A certain smell of clean laundry seems to hold within in a taste of the autumn of 1987. I'm not sure why this is, or why the smell of clean laundry -this past month or so only- brings back such a strong resonance of that time.
There is very little of importance connected with that time - I was fifteen years old, in the final year of my GCSEs, living in Ickenham in West London, and that's about it really. If I concentrate on that clean laundry smell (I did some laundry washing this afternoon) further and deeper details come to mind.
I remember the October half term holiday because my cousins John and Ann were staying, which necessitated what seemed to be lots of trips to London. I remember going with John into 'Shades the Heavy Metal Specialists' down a backstreet of Soho, and in that darkened interior buying an album called 'At the Gates of Damnation' by a forgotten thrash band called Deathwish. The album was one of the first to be released on some totally forgotten label. As a promotional device, the album came with a free tape with other forgotten bands on some of whom were also signed to that forgotten label; Virus, Necronomicon, Deliverance... One band on the tape had a song called 'The Boneless Ones'. I remember the singer having a strong Welsh accent, I don't know why.
I was also quite into role playing games at the time, most notably 'Call of Cthulhu'. Crouched in the school library, hidden behind little used shelves rolling dice with Craige and Flea and David, whom always insisted on calling it 'Call of Kafoo'. I didn't spend that much time actually playing these role playing games, as reading about them was much more fun. 'White Dwarf' magazine every month, painting Citadel Miniatures in my room.
I remember over that half term I sent off for both packs of Top Trumps Horror Cards. I had them both when I was a kid, and I remember trying desperately to remember the names of all the cards, that strange moment of triumph when I recalled one, plucked out of memory; 'High-Priestess of Zoltan'.
The cards came on the day that John and Ann left. I think it was a Saturday. I didn't hear them go as they left early in the morning - John was staying in my room on the spare bed. I remember the strangeness of waking up to that spare bed, the disturbed bed clothes thrown back, and stranger that I had slept through their going into their own future, their own lives.
When I think about it it was the last time I saw either of them.
I don't know why the clean laundry smell reminds me of that time, nor why it has only done so for the past few weeks.
Anyway, I have work tomorrow.
A cup of tea then bed.
