Our first official 'date' was a double date, Suzanne and Rob along with myself and Kev went to the cinema to see the latest hit movie, "Aeroplane". We went to see it on Friday 13th February 1981. Kev said he'd have preferred to be taking me out for a proper Valentines meal on the Saturday (Valentines Day), but was committed to a family occasion that night, which wasn't suitable for our first date.
Kev explained that 'office romances' invariably precipitated office moves and gave a number of examples and advised me not to mention that we were seeing each other to anyone in our office. We'd go out for a drink once or twice during the week and for a meal, movie or clubland in Liverpool on Friday nights, often Suzanne and Rob joined us when we went out on Friday nights.
By the time of Kev's 23rd birthday (March 27th 1981) we had our own special song "Being with you" and Kev would play it on the jukebox and sing it to me.
Although neither of us had mentioned in the office that we were seeing each other, there were some strange atmospheres and comments being made that I didn't understand. One of the older married women, Maureen, kept referring to someone called Charu. On one occasion Maureen called over to Kev that she'd met Charu while shopping at the weekend and how beautiful she looked. Kev looked visibly proud.
The next time we were out together I asked Kev about Charu, , he told me she was one of the women he shared his accommodation with and that they'd dated for a short while when at college together in Nottingham. He added that she was Hindi and her marriage had been arranged by her family at birth. As a consequence they'd accepted they had no long term future together and had stopped seeing each other due to this and family pressure on both sides.
Kev told me that although they remained friends, he now thought of her more like a sister, but suspected she still loved him. He added that Maureen, from our office, knew all about this and liked Charu a great deal, hence the comments and atmosphere.
