to be. Clarity returns and I ask Nick the driver to take me to the nearest train station. Only three miles further but I pay him some more for his trouble and to get himself back to town.
I change trains three times and then I’m back in the countryside; back home to where I haven't been in many years. To be honest, I've avoided it. Too embarrassed and ashamed to confront my dad. It’s the right time to face his disappointment. I'm ready. More ready than I've ever been but it's still a worry as I walk the last couple of miles home.
It’s such a strange sensation being back. I've spent so long in cities that the colours come as a bit of a shock. The rain has stopped and sunshine only occasionally finds the gaps in the clouds but it’s still unmistakably different to what I'm used to. It’s not as green as I remember, although that might just be the time of year. Still, it was always the yellows and purples, lit up by the endless acres of sky, that stood out most in my memory.
A lot’s changed since I last gazed upon this little patch of earth. Trees have grown and the landmarks seem to have changed. But then again maybe it's also that I'm not what I once was either. I think my heart’s the same. It's just that so much else has happened. So much trouble, so much that was bad, and so much that was my own fault.
I'm treated to the sight of an orange sunset, glinting gold in my eyes as I walk the last few yards to the front door of mum and dad’s house. Then the door opens and things are different but not in any way I'd expected. Dad hugs me and I know it's okay and it’s the right time to be here again. I still won't be staying for long.
In my old room, I don't sleep well. Too restless, and on the second night I get up at half two and go out walking. The cold bites but I don't really feel it. Instead, I stare up at the clear starlight and the full moon and in my mind I try to cut holes in the faces of the moonbeams. Then I start thinking that there’s surprisingly little difference between the town and the country at three in the morning. There’s still the same essential loneliness that comes from being out at that time. The same darkness and even the same sort of street-lights.
Eventually, the sun climbs into the sky and reveals the sparkle of the ground beneath my feet. The ice particles twinkle where they’re embedded in the earth and crushed with every step I take. I cast my shipwrecked eyes out over the sun clad sea of frosted diamonds that should have been a school playing field. My lips become a smile and I can't say how but I know it's time to leave again.
I get myself together and mum and dad give me a lift to the station. I'll see them both soon but for now I need to be back in London. Back with the only other person I know that doesn't need me to pull miracles from my mouth whenever I speak. I’ve wasted far too much time trying to do that and that was my own fault. In a way, I'd decided I deserved the life I'd given myself and the bitter allure of sadness had only ever left me nowhere.
Then there’s the masochistic part of me that’s always indulged a romantic fantasy of who I was. Even as a kid I was attracted to the tragics and the crazies. To the Syd Barretts’, the Sylvia Plaths’, the Billie Hollidays’, the Buckleys’ and all the other Rock and Roll deaths. Part of me always wanted to be one of them; living with that kind of burning intensity that can never last.
Much worse is the other fantasy that still remains in part of my brain although not in any of my heart. Sometimes I want to see the Becky I remember from the moment we met. The beautiful fantasy woman with perfect hair and a halo.
It’s rarely something I want for long. I just wish it would go completely though. Because deep down I know that the reality of Becky is what gives me joy. It's in the little things. Like the way she almost speaks in tongues after only a couple of drinks or even the sight of hankies strewn all around the bed when she has a cold. That's the real her, complete with insecurities and sadness, and that's what gives light and shade to my life. And in the end I think that's the difference between being in love with someone and being in love at them.
After only a couple of hours I’m in London. I pick up some flowers at the station. They aren’t for Becky. I don’t go to her yet. I head south of the river instead; to a cemetery to visit Sarah’s grave. It's too long since I last went and I feel bad about that. I could make the usual excuses about life getting in the way but that’s nowhere near good enough.
I place the flowers on the grave; pink roses discolouring grey marble. It's suddenly clear to me just how much I miss her; how much I still miss my friend and that it seems okay for me to do that now. I was lucky to have known her. When we met she didn’t teach me how to feel again but she was the one who made me want to. My chest hurts a little bit. The hit of truth is a terrible kind of bliss and I know that no matter what strange dimension she's in now, she’ll still be ripping hearts open with her soft, sweet eyes.
I walk off into the autumn afternoon and into the city. It seems this day has been designed for my silent thoughts and I decide to go to the grave of Diane Green. I figure that it’s the right thing to do even though I hardly knew her. The strange thing is that there aren’t many people I can think of who were more alive to me.
Even before we met I knew all about her. Becky had talked about her cousin all the time with a mixture of worry and admiration. And just from those descriptions I could tell there were times when the girl could be a right pain in the arse. She was obviously an angry kind of mess and terribly damaged despite the briefness of her life.
Still, maybe that doesn’t matter and it really shouldn’t be what defines her. In the end, she was just a good kid who was gone too soon. I remember how Becky always went to great lengths to list Diane’s best qualities, as a kind of defence of her honour. Even then, she hadn’t needed to bother. As far as I was concerned, if Becky loved her then so did I. That's still true and that’s why I’m heading to her final resting place today.
I’m not alone in visiting Diane’s grave. Joe Holly is here with Colin Abbott and a lovely woman, whose red hair shines gold in what sunlight still remains. We talk only briefly and then I fold myself away into the background. I watch Joe’s face and still see the feeling and loss I’ve known myself. Then I see him walk away, not because he really wants to but because he has to so he can carry on. I know he’ll be back and that he’ll survive because, like him, I’ve also known what needed to be done.
I almost fail to notice the gleaming of twilight is nearly upon me when I leave. The sky turns from amber to gold and then to darkness as I walk away from the graveyard and then through the city. That’s when the moon comes out to light my way. The temperature drops even though the air isn’t still. The calm is broken by an icy breeze from the north that brings rhythm to the rustle of the leaves on the trees.
I look up and in the lamplight the autumn leaves are perfectly lit to show the death agonies of all those still refusing to fall. I feel the breeze and the lateness of the hour in cold crystal pricking upon my skin. And while walking beside the Thames, I see it glittering as liquid fairylights dancing in the dark.
I don’t stop. I keep moving. Passing open doorways with the familiar aroma of stale sweat and spilt beer, and a church spire that reaches up through the clouds towards the shining moon. It helps me understand the majesty of a world so often littered with ugliness. Wrongheaded right angles of metal and stone, empty beer cans on uneven concrete and the stench of stale weed in the night. And yet, somehow, it also manages to bathe those same streets, that same ugliness, in the silver and gold of streetlights.
Every step makes me feel more tired, even though my heart’s no longer filled with hurt or even emptiness. For me, there will be no more staring into the future with eyes too in love with the past. The love I have changes all that and like so many other people, I still wonder how I ever got by without it. Somehow she brings calm to me even when she has none for herself. With her comes the knowledge that there’s less need to burn so intensely when you have love to keep you warm.
She’s like a broken angel to me, only more real and somehow just right. That’s the truth she mi
ght never know although I will never stop telling her. Becky isn’t the same as when we met. She’s no longer a fantasy I can keep at a distance. It wasn’t right but in a lot of ways it was that distance and the time that passed, which let her become her real self. It also led me to where I had to be to come back to her and allow her fully into my life.
What hasn't changed is her ability to amaze me and the way she makes me laugh even though I can't really explain how or why. It's just her I suppose and that's more than enough. Even when life becomes almost too much to take, I've realised it can be good to be relied upon. It's good to be there to tell her things will all be okay, even when I don't quite know that for sure. I'm still able to hope and believe it myself.
You see, that's the least she deserves from me. In so many ways I’m lucky to have been able to live a life filled with beautiful moments. And so many of those moments have been spent with her, which is probably the best luck of all.
I know she's waiting for me right now. I pass terraced houses lit-up in warm, silver-tinged gold. My feet, no matter how tired, will always know their way to her and they turn me towards the front gate that leads to the door of our home.