Sorry I missed you

It was 1989. Central Station was choked with the glut of Christmas shoppers who elbowed their way up groaning escalators. Each shopper laboured under his sacrificial burden of shopping. In a city like Liverpool, there was always a feeling of nervous tension, but in late November the air itself seemed to discharge this tension.
This Christmas, the lights down Bold Street swayed triumphantly, thrilling the shoppers below with their intensity; bringing ( along with some nameless Christmas spirit) involuntary smiles to the lips of strangers and of desperate people. Most were already satiated with that sickly combination of excess and self-denial that takes hold at Christmas and loiters sourly until New Year.

Nicole bobbled along on the escalator of shoppers, content to let them edge her forward. The woman stumbling ahead of her with lacquer-brittle hair and pink and white tracksuit saw herself in quite a different way. For her the escalator was a kind of salmon ladder. Her aim was to outleap those other, slightly inferior salmon. Doing so was even more important than the final spawning destination, a sex-shop that had finally sounded the death-knell of Salesflo, an outfit in whose windows the same chaotic jumble of shop dummies had lain sprawled amidst dress rails and forbidding metal coat-hangers for over fifty years. Nothing had ever flowed from its premises- no dummies, no sales, yet it had held out in a perpetual shrug for decades.
'She looks like a marshmallow' Nicole mused, giving the pink and white tracksuit woman a wide berth. The thought was elbowed out by sudden discomfort as the person behind her thrust a bulky parcel into her back.
The streets were heaving with people, alive with high-pitched seasonal clamour. Children were tearing at their mother's arms.
A sudden gust of wind lifted the strings of fairy-lights. Nicole felt a shot of hope as she passed the great thirty foot Christmas tree. It had not yet been decorated and a faint sappy smell emanated from its branches. The dark tree was impassive, full of grace. It looked on with a sighing sagacity. Nicole thought of elephants. They had the same sort of grandiloquence.Why was it, she thought, that large mammals, those capable of most damage were often the easiest victims?
Her thoughts zigzagged as she gave in to the parcel-like bulk of shoppers, leaped with the marshmallow woman, and other salmon.

Work at the typesetting department at Fenton's had ceased as if forever. Nicole had waved off the last of her colleagues as she sped away from the building with its lights left blazing for Christmas.
This evening she wrapped her long, black coat around her, plunged her hands into its huge pockets. She'd been nursing a letter in the left-hand one all day. The pocket itself was charged somehow because of its contents. From time to time she fumbled with the letter. On the bus she brought it out of the pocket, examining it properly for the first time. The postmark intrigued her with its faint half-letters. So, too did the mystery of its whiteness but it gave no secrets away. She was nearly home, and the gentian blue sky etched the Mersey skyline.She passed all the usual landmarks on the way home, but now they looked different, cheering her on her way. The Post Office nodded. The tall spire of the Methodist Church seemed to soar, no longer earthed by its immensity the way she usually saw it but





magnificent, free. These landmarks had a certain definition now.She shrugged her shoulders at the quizzical feelings that wrapped themselves around her. She bought a newspaper at the
corner shop, smiling at Yusef as he gangled over the counter. She shoved it roughly into her free pocket. People were being more friendly than usual, she thought. It was because of this letter. Or was it just because of Christmas?
She turned into Shaw Close. Her light, quick steps echoed from cement walls as she passed the same, pale yellow round polystyrene pizza container, its lid flapping, dirt-ground now.Toilet seat, she thought (her elder sister called them that ). Litter was no joke but today it was mildly amusing. She ran up the steps in twos and threes.
Her neighbour on the opposite landing was a no-nonsense Irish widow, Bridie Conroy. Nicole sometimes wanted to knock on Bridie's door, to be invited in, to pass a whole evening talking to Bridie about nothing. She had rarely failed to make a friend out of a stranger. Her mother was often in the habit of telling her that 'a stranger is only a friend you haven't met' even though this clashed horribly with another of her mother's sayings- 'never trust a stranger.'
Nicole accepted her mother's quirks as they represented a 'whole-worldliness', as real as her long blue cardigan, pulled out of shape by her habit of reaching clenched fists down into the pockets to emphasise a point or to console herself when her ideas were rejected.
Tonight, Bridie's door opened a crack as Nicole passed on the landing.
"Here love" she half-whispered "d'you hev a minute-it's jus' that I was gorrn to ast yer, hev you seen anythin' o' downsteers?" She continued "I was a bit worried..."
"Oh they're on holiday" Nicole cut in.
"Only I was gonna take in their mail for them" Bridie continued, clutching the edge of the door the way old people do, shielding herself from something ."Then I thought that would be a bit interferin'" She pulled the door towards her and it was no longer shielding her but had become a leaning post.
"Nice of you to think of that" Nicole said
"By the way, I've to go over to Ireland to see my brother soon, I wonder would you collect MY mail for me...such as it is?" Neither of them ever had any mail worth talking about.
"You want me to keep all the JUNKMAIL of course?!"
"Ay, that's it-that's all WE'LL get." Bridie's eyes twinkled. She began to laugh in short, gutteral bursts which brought on a fit of chesty coughs. She patted her chest, finishing off dramatically with an "Oh dear."
"Speakin o' letters...you'd a nice one this mornin' that ended up in my hallway, so I put it through your door for you." Bridie paused, waiting for the confession...but none came.
Nicole tossed back imaginary hair.She regretted having lopped it so violently at the tail-end of summer. She patted the pocket containing the letter as if to make sure it was still there.
"Chance would be a fine thing" she told Bridie. For what was inscribed in her letter was a very fine thing, she was sure. It was tantamount to love.
Still, she had to be one step ahead of Bridie's assumptions.Otherwise Bridie would pre-empt her, disclosing the love the way a dentist discloses tooth decay.



It was late. She switched the radio on and began sorting a huge pile of papers
which had accumulated, become a high-tide mark on her kitchen table. But the letter in her pocket gnawed at her. She pulled it out roughly.' Deferred gratification' ran through her mind. She ripped at it with her thumb, sawing it open.

'Dear Nicola,' the letter began 'I wasn't sure whether to write you but here goes anyway.'



The script was large and well-rounded. It reminded Nicole of the wallpaper on a child's nursery wall that she had once seen, all bulbous teddy bears and lurid, pink-faced children with bubble cheeks.
She knew she loathed such writing, that she found it infuriating in fact, yet the earnestness
and simplicity of the letter eclipsed such doubts.
'I got your name in the catalog' it continued 'I'm 25, hope you don't mind and I've lived in Headley quit a while. I love writting letters' How about you? Your work as a tipsetter sounds intering? ( Nicole had renewed her subscription to the Exchange Dating Agency and had chosen Gold Standard out of sheer annoyance at having found no-one for a whole year of Silver Standard.) Irritated, fascinated, she read on.
'I love good music, dancing, DVD's, a log fire, curling up on a sofa and a bottle of wine and someone to cuddle up with on dark nights. At the moment I'm working as a home-help.
An un-named flicker of doubt passed through Nicole's mind. She read on.
'I hope you will writ back- Ide love to hear from you' Then, fading as quickly as it had begun, the letter ended in a childish scrawl with a signature that looked as if it had been practised too long.
'Love Diana.'

Nicole's reply to Diana was long, self-conscious, peppered with remarks. It wore it's heart not just on its sleeve but everywhere else too.

Diana's second letter came like lightning in another white envelope (identical to the first), got past Bridie's flawed radar. The stamp was first class, slightly skewed as if licked in haste and there was a small grease mark in the corner.
"Its Friday morning and I hav just got your letter' it began eagerly. Nicole was beginning to warm to the bad grammar. She stopped reading for a few seconds. She looked at the front of the envelope and sniffed it without knowing why. She read the faded postmark.
Broughton, 5.45 it said.
Nicole's correspondent had caught the last post. The letter had arrived the next morning 'hot off the press' as Nicole was fond of saying about anything done quickly. She examined the notepaper with its serrated edges, torn from a spiral-bound notebook. She felt flushed, looked at the way the paper had been folded hurriedly, secretively and was pleased that it was longer than the last one.
Further into the letter she read 'you say you lived alone for many years. Me too,in fact Im sick of it. You see I had a girlfriend for three year. She went off with somone else and left me brokenherted. Still thats life and my lifes been one long troble.You hav to move on they say.'
The childish script ran on. Nicole imagined Diana sitting, petulant but comfortably curled up
on a sofa with a bottle of wine and a DVD, moving on.
'You must be clever working in a job like that. I like my job but I enjoy walking myself in the countyside, the beach. What kinds of music do you like?'
Nicole was annoyed at the question. She had already described her musical tastes.
She began to write a reflex answer, the angry text looking like knitted eyebrows, then erased the outpourings. Instead she wrote a patient, fuller letter, carved from her rich memory, polished the words till they shone with their own beauty. She sent it post-haste, hot off the press. She was annoyed that she would have to wait more than a day for the answer.



She developed antennae waiting for a glimpse of the postman or his talismanic red and blue sack. In the dry passage of loveless life Nicole had become disenchanted with the mail that was addressed to her. But now the sound of mail spewing onto her doormat was electric.
Nicole had a theory that you could tell the kind of mail by the way it came through the letter-box ( she had many theories, such as the one that you could tell whether you had a welcome or unwelcome visitor by the way they rang your doorbell).
Junk mail fluttered through the letter-box, smattering on the carpet, penetrating the hallway and replicated itself under the umbrella stand. Bills, or brown mail as she called them slipped through the door discreetly, then lay in wait. Then there was white or personal mail, which sliced through a letter-box that opened like a cuckoo-clock, chiming the hour. It would tumble gleefully onto the mat. Personal mail sounded like a friendly footfall.
Diana's first letter was like this. It was the first snowflake in a winter of excitement.


Christmas loomed and the letters began to arrive more frequently. They had become bolder, longer. Diana sent Nicole a Christmas card for good measure.

On the 20th of December, Nicole stooped down to pick up the latest letter from Diana. She left it on the kitchen table, eyeing it from time to time. In the end. throwing on her black coat she stepped lightly towards the front door with the letter in her left pocket. Opening it on the bus, she was startled by what she read.
'Dear Nicola, I cant get you out of my mind. Everywere I go I think of you. I want to hold you, can I tell you what your doing to me? Well I could but I'm not sure if I shold.'
The next paragaph was matter-of-fact.
'I went to the estate agent today...they said they couldn't put my house on the market for more than £30,000 the cheeky bastards. How are you anyway...how's the work?
I went out on a shopping spree yesterday, got some clothes to cher myself up, three pairs of shoes.'
Nicole's eyes darted to the bottom of the page.
'Can I tell you somthin I relly want to meet you and when I get an idea in my head thers no stoppin me.'
Nicole was shocked. Another letter followed 'hot off the press.'
'You needn't be afraid of ringing me' it said 'I never give out my number but I can trust you so her goes.' Nicole kept this letter separate from the rest as a landmark of her bond with its writer. It felt like a high tide. Frozen for several days, afraid to ring Diana she wrote back, took a chance and gave the girl her own number.




The following morning, a small parcel arrived. Nicole was horrified but opened it with a quickening pulse. It was an unmarked tape. She slid the cassette into her Sony Walkman, pressed the play button. Her mouth was dry. There followed a series of rock tunes. Some were loud and hard-edged, others mawkish. She listened out for the catch, listened for some message laced between songs but none came.They were all songs she loathed, apart from one. She listened anyway. There was the Elkie Brooks song 'Lilac Wine', Meatloaf's 'Bat Out Of Hell,' Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart .The last tune 'Who's gonna drive you home' by The Cars infuriated her as it had once become a diminishing, portentous round, rattling round her brain for days.The song was succeeded by sneaky silence, then a chirpy voice with a faint Lancashire accent began.
" Hi ...is that you Nicola.It's me, Diana. I 'ad to send you this 'coz these are all me favourite tunes. I 'ope you like'em as much as I do. Hope to meet you soon. Anyway, stay 'appy. Byee.'
Nicole hardly knew the meaning of happiness. She was certainly not happy now.



Yet the taped message had a strangely compelling effect on her, produced a medley of emotions. She felt estranged by it but the woman's voice, her faint accent was beguiling. Yet it was disarming too, like a blurred photo suddenly coming into focus.
She wanted to tell Diana how infuriated she felt but instead quelled her anger, squirelling it away in some nameless place. She began to scribble jumpy notes on her A4 pad, things she should say to Diana but wouldn't.
Events, however overtook her.

Just over a week after the arrival of the tape, Nicole's telephone rang. The voice on the other end was nonchalant, unruffled.
"Hi, it's me, Diana."
It was the same voice she had heard on the cassette player only louder, as though its owner were in the next room.Then came a reckless peel of laughter.
"You'll never guess where I am." The voice paused for effect.
"Oh you mean you're here" Nicole could hardly speak. Her face blanched in fear.
"Got it in one."
She's only pretending to be cheeky, Nicole thought. Underneath she's a bag of nerves, same as I am.
"Guess where I'm ringing from?" Diana continued, breaking into the reckless laughter again. Nicole guessed she was ringing from a few feet away.
"Yep" Diana continued uninterrupted "that's right, the call-box by the Kwik Save on Peter Street. I 'ad to do some Christmas shopping anyway. I love town, me" Diana's voice was more settled now. "Sooooo- 'ow far are you from town luv?"
"Listen" Nicole interrupted "I'd better come and meet you. It'll take me half an hour, don't go away...I mean you could start walking up to Bold Street, it takes you straight to Shaw...I mean you know where I live, don't you?"
"Bloody well should do, eh? Tell you what, you start walking up towards Peter Street and we should meet halfway."
Nicole was uncertain how or whether to end the call. "How will I know you?" she proferred.
"Oh you'll know me alreet, ah've gorra cross round me neck and pointy red nails."
OK, Diana so...I'll see you soon." Nicole replaced the receiver. Minutes were fleeing, time was being swallowed whole.



She checked herself in the mirror, tossing the imaginary hair, mentally choosing the right clothes then deciding that they weren't the right clothes, that her first instinct was right all along. She checked the flat to make sure the place was above all clean, then that it was tidy.Thirdly she had to hide all her personal effects...the fat purse containing torn photos under its plastic window, her Sony Walkman with a telltale Beethoven's Fifth Symphony cassette lodged inside. This bit would take too long, so she removed only the most glaring aspects of her private self. A clockwork fear drove her down the cement stairwell onto Shaw Street. People passed her slowly, peacefully while she herself was being sucked into some godawful human whirlpool. A young woman on the opposite pavement was striding blithely towards her, glinting jewelry and showing red nails.They exchanged glances warily. Nicole tossed her head to elicit a response but there was no tremor of recognition.
This was not Diana.
She wanted to turn round, escape. She had a plan. Having clocked Diana from a Sherlock Holmes distance, she would tun off Shaw Street, or dive into a shop. Nicole, however was not very good at deception.
Her instincts forbade her this meeting, yet a strange and vivid curiosity drove her on.



If she were perfectly honest with Diana, she reasoned, no harm could come to either of them.Yet she felt as though she were teetering towards the edge of a chasm, sweeping her victim, Diana along with her.

Back in the phone booth, Diana fixed her hair with a small canister of hair-spray she carried in a tapestry Gladstone bag with an ornate brass clasp. She gazed around airily, keeping the rest of her body still. She lit a mentholated cigarette, (someone told her they were good for asthma) adjusted the belt she wore around her slim waist then stuffed the personal stereo she'd been listening to into the Gladstone bag. As she did so, she rehearsed her meeting with Nicole.'Hi, you're Nicola' she murmured to herself.

The older woman meanwhile was making her way towards Diana, throwing anxious glances down side streets. Swallowing hard, she turned quickly, looked behind her once. She felt hunted, trapped.
Diana must have given up, surely, thought Nicole. The threat was lifted and she had reached the free zone. Then, quite without warning, a figure bounded towards her with an arm outstretched. There, like an exotic safari animal stood Diana, looking down from her full, poised height.
"Hi, you're Nicola, right?!" she shouted.
"Pleased to meet you." Nicole extended her hand and blushed."It's Nicole, but never mind...so, how did you get here?"
"Drove to what's that place, er Allerton then parked up an. walked."
"Oh that's miles away, you shouldn't have"
"It's not that far, anyway I enjoyed it , especially knowing I was coming to see you"
Diana had strong blue eyes, like those of a doll , and a retrousse nose. Her brow was bold and clear as though she had never been troubled by much. Her full lips had been slightly glossed and her gently lacquered hair curled down to a white, open-necked blouse which revealed a mean crucifix. She wore a crisp, suedette ochre jacket.
She kept up an air-hostess smile most of the time. She was wearing it now as she fixed Nicole with a slow gaze that seemed at first to flicker over the girl's face then settled into a cool regard.
Nicole was hypnotised by this measured look. Diana walked alongside Nicole, easy in her manner now. She had worked hard on getting to meet Diana. She had made suggestions, written endearments, held expectations. She was holding them now. She was not going to be disappointed. She held her head aloft.

Their walk together was filled with awkward moments, ballooning silences yet something was entrenching itself in those gaps that Nicole liked. In their separate minds, each woman felt that a moment of recognition between the two was coming when feelings that had been shored up inside would slide down to meet. Talking seemed more natural now and sometimes as they talked the younger woman would flash the elder a glance and those crystalline pupils would dilate momentarily. Nicole could feel herself growing faint with an ancient longing.

Half an hour had passed (though for Nicole time had been newly abandoned) before the two women arrived at the small flat in Shaw Street. Nicole could hardly believe it. As Diana
chatted, she took off her ochre jacket. Nicole lingered on the curve of her neck, the turn of her wrist. She imagined taking that wrist firmly but gently, holding it for an instant. A violent longing turned inside her. She felt herself separated from the younger woman by details alone.
There was the fine cross which glinted with each tiny measured pulse at the girl's neck. (Nicole's meanwhile was thumping violently inside her head.) In addition, Diana wore an open gold and diamante brooch on her lapel. Nicole found herself staring at the brooch. It was of a leopard...or was it a hyena. She was unsure. Its tongue was painted red and its tail was curled over its head, scorpion-like.The brooch nauseated her, yet its futile innocence was fascinating.
Diana also wore two fine rings, one of which was worn on the ring finger. Her nails were painted and drawn into fine points (Nicole had never understood the point of nails..and pointed ones were even more pointless.They had no uses except to inflict pain, damage,scratch skin. The fingertips under them could never caress or feel anything.)
Diana almost read her thoughts.
"Got loads of jewelry, haven't I...they're all gold. I love jewelry me. It's daft in't it.I think it's just the glitziness of it. I see something I want an' I've got to 'av it" The phrase sounded loaded.
Nicole, displaced by the remark got up to make coffee, returning to find Diana flipping through her record collection, doubtless looking for clues, looking to find The Cars or Bonnie Tyler. They talked about a record they had both loathed when it first came out a year ago and Diana covered her face with her hands in mock horror. Then, as she lowered them, she turned towards Nicole, fixing her with the baby-blue eyes. The older woman could feel the warmth of the younger woman's body. For an instant she was suspended in Diana's silent appraisal. She felt tight, as though she were drunk. She was looking back at Diana with all the frankness and faintness of desire. Then Diana lowered her gaze until it burned over Nicole's breasts, churned her solar plexus. Nicole reached over her, hovered angelically, kissed the nape of her neck. She was reeling with pleasure.
The younger woman curled voluptuously round her. Her hands and feet were tingling. She was clinging to Nicole and felt only the sensation of the older woman's caresses which
flowed now with all the ingenuity of Nature. It seemed to Nicole that they now faced each other inside a glass water bowl, loosely conjoined.The ambiguity of distance had flown. Words and action had come sharply, violently into focus. Thus began for Nicole the oh-so-slow dance of a particular love and thus a certain river began to flow until its meanderings were to cut themselves off, ox-bow lake style.


Diana stayed with Nicole for five days. She had, with great foresight packed a number of belongings in the Gladstone bag, including hair-spray and personal stereo. She told the now-eager listener the story of the life that had been 'one long trouble', relating events from a long-distant past with a sense of relief, missing out more recent ones. Sometimes, recalling bad times she would stare blankly at the walls of the bedroom while Nicole listened, rapt. Or the two would sit drinking coffee in Nicole's kitchen while the pale January sun slid over the table, slinking diagonally down the wall. At others, she would light a mentholated cigarette, sucking in her cheeks with an asthmatic inhalation, pausing, then blowing the smoke slowly towards Nicole as if to make a point. She would wait for Nicole's kiss and each kiss would be woven with a new splendour.


The time came when Diana decided to go home to Headley. She packed her hairspray and the personal stereo.Phone calls flowed like electric impulses between them for the next few days.Then there were times when Nicole received no calls from Diana and other times when Diana was out. The gaps between calls widened, then yawned. Eventually they stopped altogether, unaccountably. Nicole couldn't even get through to Diana, who had taken the precaution of leaving a pre-recorded message on her answer-phone which began-
'Hi it's me, Diana. Sorry you missed me. If you want to, leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Byee.'
To begin with, Nicole was affronted by the message. Her first deposition of an answer was clumsy, spare. It did not run smoothly. She re-recorded it, producing something that sounded insincere.There were moments of inspiration when laughter was in her voice, curling her lips up then dull remarks to glue the good bits together. She was indignant with the machine for waiting, all ears for her naked words.She wanted to circumvent it, break through its wiring and tapes to reach Diana. It was almost lying in wait for her. It was a repository, waiting to be opened like a trinket-box by its key-ridden owner. The owner, for reasons unknown to Nicole was not responding to her messages.


Time began to draw out, arrested by the futile calls Nicole was making. In the grip of love, she made many such calls. Diana changed her answer-phone messages from time to time.One of the messages started 'Sorry I missed you, I'm round at Dave's at the moment. If you want to leave a message for me here, this is the number...' Nicole did not want to leave a message there. She felt uneasy, bereft. Diana, it seemed was never at home. Nicole began to worry. Perhaps Diana was in some danger, had been whisked away to Dave's or some other place.
A more insidious doubt wormed its way into her fragile mind. Could it be that the girl was actually trying to avoid her? At last she spoke into the closeness of the phone mouthpiece. She tried 'I love you, are you OK?' Then 'I just want you to know that I love you Diana' .Then 'Diana, it's Nicole..I just want to know that you're OK...please get back to me.'
Her voice was becoming smaller. She felt like a comedian playing to an empty house.Gradually, her pain and love gave way to an indefinable jealousy which fell to earth, a cluster bomb exploding into a million deadly fragments that would harm anyone within their radius.



February gave way to Marc . Nicole had stopped ringing Diana. Occasionally, she would pick up the record that Diana had given her as a present. On the back, she would read the dedication-
'To Nicole, with all my love.'
The signature a little further down was bold and studied with a large D and a scrolled-back underlining, ending with a tiny cross. The signature looked like the name of a cattle brand she'd seen in a travel magazine about Texas. She remembered the 'x' burned into red cattle rumps. The brand said'I own you'.
Or she would go to the chest of drawers, pick up one of Diana's letters, re-decipher it.
One of them had the acronym S.W.A.L.K. on the back .It was another brand, claiming ownership.



On a wet afternoon in Headley, laughter could be heard through the opened window of an end-terraced house.The laughter was reckless, self-conscious. It belonged to a riot of teenaged boys and girls. Diana, who was one of them was playing a taped message to the others.
'D'you wanna hear it again?'she asked one of them. The reply, from a slightly built fifteen-year old girl was the rehearsed snap of bubble gum at close range followed by 'Goo on then.'
'S a laaff in't it?' cried one of the boys over her shoulder. The couple contorting themselves on the sofa were mouthing the words they had heard on the tape in sing-song fashion.
'I just want you to know that I love you Diana' and the others mimicked them, dragging out the joke. Diana threw her head back, convulsed with laughter.
'It's MY tape' she shouted at the couple and pointed the corner of the cassette at them.
'Are yer going to? one of the lads prompted her. The small, crackling silence gave way to 'Sell it a mean? Yer know, lezzy love -owt like that? Coz if you don't, I will.' He was slurring the words to taunt Diana, pinning her with round, grey-blue eyes. He gave a tiny snort.
She came right back at him with 'Eh you-this one's mine!'. She waved the tape at him then with the idea now visible added seductively 'Well alright then, wot'll yer giv me fer it- 'ighest bid an' Ah'll tek it an it's yours.'
The youth with the grey-blue eyes suddenly rose from a slouch, lurching violently towards her, bellowed at her 'Yer a slag you!' then muttered under his breath 'Giv yer a tenner fer it.'
'Alright then, go on' was her reply and she whisked the crumpled ten pound note off him, red pointed nails finding their use and with an exaggerated sway of the hips stuffed it in her jeans back pocket.