The Ned Wood Archive

Joe

No, says Joe, he doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Tom was asking him about what had happened up at the Park. When they got back to the tents, George had announced to everyone that Joe had fallen in love again and they’d ribbed him about it. Now they were alone together, Tom and Joe, walking over to Greenpeace, Tom tried to ask him some more about it. It was a big brother thing. Except they never talked about this stuff, not really, so Joe just said “nothing”. He could speak to George about it, but not Tom. So he kept quiet and had the dialogue with himself.

At least, Joe doesn’t think he believes you can fall in love at first sight. He believes you can fall in love with music the first time you hear it. Like with that Murder Capital song. Green & Blue. That would be the drums. The insistent hypnotic memorable beat. Or that Hamish Hawk song about getting called Juliet. That would be the tune. Or the lyric. The particular combination of notes. Or words. Yeah, you can fall in love with music straight away. But falling in love with someone?

He knows that he can get bowled over just seeing a face. That’s not love, it’s sort of infatuation. A sudden crush. It’s happened once or twice. At school in third year. He had a crush on Maggie Ryan in the year below. He used to watch her in the playground. Never spoke to her though. Then there was that lass he saw in Greece. Athens somewhere. Walking round an old ruin. He was on a guided tour and she was on a different guided tour and their paths crossed. He stopped and stared at her. Didn’t speak to her either, though.

He reckons that you could maybe work out what made a tune memorable. The interval between the notes. The pattern. You could analyse it and make hundreds of variants of it. But that would take away the magic.

And what was it about the faces, then? If he was asked to describe them, he couldn’t. Not accurately. Maybe that lass in Athens had a smile like the morning sun and eyes like a cool glass of Peroni. He’d be interviewed by the police as a witness. “Can you describe this woman, sir?” “Yes, officer, she had a kind face, understanding eyes, and a happy smile.” ”Thank you sir, we’ll find her in no time.”

Maybe you could analyse those faces. Measure the angle of the nose, the distance from eyes to mouth. That would take away the magic too. All he knows is that he wants to see that face again. I mean, if it was some fabulous new song he’d just heard on 6 Music, he could go and listen to it again on Spotify. And even if he didn’t know the name of the band or anything, he could look up the tracks they’d played on iPlayer. But for now, all he can do is close his eyes and replay the video of that face walking past him in the Park.

Even so, no, you don’t fall in love at first sight. You can’t really judge a person at first sight, can you? They can look kind and thoughtful and interesting and adventurous and wild and fun and considerate. But you don’t really know immediately, do you?