Never Say Die. Lynne Barrett-Lee
exterior. Yes, I loved my mum and dad—cherished them more than anything else in the world, truth be known—but to show my devotion just wouldn’t have been cool.
And my parents knew just how to deal with me. They’d been through all the stages wise parents go through and opted for what seemed the most sensible option. Having voiced their opinions and found me less than receptive, they did what was probably the best thing to do: apart from ensuring we were chaperoned wherever possible, they kept their disapproval on a non-confrontational level and simply waited for me to do what they trusted I would. Grow out of it—out of him—if left to do so.
And they’d been right to feel confident. We’d been together almost a year. I was fifteen now, and through a combination of both time and circumstance I was beginning to do exactly that. Not for any of the reasons my parents had cited. Just because I was beginning to feel the first real stirrings of…well, of not needing him any more, I suppose.
Which, in hindsight, is often the way these things work. Older guy takes younger girl under his wing, gives her attention and confidence and a proper sense of self, and so, by whichever law governs such things, makes himself redundant in the process.
But for the moment, at least, we were still together. Still a couple, despite my knowing, even then, that this state of affairs wasn’t permanent. Something testified by a still livid scar across my biceps—the result of the removal of a DIY tattoo, which my parents had organised at hideous expense.
The tattoo had read ‘Aldo’. He’d be here in half an hour. I’d better hurry up and get ready.
Lots of things happened on 10 May 1980. It being a Saturday, various matches were won and lost. In London, Trevor Brooking led West Ham to a 1-0 defeat of Arsenal, and over in the States the Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves at baseball. Most notably, however, an irritable Mount St Helens was having a bit of a tantrum and limbering up for what, a week later, would end 130 long years of peace and quiet and become the worst volcanic disaster in the history of the United States.
None of these, however, would have been uppermost in my mind, even had I known they were happening. All I knew—all that mattered—was that today was Saturday, which meant no school, no hassle and a trip out on the back of Aldo’s bike, a 750cc Honda. A group of us—Aldo and I, plus his friend John and my best friend Juli—were off to Porthcawl for the day.
I checked the time, spent some minutes carefully applying make-up, then scrutinised myself in the mirror. My hair was freshly washed and my face newly painted. I looked, I decided, not too bad. Not something I’d much been accustomed to thinking; unlikely as it might seem for a girl of my height (just under six feet), I was altogether more used to feeling bad about myself, the legacy of years of relentless bullying, and the accompanying stress of a change of school and thus friends. But a great deal had changed in a very short time. Much as Aldo had been key to my growing self-confidence, it had been a fashion show at school that had really inspired me. I was tall. I was slim. I had loved my moment in the spotlight. And though I wasn’t so naïve as to think that the world was my catwalk, I had begun to feel at last that I had choices.
But that was for the future. Right now, I had nothing more pressing to think about than what to wear. I grabbed jeans, a stripy T-shirt and my suede stiletto boots. I yanked them on and skipped down the stairs.
Dad was in the living room, reading the paper. I joined Mum in the kitchen. She looked up. Then up and down. Then she sighed. ‘I do wish you weren’t going out on that bike today, Mel.’
‘I’ll be fine, Mum,’ I answered, as I habitually did. She sniffed.
‘Well, your dad and I don’t like it.’
‘I know,’ I said again. ‘But I’ll be fine. Stop worrying.’
‘Just be very careful, okay?’
I thought I could hear Aldo pulling up outside. Good, I thought, kissing her cheek. No more nagging. My parents were, and have always been, amazing people: deeply loving, supportive, the very best in the whole world. But like any other teenager, I was deaf to my mother’s fears. Unaware of how often her words would chillingly revisit me, I grabbed my leather jacket from the newel post and helmet from by the door. Then I yelled a goodbye and went to greet Aldo.
Back in the early eighties, the seaside towns of Porthcawl and Port Talbot, where we lived, couldn’t have been more different. Port Talbot was dull. It felt dull, at any rate, to me and my friends. Though it nestled prettily beneath the green and brown bulk of the Emroch and Dinas mountains, Port Talbot’s equally dramatic southern skyline was a towering jungle of concrete and metal; a line of huge blast furnaces, steel gantries and grey buildings that filled the foreground of the view across Swansea Bay. The steelworks dominated the town. From the red dust that settled on every sort of surface, from windowsills to car roofs to optimistically hung washing, to the unspoken assumption that to my mind seemed universal, that being destined for the ‘works’ was the norm. I didn’t want that. I wanted more. I wanted better.
Porthcawl was better. It was different. Exciting. Though it was only a few miles east down the coast, being at Porthcawl always seemed to feel a little like being on holiday. As a child, it had been one of my favourite destinations. It was a good-time place where the sun always shone and there was always ice-cream to eat. A place where I could play on the rocks and swim in the rock pools that were left, warm and magical, by the retreating tide. It had mystery, too, in the stories of shipwrecks, and the brave derring-do of the lifeboat crew. Porthcawl had a heart that was beating, whereas Port Talbot always seemed a little like my poor dad’s chest—one big, sprawling, unhealthy wheeze.
Not that Port Talbot didn’t have a seafront of its own, but ours, Aberavon, though briefly lively during warm summer weekends, could boast little in the way of excitement. Our own funfair, Miami Beach, had always felt just like what it was—a somewhat down-at-heel reminder of a time, now long gone, when people’s expectations of holidays were much simpler. By the time I was in my teens it had been all but pulled down. In the winter months, the beach was a desolate sort of place, which skulked in the shadows of the steelworks.
Porthcawl just didn’t feel like that. Indeed, by this time it was thriving. Its own funfair, Coney Beach, was a big draw for everyone and in the summer months it was filled with throngs of day trippers, and was held in particular regard by the biking fraternity. It suited me, too. At my height, I could almost always get served in the pubs. I felt the familiar stirrings of excited anticipation in my stomach. Volcanoes could do what they liked across the globe. All that was on my young mind that Saturday morning was what a great day I had ahead.
Funny how the brain works. It hadn’t been a particularly memorable sort of day, but set against what was to follow, the rather ordinary details are still pin-sharp in my memory. We drove to the Knight’s Arms, our favourite biker pub in Porthcawl, to find it quiet—it was still early in the season. We chatted, we had some lunch, and the boys went to sit outside, while Juli and I went into the back to play pool.
Juli had been my best friend ever since my change of school had reunited us the previous year. We’d clicked before, when we were younger, and now we clicked again. Even so, we made an odd sort of pair. Where I was a jeans-and-leather-jacketed patchouli-scented rocker, Juli had embraced everything punk. She was wild about Siouxsie & the Banshees and the Sex Pistols, had hair that often looked like a multi-coloured fright wig, and augmented her wardrobe with her granny’s old frocks, which she accessorised with crazy bits of jewellery. In deference to the bike ride, I supposed, she was wearing something quite demure for her tastes—a black boiler suit—but, typically, finished off with pink shoes.
After our game of pool we went outside and sat on the guys’ bikes, while they continued to chat in the sunshine. In such undramatic and, to my older self, seemingly empty ways are whole chunks of teenage life gladly swallowed up. We’d had fun, but decided to head home when it was gone four. If Juli wasn’t home by five-thirty at the latest, she’d be for it. Her parents didn’t even know she was out on a bike. Just with me—a bad influence anyway.
‘You want to swap?’ Juli asked me as we waited for the guys.
‘Dunno,’