"I wonder where you are now..."

Friends, Romans & Charlton fans,
I am in pain. I have a recurring back pain thing that attacks without warning every couple of years or so. It stems from an accident I had on a building site when I was 18. It hurts & it makes me walk like an old man. It also occasionally spreads to the tops of my legs & my groin. At the moment it feels like I've been kicked square in the nuts!

Nothing is happening in my life at the moment but as is my perogative I'm gonna speak of things past today. More accurately; people past.
It's incredible when you add up all the people who at one time or another were important in your life but now you have no idea about them.
My I-pod today played me (amongst others) "Hold back the rain" by Duran duran.
Which contains this lyric:

Ok go off & wander, I'm guilty just the same
but sometimes you're needed badly, so please come back again

When I left Wakefield back in 1988 those words were written in a card for me by a fantastic girl called Mandi.
I met Mandi at the same time as Helen, they were friends & the 3 of us were all on the same YTS (£27.30 for 40 hours slog, well thankyou very much for that Thatcher!) in retail work.
She was quite a character, she'd tell outrageous stories of how she'd been a roadie for Duran duran 3 years earlier (She'd have been 13!), how she been very close with John Taylor & how she suspected that "Last chance on the stairway" may've been written about her.
This aside, she was alot of fun & a champion flirt. At the time I thought that she had the best arse I'd ever seen & she loved that.
That whole 2 year period from leaving school to leaving Wakefield was, looking back, one the best times of my life. There were 6 of us who used to hang out: The Duke Of Jokes, Gentle Giant, Ridgeley*, Helen, Mandi & myself. I was with Helen throughout that time. Mandi was initially free, then she & The Duke Of Jokes threatened to get it on and then she went out with Ridgeley. Twice if memory serves me right.
I wanted her the whole time, she was sexy & fun & didn't possess the temper of Helen.
We'd sometimes hang together, just me & her. On the top floor of a multi story car park in the city centre with a tape player on summer evenings. They were always good times, we never had any silences & there were alot of "What if..." conversations. I can't be 100% sure now but I'm sure we kissed once & I know we both told each other we loved each other. That happened in the Mecca of romance, like Paris only more so, that is Pontefract bus station.
I last saw her when we were about 21. We had a night out in Wakefield with Gentle Giant, then we got the train to Leeds to go to her flat. I remember my Dad getting on the same train & me telling him I was going "to a party". I think the arched eyebrow told him more than that & I bet he got off that train in our village proud of his lad.
When we got to Leeds we talked for ages, shared some wine & then went to bed... separately.
Looking back I regret not trying it on, what did I have to lose?
I never saw her again after that morning. I wonder how she is, what she's doing with her life & if she ever looks back on that time as fondly as I do.

*Betcha laughed there, Duke