by Paul Charles
I also think she was the most anxious to make a connection.
Maybe there was a bit of a competitive thing going on between the two of them. Maybe Jean Kerr wanted to be the first of the two Jeans to have a London friend or, in my case, perhaps more appropriately, a friend in London.
‘Goodness,’ I can hear you all saying, ‘he’s a quick worker.’
Not so. At first, we became friends. Not real friends, of course, we just knew of each other and acknowledged each other whenever we met. We had a few drinks, went to see a few movies together and occasionally tried, in vain, to find the Windmill of Wimbledon Common. Our relationship was kinda like ‘Yeah, and so what?’ I got to know Jean Simpson even less, mainly due to the fact that I was one of her friend’s friends.
Another nine months passed, quick as a flash, and it was time for me to move out of the hostel. I wasn’t happy to see the back of it, nor was I sad to go. It was time to move, and so I rented a flat in 14 Rostrevor Road, which was off Alexandra Road, which ran parallel to the railway tracks down in Wimbledon. As well as having a place of my own (actually shared with another chap from the hostel, but that’s a mere technicality) I could also sleep for an extra fifteen minutes each morning, as I now didn’t have to catch a bus (the number 93) to catch a train to get to work.
I figured that would be the end of Jean – Jean Kerr, I mean – but no. In fact, the opposite was true and our relationship moved to another gear. I used to envy the hostel residents who were off out of a night, to spend the evening round a friend’s flat in town. It always sounded so sophisticated – quite the thing, don’t you see. Now that I was seeing it from the outside, I realised very quickly it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Instead of staying put in the hostel, waiting for tomorrow to come, you’d stay put in a bedsit or a shared flat, waiting for the very same tomorrow.
And that’s exactly what Jean Kerr and I would do. She would come down to the flat, I’d make her a cup of tea or coffee and we’d eat a couple of Jacob’s Kimberley biscuits and then she’d eat a few more, and we’d talk about stuff, and then I’d walk her to the bus and she’d scoot off back to the hostel to tell Jean Simpson all about the splendid evening she’d just enjoyed.
In fact, Jean Kerr took to telling everyone who’d listen that I scrubbed up well. I suppose by default we were becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. Mind you, at this stage we hadn’t even kissed. But I do believe our new status had something to do with the fact that the other Jean had taken to dropping into their conversations some details about a chap she had met. Yes, a Scottish lad by the name of John Harrison appeared to be making the same transition from ‘friend’ to ‘boyfriend’ with Jean Simpson as Jean Kerr’s Irishman was making with her.
However, there was one big difference between the two couples; Jean and John’s relationship was slightly more complicated in that John was still involved, to a degree, with his previous girlfriend, Mary, who was, I’m led to believe, aggressively resisting becoming his ex.
Anyway, Jean would pass on to me little titbits of information about John Harrison. You know, things like he was a great cartoonist – a hobby not a career; things like he’d a great job in the Civil Serpents with excellent prospects; things like he was very serious about Jean and as soon as he could get out of the relationship with Mary Skeffington (for that was her name, Mary Skeffington) he wanted to become engaged to Jean Simpson.
I couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to disentangle themselves from one with such a sophisticated name as Mary Skeffington. It’s a name to positively sing out loud! I could imagine her, with her rosy cheeks and Home Counties outfit and her two kids with similar classic looks, wandering through the extensive grounds of their Cotswolds’ home, receiving lessons on nature from their doting mother.
‘So is John engaged to Mary Skeffington?’ I asked the blonde Jean, one evening after we’d watched Ready Steady Go on a crappy black and white television I’d bought for fifteen pounds.
‘For heaven’s sake, Dave,’ Jean guffawed, ‘you never listen to me, do you? No, no and no, they are most certainly not engaged!’
I try hard never to listen to anyone who calls me Dave. I hate being called Dave. My name is David, not Dave – nor Davy, nor Davey, nor even DB, as someone at work insists on calling me.
‘Well then, if he’s not engaged, I don’t really see what the problem is about him marrying Jean,’ I started.
‘They’re not getting married, for heaven’s sake,’ she gasped, gulping for air from beneath half a mouthful of tea. The tea, which missed me, splattered all over my threadbare red carpet. The stain it created would probably ensure that I lost my deposit to the landlord, but Jean wouldn’t even let me go and fetch a cloth. ‘Who told you they’re getting married? She wouldn’t get married without telling me first – I’m her best friend! She’s not going to get married before me.’
All of a sudden she eyed me as though I’d moved ten places up her list of prospects.
‘No, sorry – of course I meant engaged,’ I explained, falling back down the list again. ‘I meant, if he’s not betrothed to Mary, then I don’t really see what the problem is with him getting engaged to Jean. Perhaps they’ll marry later.’
‘Well,’ Jean replied, breaking into a whisper (the northern accent is beautiful and all, but it doesn’t really have the same charm when whispered, does it?) ‘Well,’ she whispered again, ‘apparently Mary’s a bit possessive; she’s totally in love with John and thought they were going to be together forever and ever.’
‘I can see how that could be a bit of a problem down the line, particularly at the wedding,’ I offered.
‘It’s no joke, David,’ Jean replied, her eyes full of resolve. She sat down beside me on my bed.
No, no – not like that! I should explain. You see, during the day and early part of the evening my bed doubles as a sofa. So sitting on the bed beside me wasn’t normally a big thing, except this time it was. For she took my ears in her hands, pulled my face closer to hers, stuck her lips on mine and inserted her tongue into my mouth. She had her eyes closed by this point. I only know this because mine were open. Well, I’d been told that this stuff was also a fine spectator sport and so I wanted to spectate, if you know what I mean. There she was, tickling my tonsils for a few minutes, her tongue tasting of coffee and her lipstick tasting sticky, almost unpleasant. Then, as quick as it had started it had stopped. She put me down again, went back to her chair, picked up a magazine and started to flick through it again as though nothing had happened.
Colour me shocked. What was that all about? Up to that point neither of us had showed even the slightest bit of interest in sexual over- (or under-) tones.
‘What was that all about?’ I’d thought it, so I felt I should say it, and so I did.
‘I’m having a hard time at work at the minute,’ she said. Honest to goodness, that’s what she said.
And at that moment I decided I’d better carry around a spare bottle of aftershave with me, just in case she ever got fired. Actually, I’m not even sure I would – the kiss hadn’t really been up to much; so lifeless, so sexless, so nothing. In fact, she did nothing for me in that department and I’m equally sure I did nothing for her.
‘Then,’ I hear you say, ‘how come you ended up in bed together three nights later?’
Chapter Four.
I blame Mary Skeffington.
No, seriously, it was her fault. Mary Skeffington was to blame.
Jean (Kerr) felt that Jean (Simpson) was worried that Mary (Skeffington) was making a last ditch attempt to keep John (Harrison). So Jean (Simpson) agreed to become engaged to John and the other Jean, perhaps motivated by not wanting to face the same fate as Mary, took me (David Buchanan) to my sofa and transformed it into a bed.
So how exactly did she do it? Well Jean, ever the seductress, started it all off.
‘I’m not a virgin, you know.’
‘Oh really,’ I replied. I didn’t really know whether to add ‘that�
�s nice’ or ‘that’s sad’.
But I didn’t get a chance to add anything, because she then tried to glue her lips to mine and in a quick break for air she added, ‘And I’m on the pill, so you needn’t worry.’
Okay. Right!
It was like I was a spectator at my own inauguration. And then, after the initial act, it was like she was a spectator of me spectating at my own inauguration; she just lay there, looking like she’d really rather prefer to be reading the copy of Edna O’Brien’s Factory Girls I knew she had in her bag. She was fully clothed, except for having removed that one vital, flimsy garment from beneath her skirt, and continuing to hold them in her right hand throughout the proceedings. There was a bit of ‘Could you move over that way a bit, I can’t breathe’, and then some huffing and puffing – no moaning nor groaning, mind you – and a ‘There, that’s better’. And then she merely settled down to allow me to get my task out of the way.
It was all quite businesslike, rather too businesslike if you ask me. Lacking in passion, I’d have to say. Did I say lacking in passion? Make that devoid of passion. It was more functional than romantic; functional as in when you go to the toilet. And more a number one than a number two at that. Ah, that’s probably too much information, not to mention unnecessary, sorry about that. Anyway, what I mean to say is that it was nowhere near as satisfying as my numerous practice runs had been.
Five minutes later and it was all over, as pleasant as catching a train to work. She dusted herself down, smoothed her clothes, and went off to make a cup of tea and reinstate her precious Marks and Spencer undies, and not necessarily in that order either.
But that was it, we’d done it; I’d done the thing that had preoccupied my every waking thought for probably the previous four years and, if I’d still been living in Castlemartin, would have preoccupied my every waking thought for at least the following four. When the moment had finally arrived I hadn’t been scared like I’d been told I was going to be. But then again it wasn’t exactly the wild thing.
However, by doing it, we had become something.
In the moments after, it appeared that Jean definitely felt we’d passed some point together – like we’d bonded or become soulmates, or something equally momentous. She even took to calling me ‘Pet’. I, on the other hand, to be perfectly honest (there I go again – I really must learn to stop saying that) was more bemused by the whole affair. A few minutes later she returned with two cups of tea and a meagre portion of beans on toast, and started rabbiting on about how she was having trouble at work and how she felt her supervisor didn’t like her, and because he didn’t like her she wasn’t going to be able to get on, and how depressed she was about it all. She rambled on and on about how much of a pranny she felt he was. From what she was saying, his biggest sin seemed to be that he used the word ‘super’ too often; everyone and everything was either ‘super’ or ‘not super’. Jean Simpson’s boss, she moaned, was just brill and was really helpful and supportive. Up until that point I hadn’t realised that they weren’t working in the same office, not even the same building in fact. I’d always assumed they were working together.
Then Jean Kerr started to fill me in on the latest episode in Jean and John’s relationship. There was good news and bad news (for Jean Kerr, that was). The bad news was that Jean and John were engaged now. As in, they were definitely going to get married. But the good news was that they couldn’t afford to get married for at least the next couple of years.
‘How are you getting on at work, David?’ Jean Kerr then said, no obvious seam in the conversation.
‘Yeah,’ I replied casually. ‘Okay I suppose; it pays the rent with enough left over for my records, books, movies and gigs. So I’ve no complaints. They just let me get on with it.’
‘You’re good at what you do,’ she said, not really knowing what I did.
I’d signed a little bit of paper known as the Official Secrets Act, which forbade me to tell anyone exactly what it was I did.
‘You should apply yourself more. You’re a bright boy; you’d get a promotion, more money and benefits, and all of that.’
‘But I’m okay. I don’t need more money.’
She looked at me like I’d just told her I had a socially transmitted disease.
‘Don’t be stupid lad! Aye, of course we need more money,’ she said, breaking into her full northern accent, which she’d taken to avoiding recently.
Originally I’d believed the two Jeans to be from Yorkshire, but then I came to discover that they were in fact from Derbyshire. Not that this was the main thing troubling my mind at that moment. Did you notice that she used the royal ‘we’? I certainly did, and I couldn’t believe it. But there was more to come.
‘Haven’t you got enough records and books, David?’ she continued, her eyes scaling my generously packed shelves. ‘You should start saving your money. You never know what we might need it for.’
Ten minutes later I was alone in my room, the unpleasant taste of her lipstick still fresh on my lips. It was impossible to remove. I’d tried, oh how I’d tried.
And that, my friends, is how I lost my virginity – to Jean Kerr and not to Peyton Place’s Barbara Parkins, as I so often dreamed. I couldn’t help but feel that it had all been planned – not exactly a trap, but it was like I’d missed out on a few chapters of the book: hang on, how did they get from nothing, to a single kiss, to full-on sex? What happened to the romance and the wining and the dining? And the intrigue, and the not knowing, and the not being able to walk home some nights from being doubled up in pain? What happened to love? Exactly! What had happened to love?
Search me; all I can remember was enjoying the beans on toast and the cold cup of tea that followed more than the actual deed.
The thing here, I feel I should say, was that all of the above was from my perspective; you know, how things had happened from my point of view. If you asked Jean Kerr about that night she’d surely see it differently. Perhaps she’d enjoyed the whole thing tremendously, maybe thought I was a gentleman for not pushing things. Felt that she needed to take charge. Maybe she thought we needed to take the leap into the romantic bliss we’d been avoiding. That is how she could have told the same story. But the point I’m trying to make is: how we all can experience the exact same set of facts and come to a totally different conclusion. It’s incredible really, isn’t it? But you try to tell me which of us had interpreted the facts correctly? I was there and I am one of the parties involved, and I couldn’t tell you which of the above views is the more accurate. The only conclusion I can come to is that we each have our own sense of reality.
Mind you, my guessing what she thought was not all fantasy. I remember her telling me about a conversation she’d had with Jean Simpson. Jean Simpson had always claimed that she was going to remain a virgin until the day she got married. But Jean Kerr had warned Jean Simpson that she would have to have sex with her man in order to keep him. So there!
But that wasn’t any problem of mine. No, my problem was that the relationship that I wasn’t supposed to be having with Jean Kerr was running out of control. The clues to her master plan were all glaring at me, staring me in the face, smirking at every mention of promotion, saving, ‘wasting money on records and books’ and, the big one, having sex with her boy (me) in order to keep him.
Jean Kerr was also not a virgin. Did that mean that she’d been down this road before? Having sex while away in London was one thing but sleeping with someone in a tiny, tight-knit community like those found in Derby or Castlemartin was another thing altogether.
I needed to find out a little about Jean’s past. I mean, not in an uncaring or inconsiderate way. She always looked as though she was trying to put a brave face on things, like she was always smiling but the more you got to know her the more you realised that the smile only ran as deep as her make-up. And whatever her problems were – with work, with past relationships, with life in general – if I wasn’t part of the solution, I was most definitely
going to become part of the problem. I wanted to be neither. I’d kinda just drifted into this, and unless I was prepared to do something about it, someone was bound to get hurt. So I needed to check out the old boyfriend situation, you know, on the Q.T.
The only person in possession of that knowledge was Jean Simpson.
Chapter Five.
The task of discovering this info from the same Miss Simpson was easier said than done. Yes, I knew Jean Kerr’s best friend and she knew me. But we rarely saw each other when Jean Kerr wasn’t around, and when we did, it was like a quick nod to each other on the street. It wasn’t like she went to the Marquee Club and I’d bump into her a couple of times a week or anything like that. So even if I met her accidentally, in passing, I’d still be a long way from finding the link to inviting her for a cup of tea or coffee and then steering the conversation to Jean Kerr’s past.
But guess what? Guess who laid the much-needed rendezvous out on a plate for me? Yes, the very same Jean Kerr.
One weekend in November, she’d arranged to go up North to visit with her parents. It was a couple of weeks after we’d shared an intimate moment for the first time – that would have been November 1969 for the historians. I wasn’t keen on there being another repeat performance for there had already been two further performances, and neither had been any more spiritually rewarding than the first. Extremely ungallant, I know, but things happen, what can I tell you.
Anyway, the opening came quite out of the blue.
‘Our Jean’s down,’ Jean Kerr started.