Mockers by Mandy Huggins

It wasn't the wet towels on the bedroom floor that finished us off. It wasn’t your Christmas tradition of silence during the Queen’s speech. It wasn't the bad sex, or the fact that you poured a mean measure of whisky. It wasn't even the handy fist work when you were drunk. Nah. The deal breaker was the fact that you were a mod and I was a rocker.  And to a rocker, mod is a four letter word.

We might seem similar now, in middle age, on the surface, to the untrained eye. But we know better. Mod or rocker, it runs through us like letters through Ramsgate rock, and it can’t be washed out.

I was scruff and you were scrubbed, I was powerful and pared down, whilst you dazzled with mirrored adornment. I was roll ups and bitter, you were purple hearts. I was rock and roll and heavy metal, you were Jam, Who, Ska. I was the smell of damp leather and oil mingled with fry ups and sweet builders' tea. You were the clean scent of Persil, and a high-rise sundae in a candy coloured seaside café.

Woven and melded, we became - to quote Ringo - a pair of mockers. And so we lived a life of mockery. The finished product was less than the sum of its disparate parts. And that was no good to anyone.

But the Queen’s speech thing didn’t help either, if I’m honest. Especially that final year when you stood to attention.