I live in the country, so when I was younger I had to go on a long bus ride every day to get to school. The bus was a double decked war zone: fist fights, flying food, heads cracked against windows...it was wild. When I was at Upper school, quite well through my school career, a new first year girl started coming on the bus. She was a shy little gem; waiting for the bus everyday, in the rain with all the other kids, a mile down the road from my house. She had dark, dark brown hair, a great dignified nose and the most amazing, floor gazing, dark Spanish eyes. She is going to be great when she's olderI thought. I so couldn't wait for her to be older that it almost hurt. When I finished school though, I forgot all about her, this girl that lives down the road from me...Natalie.

Okay, so enough daydreaming. I've got to work like a donkey. I've got to earn enough money this summer to make it through next year at university. I'm lonely and I haven't seen any of the sun we've had so far this season. Tonight, like most other days and nights, I'm working in the bar in the village a mile from my isolated house. I put on my creased shirt, roll on down to work. Dim orange light from the ceiling. Shifting clouds of cigar smoke. Have a glug of iced water, a sneaky cigarette round the back before someone bangs their empty glass on the bar. Then I'm smiling, always smiling, pulling pints for slumped locals and chirpy fat bellied northern holiday makers in Newcastle United tops. It's about seven thirty, a good time for something to happen.

Suddenly, there she is. ohh. Out in the restaurant, coming this way. Little purple painted toes peeking through the front of tan leather, heeled sandals; long tanned legs; a short black skirt hugs heaven sent curves. White blouse, top three buttons undone; arms swinging with a mission, long hands draped floorwards, one carrying a tray. Nails in dark purple too. Her hair is darkish brown, lighter than before, tied up high, my favourite way. Her long neck tickled by escaping fronds of hair. Full, dark lips shine in the dim light of the pub. Then there's the most beautiful nose that I have recently seen, and those eyes, those eyes. Wide, Cleopatra eyes, tailing out into eyelashes dapping delicate cheeks. Looking at the floor even though she's heading my way. Oh my god, she works here. There are only four or five women that I have ever seen in my life as beautiful as her, and she works here. Something feels good inside.

Here she is, lifting her waitress tray up, and twisting sideways to fit through the gap in the bar. A shy smile and a quick glance up at me, she's acknowledged me.

Now I'm working in the kitchen. My boss makes me work down here sometimes. I stand by the table, cutting up vegetables and fish on the metal table. Directly in front of me, she washes dishes with her back to me, leaning over slightly into the sink. I can see her back and the fabric of her bra strap through her blouse. She is a dream. If I don't get her I will die. I haven't felt like this for years - a mass of nerves, of bittersweet twists and turns, running on adrenalin. I have to tell everyone, even my mum, who seems pleased that I like a local girl (I haven't gone out with an English girl since I started at university. My mum finds this distressing.) She taught Natalie at primary school, she says, and digs out the photo album. She has photos of everything; every picture dated.

‘Look,’ she says, ‘it’s the day she left primary school.’ There she is, leaning on the bridge over the creek, the same shy beauty I knew the last time I had seen her on the bus. I turn it over. July 1993. She’s...she’s sixteen. Shit!

‘Your father is four years older than me,’ says my mum, ‘It’s not a big deal.’

‘It is when one of you is sixteen,’ I say.

‘Well, I suppose so. She's a lovely girl though. They're all lovely, that family.’

Buoyed up by my mum’s consent and the fact that several of my friends have got married while I've been away, I'm dreaming love's new dream. Natalie and I take centre stage in long talks about life, walking along the beach. We draw pictures and laugh, sharing moments of amazing closeness. Her smile, a holiday together. Her hand in mine, listening to the Beach Boys, her kiss. A house in the country with my beautiful wife; children running around her - a shy but contented mother earth. I could REALLY get into this girl. But I'm a little ahead of myself.

Crippling shyness overcomes me when I try to talk to women I like, so I go to get some advice from my friend Lisa, who also works at the pub. We're outside, round the back of the place. Natalie is upstairs smiling at customers and thanking them in her quiet, high voice.

‘Lisa...um...um. No, it doesn't matter,’ I say.

‘What? Don't do that Bob, it's annoying.’

‘Okay. I, um, need your advice on something.’ My heart is doing a ton. ‘Do you think it would be a wise idea for me to invite Natalie out with me somewhere?’

‘Why? Do you like her?’ Amy is surprised.

‘Yes.’ An understatement, but I hoped that the ‘yes’ conveyed the weight of the situation. ‘I’m really nervous Amy,’ I confess, ‘I think I'm shy.’

‘Ah, bless you,’ she says, ‘She talks about you quite a bit.’ My heart soars off into the cosmos singing Leo Sayer songs. ‘She's very shy though. And apparently she thinks she's ugly.’

Oh, I've got to talk to this girl.

Amy resolves to fabricate a double date tomorrow at a pub in the next village. It'll be me, Natalie, Amy and her boyfriend. In a fit of excitement I tell her that I want to ask Natalie out myself. I can't wait for tomorrow. I think I'm in love.

Part two - Sleep soundly with love

We're face to face, but she never meets my eye. I muster up all the reserve I have, choosing my words with the greatest of care.

‘Natalie, will you come out with us tomorrow night?’ She already knows what I'm talking about. I've already asked her once. I'm very nervous.

‘I don't know what I'm doing,’ she says.

Jesus, we're talking about tomorrow, I think to myself, not next year. How can you not know? Are you just stalling, while making up an excuse?

‘I’m going out for Chinese tomorrow,’ she says abruptly. She seems proud of it.

My spirits have sunk. I feel heavy and awkward...lost. She doesn't even look at me. She and Lisa are helping me clean out the freezer that I poured crab soup into earlier -She'd come into the room and I'd dropped the pot of stinking stuff because I was so nervous.

No-one is really taking much notice of the food orders that keep coming down from the bar. Pat the Cook has burnt her hand. She's carrying it around in an ice-cream tub full of ice, laughing nervously.

‘I think I’d better go to Derriford hospital,’ she says. That's fucking miles away, and I'm the only one that can drive her there. But at least it will get me away from those dark silences that descend when I get near Natalie. I run up into the bar, and a bloke says that a much closer town has a 24-hour minor accident service. We go there instead.

At the hospital, a little nurse asks lots of questions. I learn that Pat’s a lot younger than she looks and acts, and she's also on Prozac. The nurse goes out of the room for a form or something, and I try to comfort Pat. She's not the happiest chick I've ever met, especially not today. After that I mooch around the examination room and read a poster that tells you how to use one of those heart-starting machines with the two paddles.

I realise that there's only one mission. I see what I have to do. Come the fuck on Pat, with your burnt hand: we've got to get back to the pub before Vicky picks up the receiver with her delicate fingers and dials her mum for a lift home.

I gun the car, and Pat’s melting ice sloshes around in its container as we take a corner at speed.

‘Sorry,’ I say, but I damn well am not. I'm in love. 

Natalie and Lisa are still there. Natalie is divine. She isn't very talkative. Ten seconds later I am down again. I am a fool around her you see. I'm sick in my stomach and I don't want to go home to listen to my thoughts.

‘Lisa,’ I say, ‘do you have to go home right away? Can we go out somewhere?’

‘Yeh, okay.’ Lisa seems surprised, but she knows why I'm down.

We go down the beach. Its very dark. Where is the moon? Every other night it's been up there, shining away. Where is it now?

‘She's a really busy girl, always doing stuff. You shouldn't feel bad,’ says Lisa. 

‘Hmm.’ I resent Natalie for having such a busy social calendar.

‘You know Bob, she really has no idea how you feel about her. No idea.’

The next morning I'm still feeling tense and gutted. I'm easily discouraged you see. She chose Chinese over me. It seems so over, so far away. I go back to bed.

Now I'm at work again, slumped at the bar. It's practically empty here. I'm talking to some old bloke. He leaves, so I read my book. Good book: Hunter S. Thompson meets some Hell’s Angels.

Hours pass. Work hard in kitchen, because Pat the Cook is away with burnt hand. Tonight, I am chief cook, ruler of the steamy roost. I fry things and grill things, spinning on my heels to juggle metal trays and great salads. Lisa is here too, working hard and steady. She's better at it than me: really levelheaded. There’s no complaints from customers, which means it's a good night. We clean up and mop the floor and change clothes. We're going out anyway, without Natalie.

The white line snakes along in the headlights as we use both sides of the road to make progress. When we get to Plymouth, we go to this rock club that's an old haunt, full of the same people you always see there: Rage Against the Machine T-Shirts and pierced faces looking just a little older. I'm banging onto Lisa about Natalie. I realise that really, as Lisa said, Natalie has no idea that I like her.

Tomorrow, it's the Heineken Free Music Festival on Plymouth Hoe. The Hoe is a great flat plateau overlooking the sea, where Sir Francis Drake once played bowls, before trashing the Spanish Armada. Anyway, at the festival 60ft Dolls and Republica are playing. A plan is forming in my head.

‘Do you think I should invite Natalie?’ I ask Lisa.

‘Yeh, cool idea,’ she says. I raise my fist in victory at the planning of the next step. I feel bold and happy, so grand at the thought of us sat chatting on the grass, as Republica punk along in the background...the long drive home with her sat next to me. I've got a feeling that she'll trust me as soon as she's spent some time with me.

On the way home from the club, Lisa and her man are sat in the back seat, talking really quietly. I look up at the bright moon. I imagine Natalie, sleeping soundly in her bed, just down the road from me; one delicate hand, palm down on the pillow, inches from her heaven sent face, sharing the moonlight with me.

Text and illustrations: R.Glanville