Day 319. Where were you hiding? (15/11/13)

As somebody who singularly failed to find Marcel Proust's grave in Pere LaChaise and has never read any of his work I feel fully qualified to speak on the subject of his idea that all memories can be accessed through simple objects. And have done at great length all year.

I worked a little late tonight (November. Standard.) and in the car home I felt the need for some comfort music; The Alarm.

Those of you that remember The Alarm at all probably remember them as cartoon cowboy punks with mid 80s big hair and ridiculously overblown posturing. I'll put you straight; The Alarm were a hell of a night out, a splendid live band with an acoustic Clash feel to them. From the first time we saw them supporting U2 at the Royal Court on the War tour (twice IIRC) through small venues into a headlining act themselves, The Alarm never let us down.

They're nights out with our kid and Mally, a gig that started at midnight in a side street, they're a huge poppy emblazoned across the back of a stage (I'll wager good money that Mally still has the T-shirt with that log on.

And The Alarm are a girl from Wales called Jill.

I met her in The State, a venue that would become much more important on a night that I met a different and much more important girl a few years later.

It was one of the infrequent occasions that The State hosted gigs. That night was The Alarm plus support, a band called Mercenary Skank. Jill was a friend of the band. I have no idea how I ended up talking to her between bands as I generally didn't end up talking to girls at any point but this night I actually managed to break that particular trend.

We talked about the support band, a pleasant little 80s punk combo. The conversation went far enough to end with her offering to send me some tapes and we exchanged addresses.

We corresponded by post for a while then moved to phone calls that became long and involved; hours long chats sat on the stairs in my parents house. We made tentative plans to meet.

As with The Alarm, Mercenary Skank were Welsh, Jill obviously also. She was from Bodelwyddan but who on this side of the border can pronounce that. She was referred to by my friends as Jill from Rhyl.

We firmed up plans. Our kid and my mate Gary fancied a day out at the seaside, a chance to go to the fair so we arranged to meet Jill and her mates in the centre of Rhyl.

I'm fairly sure that we went in our Keith's car. Me, Keith and Gaz. If we'd met in school then Gary and I would probably have hated each other but since we met working for Kwik Save we'd sort of clicked, good lad, good laugh, good mate.

We hit Rhyl, met up with Jill and (one mate? I'm not sure) all in black, kind of gothy looking. They wanted to head to a local record shop so that's where we went. And when we got there they stood and talked to the lads behind the counter about Nick Cave while we stood around and looked at our watches.

Eventually I had to say it; look, these two really want to go to the fair so I'm going to go with them, maybe we could meet up later.

The response was muted, non-committal. We went to the fair, had a decent day, Wild Mouse, dodgems, that kind of thing. There was probably candy floss involved at some point. I'm fairly sure that our Keith will tell me that I'm remembering all this wrong. There's a chance our Kev will come back to me and point out that he was there as well. It's a long time ago, details blur..

I don't think that I ever spoke to Jill again. Contact fizzled out. I decided that perhaps actually seeing me in daylight wasn't as exciting or interesting as she'd imagined. Great for the ego that kind of thought.

One thing I do know for sure though; the last time that I saw Gary Porter I was standing talking to him at the bar in the Black Bull in Walton Vale. We didn't work together any longer, I'd quit Kwiky because of the arsehole manager that cost me the chance of seeing The Jam. I hadn't seen Gaz for a few months so we caught up for a bit then I said that I had to take my mate his pint.

I turned around, walked away and went back to my mate and my entire life changed in that single moment as I walked toward another girl whose name began with J.