And life is like a song….

I heard Etta James on the radio today and cringed while grinning like a reminiscing imbecile. No smells just a record and another party that could have gone better, or maybe couldn’t have.

There was a time when I could still be embarrassed, way before I became too cynical. I was in my early twenties and in a longish term thing with Jackie, past the annual milestone, which I always found to be the tipping point that took it to long-term. There wasn’t a cloud on our horizon until her mother also became a year older and threw but still managed to hold a party in a large garden on a balmy summer evening.

The celebrations had gone without so much as a spilt drink, none of the older couples had brought their acrimony or their children with them. It was a ‘proper’ party with strings of coloured lights, tasteful music and Jackie’s oldest and closest friends. The very closest of these was beautiful Sue, long titian hair and just about wearing a flimsy silky backless dress-thing. I remember we shared an interest in Dickens, Kafka and Fellini, which wasn’t as irritatingly sad as it sounds. Shamefully I don’t think we once mentioned our mutual friend.

We were standing talking, probably far too much, when that old Beatles song Something came mournfully wafting across the lawn. We were alone as the rest of the guests had migrated some distance away and out of sight, to where food was being served, She lightly touched my arm and said, “ I love this, shall we?“ It was slow enough, and nobody was around, so I wrongly said, “why not“. Before I realised there was a good reason why not, we were in an unexpectedly natural feeling clinch. I could feel the warmth of her body through her dress as we held each other close, so close that as we danced it was as if we were a single entity, instinctively knowing which way to move so as to not lose each other. She laid her head on my shoulder, and as it finished the retro DJ seamlessly started the Etta James classic At Last playing.

If we had stopped then it’s entirely possible I would not be typing this at all, but instead asking: ”I know she’s our daughter but do we have to invite her boyfriend to your party Jacks? I just think he’ll do something embarrassing”

But we didn’t stop.

Sue lifted her face close to mine with half-closed eyes, we didn‘t say anything. I was thinking of nothing other than her incredibly intoxicating beauty as we started to kiss, tentatively at first and then suddenly with a passionate urgency, in an irresistible way we were locked in an embrace that I felt could have endured for a lifetime, time had stopped. Like an even more engrossed but less well-dressed Paulo and Francesca, we were floating in an unreality where nothing at all existed but the soft curves and heat of her pressing insistent body and the taste of her tender seeking lips. The music faded away and we reluctantly drew apart slightly, staring questioningly into each other’s eyes, I saw we were both confused with the intensity and unreality of what had just happened. The reality soon dawned on me as I glanced up to a see a group of people, including Jackie’s mother, all pointedly not looking at us, the guests had all returned holding paper plates piled up with sausage-rolls and drumsticks. All I could think was….. Oh shit.

Fortunately, for the last ten minutes Jackie had been indoors, with a few other people, probably pushing a lot of candles into the top of a cake and had missed what I think could be called some performance. You may say if pressed, the swine, the unspeakable swine and I think you’d have a point but in my defence: Sue was her best friend, instigated the whole thing, was really completely stunning and I do have the resistance of a wet tea-bag. As a defence it probably lacks that water-tightness element I’d hoped for. The next day something else was missing, where was the guilt hiding? I know I should have been racked with it, but nothing, not even a tiny malnourished pang that hardly had the strength left to reach the surface and feebly call my name. Excellent, that meant it wasn’t that bad, I could always rely on my trusty barometer of contrition. So it was merely a moment of temptation and as long as nobody told Jackie, then we could continue on our path to a wonderfully happy future together. Naturally, she left me a few days later.

I never saw Sue again either, I didn’t even know her surname and besides, to have seen her again would have been pointless, nothing ever again between us could have surpassed those few minutes of blissful ecstasy found on a lawn in Essex, on a warm night in July.