Friday 7 January 2011

Love Story


It must have been around 1972 when I first met Her Indoors. I was round at a mutual friend's house sitting in a big old arm chair, and giving (as she told me later) a passable impersonation of Lytton Strachey sprawled out with a book in the famous painting from the Bloomsbury Group. The photo above is her sitting in front of a self-portrait, from around that time.

She and her husband were fascinating from the start, and also slightly scary. They seemed to epitomise cool and it was easy to feel extremely uncool when in their company. Much of this turned out to be self defence, I quickly discovered.

I soon became good friends with them both, and - like most other people who ever met her - extremely infatuated with her. For many years, I was a frequent visitor to their home (where I now live) and watched their 3 year old daughter grow into a stroppy teenager. She is now a very non-stroppy 42 year old. She began by calling me the elder brother she never had (H.I. is about 8 years older than me) and now introduces me as her 'step-father'. Her children now - quite rightly - refer to me as their grandfather.

Through the 70s and 80s, we watched the punk movement come and go whilst listening to Lou Reed and heavy Jamaican dub, and every summer I would employ her husband on various masonry jobs, teaching him things like how to put 112 lb sacks of stuff on his shoulder without falling over. He once said to her that he was never so simply happy as when working with me on hard, physical jobs, and we got on well, having the same sick sense of humour.

I predicted to a friend once that I would - one day - end up living with her permanently, and he told me not to be so stupid as to think such a thing. H.I. and her husband seemed to be inseparable.

One day, it became obvious that I was spending too much time with them, so I stopped calling round, and we drifted apart. I find it astounding that - in a town so small as Bath - we never saw each other again for about 8 years. We were not avoiding each other, but quite simply and inexplicably, our paths never crossed. My future step-daughter had moved to London and was working in top-end fashion shops and H.I. and her husband had - I later found out - split up. I was living in a cottage in the middle of a wood, when I called her up one night for a long chat, and she told me that he had moved out months before. We promised to meet up soon and I put the phone down.

When we did meet up a week or two later, I was horrified at her appearance - she had obviously been through a lot, and for the first time in her life, was living alone. This condition did not suit her. She had lost loads of weight and was living on a diet of porridge and salad - pretty much no protein at all as far as I could see.

So I engineered to go round to her house one night because something needed to be done which would normally have been done by her husband (I forget what), and never left. I began fattening her up as I slimmed myself down (I went from 16 stone to 13 stone in 3 months) and we met somewhere in the middle, though I am still almost twice as heavy as her. That was 20 years ago.

I knew from almost the start that we would be life-long friends and companions, and now I cannot imagine a meaningful life without her. It is sad to me that my 'real' family are almost strangers (my daughter was born from a one-night stand and has been living in the North for all but 3 of her 39 years), but I have the most wonderful substitutes in H.I.'s daughter and children. 'Substitutes' is the wrong word, because they are the real thing - I have been closer to them throughout all their lives than their biological grandparents, and dealt with all the ups and downs associated with growing up. I give the 18 year old boy a bollocking about his life, and he seems to take notice. The last time I did that, I was terrified that he would slam the phone down on me, but he didn't. He even thanked me for it.

I am so lucky.

30 comments:

  1. And so are they, Tom.

    I can understand your infatuation with H.I. What a beauty! x

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  2. It's a great story, Tom. I like H.I. a great deal, second-hand - she has the mystique here of always being the subject and never the speaker. It's clear that you're extremely well suited. Qould you ask her whether, when she has a chance, she could run an online class on epitomising cool? It would make a fine blog.

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  3. She is beautiful. And I'm sure still looks the same today as she did the first time you saw her (in your eye) or better.

    I know the painting you are referring to. A profile, and I think done by Vanessa Bell. One of my favorites.

    Kismet.

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  4. Are we ALL Strachey look-alikes? Sadly I don't contain 'cool'; mine was removed and replaced with 'scruff-bag'. Good love story Tom.... Why not now get HI to write her version on tomorrow's page!

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  5. Tom/Cro....check out Ebay and Duncan Grant

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  6. Yes you are Tom...when we love and are loved in return, we are supremely lucky.
    It's nice knowing you a little better.

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  7. Sigh. I love stories with happy endings.

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  8. I love what you wrote here. What a great tribute for such a beautiful and talented lady. The picture you posted is 100% Awesome. I LOVE it.

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  9. What a gorgeous story Tom. I'm getting my comment in before you get freaked out and take down the post. Hell, I may even cut and paste it and keep it as a reminder that all sorts of wonderful things can happen to us - and keep on happening! Thanks.

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  10. Jim. Not sure quite what we were supposed to look at, but the still life 'School of DG' is CERTAINLY NOT by DG. The bid of £105 confirms.

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  11. Tom. The self portrait looks exactly like her in one of the vernissage shots of HI's show. Dorian Gray syndrome?

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  12. I loved reading this. You were obviously destined to be together.

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  13. That is such a great story Tom. Thank you for sharing your life with us. Jackie looks and is beautiful. It will be your fortieth anniversary next year. I wish you everything you wish yourselves. x

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  14. Hurray, a real love story and a great photo to cheer up a miserable day. Not to mention proof of the saying, 'everything comes to him who waits.'
    My love interest, whom I met at art school zzz years ago, has just struggled up from four days in bed with flu!
    ( I said flu, not Flo.)
    I like Cro's suggestion that now HI should write this romance from her perspective.
    Isn't blogging great - all this looking into other people's lives!

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  15. I read this post about 6 hours ago, but didn't have the time to leave a comment. So, I came back to say what a wonderfully written story of real love. Thanks for brightening all our days with this and please don't take it down! Ann

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  16. I hope H I enjoyed that lovely tribute!

    you big soft puddin

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  17. I've just gone mad with an axe and killed her, plus the rest of them..... (only joking!)

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  18. Great love story and it is splendid you are accepted by her children. Some step children are not so gracious.

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  19. hey Tom, it just dawned on me as pretty as she is, you must be kinda "hot" yourself!

    Do we get that portrait tomorrow?

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  20. P.S. H.I. has just reminded me that the 'self portrait' above was in fact done by her husband.

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  21. That's what I thought, Mr Koresh.

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  22. The story brought tears to my eyes - but luckily I could sew them back together with some baler twine!

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  23. How lovely - I love a love story.
    HI is beautiful, she reminds me of one of the women from the old Cadbury's Flake adverts.
    Long may your love continue.

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  24. A lovely (and unexpected) story Tom..you old romantic!

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  25. Cadbury's Flake??? You mean those old soft-porn adverts for phallic chocolate??? What are you saying??? She reminded me of a young Monica Vitti.

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  26. I was waiting for a joke about Chocolate Mac Vitti, but you've all moved on to new pastures by the look of it.

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  27. Tom - these adverts were on when I was a child, and I used to think them dreamy. Soft porn never entered my head! (though now you mention it, I'll never look at a 'flake' in the same way...)

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  28. Sounds like the flakes entered your head though, Suzanne!

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