A Short and Lovelorn Stroll Overflowing With Nostalgia and Regret

I woke early on another lonely Boxing Day. Having to meet a friend on the opposite side of my hometown I decide to go strolling, hours before I needed to. I kicked around town in the snow, seeing no sign of life. Then, choosing to re-visit some of my old haunts I beat a winding route through the suburbs and sub-suburbs of town. With no music, my mind was free to actually think, contemplate and reminisce, and I revelled in every second of it.

Taking Doc’s Alleyway I called in on Alex, but he was still asleep. “Whadda want?” he said, “I’m sleeping man.” That was a funny way to greet an old friend. No-one is awake this early around Christmas, as it’s a rare and deserved time off. Having no job meant every day belonged to me, and I could do with each day as I pleased. Christmas was no different, it was just another day off. No-one wanted to trudge around in the snow all day either, except me, and I was walking round on a nostalgia trip. The more I walked, the more every tiny detail reminded me of you. I was wishing back both you and our youth.

I cut up through the Churchyard and over the tiny little park where we first met. You were wearing a green paisley blouse. That colour burnt an impression into the back of my mind forever. I passed the bench where we met to talk about your friends when they’d let you down and you needed a shoulder. It was on these pavements that we walked and talked, flirting the whole way, with me trying to catch your eye and a smile as often as possible. I remember you when you still had your braces. I always wanted to kiss you to see what it was like, but we never did. Why was that? What happened? What went wrong?

Aside from relationships, and trying to win girls over, things seemed easier then. None of us had need for money. But we worked bad jobs anyway, cursing and hating our way through them one after another. I visited you once at your garden centre gig, and we talked about the plants as we walked around. I spent the rest of the day alone, thinking about it in the corner of the park.

I walked up the alleyway behind the Co-op, past the allotments and into another park. There wass still no-one out but me, and I thought it was tradition to go walking on Boxing Day. The memories the pavement and park hold stack up and up in front of me as I strolled over them for the first time in years. My feet felt hot with life, a warm feeling of de ja vu despite the snow. The park was blanketed by white, except some small glimmers of lush green grass poking through. I paused for a smoke. 

I passed along your road and contemplated calling in at your old place, presuming you’ll still be there, but wisely decided against it. I doubt you want to walk around with me like we used to. This regime of paranoia we’re living under has probably got to you too. It’s much safer to stay home, wherever you are. I wondered what you were really like back then, as I can now see that we hardly knew each other. I don’t even know what you did with your time. You didn’t play music, or write, or paint. I can’t even recall what music you did like. You were only a socialite. Now, that seems lame. At the time I didn’t think twice about it.

All that waiting, and thinking it over, and not acting added up to more than one broken heart. I think you broke mine for two, or three. I told no-one, not even you. I kept it all quiet and hidden, and for what? How awkward would it have been to say it – let those warm words get tangled and spew out? Let go for once. Let loose. Silence is deadly – and it leaves a long, dark and all-encompassing shadow over everything after the silence. Are you happy I wonder or do you feel lonesome too?

I scratched through the suburbs. A never-ending wriggle of semi-detached houses guided my way as if I was watching the North Star for my bearings. We were always talking about leaving town, and doing this and that. Recently I heard you were leaving the country. I wish you the best. You evidently continue to be more daring and go-getting than I’ll ever be. We were two opposites in temperament. You were loud, daring, light-hearted and full of life. I was cold, quiet and shy. The confidence I lacked you made unimportant because your personality rubbed-off on people. You warmed people up.

By now, I was starving and headed to the Supermarket Cafe for a cheap fix. I hadn’t been there for years either. The young punk behind the counter cursed his boss as he took my order and offered endless cups of free tea. Those knowing nods and these old shirts do have their perks. I pulled up a chair, rested my feet on another and caught up on some writing, in which you featured heavily. I spend the whole year without you on my mind, then we meet again and I spend ages trying to forget you. Hanging around our old stomping ground doesn’t help things, it only inflames them. 

I used to see you every day and looked forward to it. I was keen to talk to you, but with intentions. Now I see you once a year, on Christmas Eve, hence why you’re on my mind. We used to walk these streets together, passing smokes back and forth as we passed through every alleyway on your side of town. We were always searching, seeking, rambling. What changed? Did we grow older? I’m sure I blinked and ended up here. As much as I want to feel the same it’s different without you to think about each day. ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ the saying goes.

I checked my watch and needed to leave quickly, so sunk another tea and rolled a smoke before I hit the road. I made my way over the car park and into the woods. There, even the trees reminded me of you. I can still see you dangling from a branch screaming my name. “Henry, Henry! Help!” With you hanging there, I paused for a moment out of your view, and smiled at the situation. Here I was; comfortable with both feet planted firmly on the ground and you, suspended from a tree, with your blue jeans all muddy and chewed up at the bottom and your white Beatles shirt pulled up a little showing your stomach. I laugh a little at the thought of it; two teenagers driving each other insane and not admitting it, but feeding off it. At least, that’s how I saw it.

Walking further out of town, and further away from anything reminding me of you, I kept an eye on the time. I was still meeting my lift at half eleven and had to make it. I kept on my toes. Turning the corner into the village square I watched my lift arrive at the exact time we’d agreed. An amazing feat. I threw my backpack in the backdoor and got in the front. A cushioned seat had never felt so good.

At the last set of lights before the open road and open countryside we pulled up for what seemed like an eternity. As soon as we stopped I recognised the opening brass section of a Beatles tune coming from the car behind, cranked up really high. They stayed behind as we made way down the first stretch of dual-carriageway, then, as the chorus kicked in, they overtook us. The music was crystal clear, or seemed it, despite the hum of the tyres. Everything had become surprisingly inaudible, but the music.

“All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love, love is all you need.” 

      Talk about hammering away at one point! I did what one tends to do, and applied the lyrics to how I was thinking and how I was feeling at that moment. No one song could have been more fitting for a whole morning affected by our once-yearly meeting. Those damn Beatles.

Life Doesn't Write Itself

I’m great at putting myself in odd situations with the intention of writing about them. My failed attempt at walking the mere thirty miles to Leamington is one example. Breaking into the biggest and most corporate festival in the country with the idea of causing scandal is another. Half the time I do interesting things knowing I’ll be writing about them afterwards. It’s called foresight. I knew Mike’s wedding would be such an event. It had to be; a whole slew of old faces, drunk, everyone wearing their best suit and catching up on gossip, news, and their travels.

Mike was an old friend from my teenage years on the suburban outskirts of Rugby. We spent many hours together although our tastes in music, women and food couldn’t have been more different. As we got older he covered himself in more and more tattoos but I kept my distance from the needle. It made me worry. Mike had been the one who told me, after getting his first ink, that “you want more and more.” He travelled the world, frequenting noise gigs and orgies along the way. I stayed home, grumpy and mean, writing in my room alone. We were two opposites, two extremes of the same life who happened to spend their formative years together, united by both location and time.

Mike was also the only person who ever dared take me flyposting. It was for his farewell gig. I was, thinking about it, a bad choice to take flyposting, being overly paranoid at that point in time, but I felt safe enough with Mike. Not only was he 6’6” with the build of a bull but he was no stranger to getting away with it – his Dad was the local superintendent. We strolled around for a couple of hours in the middle of a Wednesday night, Mike carrying the posters and me carrying the brush and bucket full of paste.

The reception was at a hotel in the middle of nowhere; a big, expansive place which was empty except for our party. Quiet, serene green pastures surrounded the venue but the hum of car tyres on the motorway nearby could be heard if you listened carefully. Rabbits darted in and out of the hedges. I missed the ceremony but arrived in time for the evening’s party. I had my suit folded neatly in my backpack and slipped into a toilet to change before all the reception guests arrived. Mingling around with the people who arrived early there was no sign of the bride or groom yet. In the bar the army, navy and marine guests drank leaning on the counter, and everyone else slumped low in their chairs, all chatting away. I flicked through the paper, looking for something as positive as a wedding.

Standing out front to smoke I watched the sun go down on the other side of the car park. More and more people slowly started to arrive. They’d all get dropped off at the bottom of the steps, walk up to the front door and I’d be there, cigarette in mouth, ready to meet and greet all these faces I hadn’t seen in so long. It really was friends reunited, but with less years between the meetings than most. Nostalgic reunions are my greatest vice.

The place filled up fast. You were unable to move five steps before talking to another familiar face. Soon there were grown-up teenagers all over the place. I couldn’t get the vision of these people; fifteen years old, passed out in the park, or tripping on shrooms and hiding in the hedge at Bawnmore Park. They gathered around the big staircase and the bride and groom came down slowly. A deafening cheer went up.

“He was crying earlier,” someone next to me said, “He blamed it on the onions.”

“During the ceremony?” I asked.

With three hundred guests Mike and his wife, Sam, had a whole lot of hand-shaking to do. And everyone wanted to shake and hug and congratulate. I felt a pressure to catch up with as many people as possible and it wasn’t even my night.

Everyone was called inside for the first dance. Unlike a traditional wedding everyone danced at the same time – to the Macarena! Oh jeez. The small PA was pushed to the limit, and was half lost in the roaring laughter. Grandparents sat at the back watching the chaos in the packed room. I looked around at what people were wearing. All the women wore long, flowing, cream dresses and the children running circles around our legs wore miniature suits.

The room throbbed with people, like a good gig, even spilling out into the corridor and beyond. Another corny 90’s dance tune hit the PA and I took that as my cue to investigate the large buffet. I picked up the very first slice of wedding cake and glanced at the spread with wide eyes. Mike came by and was force-fed cheese and pineapple by his wife. I laughed as he dribbled juice and crumbled cheese down his best rig.

The beer was flowing through me by now. I wondered around, staying close to the food, shaking hands and meeting relatives and catching up with people. H talked only of South America, still under the spell of his recent travels down there. Ash described the school he was currently squatting. Joy and I talked books, as we always used to. There and then, she turned me onto Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy. “A staggering work,” she repeated over and over, holding onto my wrist. I dished out a handful of zines to regular readers, picking up a couple of new readers along the way.

Mike brought out his Cubans, saved for such an occasion, all housed in a humidity-controlled wooden box. We passed them around. Sean, in his best rig too, sat down beside me, drunk as hell. He was saying something about a book that helped him quit smoking. “Two months now,” he was blurting, “pass me that cigar!” I held it out to him and he took it to his lips but dropped it on the way. It fell, lit, into his lap. I snatched it back, saving his uniform from getting a large hold burnt through it. Roland just laughed and laughed.

A couple of hours passed between the free food, the room with the bad music and the smoking patio out front. The inevitable last train home beckoned, so I was forced to say my farewells. I still had a 5-mile ride to the station yet – in utter darkness. From one extreme to another – an over-lit hotel conference room to a country lane painted black, black, and blacker. I could imagine my eyes getting burnt by light when I finally arrived at the station.

I had my doubts about the ride, of course. A fairly hardened, weather-beaten cyclist I may be but riding on pitch-black country roads in the middle of the night isn’t something I make a habit of doing. I almost changed my mind at one point, thinking I was still young and afraid of the dark, pausing under the last streetlight in the village to stare down the dark road ahead. It was the only way home - the only option. Staying at the hotel, and waking ill and hungover would have been worse than waking bruised, ill and hungover in a random bush somewhere on the lane.

With a half-working front light and a mental map of the road ahead I navigated my way by moonlight. It was a mixture of blissful unawareness, blind insanity, fear of darkness and trying to find a road to concentrate on all at once. I used the shape of the black hedges against the dark blue sky as indicators as to how close I was to the edge of the road. Although only a couple of miles in any direction from various villages there was no light pollution out there. There was nothing to show the way either. It would have been easy to call me mad. When an unexpected cattle grid appeared out of nowhere and shook me to pieces for a second I mouthed the word ‘mad’ but there was no-one to hear me. There was no-one to hear me scream, fall, or crash my bike, plus I couldn’t afford to crash. I had a train to catch.

The beer and the joyous spirit of the evening enveloped my body; warm in the winter cold and happy under the circumstances. You have to put yourself out from time to time, give yourself a little jolt with an odd situation to deal with. Kicking along on my trusty ten-speed the biggest threats were potholes and cow shit, neither of which I could see. The bike rattled along, shaking itself apart bit by bit. My deep breathing and the rumble of the tyres on the concrete were the only sounds.

A couple of cars passed me, maybe two or three. I wondered what they thought. I attempted to regulate my breathing but the ominous last train beckoned and I rode as fast as possible to catch it, even knowing I was on time and ahead of time. Some things never change.

I rode down under the Railway Bridge, then back up the hill into the last village and round the bend. I took the downhill road to the lonely outback train station and waited on the platform with a smoke. It wasn’t long before the bright yellow lights of the last train arrived to carry me back home for the night.

But what I must learn from the experience is this; you can plan, and predict, how the gist of the event and the story will flow, but the ending will never write itself. The ending isn’t necessarily the important part of the story. Life doesn’t write itself, and stories don’t either. You’ve got to write them both yourself. Life ends in many different ways, depending on hundreds of thousands of factors. Stories are the same. But no matter what you do, they both take on a life all of their own eventually. They spiral away from your control and keep spinning from their own momentum.