The Girl I Miss The Most

A True Story For A Lost Love

She never swore but shouted ‘flipping carrots’, the rudest she ever got was to call my knob a ‘porridge gun’ and then she'd chuckle like someone on big yellow tablets. Her hero was the late Linda Smith for describing David Blunkett as ‘The Devil’s Bearded Folk Singer.’ It was easy to see she was special. Not your everyday girl, no copies of 'Hello' or 'O.K.' No interest in that weird celebrity world that goes on in the small hours when the rest of us are in bed asleep after a hard days work. No diets, no tarot cards, no herbs or crystals.
She had a complete but unsubmitted novel called ‘The irrational fears of Brittney Spears’ under our bed which I read with astonishment. It contained musings such as, whether Michael Jackson thought 'Boys To Men' were a delivery service? She thought all golfers were mentally handicapped and wondered when they'd give Rupert his trousers back.She wondered when Chris De Burgh would stop letting his mum cut his hair. She taught me to kiss with my eyes open and not look so scared, she also taught me the difference between Germans and Nazis.She complained of always being stuck behind a little blue car. She wouldn’t answer the telephone after nine o’clock as bad news could wait until the morning. She thought that Herges adventures of Tin Tin was Thursdays adventures of Tin Tin. She thought Madonna sang ‘Bill Oddie Bill Oddie put you hands all over my body and never wondered why’. When tele-marketeers rang at seven o’clock, she’d ask if she could have their home number and call them back after they’d got home from a hard days work and were in the middle of dinner. She'd describe the colour of my grey hair as artic blonde.She didn’t mind heights but was afraid of widths and during a brief spell as a Buddhist walked into Pizza Hut asking the assistant to make her ‘one with everything’. On her first day at a new office when the queen bee commented that there were ‘a lot of new faces about’ she told her to grab herself one. She had a big heart, little legs and I told her often I loved the ‘little pert wagon she was draggin’ which she replied with the nicest, softest ‘silly boy’ I’ve ever had the privilege to hear. Every story she told me I believed and she knew it. When we first met, she asked if I was superstitous and when I replied ‘no’ she asked to lend thirteen quid. She wondered why Sting sang in a Jamaican accent. Her claim to fame was she once had a drawing on Vision On that was supposed to be the HMS Ark Royal but looked like HMS Edinburgh drawn by a monkey in the middle of a divorce. She could spend an afternoon dancing to Teletext music, curtains drawn in her bra and knickers. She rang a different Halfords every week to ask a pimply assistant about the availability of an air filter for a Maurice Chevalier. She had no problem with God but wasn’t too keen on the fan clubs and once put on a c.v. that she hardly ever slept (but when she did it was for eight minutes and in a chair) She never looked too pleased when she had her photograph taken.She wondered why abbreviation was such a long word. Her smile lit up the room and she drove her little French car like she’d stolen it. She always told the truth even when it was easier not to. She hated queues, peanut butter and people who spelt ordinary names differently – especially Mandy with an I. She kept promising me that one day she’d catch a Gideon putting a Bible in a hotel room drawer. Whilst in the shower she’d only sing songs from South Pacific and when Kurt Cobain died said ‘Nevermind’ without a hint of a smile. She thought pop music’s biggest mistake was when The Cure stopped wearing make up and thought Def Leppard looked like Sheffield’s finest ‘alcoholic housewives’. She told my brothers girlfriend to stop ‘hogging all the ugly’ and sat with my Gran holding her hand with the tenderness of a daughter for three hours as she was dying (whilst her own daughters were arguing about who got the grandfather clock and the Clarice Cliff tea set.) She refused to believe there was no Mr Kipling. She wondered why they didn’t give everyone a ball in football. She took photographs of ‘bus stop knobs’ promising to publish a collection ‘one fine day soon’. She wondered if Shakin’ Stevens girlfriend saw the funny literal side of giving him a wank. She described me who is six foot three as ‘The worlds tallest living midget’ and cried every time she heard Frank Sinatra sing 'My Way'. She asked animal rights protesters did they target people who wear fur because it was easier to hassle rich women in coats, rather than leather wearing Hells Angels. She told me her brother was going to join the revolution but her Mum wouldn't lend him the mini. Despite the old joke she really thought Sheffield Wednesday was a Catholic holiday. Sometimes when she held my hand tight I felt like Jesus in a new job. She gave the two cars she’d ever owned dog’s names and wouldn’t answer the door to the postman until he’d knocked twice. She told everyone the most common owl in Britain was the teat. Saying she had two in the kitchen. She never kept a birthday card, letter, note or anything I ever sent her.She said words were cheap.
Robbie Williams got on her nerves with his exaggerated facial nonsense and she said my ex girlfriend had the face of a Saint – Bernard and was right. She started to talk to herself one day and had a frightened look in her eye I’d not seen before. She had more pyjamas than anyone I’ve known and couldn’t explain why. She didn’t trust anyone with two first names especially Peter Gabriel and George Michael. She didn’t know why people wanted to shoot the Pope but knew the Pope Mobile was the less than satisfactory result. She told me her brother worked for Jesus then a month later I found out it was Kraft Cheeses.She told me her Dad went missing with a girl called Sheila in the Wakefield Rhubarb triangle. They took her into hospital on a Wednesday, two days before her birthday. I felt so helpless for her. She always complained there was too much month at the end of the money and thought only werewolves with a job had any use for moon phase watches. Her lucky number was three million and three and she complained that it didn’t come up that often. Every time I saw her on the ward she was further away down that distant road inside her head. She told everyone I had been to bed eyes. In cafes without warning she’d ask for 237 cups of tea. Once and only once whilst piling a Netto trolley high with plum tomatoes `she said she nearly loved me, I walked on air carrying those yellow bags home. She’d tell taxi drivers to drive backwards so that they’d owe her money. She could slaughter me with a look and she only winked at me once and I fell over and thanked my lucky stars. She insisted on calling peaches suede apples and loved Will and Grace. The drugs made her void of any recognition of me whatsoever. She never trusted Matthew Kelly or any man with a beard. She never in a million years wanted her own business. She wanted to nuke Ibiza, Ianappa and Kos. She always wanted a baby brother with curly hair. She liked to play Monopoly when she was drunk and loved strawberry angel delight on a night in. She started to think the television was a two-way spy camera.
Someone adopted a donkey for her on her 21st birthday and she called it Jacket. She thought Wolverine in the X-Men film looked like a young Clint Eastwood. She thought Gary Linekar’s ears looked like Walkers crisps. She wanted to hijack a plane dressed as a cat and ask the pilot to take her to The Canaries. I hoped with all my heart they’d bring her back. She called psychiatrists trick cyclists. She made a mean spaghetti bolognaise but refused to let me or anyone have any if we dared call it Spag Bol. She once told me that space was a vaccum and that it was my turn to change the bag. Cats always sat on her lap. At all elections she voted for the person whose name scored most at scrabble. She was always losing her keys and letting cups of tea go cold.I always found a peanut in her pocket. The ECT made no difference. She told me when she was a peace protester at a nuclear sub in Liverpool docks some crew member shouted at her 'Scousers go home' and she replied ‘I would do but me mam’s not in and I haven’t got a key.’ She used to ask policemen if their heads went all the way to the point of their helmet. Sometimes she’d sleep for 18 hours and when I’d try and wake her she'd plead for just five more minutes. I found her sitting in the corner of our flat with a wet towel tight around her head – sobbing about ‘them’. She often wondered if her guardian angel had gone out for a smoke. Her best friend never came to see her. She’d black out the teeth of models in perfume ads and tell people her great granddad died in a concentration camp, then hit them with ‘by falling out of watchtower’. She wondered what it would look like if a blood transfusion van was in a traffic accident. She said she looked forward to getting bingo arms and had a crush on Ben the Birds Eye beef burger boy when she was ten. She thought Stevie Nicks had the best name for a kleptomaniac ever. She refused to let me visit. Some day’s for 24 hours she’d talk in an Australian accent and call me cobber. Other days it'd be German and I'd be 'young Heinz’ She didn’t like kangaroos, claiming one had given her granddad a black eye in a boxing ring in 1927.
She could play the theme tune to the archers on the stylophone. She thought Noddy was a bastard taxi driver demanding sixpences left right and centre. She once got a taxi on a sponsored walk. She always gave everyone a chance and some people two or three.
She was easy to fall in love with. She’d give bob a job boy scouts really odd jobs like can you shave the neck of my giraffe. Then declare she didn’t believe in paramilitary youth organisations. She’d go to Currys and ask the assistant who was wearing his old school trousers and shoes for a lamb pasanda. I never saw her blush. She wondered if the BBC would ever stop repeating Only Fools and Horses. She wondered why they shouted house at bingo and loved the big old blue cookie monster from the Muppets. Some days her hair looked like a beautiful October cabbage. She was frightened of snowmen (especially when they were melting) They say the prognosis isn’t positive and the mind is a delicate thing. She thought the Ford Ka looked like a bath toy and wondered why she never saw anyone under sixty in a Ferrari. She’d call people she didn’t know either Maria or Shaun. She suited hats and would always win when she picked a horse for the Grand National.
She’d smile when she saw old people holding hands and pulled faces at herself for five minutes every morning. She loved the smell of cigars and fresh road tar. She’s always go through amber lights grinning. She’d make her own supermarket art by placing my little mermaid from the toy section in with the fresh fish. She could never remember a pin number. She loved trampolines and only wore a necklace because she liked to know when she was upside down. She didn’t trust Trevor Macdonald.

I write all this because every day I get people asking me why I look so miserable. Well this is why, all of the above. She’s lost forever and it’s been over three years since I’ve been allowed to the ward. She’s lost

And God help me, so am I

Ged