In an instant his eyes flicked from left to right

And back again

As he remembered the last time he'd seen Nicole.

 

It was in 1969.

 

They'd met two years earlier

At a friend's party,

A chance gathering of two paths

Each leading to a different star.

 

He of the patchwork jeans,

The faraway eyes, and no ambition

 

And she with the short blonde hair,

The movie star looks, but no movie.

 

Nicole's life was one of

Suave men, fast cars,

And cocktails at the golf club, 

Everything that was repugnant to him.

 

His style was more low-key.

He possessed little, envied no-one,

Yet he harboured

A latent need to call the shots.

 

There was no chance

Of a relationship

Ever developing.

Even a dalliance

In the back of his Transit

Was unlikely.

 

But over the next two years

He watched her,

From a distance,

Often.

 

By May 1969

The lovely Nicole

Lay broken in her grave.

Her body destroyed by the flames

Of a house fire,

The violation unnoticed.

 

Only he knew the real story.

 

His Nicole, his nothing.

The first of his four guilty secrets.