John Lennon is supposed to have said "Everything will be alright in the end and if it's not alright it's not the end yet" but he also wrote "Happy Christmas War is over" and I hate that song so I'm in two minds about his insight. Mawkish singalongs aside there's a certain wisdom in what he said but sometimes it's only with the benefit of hindsight you realise when it was alright and when it was not so alright.
It all started around twenty years ago, I'd come out of university on a Land Management degree with a 2:1 and every intention of becoming something important in the UK farming or forestry industries. Of course, life intervened and I found myself a junior negotiator for Tilley Wood associates, a small chain of estate agents in and around South Gloucestershire. After a year or two rotating through the different branches I settled in the Farm and Land sales department, based in Yate, which was handy as my parents lived there and I could carry on living at home while I saved for a house deposit.
My sister, Carole, is only fourteen months younger than me and we got on as well as older siblings living with their parents can, parents who were happy enough to have us around as it meant they could go off at a moment's notice knowing the house was safe, the cat fed and the bins put out, although Dad did drop the odd hint about finding a place of my own from time to time.
Carole and I would occasionally hang out together on a Friday or Saturday evening, our circle of friends largely overlapped and so it came to pass that one Friday evening in 2001 we were in one of the waterfront bars in Bristol with around a dozen or so friends when She walked in. I know it's a cliché, but things only become clichés because they happen a lot; it was as if time stopped. I could only see one person in colour and everyone else was in black and white. She wasn't the prettiest, or the tallest or had the biggest boobs or anything outstanding, She just walked in wearing her spaghetti strapped light brown top, a short soft leather jacket, jeans and Nike trainers and took my breath away.
She looked around, spotted someone she knew, waved and joined her.
The moment was broken, my mate Gary was waving an empty glass under my nose. "Pint mate? Or are you duty driver tonight?"
I looked over at Carole, she had a couple of empty Bacardi-Breezer bottles in front of her and was pouring a third down her throat at a rate of knots.
"Carole, Keys?" I called over, she held up the fob for the Vauxhall Astra we shared. I mouthed "You owe me," she nodded and threw it in my direction. I would like to say I made a deft catch, but she can't throw to save her life and it fell on the carpet, I bent to pick them up so only heard Carole's friend Wendy shout out "Coco, over here."
By the time I stood up and told Gary yes, I was duty driver and I'd have a lime and soda please Coco had joined us, bringing my vision with her.
Carole knew Wendy from school, they'd been guides and gone to ballet classes together then drifted apart and were now back as friends in the same wider group, Coco was someone I'd seen once or twice in the past couple of years, enough to be someone I vaguely recognised but not someone I'd ever spoken to. I think she and Wendy were in the same running group, actually I know that now, but I didn't then.
I managed to avoid dribbling on the carpet as Sharon was introduced round, she was Coco's flatmate, worked as a nurse at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and was getting married in six months to a junior doctor. All thoughts of stealing her away were dashed the more I heard about doctor bleeding fantastic.
He was training as a surgeon and wanted to specialise in paediatric heart surgery, he had spent six months volunteering in Cambodia, was captain of his cricket team and ran a sub three-hour marathon. I sold second-hand farms, played Sunday morning football and once tried a ten K run where I vomited after thirty minutes. Feeling mildly inadequate I sipped my driver's special and watched, besotted and unrequited. I may have spoken a couple of words to her, I don't remember.
I tried to put thoughts of Sharon out of my head, but I was truly fixated. She was the first thing I thought about when I woke up and the last thing I thought about at night, my days were spent trying to concentrate on work but failing, finding myself dreaming of her endlessly. Strangely, my fantasies were largely based on being with her in different scenarios, at the pub, going to a movie, walking across the hills, very little in the sexual fantasy way of things, although I did wonder what she looked like naked on a few occasions.
I hit on an idea, with hindsight it was a terrible idea, to be honest even at the time I knew it was a really bad idea, one of the worst things I've ever done as a person and one of which I am still ashamed some twenty years later. The one saving grace is that no one worked out what I did at the time and now enough time has passed that I will probably get away without becoming a social pariah. Again.
I got Wendy's number from Carole and gave her a call.
"Hi Wendy, it's Dan, Dan Palmer, Carole's brother. Listen... I wonder, is Coco seeing anyone, do you know?
Yeah, I know, I didn't ask at the time, and I feel so stupid.
She isn't? That's good to know. Can I get her number... Thanks. Oh, work too, yes please. Owe you one."
I should have felt like the horrible person I was but in fact I felt a growing excitement as I dialled Coco's work number.
"Nicola Walsh, Newsroom."
"Hi Nicola, Coco, I don't know if you remember me, it's Dan Palmer. You were at 'Dockers' on Friday, we were in the group with Wendy?"
She did remember me, my drooling over her flat mate hadn't been noticed and yes, she would love to go out for a drink with me on Thursday evening.
We arranged to meet near her office in the centre of Bristol at 6, giving me time to get in from Yate after I finished work.
Her name was Nicola, but everyone called her Coco, apparently they had since she was about seven. She was twenty years old, worked as a junior in the news department of one of the local radio stations while she finished her journalism degree part time at Bristol University. Around five four or five she had a nice figure, taking Dancercise classes and running in a group with Wendy several times a week. Her hair was a deep natural chestnut colour with a pretty heart shaped face and quite a cute nose.
The first date went OK, she explained that local journalism wasn't all Woodward and Bernstein, it was much more amusing stories about singing sheep and reporting on angry people pointing at fly tipping, I tried to make selling farms and agricultural properties sound less dull than it actually is at my level, which is the sitting in the office doing the paperwork level.
