A pinch of salt

A story from my teenage years

There are few places you can be together as a couple when you’re 16.

My boyfriend Dino wasn’t allowed in my house due to a misunderstanding that had occurred when he and my mother had first ‘met’.

The misunderstanding being, that he’d wrongly assumed mum was a nosey neighbour taking a little too much interest in our farewell embrace one evening, and as such, had told her to ‘fuck off’.

“But Julie, ‘ow was I supposed to know?”

He’d offered.

Could happen to anyone, right?

Naturally, this was a hard mistake to bounce back from, and as such, mum had banned my beau from all but the garage. And mother being mother, had not softened over the months that followed.

How we loved that garage that first summer!

Each dust clad piece of junk stashed in there, somehow symbolising our Romeo and Juliet plight. The gleaming blades of tools, the musty novels…..

The half painted garden gnomes mum hobbied at, our sympathetic allies.

Sat across from one and other, night after night on a couple of uncomfortable sun chairs, love’s young dream had been enough to sustain us.

In summer.

Winter, however, was proving trickier.

Colder.

Although in 1990, it was relatively easy to go sit in the snug of a pub, nurse a cider, unchallenged for ID, we hadn’t the money to do it every night. Occasionally, we babysat for Dino’s sister, but other than that, we found ourselves with a stark choice. Possible hypothermia or imposing ourselves on our friends.

Being the nearest, my mate Jasmine’s house became our ‘go to’.

‘Mayfair Row’ was perched on the edge of Dino’s council estate.

These were the days when all housing estates had a corner shop and her house sat a few doors from said shop. It was the kind that gave a jolly tinkle upon opening of its sturdy door.

The kind that still smelled faintly of cherry lips and floral gums in paper bags, despite rarely being asked for them.  As though that scent had accumulated over many years, one perfumed waft at a time, only to now gradually release as though through exhausted bellows, the last puffs of a bygone age.

Mayfair Row had no private gardens. Only a communal green area that lay groggy from the incessant pelting of conkers, acorns and other fare that had fallen from surrounding trees. Their trinkets losing their charm in the glare of smashed White Lightning bottles, dimps sucked dry as popped dummies and discarded saturated nappies.

Chip wrappers sprawled as lazy urban angels across benches.

But that was all on the outside.

Inside, Jasmine’s tiny red brick terrace was nothing short of magical to me.

“Y’alright”

Jasmine greeted us at the door, her doe eyes peeping out petulantly from a untamed shock of raven hair. Her primadonna pout tipping to pearly smile with the ease of a freshly oiled seesaw as she clocked us.

The daughter of a beleaguered looking taxi driver called Dave and glamorous new ager mother, Sylvia, Jasmine was the bad girl you wanted to be.  And she was my ‘in school’ best friend.

We’d known each other since the beginning of high school.  Unlike some of the other girls who had broken ties because my dad was in jail, Jasmine had worn it as a badge of cool.

Jasmine had huge breasts and turned her school tie into a squat kite on her open collar, as though to highlight them, an arrow pointing down “look at these!” It was an invitation that didn’t go to waste.

But it wasn’t just her physical attributes that made her so popular. My friend had sass.

Every scrap of my own ‘devil may care’, was topped by a more brazen, defiant ‘not arsed’.

Not giving a fuck was indeed an art to be cultivated.

In the classroom, she played just the right level of smart so as to not threaten the boys. It was as though she dangled her own intelligence on a fishing line - knowing when to act dumb, reel them in before cleverly catching them out.

A daddy’s girl, she’d been promised £10 for each GCSE she gained above a ‘C’ and a ‘bonus’ £50 for a full set.

I tried the same at home. Worth a go.

“But you should just want to do well for yourself.”

I got back.

Mum had a point.

Out of school,  Jasmine was all lipstick, leather and lace.  The kind of friend you didn’t get a look in next to on a night out. Before the days of ‘who wore it best’, Jasmine didn’t just wear it better, she wore it shorter, tighter and with more buttons undone.

She smoked cigarettes, slept with whom she fancied, took whatever drugs she felt like but never seemed to come a cropper.  A cat who didn’t so much get the cream but had a free pass to the dairy.

Musically, she was ahead of the curve too. Possibly because she was the only one of my pals to have MTV and as such, this was another reason to go round.

And here we were!

Grateful for the opportunity to chill in this sanctuary of good music and company.

Dino and I entered the house, taking in the heady incense and batik wall hangings. The interior, thanks to Sylvia, was a haven of hippy thrift and global looking knick knacks that eyed you in dark wood and soapstone.

The staircase curved. There were wind chimes made of shells and herbal teas the colour of ancient maps.

If Jasmine was the bad girl I wanted to be, Jasmine’s mum, Sylvia was the mother I wanted to have.

“This music….it’s so peaceful…”

I voiced, settling myself down on the generous sofa. A welcome relief after months of the tight fabric of garden chairs.

“Mike Rowland, Silver Wings….”

said Sylvia casually, as she glided through the living room, a Rochdale Titania.

Why didn’t my mum play music called ‘Silver Wings’?

My mum listened to Cliff Richard.

My mum delivered leaflets and gave out free samples.

The only ‘wings’ she talked about were the ones on the sides of the trial packs of ‘Always Ultra’ she distributed.

In contrast to the serenity of Sylvia’s relaxed abode, our hall way was chock full of corregated cardboard boxes stuffed with surplus free samples we passed on to family and friends.

Yes, if you appreciated ‘Brannigans thick cut Beef and Mustard crisps’ or ‘Vidal Sassoon 2 in 1’, you were on to a winner.

But I didn’t, and I wanted a mum like Sylvia.

Sylvia -  playground dinner lady by day, intuitive crystal healer by night.

I imagined her squeezing every clammy, scabby hand reassuringly through a wedge of sheepskin mitten.  She wasn’t one of those battle axe types who secretly wanted to be a teacher, either. No. Sylvia exuded empathy. Those warm brown eyes…..

She didn’t judge, wanted to to listen…….without prejudice. Like the album title.

Yeah, man…..that’s what she did….

Now, was MTV on?

Sylvia. When she wasn’t listening to the problems of teenagers whose own parents didn’t understand them, she was at yoga class, dowsing, cleansing auras with sage or off on a ‘group holiday’ somewhere spiritual like Avebury or Tintagel.  A get away that always seemed to include a particular ‘close friend’ called Bruce.

Sylvia……Always on hand to explain zigzags on rune stones, tell me of the dangers of the local witch coven and warn me of ouija boards.

If Dino was round there partly to stare at my mate’s tits, I was there for Sylvia.

It was therefore, of great interest to me when Jasmine announced later that evening when we were alone, that her mother had a ‘message’ for me.

You know, one of *those* messages.

Oh bloody hell, it wasn’t from my recently murdered Aunty Edie was it?

“No….it’s about Dino”

She began hesitantly.

“Dino?”

“Yeah”

Jasmine said, unsure how to relay what was coming next.

“Dino! What about him?”

“Well…..my mum thinks……….I’m not sure how to say this…..”

“Go on!”

“Well”

She continued.

“My mum thinks he’s possessed by a demon. An evil spirit….”

I’d not known what to prepare for, but it hadn’t been this. I must find out more before he came back from the loo.

“Well, he always wears that baseball cap, covers his face, looks down, doesn’t he? And my mum says….that what she really needs to do, is get a good look in his eyes ….to be….you know….certain”

I considered this. He had been wearing that cap a lot recently hadn’t he? I hated it the scruffy old thing.

“Oh…ok…right…. I’ll see what I can do”

I mumbled.

And with that, he was back in the room.

“You’re quiet”

He commented later as he walked me back to mine. Too right I bloody was. My head was mashed with activity. Chiefly, “Do I tell my boyfriend my mate’s mum thinks he’s possessed?”

Nah…couldn’t do it. The poor lad had not long since done a stint in the psych ward after doing bad acid. Was already on anti depressants. There was no way I could tell him he *might* have a demon inside him.

It was a big might, after all……

First things first, I needed to part him from that baseball cap. Allow Sylvia that ‘look in his eyes’ she required.

It wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined, as it happened.

I bought him a bandana with skulls on it. Told him it looked a bit ‘Axl’ and he should keep it on that evening. As a Guns n Roses fan, he went for it.

So there we were, back at Jasmine’s just a few nights later. I gave Sylvia the nod and she came over, made a little small talk with us both and went about the rest of her evening.

The evening took its usual form, which was basically an MTV fest punctuated by making the odd prank phone call in a stupid foreign accent when we grew bored.

And as the night drew to a close and he and Jasmine talked weed at the front door, I took Sylvia to one side.

“Were you able to…..tell?”

I whispered.

“Is he possessed?”

Sylvia bit her lip, her eyes meeting mine with concern.

“I’m afraid he is, Julie. I could see it clearly around him….a green-brown aura…..”

Her voice trailed off as though I was to fill in the end. Like a swamp? A vile putrid bog? I mused, my keen imagination in overdrive.

She looked at me the way doctors do when confirming a terminal illness.

“This why he struggles I think….Once these things take hold, they’re hard to get rid of…..”

I absorbed the news gravely, not once questioning her expertise on these matters. I idolised this woman.

“So….what can we do? How can I rid him of it?”

Hell, I was 16. Last thing I wanted was a boyfriend with a demon, right? 

“Salt”

She declared decisively.

“He needs to be cleansed with salt”

I considered the practicalities of this.

“But I can’t just pour salt on him, can I? And anyway if I tell him, it might scare him.”

“There are no simple solutions….”

said Sylvia.

“Without me doing a ritual on him, it’s hard to know what else would work….”

“I’ll have a think….”

I said and left it at that.

For the next few days, I thought of little else.

Dino was my boyfriend and as was normal, we shared those tender “tell me what you’re thinking…” moments.

But imagine in such romantic haze, expecting someone to say “I was just wishing we could stay like this forever” or similar fluff and instead being met with;

“Oh I was just thinking that my best mate’s mum thinks you’ve been hijacked by a harmful entity”

Come to think of it, if this was the case, why was I still even sleeping with the guy?

Did these things shed? Transfer? I started to wonder what ‘it’ looked like? Picturing it an evil leprechaun perched on that scruffy hat of his. A creepy supernatural tick embedded.

There was only one thing for it.

I was going to have to cleanse him myself, with salt.

Discreetly.

Secretly.

And I had just the plan.

It had been under my nose all along.

The free sample bottles of Vidal Sassoon shampoo!

I would spike them with salt.

Dino loved both a freebie - and his own hair.  It was long, fair and so well groomed I’d once spent five minutes talking to the back of his mum’s Afghan hound thinking it was him.

I set to work.

The next time I had the house to myself, I emptied several of the tiny green bottles into a bowl. There it sat, a pearlescent gloop, a liquid Kendal mint cake.

I took the plastic cooking salt cylinder and liberally tossed in as much as I thought able to get away with, adding a little more water as and when, feeling like Sylvia’s sourcerer’s apprentice.

Once satisfied I’d added as much as I could without destroying the shampoo properties, I used a funnel to guide the mixture back into the miniature bottles.

Yes! Whilst some of my contemporaries were cutting up nine bars in their kitchen, weighing out drug deals, I was doing important ‘light work’, saving teenage boys from demons.

Dino rocked up at my house later that afternoon and I handed him a carrier bag of sample shampoo bottles. Stuck a few bags of beef n mustard on the top so it didn’t look too suspicious.

“Here you go!”

I said brightly.

“Mum says you can have these. She’s at the end of a job…doesn’t need em. It’s just some free shampoo and crisps….”

“Oh, Cheers”

A few days later I dared ask him if he’d used the samples.

He had.

And that was that.

My mission was complete.

A week or so later we showed up at Jasmine’s.

I approached the door tentatively. Wondering if we’d get the ‘all clear’.

The door slowly opened, and there she stood, ashen faced and reluctant to welcome us in.

“It’s me mum…”

She began, her eyes puffy from crying.

“She’s left me dad for that Bruce….and he’s really upset”

I could see Dave’s bulky frame in the background, bent and distraught, and decided I wouldn’t ask to come in. I’d leave them to it.

And as I turned to go, I noticed all at once my bolshy mate had come of age. Her goth white face lending itself well to the circumstances.

It turned out out those ‘group holidays’ hadn’t been so innocent after all and Sylvia had wanted more than her chakras aligned.

And in that brief conversation, it struck me that we had all in some way been dealing with demons.

Whether you were a middle aged woman trying to find a shred of mystique in a painfully mundane existence.

Whether a taxi driver trying to convince yourself your wife loves you whilst she buggers off on holidays with some fella under the guise of ‘finding herself’.

Or a teenager inadvertently caught in the marital crossfire of two parents you dearly loved.

And maybe the problem I’d been wrestling with, hadn’t been quite so bad in comparison.

After all, not all demons could be fixed with a pinch of salt.