I don't often write about personal stuff, but I know some of you prefer my more autobiographical blogs, so this one is for you, a bit of nostalgia.
My first serious, steady relationship was with Harriet. I'd had girlfriends before, for a few weeks or months through my early teens in Cambridge, but Harriet was the first one with whom I felt a deeper connection. Was it love? I suppose we both thought so. We were of a romantic disposition and were together for nearly three years from 1969 to 1972.
We'd met at a Sunday afternoon party at one of the colleges. I remember a picnic and playing croquet on the lawn. It all seems quite improbable in recall. We were both still at school at the time. She was in her O-level year and I'd just started A-levels. We had been invited by a mischievous mutual friend who had match-making aspirations. Harriet had long hair, large eyes and was very shy. We hardly talked to each other at the party, but when it transpired she lived only two streets away from me, we walked home together and arranged to go on our first date one evening that week, to the autumn fair which was taking place on Jesus Green.
I've always liked a fair, the gaudiness, the noise (thrum of diesel generators, loud music, squeals of delight from the amusement rides), the overdo of bright lights, the maze of stalls (hook a duck, rifle range, coconut shy, name your favourite...), the smell of hot dogs, fried onions, candyfloss. I hooked a duck, won her an anklet, the sentimental worth of which outweighed its cost. We had a good time, talked about 'Far From the Madding Crowd', arranged to meet again. at the week-end for a 'proper' date.
We bought items for the house - a bookcase, an antique mirror, vases, bedspread, posters - as if we had all but set up home together. Looking back now it seems naively sweet. I don't know if she hoped she might join me at Warwick. We did talk about it, I'm sure. But she didn't get an offer, and went to York instead to read History, taking with her the copy of Leonard Cohen's 'Songs of Love and Hate' that I'd recently bought her.
The title of today's poem is a mondegreen courtesy of a university friend who thought Dylan's line from "Tangled Up In Blue" sounded like "and quoted Leonard Cohen", when in fact it reads "and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal." I figured it was appropriate given the Cohen references in the blog and the echoes in the poem of "So Long, Marianne", "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye". It comes with the usual caveat of it being a first draft.
We'd met at a Sunday afternoon party at one of the colleges. I remember a picnic and playing croquet on the lawn. It all seems quite improbable in recall. We were both still at school at the time. She was in her O-level year and I'd just started A-levels. We had been invited by a mischievous mutual friend who had match-making aspirations. Harriet had long hair, large eyes and was very shy. We hardly talked to each other at the party, but when it transpired she lived only two streets away from me, we walked home together and arranged to go on our first date one evening that week, to the autumn fair which was taking place on Jesus Green.
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| fair hooked (i) |
We went to see 'Midnight Cowboy' at Cambridge Arts Cinema and then for something to eat. She insisted on paying her share, said if this was going to be a regular thing, it was only fair. It was then that she told me I had the seal of approval of her best friend Vicky, who'd also been at that Sunday afternoon party. We sat talking for ages and I received a mild parental telling off for getting her home late!
We were hooked. We'd become a couple, with much in common, both of us studious, liking art, film, literature, music, theatre. I wrote her poems and painted pictures for her. We didn't see each other during the week in term time (the curse of homework), but went out most Friday and Saturday nights and spent Sunday evenings together in the front room of her parents' house or mine, with said parents hovering next door. We listened to music and romanced in the dark "the way young lovers do" (thanks, Van Morrison).
That Christmas I bought her Leonard Cohen's 'Songs From A Room' and received a book of Richard Brautigan poems. The next it was Pink Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother' and in return I got Northrop Frye's 'Anatomy of Criticism' In the holidays we'd to go up to London to visit art galleries, or get the train to the seaside for the day. Sometimes we'd go to the theatre in Cambridge or in London with the local Theatre Appreciation Society. Once we went to stay with my aunt and uncle in Portsmouth (separate rooms of course). She reminded me of Miriam in 'Sons and Lovers'. Cambridge in summer meant punting on the Cam, or going to music gigs or a party if we could find one (some of our social group from more liberal households were having them). Harriet was on the pill by now, and such occasions were godsends for couples who still lived at home with less understanding parents.
When my own parents and brothers went away on holiday for a fortnight and I stayed behind to revise, then we could be together more naturally, and then I did throw a party. Harriet helped me carry every stick of furniture from the ground floor of the parental home out into the garage excepting for the piano and a kitchen table. What a girl. What a party.
At the end of my A-levels I took a gap year before heading off to university. I think she'd hoped I might apply to a Cambridge college, but I wanted something a little less 'establishment'. Warwick was at the forefront of radical student activism at the time, and Germaine Greer would be one of my English tutors. I got a job in Cambridge for that year, left home, and rented a house with some friends while Harriet pursued her A-levels. My rented house was conveniently near to her school and we became as close to a couple living together as was possible, given the fact that her parents expected her home by 11.00 every night, or midnight by special dispensation.
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| fair hooked (ii) |
You can probably imagine that it didn't end well. I don't know what percentage of young loves survive the separation that going off to university involves, but the number must be a low one. To give Harriet credit, she would probably have remained loyal to me longer than I managed to stay loyal to her. I unhooked first and she was extremely upset. Meeting up with her back in Cambridge to explain and apologise felt like a courteous thing to do, but it wasn't taken very kindly, and I still feel a degree of remorse all these years later for having let her down. I heard she was living with an old school friend of mine. Our last contact was a letter of condolence she wrote me after my mother died. She had been very supportive of Harriet in the wake of our unhooking.
The title of today's poem is a mondegreen courtesy of a university friend who thought Dylan's line from "Tangled Up In Blue" sounded like "and quoted Leonard Cohen", when in fact it reads "and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal." I figured it was appropriate given the Cohen references in the blog and the echoes in the poem of "So Long, Marianne", "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye". It comes with the usual caveat of it being a first draft.
And Quoted Leonard Cohen
So long, Harriet, and yet I never could forget...
We met when we were almost young,
my mother said "in love with being in love"
but what did any of us know? Were there
wiser heads anticipating the upset
beyond the rapids of our infatuation?
The journey was ours though, explorers
in the morning of a new world,
our mutual delight in the way we loved,
your hair upon the pillow as Lenny sang,
my shy and gentle wide-eyed girl.
Our mirror, our red bookcase filled
with favourite books, our purple bedspread
in that nest of a room. We fledged,
my mother broke our crystal vase
by mistake, she said. You shed some tears.
At least she was kind after I was gone.
It was no way to say good-bye, but she knew
that a broken heart mends with time.
I'm sure we've laughed and loved and cried
with others since in less innocent ways.
So long, Harriet, of course I never could forget
for part of you has remained with me,
a tender imprint on the soul. I hope the same
is true for you, my young love. No regrets.
Do you still have that purple bedspread?
Thanks for reading. Have a good week, S ;-)
