Duty and curiosity

The sudden chill was a reminder of a winter not yet gone. I shivered in my black merino Italian suit, wishing now that I had worn my long coat as well. But, it had seemed sunny when had arrived, and I always hated to be too warm …

“Too warm” would have been inappropriate, in any case. A certain chill is, I think de rigueur at a funeral. There had even been a few crows pecking around on the grass outside – or were they ravens? Death may be the one certainty facing us all, yet few of us care to contemplate what it conventionally involves. If we are lucky, it will be friends and relatives gathered for a brief service of remembrance: homilies said, tears shed, then off to the reception for sausage rolls and little triangular sandwiches.

Who would come to mine, I wondered? I was the youngest of my family, and so assumed I would outlive my siblings. There were my children, of course, and they would hopefully (assuming the unhappy event was sufficiently distant) have wives and children of their own by then. The Screaming Banshee? Probably only if she were allowed to dance on my grave. Then there were my friends, some of whom at least would be bothered enough to make an appearance, and (being optimistic) some really important people I hadn't met yet – the imaginary grieving widow? Think positive! And, being 20 years younger than me, there was also the possibility that Charlotte would still be looking pretty hot even by then. Black always suited her, too.

All things considered, then, I could see that Eleanor actually had a pretty good turn-out. Naturally, I didn't know a lot of them – I wasn't really close to the woman, and certainly not for the past 15 years – but I guessed that was the sister from Wales who used to get mentioned, and various friends from various stages of her life. Including my mother, of course, who was the main reason I was there – Eleanor Morrison had been one of her closest friends, and I knew she would want to be at Eleanor's funeral to say goodbye. I also knew that my mother would not have wanted to come alone, and so there I was. A son's duty.

That was not the entire truth. It was reason enough, to be sure – but I did have another incentive for making an appearance at Eleanor Morrison's funeral. An incentive which owed more to curiosity, and to my own past.

I'd known the Morrisons only vaguely while growing up. They no longer lived nearby; my family had moved away shortly before I was born. But, prior to that, the families had been close, and my elder siblings and the three Morrison girls were of a similar age and had a lot of shared memories.

Not my memories. But, fate can play the strangest of hands. Scroll forward to the 1990's, when I was living in London, with my career on a high and the single life treating me well. Perhaps not that well – I remember a succession of fleeting relationships that, while fun at the time, left me feeling dissatisfied and longing for something more. But, it was the high summer: I was young, I was going places, I had money in my pocket, a flat in one of the nicer parts of town, and a white Porsche 911 that I loved more than all the women I'd ever had rolled together, if that were possible. And, I also had my mother pop down for a visit, coincidently while Eleanor Morrison was visiting her middle daughter Anna in the south-west of the city.

So, it was natural to meet up at the daughter's house one evening for dinner. And, it was natural, thereafter, for me to keep in touch with Anna, as a family friend who lived just down the road, and completely unremarkable for Anna to invite me along to a party at one of her friend's houses a couple of weeks later.

It was a dull night, so I went, despite it being held in one of the outer London suburbs and my misgivings about probably being the youngest person there, allied to that fact that I wouldn't know anyone apart from Anna Morrison and her taciturn boyfriend. Although, Anna had informed me that

“Jenny will be there, and she's really looking forward to seeing you again”.

Jenny. The youngest of the Morrison girls, who also lived in London somewhere, but who I was straining my memory to remember. Anna was at least vaguely familiar from family weddings and the like, but Jenny I could only place through things that had been said about her. Jenny the rebel. Jenny the bohemian. Jenny the great worry on her mother's mind. Jenny who had run off aged 17 with a much older man, and who was then married and divorced before the the age of 25.

I didn't remember ever meeting Jenny at all, but I suppose I must have done at some point in my childhood, when I was probably a lot more interested in what Doctor Who was getting up to.

I took the Porsche. It offered the prospect of a rapid get-away if the party turned out to be too unspeakably awful, without having the long, awkward wait for a cab. Plus, in those magical days before speed cameras multiplied like bacteria, and every road was “improved” to be as pleasant to drive on as a cart-track, it was an opportunity to let her out for a bit, and enjoy the banshee-wail of the flat six boxer-motor.

I was wrong about being the youngest person at the party. But it was pretty unspeakable all the same, as the guests consisted of two age groups: the 45+ squad that included the hostess, Anna Morrison and the rest of the adults, and an extremely awkward gang of young teenagers, aged 12-15, built around the hostesses son. I felt like some strange exhibition piece, in my Hugo Boss raw silk jacket and Ralph Lauren polo shirt – a piece of urban sophistication cast adrift in suburbia.

I was, in fact, contemplating a swift exit, when Anna tapped me on the shoulder and announced that Jenny had arrived.

“Hello Ben.” Jenny seemed to recognise me. The feeling wasn't mutual, but I didn't care. Rationally, I knew Jenny wasn't that much younger than her sister, and was therefore a lot older than I was, but she certainly didn't look it. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, with delicate, bird-like features and huge brown eyes. Shoulder-length, chestnut hair, and a sophisticated rock-chick ensemble of black jeans, black leather jacket and cropped t-shirt (oh, that midriff!) completed the picture. Suddenly, the prospect of spending the rest of the evening at that party didn't seem to awful at all.

Jenny and I didn't leave each other's side for the remainder of the party. The sexual attraction was intense, electric and overpowering. I drove her home at the end of the night, and she practically squirmed with pleasure in the Porsche's leather bucket seat. When we kissed, I was consumed with wanting her.

And so it began. There was, to be sure, a frisson of guilt about the whole thing, what with her being older and (in theory) an old family friend. But any doubts were soon cast aside once I had taken her to bed for the first time – the sex was terrific. And, Jenny was sweet, affectionate, and fun to be with, and certainly didn't act like a more mature woman. A bit scatty at times, in fact, but that seemed like no problem in the early haze of deep lust.

Eventually, we moved in together – a first for me at the time. Now, it wasn't exactly love's young dream – more a practical solution to Jenny's financial problems – but it seemed great at first. For the first time in my adult life, I wasn't coming home to an empty flat, with last night's detritus lying exactly where I had left it. I wasn't waking up alone on a quiet Sunday morning and feeling the day yawning emptily ahead of me.

But, after a while, problems began to emerge. Our families found out, and mine was distinctly disapproving. Also, the trouble with being a rebel and a bohemian in your youth is that you end up still working in a shop when you are in your 40's, and Jenny continued to take a very traditional view of male/female relationships when it came to paying for things. I started to resent the fact that I was paying for absolutely everything, not just the exotic holidays and expensive nights out, but the weekly shopping and the mortgage and the utility bills as well. I also began to question whether this was really it – didn't I want to get married someday, to someone with a similar age and education to myself, and who wanted to have children at some point?

There was another factor, too, which only really emerged towards the end of our relationship …

“Everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end” - the movie Cocktail does include a few words of wisdom. After a couple of years, Jenny and I did end badly, and in a way that left me with a serious legacy of guilt. I was the one, after all, who called time and chucked her out.

And that was it, for some 15 years, during which I loved and lost, got married and divorced, became a father, moved out of London, saw my life hit rock-bottom and and then start to move forward again, although what it was now moving forward towards I had no idea.

And there I was at her mother's funeral, and there was Jenny with her sisters on the other side of the chapel, and I didn't know what the hell I was going to say to her.

Curiosity about Jenny, of course, had been my strong incentive for coming. I hadn't set eyes on her since that awful day, 15 years ago, when she had taken the last of her things (and quite a few of mine, favourite CD's in particular) and left my flat for the last time. One thing she left behind was a silly soft toy boa constrictor, which I had bought for her in a moment of high spirits on a day out somewhere. “You can keep the snake,” were her final, telling, words.

So, what was she like now? Had she got over me (oh, the vanity we all share that ex's never do!)? Had she found happiness? Was she married, content, settled? And, perhaps most of all, what did she look like now? She must be pretty ancient, I thought – I never did find out exactly how old she was, but she was certainly in her '40's when we were together, which must make her pushing 60 by now. And, no one looks good at that age.

Except for Jenny. Looking across the chapel, I was amazed how virtually nothing seemed to have changed. The long chestnut hair was now a cropped blonde bob, but it really suited her. She had certainly not put on any weight, and was elegantly clad in a black velvet suit and cream blouse. Her face had not changed at all – the delicate, bird-like features seem to have barely added a wrinkle.

It was later, at the reception, that we actually spoke. There was an initial, polite exchange: my expression of sympathies, her thanks for my attending. Jenny was upset, naturally, but her mother had been sick for a long time, so her death hadn't come as a shock. And, after the catharsis of the service itself, the general mood at the reception had lifted. After all, funerals share with christenings and marriages the common feature of people who have not seen each other for years becoming reacquainted.

After a while, I sought her out at a quiet table and we really talked. “I wasn't sure I should come,” I admitted, “But I wanted to ensure that my mother did. And, I did want to see you again. I just want to know that you're … all right ...”

Jenny was all right. She had moved on, as one might expect in 15 years. Oh, she wasn't married or settled or anything like that, but there had been other relationships. And, she said, when one of her sister's had shown her some of my wedding photos, “I realised that was the right thing for Ben.”

I allowed myself a short, bitter, laugh. “Well, it wasn't, I can assure you of that. Biggest mistake I ever made.”

“But you've got your boys, now, surely you don't regret them?”

Of course I did not, and that led to showing her some of the photo's on my phone, which she then reciprocated with shots of her dog – a little, black, squashed up thing with an evil expression on its face.

“That's Pugsly,” said Jenny, “I've only had him a few months, but he's absolutely lovely. He's a Pug, you know, and he's ever such good company”.

As the day drew to an end, we exchanged vows of friendship, and also phone numbers. And I found myself saying the fateful words: “It would be great to see you again sometime, Jenny”.

“Yes, Ben, yes it would”.

The Art of Parties

Well, January is over, but perhaps it's not quite too late to wish everyone a happy new year. What's new in my life? I believe the French have a phrase – plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. But, hey, everyone has a great time at New Year itself, right?

New Year's Eve was indeed party time. And my friend Nick was having the biggest and baddest party of them all, in the legendary “Supershed” in his back garden.

Now, a party in a shed, on the 31^st of December, may not seem like a very enticing prospect. But, perhaps if I were to explain that Nick is a man of some means, and what he calls a garden shed is larger and more luxuriously appointed that most people's homes, then the picture may become clearer. As well as being heated and furnished, the Supershed sports a bar, pool table, wide-screen TV (with Latvian satellite subscription), sound system and, er, the notorious hot tub. I must admit to some culpability in the notoriety of the hot tub, and of Supershed parties in general, as the first was held back when Charlotte and I were still together. With the further addition of Charlotte's hot friend Debbie to the proceedings, it was indeed a memorable evening.

But that was then and this was now. No Charlotte (I did ask her, but she was having a quiet night in with Chavvy Kevin), and certainly no Debbie (even more yesterday's news than myself). So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, a single desperado out for action, adventure and may the devil take the hindmost! Or, something like that.

I was not without hope. Nick was single like myself, and had contrived to ensure there were a generous number of invitations sent to single women. No guarantee that they would turn up, of course (unlike the usual bevy of drunken reprobates who pass for our friends, and whose attendance could be pretty much guaranteed). I was hoping, nonetheless, for a reasonably sophisticated evening in mixed company, rather than a typical Sunday afternoon Supershed session (lager, premier league action via Latvia, more lager, then Latvian action of a different kind on Kanals Pornografiska XXX).

Before the party proper, it was decided that a few looseners were in order, and hence the advance guard met up at the White Horse. For me, the beauty of both the Supershed and the White Horse, of course, were that both were within staggering distance of my front door – an important consideration, especially on New Years Eve. Thus, I was honour-bound to meet up with the advance party, which turned out to include such luminaries as Mad Steve, Dirty Dave, Wicked Willie Jones, Robbie Robinson, the Amazing Ciderman, and Nick himself (who, as he had invented most of these monikers, didn't have one).

“Hail Caligula!” came the ritual cry as I entered the bar – a reference to the hot tub incident involving Charlotte, Debbie and myself at the first Supershed party (there are worse nicknames, I suppose) – and it was clear that alcohol was going to be a serious factor tonight. Good , I thought, (who can face New Year sober?) and ordered my first beer of the evening, while making the usual small talk with the guys.

I noted then that Robbie wasn't part of the usual scrum – he was in a corner by the door, intently chatting to two girls who I failed to recognise. Fresh blood, or more particularly fresh female blood, was always welcome in the Horse, and I could see an ideal opportunity to move in there. After all, Robbie could hardly expect to engage both women for much longer – in truth, despite very much looking and acting the part, Robbie's conversational gambits tended to run onto stoney ground after the first ten minutes or so. And that was with people he knew.

So, I reckoned I'd be doing him a favour. “Hey, Robbie, how's it going?” was my opener, and it was indeed well-received.

“Ben!” Robbie's smile was of a man who welcomed reinforcement like a regiment under siege, “I was just telling these two young ladies about the party we're all off to at the Supershed. They really do need to come along, don't they?”

“It's not just a shed, it's a super-shed, then?” the taller of the two girls asked, her voice tinged with an amused skepticism, “Just what's so super about it?”

Now, in formulating my response, I should in theory have given due consideration to which of the two was to be my prime target, but that was a tough call. Robbie was a mate, and it was only fair (given that he had done the heavy lifting so far), to give him first shout. Plus, in the looks stakes, there wasn't a great deal to choose between them – both in their thirties (the older one possibly nearer forty), brunette, slim, and elegantly turned out in retro cocktail dresses and plenty of costume jewelry. Going for the shorter of the two would, perhaps, have made the most sense, given that the tall one was actually taller then me, and more suited to a 6'+ chap like Robbie. But, she was also the older of the two, clearly older than Robbie, who on that criteroen would have been better matched with the smaller one.

I decided to play it by ear, concentrate on having a good time, and not worry too much about which, if any, I made any progress with.

“Let me put it this way,” I said, “It's a shed, in the same way that the Olympic games is a school sports day, the Bugatti Veyron a nippy little runabout, or the Grand Canyon a bit of a gully. It's where all the best parties around here are held. And, after all, we're all going [I gestured expansively], so it's bound to be a terrific night”.

The assurance that the event was, indeed, a general social gathering involving most of the bar, and not just a creepy invitation to go back to Robbie's garden shed and “party”, seemed to have done the trick.

“What do you think, sis?” said the tall one (sisters! No wonder they looked so alike), “If everyone's going ...”

So it was that, within the hour, we all decamped the Horse for Nick's back garden and the Supershed opened its doors. Nick had also laid on a marquee, several outdoor heaters, strings of fairy lights, and copious amounts of booze and food. Combined with the elegant background haze rising from the hot tub, it was indeed an ideal setting.

It turned out the two sisters were quite local. Fairly early in the procedings, Robbie managed to spirit the younger and shorter one off beside him on the garden swing, while I was left chatting to the tall one in the marquee. Fair enough – except that it wasn't so much a case of talking to her, as listening to her hold court, to both myself and Craig and Gina, an older couple I knew from drinking in the Horse. Now, I don't mind letting women talk about themselves – it's what you seek to encourage on a date, after all – but this wasn't so much a case of her opening up as monologuing. She had recently qualified as a solicitor, so it seemed, after years of working as a paralegal and doing the exams in her spare time. She and her sister shared a flat in a new development nearby, although it was made clear it was the tall sister's flat and the younger one simply rented a room. The general impression that this was the smarter, more professional, better off sister was laid on fairly thick.

I decided it was time to demonstrate some value and move on. I wandered into the Supershed proper to find a very happy Nick leaning against the pool table. The reason for his happiness had her arm around his waist.

“Captain Ben!” Nick exclaimed (another of his nicknames – I'm really not sure where he got “Captain” from), “This is Julie, an old friend of mine”.

Strangely for one of Nick's “old friends” I had never heard of Julie before. She was a tiny, waif-like creature, with a rather pretty face and an elfin hairstyle, who closely resembled one of my old ex's from long, long ago (before I was even married). In fact, so close was the resemblance that I had to stop and look twice, to ensure I hadn't misheard the name and it really was my old Jenny from the ancient days of the mid 1990's.

It was only later, while Julie was chatting to someone else, that Nick was able to fill me with the full picture. He had indeed known her for some time, but only slightly, through their children who were a similar age and went to the same school. Through the wonders of Facebook, they were suggested to each other as online friends, had chatted that way on and off for a couple of weeks, and then Julie really had accepted Nick's party invitation. And, it looked like things were going swimmingly.

Disappointingly, it looked as though few other single women had taken up Nick's offer. The overall turnout was good, but it was mostly civilised groups of couples, as you would expect from our generation. Whatever happened, I wondered, to those parties of my youth, the furtive, whose-parents-are-away, sneak-in-a-bottle-of-vodka parties that were basically massive copping-off fests? At the time, I never dreamt that the parties of later years would pale by comparison, despite the advantages of freedom and wealth.

Oh, well. We all know that youth is wasted on the young. Disappointingly, the tall sister was still holding forth to Craig and Gina, and was showing no signs of wondering where I had gone. I caught a snatch of her exclaiming how she really wanted to be a teacher, and was now thinking of going back to college (obviously, the first thing you think of doing after spending years qualifying in law), and decided to demonstrate a bit more value.

After a spot of banter with Mad Steve and Rich, I realised that the only other bit of “spare” present was an old friend of Nick's late wife, a rather large lady known to all as The Matron. The resemblance to the late Hattie Jacques was quite remarkable. I also realised that I was sufficiently drunk not to care anymore, so simply let the evening take its course.

Shortly after midnight, Nick waived goodbye to one and all, and headed off back to the house with the lovely Julie clamped tightly around him. The genius of the Supershed concept was obvious: you get to host a great party, then when you've had enough (or when you seriously score with a hottie), you can slope off back to the house and leave everyone to it. People did start to drift away, apart from the hard core alcoholics, and I was thinking increasingly of how nice my bed would feel.

At that point, the younger of the two sisters suddenly appeared, in a state of some distress. “Have you seen my sister?” she wanted to know, “I don't know where she's gone … she's always doing this … we should be going home now ...”

“I don't know, I'm afraid,” I said. Rich seemed to think her and Robbie had gone together to the Black Lion. The younger sister rolled her eyes and flounced off.

Strange, I thought, as I didn't remember seeing Robbie talking to the older one much at all, but I was really beyond caring. Home and bed were calling strongly.

It was as I was heading off that the mystery was revealed. Nick also has a standard-sized shed, filled with standard-type contents (lawn-mower, tools, etc.), which stands near the garden exit. There's a narrow corridor between the side of the shed and the fence, normally hidden from the rest of the garden, but which can be observed by someone on the way out, should they so choose to glance that way.

For some reason I did, although I doubt that Robbie noticed me doing so. I doubt, in fact, that he would have noticed a low-yield nuclear detonation at anything greater than a 50 yard distance. His eyes were closed, and he was leaning back againt the shed with his knees slightly bent. The elder sister was crouched below him, engaged in an enthusuastic al fresco blowjob. It was an exceptionally mild 1^st of January.

Happy New Year, matey, I thought as I headed home.