{"id":527,"date":"2020-07-22T13:56:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T13:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=527"},"modified":"2020-07-22T13:56:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T13:56:31","slug":"crushing-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/crushing-memories\/527\/","title":{"rendered":"Crushing Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A local radio station, a golden oldie slot, and they were playing his song in the empty pub. He sipped his lunchtime lager, waiting for the kick that would numb his sense of who he was. He wiped the froth of beer from his mouth and wished he could wipe away the froth of memory the tune stirred up. His reflection in the glass behind the bar showed a puffy, beery face, thinning brown hair, and eyes as lifeless as those of a corpse. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            The barmaid appeared from the backroom, saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Hey! I remember that song. Two years after I left school.\u2019 He looked at her without interest. \u2018What was his name, the singer?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Shane Eager.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018That\u2019s it! Funny names they had then. Marty Wilde, Billy Fury.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You mean they don\u2019t now? Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Not a bad tune. Like his voice. Production\u2019s dated, mind.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Better backing track and it might have made the top ten.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Thought it did.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Number twenty-eight.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018How do you know that?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I wrote it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Are you\u2026 Shane Eager?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Was for a year. A one-hit wonder, at the end of 1962.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018What happened?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018The Mersey invasion in 1963.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018The Beatles killed your career?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018That\u2019s my epitaph, pretty much.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            She looked at him like she would an item in a junkshop that might have value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Where\u2019d you get the idea for it: Schoolgirl Crush<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018A sixteen-year old beauty in my class. All the boys fancied her. We sort of formed a line of devotees to the goddess of the fifth-form, pushy ones first. I was at the back.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018What was her name\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Sharon Salterton.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018That\u2019s me!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018You? You\u2019ve\u2026 changed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Two teenage kids and a divorce, that\u2019s my excuse. I expect you\u2019ve changed too. What\u2019s your real name?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Tommy Harris.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Don\u2019t remember you.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Guess you couldn\u2019t see your admirers at the rear of that long queue.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Wait a minute. Did I<\/em>\u2026 inspire that song?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Actually\u2026 you did.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Fancy that! I met my husband-to-be at school. He was the pushiest of my fanciers. He had a lot of talk on him, see.  Precious little else though. Maybe I should have looked at the back of the queue instead?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Was she flirting with him? She started singing the chorus of his song: \u2018Schoolgirl crush, schoolgirl crush, that girl\u2019s much too much.\u2019 She had a voice as clear as gin, as sweet as wine, and as strong as a whisky chaser. He listened, entranced, to the repeated chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As she sang, Harris was back in the past, miming on Thank Your Lucky Stars<\/em> to his minor hit. Young girls were screaming, and he was fluttering his eyelashes at them, making slow, teasing gyrations with his hips. Each one was Sharon Salterton, and he\u2019d got them eating out of his hand. Front of the queue, finally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The barmaid wandered out to the backroom, still singing. Her voice had become scratchy, irritating, banal. He sunk his beer and slipped out of the pub. She was dancing, alive, a goddess again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A local radio station, a golden oldie slot, and they were playing his song in the empty pub. He sipped his lunchtime lager, waiting for the kick that would numb his sense of who he was. He wiped the froth of beer from his mouth and wished he could wipe away the froth of memory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A new story from Swansea Writers \"Crushing Memories\"\n#flashfiction #fiction #writerscommunity","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,258],"tags":[278,279],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-july-2020-first-love","tag-crushing","tag-memories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-8v","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}