferred that believing in God was something one should grow out of. This stuck in my mind, not because it was logically argued well but because it made me think that anyone who believed in God was immature, at least academically.
Even though our teacher, pointed out that logic and faith by definition can’t always come together, spiritual belief is probably in our blood. After the lesson one of my friends, Cameron, and I discussed some of the central issues around belief. Even though I felt I was winning the logical arguments, he told me he wanted to become a Church of England priest. Now, four decades later, I’m still a “think agnostic, feel spiritual” person and he’s a bishop.
After school that day I stopped off at one of my friends who lived on Roundshaw. My friend wasn’t in, but her mum invited me in for a cup of tea. At one point, she mentioned God, so, trying to sound clever and mature I said, “Surely, we’ve all grown out of believing in fairy tales such as God”.
My friend’s mum, I’ll call her Paula, looked at me and then in a raised voice said, “I don’t know what they teach you at that school. How can you talk in such an arrogant way?”
I was a bit shocked and knew this was not going to bode well in terms of my chances of ever going out with her daughter, who I had fancied since I was eight. I stuttered, “Well, I didn’t mean to be arrogant, it’s just there’s no way there’s an old man in the sky, or a Heaven in the clouds, or Hell beneath the earth, or Adam and Eve starting off humanity. And, and…” I hesitated slightly as I could see these arguments were not helping matters, they were not helping one bit. Her face was red, and she shook as she glared at me harder than I ever thought was humanly possible.
“And,” I bravely or stupidly went on, “if there is a God, why would he allow such suffering just so he can get us to become perfect again?”
At that moment, my mind went ahead to the wedding I’d always dreamt of between me and her daughter, and there on the main table Paula did not look happy about our union, in fact, she looked like thunder. I came back to reality, and the same thunderous face was still looking at me.
I was rather hoping for a calm counterargument, but instead, she asked me in an “I’m still really angry with you, tone”, “If you’re so sure about there not being a God, then how do you think the universe got started? And if you’re so sure there’s not a God, then prove it to me, you can’t, can you? Just because the Bible stories may not stand up to scientific scrutiny, doesn’t mean there isn’t a God, does it?”
Trying to calm the situation I conceded, “Well I can’t prove it, that’s the point, it’s about belief.”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed, “So, if it’s about belief why are you trying to make it sound like only idiots believe in God? I’m disgusted by what that school’s done to you Simon, I’m so disappointed.”
I hated anyone using the, “I’m very disappointed in you” line, mainly because it was easily the best way to get my eyes to well up with tears. Well, at least it did so until I became so bad that I was more disappointed with myself than anyone else could ever be. For a moment, I wanted to explain that Virginia Woolf had made me say it, but I didn’t think that would help either. So, I went quiet and left soon after.
About 30 years later I met up with Paula, her husband and their daughter, the love of my early teenage life, for a reunion meal. Near the end of our meeting, I started to tell a joke then interrupted myself with, “Maybe I shouldn’t tell this as you might not get it as it’s for people who have had therapy.”
Paula leaned back slightly, nodded then encouraged me with, “Go on, try us”.
“Okay,” I said, “Okay, how many psychoanalysts does it take to put a light bulb in?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Two,” I said, “One to put the bulb in and the other one to hold my cock, I mean my mother, I mean the ladder.”
They laughed politely and we carried on chatting. As we walked to our cars, I looked at the woman who’d been the girl I fancied. She was a lot taller than me and just on that level, I realised my teenage ambitions had been a little too lofty, let alone all the other reasons I’d have never been the one for her. I remotely lowered the roof of my car, but no one was impressed.
A few years after that I sent them all Facebook friend requests which were never accepted, although one of her brothers, whom I was always very fond of, as I was of all of them, did. But I knew, okay I believed, that somewhere in all of that was the remnants of that argument and how I’d become quite unlikeable in their eyes.
* * *
1982 – Girl Friends
The types of relationships I had with girls and women varied greatly during 1982. Firstly, I stepped away from trying to have intense romantic connections. Yes, it was my choice, okay it wasn’t my first choice, but, okay then, it wasn’t my choice at all. Secondly, I began to develop a few non-romantic friendships and thirdly, I started to get involved in sexual situations with girls/women who I realised either before or after things happened, I didn’t want to get emotionally involved with in any serious way, whether they did or not.
In the poem I mentioned in the previous chapter, Words Without a Story, by Adrian Henri, the narrator describes all the things he’ll do to capture the heart of his beloved, but once they’d ‘rolled amongst the galaxies’ he becomes aware of a ‘distant star’, and soon after, rejects her. This was the place I found myself too, I was lost in space where yearning for someone and then no longer desiring them after we got up to something, was new to me. Even though I knew it didn’t help in terms of gaining a long-term deep and meaningful relationship, nor was it particularly nice for the other party, especially if they wanted more. None of that stopped me from getting caught up in the same dynamic repeatedly for years to come. Was it because there was something wrong with me, or was this the way of the world? It’s true there are probably a lot of dynamics going on within the process of falling in lust and then pulling away. And there might be a dark side to them too, but I can’t help but think of the Woody Allen lines about casual sex being a meaningless experience, but as meaningless experiences go, it’s a pretty good one. And you wonder why I ended up in therapy.
* * *
2021 – From Paris with Love
I’m listening to Melody Gardot singing her song, From Paris with Love. She sings of lovers falling in love like they fall out of bed.
* * *
Interested In
When someone says they’re “interested in” someone, the primary meaning of this phrase is they’re interested in developing a romantic/sexual relationship with them. Consequently, this involves showing an interest in who they are, and what they say, do, think and feel.
With Jules, I hung on to every word she uttered. But was I genuinely interested in her? I may have been, but then how could I know given I was so ‘interested in her’ romantically?
Of course, this is probably the same for most of us, but once we begin to realise this is going on we can admit to ourselves that a more realistic relationship between us and our lovers may take some time to get to. Likewise, when we lose interest in someone, it may not mean they’re no longer interesting, but instead, no matter what they do, we will not be interested, especially if we’ve become ‘interested in’ someone else.
* * *
July 1981- Photography
I’ve been interested in taking photographs since I was five years old. There was something about capturing an instant that seemed deeply important to me. Even now if I meet someone I connect with, albeit very slightly, I find it almost unbearable not to have some way of getting in contact with them again if ever I’d like to. It was the same with memories and moments in time, photography became a way to hold on to them.
As I began to become more involved in art, I realised that just like telling a story, it’s the way images are presented that makes them interesting. So, everywhere I went I took my new second-hand, bottom-of-the-line, Chinon CS SLR with me and to top it off, to the untrained eye, it made me look like a photographer who knew what they were doing.
* * *
1981 – Anya Part 1
I had originally considered placing Anya’s story in an earlier chapter as it started in the summer of 1981. However, given it illustrates my divergence from a more romantic path, it made it far more relevant for this chapter.
The main part of Anya’s story started about four months before I met Jules. Looking back on it now, my life changed considerably during those six months. At 16, I could still frequent playgrounds and act in a far more childlike way than I could at 17. It was as if the relationship with Jules was the watershed between feeling wholly disconnected and yearning for a relationship to save me, and realising that there were other connections to be made in life that were just as significant in their way. Even so, in my new incarnation, there was still plenty of scope to make connections in not-so-meaningful ways too.
* * *
MEETING ANYA – Tuesday 18th August 1981
Sunil and I had gone to the recreation ground in Carshalton Park where we met his friends Colin and Paul. Colin had a perfect Elvis quiff, every time I looked at it, I felt a bit of quiff envy. He also had a big Rock n’ Roll Jacket, it wasn’t leather, but he still looked the part. Paul was very tall, well-built, and had bright ginger hair. He seemed a bit of a gentle giant, a little depressed and slightly dislocated, but then none of us seemed to fit together outside of being misfits. We were a gang of slightly too old teenagers hanging around the playground and would’ve normally had little time for each other, but the empty spaces around us pushed us together. Having my camera with me seemed to set me apart though, it made me feel like a not-present observer. My arms probably set me apart a little too, but I’d forgotten all about them.
Nearby a couple of girls were sitting on the children’s roundabout chatting while slowly pushing it around with their feet. A small child waited patiently for them to get off, but they weren’t going to, so, after a few minutes, he got on anyway and started to push it faster. The girls pushed their shoes to the ground to hinder his efforts while nonchalantly chatting.
Sunil knew one of the girls and nodded knowingly at one of them while quietly saying, “See the one with ginger hair, she’s up for it.”
Quiff Boy Colin quipped, “How do you know? Have you got off with her then?”
“Nah, mate,” Sunil laughed as if he wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole.
“Well, how do you know then?” Colin asked again.
Sunil nodded sagely, “I hear things.”
We could’ve been in an American teenage gangster film if the sky hadn’t been so overcast.
“I’ll call them over. You’ll see.”
Sunil then shouted, “Hey, Jacqui, come over here!”
“Fuck off!” came the reply.
Sunil leapt off his swing, “Let’s go and chat with them.”
So, we coolly dismounted from our swings too and ambled towards them.
“You got a fag?” Sunil asked.
Jacqui flicked ash from her cigarette. “I don’t smoke.”
He smiled. “I don’t either”.
We all climbed on the roundabout and started to push it in the opposite direction. It came to an ominous stop for a moment then started to move.
“Don’t go fast,” Jacqui shouted.
The little kid’s eyes lit up as he barked, “Go fast, go fast!”
We all held on tight and put our heads near the middle to make it more bearable while Paul and Sunil pushed it faster. I could feel a slight sense of nausea.
The other girl a bit angrily shouted, “Fucking hell, I feel sick, can you stop please?”
As it slowed down, she looked at me. She was tall, had long dark hair, and was slightly Indian or Middle Eastern looking.
“What’s your name then, Mr photographer?”
I looked up at her.
“Simon. What’s yours?”
“Anya.”
I took a photograph of her and the others.
“Oi! I didn’t give you permission.” Her voice was raised enough for me to be a bit worried.
I paused for a second, “I don’t need it, we’re in a public place.” (The finer points of the law might have pointed out that the land was council-owned, but I didn’t want to get into that.)
Frowning a little she pointed at me, “Well it better look good or else I’m gonna sue you.”
“How could it not look good?” I replied.
She laughed, “Such a charmer.” She squinted slightly as she looked into my eyes. Then she looked up at everyone and asked, “Do you lot wanna come back to my house, my mum’s not going to be back for a few hours, we can have some toast?”
The little kid shouted ‘Yes”, to which nearly all of us said, “Not you!” in unison. And so, with the little kid looking at us like a forlorn abandoned pet fading into the distance, we made our way to Anya’s.
* * *
1981 – 18th August – ANYA’S PLACE
We all crammed into Anya’s bedroom, the walls were cluttered with posters and pink and blue tiny flower-patterned wallpaper. A few minutes later Jacqui and Anya come in with some mugs of tea, a plate full of white bread toast soaked in butter and a jar of marmite.
Now before we go any further, I just want to point out that if you find the following dialogue a bit naff, it’s not a weakness in my writing skills but is accurate to the kind of conversations we, as slightly socially dislocated teenagers who’d watched too much of the TV programme Grange Hill, had in the 1980s.
Sunil pursed his lips, and cocked his head up slightly, “So, you got a boyfriend Jacqui?”.
“Yeah, I ‘av.”
“Wa’s ‘is name then?”
“Why, don’t you believe me?”
“Yeah,” he paused, “just wondering if I know ‘im.”
“Nah, you won’t know him, he’s at college, e’s a man, not a boy.”
Paul, who had been silent since we arrived, made an, “ooh” sound, then went quiet again.
“I’m a man,” Sunil, irritated paused again, “I’ll prove it if you want.”
Jacqui laughed, “Yeah, you’d love to try. I bet”.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sunil said, raising one side of his top lip. As he looked a little like Elvis, albeit an Indian one, I had a slight moment of curled-lip envy.
Anya decided to take things on a different tack.
“I just got a new guitar, can anyone sing?”
“Simon can do a good Elvis,” Sunil said laughing as he offered me up for sacrifice.
Colin looked a bit put out, to my delight.
“Oh, that’s good, I’ve got an Elvis song in my guitar book.”
She pulled out a ‘Start Playing the Guitar’ pamphlet and strummed a few chords from, Can’t Help Falling in Love. Her playing was stilted and slightly out of tune, but I sang a few lines, while at the same time eating toast.
Big Paul started clapping, demanding an encore.
So, we did.
I grabbed my camera and took a photograph of her playing.
“Wow,” Anya looked at me, “you’re brilliant, don’t you think so Jax?”
Jacqui politely nodded in a direction not discernible by the naked eye. Anya stood up and started clearing away the plates and mugs, and along with Jacqui took them downstairs. After they’d been gone a while Sunil turned to Colin, “Well, what do you think then? I don’t like the look of your one mate.”
Colin laughed, made a face back at Sunil and said, “I don’t like the look of yours”.
“No mate,” Sunil shook his head, “Can’t you tell, Jacqui’s well inta me.”
Colin looked incredulously at Sunil, “Yeah right, you’re fuckin well deluded”.
“Who’s deluded?” Anya asked as she came back into the room unexpectedly.
“Sunil is, he thinks he’s got a chance with Jacqui.” Paul chirped in.
Anya nodded her head from side to side, “Hold on, I’ll find out.”
She walked out of the room and shouted down to Jacqui who was still in the kitchen. “Has Sunil got a chance of getting off with you Jax?”
Jacqui shouted back laughing “Yeah, I’d give him one, one in a million.”
Sunil smiled optimistically, “See, you heard her, she’d give me one.”
Shaking her head even more vigorously this time, Anya sighed “Yep, you’re deluded, mate”. Then gesticulated for everyone to get up, as it was time to go.
“Anyway, c’mon, my mum’s gonna be back soon so you better all go otherwise she’s gonna have a right ol’ go.”
As we all got ready, and the others went ahead, Anya asked me for my phone number, which was a bit of a new one for me. “Why don’t you come round and we can do some music together.” She suggested.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” I said smiling and feeling buoyant. I went home. It’d been a good day.
* * *
1st September 1981 – ANYA – Night Out
A few weeks later Anya and I met up.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“Let’s go to the cinema,” she said excitedly.
So, we went to the one in Sutton, where a film called “Outland” was on. After about 15 minutes Anya leant towards me and quietly whispered. “This is shit, let’s get out of here.”
I nodded in agreement and as we walked out, I asked what she fancied doing.
“Let’s go up to London,” her face beamed a big smile.
“And do what?” I asked.
“Walk around a bit then come back home.” She looked like a prisoner who’d just escaped.
“Okay,” I said while thinking, “Well, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”
We took the bus to Morden Tube station then the Underground up to Leicester Square and just as planned, we walked amongst the crowds and the dodgy street vendors. After an hour of sitting on benches, and walking and talking, we headed back home on the Underground. As the train swayed us from side to side, Anya, who was sitting opposite me, told me all about a great new band called The Jam who she’d seen a few times. As she talked wildly about them, she put her foot gently between my legs. I didn’t feel any in-love feelings towards her, but she turned me on.
* * *
1981 – Don’t Listen to Me Fa fa fa fa fashion
I hadn’t listened to The Jam because I was a rocker and that style of music belonged to The Mods who were technically Rockers’ enemies and had been for decades. The ’60s, ’70s and ‘80s were especially full of rivalry and conflict associated with musical styles. Was it partly because once army conscription ended, the pent-up energy and anger of young men had to be redirected somehow, or was it just due to tribal tendencies? Whatever was behind it, the music world was extremely demarcated into style-related camps, of which you were only supposed to choose one, and from then on, all others were off-limits. Well, at least that was the rule for teenagers. The rules would come to change as you got older. At that point, you’d be allowed to like a variety of styles, but even then, some were still off-limits. If you listened to them, you were very, very uncool.
The world was much more demarcated back then. For Catholics or Protestants going into each other’s churches was still a big issue. It was the same in the art world where similar snobberies existed, maybe even more so. In turn, they partly related to education which also relates to class. If you were working class, ballet, opera and classical music would most likely feel alien as would conceptual and abstract art. Similarly, listening to music your parents listened to was also a no-no. Music was, and still is, a fashion victim, no matter how great or rubbish it ever is or was.
In the late ’70s and ’80s, there were a lot of developments in the music world. It was partly driven by technological advances (synthesisers, drum machines, samplers, digital recording and music technology becoming available to more people). But by the mid-1990s there were very few new significant stylistic developments within the music world. Other things had a big effect, such as home studios, MP3 files and the Internet. But since then, while there have been many fantastic artists, I can’t think of any great new musical styles. Can you?
In the early ’80s music was a big part of people’s lives, there were loads of new sounds and even I started to allow myself to listen to many other artists apart from Elvis and Dire Straits. Music would continue to fill my life, not just for the sake of filling an empty space but because it was full of nourishment for body, mind, heart and soul. Even if music echoed the pain in us, it also made it clear that such pain is an important part of our lives and shouldn’t always be avoided. Music was, for many of us, our ‘safe space’ where we could open our hearts to our deepest joys and sorrows.
* * *
September 1981 – Anya – Shouting Quietly
A few days after our night out I spoke to Sunil who told me Anya wanted me to be her boyfriend. I knew he wasn’t joking as she’d made it quite clear to me already, however, even though she had a fantastic body and was good-looking looking it didn’t feel right to me.
I wondered what it would feel like to her if I were to say I didn’t want to go out with her. I knew what it was like to feel rejected and didn’t want someone else to feel the same way. Even so, I decided that the next time I saw her I’d tell her. The only thing about that was, I hadn’t considered she’d be with her friend Jacqui. So, instead, I ended up inviting them both in and we had lunch together, after which they went off without me. By this point, I was almost in a state of despair, so I phoned Anya and asked if she’d pop around the next day. She said she would but when the time came, she called to cancel. I squirmed when she said, “Don’t worry my love, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Well, she probably didn’t say those exact words, but whatever she did say, that’s what I heard.
Finally, a few days later she invited me around to her place. I went there ready to deliver the ‘bad news’ and just when I got the courage to tell her, she started snogging me, which I found quite a turn-on, so I thought to myself, ‘Well, c’mon, there’s no rush is there?’ and didn’t attempt to push her away.
Of course, I kicked myself for not telling her when I got back home. ‘What was I playing at?’ I shouted to myself, very quietly. This was going to be a conversation I would end up repeating many times throughout my life. Still, I vowed I’d tell her the next time we met. What I didn’t count on was that she didn’t get in contact with me for another month, by which point I couldn’t see the harm in meeting up. Part of me, yes, we know which part, hoped she might like the idea of meeting occasionally for a snog and not want any more commitment than that. This time though, things were a bit different.
Instead of trying to have a kiss she just wanted to chat. Just as I got ready to go, I thought, ‘I won’t bother coming again’, but then she asked if she could borrow my poetry book, saying she’d return it a few days later (which she didn’t). However, a week later she phoned to see if I’d like to go to London with her again, but my leg was very sore so I couldn’t. Another week passed, and this time I called her and asked if it was okay for me to pop around to get my poetry book back. She said yes, but when I got there, there was no answer. As you can imagine I was a little pissed off. I walked back home and called her to find out what was going on. She said she couldn’t have heard the doorbell. I was adamant that next time I saw her I would blank her.
A few days later I was in Carshalton High Street, and just as I came out of the bank she passed by. I so wanted to blank her but instead, I merrily said, “Hi Anya.”
“Oh! Hi Simon. Sorry about the other night, I can’t believe I didn’t hear the doorbell. I bet you were annoyed. I am sorry.”
I smiled, “Oh, it’s okay, these things happen. Don’t worry, I completely understand.”
About a week later I went to her place where I drew a picture of Paul Weller, the lead singer from The Jam. We had a good chat, and she gave me my poetry book back and showed me a letter from a friend of hers saying they liked some of my poems. And that was the last time I saw Anya until I decided to get in contact one lonely day six months later.
* * *
March 1982 – Anya
At the beginning of March, I was still yearning to hear from Jules and hoping against all odds that she’d come back to me. In my diary, there were pages of my angsty bullshit, self-pity and even more self-delusion than I tell myself nowadays. But for all of that, it didn’t take me long at all to firstly approach Lorna, and then Anya. It wasn’t that I was trying to replace Jules, I was just trying to avoid the pain of grieving by creating periods where I could forget her. I started to use sexual behaviour as a kind of analgesic, just as someone might do with alcohol or drugs. It was a cocktail of socialising and sexualising. Previously I’d just been a habitual user of the socialising drug, but now I’d moved on to this harder combination.
Halfway through March, I met up with Anya, who I probably bored stiff talking about my break-up and how upset I was. She was very sympathetic and had her mum’s boyfriend not been in the room next to us, may have consoled me further with her beautiful breasts. But nothing happened.
A week later I called Anya, and she said I could come around but as she was going to be out for a little while would leave a key out for me, so I could let myself in, which I did. After a few hours, she still hadn’t turned up, so I went home feeling annoyed. I called her the next day and had a go at her which she didn’t react well to. “I’ve just about had enough of her mucking me about,” I thought to myself.
The next time I felt I needed a distraction, I didn’t bother calling Anya, instead, I went to see Lorna. Things between her and I soured quickly once we both sensed there was a dislocation. So, after a couple of weeks, I finally recognised I had to be strong and face the situation head-on and start to heal or be weak and keep finding solace in the arms of an analgesic situation. So, one Friday evening at the beginning of April I decided not to go to karate and instead visit Anya.
Things didn’t go to plan though as she had some friends pop around, so, it ended up as just a social event but as consolations go, I was happy with that. The distraction had been enough to help me get through a difficult evening. Still, for Anya, this may have come across as me being interested in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with her because a week later she invited me around in the daytime when her mum was out.
When I got to her place, Anya greeted me wrapped in a purple towel. “Sorry,” she said, I’m not quite ready.”
“Oh, okay, sorry about that,” I said.
She started walking upstairs, looked over her shoulder and said, “It’s okay, you can come upstairs.”
So, I obediently followed her to her room. She started drying her hair while talking with me. I couldn’t hear what she was saying properly, so she stopped the hairdryer and walked over to where I was sitting on her bed. She let her wet hair touch my head and face. I looked up at her. She then leaned down and kissed me.
“Do you want to see my body?” she whispered.
Trying not to sound too eager I whispered/stammered, “Yes,” Then, trying not to show I was going to gulp, I gulped.
She stood upright and slowly undid her towel.
She had very long legs and large breasts. She kissed me again and then lay down on her bed. I stood up took my T-shirt off then as quickly and un-seductively as possible took off my trousers and my prosthetic foot. I don’t think she was too bothered about any of that though. I lay down next to her, and we started to kiss and touch each other. This was my first fully naked experience with a woman. Even though she was 17, as far as I was concerned, she was a woman.
For many of us, there’s a change in our lovemaking as we become more experienced where the focus on what we’re doing changes into what I would describe as entering a lower conscious dreamy world of connection. It’s hard to describe it, but it is as if we enter a dimension in which our archetypes live, but instead of being scary it’s enrapturing. Well, this was not one of those occasions. I wanted to lose myself in kissing her body, but instead, I tried to be a good lover. So, I kissed her between her legs because I was sure that’s what a lot of women would like, even if I wasn’t aware of the finer points of such things. Fortunately, for both of us, she reacted well, telling me how lovely it was and after a while, she told me she’d come. She then pulled me up to her, so we were face to face. “Do you want to fuck me?” She said wrapping her legs around me. I said yes.
Slowly I pushed my penis towards her vagina. But instead of it going in I felt a painful sensation, so stopped pushing. “I don’t think I can,” I said.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “This is nice, just hold me.”
We started to kiss again, and I rubbed my penis on her thigh.
“Let me hold it,” she said.
So, I sat up and she placed her fingers around it and gently pulled downwards on it.
“Ouch,” I flinched.
She let go. “What’s wrong?” she said looking at me like she’d done something awful.
I wasn’t sure but I suggested that if she didn’t pull my foreskin back it shouldn’t hurt.
“Like this?” She asked as tenderly as her fingers touched me.
“Yes, that’s nice,” I said, moving towards her to kiss her again.
Within a short while, I ejaculated and some of the semen fell right between her legs. I immediately panicked and as romantically as possible grabbed her pyjamas which were lying on her bed and tried to wipe it away.
Within that moment of coming my whole being seemed to change. Firstly, I was worried about even the slightest risk of getting her pregnant, and secondly, I didn’t want to be close to her anymore. It was as if someone had pressed a button and my real feelings had been released while those pretend ones, the ones that feigned interest, evaporated into the universe, forever gone. Only, as I would find out in time, they were never gone for long and often I’d come to wonder which set of feelings and thoughts were my true ones. But at this moment, I was introduced to just how split I was when it came to these sexual situations.
These wouldn’t be the only type of sexual scenarios I would find myself in, but they were ones I’d repeat continually throughout my life. There were many other times when I didn’t want to pull away after I’d orgasmed, but as I was to find out later these would most likely be with women who I’d want to be with properly, only to find that they weren’t into me as much as I was them. So, maybe subconsciously I’d picked that up, so it allowed me to feel connected because I knew it was still part of the pursuer-distancer dynamic which I seemed so attached to. Or it could be something else, for instance, maybe deep down I did believe they were the one, but I would later come to sabotage the situation as I couldn’t deal with such a balanced relationship.
Anyway, this was my introduction to a part of myself I hadn’t previously known existed, and it did not fit neatly with my beliefs about romantic relationships, at all.
* * *
April 1982 – Regret
For the next week, I felt very worried that I might have impregnated Anya. No matter how unlikely it could be, there was still a microscopic chance, and that played on my mind. “From now on I’m going to be damn careful,” I told myself. Okay, it’s easy to laugh now, but at that moment I meant it. I hadn’t got my head around just how easy it is to go against our principles when lust raises its head.
I wrote in my diary, ‘If she’s pregnant I may as well have no legs either as I won’t be going anywhere. I’d be damned on earth.’ I was so worried that for a few days, I flagellated myself (metaphorically speaking – I’m not that kinky). I went to the park and thought hard about not only being more careful but putting more important things ahead of sex, which no longer seemed worth the hassle. ‘It’s time to move on.’ I wrote ‘Get that Brown Belt, finish unfinished work, practice painting, and focus on my schoolwork’.
About two weeks later, I spoke to Anya on the phone. She wasn’t pregnant. It was then I truly understood the significance of the grand celebrations at the end of some of the Star Wars movies, as well as how people felt when they reached for the heavens in films and shouted “Freedom.”
Five days later Anya asked if I wanted to come around. I said yes. We ended up in bed. But this time I made sure I didn’t come anywhere near her vagina. That night though, her mother rang me up. I wasn’t in at the time, so Mum took the call. Anya’s mother said I wasn’t to see her anymore. Anya had left some incriminating evidence which meant her mother worked out what we’d been up to, and that I was a bad influence. My mother said, “It takes two to tango,” and things got left like that. Yet again it was the parents who brought one of my relationships to an end. But this time I was slightly relieved. It gave me an excuse to get out of a relationship I knew wasn’t good for either of us. Without rejecting Anya directly, it also gave me a bit of kudos, at least in my deluded mind, and Mum’s, who thought it was quite funny.
Still, I felt bad for Anya, so I wrote her a letter and asked one of her friends to pass it on to her. Her friend asked me why I got off with Anya if I wasn’t that interested in her. I replied, “I don’t know, I ask myself the same question.” The simple answer was because I’m somewhat of a prick, but, well there may be other reasons too, but that’d be a whole other book, and the prick answer does the job for most people.
* * *
Last Call for Anya
About a month later Anya called me, she told me she loved me and asked if I felt the same. I said I didn’t so she told me to fuck off and slammed the phone down. That was the last time we saw or spoke to each other, well, at least, for the next thirty-three years.
* * *
2015 – Anya
I was scanning some of my old photographs and came across the photos I took of Anya the first time we met, the ones in the recreational ground, and the one of her playing the guitar in her room. It didn’t take long to find her on Facebook. She’s got grown-up kids of her own now, in fact, she has grandkids too. When I first contacted her she wrote, “Your name doesn’t ring any bells but it was a long, long time ago. LOL”. I then described what I looked like and she remembered me. She’s still very involved in listening to music but I’m not sure if she’ll ever listen to the songs I didn’t write about her or even remember not to forget me again.
* * *
April 1982 – Anya – Poem
Here’s a poem I wrote about Anya back then:
In her arms
I may lay using
And in hers
I will dream
The most precious meanings
Catch me
On black and yellow days
Such as these
* * *
Moving on – Girl Friends (Part 2)
By late April I had recovered from the emotional wreckage of being in my version of Romeo and Juliet with Jules. Outside of what had gone on with Anya, I tended to be mainly interested in girls for friendship. Some people believe that it’s very difficult for men and women to be friends, however, if at least one of the two is uninterested in the other then that makes the possibility of friendship far greater. Most of the time the girls I became friends with were the ones who were uninterested in the other person (i.e. me). But that often did the trick as far as I was concerned. As long as they didn’t show any interest in me, I wouldn’t get my hopes up, well, not normally.
* * *
Jackie and Other Girl Friends
In one of the life drawing classes I went to at SCOLA, there was a girl called Jackie. She was very polite, considerate and pretty. She was also very careful not to show anything but friendliness towards me. One day, after the class finished, she invited me to her home where I was welcomed to stay for dinner. At the table was her father who was a university professor, her very friendly mother and her two extremely characterful sisters, plus a few other family friends. This was something that I could only dream of in terms of an image of family life. Of course, I didn’t know what their life was really like, but in terms of an image, it was ideal.
Maybe because Jackie had a boyfriend that made it even easier to see her as a friend only. In terms of building up a pool of “girlfriends” who I wasn’t romantically involved with, Jackie was one of the first who I’d see quite a bit and have a relaxed relationship with. It wasn’t a big friendship, but there was a sense of being comfortable around each other, and this added a dimension of connection to my life that had been lacking previously.
When it came to female relationships the graduations between the types that existed in my life started to become much subtler. Previously, after I hit puberty, there had been girls I was interested in, most of whom were not interested back, pen friends, girls I chatted to on the bus, and, girls I’d known as a child who I thought might be worth chatting up but soon found out that they felt very let down when I did. So, while a part of me used women for my sexual gratification, other parts started to have genuine friendships with them. As these new relationships became a bigger part of my life, I realised the value of having opposite-sex friendships, but, as I was to find out in time, not everyone would be comfortable with that.
* * *
1982 – Voyeurism
One night as I went to close the curtains to the front room, I noticed the new neighbours across the street in their un-curtained bedroom. I quickly switched the lights off, came back to the window and pulled the curtains almost shut, leaving a gap between them big enough to look through.
The new neighbours seemed to have forgotten they were potentially on stage to the likes of me. I waited, hoping to see the woman getting undressed. Given I must have seen tens of women naked in real life already, especially in life-drawing classes, you’d have thought I wouldn’t be interested in seeing another one, especially from such a distance, but I was.
At one point the woman switched off the light, much to my disappointment, but there was still some light coming through the doorway from their hallway. As she came out of the darkness, I could see her in silhouette. My heart rushed a little even though I wasn’t sure if she was naked. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one wondering. At that very moment, the boys who lived two doors up from me turned on a very powerful torch from their attic room and pointed it straight at the silhouetted woman’s body.
I’m not sure if she noticed. But I didn’t see her moving into view again. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the audacity of my watch-tower neighbours, even if it was just their way of welcoming the new neighbours to the hood.
* * *
Summer 1982 – Routine
My life followed an almost regimented routine by 1982. I’d get up late, as usual, chat at the bus stop with Sunil, get the bus to school, and talk to loads of people on the bus. At school, there’d be an assembly, then I’d go up to the sixth form centre, have a cup of coffee made with coffee mate milk powder and loads of sugar, then off to a class if I had one, or spend time either studying or chatting if I had a free period. In the mid-morning break, I’d probably help keep order near the tuck shop and demand a few sweets from those who’d bought too many for their own good.
The second half of the morning would follow a similar pattern to the first, but during the lunch hour, there’d be a 30-minute karate training session, usually in the gym storage cupboard. The sessions were intense, often including a thousand kicks or something else that’d test us, and then we’d all go for a quick lunch together.
The afternoon would be a repeat of the morning, bar the tuck shop break but if there weren’t any lessons, I’d get out of school early. Then I’d either go home, or to WH Smiths in Wallington to buy a record, or to Sutton Library for a bit of socialising studies, or to SCOLA for an art class.
At least twice a week I’d go to karate at either Tweeddale or Westcroft. The latter had a bar, so after the training session, I’d join the other trainees there for a drink of orange and soda water and a chat.
Outside of this routine, I’d meet up with friends, or stay home where I’d listen to music, watch TV and most likely argue with John. Sometimes an opportunity to break the routine would arise, such as going up to London to see Julia, the nurse I’d met at Roehampton, and it was during one of these adventures I went from being a boy to becoming a…
* * *
15th of May 1982 – Eileen S
Julia lived in Sinclair Mansions, which was a red brick tenement-style building on a quiet road at the back of Shepherds Bush Shopping Centre. Once through the main ominous door, I’d have to go up a couple of flights of stairs to a flat Julia shared with three other people.
This time I rang the doorbell and a short while later a stranger opened the door. There was a sudden sound of music, chatting and laughter. A guy with spikey hair stood there, looked me up and down and said, “Hi, are you here for the party?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m a friend of Julia’s.”
“Oh, come in sweetheart,” he said while grabbing and pulling me in.
“Julia, Julia,” he shouted, “You’ve got a visitor.”
Julia came over, cuddled me and said, “C’mon I’ll get you a drink and introduce you to a few people.”
She poured me a plastic cup of cider, which I made last a few hours, (I hadn’t quite got the knack of wanting to get drunk) and spent the night chatting with everyone I could. This was a whole new world to me, but in a way, I still felt more like an observer than a participant.
There was music, but not a lot of dancing, it was more a case of small groups of people standing and chatting together while wriggling to the beat. There was one woman there with blue hair and loads of dark makeup around her eyes. To me, she was stunning-looking. For this, I could probably blame the film, ‘Carry on Screaming’ in which Fenella Fielding played a vamp comic femme-fatale. From the moment I saw her in it I had a bit of a thing for vamp-looking women… I had my camera with me so took a few photos of the party including one of the blue-haired woman, but either I was too scared to talk to her, or she wasn’t having any of it when I did.
One of my other enduring memories from the party was chatting to a bloke and his wife, then a bit later watching him pass his number surreptitiously to another woman. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for his wife. I was still quite idealistic when it came to relationships even though I was already witnessing my fall from grace.
The party went on till about 5 am, at which point there were just a few people left. I was supposed to have slept in one of Julia’s flatmates’ bedrooms, but all the occupants’ bedrooms were otherwise engaged, so, I was shown how to set up the sofa bed and left to my own devices.
I started to get the bed sorted out when a woman came out of the bathroom. She was about 34, my height, had long black hair and wore a long hippie-styled skirt and a light loose-fitting blouse. She looked at me looking at her.
“Do you want me to help you with that darling?” she asked.
“Erm, okay, I was only shown how to do it a few minutes ago but I’ve forgotten already.”
She laughed, “Have you had too much to drink?”
I stood up straight and turned towards her. “No, I don’t drink”.
She came over to the sofa bed instead of helping to unfold it sat down and patted the seat next to her.
“That’s a bit strange, not drinking I mean,” she said, “What’s your name then?”
“Simon, what’s yours?”
“I’m Eileen.”
We chatted for a while, and then without any warning, she gently slid towards me so her back came to rest at my side. We both went quiet. She pushed her head towards my face. I gently stroked my nose and lips against the back of her head.
“That’s nice,” she said, “Really nice.”
She then turned around, so she was facing me and slowly brought her mouth to mine. We kissed gently for a while and then the kisses got deeper and more passionate.
Suddenly she stood. “Let’s turn this into a bed then.”
I stood up too, “Okay.”
So, we pulled out the mattress and threw the bedding over it. Eileen stood up, kicked off her sandals, and took off her shirt so she was bare-breasted and with her skirt still on, she lay down. I on the other hand took all my clothes off as quickly as I could. At that point, Julia came out of her room to go to the loo. On the way back she looked at me as if to say, “What the fuck are you doing with her”, which might mean that Eileen wasn’t as good-looking as I remember, but for the purpose of this story, she was stunningly beautiful.
After a few minutes of us kissing and me spiralling my face around her breasts towards her nipples then back out again – something I’d read in a book was supposed to be a good technique – I still hadn’t got to the point, nor would I for a long while, where technique would be less focused on.
I said, “Can you take your skirt off, I want to feel your legs?”
This wasn’t the whole truth, but I was sure she’d understand what I meant.
“Okay”, she said, “but I’ve got my period so we’re not going to have sex this time.”
“That’s okay,” I said while thinking, “Thanks for mentioning periods.”
I had a bit of an issue with periods, partly because Mum occasionally left her used sanitary towels in my room because she’d come in to get things from the airing cupboard and then forget to take them to the bathroom to be disposed of. Plus, I also had some issues to do with blood that would be talked about in therapy a few years later. But back then, thinking about periods was a bit of a problem for me.
Anyway, it couldn’t have been that much of an issue because I was still up for it. What I hadn’t counted on though was her underwear was made of a rough golden sparkly material which had similar sensual properties to sandpaper. She grabbed my penis and started rubbing it against her golden vulva of death, at which point I began to think this wasn’t quite going to plan, and my penis thought the same.
She stopped grinding my cock and pushed me onto my back. Putting her head near my groin she started speaking as a children’s presenter might start talking to a glove puppet.
“Oh dear, are you feeling a little shy? Do you need a kiss hello?”
Part of me wanted to answer, “No, he just doesn’t like having his head reshaped by your sandpaper knickers,” But instead what came out was, “Yes,” and an accompanying realisation that TV presenter voices were, surprisingly, quite a turn-on.
She then put my penis in her mouth, “Finally, I thought, a real blow job, this is going to be fantastic… Here goes”, but then all I could feel were her sharp teeth digging into me. Within seconds, I lost my erection and realised that my belief that blow jobs were one of the most pleasurable experiences in life, turned out to be a fallacy.
She then guided me on top of her, where she got me to position my hip between her legs.
“Just push there darling, just rock gently there, yes that’s it.”
I did as I was told. We kissed and stroked each other, and even though to me as a 17-year-old, she was quite old, she looked beautiful (remember, this is my version, okay?). I began to feel something of a connection with her. That was until she decided to dig her sharp nails into my back.
“Ouch!” I yelped, “That hurts.”
She paused, looked at me a bit sternly and said, “Do you want me to carry on?”
“Yes,” I said a bit doubtfully.
“Then stop being a baby,” she said as if she was talking to a child, which unfortunately again was a bit of a turn-on. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Seventeen,” I said, slightly hesitantly, wondering whether adding “and a half” might help matters.
“Don’t be seventeen with me,” she said, then repeated it about five times, looking slightly disturbed. Which again added a slightly seductive quality to the situation.
Eventually, I came, and she said she did too.
“I always feel very horny when I’m having my period,” she added.
“That’s so nice to hear,” I thought.
“Listen,” she said, “I’m going to go off now, do you want my number?”
“Yes definitely,” I said.
The morning light was coming up. She gave me her phone number, kissed me goodbye and as she let herself out whispered, “I’ll see you again.”
If I were to write a song about this experience, it would be one where at the beginning of the night I was a boy, and by the end of it, I was a mouse. I expect for her too, this may have been a memorable experience for all the wrong reasons.
I knew we weren’t ever going to live happily ever after together, or apart, but for a 17-year-old boy/man/mouse, it was a pretty cool experience, even if I did feel a little depressed about it the next day, which was probably because I realised that none of this was in the service of me meeting the love of my life.
Nowadays she’d probably be locked up for abuse, but back then it wasn’t seen as such, because it wasn’t.
* * *
Diary Entry 17th May 1982
I told the blonde girl on the bus, Phil, Cameron and Allen the caretaker about Eileen. Her words were echoing in my head. She was like a witch. I reckon that’s why she turns me on. I phoned her today. I hope I’ll see her soon.
* * *
1941 – Moshe and Battiya’s Story Part 1
My father was the youngest of five. Bettie was the eldest, she stood with a straight back, would look anyone in the eye when they spoke, and had an inner strength about her. Then there was Rue, acting responsibly was his guiding principle, no doubt a reaction to his father’s failure to do so. He would eventually become a successful businessman and world-class long-distance desert runner. Battiya was the middle child. She had eyes full of sadness, but still, there was a fortitude in her weakness. After her came her two brothers, Eliezer, the artist, and then my father, Boris. Boris and Battiya were opposites in their approach to life and personalities, but they were still very close.
Moshe was from the same hometown as Boris and his siblings. He was one of the few people who’d beaten my father in a fight. Boris was always quick to remind me that they were “just kids then, and anyway, Moshe was older and had cheated by using a stone to bash” him into submission. When it comes to childhood fights it’s hard to forget the ones we lose. Moshe and Battiya had known each other since their early childhood often sitting next to each other in their classes in Rēzekne. As they grew up, they lost contact but in their early twenties, in a social club for young Jewish people in Riga, they reconnected and later, fell in love.
By 1941 the war had engulfed much of the world and Riga was just about to become one of the latest flashpoints between Germany and Russia. The encroaching threat of death posed by the Nazis focused the minds, and hearts, of all those who lay in its path. This wasn’t the best of times to get married, but for Moshe and Battiya, the perilous nature of their existence tilted the balance, so, with just her sister Bettie and a couple of friends, they made their vows and became husband and wife.
Barely a week after the ceremony the Soviet authorities ordered Moshe to relocate to Siberia. The German army was just days away from occupying the city, and the future was terrifying for all the Jews who remained. Siberia was known as an ice-filled version of Hell, but to anyone trapped in Riga, it was a Godsend.
With just one hour’s notice to get to the station, Moshe and Battiya packed whatever essentials they could. What becomes essential when you’re only allowed to take one small case each? If you had to make that choice right now, what would you choose?
For their wedding, Bettie had given them a set of three small matching cases. Grabbing them, Battiya packed warm clothes into one, while Moshe crammed money, valuables, paperwork, and a couple of tools for work into the other. After one last check, Moshe picked up his case and then went to pick up Battiya’s.
“No,” she said, “It’s okay, I’ll carry mine,” she picked it up, “and anyway, it’s light, see?”
“Yes, I know, you’re a lot stronger than you look,” Moshe said smiling.
They hurriedly left their tiny apartment and made their way to the station.
As the last train out of Riga prepared for the journey ahead, they stood side by side in the queue on the platform. Battiya half knelt to double-check her case.
“Oh no,” she said looking up at Moshe. She opened the case wider so he could see that it was filled with scarves and handkerchiefs. Somehow the cases had got mixed up.
“I thought you’d put the ones we were taking together?” She said.
He shook his head, “I just grabbed the case nearest the door in the bedroom and put it in the hallway.”
Battiya started to cry, “No, I told you, the one I packed was on the bed!”
Moshe now exasperated, said, “I didn’t see it, I thought you said it was in the bedroom. I just grabbed the one nearest the door.”
There was a moment while they were tempted to continue blaming each other, but Battiya looked down at the case and put her face in her hands.
“Please Moshe, run back and fetch it.”
Again, he shook his head, “I can’t. We’ll miss the train and they said there won’t be another after this one.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “There’ll be another. We are going to die without our winter clothes. You have to get them.”
Moshe crouched beside her, he wanted to console her, but his anger was getting the better of him. “We’ll be okay, it won’t be that cold for months. I’ll make sure we get some winter clothes before then.”
She could hear the reassurance she yearned for in the words he said but couldn’t feel it in their tone. They both went quiet, looked away from each other and bit their lips.
“I can’t believe this,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it somehow.”
Under her breath, Battiya said, “Don’t worry he says”.
Moshe was just about to approach one of the guards to ask if he had time to get the other case when the guard pointed at them, “Hey, you two, yes you, quickly, it’s time, get on.”
They stood up and walked towards a carriage, the guard barked at them to hurry up. Moshe helped Battiya up the steps first, where a man inside reached down to help her, and then passed the cases up. As Moshe grabbed the step rail the man pulled him up too. Slightly out of breath, Moshe smiled, put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and thanked him. Moshe looked at Battiya because, to them, there was something unnerving about this act of gallantry.
Above the sound of the train preparing to set off came the screeching sound of a plane approaching at speed. Those still queueing on the platform ran for cover. Moshe and Battiya were still in the doorway. They were not paralysed by fear but instead entered a different dimension of time. Everything moved at a tenth of normal speed. Moshe pulled Battiya towards him and turned her as if they were dancing, he wanted his back to face the platform hoping this might offer her some protection.
A rally of bullets ricocheted nearby as the pilot tried his best to disable the train. A couple of Red Army guards shot back, while the train driver released as much steam as possible in a futile attempt to create a kind of smoke screen. The pilot flew off into the distance, there was a moment of relief, but then he turned around and approached once more.
* * *
Written by Simon Mark Smith
First draft edit: Ros Finney
The fourth draft edit: Pauline Smith
Copyright © Simon Mark Smith 2021
This is the blog version
