Chapter 2 - phone calls and letters

It was half past nine by the time I got in from work. My flat mates were working opposite shifts to me and were out clubbing tonight, instead of the night before with me. Our social life was very busy. We managed to go out clubbing at least twice a week. We were selective as to where we went. We were members of a few places, so we could get in free or for as little as 50p. If we did not drink too much and walked home instead of getting a taxi, it made for a cheap night out.
I sat down, put the telly on and tried to relax. There were no messages for me. Maybe he'd tried to ring already and no one had been in to take his call. We did not have an answering machine.
I tried to put the thought of him out of my head. I didn't want to seem like I was chasing after him. I wasn't that needy. I didn't want him to think I was desperate!
But, I kept going back to the thought that he might have tried to ring all night and all evening and then given up because no one has answered the phone. I'd only been in the house for ten minutes and I could not relax. Maybe he'd lost my number and he was hoping I would contact him. Maybe he didn't want me to contact him at all! Well, that was a ridiculous idea! He would never have given me his number in the first place if he didn't like me.
I couldn't sit there arguing with myself a minute longer. I found the number, aware that it was not a local call. With a great deal of intrepidation, still hoping the phone would ring first, I dialled the number. It was one of those old fashioned phones with a dial instead of buttons. It seemed to take an age for the dial to return to it's neutral position before I could put in the next digit.
The phone rang three times before it was picked up by him. My heart beat faster, my palms had gone all sweaty. Now, what did we talk about?
I only rang people up out of necessity usually. Two minutes was enough time to arrange a meeting, when you could talk more freely. I found the phone so impersonal...
I needn't have worried. He took control. He put me at ease immediately. His name was Simon. He lived an hour and a half drive away from me in a small Yorkshire village. He had stayed the night on a freind's floor last night, then got the train home this morning. He was only twenty years old. I didn't expect him to be able to drive and have a car.
He was two years younger than me. I had passed my driving test, but could not afford to run a car. It did not matter too much. The buses and the metro were good. The local shops were literally just over the road and they supplied us with most things we needed. Within a few paces of our front door, we had a Chinese takeaway, a small supermarket, a sandwich shop, a butcher's shop, a post office, hairdressers and a housewares shop.
The flat was not startling. It belonged to a private landlord, so there was always something that needed repairing. We did not care. It took a huge chunk of our wages in rent and other bills, but we did not have parents telling us what we could and couldn't do.we were earning enough not to be on the breadline, but we did have to be careful. That was all. On top of all that we were learning and studying for exams.
Simon was an only child, still living at home. His parents lived away most of the time because his father had a job in Oman. They were rich. He didn't have to worry about money. Why would he want to live in a pokey, cold Victorian flat when he could live on his own in a four bedroomed detached house overlooking farmers' fields.
We talked about music. He said he was a musician. He played keyboards, but he was not in a band yet. He was concentrating on songwriting. He liked his rock to be softer, more commercial... more Def Leppard than Iron Maiden. I preferred the more classic Deep Purple and Bad Company, but we could appreciate where the other was coming from.
Indeed, I already felt like I knew him!
I hardly realised I'd been talking to him for an hour and a half! The call was going to work out to be expensive. It was long distance after all. We put the phone down and he called me. Now he was footing the bill.
We talked for another hour and a half. Three hours on the phone! Three hours! It was the most incredible telephone call in my life! I was in love.
What did we find to talk about for so long? Well, I don't know, I can't remember, but he was funny, witty. He understood my sense of humour as well.
We had to meet. We had to spend the time together. Unfortunately, our schedules got in the way. I would not be able to see him until next Wednesday.
He would come up on the train in the morning. We would spend the day together, then he'd go home in the late afternoon. He said he had a gig that night, filling in for a friend who was sick.
In the mean time, he encouraged me to write. He said he would do the same. He discouraged me from ringing because he was going to be busy. He was an artiste. He needed to be allowed to create.

I wrote back. I wrote every day. I told him how much I loved him. I told him how incredible the telephone call had been. I had never spoken to anyone for that length of time before, even face to face! I flirted with him on the paper. I discussed ordinary things with him and also discussed the merits of having an extra appendage. Wings was my favourite. I listed the benefits.

He did not reply for several days. His letter was worth waiting for. He did not agree with me on the appendage thing. He considered having a tail to be much more beneficial than a tail and he listed his reasons why.
He sent me a song he had been writing too. He said it was very personal. I read it. Everything in it had a double meaning that I took to be sexual. This was no 'carry on' double entendre, it was darker than that. It made me tingly all over thinking of what would happen when we met.