Jamie's Tail Pt. 01

This piece was first posted incomplete as part of a series called 'Jackie's Story'. Here, with names changed to protect the guilty, it's the first part of two.

Jamie's Tail, Pt 1: Meeting

1. Party

Jamie disliked Jacqueline Roncoroni on sight. Well, no, that's not true really. He disliked her on sound, would be more accurate. The first time he saw her, before she opened her mouth, he thought she was unutterably lovely; he couldn't wait to get next to her, close to her, and – if his luck held up – inside her. His luck didn't hold that evening, nor for many after.

It was a party, a student party, in the cellar of a house in Jesmond, one of the northern suburbs of Newcastle on Tyne. He was not sure how or why he got there. With friends he had watched a match at St James' Park, an ignominious defeat on the pitch softened by the pints they'd drunk in the Strawberry pub just outside the ground before they were let in to stand swaying on the terraces at the Leazes End. Softened further by the pints they'd gone on to sink through the early evening in the Bigg Market, in the centre of the city, before some aware doorman realised they might be trouble and introduced them to the pavement outside. He had no idea how they afforded the taxi which took them out to Jesmond; probably his mates had his wallet out and paid with its contents, getting themselves a free ride for all he knew.

But there they were, Jamie looking vaguely at the stars and wondering why they didn't keep still but spun above his head, while the doorbell rang and rang and they waited in the cold for some welcoming answer within. They could hear the music, and Jamie suddenly found he was clutching a bottle of something in his hand as an entry offering. He recognised it as being litre-sized, red in content, very cheap and extremely nasty but beyond that he had little recollection. He didn't remember buying it and didn't intend to drink it. It was a way in. No more.

He had the vaguest memory of a very fat young lady with a moustache (or it might have been identically twinned fat young ladies, as he struggled to focus) eventually opening the door, then shutting it immediately. His friend Jerry, with some difficulty balancing in a crouched position, put his mouth to the letter-box and called within in what he thought might be a mollifying tone.

"Hello! We're friends of Jackie! She invited us! Can we come in? Look, honest..!"

Jamie could vaguely register that Jerry had pushed his student union ID card through the letter box in the hope of being checked out, or in, as bona fide.

There had been a longish pause before the door had opened again, just a crack. A voice came from behind it, sort of disembodied: "We're getting complaints from the neighbours. We don't want trouble or the police coming round. You're going to have to be quiet, yes..?"

"Oh yes," they all chorused in unison, lamb-like. "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes ..."

The word 'quiet' made no sense in the context of the cellar they had stumbled their precarious way into. The walls were vibrating in time with Jamie's temples. He tried to focus on random objects with no success: the dancers; the swirling candle smoke; the wall posters; the groups chatting and flirting; the rickety table where the drinks were sitting, within reach – and all of them similar liquid-poison garbage to the rancid brew he'd brought with him.

And across the room, there was a vision of absolute loveliness. "That's Jacqueline," explained Jerry helpfully, "this is her place. Let's say hello."

They shuffled across, with Jamie trying to keep the floor steady since it was cruise-liner-deck swaying. The woman was talking animatedly with a close group of friends, while the newcomers hovered in a kind of wavering, wobbly orbit. He took in the fact that she was only a little shorter than himself; had slightly unruly, long brown-black hair which she kept brushing away from her face as she talked; had a full figure ("Now there's a euphemism," he thought) and strikingly dazzling eyes – they were blue-grey and seemed to have a smile of their own. Though not for him. Most of the time Jamie could see at least two of her, sometimes as many as four, depending on how sick he felt. Increasingly, he was aware of the need to say something witty, pithy, clever ... but the conversation kept skipping past him. He would just manage to form a memorable phrase in his head, then find the drift had moved on, leaving what he had to say stranded and marooned.

He adjusted his in-brain radar to register what the goddess was saying and immediately started to flounder. She was a drama student, he gathered. The subject under discussion appeared to be 'tragedy'. For Jamie, 'tragedy' was a good way of describing the result of that afternoon's match and not much more. They were currently analysing Racine's Phaedra in minute detail. He managed to make some half-arsed joke about racoons, which he thought was pretty smart at the time and was surprised to find elicited no response. So he kept his mouth shut, grinned inanely, nodding at each point being made and waiting, on unsteady legs, for an opportunity to deliver the killer blow. It didn't seem to come. He listened to her talking, yaka-yaka-yaka, ten to the dozen, gibberish as far as he could perceive: hubris this; nemesis that; catharsis. Oedipus. Clytemnestra. Agamemnon. Orestes. Who were all these Greek geeks? Was this the front four in a challenge for a European soccer victory?

He focused in on her mouth, slipping without difficulty into fantasy mode. How could so much opinionated tripe emerge from something so luscious? She lifted her glass and he noted that she didn't – or hadn't – shaved her armpits; involuntarily he started to moan inwardly, body hair (within reason) always turning him on. He stopped moaning with a muttered and incoherent excuse when Jerry's dig in his ribs alerted him to the fact that it wasn't as inward as he'd imagined. Their discussion accelerated and, to Jamie at least, became even more obscure. He was baffled to realise that while he seemed to understand virtually every word they used, he couldn't for the life of him manage to interpret them when strung in order. It was beginning to make him very irritated, especially as now she'd put down her glass – which looked to him as if it contained water, to his disgust – and had folded her arms under her breasts, drawing his attention back to them in a big way. He could see them moving under her thin sweater and realised with a tiny shock of appreciation that she couldn't be wearing a bra. His eyes switched caressingly from one to the other and back again, hoping for an outline of nipple. Glancing up briefly he found himself looking her right in those magical eyes. It was the first time that night that he felt she was aware of him; and there was slightly more than a trace of contempt in her expression.

It took him some seconds to realise that he seemed now to be standing in a small island of silence. "Why's the conversation stopped?" he asked himself. "Why's everyone looking at me in mild surprise? Did I just say something?" Slow rewind. Playback. "Ah..." I just seem to have said, "all this is complete bullshit, but you, lady, are lovely enough to fuck from here to dawn..."

At which she had started talking to him, directly. And instantly he hated her. He heard her words, understood them as words, but tongue-tied, couldn't respond. He found her totally pretentious. He found her 'discussion' with her friends inane. She made him feel small. He resented it. There was a commentary going on, despite her, in his head, led by some sort of manic, phantom teleprompter, which bettered her at each conversational gambit. But never managed to make it out of his mouth.

"I'll just fetch another drink," he announced unsteadily and unnecessarily loudly, "Don't feel you have to stop haranguing me while I'm gone ..." He thought the last witty barb might have scored a point or two but before he could celebrate it he passed out.

2. The Morning After

He had to admit that waking up in her bed was a strange sensation, made more strange by the complete lack of recollection about how he had got there. At first, of course, he didn't know for certain that it was her bed, but it was unmistakeably a woman's; a quick glance round confirmed it. For a start it was extraordinarily untidy, which for him was a sure sign (even though he'd been told many times that it was less a case of others, of whatever gender, being untidy and more one of him being obsessively neat). There were magazines strewn around the floor; crumpled tissues with the impression of lipstick on them in the bin; assorted bottles, jars and tubes scattered over the dressing table in front of a mirror amidst small piles of cotton buds; and a long black dress on a hanger behind the door. Definitely a woman's room he concluded. Fractionally after registering this, and exactly at the moment when – his senses starting to drag themselves back into slow-motion action – he first inhaled the perfume on the pillow which set his mind racing, he grasped the fact that he was naked under the sheets.

Sitting up – which on reflection and reaction he wished he'd done more slowly – scanning the floor and any other available surface, it was quickly obvious that his clothes weren't anywhere within reach. He even leaned out of bed, right out, hands on the floor, nausea rising in the throat, head right down, to peer under the bed. Nothing. He might have guessed that this would be the precise moment, with his naked buttocks sticking up above the sheets, that she'd choose to walk back in, without knocking; he conceded that this might not have been unreasonable, it being her room and all. She was carrying two steaming mugs which he assumed were tea and eyed gratefully, only discovering with the first scalding gulp that it was some sort of fancy, perfumed variety, guaranteed to trigger the temporarily retreated nausea-monster lurking around his midriff.

She sat down on the bed at a safe distance; his breath that morning would have felled a rampant rhino.

"Well..." she said, making the word last several seconds. "So did you enjoy it?"

"Eh?" he spluttered, wondering how to get the taste of that tea out of his mouth without spitting.

She smiled, encouragingly, which for some reason he found faintly alarming. "Did you enjoy it? Fucking me? Was I any good? How would you boys say it; was I a good shag?"

The best policy he decided, given his complete (and hopefully temporary) amnesia, seemed to be to keep his mouth shut. God knows why he didn't.

"You were gorgeous," he said, trying for a smile which from the beginning was never going to make it.

She considered him carefully for a moment or two in much the same way as she might have viewed an over-used handkerchief which invited avoidance but needed disposal. "In your dreams. In your dreams. You're actually rather pathetic, aren't you?"

If there was a riposte to that it escaped him, but he could hardly nod his head in agreement.

"We didn't ...?"

"We certainly didn't. Despite the very seductive way you phrased the suggestion that we should." She was pitching the sarcasm at just the right level. "No my friend, the only fucking you've got coming is you fucking off."

Chauvinistic as it sounds, Jamie was actually slightly offended by her free use of the f-word; somehow it just didn't seem ladylike. He wasn't in too good a position to point this out, though, being both nauseous and bollock-naked. It took little figuring to conclude that probably his best policy was moderate but sincere grovelling.

"OK, I'm sorry," he said, thinking that it sounded a bit inadequate but struggling to shape something more memorable. "I'd go if I had my clothes."

"You don't remember being sick do you?"

Oh God. Was there more to come?

"No, I thought not. And you don't remember us putting you to bed either, do you?"

"Us?"

"Your friend Jerry and me. Everyone else had gone. It didn't seem safe to leave you in the living room in your condition, so we brought you in here. After Jerry had got your jeans off. They're in a carrier bag out the back. You threw up all over them."

Oh God.

"You weren't asleep when we carried you through. You were muttering and mumbling. There was some football chanting tucked in there somewhere. And what Jerry assured me was singing. I suppose you don't remember trying to grope me either? Trying to get your hands up my sweater?"

He was getting desperate now, wondering how to make all this go away.

"Apparently I have the best tits you've seen for some time. You were keen to assure me about that. 'Lovely, lovely knockers'; I think that was one of your expressions. Ring any bells? Spark any memories?"

Utter humiliation.

The doorbell rang. She stood up and turned to go and answer it.

"Why did Jerry take the rest of my clothes off..?"

"He didn't. I did. With any luck, that will be him now. He said he'd call round this morning with some fresh clothes for you. I'll let him in. I'd quite like it if you left as quickly as possible after that, I find you pretty repulsive..."

3. Apologising

Jamie had a distinct feeling of déjà vu standing on her doorstep twenty four hours later, except that now there was no distant thumping noise of music coming from inside and below. There was some thumping going on inside him, however; he was feeling, untypically, very nervous. He'd considered carefully whether to avoid seeing her again for the rest of his life and live with the memory of terminal embarrassment, or whether to try diminishing the latter by saying sorry. It was a hard decision. Jerry advised him to forget it. After all, he hadn't broken anything, or been abusive, or actually hurt anything other than his own pride.

"She'd never have taken any notice of you, anyhow," he'd confided helpfully over a recuperative pint that evening. "She thought you were a dickhead when you first opened your mouth. Later on, when you'd just thrown up and were busy trying to cop a feel of her boobs, I reckon she just adjusted that assessment to your being a total dickhead."

In the end he'd ignored Jerry though, and now here he was once more at her door. He'd showered, shaved, washed his hair, chosen fresh clothes – well, fresh by student standards – and lashed out most of his week's money on a bottle of wine which the man in the corner shop had assured him was, by some distance, better than the red aviation fuel he'd taken with him to the party. And flowers. He'd never bought flowers for a woman before, except maybe on his mum's birthdays. And these were hardly an overwhelming bouquet. Jamie was not good with plants so he didn't even know what they were. The corner shop had them in assorted small bunches, each bunch a different colour. He'd picked up four bunches, so as to have some variety, then put two back after checking the price. No need to be rash here.

One very deep breath; then another; then he reached out and pressed the doorbell. He seemed to wait a long time after he heard it ring inside, before deciding she wasn't home. What a waste. Maybe he could get the flowers through the letter box? No chance, too small, they'd just squash. "Some men say it with flowers: Jamie says it with pulp." Bad idea. Maybe leave them on the doorstep with a note? Nothing to write with. He wasn't worried about the wine, he could easily take that away and drink it himself.

He was about to give up and go when the door suddenly opened, causing a slightly startled look on his face which didn't help his plan too much. She was wearing jeans and a much thicker sweater, he noted, and was vigorously towelling her wet hair.

"Oh," she exclaimed in mild surprise, leaning out of the doorway and looking up and down the street as if checking to see whether he had an escort. Maybe of attendants from the local asylum. "I was washing my hair", she added rather superfluously, while waiting for him to say something.

Jamie coughed nervously and held out his peace-offering flowers at arm's reach. "I came to apologise", he said in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone, "I'm really sorry about the other night. I wanted to say thanks for not just booting me out in that condition..."

"Oh," she said again, and paused with the hair rubbing. "That's nice. And are these for me..?"

He nodded dumbly, trying to magic a winning but contrite smile.

"How thoughtful, thank you." She took them and shut the door on him before he realised what was happening. He thought for a few seconds that maybe she'd just disappeared to put some other clothes on, or get rid of the towel, or whatever; when the seconds stretched to minutes it dawned on him that she really wasn't coming back. He trudged off up the street, his bottle of wine in hand, feeling fairly useless and being pursued by a small, rat-like mongrel, yapping and snapping at his heels. He would have kicked it if the dog hadn't been far too fast for him.

*

Jamie had a more than a distinct feeling of déjà vu standing on her doorstep an hour later, clutching another two bunches of flowers – these ones, the last in the shop, looking about as sad as he was. He rang the bell. Waited. The door opened. She was standing there, with that same mildly surprised look.

"I came to apologise", he said, "I'm really sorry about the other night. I wanted to say thanks for not just booting me out in that condition..."

He coughed nervously and held out his peace-offering flowers at arm's reach. "She has to see some humour in this", he thought desperately. A long moment's pause, then a half-smile from her. She reached out and took the flowers, whispered "Thanks..." and started to shut the door on him again. Jamie froze. He didn't have the money to do this over again. The door stopped an inch from being shut. Opened a crack further.

"Persistent, aren't you? Do you want to come in?"

Limpid with relief, he followed her into the living room, almost sitting on the chair where apparently he'd thrown up two nights ago, before realising and springing up and looking for somewhere else to park himself.

"Sit anywhere," she quipped. "Should I bring a basin or a bucket just in case?"

"I think I'll manage. I know you think badly of me. I'm not always like that."

"Well, that's good news. Do you want a corkscrew for that?"

"Oh, yes, good idea. I don't know what it's like..."

She took the bottle and turned it round and round. "Mmmm ... it'll be quite good. It's a Rhone Valley. Gigondas. Perhaps we should let it breathe for a while?"

"Ah, you know something about wine then?"

(How utterly obvious can you get?)

She smiled, melting him. She'd found him repulsive, but now she smiled! She went off to the kitchen while he relaxed back into the sofa; feeling good; feeling that he was in; possibilities opening up where before there were only closed doors.

4. Closing In

They saw a lot of each other from then on. At first a little warily, and at some distance, like friends who suspect there may be something more in the offing but not sure what that might be and not wanting to queer the pitch. He bought her coffees in the Student Union building after lectures and she talked to him about what films he should be watching. He went to see her acting in an avant garde production at the University Theatre which had him on the point of nodding off, except that he had to keep some semblance of memory so that they could 'discuss' it afterwards. He took her with him to a match at St James' – Arsenal, he seemed to remember – and she was clearly bored to tears ten minutes in.