Susan

Recently, I have started to follow a blog called "The Pedestrian Writer" by an east coast American chap called Chris. His posts are well-written. He opens himself up and reveals his vulnerabilities. Subtle self-deprecating humour is also often present. It is clear that Chris has been through some dark times and that his blog is something of a release valve. He admits this himself.

A few days ago  he posted  "A Summary of the Girls that I Never Dated in High School". In this piece of writing, he recalled the awkwardness of his teenage years and the invisible hurdles that prevented him from wandering through the valley of love, hand in hand with a teenage girlfriend, living the American high school dream like Danny and Sandy in "Grease". It is my supposition that Chris's experience of dating or rather not dating during his high school years is not uncommon.

For some reason, that post made me think of Susan and for what I am about to write I give thanks to Chris for his inspiration...

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In September 1965, I began five years of daily bus journeys from my East Yorkshire village into the city of Hull. At eleven years old, I had gained a scholarship to an all boys direct grant school, widely thought to be the "best" school in the region. 

Riding aboard that very first bus I noticed a pretty blue-eyed girl in the school uniform of The French Convent - a private school off Beverley Road. She was the same age as me and came from the next village up the road - Brandesburton. She was  a farmer's daughter and she was sitting next to her older sister who also attended The French Convent. I believe the sister was called Christabel.

As the mornings darkened and Christmas approached, Susan began to occupy a place in my thoughts with which Latin declensions and the periodic table could not compete. If sitting behind her on the bus, my eyes were drawn to her blonde locks and if sitting in front of her I fancied that she would sometimes look my way.

But we never spoke.

More than once, riding a late bus homewards - perhaps after rugby practice -  I found myself alone with her on the top deck but still we never spoke. We were getting older, physically and mentally. She was becoming rounded like a woman and I was six feet tall at fifteen. She looked at me and I looked at her. Stolen sideways glances. What was I meant to do?

Of course, I fantasised about her. Not lurid, pornographic fantasies but fantasies of love. Walking upon Hornsea beach, hand in hand, cycling along a country lane and sheltering from  a sudden rainstorm under a sycamore tree, taking her in my arms and kissing her tenderly. I never imagined conversations, just the quiet dumbshow of true love, acted out as if in a romantic film.

Once, I bought a Valentine card for her, signing it with secret kisses and I pedalled all the way to Brandesburton to post it just so that she wouldn't know the card was from me. In those days, every village post office had its own franking stamp so you could always tell where a card or letter had been posted.

Another time, sitting directly behind her, I leant forwards to fill my nostrils with the aroma of her hair. Clean and slightly medicinal like "Vosene". And so close I could have touched her.

At sixteen I left the  snobbish "best" school in Hull, transferring to Beverley Grammar School to do my A levels so no longer would I be travelling on the same bus as Susan. I had forfeited the opportunity of finally rising from my seat, swaying over to her and saying, "Hi! We have been travelling on the same bus for five years now and well, I have finally plucked up the courage to tell you that I fancy you and wondered if you'd like to see Jethro Tull with me at The City Hall?"

A few months after transferring to Beverley, I spotted her at a well-attended "dance" in Brandesburton Parish Hall. She was with some girlfriends. No doubt they danced ritualistically around their handbags. Perhaps now I could finally pluck up the courage but no, the inner strength would not come for by now she had become something like an unattainable goddess in my imaginings. We had grown up together, without even speaking to each other. She just wasn't like other girls. After all this time how could I ever speak to her?

Early the following year, at another "dance" in Brandesburton Parish Hall I saw her with a handsome, roguish fellow called Junior. He was a wealthy farmer's son with an air of confidence about him. He was two years older than me and already had his own car.

They were holding hands and laughing and in that painful moment, after all that longing and all those imagined romantic scenarios, I knew that I had lost Susan forever and ever.