Waterloo Sunset

Jimmy's Interpretation...

Back at Swiss Cottage Station, a crisis had arisen over Kelly and Jimmy both sporting houndstooth suits. Jimmy’s, an American loose-fitting single-breasted 50’s affair, with pegged trousers. Kelly’s a structured, short-waisted 40’s outing, with a pencil skirt. As she lived nearer, it was agreed that she’d be the one who’d get changed. After all, they didn’t want to look like a couple. Both parties were clear on that. Though he didn’t mention it, Jimmy had been a tad wounded by Kelly’s vehemence on the topic. He didn’t mind people thinking they were a couple, so much as one that coordinated…

The hound’s-tooth debacle meant they were running over an hour late, which, despite his moaning about it, actually filled Jimmy with hope. He’d arranged to meet Tina in the Tin Pan, but given this delay, it was conceivable she might have fucked off by the time he eventually got there. Bazooka Joe was OK as a local phenomenon, but the thought of them beyond the confines of Hampstead Town Hall was beginning to make him cringe and whilst trudging up the never-ending Fitzjohn’s Avenue, like Fagin in Oliver! Jimmy was reviewing the situation… Kelly’d recently taken up with Michael. She’d have preferred Andre, but his orientation lay in another direction. Kelly and Michael were a mismatch Jimmy’d not taken seriously, but with all the fuss over the hound’s-tooth business, it dawned that the flame she’d carried for him had gone out.

This realisation brought about a sudden and overwhelming sense of loss. One hugely disproportionate to his feelings for a girl who, at the end of the day, was no more than a friend. His sense of isolation was compounded when, on turning around, he saw that Kelly was thirty yards behind him. Then, Lotte and Sim (holding hands), another twenty behind her. Despite it secretly suiting him, their ambling still grated. They knew he was supposed to be meeting Tina. His friends had made little effort in getting to know her, and while there was probably a class aspect involved, the main reason for their lethargy was that they’d deemed Tina a fad. In fairness, they’d been through it many times, his obsessing about someone or something, before moving on. Yet, while his friends were writing off the girl with green eyes, Jimmy was planning to marry her…

It wouldn’t be tomorrow or the day after, he knew that. He also knew that his instinct was most adamant on the subject. She, it had dictated, was the one. His instinct felt that they shared a bond, one that went way beyond humour and physical attraction. One stemming from each having served as a surrogate spouse to an unbalanced, yet seemingly powerful parent. A bond neither had any desire to verbalise, but one both were aware of, at a semi-conscious level. Tina and Jimmy looked, acted and generally appeared beyond their years. While neither asked to be so, both took full advantage of it. Apart, that was, from one arena. Their kissing and cuddling. When it came to that, each harboured a desire to keep it, if not exactly innocent, at least... rudimentary.

Irony or coincidence? Either way, Jimmy and Tina were once again strolling over Waterloo Bridge, but this time they were coming from the West End, heading South. The balmy summer’s evening, coupled with that beautiful Waterloo Sunset, had Jimmy feeling as though they were the living embodiment of Terry and Julie, the young lovers featured in the Kinks’ ode to the vicinity. So contented was Jimmy that his thoughts of jumping into the drink, back in the spring, were recalled with an air of disbelief. Was that really him? God. Tina’s arm was linked in his own, but Jimmy knew they were fastened by a far more potent binding — that of love. So perfect was this moment that he felt compelled to seize it. There were doubts, of course, there were, but on nearing the South Bank, Jimmy’s negativity was vanquished. He wasn’t entertaining it. Not now, and if she answered affirmatively— never again. The more Jimmy thought about it, the more obvious it became. How could she respond other than positively when they were so obviously made for one another? Buoyed by love and freed of the doubt that enslaved him, he just did it; Jimmy popped the question:

“What, are you mad? I’m seventeen, Jimmy. You’re sixteen!”

He’d known, he’d fucking known. Nothing good came from falling in love- nothing! This ran through his head as he nodded apologetically and mumbled something about being an idiot. He’d never liked The Kinks. They ought to have been his favourite group, their songs pissed over the Stones and the Beatles, but it was that Ray-fucking-Davies, you just couldn’t warm to the geezer. As for Terry and Julie? What a pair of fucking straight-going cunts they were. Watching his hand grasp the bridge’s rail, Jimmy wondered what would become of his smoky grey, Trojan-headed, catalogue ring? It’d probably wind up in Dear Mother’s possession. It ought to go back to Nan, but as he’d be long gone by then, they could sort it out between... Dear Mother would probably cop for the money he’d stockpiled in the jug too… That should be Nan’s.

“You ain’t jumping in either. I can assure you of that.”

Tina was eyeing his hand, which was now clasping the bridge’s rail fairly tightly. He knew it was wrong, but the former junior swimming champion couldn’t help himself. Summoning his most self-pitying tone, he enquired,

“What do you care?”

She’d tried to look contemptuous, as that was certainly how she felt, but something and Tina, to this day, couldn’t be sure if it came from him or herself, but either way, they started laughing. Laughing so hard, Tina’s face streamed with tears. Realising how terrible it was to be laughing at him like that made her laugh all the more. Looking around, Tina was relieved to see Jimmy sitting on the kerb…. “Oh, Jimmy, you’re such a cunt.”
“I know.”

Despite her new Cacharel dress, Tina joined him on the kerb where they fell into silence. She’d then gone to lecture him about them being too young and having their whole lives ahead of them... blah, blah, blah. Jimmy didn’t take much notice, but what did get his attention was that once her A Levels were completed, she’d be off travelling for the best part of a year. On seeing his surprise, Tina claimed that she’d told him this a few times. While abandonment of that calibre would normally cause him all manner of woe, here he saw an upside. After some quick calculations, Jimmy estimated that a year would be enough for him to get in enough kissing and cuddling to last a lifetime. Bearing in mind that he didn’t fish with a net, he trawled with one. He might, theoretically at least, have been right. Would her twelve-month hiatus dent his ardour? No chance. For, besides having laughed as much in the past two minutes as in the rest of his life combined, the flaxen-haired Tina possessed another unique ability, one Jimmy deemed even more important… She made him feel safe.

Education was a big deal to Tina, at least her own, and as far as the Outside Man was concerned, she deserved to do what she wanted after working so hard, for so long. If that included traipsing halfway around the world with a rucksack on her back, then good luck to her. Though set to culminate in an Oxbridge university, the origin of Tina’s schooling had not been so august, nor its aim so lofty. It all began in a florist’s, located in a station on the Piccadilly Line, a year before her having been conceived…