Chapter six

A particularly brisk day in the late summer made the park less welcoming a retreat than usual. My father had escorted Mona to the home of a mutual friend for a dinner party and evening of entertainment. In the late afternoon I told Simon this as we stormed a Turkish palace whose king had hideously misused his power. He reluctantly agreed to accompany me home for a hot cup of tea with optional biscuits. Repeatedly he reminded me that I was being foolish in the eyes of society by invited some strange tramp to my home. I told him society had no opinion of outcasts like us, which did not content him but at least it kept him silent.
Simon was impressed by my father’s record collection and set about inspecting them immediately after discovery. He insisted on playing one, which I saw no reason to object to and the brassy notes of a saxophone bloomed throughout the room. Tea was left forgotten as Simon insisted we dance to do the song justice. His thin frame was graceful, at least compared to my stumbling but he smiled kindly at me without judgement. Laughing, he whirled me into a dip.
Hanging from his arms, looking right into his happy face I felt like my heart was over flowing, like blood was warming my whole chest as the faded, aching voice wept from the record player. The sound, like a river, felt distant but surrounding us both and I finally realised the evergreen of Simon’s eyes and the tinges of orange-red around the pupil that reminded me of holly berries drowning in sharp leaves. The image of Christmas was a sweet comparison to those eyes; the child-like joy gleaming over the cynicism, the bitterness and that melancholy whisper of loneliness.
Even at fourteen, I could see a depth to those eyes that I could not, nor ever would, understand. A pain only felt by those eyes that had seen things I could never see. In that glance I wanted to give Simon my soul as though it may repair his. I’m sure most people would think being so young I could not truly love. I make no pretence; it was not the lusty romantic love of most love stories. I loved him for being as wonderful as he was, sharing that with me and more importantly revealing something far deeper. I loved him for who he wished he was. I loved him for being a companion and a friend, a substitute for a parent but also I loved him in a painful way I’ve never been able to really understand. It was more intense than the feeling between husband and wife, or parent and child; it consumed my being. Perhaps it was simply the natural craving to be of importance and comfort to the self-destructive who embody a fragile part of ourselves. As conceited as it is, I have never known anyone else to feel for someone as I felt for Simon.