TERPSICHORE'S FIRE
13. LONG LIVE LOVE
Venus must have heard my plea
She has sent someone along for me
I have waited a long, long time
For somebody to call mine
And at last he's come along
Baby, oh nothing can go wrong
We meet every night at eight
And I don't get home 'till late
I say to myself each day
Baby, oh long, long live love
True love must be the greatest thing
I know now why singers sing
Of the moon and stars above
How I love to be in love
We meet every night at eight
And I don't get home 'till late
I say to myself each day
Baby, oh long, long live love
Sandie Shaw
Early one evening Nikki phoned me to invite me round to see her once more at her parents' house in Letchworth. I wasn't sure if she was hoping for us to go out anywhere that particular evening, but I went round to see her and spend the evening with her anyway, because I really wanted to be with her at every opportunity. Among other things, I supposed that we might have a discussion about what to do and where to go next, assuming she had anything at all in mind for that evening. As it happened, she did have something in mind, but it wasn't going out anywhere. It was January and we were still in the depths of a British winter so going out on such a cold bleak wet and rainy evening wasn't very appealing. So I decided to go along with everything she suggested to see what she wanted to do that night.
As always Nikki welcomed me in through the front door and led me through the lounge and into the kitchen at the rear of the house. I could only see one other person in the entire house, and that was her younger brother. He was sitting in one of the armchairs and deeply engrossed in watching something on the TV. Passing by him he didn't even look up or acknowledge us in any way. After boiling up the kettle to make two strong and highly sugared mugs of coffee, she led me up the staircase towards her bedroom. Following behind her, I took long slow and deliberate steps, very carefully so as not to slop my full to the brim mug of hot beverage. Upon reaching the landing, we took a sharp right turn and went into her tiny little bedroom at the front corner of the house. The single window facing the main road outside was also very small, almost too small to let in enough daylight it seemed to me. But this was early evening, and outside it was already dark, so I couldn't test this hypothesis for confirmation. On the opposite wall there were displayed some pop group posters, with Abba and Bucks Fizz being two that I can clearly remember. There was a single bed pushed up against the far wall, which was also rather small, and a white circular coffee table standing in front of it, and yes, that too was somewhat on the diminutive side. A petite bedroom with petite furniture for a petite little girl I thought to myself. We sat down together on the side of the bed and placed our coffee cups on the table. For a few minutes neither of us spoke as I put my arm around her waist and cuddled her close to me. She laid her head dreamily on my shoulder, as if deep in thought about something.
Presently, she leaned forward to take out an LP from a stack of upright records stored in a cabinet underneath her record turntable. Taking out a double album, she removed one of the long playing records from the protection of its cover, placed the rest of the album down on the tabletop and then proceeded to play the selected vinyl on the turntable. I instantly picked up the album to see what it was. It was very colourful and was designed in the style of a teenage scrapbook with letters, drawings and photographs from an American high school of the 1950's. It was a compilation of all the music and songs from the hit movie "Grease" starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. As the musical numbers were sung out, I began to get flashbacks of her from last year when she came out dancing with me several times wearing that lovely romantic black with red trim Rock 'n Roll dress and pink petticoat underneath. It's a real shame that she's not wearing all that tonight I thought. She was in fact dressed in an ensemble a lot briefer and more revealing, a short purple miniskirt over her bare legs and feet, and a white T-shirt that was so thin you could see the bumps and ridges of her lacy white bra underneath. It's a got job the central heating of the house and the radiator in her room was turned up sufficiently, otherwise she might feel really chilly tonight, I deduced.
