Chapter 97

My first trip to see Julie had to wait a whole month after I’d arrived in Middlesbrough, until Friday 3^rd October; we had arranged to meet at Reading rather than at Stamford as I definitely didn’t want to have to share my limited time with my girlfriend with my parents, or be restricted as to how much time we could spend together in bed.

We hadn’t been apart for such a long period since our first summer, two years ago, when Jen and I had been working at the vegetable factory and Julie had been back at home in Exeter. Our separation had been pretty much as awful as I’d feared, even though we were both kept very busy settling into our new work environments.

We’d really missed each other despite our best efforts to communicate; keeping in touch with letters and the public call box telephone by arrangement just wasn’t enough.

(Monty Python got it spot on: “you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won’t believe you” in the ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ or “LUXURY” sketch – our mobile-phone-carrying kids simply cannot comprehend that only a few years before they were born, we had to rely on being at public phone boxes at set times to talk, otherwise we had to communicate with ‘snail mail’ letters. No mobile phones, no email, no instant messaging, no Skype. OUR parents often hadn’t even had the telephone option – my Mum and Dad could only write to each other while he was doing his National Service overseas, and they could only use Air Mail if they used the special lightweight paper forms; it still took a few weeks to get a reply... )

Even kissing the photograph on my bedside cabinet goodnight just before I switched off my light, and wishing it a good morning when I woke didn’t help; I wanted the real living and loving girl.

Anyway, Jen and Hamish had stayed on working at the vegetable factory with the twins until late September; we’d exchanged the odd short letter (more me letting Jen know how I was getting on), but we both tended just to ask Mum for any news. My sister and her boyfriend had taken a few days off with their respective parents, sorting themselves out for the return to University at Reading, and then separately headed back to their Hall of Residence on the Wednesday, just as soon as they were allowed back in to their accommodation for the autumn term. They had no lectures for another week yet, but Mum had mentioned that they were able to get into the library and start doing some reading to get themselves ready for their final year, and of course get back into their swimming.

I phoned Julie from a public phone booth in the entrance to the works canteen at quarter to eight that Friday morning – she was on her way to breakfast at that time, and we’d arranged to have a quick confirmatory chat.

“Still okay for tonight, darling?”

“Absolutely – I can’t wait to be with you. Jen says that they’re in the same rooms as last year, so I’ll see you there. Any idea what time?”

I laughed.

“Well, the timetable says that I’ll be at Reading by 21.52, so, British Rail permitting, I’ll be with you not long after ten.”

The pips went, my 10p had been consumed, so in the small gap before the line went dead we both told the other that we loved them, and rang off. I went off to finish my fifth working week since I had last seen the love of my life, and she went off for her breakfast. I have to admit that my mind wasn’t totally on my work that day; I was daydreaming about a certain blonde bombshell and what it was going to be like holding her naked body against mine again.

It was a long trip down south for me, nearly five hours, but by the grace of god there was a direct service from York, so I didn’t have to cross London from King’s Cross to Paddington. It was still nearly half past ten before my taxi dropped me off at Jen’s Hall of Residence – at that late hour, I hadn’t fancied the long walk from the station in the dark and the slight drizzle, and it was well worth the money.

Hamish, being an absolute star, had abstracted a plate of food for my supper from their refectory – chicken and mushroom pie with chips and a brace of fishcakes on the side, which all ate fine cold – and he made me a couple of slices of fresh toast while my sister poured four cups of tea, and Julie and I held hands and chatted. She’d stayed for high tea at the college before hopping on the train, which had also let the Friday afternoon rush go, and had been in Reading for a couple of hours having a good natter with Jen. She let herself be persuaded to have some toast too, and then our hosts wished us a good night and headed off for his room.

The love of my life and I nipped down the hall and shared a shower before going to bed; I’d been in a smoking carriage for the first part of the journey to York, and I felt grubby from the long day anyway, and Julie was more than happy to help me get clean all over. It was a lot of fun to wash each other again for the first time in far too long, and then we returned to Jen’s bedroom and promptly proceeded to undo the benefit of the shower by getting all hot and sweaty with some intensely energetic and enjoyable physical activity.

We started off with a soixante-neuf; Gustav didn’t last all that long as he was badly out of practice, but I was able to get a good helping of Julie’s nectar as we waited for him to recover. Then we separated for a moment before reconnecting; I lay on my back and enjoyed her boobs while she rode him to two climaxes before he shot his second bolt. We fell asleep entwined around two o’clock in the morning after making love another two times; I hadn’t felt so content and complete for many weeks.

Crikey, it was absolutely great to be back together. We had a month’s separation to catch up on, and after having had two years to kind of get used to the other one being in the same bed, it was even better to be able to wake up together in the morning and once again make slow and leisurely love – with the dining hall serving breakfast on a Saturday until nine o’clock, there was no hurry.

It was absolutely chucking it down with rain when we finally got dressed, drew back a corner of the curtains and looked out of the window, so by mutual consent after breakfast we all returned to Jen’s room and chatted for a while over a mug of instant coffee. They were keen to hear in more detail what it was really like in the world of work, and I was just about able to describe my workplace to their satisfaction. They all laughed as I related the tale of the ‘round tuit’; none of them had heard the expression either, so I didn’t feel such a fool.

In turn, Jen and Hamish told us some of their plans for their final year – as well as swimming more seriously, they were intending to join the Scottish Dance Society so that Jen could learn all the Highland dances properly.

“But why didn’t you do it last year?”

“Oh, I joined up in my Freshers week, but then discovered there were a couple of what Dad calls either ‘raving jocks’ or ‘Pictish Nationalists’. Nutters who still take the Highland Clearances personally, and spend all their time talking radical politics.”

“People with a chip on their shoulder? We had that in Cardiff with some of the Welsh Nationalists, Wales for the Welsh, compulsory Welsh language, and let’s burn to the ground all the English-owned holiday cottages.”

He grinned.

“Exactly! Well balanced, with a chip on both shoulders. This bunch wanted independence from England, and then a socialist utopia where they’d be in charge. Yes, Scotland does need to stand on its own two feet a bit more, but their proposals would just have meant absolute anarchy. I got so fed up with them - you couldn’t reason with them or use logical argument - that I stopped going. But they left Reading in the summer, so hopefully we can now get the Society back to having fun rather than having drunken political orations all evening.”

“But why on earth did they come to an English University in the first place?”

He laughed.

“You’ve hit the nail on the head again! Probably realised that back home they’d get told to ‘Haud yer wheesht!‘ in no uncertain terms. Or maybe they were hoping to be big fish in a small pond? Anyway, they’re gone, so with luck we can have some real fun now. I’m looking forward to it.”

We updated each other on what our friends from Cardiff were up to; I’d written to both Sian & Malcolm and Vee & Fred with my new address, as had Julie, and we’d both had replies. Malcolm was enjoying his job, and Sian had also landed a place with BP in the administrative office – she was doing something called public relations, which apparently involved looking after visiting journalists and writing promotional articles, and she was finding it fascinating. Fred had gone straight back to the work he’d done during his sandwich year in industry, but as a graduate electrical engineer on a much higher salary, and Vee had taken a job with the local Council helping to run their public libraries; again loving the work.

By about eleven o’clock, we were pretty much talked out.

“Hamish, darling, as it’s too wet to go for a walk before lunch, why don’t you take Julie to your room and show her your etchings?”

My girlfriend looked absolutely outraged at the suggestion.

“ETCHINGS! Jennifer Baker, you should know by now that I’m not that sort of girl! Honestly, etchings are so old-hat. Even Flanders and Swann went better than that, how did it go? He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat, to view his collection of stamps?“

We all laughed at that; we had sung ‘Have some Madeira M’Dear” quite often in the living room of the caravan at the vegetable factory; its humorous theme of innocence and seduction appealing to us. Not that any of us could imitate Michael Flanders’ wonderful growling rendition of the conclusion “and a beard in her earhole that tickled and said ‘Have some Madeira M’Dear’”.

“Hamish’s booze cupboard is right out of Madeira at the moment, so you’ll have to do without a glass or two to get you in the mood. There might be a couple of stamps in his desk drawer if you’re that obsessed, but we haven’t got much of the morning left, so buck up you two.”