by Paul Charles
‘What about some nourishment?!’ Jean Simpson said in disbelief after the waitress had taken our order and left. She had opted for a more staid omelette but without the listed chips.
‘Oh it’s okay, I get enough of that from Dylan and The Beatles. Anyway, you were about to tell me about Jean’s last plan.’
‘Goodness, look – please never mention any of this to her, or anyone else. I would’ve thought she’d have told you some of it by now, after what you two have been up to,’ she said, playing with the salt and pepper cellars in front of her.
I was sure I was blushing slightly. Not from embarrassment of what Jean Kerr and I had done (just about), or from the fact that Jean Simpson knew about that; no, I was blushing from the fact that I was imagining what it would be like to do the same with someone as passionate as Jean Simpson. I was convinced it wouldn’t be a spectator sport like it was with Jean Kerr. I thought it would be much more of an equal participant sport. But sadly I’d never know, would I? We were both friends with Jean Kerr, and that ruled out any involvement other than verbal between Jean Simpson and me.
‘Don’t worry, I’d never tell,’ I said remorsefully.
‘Well, it’s one of those childhood sweetheart type of tales,’ she sighed, taking a large breath while still retaining the smile in her eyes, ‘basically, she met a mutual neighbour, Brian, when we were eleven, and from then on they were inseparable. They were always scurrying off somewhere, making plans or talking about her plans. The thing is, though, to him Jean was a friend – just a friend. By the time he reached seventeen he started to take an interest in boys.’
‘You meant… girls there didn’t you?’ I said, cutting across her, thinking the obvious wasn’t possible.
‘No,’ she said, leaning in over the table and dropping her voice to a whisper. She needn’t have worried really, the majority of The Golden Spoon’s clientele were couples preoccupied with each other, plus a couple of drunks who wouldn’t have woken up even if the Vanilla Fudge (the American heavy rock band, not another milkshake) had been playing full blast at the next table.
‘No David, I meant boys. Brian liked boys. Jean genuinely thought he was suffering with an illness, and she kept thinking and telling everyone that he would get better. She continued making her plans figuring that Brian’s predicament was nothing more than a minor setback.’
‘And what happened?’ I said, after a natural break, which was filled by our food being delivered to the table.
‘He disappeared.’
‘What he left the village?’
‘No, he just disappeared. Fell right off the face of the Earth. It was like he’d never existed. Neither the police nor his parents ever heard from him again.’
‘So nobody knows what happened to him?’
‘No. After Jean got over it, and that took some time, she said that she thought he’d run away with another boy, but because he was so ashamed of his illness he never bothered to contact anyone again.’
‘And that was it?’ I asked, between sips of my milkshake.
‘That was it. Jean stayed in her house for ages. She put on a bit of weight and started to have to try harder to keep her glamorous looks. And when she started to come out again, I kept trying to tell her to let things happen by themselves, to try to be a bit more natural, go with the flow.’
‘Sounds like good advice to me,’ I said, hiking my shoulders.
‘I thought so, but it was wasted on Jean. It’s just like… She’s the local girl that everyone, including herself, feels is the girl most likely to succeed and she is so desperate to make the prediction come true that she’ll stop at nothing in her endeavours to make it so,’ she announced and then looked over her shoulders before continuing, ‘I mean, look at you two. You’d hardly even been out together or anything and next minute you’re riding her. Now John and I, we’re going to get married. We’ve been going out twice a week and once he sorts out all this rubbish with bloody Mary Skeffington, then we’ll start to save seriously and plan the wedding. But we’ve barely kissed.’
I laughed, partly from the fact that I found it hard to believe that someone as passionate as Jean Simpson was even capable of barely kissing. I would have thought that when those lips made contact, sparks would fly! Hey, but what do I know, this was all new to me. I was also laughing about the fact that she used the word riding to describe the sexual act. I hadn’t heard that since I’d left home. No, I don’t mean ‘home’ as in my house, you know my parents walking around my house talking about riding, for they definitely did not! No, I meant ‘home’ as in my village, Castlemartin, in Northern Ireland. I quite like the word ‘riding’; it seems to be quite an apt word to describe the act. There is nothing gross about the word, nor about the act for that matter, and that’s why I like the word. I was just surprised to hear Jean Simpson use it.
‘You mean you’re going to tell me that you’re not…’ I started and then found myself swimming into troubled waters. I mean, Jean wasn’t scared about saying what she thought but I still found it difficult to discuss this particular topic with girls.
‘No, David, John and I are not going to have sex until we are married,’ she offered, jumping in to save me.
‘But, I mean it’s none of my business and all of that, but don’t you feel that you’ll be a… you know… a bit…’
‘Horny?’
‘No I wasn’t actually going to say that exact word, I was going to say a bit frustrated?’ I replied, loving her straight-talking the more the night progressed. I’d never enjoyed such an explicit conversation with a girl before in my life.
‘Well, David, if we are “a bit frustrated” then perhaps we’ll have to… you know… ourselves… solo?’ She was mid-bite of her omelette and for the first time that evening struggling to find a word, but still through it all she was upbeat and appeared to be enjoying the conversation as much as I was.
‘Yes, yes. I know,’ I said, and we laughed and blushed simultaneously.
‘Mary Skeffington,’ I started, cleaning the last of the delicious butterscotch sauce from my plate, ‘what’s her problem?’
‘Well, basically I’d say it’s that she’s still in love with John.’
‘Even though she knows he’s left her for another woman.’
‘But don’t you see, David, even if he has left her, she still clearly feels the same way about him. It just means that she was genuinely in love with him. I can’t abide those who say “Well, I don’t love him any more because he doesn’t love me!” You love someone or you don’t love someone, it’s as simple as that. Now, they may not return your love, but I don’t think real love is subject to conditions. It’s not that feeble. It’s like a bolt of lightning that knocks your socks off. And you can’t do anything about it. You have to live with it.’
‘Yeah, I think I get all of that,’ I said, starting off as unconfident as a new foal trying to find it’s legs, ‘it’s just that surely when this bolt of lightning strikes it would be impossible to control it and curtail it and put it on hold for a couple of years of engagement.’
Yeah, a shaky start but I felt I was watching the little foal now run confidently across the paddock. Not so.
‘You’re just slightly confused. You’re talking about lust. I’m talking about love. We all know how you mix the two up, David Buchanan.’
Chapter Six.
The next time I saw Jean Simpson I had to rescue her. ‘Agh,’ I hear you say. One more time, this time altogether: ‘Agh!’
All in all, the night in question turned out to be quite the eventful evening. Not only did I get to rescue Jean Simpson, but I also got to meet both John Harrison and Mary Skeffington, and I got to escort Jean Kerr. Yes, it was definitely action-packed all right.
We were off to a party, you see – an Irish friend of John’s was hosting it. That’s all I could find out about him, the fact that he was Irish.
‘Yeah,’ Jean said, as she busied herself applying her make-up. Remind me to tell you more abo
ut that later. ‘He’s called Tiger and he’s from somewhere called Lisburn, do you know him?’
You know, I was genuinely beginning to think that most of London believed that if you were Irish, you knew every other Irish person in London.
‘Well, funny you should say that, but just at the point that you’re about to leave Ireland,’ I began, my tongue tickling the skin in my mouth, ‘the IPB–’
‘The IPB?’ she said, if only to prove she was listening to me.
‘The IPB – the Irish Patriotic Board. So, as I was saying, the IPB meet you and give you a directory with the names of all the Irish people living in London. I’ve been through it once and I can remember plenty of Patricks and Seamus’s and Liams and Seans and Kathleens and Catherines and Roisins, and I’ve just about memorised all their faces, but I can’t for the life of me remember a Tiger.’
‘Oh super, what a great idea to give you a directory before you leave your homeland! Perhaps you could check it again, see if you can’t find this “Tiger” in there? It would be truly excellent if we knew all about him before we get to the party; our Jean would be soooooo impressed.’
‘Ah, that could be a problem, you see,’ I replied, struggling with where to go with it; wind-ups are only fun if the other person is at least suspicious that you might be attempting one. Jean hadn’t a clue, so I was probably bordering on being rude. But I decided to go on with it anyway.
‘Really? Why?’ she said, between brushing up a rosy hue on her cheeks with one of her numerous make-up brushes.
‘Well, they don’t put people in the directory if they’re members of an illegal operation.’
‘For heaven’s sake,’ she shouted, mid-flick of her brush, never once taking her eyes from her reflection in the mirror, ‘you don’t mean Tiger’s a member of the–’
‘We don’t need to go into that,’ I said. The fun had completely gone from the game. It was a bit like fish jumping out of the river and right into your fishing net.
While I remember it, let’s just backtrack a little here. Jean Kerr had taken to applying her make-up in my flat these days. I assumed it was a sign of her being comfortable with me. Perhaps it was some sort of ritualistic intimacy. But whatever it was, she wasn’t a pleasant sight before applying her make-up.
I don’t think I’m being rude here, do you? I mean, do you think I’m being rude? Okay, let’s think about it. Why do girls wear make-up? To look good, feel better, be more attractive to the opposite sex? A combination of all of the above? Jean Simpson hardly wears any make-up. Okay? Is this because she’s better looking than her friend? Maybe she has less confidence than her friend? Or could it be that her friend, Jean Kerr, is so desperate for love that she wants to be attractive to all men? Maybe Jean Simpson wants to hide from men and she feels that by wearing little or no make-up she can disappear into the crowd more easily. This is going off on perhaps too much of a tangent, but I have to admit that it is always something that has intrigued me. And it’s not that I have an aversion to girls wearing make-up – my ex in Ireland positively plastered it on and she was stunning. Barbara Parkins, the object of many of my daydreams, wears a lot of make-up and to me she’s the bee’s knees. I won’t go into the fact that bee’s knees are probably not the most attractive things on Earth because I think, and hope, you know what I mean.
Now, here’s another interesting thing: when I originally met the two Jeans, neither of them had a boyfriend. So had I approached Jean Simpson first, would I be her boyfriend now instead of John Harrison? I mean why not? I like her a lot – she’s attractive, unlike Jean Kerr; she doesn’t mind really smiling a bit, unlike Jean Kerr; she loves music and going to gigs, unlike Jean Kerr; and made-up or not, she is very sensual, unlike Jean Kerr. So my point would have to be: did I end up with Jean Kerr just because she was the blonde one who trowelled on the make-up? But then again, I wasn’t really attracted to Jean Kerr in the first place, she just must have caught my attention because she was more glitzy than her friend and as a result of her initially catching my attention we kind of drifted together and you know what, on reflection the drifting together was achieved only because she was steering said driftwood in that direction. So there, that’s my theory totally shot down in flames.
‘Get back to the party!’ I hear you shout. Well, as it happens, I was just about to do that.
The party was in a spacious, second floor, two bedroom flat in Deacon Road, Kingston-upon-Thames. The flat was so packed that the partygoers spilled into the lounge, kitchen, bathroom and one of the bedrooms (Tiger had private use of the other), and down into the hallway and stairwell. Tiger must have had tolerant neighbours because the noise could be heard from the end of the street.
The walls of the flat were adorned with posters of Tiger’s hero, Jimi Hendrix. There was a large (ish) ‘Keep Off The Grass’ sign, stolen (I believe) from nearby Richmond Park, which took pride of place on the mantelpiece above the redundant gas fire. Red bulbs were in every reachable socket and the two roadside flashing orange warning lights, he’d also nicked, added to the ambience.
Tiger was in his bedroom for the first forty or so minutes of our visit. I only know this because when the two Jeans inquired as to the whereabouts of Sue, their friend from Jean’s office, I heard them being told through fits of giggles that she was in the bedroom with a certain Tiger in her tank! Jean Kerr had been shocked and rushed off to find us drinks while Jean Simpson had laughed so much she had to visit the toilet. I could tell she was preoccupied with John Harrison. He had always been due to arrive late, but now it was even later than that. When she returned, we got to small talking about how much she’d enjoyed our trip to the Marquee Club. She also said that she’d found it refreshing that she could be out with a boy and that he was decent enough not to try anything on. In fact, I think she said that it was quite refreshing. I wondered did she mean boring.
‘For heaven’s sake, of course he’s not going to try to get off with me best mate!’ Jean Kerr cut in, as, laden with drinks, she made her way through the crowd.
I always hated that saying ‘get off with’. Jean Kerr used it a lot. Jean Simpson didn’t.
‘And besides, our Jean, you’re nearly married!’ she added as she doled out the drinks.
‘Shush,’ Jean Simpson hissed, ‘someone will hear you – Mary Skeffington might have friends here tonight. God, I hope she doesn’t come.’
As the two Jeans departed together to see another friend from work – Jean Kerr’s office this time – I overheard Miss Kerr saying proudly, ‘Can you believe that about Sue and Tiger?’ before Jean Simpson broke into a loud fit of the giggles again.
‘Poor Tiger,’ I said to no one in particular, ‘that’ll be the talk of everyone’s office on Monday morning.’
‘Sorry?’ this posh voice from behind me offered in genuine interest.
‘Sorry?’ I replied a little taken aback.
‘I thought you just said something to me.’
‘No, well, I was saying something but it was to myself,’ I replied, hiking my shoulders in a goofy pose.
‘First sign of it you know.’
‘What?’ I replied, sipping my wine.
‘Madness. You know, talking to one’s self.’
‘Or perhaps I was talking to the funniest person here,’ I replied, deadpan.
‘Oh jolly good; I could do with a laugh. Will you talk to me instead of yourself?’
‘Well, as long as we don’t ignore the me I was talking to, he’s rather sensitive.’
‘Maybe you are funny, or maybe you’re just mad,’ the woman said, before laughing. When she did, she showed off a perfect set of teeth, more perfect than Jean Simpson’s in fact, which was quite an achievement. She leaned against the wall beside me and slid down until she was on her hunkers.
‘It’s quieter down here – why don’t you join me?’ she smiled from below.
Being a creature of comfort I found a couple of small beanbags and dragged them to our corner. She’d watched me c
omplete the task while holding both our drinks.
‘I say, a gentleman as well! Now, if only I could understand exactly what you were saying through that accent of yours we could have some splendid fun, I’m sure,’ she said, flopping into her beanbag.
She was blonde like Jean Kerr, but unlike Jean my new friend’s hair was natural. Hers was cut in a style similar to Cathy McGowan’s and, like Cathy McGowan, she was continuously brushing it out of her eyes. She was wearing a pair of deep blue satin trousers with a tie-dye t-shirt and a red, large-stitch woollen waistcoat. She had black eyebrows, I kid you not. And not a spec of make-up. And although she wasn’t beautiful in an actress or model sort of way, she was naturally quite stunning.
‘What’s your wine like?’ she asked, smudging around to find a comfortable spot in the beanbag. Such spots of comfort are very hard to find but when you do manage to locate one, they are extremely rewarding. I was about to mention this but then I thought it might be taken as innuendo.
‘I can think of no words other than red, cheap and wet,’ I replied, just as I found my own comfortable spot.
‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘I was thinking of changing – I think I’ve had enough G&Ts at this stage.’
Just then, as the speakers blasted with Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’, a girl floated by with two glasses of wine in her hands.
‘Excuse me, where did you get it?’ my new friend asked, gesturing towards the glasses.
The girl, dressed all in black and with long, black hair, tried several times to get her instructions across. She was clearly already out of her brains, and in the end all she could muster was ‘Ah blast, here! It’s easier if I give you this and go back and get another round.’ Judging by the way she swayed as she wandered off, she wasn’t wrong.