BACKGROUND MUSIC

 

     Tonight is special, so it’s a night for make-up.  It will take me some while to even partially repair the ravages of time, so I switch on the radio and settle in front of the dressing table mirror, my make-up spread out in front of me.

     The DJ is playing songs from the sixties, and I am immediately transported back in the days when we were young.  Some music evokes more than memories, it evokes a feel, an emotion that’s as fresh today as it was the first time,

     Would I want to be young again?  Of course I would.  I’d like to not have the responsibilities I have now - a house to run, a mortgage to pay, loved ones to worry over, even the day-to-day miseries of deciding what to cook or when to cook – mundane, every day concerns that we didn’t have in those days.

     Back then we’d spend our days laying on the beach, or curled up in front of a fire, your mother or my mother preparing our meals, doing our washing and ironing, keeping our rooms clean.  We were too busy being young to think about other people and what cares and concerns they carried; we were too wrapped up in ourselves and each other.

     One day, I think, one day I’m going to write down all the memories of us, of then, of the way we were.

I open the drawer and take out the tube of foundation.  I remember how tanned I used to get when I was young, how clear my skin was, so that I never required artificial powders.  You hated me wearing make up, said it hid my beauty from you, made me look like something I wasn’t.  So a dusting of lipstick if we were going out was the only enhancement I ever wore.

     The Beatles’ “From me to You” comes on the radio and I hum along.  I remember when you told everyone that your cousin was one of the Beatles.  The girls flocked round you then, you were the most popular guy in the village.  I think you enjoyed that, who wouldn’t?  But you only had eyes for me.

     Eye shadow next.  It’s tempting to wear blue, to really take me back to the sixties when everyone wore blue eye shadow.  These days “smoky” eyes are the fashion.  Funny how make up has its own fads and fashions, just like clothes.  Blue was your favourite colour, I remember, I had a blue dress you loved.  I wore it the first time we made love.  Your parents were away and it was your birthday.  “We’ll have a party,” you said, “just you and me”.  And we did, we partied until late in the night and resumed the partying the next day, as soon as I’d done my paper round.  How incongruous, riding a bike one minute like the schoolgirl I was, the next tangled up in blue on my way to becoming the woman I am now.

     Dusty Springfield on the radio next.  I apply mascara and eyeliner, but I use the guideline – “less is more” and wear nowhere near as much black around my eyes as Dusty did.  In fact now I’m older I no longer wear black, it’s considered ageing for the older woman – who needs all the help she can get, so I stick to brown these days.

Dusty’s singing “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”, my favourite Dusty song, even though it reminds me of a time when we heard it on the car radio.  You were being a bit distant at the time and I thought you were about to finish with me.  I sung along with Dusty, my heart on my sleeve; the words were so apt.  I was so lost in love that I just wanted you close, you didn’t have to love me, that was okay, it was enough just to be near you and to see you and touch you.

     I don’t bother with blusher.  You always made me blush back then when we were young.  You’d look at me across a crowded room and lick you lips seductively – wasn’t that my line? – and I’d feel the blush rising from my neck until I felt so hot that I’d have to go outside for some air.  You’d be there too, in moments, and we’d enjoy a few minutes alone, locked in an embrace, just looking at the stars.  You were always a conundrum; wild and exciting one minute and calm and relaxing the next.  Being young with you was so much fun.

     Jackie de Shannon next, “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me” and I’m immediately back to the year before you were going away to University.  I thought that would be the end of us; you’d forget me once you were living the good life in London, and I remember hoping that you wouldn’t turn your back on me.  I needn’t have worried though, I got pregnant, you packed in your ‘A’ levels six months before you were due to sit them, and arrived at mine one morning, a bunch of flowers in your hands, and said we were getting married.

     Otis Redding, “My Girl” comes on just as I’m putting my earrings in.  You sang along with Otis, again in the car, the day we went to see your Great Aunt, somewhere in Norfolk.  You came out from your house with your imitation leather jacket in one hand, and a button in the other.  “Here you are, girl,” you said, handing them to me and producing a needle and cotton from your pocket.  “Sew the button on for me, there’s a love.”  I refrained from saying that my own mother had just sewn a button on my own – real – leather jacket before I left home.  I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t domesticated.  My reward was you singing “My Girl” and, afterwards, you saying quietly “I meant that, you really are my girl.”  We stopped for tea and biscuits on the way.  Not because we were thirsty but because you were lost and you wouldn’t ask for directions, so we stopped in a small town so you could buy a map and I insisted on a drink as the journey was taking so long.  Funny, it would take less than an hour now, but back then it took two.

     One last glance in the mirror, a dusting of lipstick, and I decide I’m ready.  I pick up the brooch you gave me on our wedding day and pin it to my lapel.  I switch off the radio; there’s no point in living in the past when the future looks so bright. 

     Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life.  You’d like Sam, I think.  He, like you, and me, lives for his music.  Or maybe you’ve moved on, let go of the music and taken up other interests, but I can’t imagine that the passion we shared will have died.  I think you’re still out there somewhere, going to gigs and folk clubs and festivals.  Perhaps we’ll meet again one day, and I can introduce you to Sam, the new man in my life.  Music kept you and I together far longer than perhaps we should have let it, but music is the cement that binds Sam to me.