One of those things

More flashback madness.

Cat's mum's friends had a son at Reading University, he said it was okay if we crashed there after Reading. I wasn't so into the festival, which seemed like it was full of heavy metal beer monsters and held in a glorified car-park, but I liked Steve and his friends, who took us to the pub and talked to us about sophisticated stuff like film theory (hm, I thought, and it planted a seed) and their dissertations. Steve was writing his on Sylvia Plath - on Sylvia Plath! I didn't know boys liked Sylvia Plath, even. He asked if I'd read Johny Panic, and said I'd like it.

I lost everyone at the festival and wandered back the way I thought it was, amazed and pleased with myself when I found the right house.
'Sorry it's late' I said, as he let me in.
'No worries' he said in his relaxed way. 'We're just going to watch The Hunger, have you seen it?'
I hadn't. It had David Bowie in it, and lesbian vampires, and gave me funny dreams that night. Just before we went to sleep, he stuck his head around the door of the spare room, where we were sleeping on an old bed base in our sleeping bags. 'Annie' he said 'Johnny Panic' and he threw the book for me on the bed. He went out.
Cat looked at me. 'Ha!' she said. 'What?' 'Nothing.' 'What?!' 'Your face...'

We went to see him once, when he was staying with his family in Wales, and we'd hitched up there (though we'd told our families we were getting a coach.) He'd driven us to see some standing stones in his old Morris Minor , and an old tin mine. We sat by a vivid, bluey-green pool and threw stones in the water and talked about Life, and when we finally went back to his parents', his mum and sister were quietly, furiously tight-lipped about how much time these two London girls had taken up of his rare weekend home. They still kindly let us stay, though.

(Steve had a girlfriend at Uni called Esther. According to his sister, Esther was a jealous type. At the time, he seemed a lot older, but he must have only been about 20 to our 17. I couldn't believe how easily it flowed, how relaxed he made me feel, at my most self-conscious, socially awkward and shy. He calmed me right down. Everything I said seemed to be okay, I didn't constantly wish the ground to open up and swallow me when we talked, I could even make him laugh. I couldn't believe I'd never get to see him again, long hair, black jeans, tatty old stripey wool jumper and all. You know when you meet someone who's right for you, or maybe you're even right for each other, but circumstances are all wrong? It was one of those things. We'd clicked, but to no avail. We'd passed each other for a moment on two escalators, travelling in different directions.)

'Nuclear families, hey?' whispered Cat, as we shared the double bed in the spare room. (We'd been studying the nuclear family in Sociology recently, sociologists seemed divided on whether it was a good thing or not.) She lived with her divorced mum, I'd bounced between divorced parents, happy families were a novelty to us. And a bit claustrophobic.
'This was the gran's room' she whispered. 'Right.' 'I think the gran died in this bed.' 'FUCK. OFF.'



This clip is not completely disconnected, as at this point in the film, Frank Sinatra has not actually had a love affair with Doris Day, and believes he never will. Frank Sinatra and Doris Day - least likely movie couple ever?