Hello Danny
‘Hello Danny. I haven’t seen you for a long, long while.’
I watched as Danny sloped in, his corkscrew hair, big grin, bright sparkly grey eyes. The same wiry frame and boundless energy. He was wearing his orange check shirt with button-down collar and red loons. He was always meticulous about everything.
‘I was thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently.’
His grin widened. He now had a guitar in his hands as he sat back against the wall. Typical Danny – never still, always doing something, tidying up, clearing up, cooking, making coffee. The only times he would settle was when he had that guitar in his hands or was playing crib.
‘D’you remember when you were banned from going out with Carol and I was banned from going out with Liz. We’d pick up the girls and swap over.’
We both chuckled and nodded. Of course he remembered. Who could forget things like that? Danny bobbed up and down as he strummed – that same intensity – vital and full of life. He never stopped.
‘I remember you dropping Liz back home with me on the floor in the back of the car covered with a blanket, and Liz’s dad came out and spent ages talking to you while I was trying to keep as still as I could and not laugh.’ We used to laugh about that.
Danny started to sing in that intense voice, looking over at me to join in. It was ‘Nights in White Satin’. He used to play that at parties. We would both sing. He moved on to a little medley of the Who.
I chuckled softly to myself. My mind focussed inside my head – thinking back to those days. Once again I was there.
‘That went on for a year,’ shaking my head wistfully. ‘Right up until Liz’s Dad caught you with Carol.’
We both remembered that day. Our minds were wandering through our shared past; through the same memories.
Danny was now sitting cross-legged on the floor singing Roy Harper’s McGoohan’s Blues in a high falsetto, doing his own words to the end bit just like he always did – ‘Meaninglessly meaning. Meaninglessly meaning.’
I always corrected him and he always took no notice.
‘That time down in Cornwall in that cottage you were meant to be working on. We’d arrived in that storm, looking for your place in the pitch black, in the middle of nowhere, the car playing up, without lights, and I’d put the car in a ditch, completely lost, and gone for help. Knocking on the door of the only light we could see for miles around, and you’d answered the door! Just like it was meant to happen.’
Danny was playing a bit of Beatles now. He loved the Beatles.
‘Heading off to Woburn Abbey to see Hendrix play. He was spectacular, wasn’t he? So exciting! And meeting up with your music buddies!’ What a weekend that had been. ‘Liz still swears she’s never seen Hendrix!’
Danny played a bit of One Rainy Wish – a favourite of both of us – before gathering up the coffee cups and washing them up.
‘It’d be good to get the old blue and white VW out of mothballs and head off back to Portugal for the summer, wouldn’t it?’ I murmured wistfully, watching him tidy up. He never stopped.
In my head I was back there – the blue skies, the sunburn, Dylan a three month old baby in his Moses basket, the five of us driving across Spain singing at the top of our voices, camping among the pines with the chameleons in the unspoilt Algarve, the warm sea and scorching sun. ‘You insisting on stripping the engine down though there was nothing wrong with it!’ I glared at him. I’d always hated working on engines.
Danny was back on the guitar – leaning forward, his head straining upwards, frowning with the intensity, doing his favourite Smallfaces songs now. So alive. I watched and sang along like we always used to.
We’d all been besotted with Portugal back then. The colourful houses, the horses and traps, the donkeys, the old peasant ladies all coddled up in their voluminous dark dresses and scarves. They chided us for keeping Dylan naked. They wanted us to wrap him up. It was eighty degrees in the shade! How could they stand it?
‘You remember when we went down to the harbour and those fishermen were down in the hold throwing up those baskets of sardines and we wanted to buy some. They gave us a full basket and wouldn’t take a penny for them.’
We were both smiling and nodding again remembering how we’d shared our bounty with the whole camp-site, frying up sardines for days and washing them down with cheap wine.
Portugal had been our summer. It had been perfect. Though life had got in the way and we’d never done it again.
We’d come back with the van stuffed with Portuguese pottery. Every week we’d meet up for a meal on those Portuguese plates, probably loaded with lead, but so colourful. Liz and Carol would natter while we played crib, sipped beer and our babies grew into toddlers.
The magnets of opportunity had drawn us apart. No more cribbage, with one for his knob and fifteen for two, or meals on poisonous crockery. Just occasional short stays and visits with plenty of catch-up. Then no more.
Somehow things never worked out quite the way you imagined, the way you had it mapped out in your head. Life conspired. I miss that laugh Danny. I miss the energy, the enthusiasm. I miss you, mate.