My name is James Spencer.
We met before, you and I, when I told you a story of love and
loss.
This time, I'm going to start with a question.
If you were asked to think of the three most important moments of your
life, what would they be?
You could pick 'being born', that's a pretty obvious one. Most likely,
though, you won't remember that particular event.
What about your first day at school? That's a pretty safe bet, you'll
probably still have vague memories of that day, or parts of it at
least.
Your first kiss? Did that make an impact on your life ever after? I’d say it does. You’ll remember the person involved, and I think it stays with you forever. It’s always been an important and special memory for me. Let’s call it one of the top five moments, then.
The first time you made love- now we're getting somewhere. That's an
event that we can all point to, if we've made love at all. If you have,
you'll hopefully remember where and when and who. Unless, like some, it
happened under the cover of alcohol, in which case you've been spared
the embarrassment that the more sober amongst us might yet feel.
How about the day you got married? Again, we're getting more specific
here. Not everyone has experienced that, less than have made love
anyway.
So. The day you were born, that's one. The day you made love for the
first time, that's another. For some, the day of your marriage- at
least, the first one might be important enough to rate amongst the top
three.
There are others candidates of course. A bad accident, the birth of
your child, a good day at work, your football team gets the cup, a
crime you committed, whatever.
Perhaps the day you died will stick in your memory, a little better
than most.
----------
This happened the day before I died. I remember it well.
It was enough that he was bleeding. I didn't remember much about the
punch, except for the moment of impact, when my fist had met with the
nose of the man who now sat on the ground in front of me. My knuckles
stung, aching with the promise of a bruise later, but the adrenaline
that rushed through my veins kept the edge off the pain.
Mark was slumped back against the wall, gingerly touching his nose with
fragile fingertips. The back alley behind the Empire was dark, but
there was some light filtering through from the lights on the main
street.
"You didn't have to punch me," he mumbled quietly, and it was all I
could do not to kick him as well.
"I think," yours truly commented between gasps, "you had that coming.
You bastard."
Mark looked up, and looked at me, gauging how serious I was. As if his
broken nose wasn't already making that clear.
"Yeah," was all he could say, thinking better of getting deeper into
discussion with the pissed off me standing above him.
Almost as sharply as it came, the anger slipped away, despite my
attempt to hang onto it. I was almost disappointed when it was gone,
because it left a vague sense of regret of my actions.
"Ah, bollocks."
I took a couple of steps back, and sat down against the opposite wall
from Mark. We took up most of the space between the walls of the alley,
and didn't look as if we were going to move just yet. Mark dabbed at
his nose with a piece of tissue paper, rescued from a pocket.
"I was just trying to help, James." he asked.
I just put my hand over my eyes, and sighed deeply.
"I'm sorry I hit you, Mark. But god, you nearly got yourself killed in
there tonight."
Mark checked the tissue. In the orange half light of the alleyway, he
could make out that the bleeding had stopped. There were no new patches
of black dampness on the paper.
"Where is she now?" he asked. I smiled, because it was funny.
"She left with Nose Boy. Surprise, huh."
Mark chuckled.
"You going to punch him as well?"
I shook his head.
"Nah. He'd beat the shite out of me if I did."
We both laughed then.
----------
It had been a few years since Chalice had died. I suppose that I had
spent the first year in mourning, though for what exactly, I was never
fully sure. Chalice, certainly, but her death had been the death of
part of myself. I spent most of the second year trying to figure out
what exactly.
Somewhere in that second year, I started to go back to the Empire, the
bar where I had met her. The place had changed little, except that they
had reopened the upstairs part, and it was now a music venue that,
whilst not the most popular in Belfast, was new enough to allow me to
rebuild some new memories.
The first time I had gone back there was in June 1997, to see Fish play
in the music hall. It had been a good night, though it had been haunted
slightly by memories of Chalice.
Mark had been there, and Sally had been with him. They were engaged at
the time, and had moved in together, about five minutes away from where
I still lived. I had stayed in the same house where Mark and I had
lived during the Chalice Thing.
The Chalice Thing. That's what it had been reduced down to, a phrase
that sounded like a Government scandal or a military action rather than
a passionate and heartbreaking relationship that ended in death.
I was still with the advertising agency in Holywood, still running a
few of their more lucrative accounts. I had been a bit of a mess for a
while, after I had got word of Chalice's death, but the firm had been
kind enough to give me a month off, during which I had travelled to
England to visit Chalice's grave and her family.
That first night back in the Empire had been an interesting one. Two
moments stick in the mind. The first was bumping into Fish, the ex-lead
singer of Marillion, as the giant Scotsman was getting a beer
downstairs in the bottom bar, before the music started.
I had been trying to get past the singer. I hadn't noticed the six and
a half foot tall man as being one of my favourite singers, as the girl
behind the bar had almost my full attention. The uniform, her hair, and
just before she turned around, her back reminded me of Chalice in
almost every way.
"You alright?" asked Fish. I looked up. I blinked.
"Er?" I had replied, lost for words. Fish looked down at me, and sipped
his pint.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he commented with the familiar
Scottish burr, and stood back from the bar, to let me get past. He
didn't know how right he was.
The waitress turned around, and of course, it wasn't Chalice. I felt
disappointment, made worse by how stupid I knew I was being. That was
the second moment that I remember about the evening, the ridiculous
disappointment.
The Scotsman chuckled, noticing the look that I was giving the
waitress, and grinned at me knowingly.
"Er," I think I had said, trying to find words.
"Good luck this evening," I said finally to the singer, who was already
walking away. Fish raised his pint in a salute, and nearly disappeared
into the crowd, as well as a 6'5" famous singer could.
"That was Fish," I had explained to the girl.
"Do you want a drink or not?" she replied wittily.
----------
The trail of events that led to me punching Mark started six months
later. It was deep into December, and the nights were long and so very
dark. Mark had moved out of Sally's flat about two weeks earlier,
following one of their weekly rows that had escalated into something
that a box of chocolates and two hours of cunnilingus couldn't
fix.
He was staying with me, in the 'spare-room' that still had most of
Mark's stuff in it, because it used to be his.
We had planned a night out, starting at the Empire, and ending up,
imaginatively, at the Empire with several visits to the bar in the
Empire in-between. Sometimes we'd go elsewhere, but we knew the crowd,
and the staff, and it just made sense to get pissed somewhere we knew
wouldn't kick us out. Or would at least let us back in next week if
they did throw us out.
We stood at the bar, like guards, protecting the precious supply of
booze. I had finished my eighth pint, Mark was closer to eleven or
twelve. We had been there for a good four hours, and had fended off
invitations to join groups of friends at the next pub along in the
crawl.
Music filled the room, some of it thumping down from upstairs where a
local band was finishing their set.
"More beer," commented Mark to the waitress behind the bar. She nodded,
and poured him another pint, and slid the two pound coins wetly off the
bartop. She placed the change in his hands. He dumped the coins into a
random pocket. He'd find it tomorrow.
"So," he continued, picking up the threads of the conversation, "What
do you think of her?"
Mark was aiming an unsteady finger at a tall blonde woman who was
standing at the end of the bar. She was chatting with one of the
waitresses behind the bar, and looked very appealing in her simple
black dress. Her hair cascaded down over her shoulders like melted
gold, and her eyes were blue diamonds caught in pale stone. She stood
out the crowd like a perfect orchid in this desolation of fools.
"She's alright, I suppose, " I said.
"Are you mad? She's better than alright, she's fuckin' perfect!" said
Mark, a little louder than he should have. The blonde looked down the
bar towards us, and smiled a little nervously. She went back to her
conversation with the girl behind the bar. I shook my head, though I
knew exactly what Mark meant.
"Nice one, romeo," I grinned. Mark waved me off.
"Nah, I'm in there, mate." He made his way up the bar towards her, and
I sipped at my beer, watching. In the five yards between us and the
girl, Sally intercepted Mark. The look of surprise on his face was
matched only by the one on my own, since she had appeared, seemingly,
from nowhere. Perhaps Mark was right in his theory that she just
materialised from thin air at the worst possible time.
Her face was full of sorrow and longing as she spoke softly to Mark. He
looked stricken as she laid her head on his chest and started to cry. I
imagined the conversation, it would be a typical Sally and Mark
encounter. She'd be begging him to come back, having forgotten what the
row was about, he'd be trying to get rid of her, but would eventually
give up? and there he went, his arms wrapped around her, his spirit
broken. He'd be back at her flat tonight, picking up a bag of his stuff
tomorrow evening, and things would be back to normal for a few
weeks.
I looked down the bar for the blonde, who had disappeared. I
shrugged.
"I see your loud friend got lucky," said a voice behind me. I looked
around, and saw the tall blonde girl smiling at me. I smiled
back.
"Not lucky, not really. That's his girlfriend," I said, making space
for her at the bar.
"I see," she said, and she smiled at her waitress friend who was still
standing at the other end of the bar. They exchanged winks.
"I'm Laura," she said, offering a perfect hand. I took it, and squeezed
it gently. It was soft, delicate. After a long moment, our hands
parted.
"I'm James. Would you like a drink, Laura?" I asked her, trying out the
name.
"Sure!" she smiled again, broader this time, and it lit up her face. I
smiled back, it was impossible not too.
"So," she asked, taking the glass of vodka that had been poured for
her, "Do you come here often?"
I nodded.
"Quite a bit, really. You?"
She smiled, and there was that smile again. It made her nose wrinkle
attractively, and little lines appeared by her eyes.
"I've been avoiding the place since I broke up with my boyfriend," she
said, and nodded across the room towards her ex.
He was a tall, vaguely unsettling figure, with pierced nose and nasty
haircut. He glared at her, then at me. I was glad that at least four
tables full of people lay between him and me. Enough time to disappear
out the back, through the Empire's kitchens, if he took a violent
dislike to me.
She noticed my alarmed stare.
"Don't worry about him," she soothed, moving closer to me. I smiled,
and let her squeeze in beside me. She set her drink down on the bar.
Our hips touched sexily. She pressed herself up against me, and I felt
her scent working on me. I blushed a lot.
"Well," I said, gently laying a hand on her hip, "I won't worry about
him if you won't."
She smiled wickedly and planted a kiss on my cheek.
"I'm not worried about him," she whispered, and I stole a glance across
the room at her ex.
If he'd glared at me again, or mouthed a threat, that would have been
better than what he did do.
He smiled at me, a knowing dangerous smile that spoke volumes. Suddenly
it wasn't him I was scared of.
----------
There have been three women in my life that I can say that I truly
loved. In fact, I still love them all a little, which is how I know
that I loved them at all.
There have been about a dozen women in all that have played a part in
my romantic or sexual life. So, a quarter of them actually got under my
skin and made some kind of impact- usually a violent, painful impact,
like being hit by car... (By the way, the whole impact thing is what is
called foreshadowing. You'll understand later). Anyway, I sometimes
wonder if we measure our love in terms of pain. I know that I do. I'm
not a masochist, but it's the pain of breaking up that I remember most.
It hurts the most when you really actually love that person. That's the
deep, painful pain.
The first love was when I was 15. There was a first kiss involved, too, but I had been besotted with her for months before that happened. We broke up after about a month. That sucked.
Then there was Chalice. You remember how that ended.
But there are other sorts of romantic pain. There's the pain of being
apart from the one you love. Maybe she lives in a different town, or
country. Maybe she died of AIDS, and you really can never ever see her
again.
----------
Laura bought me a drink, then I bought her one. We stopped trying to
shout over the music, and just started kissing each other, caressing
each other as best we could in the middle of this crowd. At some point,
this can happen, if the chemistry is right. Doesn't happen much to me,
but trust me, it can happen. You know I'm right, you've either done it
or seen it.
Eventually, things got too hot and too bothered to cope with, and we
left, nearly at a run. The next thing we knew, we were sitting in a
taxi heading home, and it was all we could do not to just do it there
in the back of the cab.
Once through the door of my house, I got the front door closed, and
Laura and I made love for the first time there in the hall, at the
bottom of the stairs. I managed to get a condom on before she ravaged
me, but the rest of the night involved trying to get to a bed, and
failing several times.
She was gone when I woke up. She left her number on a post-it note
attached to the bathroom mirror. It was a Bangor number, I recognised
the 01247 code. I shrugged, and showered and bathed. Then I lay on the
ruffled Laura and James scented bed, and thought for a while.
Laura was the first woman I had made love to in about a year. There had
been a couple of one night stands after Chalice, and the memorable
encounter in an alley near Shaftsbury Square one Halloween night. I
have no idea who she was, but she didn't speak English.
But all along, I was careful. Chalice had taught me the value of
safety.
There's her name again. She does keep cropping up, doesn't she?
Again, that's, the foreshadowing thing. It works, trust me.
----------
Mark hesitantly knocked the door of my bedroom. I had heard the front
door open and close seconds before, so he was back from Sally's. I
checked the time, just after two in the afternoon.
"You alone?" he asked. I smiled to myself.
"Yeah," I shouted back. The door opened, and Mark walked in, eyes
gleaming, nose twitching.
"You dirty dirty bastard," he commented with a wide grin. He shook his
head, and sat on the chair in front of my desk staring at me.
"What?" I asked, but I was grinning too.
"I was nearly in there. If Sally hadn't turned up."
I shrugged.
"True love, and all that," I commented. Mark shot me a dark glance, and
sighed.
"Yeah, yeah. True love," he replied without enthusiasm.
"So how was she?" he asked casually. This was the start of a familiar
line of questioning. I decided to pre-empt his grilling.
"She was great, yes we did, four times, yes she did, and she did, so
did I, and we did, and she wanted to and I did, and yes it was, six,
seven if you include the bed, yes, no, the fridge, no, and I don't
know."
The last bit, the "I don't know part" was about whether or not I'd see
her again. Use your imagination for the rest. You pervert.
Mark knew what I meant. He blinked.
"Okay, cool," he said, and meant it. I could see that he respected and
deeply coveted my adventures with Laura, and it said a lot about him,
and also about me that I fed his vicarious affliction.
To be fair, I suppose I was kinda impressed when he managed to convince
a woman that wasn't Sally to sleep with him. It had happened on a
couple of occasions, though he always felt guilty afterwards.
He shook his head.
"That's something I suppose," he sighed, "at least one of us
scored."
I stared at him.
"What are you talking about?" I asked in some disbelief.
"What?"
"Are you telling me that you didn't sleep with Sally last night?"
Mark nodded.
"Well, yeah, but you know, that doesn't count."
I thought about it a moment, and thought how in Mark's mind, he really
meant what he had just said.
"Jesus, Mark, you and Sally are really in trouble."
I was starting to deeply regret the direction of this conversation, and
like a sane man at a Celine Dion concert, I wanted it all to
stop.
I tried a desperate gambit. Mark was going to be more interested in
Laura than Sally.
"She's from Bangor. Laura, I mean."
"Hmmm." he commented. I hadn't expected that.
"Okay. What."
He looked deep in thought.
"What about that guy with the thing through his nose?" he said.
I thought he was trying to tell a joke that he'd heard, and
failing.
Then it came back to me, and I suddenly remembered the Nose Boy and the
look he'd given me. That smile. It was the sort of smile you needed a
license from the police to carry. If he had in fact pointed a gun at
me, I would have felt less threatened.
"Oh, yeah, him," I said. "Nah, I'm not worried about him."
----------
It was later that night when I finally tapped in her phone number. I
had thought about it all day, weighing things up, pros and cons. Most
of the cons involved the scary Nose Boy, and most of the pros were
sexual in nature. I felt a bit guilty at my Mark-esque interest in the
sex, but it was a nice change from the angst-ridden denial that I had
been living in for a while.
She picked up after the fifth ring.
"Hello?" she said politely.
"It's James. Hello."
There was a pause, and for a terrible moment, I thought she was trying
to think if she knew someone called James.
"I didn't expect you to call," she said softly. Her voice was tinged
with something, some emotional spin that I couldn't quite
identify.
"Er," I said, then grimaced at my lack of eloquence.
"I'm glad you did call," she added almost hastily, and that did make me
feel a bit better.
"Well, good. Would you like to do something this week?" I asked. There
was a pause, and her hand went over the receiver. She was talking with
someone, I could just make out her voice.
There was a rustle and her voice returned as clear as before.
"Would Tuesday night be okay?" she asked. I nodded. Then I caught
myself, shook my head at my pointless nod, and said,
"Yes. Tuesday night would be fine."
"I'll meet you at the Empire," she said.
"You can come straight to the house, if you like," I suggested.
"No, the Empire," she answered, too quickly. I was a bit surprised, but
didn't say anything about it.
"Okay, seven thirty?"
"Okay. See you then. And James?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you called."
"Oh. Well, so am I."
Click, burr.
----------
She was on time, and was standing outside the Empire waiting for me
when I got there.
Laura wore a long black dress, which was chastely cut. It really suited
her.
"Hello, James," she smiled at me, and took my arm, placing a warm and
soft kiss upon my cheek. I grinned at her, and kissed her back. I mean,
I kissed her as well, not her actual back. Though it did cross my mind
several times throughout the next ten or fifteen seconds.
We walked down into the bar, and found a spot near the stage, sharing a
table with a bunch of strangers who ignored us. We ordered drinks, and
looked around.
Tuesday night was comedy night at the Empire, and I always think that
having a good laugh with someone is a great way to bond. And it's a
good way to check out their sense of humour. And, of course, live
comedy is the heart of any city.
"Busy," I commented awkwardly. She nodded, and sipped her beer.
"I enjoyed last weekend," she commented.
I nodded.
"It was very... passionate." I replied. She shrugged very sexily
"I know. "
I smiled into my pint.
"Happen a lot?" I asked innocently. I was prying, I know.
"Yes. Yes it does," she said honestly. Her voice carried a hint of...
something. I couldn't pin it down.
"Well, okay. How many of them do you meet again?" I asked.
"Not many."
"Okay. That means this is a rare second date?"
She looked round at me, and her eyes were soft.
"I like you, so I thought it would be nice to see you again."
I blinked in appreciation.
Something was bothering me, though. I looked around again, and what I
had noticed subconsciously suddenly leapt out at me. A leering smile
from across the bar with a glint of metal from the stud through his
nose.
I slammed my pint down.
"Fuck !"
Laura looked at me.
"What's up?"
I looked around, trying to pretend that I hadn't noticed him. I am a
shite actor. He raised his pint to me, and went back to silently
watching.
"Your ex-boyfriend is here ! He's watching us !" I hissed at her.
She shrugged.
"He lives nearby. He comes here a lot, it's where I met him."
I shook my head.
"Why is he smiling at us?"
She placed her hand on mine, and leant in closer to me.
"Don't worry about him, he's a kitten, really."
Then she licked my ear in one of the most simple but erotic ways I had
ever experienced. I made a noise like a man getting his ear licked by
someone who knew exactly precisely how to do it. You might know the
sound, and if you don't, I sincerely hope that someday get to make it
yourself. The entire right side of my body tingled and shivered, and I
lost the power of speech, then the use of my right arm. Thank god I
wasn't holding the beer.
I couldn't help but notice that Nose Boy saw the whole thing. Maybe I
was being paranoid, but I thought that she wanted him to see it.
I found out later that I was right.
----------
As the pub filled up before the start of the comedy, Nose Boy became
lost in the crowd. I relaxed a bit, and Laura seemed fine. She was
quite affectionate, though she seemed distracted as well. I didn't
believe her when she said she wasn't worried about her ex.
We drank for a while, then the comedy started. Smiley, the usual host,
came on, tall and scary, and took the piss out of some of the more
rowdy member of the audience. We were spared his attacks. He looks like
a gaunt scary skin-head, but he's funny as all hell.
I got into the acts, and forgot about Nose Boy.
One guy came on, and made some fantastic jokes about Belfast. He was
very good, and I mentally noted to come back and see him next time he
was on.
The next act was less entertaining, but he managed to drag a few laughs
from the crowd. Then he said something that sort of took me by
surprise. It was a joke about AIDS that wasn't funny, but that wasn't
the surprising part. A few people laughed, but I wasn't one of them. I
felt sick, and it was the feeling that surprised me.
I stood up and walked out. People watched me leave, and the comedian
noted my exit.
"Touch a raw nerve, mate?" he asked. The words carried, and the pub was
silent. Two hundred pairs of eyes looked at me, waiting.
"Fuck off," I said, adding most wittily, "you fucking fuck."
He just smiled, and then he winked.
"Got something to hide, eh?"
Within five seconds I had leapt onto a table, from there to another and
then I was on the stage, with my hands around the guys throat. Smiley
was pissing himself laughing, but at the tasteless idiot who I was
attacking. He grinned at me, and shouted.
"Get him, big lad!"
He even held back one of the bouncers for a couple of seconds until he
was pushed aside.
I saw them coming, so I tried to use my last seconds constructively. I
leant in and hissed with all the anger I could focus.
"My girlfriend died of AIDS, you bastard."
He blinked, and for a second I saw a genuine flash of guilt in his
eyes. Then I was pulled off him, and dragged outside.
----------
Sometimes, life is like a movie. You get the impression that you're
sitting inside the main character, and the action is prewritten,
staged, and every word you speak is out of the mind of a scriptwriter.
It's bit like deja vu, but subtly different. The sunlight sits just as
it should, there might be music playing in the background, or just
silence. And sometimes, it's the title sequence to a movie, or the
closing sequence. Rarely, it's an action scene. Often, it's a sex scene
or other such romantic clinch, complete with cheesy 70's disco music.
Nah, I'm joking. About the music. Sometimes.
It happens a lot when I'm with some people, and almost never with
others. I get this feeling sometimes. It means something.
I think it means I watch too many movies.
