Love Is Usually Where You Left It Read online

  Love Is Usually Where You Left It

  What is love?

  This is not only the title of a catchy song from the 1990’s but also a fascinating question. Love is all around. Love is a battlefield. Love is blindness. Love is a wonderful thing. Yes, more song titles; but also attempts to answer that question. But which is right? There’s a pretty broad spectrum of answers right there. Here’s another song title / question that may help clear things up: Where does love go when it dies? Oooh, that’s deep. But here’s the thing - love; real love, is eternal. It never dies. And it can’t be summed up by just one pop stars song title; because love is everything.

  But, if we go back to that original question, there is one thing that love is for sure; and that is a little rubbish with directions / lacking a good sat-nav. Because love does get lost. Quite regularly. And when it does, you sometimes need a little help in knowing where to find it.

  Clive and Gayle Ford, products of teenage broken homes, were high school sweethearts. Even becoming unexpectedly pregnant before they had taken school exams couldn’t stop them; for they had a love so deep that it echoed through time and an unbreakable belief that it would always be: You and Me vs. The World.

  But when the realities of bills and mortgages and mundane jobs highlight lost educational aspirations, shattered dreams and lost adolescent years, they cast large shadows over even the deepest love. During a depressingly low point in their relationship Clive and Gayle agree to separate but promise to remain together, maintaining a loving family, until their child, Jack, is ready to leave home.

  Eight years later, as Jack is leaving to begin life at University, Gayle and Clive begin making plans for their own separate lives.

  But should they really be breaking up?

  And become another statistic to add to the sad number of couples who allow true love to slip between their fingers?

  A chance meeting between Clive and mysterious love guru Jeremy Corden, of the Love Is... relationship agency, offers an alternative. For a small fee, of course, Jeremy offers to devise Clive and Gayle a weekend of events designed to revisit their most important moments and memories and reawaken feelings that are lost; assuring that true love doesn’t die but merely gets forgotten and misplaced. Could it be, as Jeremy promises, that actually love is usually where you left it?

  Packed with quirky and humorous life and love observations, love is usually where you left it is a comedy adventure wrapped around a love story that has an overwhelming relevance and message for everyone who has ever been in love.

  LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS USUALLY WHERE YOU LEFT IT LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED LOVE IS IN THE AIR LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN LOVE IS A STRANGER LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD LOVE IS LIKE A BOMB LOVE IS WAR LOVE IS A WONDERFUL THING LOVE IS ALL AROUND LOVE IS LOVE REFLECTED LOVE IS LIKE FIREWORKS LOVE IS BLINDNESS LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOR LOVE IS…

  By Gary Locke:

  The Paul Day Chronicles Comedy Series –

  The complete days of 2006 –

  Paul Day Chronicles – Happily After Ever!

  Short Stories from 2006 –

  Paul Day Chronicles – Love Is Like Fireworks!

  Paul Day Chronicles – The Stag Do.

  Paul Day Chronicles – Football Is Like Sex!

  Paul Day Chronicles – Fate… Bloody Fate!

  The complete days of 1992 –

  Paul Day Chronicles – Goodbye B.M.X., Hello S.E.X.

  Short Stories from 1992 –

  Paul Day Chronicles – Love for the Very First Time.

  Paul Day Chronicles – Dead Legs, Exam Dreads and Fun Behind the Bike Sheds.

  Selected Short Stories -

  Fifty Shades of Paul Day

  Congratulations…..you’re having a baby twins!!

  ! – For when full stops aren’t enough and question marks aren’t appropriate

  Cling and Grow Publishing

  Copyright © Gary Locke 2019

  Cover Design by Andy Tiplady – Freelance Graphic Designer

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Cling and Grow Publishing

  This Kindle edition published in 2019 by Cling and Grow Publishing

  The rights of Gary Locke to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Love Is Usually Where You Left It

  Gary Locke

  Chapters

  This Is - Love Is…

  Introduction.

  Chapter One: That’s That Then.

  Chapter Two: Jack.

  Chapter Three: We Did It Together.<
br />
  Chapter Four: Love At First Sight.

  Chapter Five: Road Rage.

  Chapter Six: Three Little Pigs.

  Chapter Seven: The Things That Turn A House Into A Home.

  Chapter Eight: Moving On.

  Chapter Nine: Pretend Best Friend.

  Chapter Ten: T.E.A.M.W.O.R.K.

  Chapter Eleven: The Pre-Dinner Snack Club.

  Chapter Twelve: Love Is…

  Chapter Thirteen: It’s All About Time.

  Chapter Fourteen: Late Is The Hour.

  Chapter Fifteen: Thanks, But No Thanks!

  Chapter Sixteen: The Academy.

  Chapter Seventeen: The Love Doctor.

  Chapter Eighteen: Nice Day For…

  Chapter Nineteen: Street Heroes.

  Chapter Twenty: The First Time.

  Chapter Twenty One: Get Me Out Of Here.

  Chapter Twenty Two: Thought Of The Day.

  Chapter Twenty Three: The Loan Shark.

  Chapter Twenty Four: The Pact.

  Chapter Twenty Five: A New Path To Walk.

  Chapter Twenty Six: Number Five, Percival Road.

  Chapter Twenty Seven: The Han Solo Moment.

  Chapter Twenty Eight: From One Angel To Another.

  Chapter Twenty Nine: Echoes Through Time.

  Chapter Thirty: The Maroon Volvo.

  Chapter Thirty One: Bumps And Babies.

  Chapter Thirty Two: Time, Love And Attention.

  Chapter Thirty Three: Baby Group Poker.

  Chapter Thirty Four: The Youth Club.

  Chapter Thirty Five: Rubik’s Cubes, Millennium Falcons and Tracey Islands.

  Chapter Thirty Six: The First Kiss.

  Chapter Thirty Seven: Midnight Feast.

  Chapter Thirty Eight: Saturday Night Sunday Morning at the Movies.

  Chapter Thirty Nine: Belong Together.

  Chapter Forty: The Mask.

  Chapter Forty One: Confronting The Past.

  Chapter Forty Two: The Last Supper.

  Chapter Forty Three: Never Let Her Go.

  Chapter Forty Four: Into The Arena.

  Chapter Forty Five: All I Ever Needed.

  Chapter Forty Six: Run For It.

  Chapter Forty Seven: Unconditional Love.

  Chapter Forty Eight: This Is It!

  Chapter Forty Nine: Love On A Rooftop.

  Chapter Fifty: Turns Out…

  Authors Note / Acknowledgements

  This Is - Love Is…

  Love Is...

  Company No. LI57535117SB

  CEO: Jeremy Corden

  (Our Mission Statement)

  Love Is...

  Love is all you need – John Lennon (1967)

  Love is in the air – John Paul Young (1977)

  Love is like oxygen – Brian Connolly (1978)

  Love is a stranger – Annie Lennox (1982)

  Love is a battlefield – Pat Benatar (1983)

  Love is like a bomb – Joe Elliott (1987)

  Love is war – Jon Bon Jovi (1988)

  Love is a wonderful thing – Michael Bolton (1991)

  Love is all around – Marti Pellow (1994)*

  Love is love reflected – Steven Tyler (1997)

  Love is like fireworks – Paul Day (2006)

  Love is blindness – Jack White (2013)

  Love is an open door – Kristen Bell / Anna (2013)

  *Inspired by / Stolen from Reg Presley (1967)

  Many people over many years have attempted to describe what love is. Intriguingly, a large percentage of them seem to have been singers, as if holding a microphone in your hand gives you profound insight into the great mysteries of the matters of the heart. And their opinions vary greatly. Love is described as being like oxygen and yet also like a battlefield. It’s an open door and yet it’s blindness. Is it a wonderful thing or is it war?

  So, which one of these singing love philosophers is right?

  Well, actually all of them; but, at the same time, none of them.

  Because love can’t be described as just one thing, because love is everything.

  It’s the cause of those unusual, exciting butterfly feelings in your stomach and also the reason you sometimes feel like you could cry until the end of time. It’s responsible for those goose bumps that appear for no reason and is the cause of that permanent, ridiculous, face-aching smile that you wear without even realising it. And yet it’s also the explanation behind why your heart aches uncontrollably and sometimes feels like it’s been torn out and ripped into a million pieces.

  But here is the one thing about love; true love, that most people don’t seem to be aware of.

  It is eternal.

  If you fall in love; true, head-over-heels, heat-racing, can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, can’t-think-about-anything-else love; then it lasts forever.

  Why then, especially these days, do so many people seem to break up?

  Because love can get lost.

  Maybe mislaid because of the pressures of modern life. Pushed into the shadows by the stresses of work, and mortgages and bills, and responsibilities and feelings of underachievement.

  And because of its absence, people give up on love.

  But before you give up on love too, why not allow Love Is... the chance to help you find it again.

  Because do you know what?

  For that real, true, eternal variety that I just mentioned; turns out love is usually where you left it...

  Introduction.

  If she wasn’t crying already, then this latest turn of events would certainly have driven Gayle to tears. It was a Sunday afternoon (you know, the nice, easy, lazy, relaxing time of the week?) and she was lying face-first in a muddy field in biblical-style wind and rain; her head squashed and sweating profusely inside a helmet that was way too tight, her £250 knee-length Kurt Geiger boots (her only ever footwear indulgence) were stuck in the mud twenty metres away, and now two impossibly large men were firing increasingly painful paintball pellets at her from dangerously close proximity. She wasn’t just a sitting duck, she was a dead duck, in the mud, and yet they still continued to shoot at her.

  And yes she was paintballing. Paintballing!

  Not because paintballing had somehow made its way onto some kind of desperate-to-try-new-things-before-I-die bucket list type thing because, for Gayle, the only list paintballing would make it on to was a things-I-will-never-never-never-never-never-do-as-long-as-I-live kind of list; but because she had agreed to do absolutely anything this weekend. After the disasters that had gone before for the last day and a half she wished that she’d stuck the heels of those now-ruined Kurt Geiger boots in about this one and refused to take part.

  As each new paint pellet painfully struck, and Gayle realised that she was going to be more bruised than an apple that had bounced down the entire staircase of the Empire State Building, whilst thinking that her dying wish right now would be something as simple as being able to enjoy one last hot bubble bath, she accepted that this was one of the worst moments of her life.

  And then it happened.

  The type of event that maybe only happens once in a lifetime for just a few, very lucky, individuals.

  A moment that literally changes the world.

  And that one-of-the-worst-moments-of-her-life became, for Gayle, in the space of a heartbeat, without doubt, one of the best moments of her life. Because just as...

  Wait a minute. This isn’t the best way to start a book is it? By giving away the ending? No, I think it’s best to start somewhere more appropriate; somewhere like the beginning...

  Chapter One: That’s That Then.

  “That’s that then!” said Gayle out loud as she, Clive and Mr Dennis watched Jack’s car slowly drive to the end of Percival Road before turning left and then passing out of sight.

  “The end of an era!” she added dramatically, almost in that over-the-top, emotional way that soap actors do in those, rather pointless, special “live” episodes. (Nothing like a live soap episode to separat
e the bad actors from the, well, really bad actors.) She began wiping a couple of tears away from her cheek, cursing the fact that she’d put her make up on before waving Jack away to his new adventure at university. She turned and walked back into the house so she could check the severity of her “panda eyes” in the hall mirror before having to leave for work. The last thing she wanted was to give the boys from the warehouse the opportunity to call her Chi Chi all day again, as they had on the day that Jason Orange announced he was leaving Take That. (She had always been a bit “meh” about Jason’s part in Take That, reasoning that he was her fifth favourite member of the group, but the day he left the band had brought all those memories of Robbie’s departure, in 1995, flooding back. To Gayle that day was possibly the most traumatic day in history.)

  Gayle smiled to herself as she focussed on the fact that Jack had set off on his new adventure in life quite a bit later than he had planned to. He was hoping to be on the motorway before being caught in any of the rush hour traffic but things hadn’t gone quite to plan. And that was because he was just like her in that respect. They never intend to be late, but it just happens. She sniggered a little as she thought about how mad their being late made Clive, who likes to boringly be on time for everything. She tried to kid herself that she and Jack were too cool, maybe too Zen, to be restrained by something as trivial as being on time but, in reality, it wasn’t that. It was because time just seems to evaporate and mysteriously vanish into thin air sometimes. You’re doing just fine getting ready and then, boom, fifteen minutes has just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Where the hell does it go? Gayle had always thought that someone, preferably from a scientific background, should definitely look into this strange time-disappearing phenomenon.