Slide Away

Because songs trigger memories, don’t they?

**Last night I was reading about the much hyped Oasis reunion and it brought back a memory. I felt inspired to write this.**

March 1995.

I’m in my mum’s car, on way to Manchester Airport - or ‘Ringway’ as she calls it. Old school.

If I were a ‘car person’, I’d probably remember the make, wouldn’t I? But I don’t. Just know it was a family car. A safe car. My mum always went for safe cars. Still does.

“You want to feel like you’ve at least got a bit of something round you, a bit of protection if you crash”

Yes, you do. And in life, she’s been mine.

Gold car……..or was it beige?

I remind myself that actually, time makes gold of beige. So yes, it was probably beige. Before we had ‘filters’ we had the filter of our mind. The one that makes charm bracelets of inconsistencies, trophies of shining hours. So that said, perhaps we didn’t look the way I recall we did, driving to that airport.

My mum, a head of dark waves with occasional wiry strands of grey, her blue eyes bright and sharp. Me, my bobbed hair dyed raven black, lips full.

And him……..his mane of gold grazing at his shoulders. Those enviable cheekbones.

What would he have been to me by that point?

Wasn’t my ‘boyfriend’, we’d been spilt up over a year by then. Wasn’t really a friend either. Well, not in the orthodox sense because…..well, you know. Yeah. THAT.

THAT was still happening every now and again.

We’d been each other’s first loves, first sex but as with so many teenage relationships, it had not been a smooth path. How we’d stayed mates was somewhat of a mystery. Back to THAT again. Once those bonds are formed with someone, sometimes it’s hard to give them up. You know they are the wrong person for you but they feel so comfortable. Familiar. You know each other. It all feels so damn easy, doesn’t it?

Until it’s not.

So, we’re loosely holding hands in the back seat, sort of finger touching, every so often a little pressure. My bitten nails. His, that always look so smooth and healthy - apart from that one thumb nail his sister slammed a phone box door on. I run my finger across its ridges.

Tells me he’s just come for the ride.

“But I will miss you. You know I will”

He’d said that before we’d got in the car, because hell, we don’t talk that way - display emotion, god forbid, in front of my mother.

And then we put Oasis on. ‘Definitely Maybe’. The album released the previous year. And it somehow says all that needs to be said. So much of our entwined past is captured right there, the essence of our youth.

The swagger.

The misplaced optimism.

The love that didn’t clink wine glasses but clanked bottles of Thunderbird down the park.

Of mundanity interrupted by bouts of chaos.

Of unrivalled selfishness and disregard.

Look at me, look at me, validate me.

Save me…..could you save me?

No, we were too young.

We’d screwed up.

Was it drugs? Lies? Infidelity? Ambition? Expectation? When I’d moved away to Uni?

Probably all those things had played their part. Add the raging teenage hormones and unstable family influences to the mix and it could never have had a happy ending.

But still we felt something.

Sometimes things don’t end abruptly, do they? They peter out. A dying fire that continues to flash its ruby embers whilst obscuring your clarity with its smoke.

Perhaps we heard the album that day in a way we hadn’t before. Without distraction, we were able to focus on each sarky riddle of lyric, each poignant melody and arrogant jangle.

As we cruised the outskirts of Manchester, it gave it even more context. The oppressing drizzle. The murky billboards and bus shelters. The signs for ‘Strangeways’ and ‘Salford Quays’.

And then as we arrived, after 40 minutes or so driving, ‘Slide Away’.

Felt so apt. That feeling of distance and uncertainty in the opening chords.

“We're two of a kind

We'll find a way

To do what we've done”

No.

We weren’t.

We wouldn’t.

Not any more.

As I left behind the drudgery of Northern England for three months in the dazzling dreamscape of Texas, we both knew things would never be the same.

Places change you. They shape your point of view. You return a different person, your mind a little more opened. With new perspective.

I didn’t slide away.

I flew.

And sometimes, just sometimes…..

I’m still flying.

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