Dozy Writes

Last week’s post, Confessions of a Valentine Misfit ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. Make sure you read it first before continuing with this post.

–ooo–

10 February 1996

The club was hot and stuffy. ‘Slight Return’ by The Bluetones was blasting out of the speakers. Ordinarily, I’d have been up dancing, flinging myself around with abandon but this wasn’t an ordinary night.

I looked between two wildly different but equally appealing men who had both decided they wanted to be my Valentine.

Frozen in indecision, an old phrase suddenly popped into my mind:

I am on the horns of a dilemma. 

I remember first learning this phrase from my headmaster in primary school. He was a man with strong values and an equally strong Hebridean accent. 

The accent is important because on this night, I could hear his voice reciting the phrase with glee, just as he had when he first taught it to us many years before. Each syllable was enunciated clearly, his Gaelic roots evident as he almost sang the words.

The phrase had captured my imagination, mainly because my headmaster’s delivery of it was so evocative. I remember conjuring an image of two possibilities, each being tossed from side to side on the horns of a bull. 

Standing in the club, between two potential Valentines, I realised that this was the first time that I had truly felt the level of indecision that warranted this phrase.

As F.H. and S.G. balanced precariously on the horns of this particular dilemma, my mind wandered back to when I first met F.H. at the same club a month before.

13 January 1996

I had gone to the club for the first time whilst out with my college pals. I’d had some reservations about going there because it was in the same building as the ice rink – the venue of my disastrous blind date a few years before. 

I needn’t have worried. The club was completely separate from the ice rink and there wasn’t an ice skate in sight.

My pals and I burst through the saloon doors – yes, they had saloon doors which immediately made it my new favourite venue – and scanned the room.

It was hot and humid and everywhere I looked there were people either dancing or sitting huddled in nooks and crannies.

The atmosphere was smoky, lending an air of mystery to the evening. In reality, the smoke came from our cigarettes because, naturally, we all smoked in those days.

The DJs at the time were also heavy users of smoke machines so, between them and cigarette smoke, there were plenty of fumes to fight through.

We headed straight for the bar where I ordered a dry white wine – my drink of choice at the time. Ignoring the peculiar sweet vinegar taste that suggested the wine might be off, I drank quickly and made my way to the dance floor with my friends.

Puffing on a cigarette, I joined the crush of people on the dance floor, giving myself up to the rhythm of the music.

The wooden floor reverberated along with the bass line from ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ and I began singing along with Coolio, enjoying the vibe.

Whether it was the effects of the wine, or the atmosphere in the club, I realised that I was having a great time. It was turning into one of those nights where I felt invincible.

After a while, feeling hot and sweaty, my pal and I took a break from dancing and wandered around the club.

She stopped to speak to a guy she knew who I was vaguely aware of. I smiled and said hello but then my attention was drawn to the man standing next to him. 

Who’s that guy?

This man was tall, my eyeline only reached his chest.

I slowly moved my gaze upwards towards his face.

When our eyes eventually met, there was a zap of electricity. We grinned at each other, recognising the spark between us.

Suddenly the noise of the club fell away as the bonds of attraction wound around us, wrapping us in our own little cocoon.

If you haven’t already guessed, this man was F.H. and we spent the rest of the evening together, completely absorbed in each other’s company.

Later, I went back to his house and let’s just say that we had a magical time.

Everything in the world appeared to be aligned. It felt like this could be the start of something amazing.

When he took me home the next morning, I wanted to let him know that I would like to see him again, but even though I knew he was attracted to me, I didn’t know if he wanted anything more than what we’d shared.

I waited to see if he would say anything but he didn’t. He just looked slightly awkward so I settled for a cheery goodbye with the words, ‘Maybe, I’ll see you around’. 

That sentence did not convey anything of what I felt, but I didn’t want to take the risk of being rejected.

I spent the next week alternately cursing myself for not being clear with him, and doubting if there really was as strong a connection as I had thought.

By the time the following Saturday rolled around, my frustration was dissipated somewhat by my flirtation with S.G. which was still incredibly intense and very, very enjoyable.

10 February 1996

I was brought out of my reminiscence by the realisation that S.G. and F.H. were looking at me, waiting to see what was going on. 

The plaintive line, ‘Where did you go?’ from The Bluetones’ ‘Slight Return’ ended and was replaced by the mischievous tones of Perez Prado’s ‘Guagalione’, lending a somewhat comical air to the proceedings.

Ignoring the ridiculous soundtrack that the universe had chosen for my ‘Horns of a dilemma’ moment, I carefully considered the two men in front of me and found my answer.

I pulled S.G. to the side and explained about how I’d met F.H. one month before and how conflicted I was.

I took a deep breath before continuing.

‘I really like you, S.G., but this thing with F.H. feels as if it is something I need to explore further. I’m really sorry.’

S.G. took the news fairly well, albeit with a sense of disappointment.

‘That’s ok, Donna. I understand. You’ve got to do what feels right for you. I just want you to be happy.’

A part of me regretted my decision because his response was so caring and mature – it really appeared that he wanted what was best for me. 

With some sadness on both our parts, S.G. left to return to his group of friends, and I turned back to F.H.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked.

‘Oh, he’s a friend from work,’ I replied breezily, not sure if I should say anything further. 

I had to shout to be heard over the noise of the club so I decided we’d done enough talking. I pulled F.H. towards me and kissed him, desperate to reassure him that he was the one I wanted.

He responded to my kiss and, just like before, the noise of the club fell away, leaving us in our own little world.

The rest of the night passed in a blur and the following day, when he took me home, he made sure we swapped phone numbers with an understanding that we would do something either on Valentine’s Day, or before if we were free.

11 February 1996

As soon as I got into the house, I phoned my pal and we spent over an hour talking on the phone, going over the previous evening in forensic detail. My dramatic retelling of the dilemma I’d faced had us in raptures. 

We then moved on to the thorny issue of how long I should wait until I phoned him. My pal quoted the etiquette detailed in the ‘The Rules’, a self-help book which had been published the previous year.

According to ‘The Rules’, she informed me, I should wait for him to call me. I’ve never been a fan of game playing so I decided that I would phone him the next evening.

Eventually, our conversation was brought to a close as my mam needed to use the phone – this was in the days of the landline – but we agreed to speak again the following day. 

In the end, I didn’t have to call F.H. because he phoned me first. We spoke excitedly on the phone for a while before arranging to go out on a date the next day.

It turned out that we were both too enthusiastic to wait an extra day for Valentine’s Day.

13 February 1996

We had arranged to go tenpin bowling and when we met, F.H. immediately presented me with a Valentine’s card.

I couldn’t believe it – 19 years of no Valentines cards and now I’d been given two. It seemed as if it was finally my time to receive some Valentine love.

After the awkward realisation that i hadn’t reciprocated with a Valentine’s card, we sat and chatted in the bar for a while. All of a sudden, it was closing time and we hadn’t even played one game.

15 February 1996

We decided to go back to the bowling alley two nights later but the same thing happened – we chatted all night without playing a single game. 

16 February 1996

Third time lucky, we thought, having arranged to return to the bowling alley for our third date of the week. But again, we were so wrapped up in chatting to each other that we missed out on bowling. 

It was as if we couldn’t bear to be separated from each other long enough to shoot some bowls.

17 February 1996

We both had prior commitments with our friends that night but we arranged to meet up in the club where we’d first met after we each badgered our friends to go there.

When we saw each other again that night, you may be forgiven for thinking that we had been apart for weeks as opposed to one day.

It wasn’t long before we abandoned our friends to enter our little cocoon again.

We didn’t see an issue with how we were behaving. It was normal to be so obsessed with each other in the early days of a relationship, wasn’t it?

Everyone around us was slightly bemused, thinking it would eventually calm down and become less consuming.

They were wrong.

It was the beginning of an obsessive relationship that would last seven years and leave both of us destroyed by the end of it.