One in a bed

Thursday 1pm

I'm on a train to Newcastle, to spend a couple of days, and sexless nights -- in the same bed, as it has always been -- with Kim. The Racing Commentator is coming over from Leeds tomorrow as well.

It's going to be a good end-week, I can feel it in my bones. Having The Commentator there will dilute the intensity that Kim can sometimes bring to 3am. A couple of years ago, when it was announced that mephedrone was being made illegal, she maxed out her credit card buying it. She's still got plenty left, and I'm looking forward to the glittery, brightening sensation of meow-meow.

We're meeting in just over an hour's time. I am being taken for lunch and cocktails.

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Midnight

I'm in Kim's spare room. I asked to sleep here, instead of with her, as I've had a bit of speed and will be a bit restless for a while.

I walked into the pub, where she was sitting cross-legged and looking gorgeous. Her dishevelled dark blonde hair fell kinked onto the collar of a red coat; she was wearing a polka dot black and white dress, a shiny thin red belt which was tied at that sexy distance somewhat above the waist. Black tights and black calf-length boots.

We chatted away, about her unwanted suitor in her local, me and Trina's no sex agreement and its benefits, and so on. "Oh, Kim, you do look very polka dottedly lovely," I said. "How the fuck do I get to hang about with girls like you?" A little later, she followed something I said with "yes, but you were probably looking at my tits at the time." "Well," I replied, "you have got quite nice tits, actually."

We finished our drinks. She linked her arm into mine, me feeling like the cat that's got the cream, and we walked up to the cocktail bar for our martini lunch -- cheese, figs, beetroot, olives and so on; I had a negroni (gin, Campari and red vermouth), and a Dutch mojito (made with Genever rather than rum).

We went to a sweary, slightly manky pub. The woman at the next table was asking me about Mother's Day. "Have you got a cord?" "Sorry?" "Have you got your mam a cord?" "Oh, a card? Yes, yes I have." Kim looked so, so, attractive, with her undone hair. As we sat silently in a reverie together, drinking electronic, overcold beer, our upper arms against each others', our legs nodding to the music, I slid into a despondent mood. I was longing to put my arm round her, to stroke her and kiss her, to run my hands through her hair, aching at the boundary, but allotted into amiable sexlessness.

I forced myself out of it. We got the train back to her Mum and Dad's house, where mum made us omelette and beans. It was that kind of centrally-heated, tea on your lap, talking-over-the-telly evening that was my childhood.

Sunday, 11.30am

On Friday, it was pouring down. It was the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the Miners' Strike, and she showed me a fascinating review of a book of photographs by Keith Pattison taken at the time in Easington, one of the hundreds of pit villages that Thatcher sacked. She took me out in the car to have a look at the place.

Josie Smith, a retired and disabled miner arrested outside his home. The police provoked more ill feeling as they insisted on walking strike-breakers through the village to and from the colliery. Frequent skirmishes ensued, in this one; Josie was arrested but later released to the relief of his distraught wife. (Photo and text © Keith Pattison 2015: permission applied for)

Houses that were once family homes are now armoured with metal grilles against individual vandalism rather than the massive programme of violent, state-organised, police-managed, vandalism of thirty years ago. Whole streets have been torn down and grassed over, and millions of pounds are still poured into places like Easington in ineffectual regeneration projects. I'm pleased that at that time I was getting up at 5am to get the TUC bus to Burnley colliery, where we aimed obloquy and the occasional half-brick at the buses bringing the scabs in.

Saturday, a late start, with sherry for breakfast, then into Durham for a few hours' boozing. Crowded into The Dun Cow, a man asked us if we'd agree that eating a hard-boiled egg is similar to the sensation of having a cock in your mouth. Another couple told us about how she extricated herself from a violent boyfriend. Someone asked me if Kim was my daughter. We fenced off the usual surprised reaction when we tell people we are not a couple. "No," she said. "We realised early on that we're not compatible that way." Did we? "She doesn't fancy me, that's what she means," I said.