"Dear Deirdre"

These granite walls gave birth...


And there she was...all those years ago, sitting at the bottom of those grand stairs spiraling down from the higher floors of the great big granite mansion that is situated on the wind swept & soggy coast of Anglesey in North Wales. Right at the bottom, in the corner, almost facing the large front doors was young Deirdre, the only girl around for a thousand miles, sitting very comfortably in a rather large looking leather armchair right below the bannisters of the staircase. Her denim clad legs were folded up underneath her bottom, her shoes placed neatly side by side just at the base of the chair, and from the warm glow eminating from the table lamp next to her armchair, she was able to immerse herself in one of the greatest inventions of all! A book! Her book! I watched her reading it, wondering what it was that she seemed to find so captivating. She certainly looked as if she was enjoying it....her mind was totally focused on the contents of the book and I could almost make out the text printed inside reflecting from the polished surface of her glasses. I think maybe the book could have been some kind of adventure story...a journey....somewhere cold, dangerous and far away...somewhere where one might need a lot of luck and patience to survive it. Deirdre was certainly ready for such a journey! Keeping her warm was a thick wooly jumper, her long golden hair bellowing up from it's high neck as a result of not untucking her hair from inside the jumper. The extra comfort made from this one single act meant she could stay there for as long as needed.
But just as I was watching her turn from one golden page to the next, I noticed some boys standing directly above where Deirdre was sitting. They were sniggering and pointing at her as if to make fun! One of the boys prodded his friend and whispered 'Hey, watch this!'
He grabbed hold of the bannister and made to lean as far out from the edge as possible, looking down towards Deirdre, and by looking at his face, I could tell that he was filling his mouth up with saliva!
I looked back down at Deirdre....still reading her book, completely unaware of what was about to happen! I didn't move to stop it, nor did I say anything, as it was all over in a matter of seconds! The frothy white globule of spit fell right onto Deirdre's head and settled in the golden locks of her hair. At first she looked as if she hadn't felt it land...but from the salty mouths of young boys also come childish giggles and idiotic noisey smirks. Deridre heard the boys and looked up to see them quickly hide their snigger induced red blotchy faces & instinctively put her tiny hand up to her head to see what had happened. She must have felt a dry patch, because she looked back into the pages of her book to find where she had left the story. But her face had changed a little and I thought I could see, I wasn't entirely sure, but some kind of...hurt seeping from her eyes. Just a little! My heart took a little dive into the bottom of my stomach and all I could do was feel something very special for this innocent young girl!
I wasn't going to stand for this kind of behaviour and walked briskly up the stairs & up to the boys where I proceeded to demand an explanation for their lurid behaviour....specifically the one who did the spitting! A few other boys came over to our small jostling group and seemed to side with me and between us duly lifted the poor boy up off of the floor and proceeded to dangle him right over the edge of the bannister!
Apparently, after what must've been no more than 20 seconds...but to him, it must have seemed a lot longer... he said that he fancied Deirdre and by spitting onto her head from the stairs was his way of trying to tell her so.
I fancied her too, but didn't do anything as I...well...basically wasn't sure what to do. So I left it at that and instead, when I got home, I sent her a photo of myself sitting on a bus! But it was too late...things had already started to change!
One thing I will be forever grateful for though...is that I didn't think of spitting on her...not for one moment!

That was around twenty years ago...& I still see her the same way today! You see, I saw her again the other week....Easter Sunday to be precise...the day of ressurection...ironic! She had found my Blog one day back in Feb and recognized me. And didn't even see the part where I had mentioned her! Fate perhaps? She & I had not seen each other for almost twenty years since the week of the spitting incident and nor did we hear from each other for almost the same amount of time! We kept in touch for a very little while once we were back home and once our adventure was over, but even that seemed to die and well, before I knew it I was a different person and my blood was not quite right...maybe this or maybe something else had something to do with it....maybe neither...but one thing is for sure...I have never forgotten that girl, buried in her book, nor the twin boys from Dunstable who I met on another week in that very same house over looking Puffin Island...I was very impressed at them for their wicked sense of mishief that followed them around the entire week and the fact that one of them showed me and some of the other boys his willy in our dorm...just like that...and there I was, secretly astonished that he had a full bush of pubic hair where I only had soft fuzzies! These were real boys, like the Liverpudlian who lost his snazzy digital watch while we cliff traversed somewhere along the Welsh coast, and the highly inteligent chubby blonde boy who was adamant that he was related to Marilyn Monroe because he had the same surname as her. It wasn't even spelt the same way.
But good things...wonderful things...come to those who wait and aren't expecting anything. I had even gone so far as to write her off as dead & buried! Not only Deirdre, but all the other boys that I met in that big stone mansion near the mountains! That big stone house is from a time when I still felt like an innocent boy...I was sixteen at the time I think, but hell, I ain't never gonna grow up...no matter how much they try to make me! And those that I met in that big stone house will be, from those days to the moment that I stop breathing, be forever etched into my wilting mind!



Jason






(C) JPT 2007.........1192.86 miles.