Where Did She Go To My Lovely?
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there…” begins L. P. Hartley in ‘The Go-Between’. Now there’s a line that’s always stuck with me. You see whilst I might recount the past from time to time – as of course you know – I don’t like to dwell on it. Why? Well because of that very line I guess. I mean even yesterday’s actions may have no real bearing on today’s, if I can help it…
And so, despite my ‘sometimes’ moments about Jane as I call them (usually when I’m foolishly comparing every person since her) I still refuse to regret. After all, fact is I may have felt a lot of things at the time but I know now I didn’t really love her; honest guv I didn’t. Instead I was merely in conflict with my then idealism, that’s all.
Still I’ve got to now confess my heart was pretty much not just in my mouth but practically spewing forth onto the pavement the other day when I thought I saw her. It was just a glimpse on the street; you know one of those was it/wasn’t it moments that’s gone in a literal blink of an eye. And I mean I’m sure it wasn’t her. She went to do the ‘meedjah’ thing overseas and stayed there from what I know (still everyone’s allowed a holiday right). So no it wasn’t her, couldn’t have been.
But here’s the thing though. Once I’d recovered from the uncharacteristic equivalent of being hit for six by an oncoming bus, as I then continued on my way maybe still a little numb, suddenly a song I’d long forgotten about just started up in my head again. Look, I’ve never once revealed this before but even back when Jane and I were ‘seeing’ (shagging) each other, this was always my song for her. And so, even as this numbness was slowly being replaced by an unsettling tingling instead, the sound of an almost fairgroundish accordion intro was now going round and round inside, followed inevitably by those quite haunting opening lines; “You talk like Marlene Dietrich…”
Know the song? Of course you do I’m sure. It’s Peter Sarstedt’s classic cracker “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?” Anyway just for the record Jane talked nothing like Marlene Dietrich. Nor did she dance like Zizi Jeanmaire as far as I know, wasn’t into the Rolling Stones and hadn’t met Sacha Distel, Picasso or even the Aga Khan (ha-ha-ha) either to be honest.
In fact as I recall she always preferred a shiraz to Napoleon Brandy, only spoke English, never studied at the Sorbonne, rarely spent her hols in St. Moritz or Juan-les-Pines (if at all) and didn’t even own a “carefully designed topless swimsuit” that did wonders for her tan. The fact she was already in her thirties when we met means “You’re in between twenty and thirty, a very desirable age” hardly applies too.
So what the hell am I talking about then? Well I mean there are at least a few similarities too in that oh yes her body was “firm and inviting”, and yes there were many who did used to “hang on every word” (although that was more out of fear than lust/infatuation) because she was undoubtedly a mainstay on the media agency “glittering stage”. She even had a “fancy apartment”, although it was off the Kings Road and not the “boulevard of St. Michel”.
But that’s not really it either. Instead it’s really to do with the stylish, sophisticated, sexy and completely unobtainable woman this song evokes – a slightly different kind of fantasy for the enamoured younger man if you like to your more common or garden Mrs. Robinson one – because that was Jane in a nutshell.
However, if you know the song really well, you’ll have also picked up on the undercurrent of almost bitter irony running all the way through it too; in that ‘Marie-Claire’ has not been brought much happiness or contentment by all that she now has or would have even if she were to indeed marry that ‘millionaire’. Well Jane already had paired up with hers by the time our tryst was underway and she wasn’t happy with him, or much else either too. I always knew that, much like how the singer can look into Marie-Claire’s face and tellingly say, “remember just who you are”. Mind you since neither of us were once “two children begging in rags” either (although Jane’s own unhappy past familywise had nonetheless fired her “burning ambition” to get to the top) I was never out to prove the point that I could see ‘inside’ her head. I mean I couldn’t anyway; otherwise I may not have let her go.
And ultimately that’s the clincher. You see I did let her “go and forget me forever” that night by Covent Garden Station after one last kiss which told her everything I hadn’t been able to say. Of course when I was seeing her that particular verse didn’t mean what it’s come to mean now. It was only later I added that final association.
Anyway, as I said, until I thought I saw her again the other day, “Where do you go to my lovely” was not a question I’d asked myself in quite a while. And yet for just those few minutes as the mind’s ipod played to me that song once more, I did indeed wonder where she’d gone; that stylish, sophisticated, sexy and completely unobtainable woman that was, is and will doubtless always be Jane Compton.
But then, as the accordion gradually faded out, I smiled and simply walked on…
By Bastian Dash
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