Two years is a long time to be sitting in a metaphorical pub considering what you have done but that is the time it has taken me to return to my writings, partly because I put them down and forget where I had left them.
Life is far too busy and there is too much fun to be had without worrying about details so we will pick up with Edward and Simon in Gillrays. My oldest friend, we started school together, is bemoaning the loss of his latest girlfriend (to be honest I can’t tell the difference as they all look exactly the same (imagine a lollipop stick with a short brown bob on top) while I contemplate my own path.
I have always been an odd mix of characters, well I would be wouldn’t I? An aesthete, a romantic, a sportsman and a admirer of females who is hedonistically hell bent on self-destruction without knowing it, or worrying about it, himself. Alcohol, women, speed (moving at a fast rate not the other – drugs bore me) and a fairly dismissive attitude to authority where it is clearly shown to be constructed by hypocrites. If you want to make rules in Edward’s life you had better be pretty clean yourself first because if you are not I will find you out.
In my youth Henry was normal (and tediously boring), an academically inclined boy without a malevolent bone in his body, unless on the rugby field, who should have grown up to be a good solid citizen in surburbia with a fat wife and two boring children. Henry was destined for the Professions and had I not had a hand in things would probably have ended up an accountant instead of a Doctor but Edward liked the idea of messing with bodies.
The Hydes are not ones for fat wives and tedious offspring, their gene exists unsuspected in other families for generations and then something happens to trigger the reaction that brings the Hyde out like a cuckoo in a pigeon’s nest. Thus Edward was born at the age of 15 after an “accident” that virtually killed his host body and changed Henry forever.
There have been other better documented Hydes. I suspect that the now notorious General Sir Harry Flashman was a Hyde, Edward VIII might have been suspected as one but for his appalling taste in women but I am not interested in the family history – just me (as always!).
Being born at 15 is not so hard and it happened at an appropriate moment when puberty was in flow, rugby was a passion and I was about to make a complete mess of the exams that everyone told me were my key to the future. Well, you can’t have that kind of an accident at that age and still expect to be perfect can you? The creativeness that had taken a back seat started to flow and out came the rebellious and hedonistic Edward, intent on his own personal enjoyment.
It was odd for a while, as Jekyll found all those years ago, to have a split personality where one half did not understand the other (or even possibly like them) but Edward eventually took over. Edward arrived with his disregard for the consequences of his actions and his detachment from his family, did he love them? Probably not, they were just other humans for whom he had an attachment of sorts but whatever that was it wasn’t love. By 18 Edward was in and settled, his “Henry” was all but gone and the languid, well dressed, champagne loving Edward was growing into his style and looking at life for the next source of fun or excitement…..
So it was going to be money, I had to do something for a living as my people would not permit me to do nothing, and that seemed to be where the interest lay but not ordinary retail money (although I did try that) but important money. Naturally I went to work in a bank……
The first two or three years were one long yawn during the day and evenings filled with live music and motorcycles. The highlight of my working life was being held at gunpoint while being in possession of eight million pounds in bearer bonds and even that was resolved with a single ‘phone call, tedious is not the word!
I had two separate and disparate sets of friends who came together for parties but otherwise existed without knowing or even caring how each other viewed the world. On a Thursday and Friday it was a private night club drinking champagne with girls in tiny dresses until 4 am. The rest of the week involved going too fast on a bike from one live rock pub to another all over the South East, with beer swilling everywhere and morning deafness from enjoying the music too much.
Then there was the sport. Riding horses on cross-country jumps, rugby on a Saturday or Sunday, shooting, motor racing and so much more. If there was a way I could try to kill myself that involved contact with the ground then I tried it. One of my friends at this time died from coming in contact with the ground but she was a skydiver & her ‘chute failed so it was to be expected. Terrible waste of an attractive woman but she went doing what she liked so that was fine but I did wonder what her last word was…
“Ah but Edward, what about the women/” you ask, “where was your intimate life at this time?” You would think that a reborn rake would be running around like buck rabbit in Spring but in fact I was more like a sniper in a tower and very fussy about who I shot. The girls will appear in the story but don’t hold your breath, this is about me not those who came and went, if you will forgive the phrase, in my life.
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