by Paul Charles
Fahrenheit Press 2016
One of Our Jeans is Missing
By
PAUL CHARLES
Part One: Before.
Chapter One.
When you’re talking, I mean when I’m talking, I hear this voice in my head saying these exact same words. But I often wonder do other people hear my voice the same way. Like now, for instance: Do you hear me talking in the same quiet tones I can hear from myself? And if you can, do you wonder how I can tell you what I’m about to tell you with such a calm voice?
I mean it’s just another story of ordinary people and I certainly couldn’t claim that any of us, any of us involved, is special or anything like that. I guess what I’m trying to say is, things happen. It’s not that you start out wanting to be involved in a drama. No really, I’m serious! The majority of us grow up in good families. We are brought up, I believe, knowing that in order to have an easier life there has to be order. When you get down to it, it really is as simple as that.
The laws of the land are there simply to protect us. The rules of our forefathers tend to keep the wheels of society running smoothly for most of us. Fundamentally there is no real advantage to breaking the law. Is there? I mean, really? When you think about it, it is much better to know that when you hear the screech of the tyres and the wail of the siren, the police car won’t be pulling up outside your house.
But you meet people, don’t you? You interact with them, they (and others) interact with you and before you know it something is happening and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones? When I first moved down to London I remember thinking that living life was a bit like being in a car that was out of control. You might not crash into something, but on the other hand, you just might. I guess what I’m trying to suggest here is that it’s totally beyond your control. I think it is the ability to close your eyes at the appropriate moment and push the accelerator to the floor that gets you through this thing they call life.
Now that I’ve started to talk I’m no longer preoccupied with how my voice sounds and so I feel a bit better about telling you all of this. I find it takes a while to get started up, to get to that point where I tune out of the sound of the voice and the effect of the words, and the story takes over. And I have to tell you that this is a story that took over my life completely.
It is the story of how five people woke up one morning to find themselves involved in a mystery. Well, the real problem was that we didn’t know if a certain member of our five had woken up at all. But, as they frequently say in the movies, ‘Let’s start at the beginning’.
Chapter Two.
My name is David Buchanan. I moved from Northern Ireland to Wimbledon on September 27, 1967. I didn’t leave the wee North because of the Troubles – that happened somewhat later and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this tale. I grew up in a small village in County Derry called Castlemartin. I loved my parents – I still do, and they love me. I had a happy childhood and enjoyed my time in Castlemartin. Okay, no problems so far.
I moved to London, not because I wanted to get away from anywhere, but because I wanted to go somewhere. I suppose if there had to be a single deciding factor in why I chose London, it would be music. I’ve always been into music in a big way, especially the music of Bob Dylan – a fact you no doubt noted in the earlier silent quote. I find that slightly strange, you know, the fact that I would still claim to be a fan of Bob Dylan. I’ve been listening to him now since the mid-sixties, but as I enter my fiftieth year, still claiming to be a fan, I find myself wondering what the One Direction fans will be claiming in thirty-five years’ time. That’s a bit cruel I know, but you see, that’s one of the things about music isn’t it? It’s not enough that you like certain types of music. No, don’t you see, it’s much more than that; people are equally passionate about the music they don’t like.
But we don’t need to get into that now, for although music has always been a big part of my life, it is just a part of this story, not the main part of this story. Well, at least not directly.
London, legend had it, was the world’s music capital and so I caught the Belfast to Heysham Ferry and connecting train down into Euston on September 27, 1967. It was a wee bit more complex than that, the bit about going to London for an interview and getting a job and fixing up accommodation and all that, but it’s really of no importance here. Aside from anything else, I can’t talk about my work. Don’t fret; you’re not really missing much. Work to me has always been nothing more, nor less, than a way to finance my lifestyle. I started out my life this way. At the stage I might have started to feel ambitious I was, as you’ll see, preoccupied (perhaps even obsessed) with something (someone) else. So my job has always been a means to an end and I have to say I’m happy about that. I do what I do as well as I need to, but I never take my work home with me, neither mentally nor physically.
Anyway, as autumn fell, along with the smog, I was in London and visiting the Marquee Club as often as my salary would permit. Homesickness – an illness as great as any I’ve experienced – lessened somewhat at Christmas when, during my first trip home, I found myself looking forward to returning to London. It might have been something to do with a wee girl from County Clare, whose passing comments on my desert boots I took as encouragement. I was staying in a youth hostel, located at 14 Inner Park Road, which was quite close to Wimbledon Common but the easy to remember number of its heavily used in-house phone box – Putney 1978 – testified to the fact that it was midway between Wimbledon and Putney. The girl from Clare had moved into the hostel just before Christmas. Anyway, following the holidays I invited her out, well actually, invited her in would be more accurate, if the truth be told. We sat in the hostel’s resident’s lounge on our first – and only – date, drinking tea and discussing my desert boots. It’s the truth. There was nothing else we found to talk about. Yes, true but sad, very sad.
The Clare lass went off (immediately) with one of the other residents – a Bristol lad, independently wealthy but with no desert boots – and I was left consoling myself to Dylan’s ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’. But it was a step forward. I’d been using ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limits’ (another Dylan classic) to get over my long-haired ex from back home in Castlemartin. Although maybe ex is a bit grand a word for Colette. We’d been stepping out together for several months, as in going out for long walks and discussing everything under the sun, and occasionally enjoying an innocent kiss or two along the way. Innocent kisses and half-hearted fumbling were the sum total of my experience at that stage. They were half-hearted in that neither of us wanted it to develop into anything physical, as in completely physical. Actually I have a feeling now, and I’ve thought about this a lot, that perhaps Colette was up for something more than half-hearted fumbling in those days. She didn’t find a willing partner in me though; I wasn’t ready for any of that.
Then I got stuck into London life. I met the fools that a young fool meets. I’d meet people who came into the hostel, they’d become mates and then… they’d move out. You’d lose contact and start the process over again. It didn’t bother me; with a few exceptions, people come in and out of my life, and when they go it’s no big deal. I don’t consider, or care, whether it’s a flaw in my character. It doesn’t matter. You see, I’m not exactly what you would call a loner but I seem to be quite content in my own company, always have been for as long as I can remember.
So, I started to find my way around the city. It was easy. I worked out the route from Wimbledon to the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, W1. The nearest tube was Piccadilly Circus and I figured out everything else relative to that particular route.
I’ve always devoured books and am a devoted fan of both m
ovies and music, so my world revolved around hours spent sitting in the cinema, browsing through bookshops and record stores – mostly Goodness Records on Wimbledon Bridge and, for imports, Musicland, Piccadilly Circus – and listening to people like Taste, Joe Cocker, Spooky Tooth, Cheese, Free, Traffic and Clark Hutchinson in the Marquee Club. When I couldn’t afford to ‘Go up the West End,’ I’d visit the Toby Jug in Tolworth.
Without thinking about it too much, I found the hair on my head growing and a growth appearing on my top lip – a growth that has remained to this day. My choice in clothes, while never outlandish, grew ever more liberal. I favoured granddad shirts in various colours (included even a few tie dye specials) and darker shades of loon pants. Okay, I’ll own up: I went through a period of fifteen months when I quite liked a pair of black and white checked hipsters. I also seem to remember getting a lot of wear out of a pair of corduroy shoes and, of course, the aforementioned desert boots. My uniform was completed by an old, black pinstripe waistcoat, which I bought in a jumble sale for three (old) pence and wore until the arms nearly dropped back on! Penny for penny the best buy of my life. During working hours I was dressed as soberly, but not as expensively, as a judge.
In a heartbeat, it seemed, one and a half years had passed. I’ve found it happens that way in my life. Time just waves you goodbye, passes, and later when I try to reflect on what happened during the period under consideration, I can’t think of one significant milestone or incident. Perhaps it’s for the best, eh?
But the thing I can remember, and remember vividly, is the day I first met the two Jeans.
Chapter Three.
I was sitting in the residents’ lounge of the hostel. It was a Saturday, the best time to relax in the lounge as the majority of the residents of the self-same establishment took off at the weekends. I was reading the New Musical Express, probably for the tenth time since buying it the previous morning on my way to work, and was planning the weekend’s entertainment when, from out of the blue, I heard:
‘Aye up, what goes on in ’ere then?’
I looked up to see two heads peeking out from behind the half opened door. It had been the bottom head that had spoken. She was blonde and her friend was a silky brunette.
‘Hello, I’m Jean and this is my best friend, Jean. Who are you?’ the blonde one offered, in her strong Northern English accent, before smiling and stepping into the lounge. Her friend stumbled in behind her and was now shyly stealing looks at me over the first Jean’s shoulder.
‘Sorry, I thought you said you were called Jean,’ I began, confused and putting the NME to one side.
‘Yes, I’m Jean Kerr,’ the blonde girl said.
‘And I’m Jean Simpson,’ the brunette one added immediately.
‘But who are you?’ the blonde one asked again.
‘You’ll be glad to know I’m not a Gene, as in Autry,’ I said. I don’t really know why I said that.
Well, I suppose I do. I consciously forced myself to say it. I said it rather than say my actual name and maybe hello, and goodbye, before returning to my NME. That would have been my usual response. But maybe by that point I’d spent just a few too many weekends by myself in the residents’ lounge to ignore the interruption. Here were two girls – stunning, both of them – and they were my captive audience. They were either here looking for someone (highly unlikely on the weekend) or they’d just moved into the hostel and were doing the rounds. Maybe I could be their guide.
As I said, it was a Saturday afternoon and the majority of the residents wouldn’t be back at the hostel until after work on Monday evening, which gave me at least a thirty-six hour head start over the rest of the gang.
‘Oh we know that,’ the blonde Jean replied, in her thick northern accent.
‘You’d never be a Gene, as in Simmons, wearing desert boots like those,’ the other half of the double act segued perfectly.
Okay, I was outnumbered. Surely it was a good time for me to retire gracefully.
‘My name is David Buchanan,’ I replied, rising from my sofa by the window and walking across with hand extended.
‘Oh, he’s Irish! That’s lovely, and so well-mannered to boot,’ Miss Kerr said, taking my hand.
She had quite a limp wrist (I find myself continually being tempted to add ‘to be honest’ to everything. Like just there, I was about to say, ‘She had quite a limp wrist, to be honest’. But there wouldn’t be much point in telling you that if I wasn’t going to tell you the truth now would there? Anyway, forgive me if I occasionally slip it in; it’s just a foible of mine and doesn’t mean the rest of this isn’t truthful). So, she had a limp wrist, as I say, which was surprising because she was quite solid. Not fat, just solid. She wore black, calf-length leather boots, a black and white, knee-length skirt and a black three-quarter length leather coat over a white blouse.
I’m a starer; did I tell you that already? Well I am, I’m a starer, one who stares. I still held the blonde, Jean Kerr’s, limp hand and my eyes were glued to her full breasts. Frightfully rude I know, but there you go. Even though it was March she had a tan, an all-year-round tan, and I’ll tell you what her all-year-round tan did – it made it easier to see through her blouse to the white bra underneath. You find yourself staring and then you find yourself caught staring, and then you pretend you weren’t staring at all.
Not that Jean Kerr seemed to care. In fact, she seemed the kind of girl who doesn’t really care if they do or don’t. She seemed that way on the first day and she turned out to be exactly that. She wore her sexuality as carelessly as she wore her leather jacket. It was an accessory, sometimes maybe even a necessity. But, just like the leather coat, sometimes she’d be just as happy to take it off and leave it at home. Maybe I should have said leather boots there rather than leather coat. The point being that it’s much more of a relief to take off boots than it is to remove a jacket, don’t you think? Yes, I do too, and I think that’s probably how it was for Jean Kerr.
Jean Simpson on my other hand – sorry, sorry, I meant on the other hand – stepped out from behind her friend for the first time and took my hand. She was the slighter of the two but had a much firmer handshake and there was… well… just that something altogether different from her blonde friend. She was more… more charged, more… mysterious, yes mysterious, that’s it. Jean Simpson was more mysterious than Jean Kerr. She had short (ish) dark hair to her friend’s long, flowing, blonde mane. She hardly wore any make-up at all to her friend’s heavily made-up face. Maybe the make-up was just subtler – I don’t remember. But I do remember that she wore a blue miniskirt, which displayed absolutely brilliant legs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better pair of legs in my life.
Now this might be a suitable place to pause for a few seconds. Legs! Can anyone tell me why they provide such endless attraction? We can broaden the subject a little if you’d like to include the ‘two Bs’: breasts and bums. All of them are important to me, so it’s probably best we discuss them early on. As I’ve already admitted, I really do love legs. I loved Jean Simpson’s legs the same way I love Barbara Parkins’ legs, and the same way I love Linda Cristal’s legs. The male opinion on the perfect pair of legs seems to differ somewhat from the female opinion. Men seem to prefer solid and muscular around the thighs and a bit (just a bit mind you) chunky around the calf, while women seem to prefer them thinner, spindly even. Actually getting back to Barbara Parkins and Linda Cristal for a quick final moment before we pass them by totally, I should also admit that I am also rather partial to a beautiful pair of lips. Barbara Parkins – in particular, she really has beautiful lips. And Jean Simpson’s lips were just as beautiful!
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about why it is that I think those particular people are beautiful. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that the real beauty comes from within. But I can’t see within Barbara Parkins, I couldn’t tell you what Linda Cristal’s thoughts are on global warming and, to be quite honest,
I don’t give a feck what she thinks about economic climate in Outer Closetobankruptia. I’m happier not knowing whether she has bad breath or if she leaves nail clippings or dirty laundry everywhere. Or wondering if she would shoo you off with ‘I’m not in the mood’. No, I’m totally content for her to warm my heart whenever she does, and maybe she’s attractive to me because I don’t know all these things about her. But m y big question is: why am I attracted to her in the first place? Basically we’re talking about meat packaged in skin, aren’t we? A bit basic, I know, but that’s the truth. I think I’ve worked out the reason why men need to find women attractive – why? Well the procreation of man- and womankind – of course! But I’ve never been able to work out the reason behind why we’re so attracted to them.
Let’s take the bum, for instance. Men positively drool over the exterior posterior. Men will hold back while climbing the stairs on a double-decker bus, just in the hope of catching a glimpse. I’ve watched men stare at the reflection of passing women in shop windows. That probably says a lot about me; the fact that these men are staring at these wondrous things of beauty and I’m more fascinated with the male activity.
While we’re at it, here’s another thing: the feature in question that beguiles us all so, may, in fact, be nothing more than an illusion. What’s turning us on, is not perhaps the bum itself, but more the way that bum fits into a pair of jeans (sorry, no pun intended). Don’t you see? It’s the same with breasts. The Wonderbra is a marvellous invention but the basis of its success is deception. Even lips, I’m told, can greatly benefit from discreet injections.
Perhaps both men and women have to appear to be beautiful because our privates are perhaps not our best feature? Could that be it? I don’t know. I just know that the female species is magnetic to me. This would all dovetail perfectly were I to say, ‘And that day in the residents’ lounge of the hostel, I was to fall passionately in love with Jean Simpson.’ Not true. Call me shallow if you must, but on that first day I was much more intrigued with the glitzier Jean Kerr.