Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

Although as you’re reading this you’re probably just wishing I would sod off. You probably think I’m a pest — a moron. In fact I probably won’t post this thing anyway — it’s just a pile of self-obsessed waffle, the sad and deluded ramblings of a maladjusted, twenty-something half-wit.

Nope. I definitely won’t post this thing. My nerve will go at the last minute — like it did all those other times in that stupid queue…

Glenn was 100 per cent spot-on: I am just a big, myopic dweeb. A turd-brain. A dunderhead.

Oh yes — and while I’m on the subject — I’m really, really sorry about the arm-wrestling thing. I felt terrible about it afterwards. I honestly didn’t think I had a cat’s chance in hell of beating him. His arms are massive (huge! Ridiculous! Like a giant pair of steel hawsers!), and I’m such a puny little bastard by comparison.

But he seemed so determined to go ahead with it — got so, well, aggressive about it. I seriously expected him to thrash me, hands down. But then, when he didn’t, when his wrist started to buckle, I half thought about reducing the pressure on my side, just subtly (to try and give him a break, help him get his breath back. I dunno). But there was this strange look in his eye, Nina — a furious look — kind of like: I might be in this chair, I might’ve lost my legs, I might’ve lost my job, but I still have my self-respect, my dignity (you patronizing little dip-shit). So I didn’t. I mean I tried not to. I just… well. You were there. You saw what happened.

I’m getting way off the subject — the actual point of this letter, the reason for writing to you — which is that I basically just wanted to say — to tell you — to try and… Oh balls . How to put this without…?

It’s just… I just wish… Okay. Okay . Here it is: I just wish you hadn’t said that thing you said to me on the walk back to your car after the tour of Fylingdales the other week. That’s all (nothing earth-shattering). It’s been playing on my mind ever since (what you said). I’m not sure why, but it’s really knocked me for six.

And I didn’t know how the hell I was meant to react at the time. I must’ve looked like such a gormless fool! Or perhaps I just looked blank. Completely blank. Unresponsive. I was blank. I was in shock! And Glenn was just behind us (talking to the sergeant). I was worried he might overhear what you were saying. Not that there was anything wrong in it — not remotely. I mean I knew you were just joking when you said it — you weren’t taking it too seriously or anything — you were just referring to something in the past, making light of something you felt a long time ago — aeons ago — when we were both still at school.

I’m not saying it was wrong of you to hit me with something like that (sorry, I seem to be repeating myself), please don’t think that — not even for a minute — because it really was one of the most wonderful things anyone has ever said to me (ever). I shall go to my grave happy knowing that you said it. Knowing that you felt it.

(Wow. That looks so dodgy written down — beyond dodgy. It looks hideous… )

I suppose what I’m struggling to say, Nina (in my own clumsy, feeble-minded way), is that I simply didn’t know what I was expected to do about it at the time. I didn’t know how I was meant to respond. I was just dumbstruck. I felt so inadequate — completely out of my comfort zone. I nearly burst into tears (I can’t believe I just wrote that. Oh, God. Just take me out and shoot me).

Because I swear I always thought my feelings for you were completely one-sided. I do have feelings for you — of course I do! — I mean I did, at school. But then you were the girl everybody had a crush on. I don’t think there was a single boy at St Bart’s who wasn’t head over heels in love with you. You’re so beautiful — so ridiculously beautiful. And kind. And sweet. And funny. And modest. And you always smell so lovely, like… like… (keep on typing, Nick)… like, I dunno, like a newly strung bale of fresh hay. (Fresh hay?!)

I mean why the hell wouldn’t everybody be just crazy about you?

(A bale of fresh hay?!)

I actually only started dating Linda Prichard (please don’t tell Linda this, whatever you do) in Year Five because she was your second best friend (cruel, I know, but I was a fifteen-year-old boy, and a total dildo). I thought if I dated Linda then you might actually notice me. I just wanted to be around you. I just wanted to get to know you.

(Well, I suppose it’s got to be better than soiled hay…)

What a dick I was! I don’t even know how you tolerated me (let alone harboured fond feelings for me, on the sly). I was so smug! So bumptious! So ludicrously opinionated! And I was criminally bad at sports. With that acne! That ridiculous haircut! The hat! The Jamiroquai obsession! Those awful, low-slung, shit-brown hessian-style trousers and the turquoise, llama-wool jumper with all the heavy stitching and the hood! God. No wonder you were always ripping the piss out of the way I looked! What was that nickname you coined for me? ‘The Funky Swot’?!

You were so much more clued into things than I was — even then — so much more grown up, so much more hardcore. You were mad about the Prodigy way before anyone else had the first clue who they were.

Remember how I won those four tickets in a quiz on a local radio show to go and see them, live, in Leeds? And you were desperate to come along, but then your mum said no at the last minute — just as you were heading through the door — because there was no one left at home to babysit your sister?

I didn’t win them, Nina — I bought them. I just pretended I won them to try and come up with a legitimate-seeming excuse to meet up with you after school. Then, when you couldn’t go, I had to take Linda and Peter Hannon (your ex) and his idiot friend Spanky. Spanky got out of his head on cough syrup and spent most of the night spewing up (ruined my best trainers, the idiot!). Worse still, I then had to sit through a bloody Prodigy gig! Surrounded by Prodigy fans! It was a nightmare! Like having my ears drilled!

I wouldn’t even mind, but the next day (and I was still leaking blood from all my main orifices, coincidentally) you secretly confided that the Prodigy thing was only really a pose (to impress some older boy you fancied on the school bus). You were actually obsessed by Peter Andre! So I threw away my glo-sticks and started working on my six-pack (okay, I didn’t get very far with that…).

I was absolutely besotted by you, Nina. I thought it was completely obvious! I mean I tried to mask it with sarcasm, sometimes, but I thought you’d have to be stupid not to realize (not that you were stupid — you’re very intelligent. Extremely intelligent).

The only inkling I ever had that you might find me even vaguely interesting (romantically) was at Jason Flight’s seventeenth birthday party when some pissed-up jerk chucked cider over your top — the black, silky one with the silver squiggles on it — and I lent you my jumper to wear (I treasured that jumper for years afterwards. I never washed it. I actually still have it. I even took it over to America with me).

We went and sat in the garden and had that really odd (but funny) conversation about how much you hated Chris Evans.

Then you said you were ‘starving’ and I bet you a fiver you couldn’t eat a whole banana in one mouthful. And you very nearly did it! But the minute you’d crammed the whole thing in and started to chew, you got wildly over-excited (sensing victory, I presume), set off your gag reflex and regurgitated half-chewed banana all over the kitchen tiles (much to the obvious delight of Jason’s Jack Russell, Olly, who devoured the whole lot in thirty seconds flat!).