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Connection (epilogue)

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Kate propped herself up one elbow and watched Jack slowly ease the bathroom door shut behind himself. “It’s alright, I’m awake.” Even through the half light of the early dawn she could see him smile. “You weren’t planning on making a quiet exit on me were you ?”

“God, no” replied Jack. “For a start I can’t remember where I left my trousers…”

“I think we were over there when…” Kate stopped and gestured vaguely at the hotel room door. She caught his gaze and then looked away, grinning shyly at the memory. He came back and lay down on top of the bed next to her, matching her head-on-elbow pose.

“Course I wasn’t planning on making a quiet exit.” He leaned in and kissed her lightly, lips brushing hers. As he was about to move away she whispered “good” and kissed him back, more forcefully, before playfully catching his bottom lip between her teeth. She stopped as she tasted the cool mint of fresh toothpaste on his breath, suddenly regretting last night’s coffee. The one they’d had afterwards as they’d joked about neither of them smoking. Stale coffee against that clean tang. She tasted bitter and that wasn’t how she wanted him to think of her; she’d surprised herself in the last few weeks that it wasn’t how she felt.

“You alright ?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, I’m fine” she said, running a finger across his chest. “Just thinking.”

“Always thinking. Thought I’d cured you of that ?”

“Oh, believe me I dissolve to a head spinning mess every time you walk into the room” sighed Kate batting her eyelids in exaggeration.

“Come on, not even a little weak at the knees ?”

“Maybe a slight tremble” acknowledged Kate with a smile. “That first time we kissed, maybe then. You remember that ?”

“A taxi rank in Huntingdon in the rain. Who’d forget that ? You took that cab from me as well…”

“Such a gentleman. Yeah, that kiss. I don’t know Jack, I don’t normally jump off trains with strange men….

“Less of the strange…”

“…with strange men and end up talking into the night before kissing them goodbye long after the last train home’s left.”

Jack leant forwards and pulled at a loose strand of her hair, easing it back behind her ear. “It was quite an unusual day, I’ll give you that. An unusual and wonderful day.”

“Thank you” she mouthed.

“So you had a slight tremble ?”

Kate groaned. “Stop fishing Jack. It was a nice kiss.” She caught the look of mock sadness on his face. “A fantastic kiss. In the Renaissance I’m sure they would have captured it in perpetuity in some grand sculpture or delicate painting.”

“Psyche revived by Cupid’s kiss” said Jack. Kate sat up in bed, laughing.

“How do you know that ?”

“I’ve been secretly researching stuff – art – to try and impress you.”

“I am impressed. I love that piece. I used to allow extra time for it on all of my tours even though most of the visitors were just shuffling their feet wanting to see the Mona Lisa or Venus De Milo”

“The one without the arms ?”

“Goodness you really have been researching.”

“I kinda knew that one anyway” said Jack sheepishly.

“I kinda hoped that you would” said Kate. “But Psyche and Cupid. I’m…” she paused. “I’m touched Jack, really, that you’d find out about that stuff.”

“Seemed important to you…”

Kate looked at him intently. “You know that story, right ? Cupid waking Psyche from her eternal sleep after she’s been tortured by Worry and Sadness and forced to endure a series of terrible trials.”

“Well that train was delayed for a long time…”

Kate rolled her eyes. “So you’ve cast yourself as Cupid – the god of desire ?”

“Seemed a decent likeness,” smirked Jack.

“I think Canova might have needed a little more stone dear,” said Kate reaching over and patting his stomach gently. “If I’d known you were going to be this cocky once we slept together I’d have kept you waiting a bit longer.”

“How long do you think it might be until next time ?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate arching an eyebrow. “Kiss me again and let’s see.”

 

……
This is the twenty first (half way !) story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. My fundraising page is here and all donations, however small, are appreciated: https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/
This, as its title suggests, is a brief epilogue to a story I had published as part of an anthology of short stories called Delayed Reaction. The anthology combines stories from a group of talented writers whom I’m privileged to call friends. It’s available here: http://www.delayedreaction.org.uk – or contact me direct if you’d like to read more.

Saudade

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As her words sunk in the only thought Michael could cling to was: why here ? They’d spent the previous week in and out each other’s flats, out at dinner, caught some art house film she’d wanted to see at the Grand. A myriad of opportunities to break the news; the breaking news that she must have known would break him. Why here ? This was, in the heavily romanticized version of their relationship playing on a loop in his head, their place. He’d brought her here last summer, short sleeves and carefree, idly walking and talking about everything and nothing. They’d kept coming as summer lengthened to Autumn; the Fall marking his own inexorable fall. They’d kissed here for the first time when bare arms still smelled faintly of sun lotion and she’d still tasted of lemons; a bag of penny sweets she’d brought as a gift and they’d devoured like they were kids again. He’d confessed to her here for the first time too. I think I’m in love with you. Something like that. He’d practiced it for days, borrowing words from the long dead and the great wordsmiths, before it had just tumbled out breathlessly, hopefully. I think… No, I know, I’m in love with you. She’d smiled, put a finger to his lips, mouthed that she knew and kissed him fiercely. They’d only stopped as some leaves dislodged themselves from the tree above them and landed on their heads. Falling in the Fall. It had always been their place from then. Their tree. Their place. Their love.

“I’m taking the job in Manaus.” Those six words had hung between them now for what felt like a full five minutes. Why here ?

……

A year on, when he came back, the same thought nagged and refused to let go: why here ? Their place, their tree. Why here ? After all those weeks in each other’s pockets, myriad opportunities to break the news. Why here for the breaking news that she knew would break him ?

He’d brought her here that summer, short sleeves, carefree, idly walking and talking about everything and nothing. They’d kissed for the first time, bare arms smelling faintly of sun lotion. She’d tasted of lemons, her lips still fizzing from the bag of sweets he’d brought as a gift. Or had she brought them ? They’d kept coming as summer lengthened to Autumn – the Fall marking his inexorable fall – and he’d confessed to his feelings for her for the first time. I think I love you. Practiced for days with borrowed words but blurted breathlessly, hopefully, words tumbling out and over each other. I think… No, I know, I love you. She’d smiled, placed a finger on his lips, mouthed that she knew and kissed him fiercely. They’d only stopped as leaves, seasonally dislodged, fell on top of their heads. Falling in the Fall.

“I’m taking the job in Manaus.” Why here ?

……

Five years and this place, their place, still held his memories captive: imprisoned by the bittersweet pull of nostalgia. Less sweet and more bitter with each passing year. Why here ? Why had she chosen here for the breaking news she’d known would break him ?

From their summer, short sleeves and carefree, through lengthening days of Autumn this had been their place. First kiss, the tang of lemons, bare arms smelling faintly of sun lotion, to that initial declaration of love, long practiced but words just tumbling breathlessly and hopefully from his mouth. I think. No, I know, I love you. She’d smiled and kissed him but hadn’t spoken. Leaves had rained down on their heads to signal the end of Summer and she’d told him about Manaus.

……

Just a foolish old man now, thirty long years past those days when the world was so vivid that it had tasted of lemons and smelled of sun lotion. She’d only said six words in the place he’d always hold as theirs – I’m taking the job in Manaus – and summer’s kiss through Autumn’s falling in love melted across the seasons, back through the years, and evaporated. Why had she told him here ?

……

This is the twelfth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. Saudade is a rather brilliant Portuguese word with no direct equivalent in English: I have somewhat clunkily expressed its meaning in this story. Please share it if you liked it (or even if you didn’t…). If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

A Case Of You

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We lay on our backs, on her bed downstairs in her upside down house. Flush. Silent. Smiling. She was resting her head in the crook of her arm, thrown back behind her. Gently she pushed herself up onto her elbow, resting her cheek in her hand to face towards me.

“First lines” she said.

I looked at her and leant over to push a strand of hair back from her face. “I was hoping for a better reaction than that to be honest”.

“Stop fishing” she grinned. “I wouldn’t be asking about first lines if I wasn’t happy about that.” It hung there a moment. “A little longer might have been nice…” She started to laugh and I pulled the pillow from behind her and half heartedly caught her round the head with it. I relented as she protested, through stifled laughter, that she was just teasing.

“First lines” she tried again. “Lyrics. First line of a song and the other person has to guess.”

“Really ?”

“It’s a good way to get to know someone” she said. “If you want this to all happen again then indulge me.”

“Okay, let me think.”

“Come on, come on, don’t think too hard about it.”

“Alright, how about ‘I never thought that it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham’ ?”

“Too easy. You can’t have that. Besides I’m from Brighton and easily jealous.”

I let my head fall back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling. She started to impatiently drum her fingers on the duvet.

“And this I know… his teeth as white as snow.” I said it to the ceiling and then rolled over to face her, smiling. “You must know that.”

She started repeating it, furrowing her brow. “Ah man, I do know that” she said. I watched her struggle to recall it, letting my eyes follow the line of her neck down to an exposed shoulder. There hadn’t been much time to look the night before. She felt my eyes on her and caught my gaze, eyebrow raised in enquiry.

“Are we playing my game or checking each other out ?” she asked, the hint of a smile.

“I thought we were doing both” I replied.

“Ha ! A clever one. Always beware the clever ones” she laughed. I watched her mouth twist and dance as she moved through expressions of curiosity, amusement, and mock outrage before leaning in to kiss her. She responded and then pulled away. “Okay, so not just a clever one. That I also remember from last night.”

We looked at each other for a minute, both lost in our own thoughts, before I broke the silence. I started to sound out the repeating, circular bass line from the song that I’d asked her to guess. Round and round, over and over. “And this I know… his teeth as white as snow…”. She clutched at her head.

“This is infuriating. I know it. I bloody know it.”

“Hey Paul, hey Paul, hey Paul, let’s have a ball…” I sang quietly.

“The Pixies. It’s The Pixies” she shouted. “Gigantic. Really ?” She raised both eyebrows this time, a kind of bemused admonishment.

“You know what that song’s about, right ?” I asked, grinning.

“Stop leering” she said. “I believe that song’s about a ‘big, big love’. Don’t kid yourself mister.” I started singing the chorus softly – “gigantic, gigantic, a big big love” – only to hear her join in besides me, mockingly singing “average, average, a mid sized love”.

“Alright, alright, stop” I protested. “I have very fragile self esteem.”

“Yeah, of course you do” she said.

“Besides, it’s Pixies. Not The Pixies. Just Pixies.”

“Like I said” she groaned. “A clever one.”

I stared at her again as we lay on our sides, the duvet tracing the rise of her hip and curve of her waist. “You checking me out again ?” she asked softly.

“Maybe” I conceded. “I was wondering what yours would be ?

“Mine ?”

“First line. It’s only fair. I’ve given you two. What’s yours ?”. She looked away and, for the first time, she seemed uncertain. Eventually she looked back at me and replied.

“Here goes then. Mine’s always the same when I play this game. You ready ?” I nodded. “Just before our love got lost you said ‘I am as constant as a northern star’…” She paused.

“Constant in the darkness ? Where’s that at ?” I finished. There was a sharp, surprised intake of breath. People’s jaws don’t really fall open but surprise registered on her face. Surprise and something else; a cautious, tentative delight.

“You know that ?” she said.

“Joni ? Are you kidding ? Of course I know Joni. We’ve all had our heart broken, right ?” Again she looked away, let her eyes roam the room as if searching for the right reply, as if she’d pinned it up somewhere in preparation for this. Without making eye contact she finally said:

“Too many times.” Again, more quietly. “Too many times.”

I reached over and took her hand, tugged it gently so that she’d turn and face me again, waited until she did. “Maybe not this time, eh ?” I said.

“I barely know you” she said with a sigh. “There have been a few I’ve barely known. But, after, there’s always Joni.”

“Well Joni’s my go to heartbreak record too” I said. “So we’ve got a problem.”

“How’d you figure ?”

“If this doesn’t work we can’t both sit around, separate, listening to the same song. Knowing the other person’s listening to it. That song’s for me when I break up with someone.”

“No, no, no. It’s for me”

“Exactly. You see the dilemma.”

“So why don’t we share her ?” She asked it lightly, passing it off as a throwaway question.

“I’d like that.” I said. “I think I’d like that a lot.”

She leaned over and kissed me before whispering. “A case of you. I really, really love that song. I better still be on my feet mister.”

“You will be” I whispered back.

……

This is the ninth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. Please share it if you liked it (or even if you didn’t…). If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time

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39. A Case Of You – Joni Mitchell

Heartbreak. Has ever a subject preoccupied so many songwriters, so many songs ? Specifically the kind of heartbreak that follows the break down of a love affair. Maybe falling in love is the only subject that’s covered even more comprehensively. So, evidently, there’s something potent, something that’s felt deeply, in the marriage and subsequent divorce of hearts and minds. This begs the question: where are those songs in this list ? Other than “December” back at number 9 this has been a heartbreak free zone. Sure, it’s not exactly been a party zone either but songs about lost love haven’t really figured. Have I been so lucky ?

Well, yes, in most senses I have. This is a different post on failings of the heart than I’d have written fifteen or twenty years ago. The perspective inevitably changes when you are fortunate enough to meet and fall in love with someone with whom you don’t subsequently fall out again. The passing of time and security of partnership lessen the memories of those previously painful partings. It’s tempting to discard the past – as much out of respect for the present as anything – but I don’t think my lasting relationship with my wife would have been possible without the prior experiences of loving and learning. There are people (a small number of people) who are inextricably a part of who I am even though our paths have now diverged; paths that ran together once, for varying lengths of time.

At those sharp points of reckoning, the places we agreed (or one or the other declared) to walk separately, there were many, many records of gut wrenching heartbreak. All About Eve’s eponymous debut album and follow up “Scarlet & Other Stories” managed the neat trick of soundtracking both the beginning and the end of my first love. I once found Teenage Fanclub’s “Mellow Doubt” so apposite following the break down of my second love that I was inspired to buy it as a gift for my ex. On reflection its opening lines it gives me pain when I think of you may have needed some explanation to avoid confusion. Wonder if she still has it ? The debut Embrace record was basically purpose built for regret and I had it on repeat for much of early 1999 as my third love disintegrated. I think I appropriated Dylan’s “Blood On The Tracks” to further rub salt into my own wounds.

Had I been writing about any of these at the time then the emotional blood on and in the tracks would have been more evident; that gruesome mixture of anger, sadness, failure, rejection, pain and guilt that stews as heartbreak. From a distance it’s easier to touch the beginnings of those relationships – the happiness, the recognition of yourself in someone else, the process of falling in love – than the end. It’s easy with hindsight but the reasons – which at the time may well have been framed in terms of blame – they ended were important as they were about working out who you are and what you need and what you can give. If there was a way of doing that without anyone getting hurt… If you could bottle that and dispense it in pharmacies they’d be queuing round the block. And that’s my only regret in each of those relationships – not that they ended but that someone got hurt in them ending. I wonder if learning that something isn’t right requires getting beyond a point at which you’re so emotionally entangled that it’s impossible to disentangle without something breaking. Usually a heart, or hearts.

The record that’s closest to this expression of lost love and that sense of reminiscence and reflection, remorse and regret, is “A Case Of You”. It’s a measure of Joni Mitchell that she nails a sketch of an entire relationship in three verses, vivid fragments from before our love got lost. We start with a rueful, knowing Mitchell reflecting on things said in better times:

Just before our love got lost

You said “I am as constant as a Northern Star”

And I said “constantly in the darkness, where’s that at ?

If you want me I’ll be in the bar…

Her shoulder shrugging retreat to the bar is exquisitely captured with a wonderfully precise image of her drawing out her old lover’s face and the outline of a map of Canada on the back of a beermat.

On the back of a cartoon coaster

In the blue TV screen light

I drew a map of Canada – oh Canada !

With your face sketched on it twice

The lover in question is reputed to be Leonard Cohen (hence Canada) but it’s the imagery, the poetry, that is so strikingly beautiful in this song. In eight lines we have a complete outline of love gone awry. For me there is pretty much nothing so flawless as the opening verse and chorus of “A Case Of You”. If the point of writing about records is to find those moments where words and music coalesce to cast light on something true then this positively dazzles. It is wonderful. There is nobody – and I mean nobody Bob – who combines poetry and melody like Mitchell.

The other verses flesh out the backstory, deftly colouring in the outline as Mitchell remembers the passion she shared with the unnamed man – her the lonely artist (I live in a box of paints) drawn to someone that seemed fearless (I’m frightened by the devil and I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid). The past and the present collide as she remembers words they shared in the full throes of love and how there’s a thread that still connects them even now the relationship is over.

I remember that time you told me

You said: “love is touching souls”

Surely you touched mine ‘cause

Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time

This section seems key to the song to me. That recognition that those you loved are never completely lost, part of them stays with you, changes you, even as you part and carry on your separate lives. It’s at the absolute heart of the melancholic contradiction in the chorus:

You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling

And I would still be on my feet

I would still be on my feet

That curious mixture of the sweetness of love and bitterness at its end: that sensation that someone that used to intoxicate you doesn’t anymore. I’ve seen alternative interpretations of this record as a straight “love song” – that the could drink a case of you should be read as “I can’t get enough of you” rather than “I can take all of you but it has no effect”. This song ain’t that. It tells you it’s not that in its first line. Mitchell has written plenty of lyrically oblique songs but not many of them are on “Blue” and this is direct and straightforward – and all the more affecting because of it.

There are a handful of records that I believe are perfect: music, lyrics, context, and performance. This is about as perfect as it gets. A perfect song about that most imperfect state of affairs, the end of love. There won’t be other heartbreak songs in the 42 but there doesn’t need to be as this one says it all.

I love you, would you marry me ?

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34. Slaveship – Josh Rouse

Ten years ago today (as featured at this link here in the 42) I was fortunate enough to marry my wonderful wife. We had been a couple for close on five years prior to getting married but I had known that we’d spend our lives together within a few short weeks of us getting together. When people had enigmatically responded “you’ll just know” to the how-can-I-tell-if-this-is-the-one question I’d never really understood it until, a little like magic, you do “just know”.

And the process of being married, of sharing your life, of being as much in love now as you were at the beginning, is all about uncovering new truth. New to you at least, it’s a path well trodden by those lucky enough to have experienced it. I was struck, in that spirit, by one of the readings that we had at our wedding. Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, who knew a thing or two about love and writing, if not much about naming sonnets, is not an uncommon wedding reading. It kicks off by directly and playfully referencing the marriage service itself – the call to anyone knowing of any lawful impediment – before reflecting on the constant nature of love:

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, 
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle’s compass come; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

What struck me was how little I think I understood that sonnet ten years ago in comparison to now, how much richer and how much more valuable love is when it has been tested. Not tested in the sense of feelings becoming uncertain or wavering, quite the contrary – tested in the sense of life’s adversities being faced down by two people utterly unwavering in their commitment to each other.

My wife and I (to borrow a line guaranteed a cheer in any Groom’s wedding speech) have enjoyed a wonderful ten years together. We have laughed a lot, retained a shared love of many things (big American DVD box set dramas, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, country & western, wine), and respectfully disagreed on others (asparagus, football, the merits of video games, eating meat). We’ve raised – or started to raise at least – a smart, funny daughter who makes us proud every day. Even on her worst days. We’ve made a home in a house that, had you asked her ten years ago, my wife would have point blank refused to live in. We still haven’t plastered the artex ceilings. We have built and share a life.

We’ve also, inevitably, dealt with our fair share of stuff that you wouldn’t parcel up and label as fun. Surgery, job loss, more surgery, baby with bronchiolitis, buying the wrong house, madness, further surgery, the cancellation of Firefly, and a bunch of other surgery. Don’t get me wrong, this is just life and, by many, many yardsticks we’re very lucky. It’s just life – it’s just that sometimes there’s been so much of it all at the same time.

That’s when you understand “an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests, and is never shaken”. You don’t understand that stood atop the aisle surrounded by family and friends. Sure, you listen to the words and nod and smile but you don’t really get it. You get it when you’ve stood firm through a few tempests – if not quite to “the edge of doom”.

There’s a brilliant piece of literary criticism on Sonnet 116 dating back to 1936 from Tucker Brooke:

[In Sonnet 116] the chief pause in sense is after the twelfth line. Seventy-five per cent of the words are monosyllables; only three contain more syllables than two; none belong in any degree to the vocabulary of ‘poetic’ diction. There is nothing recondite, exotic, or metaphysical in the thought. There are three run-on lines, one pair of double-endings. There is nothing to remark about the rhyming except the happy blending of open and closed vowels, and of liquids, nasals, and stops; nothing to say about the harmony except to point out how the fluttering accents in the quatrains give place in the couplet to the emphatic march of the almost unrelieved iambic feet. In short, the poet has employed one hundred and ten of the simplest words in the language and the two simplest rhyme-schemes to produce a poem which has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. (Brooke, p. 234)

I love this piece because it recognises entirely that the heart of the poem, its power and meaning, can not be pulled apart through an unpicking of the mechanics of the verse. Has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. What a wonderful line. In exactly the same way I can not fully articulate the power and the meaning in my marriage through a straight articulation of the facts: we met, we got married, we bought a house, we had a child. There is a common thread running through those dry facts, a simple but strong stitch that binds them: love. The star to every wandering bark; the fixed point in the sky that guides our vessel home.

There isn’t an easy way to wrap ten years married, fifteen years together, in a single record. Shakespeare gets closer than a song – did I mention he knew a thing or two about love and writing – but this isn’t 42 poems, 42 years. The nearest thing through our time together to “our song”, I guess, is this mildly daft, quirky, fun, light-as-a-feather piece of pop that Josh Rouse put out on his fantastic “1972” album. I don’t think we necessarily both love it because we’re also mildly daft, quirky, fun and light-as-feathers, though at our best we are all of those things, but it does seem to carry some of the essence of what makes us tick as partners. We love some terribly serious and intellectual stuff too but, if I’m honest, putting on this record is far more likely to put a smile on our faces than breaking open “The Complete Works…” and having a quick read through of the Bard.

It remains a privilege each and every day to be married to the best person I know. This post is for her with all my love, always.
……

Citation:
Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 116. Ed. Amanda Mabillard. Shakespeare Online. 8 Dec. 2012. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html >.

References:
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Ed. Tucker Brooke. London: Oxford UP: 1936.

Don’t you know how sweet and wonderful life can be…

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15. Let’s Get It On – Marvin Gaye                                                          Bath, 15th May 2004

A snapshot.

There’s a photograph of him from that day that snap framed the exact moment between being lost and found, taken in the pause as every pair of eyes in the room looked away, looked towards the entering bride and momentarily left the groom. That moment of waiting, anticipating the conclusion of the long procession along the Assembly Rooms’ corridor; it must have been no more than two minutes but it stretched out and back across the five years that had brought them to this point.

Back to…

New Year’s Eve in 1999 and a short break in Scotland, invited to see in the new millennium with a group of friends. It had been a full on black tie big bash with a free, help yourself bar. That last point had seemed particularly important at the time. There’s a photo of him on the night, grinning, holding aloft two bottles of spirits, concocting some poison. They’d gotten happily drunk and she’d ended up falling into the side of the marquee attempting to spin a small girl round in a whirling dance. The child had burst into tears and retreated to look for its parents. She’d sat enveloped in tent and guy ropes and they’d laughed helplessly at each other.

Back to…

New York in February 2000, snow underfoot, tramping their way across Central Park, picking their way down 6th, then Broadway, all the way to Battery Park beneath the long, twin shadows of the World Trade Center. They’d taken the ferry across to Ellis Island, snatching time on deck to gaze back at chrome and steel rising from the sea, before retreating back inside against the biting chill. There’s a photo of him atop deck, hat pulled down over his ears, pointing gleefully at that glorious skyline. The hat and the grin make him look a little unhinged. He feels a little unhinged: giddy with happiness and hope.

Back to…

Carefree days living in West London, first in a small rented place – friends crashing on the pull out futon in the front room, having to tiptoe through their bedroom to use the bathroom – and then in a marginally less small place that they’d bought. Long walks up the King’s Road. Short walks to Ciao at the end of the road, evenings spent eating, drinking, talking and laughing.  His 30th, she’d surprised him with a party in town and friendly faces, past and present, had gathered to share the celebration: a photo of him on the night showing his delight that someone would take the trouble to arrange this for him. And finally back to that botched engagement, back in New York, 2002… But not too botched because here they were.

And now…

Everything in place. Friends and family assembled to bear witness to their promise to each other; a promise that, in reality, they’d made in private years before. All gathered amid Georgian elegance, their day continuing the long tradition of celebration in this venue; he could imagine the ghostly fragments of functions past. He knew how it was supposed to go; the service, signing the register, walking out as husband and wife, drinks, photos, more drinks, dinner, the speeches, and the first dance. A simple set of steps but a million details, each seemingly carrying the threat of catastrophe: they wanted it to be perfect. His speech was ready and they’d picked a fine song as their first dance; full of love, sass, desire, confidence, and fun. It spoke of the promise of setting out on something. It was perfect for them, for the day.

Later on there would be photos of them locked together in that dance, mouthing the words, making each other laugh with pulled faces and jokey moves. Not taking it too seriously whilst knowing it was the most important thing in the world.

Afterwards they’d told him that he’d looked uncomfortable in those moments before she appeared. Had been pacing the floor restlessly, unable to settle – fidgety and anxious. Told him in that good natured banter about worrying whether she would turn up; he took it in the spirit it was intended. He hadn’t been worried; he’d been terrified. Not because he had any doubts that she would be there but because she was a part of him now and to be apart left him feeling less than he was.

She appeared and he exhaled a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding, a broad and natural smile breaking out on his face. The missing piece returned to him, slotted back together, made whole.

It must be the time of year…

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9. December – All About Eve                                                             Nottingham, December 1996.

A short story.

This feels true. It isn’t, of course. I know that. She would know that. The details are all wrong and nostalgia and memory aren’t the same thing. But you don’t know that. All you need to know is that once upon a time we tried again. Failed again.

……

I think it must be the time of year; it had started in late Autumn. Back then we were two chronically shy souls tentatively finding each other; the falling leaves marking our own inexorable falling in love. There was an awkwardness between us, somehow in us, at first which held a certain naïve charm. An innocence. I don’t know, maybe we were just foolish kids. It had ensured that those beginnings had run on from October into December, two months of careful courtship – our painfully slow reaching for each other as old fashioned as that word implies.

So this time of year always brought it back, the magical blaze of the beginning sustained over those months that ran from fireworks to fairy lights – the world alive with lights in the darkness.

It had ended a handful of years later in the same span of months; still those clear, crisp skies, and the aging sun hung low, but now with a snap and bite to the wind. Still discernibly Autumn but withering into Winter.

And now here I was, lost and lonely, reaching for her again across the years, looking for what we’d once had. Choosing to be blind to the reasons why it had failed the first time, the second time, all of the times. I reached for the phone, dialled a number. The brief silence before the dial tone sounded was enough to give me pause and I hung up, put the phone down again, picked up a bottle of cheap red wine and poured another glass.

Eventually I reached again for the phone. Dialled a number.

……

She had stayed for the weekend as usual – it had become our habit over the past six months. She’d even stayed on Sunday night which was less common as it meant an early start for her long drive back south to make it to work on Monday morning. Neither of us could have known for certain that it was our last night together, lying there squeezed together on my single bed. If we had would it have been different ? Would we have made love, reconciled to the end and spending those last moments lost in each other ? Perhaps we’d have talked, spent the time making sure we were right that this was the end, that there wasn’t some way we could make it work that we’d missed ?

I don’t think we’d have talked. We’d never spent our time together talking, never found a way to open ourselves up honestly and ask for what either of us needed. We wrote, that was what we did. Even in those beginnings we wrote to each other, exchanging letters in person, the sender waiting nervously as the recipient read. It was the only way we found to express ourselves. The next day would bring a reply – a conversation played out over days, in slow motion, that might have taken minutes if we’d been able to break the silence. Perhaps we imagined ourselves characters in one of the Austen novels we’d been studying. Maybe we were just foolish kids.

Things had briefly flared again in those last months, occasionally a spark catching flame in the dying embers, but ultimately turning to ash. Picking our way back across familiar ground felt good at first, a small reminder of the rush of being sixteen and falling headlong into first love. But we weren’t sixteen this time. Besides, even when we had been the evanescent rush hadn’t sustained us once that initial thrill had passed. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not denying the truth of what we felt that first time: it was something extraordinary. You only fall first once and we fell so hard we were left gasping for air. But this time ? Could it be taking our breath away again ? Were we just clinging on to the feeling of being in love or were we really in love ? That I even wondered seemed to suggest an answer.

She left before dawn as I slept.

……

When I got up I found that she’d left a letter. Carefully placed where it couldn’t be missed. A letter to say all of things that we couldn’t say. Just like in the beginning, just like always. It was a letter of the future, talking of all the things she would do, all the places she would go, all the dreams she still had. She wanted to move on with her life and was asking if I wanted to come along.

I knew that I didn’t.

I knew but it broke my heart all the same.

We got love sewn up, that’s enough

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3. You’re All I Need To Get By – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

When: 1999 to today

Two minutes and fifty one seconds. It will take longer to read these thousand or so words than listen to the song. If you’re short for time then, seriously, skip the words and listen to the song: everything you need to know about joy, about love, about the best parts of life, is there.

Tammi Terrell was born Thomasina Montgomery in 1945. She died, aged just 24, in 1970 of complications from brain cancer. Marvin Gaye was born Marvin Gay in 1939. He died, aged just 44, in 1984: fatally shot by his father. Two lives cut tragically short that entwined to glorious but brief effect, from ’67 until Terrell’s death, on thirty six songs spread across three albums.

Terrell was singing from her mid teens, working back up for James Brown and releasing material as a solo artist until she came to the attention of Berry Gordy who signed her to Motown in 1965. Gordy suggested the name change from Montgomery to Terrell and, two years later, hooked her up with Gaye to record a series of duets. Her life to that point had seen more than its share of pain; Terrell was raped as an eleven year old, was beaten by James Brown, and later suffered further physical abuse from David Ruffin, singer with the Temptations, with whom she had a love affair without realizing that he was married with three children. In contrast to all of that she forged a close, platonic friendship with Gaye and they complemented each other perfectly as performers: her street sass against his boy-next-door charm.

Their partnership was underpinned by the songwriting of Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford whose opening gift to them was “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. As opening gifts go that’s not too shabby. Footage of Gaye and Terrell performing together seems pretty rare but there’s a couple of performances of this song on Youtube (here and here) which are well worth watching to get a visual sense of their chemistry; they are utterly adorable and she’s sensational. There’s also a great 40 minute TV documentary – Unsung – which tells the story of her life if you’re curious for more. It’s a story that’s crying out for a biopic and she deserves to be much better known.

“You’re All I Need To Get By”, their sixth single, would have been part of my childhood. Picking up the thread from the last entry my parents had a number of Motown compilation albums – all in the Motown Chartbusters series. Volume 3 (the one with a silver, almost mirrored cover) is an absolute doozy – all killer, no filler, including:

Marvin Gaye: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Diana Ross & The Supremes: I’m Gonna Make You Love Me, Love Child

Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour, For Once In My Life

The Isley Brothers: This Old Heart Of Mine

Martha Reeves & The Vandellas: Dancing In The Street

The Temptations: Get Ready

Jr Walker & The All Stars: (I’m A) Roadrunner

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Tracks Of My Tears

It’s the one you’d send into space, the one that would serve any party anywhere in the world, for any age group. What are you waiting for ? You can pick up volumes 1 to 3 for less than a fiver. Two hours of the finest crafted pop music in history for the price of a couple of cappuccinos.

Musically “You’re All I Need To Get By” departed a little from the Motown template and feels rooted in soul and gospel. Lyrically it’s a heartfelt, straightforward dedication of love. There’s a purity to Gaye and Terrell’s duets, sweet without being saccharine, romantic but real. They’re incredibly light of touch, perfectly capturing the heady sensation of falling in love; for me they’re the perfect encapsulation of that initial realisation that you’ve fallen for someone. They sound like they’re in love – tonally complementing each other, improvised call and response, harmonies to die for. All the more remarkable given that, for the most part, they recorded their vocals separately – scarcely believable when you listen. It sounds like they must have been face to face singing into the same microphone.

For much of my life the sentiment in “You’re All I Need To Get By” was an aspiration, a desire to find the one person that I wanted to spend my days with. That changed in 1999 when, through good fortune and a fair amount of alcohol, I met my wife. I’ve been on innumerable corporate “development” events over the past 18 years or so, learning how to bluff accounting (finance for non-finance managers – as soul destroying as it sounds), how to give feedback (“your punctuality can’t be faulted but….”), and even how to listen (a skill not found in abundance in most large organisations). I’ve taken Myers Briggs to uncover my personality preferences (INTP if you’re interested – if you’re also INTP then you would be), Belbin to work out my team role (can’t remember but definitely not completer finisher), and conducted various quizzes and questionnaires designed to work out what I’m best at. However, the one lasting, constant change to who I am, to my entire life, that arose from one of these events was meeting Nikki.

In early ’99 I had relocated from Nottingham and the world of hosiery and vitamins at Boots to live in London, commuting out to Comet in Rickmansworth. At the time Comet was still part of the larger Kingfisher group and, by some subterfuge, I had blagged my way on to participate in the development events that supported KMDS (Kingfisher Management Development Scheme) – essentially a graduate program to shape their business leaders of tomorrow.

The first event I attended was in Southampton and ran across two days. I have absolutely no idea what the course content was but can remember that we ended up in a dodgy club called Jumpin’ Jacks on the night out: this will tell you all you need to know about my less than meteoric career rise since. During the course of said night out I spent a lot of time talking to Nikki Matthews whom I’d met that day. Sassy, sexy, clever, and prepared to argue the case for late 90s boy bands with a surprising degree of passion. This is her, obviously, not me. Sparks flew.

Fast forward a few months and Nikki moves to Comet. Serendipitous. Once again we got to spend some time together on a development course; this time an outward bound leadership event in Devon. I was a delegate, Nikki was a facilitator. This was the first and last time in my working life that I had to rescue someone from a pothole or salvage toxic nuclear waste from an island (losing only one person to the lake and no-one to the fake radioactive material). Subsequently there hasn’t been much call for either skill in the topsy turvy world of market research. Nikki had to follow me on one of the exercises and appraise my performance: it was also the first and last time she had to chase after me. A post course invitation to lunch, to “get some additional feedback” (real smooth, Phil), and the rest is history.

I can’t genuinely lay claim to “You’re All I Need To Get By” being an intrinsic part of our early relationship; it was never “our song”. In fact, that part of our time together was marked, not entirely ironically, by a shared love of Christina Aguilera’s “Genie In A Bottle” and, later, by Josh Rouse’s “Slaveship”. The reasons for the former now escape me, I may return to the latter at a later stage in the 42.

However, I can lay claim to the song speaking fundamentally to me about the enduring love I have for my wife; both in the expression of the romantic ideal of love but also the recognition that it’s something that takes work, that deepens with effort and time. I can’t say it better than the song says it: 

Cause we, we got the right foundation and with love and determination
You’re all, you’re all I want to strive for and do a little more
You’re all, all the joys under the sun wrapped up into one
You’re all, you’re all I need, you’re all I need, you’re all I need to get by

Ultimately that this pure expression of love should come from two singers that led, on the face of it, such tragic lives is fascinating to me. Particularly with respect to Tammi Terrell – on recording this song she had been diagnosed with cancer, had undertaken a major operation to remove a tumour from her brain, and had lived a short life enduring dysfunctional, violent relationships and ongoing pain from her illness. It’s testament to her prowess as a performer or her spirit as a human bring, or both, that she’s able to articulate so convincingly one of the finest experiences as a person – falling and being in love – whilst suffering so much. Her story is an inspiration and, whilst mine might not inspire the world at large in quite the same way, I’ll always endeavour to carry some of the same sentiment, the same courage, and the same joy in being in love and being alive.