Baildon Moor - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Bradford University, January 1988

I first ran into Sullivan in my second term at university and can still remember the exact moment we met: a gang of us had all piled round to Fran’s flat in the student halls of residence after a social sciences lecture one snowy January day and there was this vision, this angel, standing in her kitchen. It turned out he was in blues outfit called Sydenham Poytnz with her flatmate’s boyfriend. I’d sworn off love and romance back then, cut my losses and walked away; the old cliché of the boyfriend back home who’d broken my heart a month into university meant I was giving men a wide berth and was instead spending my time listening to the Smiths and reading lots of worthy brooding Gothic literature.

Something about Sullivan took my breath away. He was tall and willowy in those days, with olive skin, dark gipsy eyes and long brown hair that spread in waves down his back. He wore tiny silver hooped earrings and dozens of thin silver bracelets, all topped off with a pair of skinny black jeans, a purple shirt and a black leather biker jacket. I watched him out of the corner of my eye whilst he talked to Fran’s flatmate and I barely heard a word that anyone said to me.

I was smitten. A week or two later I dragged a few mates along to the band’s next gig at the student union bar and I was astounded when Sullivan recognised me and bought me a pint after their set.  I discovered that he was from Salford and was studying English when he wasn’t lead singer and guitarist in Sydenham Poytnz - which was just the excuse I needed to start flirting, thinly disguised as a discussion about Gothic literature. A few weeks later we were officially a couple and by the end of the summer term we’d moved in together, into a little basement flat in West Bowling.

It was at the West Bowling flat that I first met Billy.