Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of the untimely passing of my friend Dave. He was murdered in Cambodia. He was stabbed to death in a robbery of the bar that he owned and ran. The News story about it is
here.I received an email from my ex boyfriend, Simon (with whom I was still in touch and who is a dear man) which was titled 'Shit News' and then had a link to the stories in the body of the mail. I was at work and was totally taken a back "fuckin hell - not again".
Simon and Dave were really good friends. We all worked at the same restaurant together for a year or so, while we decided what to do next, and at that time Si and I were living together in Moseley Birmingham.
Dave was a real card. A genuinely funny guy and my lasting memories of him include:
Me going to pick Si and Dave up from the pub in the car, stone cold sober to find them both hammered, alone in the beer garden, throwing glasses at the wall. When they decided to move onto the garden furniture, I said 'I'll wait in the car'. They expressed a wish to indulge in the ever-so-British behaviour of getting a very hot curry after beers. By this point they were vile, so I dropped them off and let them walk home.
Them DJ ing at a very cool bar in town (Si was a SAHDJ stay-at-home-DJ and had decks and piles and piles of records in our spare room and would spend hours in there DJing to himself. He was good, but his painful shyness and self depreciation prevented him from really doing anything about it.) I was the only person who turned up.
Them DJing in Dave's local pub 60s and 70s music (not like a wedding disco!) and it being packed on a Sunday night. It was a good to honest old school British boozer. Friends, locals, family all dancing madly and drinking like the pubs closed at 10.30. The pubs did close at 10.30.
I introduced Dave to my brother by email as they were both in Thailand at the same time. They met up in Bangkok and for some reason the nickname 'Curtains' was created. But for which one of them I don't remember.
The last time I saw Dave was at my friend, Shaggy's goodbye party. Shaggy was moving to Thailand to teach English two months before me. I received a phone call that went something like this:
"Hello"
"Is there a pteredactyl there?"
"Shaggy!"
"Sigsy, you flame haired temptress, I'm moving to Thailand."
"I'm moving to Japan!"
Shaggy was found dead on his bathroom floor by his girlfriend in a small town in Thailand 4 years ago, just a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday.
This time I was in an Internet cafe in Takadanobaba and wept uncontrollably in the booth as I read my friends email detailing what had happened in as much detail as there could be. His death still has something of a question mark over it as the Thai autopsy system is not as rigorous as the UK and he was buried in Thailand pretty quickly.
Flash riding Shaggy's shoulders at the May Ball 1993.Shaggy and I were university friends and very very good friends at that. He was an energy to be reckoned with and one of life's really truly superb people. He could take you from feeling like nothing to a million dollars in one conversation. He just had that. He was sociable almost to the point of making it an art form. I loved him dearly. I had always planned to go stay with him in Thailand, but not got round to it by that point. He loved a drink and to party and clubbing and dancing and I will always remember the him lurching around dancefloors. He loved the Levellers. He was loyal and fierce and took things very personally especially if they were directed at a friend. He adored ladies and was an endless flirt as well as a hapless romantic with his girlfriends. We never went down that route. We stole a few drunken comedy snogs in the dark corners of various clubs, oft in the 'loved up' arms of the 1990s club scene. Ours was a strictly platonic friendship.
I was gutted when he passed. He just died, just like that. Which is why I get so upset when I get too drunk, because people do die. Just like that. A bit too much to drink, a slip in the bathroom floor, hit your head. It happens.
Shaggy went to the same school as my cousin, who was the first ever head girl of that school. A few years his senior, he remembered her as her photo hung on the wall there. That was in Northamptonshire.
Which coincidentally was where my dear dear dear darling friend Geoff lived. Geoff was killed in the 2001 attack on the Twin Towers. He worked for Reuters and was attending the Cantor Fitzgerald meeting that was wiped out by the attack.
This was the most devastating experience of my life. I have never grieved like that. I gently grieve for my Grandma still now, but this was a much more raw grief. The day I found out was the day after my 30th birthday celebrations in Tokyo. I had been out all night at various locations. Shibuya, Karaoke in Shinjuku, then onto the Liquid Rooms, or was it Code? Then at 6am a few of us headed to an izakaya and ordered more beer. Hardcore. Hardcore stupidity. Soon after this I realised I had only one liver. Me and my mate Nick got on the Romance Car, fell asleep and woke up at the end of the train line in Odawara. Great. We were clattered. Got home slept all day, woke up in the evening, lit up a smoke and got set for my nightly trawl of the Internet, starting with the Guardian Newspaper. It was here that I read Geoff's name as one of the missing from the WTC. My reaction was instant and strong. My entire body reacted. I clearly remember that I shouted FUCK at the top of my voice over and over while at the same time pushing myself back on the office chair. I read and reread the article then smoked and trawled the Internet for evidence of him, while howling. I read our last email dated August 18th and thought about the mail that I had sent him following the attack saying I hoped he and his fiance were OK and that life in Manhattan wasn't unbearable for them. I called my friend, who was also a good friend of his and discussed the likelehood of his survival. Zero we concluded. We were right. Some small remains were found later, perhaps in 2002.
A most unbearable and emotionally confusing thing that happened was that midweek following the attack, I received a mail in my inbox from his mail address. I cannot describe how that messed with the head. I opened it to find that it was from his girlfriend, going through his affairs, trying to connect with anything she possible could that would connect her with him. It is heartbreaking to even consider her position at that time. She had put pictures of him around Manhattan. She said goodbye to him in the morning. It makes my heart ache to even think about it. Geoff was part Malay and for a long time after that I would see people who from behind, from the side, in their walk, stance or posture would remind me of him. I would fantasize that he had been there that day, late for his meeting, seen the horror and run away to Tokyo, where I would find him and take care of him and return him to his family. I had a dream to this effect just recently. It was vivid. Really vivid. And it was nice to see him!
I loved Geoff like a big brother. We met as we were badminton partners in the university team and played in the inter-university tournament together. We bonded over a love of smoking, drinking and arguing. We oft joked that we were sponsored by Benson and Hedges rather than Adidas!
Me and Geoff at Nikki's 21st 1993. After driving up and listening to a rock from the 70s tape all the way. 'Airport', 'Make me Smile'. Still makes me a little teary that one.
Later we shared a house and had a fabulous year together with another girl. We never had an argument during that year. We smoked and drank relentlessly, played badminton together and he had a string of flings, while I was seeing a body piercer. He eventually go back together with his teenage sweetheart girlfriend, moved to London and got engaged. He called me and asked me to be his bridesmaid. The wedding never materialised and that was my one opportunity to be a bridesmaid down the drain. Bastard. He was always the perfect gentleman and whenever I stayed with him, he would go on the floor, or top and tail in the bed. I rememember staying with him one night and as he was a terrible insomniac he would play chess into the morning with his mates. He came in to get his chess set one summer night to find i had pulled all my clothes off in the summer heat and was lying on the top of his bed. He actually closed his eyes and found his chess set then later slept on the floor beside me.
There are too many stories I have about this man. He was spesh. Every night for a month after his passing, I would arrive home from a day at the Kindergarten and just cry as soon as my key turned in my door. Big hard crying.
Each of the chaps I mentioned above were incredible and special people and I used to get really cross that they were taken, leaving so many other C***ts in the world. I don't feel like that now, but I can say that the experience of losing three dear friends has had a gentle and profound effect on me. Profound. It has changed me and my outlook in very quiet but deep ways. To try and really express it in words is near impossible.
The only may and can put it is really that 'what if' ceases to be 'what if'.
Labels: David Mitchell, death, geoff campbell, Magical, Paul Wallis, Shaggy
