Unrequited love
…And that nothing much would have been me…
Llandaff is one of those sleepy suburbs you can find in any city of any size. Pebble dashed nineteen-thirty something detached houses, owned by middle class executives, lawyers and senior bank personnel line the avenues and cul de sacs, testifying simultaneously to both the conservatism and wealth of the residents.
Sunday in Llandaff is church, lunch, wash the car and mow the lawn, while housewives busy themselves with being beautiful and peripheral. Monday is suit, briefcase, peck on the cheek and off to do some hard-nosed business. Tuesday is the day after Monday, but it’s just the same. There’s something eternal about places like Llandaff, nothing changes and nothing ruffles the cushioned surface of life in suburbia… nothing much anyway. And that nothing much would have been me.
I wasn’t exactly Marlon Brando in “Rebel without a cause”, although I ticked a few boxes: a rebellious, long haired, leather jacketed, motorbike riding teen who had designs on the chastity of Llandaff’s daughters. Ostensibly, I had nothing going for me: I spoke in the cracked, harsh, flat vowels of a Grange end boy – South Cardiff and the Bay area in each sentence, I swore fluently and deliberately limited my conversation to rock, bikes, footie and women, but I had a secret weapon: I played lead guitar in a local rock band. A bit of good-looking, rough and a wannabe rock star: it was all too easy, really. I had my pick of middle class girls from good homes. A lad couldn’t want more, could he?
BUT, there’s always one, isn’t there? The one that makes your heart beat faster when she comes into the room. The one who has that funny way of making you smile even when she’s angry with you. The girl who likes the same music, reads the same books, looks positively edible in ill fitting jeans, the one who could have hedge-trimmed her hair and still looked just perfect: the one who just likes you as a friend.
Is it an unwritten rule of teen age angst that you must suffer (a) spots (b) premature ejaculation and (c) unrequited love? Or is just me? Why did I have to go all this time, with her flitting unbidden, to and from my mind like a will o’ the wisp, the zeitgeist of a refrain echoing from an open window, a shadowy image in a shop window, a reminder in the curve of an arm, or the sound of a voice? I’ve loved since, but still she persists in the background: there’s still the sense of something unfinished lacing my thoughts with spidery gossamer memories.
But now she’s gone. She rose, made breakfast, said goodbye to her husband, complained of a headache and went back to bed. Her daughter found her about four hours later. This is my way of paying a tribute to her. I loved her from afar and although I am pretty certain that love has faded to a fond memory of what might have been, I am no less certain my life is diminished for her passing.
Cheers Lynne, pob lwc wherever you are. I can forget now, but I won’t.
