Well I Wonder

A repost – well, a remembering and rewriting – of something long gone a long time ago – I wrote this originally for Fun and Heartbreak about four years ago (possibly exactly four years ago – it’s the right kind of time) – but I deleted everything I wrote there when everything went kaboom. (Deleting your posts from a communal blog is not a proper thing to do. Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.)

Her name was Jenny. I’d met her on the second night at University (I’d spent the first night passed out after not eating all day and drinking all early-evening) and we’d talked all evening, and I was all crushed up and eager, and then I didn’t seen her around at all and then when I did I went all shy boy and didn’t know where to look or how to say hi, and then there was that thing with the Mighty Lemon Drops, and now it’s nearly christmas, and we’re having a party in my residence block, and she’s turned up with her friends just as I’m playing music.

I’ve drunk a bottle of wine and a good bit of a second one and I’m in that ‘you know what you’re going to do but you can’t stop yourself’ place, so rather than say hello, or smile, I stay where I am looking all serious and earnest and I play this…

The Smiths – Well I Wonder mp3

… and she comes straight over to talk to me, and we’re both a bit smiley and red cheeked but it’s a happy little conversation about not much and we stay talking for longer…

… and from that we become, well, nodding acquaintances, passing ‘hellos’ and happy to sit next to each other on the bus if that’s what turns up. And one evening we sat up most of the night in the kitchen drinking a cheap bottle of brandy and sharing the lowdown about everyone and everything in the world. And then we were back to hello again, and that was that.

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