Bloke's Column: Lonely Joe Parker

About a year ago, I unchained my bike, emptied all the cupboards, left my day job and left for a tour. I haven't really stopped since.

In one of the Big Towns in one of the little counties perched on the strip where the sea nibbles at the promenade, I am in a bar with a girl and we are getting Drunk. A few hours earlier we played a show and after there were drinks and smiles and music. Electrifying music, and we all danced. But now, the guys all took the last train west along the coast home to their sweethearts and microwave dinners, and the girl stayed, and there's an innocent light in her eyes; and here we are.

You know, the more I drink, the better I get? You'll believe it.

Anyway, we're a strange pair, that girl and me. For a start she can't be a day under thirty-five, but she smiles like a child. I'm talking at her like I'm trying to drill an oil well right out of the rock, line after line of open questions till I feel like a goddamned spider in a stock market. But, although she's cold like a fish in a morgue, and I ought to give up and trawl the streets in the rain for a hotel room on the ring-road, each time I take off, each time, teams of guys gang up on her just to get swatted down again but that childlike smile crumples.

Strange girl. 'My strange girl?' I think (chatting with a barmaid - warm like a summer night); this is a new one. This is a fresh combination. And I look a little closer. This time, as well as sparkle on her skin, sure enough, there's a cavern somewhere behind each eye, and I know it's lonely in there. I think, hell, time spent, and I draw her in. Holding each other. We both want to be held. We aren't so cheap, are we? I'm gonna leave, you know. I'll never leave. Light's coming up. Soon, baby - see you next week, sure.

It goes without saying, I love this girl. and I always will, cos I'll never see her again.