The Ned Wood Archive

Sometimes when we’re as close as this it’s like we’re in a dream

It all came back to me half way through the Sunday.  But, what the hell, you’re only young once, everyone likes a bit of fun, they’ll understand.  Maybe no-one else will remember. 

“How you feeling this morning?”

That was the first thing Steve said to me as I crept down for lunch.  And Jo.  And Denny.  And Kev.  At least Sonia understood.  I found the usual spot on her table.  She’d poured me a glass of water before I sat down.  Life is to enjoy yourself, she said.  My philosophy exactly.  Tell all of my friends that I had a good time.  Let church bells ring and people sing, I had a good time.  And as I hadn’t drunk enough to be ill, I didn’t have too much of a hangover, especially as I appeared to have slept rather too long.

Yeah, I could still have a good time. I could go to a couple more parties, not drink at all, and just have fun dancing.  I wanted to see Mary again and try to prove to her that I could be normal really, so when Sonia suggested the Spanish party, I agreed.  Then, of course, I spent the next three days worrying like hell.  Like, for a start, what on earth could I wear?  The hooped socks and cut-offs were out, I guess.  Finally, I decided to play safe.  I always thought I looked good in blue (in matches my blood), so I wore my David Steel shirt (that’s a blue and white stripe with a white collar if you don’t remember David Steel).  I usually wore it with my blue suit when I really wanted to impress, but I figured a suit was over the top, so my dark blue flares would have to do.  I chewed that one over for a while, because my flares weren’t really wide enough to be as trendy as I would have liked.  But having decided on the shirt, it had to be those trousers.  And also, that meant it had to be my blue check jacket, because neither the green one nor the black one would go.  I looked at meself in the mirror and decided the width of my lapels more than made up for the lack of width on the flares.  These lapels you’d die for.

So I was happy when we met up in reception, satisfied that I was looking good.  Of course, the fact that everyone else was wearing jeans gave me that extra boost.  So we legged it down to the Spanish department, Jo, Sonia, Helen, Steve, Debbie, and I.  Steve asked Debbie if her friend was going.  Debbie was this really sweet girl who liked Elton John and Watford football club, probably in that order.  Her friend was a true stunner with explosive red hair.  She was exceedingly attractive and totally desirable, but no-one I knew had the courage to ask her out.  In fact I think everyone was too scared to even ask her name, so she became known as “Debbie’s friend”.  This wound her up apparently, as I heard her lose it one day and turn round to Debbie and scream “Don’t any of you friends know I’ve got a name” before storming off, breaking hearts as she went.

She didn’t go.  Neither did anyone else.  I saw someone I thought I recognised and started to talk to her, but when she asked why I didn’t speak to her during the day, I realised it was the girl that cooked the toast at breakfast so I ran away quickly.  A couple of Steve’s mates arrived and he left with them left to find a bar.  At about nine we decided that no-one was going to turn up and left: Jo, Debbie, and I.  I blamed fate.  I guess I hadn’t really developed my philosophy on fate, karma, and sod’s law by then, but I was beginning to realise that if you tried too hard to get something, you’d fail; but if you acted normally it would fall into your lap.  Like the times I’d go looking for Mary round the union – I never found her.  But when I wasn’t looking, she’d roll up.  It’s the same with tennis or football.  If you think too hard about hitting the ball over the net (tennis) or into the net (football), it goes over the net (football) or into the net (tennis).  You just have to let go and it happens.  You’ve just got to be more laid back.  I may even have told Jo and Debbie that we were trying too hard to have a good time as we were walking back up toward the hall, when we saw Mary and Nick and Tim strolling down the hill.  Yesss!

They turned round as soon as we told them about the Spanish party.  Or lack of it.  Nick and Jo knew each other really well, so they decided to go off on their own.  Debbie felt a bit left out because she didn’t know Tim or Mary, so she went back too.  Tim and I were going to go back to Mary’s place when we bumped into Neil.

“We were just going to the bar, Neil.  Are you coming?” she asked.  She must have decided she didn’t want him going back to her room.

So we went to the bar.  Neil, as Mary may well have judged, was belligerent.  We got into a fierce debate about why we’re on this planet.  His aim in life is to create the perfect society.  At least that’s what he said.  My aim in life is to have fun.  He takes this as having fun at the expense of anyone and everyone.  He’s such a miserable git, I should have said that his aim is to prevent anyone and everyone from having fun.  But what struck me was that he’d lost sight of pleasure and viewed everything in some sterile perfunctory way.  I guess he thought that no-one could be happy while a single person was starving in the world, but he seemed to epitomise the drab greyness one associates with the Soviet bloc or more particularly with Orwell’s 1984 (which I at least had read) – everyone there is equal because everyone there has nothing.

Luckily he saw someone he knew and left us, which is when we adjourned to Mary’s.  Mary wanted to know a bit more about fun, so I told her how you got it.  We had digressed to human nature, was it good or bad, and all that.  I guess we all ended up agreeing that man is basically a decent character, we just have to make sure he stays that way.  Tim had left, so I felt the old nerves coming back.  I was conscious that I might make a fool of myself again, even though she didn’t refer to it once, so I tried to keep myself in rein.  

So, how do you get fun?  I told her about football.  About how the beautiful game grabs the emotions.  About how the emotions ebb and flow during a game, the beauty lying in its uncertainty.  I told her about the dance of the eleven players which, unchoreographed, is nevertheless both a work of art and a work of nature.  I told her of the bonding, the humour of the crowd.  I told her of the few triumphs spread across the barren years, their very rarity making each one sweeter.  Did Middlesbrough enjoy promotion as much as we enjoyed beating them 5-1?  Maybe, but we can never be sure.

I told her about RocknRoll.  About the pure sweet beauty of the alien noises you get on Roxy albums.  About the unforgettable melodies you get from Holland Dozier and Holland, so simple, so right.  I told her about the power of Exile on Main street or Born to Run.  I told her about music’s ability to take you away from whatever hell you’re in for the two minutes and fifteen seconds of the perfect pop song.  I told her how you can lose yourself in the dervish dance of the crazy noises.

I told her about living near Cannock Chase.  Running through ferns that cover your head.  Hiding beneath their broad cool fronds.  I told her about the thrill of camping out around a glowing fire.  About staying out overnight watching the sky change colour through the trees.  About watching the leaves change colour through the year, starting in spring with the first small bud heralding the coming of warmer days and ending with the exuberant finale of reds, yellow, golds, browns, and oranges, before, exhausted, the leaves fall to the ground.

I told her about walking across Wenlock Edge, the land empty of humanity, yet full of life.  The overgrown footpaths, you can barely make out, where you convince yourself no-one has trod this way since Tudor times, yet in reality you’re battling against a single summer’s growth.  I told her about the wonderful collection of greens spread out before you: fields, hedges, woods, each different.  I told her about the wheat fields rippling in the wind, picking up speed here, gently slowing there.  I told her about the strength you feel when you stay this close to nature, when you gaze out across it, the incredible sense of well-being that wells up inside you as if you are feeding directly from it.

I told her about swimming in Dosthill quarry where the water is so clear that you can see for miles through it.  Where you still take your kecks off because only then do you really feel free, although if you haven’t skinny dipped you won’t know what I’m talking about.  We went there with Anna and Sue and they agreed.  Six of us innocent in our pleasure, disrobing behind bushes on opposite sides of the pool and keeping at least fifteen foot between us as we swam.  And afterwards you could walk across the grass to the gate where you could sit looking across the cornfield, across the Tame valley, and across the endless Midland plain.  Home.  A scene so tranquil and green that it looks like a picture, a twee tourist shop picture framed neatly by a row of trees and hedging either side of our gate.  Even the faraway power station doesn’t distract unless you focus on what it is.  In its distance it looks like a cardboard model, its ugliness diminished by the summer haze.  And as the plashing in the quarry dies, you lie back and drink in the pleasure of August, the hissing of summer insects the only sound.

I even told her how wonderful it would be to lie there with someone you loved.

I told her fun was there for every one.  Each of us needs to search out what we can enjoy and live it. Provided you don’t wreck it for others, we can all have fun.  Fun is an attitude of mind.

I got up to go.  I was breathless, you know how it is when you get over-excited.  Inside I felt good, though.  I felt refreshed from thinking about the wonders of home. I felt exhilarated from my speech.  I was high because I thought that I’d made a good impression.  I was glad that I’d walked her home that night.  Through her uncurtained windows all the stars were shining bright. I felt so happy I almost cried.  And then she kissed me.