For the Record
By emma_lee
- 330 reads
For the Record
I have a map inside my head. A map of either brilliant or
first-and-only versions of various songs: Hamburg "Sister Ray",
Newcastle "Nine While Nine", Blackburn "Stairway to Heaven", Wembley
"Temple of Love", Hamburg "Ribbons"... OK, I'll be the first to admit
I'm a fanatic. How many other people would seriously get up at
ridiculous hours on weekends to wear out shoe leather around record
fairs in search of that unique piece of memorabilia, that limited
edition format? I had a knack: visiting a different town I invariably
found a new fair to visit. Perhaps obsessive is nearer the word.
I get mocked. I go out for a drink and some man will eventually
comment, "You don't like them do you?", leaving me wondering why I
would bother wasting money on a tee shirt of a band I didn't like. At a
nightclub some man would join me dancing to a favourite song and
comment, "Well, that was cheerful," at which point I'd get a desperate
need to visit the Ladies. I guess at gigs I was always far too busy
checking out the merchandise or pushing my way down to the front to
take much notice of anyone in the audience.
So I knew you had to be special. Outside the venue I noticed your
slender frame, naturally dark hair, pale complexion and clear blue eyes
looking perplexed at a flat tyre. I offered to help. You offered me a
lift home, surprised I'd want to risk breaking a nail. I invited you in
for coffee. You admired my record collection. The first fan I'd ever
met who didn't compare me to Morticia Addams. I guess with my dark hair
and eyes the comparison was inevitable, yet tedious. You let me babble,
content to listen, only stopping me for a kiss. Light years away from
your spacious flat you expressed surprise that a thin mattress spread
across two wooden pallets in my tiny bedsit could actually be
comfortable.
Life moved up a gear. My dead end job at the local engineering company
didn't seem such a grind as I had something else to look forward to. I
moved into your flat, but kept my record collection separate. You never
complained about the time I spent record hunting. Neither did you
compete: delighting as much as I did in each new treasure.
The gigs were drying up. The band threatened to split. The day of
reckoning loomed. Naturally we spent hours analysing where things had
gone wrong, where egos clashed, knowing that we'd never really know the
full events. On balance, we continued to give our loyalty to the
vocalist: he'd formed the band therefore he was the band.
However, something soured. You began to compete. You had to be the
first to hear of new developments. You started travelling to record
fairs. All of a sudden engineering wasn't to be the career for me. You
started asking why I couldn't type, couldn't get a cosy nine-to-five in
something more glamourous.
You began asking me to wear my hair loose. You bought me a dress for my
birthday: long-sleeved, vee-necked, ankle-length in clinging black
jersey. I looked in the mirror and saw a Morticia Addams. My dark brown
hair hung around my shoulders, unsure of what to do without a
restraining pony tail band. The dress clung, making me shuffle like
Carolyn Jones in the TV series. My dark brown eyes looked vacant. It
wasn't me.
You hated the nineties' album: I had to leave. You thought it too much
like cock-rock and blamed the new bassist. I thought the band had
returned to their roots. They started life as a rock band after all.
You preferred your mid-eighties' time warp.
I gave you the jersey dress and told you to find someone to fit it. I
needed clothes I could move in.
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