Johnny Loved Jacquie
Adjacent to the phone box a streetlamp flickered and emitted fizzing noises. He wondered if it was about to expire. There are no degrees of lampness he reasoned. They have utilitarian purpose and if that purpose no longer exists, it’s not a lamp. It’s merely useless metal and glass. Other philosophical thoughts crossed his mind while he waited. Why hasn’t she rung?
Unobserved in the shadows of a nearby hedge, he watched, he listened. It had been dark for at least five hours and the evening had quickly chilled. Clad in a knitted cotton jersey, Johnny Quinlivan massaged his arms. He blew steamy breath into bunched hands, wished he’d had the foresight to wear his heavy parka. But she’d given him clear instructions. Wait for her call to the phone box late tonight. Jacquie would give him her answer.
The waiting stoked his anxiety. He’d asked for a definitive answer, told her he’d respect her decision. But if she didn’t phone him, he’d take that as a no and leave Dartmouth. His love for her consumed him and it was reciprocated. They opened their mouths wide and drank each other in. When her parents had demanded she break it off with Johnny, he’d asked her to run away to London with him. They would marry when she turned eighteen, but Jacquie had sat on an uncomfortable fence for weeks. One side of the fence was fear of her parents’ response, the other side was fear of losing Johnny. She was sitting on barbed wire.
He stamped lightly on the ground to warm his feet as chill seeped from the earth. It had been a difficult decision for him also, to leave the embrace of family. But jobs in Dartmouth were limited in 1968 and he had no wish to follow his father’s footsteps by entering the naval college. Theatre and the arts were his dream, London was the honeypot. He observed moths flitting around the lamp beside the lonely phone box, but it didn’t alleviate his angst. He visualised Jacquie sneaking from her home in the village eight miles from Dartmouth to make the call he was sweating on receiving. In mind’s eye he saw her quietly closing the rear door to scurry to the phone box 400 metres away. He wanted to hold her at this moment. To dilute some of the anguish she’d be cloaked in.
Johnny re-imagined the contents of his suitcase sitting under his bed, biding its time to be stowed aboard the bus at midday tomorrow. He’d packed the essentials - paisley patterned shirts, high-waisted flared jeans, pointy toed shoes. He’d fit in comfortably around Carnaby Street and the Westend. But he’d be there to support Jacquie no matter what. He was an honourable person yet he questioned whether it was morally right to put Jacquie in this position. And he chewed and stewed the hours away. Waiting, watching that phone box, willing it into life. In the wee hours, he entered the phone box to warm up. In the foetal position on the floor, he fretted the night away until the first rays of a wan sun began crawling over Dartmouth. He hadn’t slept, and at 7.30 am he vacated the box at the insistence of an indignant local wanting to make a phone call.
By midday, the London bus swept out of Dartmouth bearing Johnny and his suitcase. He was physically sick with loss; part of his body having been crudely cleaved from him. He watched his neighbourhood recede behind him. He passed the public garden near his home. He passed the phone box that had rung repeatedly throughout the night. The phone box several blocks from the one where Johnny had maintained his night vigil. The phone that had rung off the hook attempting unsuccessfully to convey to Johnny a single word, “Yes.”
