Eternally North (Eternally North 1)

Every cloud...

I bowed my head and let the sorrow wash over me. I had never been one to wallow in self-pity, but given the day’s events and finding out that my ex was a closet exhibitionist who couldn't stop nailing his tramp for two minutes to kindly explain what the f**k was happening to our relationship – I mean that’s unheard of, surely? – I was going to allow myself a short reprieve and have a pity party for one!

So with a sombre gait, I meandered down Northumberland Street and the many dark and dingy roads of central Newcastle, trying to come to terms with the fact that my life had just been flipped on its head.

After ten minutes of aimless wandering, I tilted my head and smiled in confusion at where I had ended up. The cinema. My mother would bring me here every Saturday growing up to see the current 'picture show', as the oldies called it.

I walked to the grandly decorated foyer and looked at the walls plastered with posters of current films and all their stars. I moved from poster to poster and studied the actors and imagined their lives. I bet they didn’t have a care in the world. They had it all – fame, fortune and the job of their dreams.

Lucky bastards.

What did I want to be? What were my dreams? It was so long ago since I’d thought about that sort of thing, I couldn’t actually remember – how sad is that?

I walked back outside and tipped my head to the sky. Then, like a crazy person, spread my arms and began to sob, begging the gods for a sign of what to do next, where to take my life.

I waited in silence, the only sound coming from my heavy breathing. Nothing. No shooting star or flash of divine intervention, just the sound of a bottle being smashed in the rowdy pub across the street.

With a huff of a laugh at my desperate cry for a mystic solution, I took one last look at the theatre and flinched as a light bulb on one of the poster frames popped, almost in my face. Even slightly less illuminated, I could see that the man on the poster was perfect – muscles, tattoos, brooding expression and pure gorgeousness. I bet right at that moment he was living in a million-dollar mansion somewhere, making love to some Amazonian goddess, not a care in the world.

Some people have all the luck.

As I headed back to my car, I tried to figure out what to do next. I passed my favourite bookstore and smiled at the window display – Jane Austen month, my idol. I took in the famous titles spread on luxurious red velvet, the most popular perched high on pedestals: Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park and of course Pride and Prejudice. The books that keep most women warm in bed but ruin our lives when we realise that real Mr Darcys do not come and save us from a life of loneliness after swimming through a lake.

Just as I was about to turn away, my breath caught in my throat as my wandering gaze fell on a small piece of paper showing a quote by the lady herself, tucked next to Sense and Sensibility.

"Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations?" Jane Austen

Was this my sign? Was this the sign that I had asked for? Was Ms. Austen sending me a message from the grave that the anecdote to my current f**ked up situation was to seize the day? Or was I going completely nuts? I knew it was likely to be the latter, but who isn’t just a tad off-kilter? So hell, I went with it!

I grabbed my handbag, which I’d dropped to the floor during my impromptu séance, and tottered off down the street. A short way down, I turned a corner and walked straight into a homeless man sheltering in the alcove in between a row of bars.

He steadied my wobbling frame and smiled at me with a toothless grin. “Alreet, pet? Ya look bloody miserable, like. Life’s never that bad.”

I stared at the man for what seemed like an eternity and proceeded to… laugh my flippin’ arse off!

Here was a man with no home, no job and no real prospects attempting to cheer me up. Oh, the irony!

"You’re right!" I shrieked, causing several magpies to scatter around me.

I stood there in the rain, overlooking the Tyne Bridge and the twinkling blue lights of Greggs The Bakers down the road.

I took a calming breath, inhaled the delicate Newcastle aroma of cheese and onion pasties and Lambert & Butler cigarettes, and thought of the many legends that this town had created – Sting, Jimmy Nail, Ant and Dec – and said to out loud,

"Man up, Natasha; you are a true Geordie: strong, focused and as hard as nails! If wor lass Cheryl Cole can get through this kind of shit, so can you!"

“Atta girl!" my new hobo life coach shouted. "Don’t suppose you could spot me a fiver for a pack of ciggies?” he shrugged.

Laughing, I pulled out my purse. “Here's a twenty, splash out on me!”

I set off walking again, knowing there was only one place to go from here –to my best friend John. He would sort me ‘reet out!

"Natasha!" shrieked John, as he opened the pink-and-purple door with superb dramatic flair, wearing his trademark white drainpipe jeans, yellow muscle T-top and thick guy-liner rimming his big blue eyes.

Before I continue, let me briefly fill you in on John Weallans. Erm... John. How to describe John...?

I know!

Think pink, glitter, unicorns and fabulous! That’s him in a nutshell, and he is my soul’s significant other, minus the sex and any form of physical attraction. He's the Ying to my Yang, the Ben to my Jerry and the Ziggy Stardust to my David Bowie.

John and I became best friends in High School after we met in a 'Beat-the-Bullies' group in Grade Seven. I know what you’re thinking: surely these two amazing kids were in the popular crowd? But alas, John was as bent as a butcher’s meat hook, and I was as fat as a pig. Not the most sought-after attributes when picking your mates in the harsh corridors of Newcastle Tyne High in 1995.