Naomi

‘A Touching Display’ – Wire

It’s about 6.45pm and I’ll continue my story…

Well, it’s Tuesday now and it’s rained.  It’s been shit.

But a letter from Naomi has arrived.  I ain’t read it yet, but I’ll tell you about it when I return from TRIANGLIA…

Later:

10.41pm.

‘Oh!  You Pretty Things’ – David Bowie

TRIANGLIA was good.  Stan is ace.  Danny is ace.  Bella Murphy is ace.

Naomi    iS   FERUCKIN’   ACE !

I seriously didn’t believe she’d write.  She must really like me.  Well, let’s read it.

Oh shit.

She wrote the letter between 11.15pm and 12am Sunday/Monday.  The letter tells me quite a bit, ackcheloi…

‘Dear Jez…’

Her writing is amazing: wonderful, angular and beautifully crafted.  I wish my writing was so stylish.

She starts by asking if I remember her!  Apparently, in my drunkenness, I asked her to write to me before Tuesday, and then her pen runs out.  ‘Bloody hell’ (in brackets) is etched into the paper as she tries to get it to work, which is hilarious and brilliant and exactly the kind of thing I would do.  She finds another pen and continues…

She sobered up when THE BELL closed on Saturday by walking 2 ½ miles home with Traci.  She doesn’t quite remember the journey, but woke up at 12pm on Sunday with a massive hangover.  Her room was full of new trophies like a Metropolitan Police road cone, a doormat and two milk bottle holders…

 

If I think she was ‘a bit forward’ on Saturday, then she apologises, especially as she’s going out with someone (but then again, so was I!).  Her boyfriend is Alex and he’s 20 (she remembers that my girlfriend is ‘Nicky’).  And she doesn’t want to lose him, but he’s been strange lately.  She says she was ‘very pissed and in desperate need of attention’, but says she didn’t USE me.  She does remember what happened and what we did.  She also remembers what I look like and likes me a lot.  She wants to see me again and was looking for me in THE BELL on Sunday.  Just in case.

She says she’s depressed, feeling sorry for herself because her best mate Sally and she met Alex (and Sally’s bloke Vinnie) on St Valentine’s Day this year and relationships quickly developed.  From there, Alex said he’d like to see Naomi regularly, but things were only really fine for a few weeks.  They’d spend a lot of time as a ‘foursome’ (going to see New Model Army at the UEA, etc.), and it became a regular thing that Naomi would stay over at Alex’s every Friday and Saturday night, but lately he’s been saying he can’t handle the routine.  His ex-alcoholic mother had a breakdown when Alex was 16, and since then Alex’s never really had ‘a proper girlfriend – just one-nighters’.  She says she’s been really sympathetic, and when he asked for last Friday night to himself, she gave him it.  Now he wants next weekend for just him and the boys.  ‘When he said he wanted time to himself, I didn’t think he meant every night!’ says Naomi.

Naomi’s the kind of person who likes to be with whoever she’s going out with and enjoy their love.  She needs love and attention and feels sad if she’s not getting any.  She apologises to me for Saturday night, asking me not to think she’s ‘some slag who gets off with anyone when her boyfriend’s gone off’.  She says she’s never got off with anyone else before, while going out with someone else. 

‘I must admit I like you a hell of a lot, though…’

She thought perhaps I was too pissed to have been serious when I asked her to write to me, but my address was ‘written down very neatly, definitely not like someone who was pissed had written it, and the top of my diary page has been torn out, so you must have my address?!’

She hopes I understand the situation, and that she really does like me, but hopes I won’t tell anyone what happened because she does love Alex (‘even though things are rather weird to date’).

She goes on to tell me more about who she is:

‘I’m 17, 18 on 25^th July, and I live here with my Mum, her boyfriend (a total creep), and my 13-year-old sister Sue.  I’m at college doing a course to help me into Journalism…’

She also gives me her phone number.

‘Please write back NOW!’

She is such a nice girl.  Why can’t they all be like her?

NAOMI … YOU’RE THE GÜRL!

WHAT RITCHERD IS UP TO IN 1986

WHAT RITCHERD IS UP TO IN 1985

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NEXT TIME: ‘Polly Willis (3 years early)…’