I remember one night Tina had to go off to Manchester to watch a play with her class as part of her English literature coursework. As I walked her to the coach, we were both in floods of tears at the thought of being parted for even just a few hours. It was as if one of us was going off to war never to return. We were inseparable yet we were being separated. Who had dared dream up this cruel fate?
Who had thought to deny us our usual evening round at ‘hers’ snogging furiously on the bean bag in her parents’ spare room, listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits and Meat Loaf ’s Bat Out of Hell as well as, for some strange reason, an old King’s Singers album! These three vinyl wonders were the soundtrack to our very own love story.
Tina was so sophisticated and clever and funny and energetic; her completeness was her beauty. And again that smile, so big and warm and welcoming. Her joy and abandon was infectious, she was naughty, too, cheeky and fruity in a way. I was sure this naughty side of her was only ever revealed to me—I used to think about that a lot, especially when we were at school and she was being the darling of the classroom. Little did they know what could also make Tina tick. They thought they knew but they didn’t—that was our secret. God, I loved her.
I loved her so much that I went above and beyond the requirements of a normal teenage romance by bestowing upon her the lofty position of becoming the subject of my first ever padded greetings card purchase.
Padded greetings cards were a mysterious but wonderful phenomenon. They could always be found sat majestically on the top shelves of the greetings cards sections in most newsagents or stationers. Maybe they still can, I don’t know. I have long since stopped looking for them. By the time I left school I was all padded out.
Ridiculously big—even the small ones—they were made of shimmery silk-like material, usually consisting of a garish floral design, though what they were actually padded with I never found out—I suspect it was highly flammable. I wonder how many house fires in the late Seventies and early Eighties were down to the accidental setting alight of a massive padded card during some kind of revelry or other. ‘Here darling, here’s a magnificent padded card, cost me an arm and a leg it did. Happy birthday and make the most of it. It could be your last if Auntie May’s fag ash gets too close to it later on.’
These great padded cards came in big flat white boxes instead of envelopes and they were expensive, like, really expensive—maybe a fiver or more! But Tina was worth it, every penny. I bought her several of the monstrosities—I wonder if she still has them. I have a feeling she might, along with a smoke alarm, I hope.
So how does such a perfect, unblemished relationship come to an end? We’d never argued, we’d never stopped wanting to be together, we were the bestest of friendly friends and we still hadn’t done the real rude stuff.
It’s simple and predictable and the answer is…
Temptation.
The Bible may be dodgy in all sorts of other areas but it’s pretty much bang on the money when it comes to explaining the evil that is temptation and the devastation it can cause.
The destruction of peoples, nations and in this case, as far as I was concerned, the most beautiful love affair the world had ever seen.
The apple is there—don’t eat the apple. But more importantly don’t even think about eating the apple. Basically, just forget apples exist and preferably as quickly as possible.
The infection with temptation is perpetuated by the dreaded ‘thought’. One spends far too much time in this life of ours thinking about what we haven’t got as opposed to enjoying what we have got. What’s that about? I’ve been doing it for years, I still do! It’s like a disease.
Temptation for me came in the form of the netball captain. Her name was Karen. Not the Karen from the junior school that took us to the park but another, more sporty, Karen—out of nowhere came Karen II.
Here’s what happened.
Tina and I were happily insulated in our bubble full of love and loveliness and then one breaktime I was left on my own in the playground as Tina had some extra work to catch up on—I was alone, I was vulnerable and as far as temptation was concerned I was the ripest cherry on the tree. The netball captain and her ridiculously short netball skirt were waiting to pounce.
One of Karen’s ‘friends’ approached me.
‘Where’s Tina?’ she said.
‘Oh she’s doing some extra work,’ I replied.
‘Oh right, so you’re still with her then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only…you know Karen fancies you.’
‘What?’
‘Karen, captain of the netball team, she fancies you. None of us get why but she says she thinks you’re cute and if anything ever happened to you and Tina, she would definitely go out with you.’
And with that she was off.
Little did I know what had just happened: the wind of change had visited me, silently and deftly.
I was both rocked and shocked. The Karen in question—Karen II—although captain of the netball team, was actually quite modest and quiet in comparison to the rest of the female jocks in the main gang. They liked her because she was good at sport, by far and away better than anyone else. Sport was her ticket to the back seat of the bus and the big girls were more than glad to have her on board. She also had the most spectacular thighs.
This was the first sign of foreboding, I should have known. I hadn’t thought about Karen’s thighs ever before, but now the mere mention of her name instantly conjured up a snapshot of those muscly and impressive haunches, so adept at springing her forth, up and high to net another victorious goal.
I started to notice her and her thighs around more, like when you buy a car and suddenly you see them everywhere. I would smile at her and she would smile back. What was I doing? To smile at the enemy is to sleep with the enemy, you fool. And although Karen II wasn’t a bad person, she was the enemy. She threatened everything I loved, everything that brought me joy—Tina, her smell, her mouth, her mum and dad’s spare room—her mum and dad themselves, our beloved bean bag, Queen’s Greatest Hits, Bat Out of Hell and even The King’s Singers.
I was infected—the sickness had taken hold. All the symptoms I now recognise started to fall into place, lining up obediently, one behind the other, like a well-organised army getting ready to attack. I was surrounded by my inevitable doom. It was only a matter of time before I committed my first true act of betrayal—I began to compare!
I began to compare my beautiful Tina with the imposter that was Karen II, skipper of the netball team. What a lowly and despicable thing to do.
And even worse, I began to look for areas where Tina might be weak and Karen might be strong—rarely was it the other way round. When I was with Tina, I would almost wait for her to do something that suggested a chink in her armour, all the while looking for future reasons for us to split up, all the time comparing her against countless shiny images of Karen II gliding through the air in that damned navy-blue pleated PE skirt. Thinking about it now makes my stomach churn. This is not the behaviour of a decent person, a loving boyfriend, a doting partner. What a total loser! What were you thinking? Be grateful for what you’ve got, you fool. In fact, more than that, get down on your knees and thank God you’ve got the greatest girlfriend a boy could wish for. But it was not to be. I had become blind to the perfection that was our love and I was hellbent on tearing it apart.
Tina’s heart was pure and true. She had given me everything and I had never been happier, but I was completely infatuated with the thighs of another. And this is what people do: especially blokes, they see a new nest and start to create an agenda that will justify them leaving their current one,