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asked me to look for a job and start saving for our marriage. Already bored with study, I accepted a clerical post in quality control at ICI pharmaceuticals. During the week we spoke to each other every night on the phone. Sometimes he would hint that he might have taken another girl out, or that he was seeing someone else, but any attempt to make me jealous was foiled by the fact that I trusted him implicitly. Also, because of his overwhelming jealousy, I assumed that two-timing me would be the last thing he would do. Moving to Manchester had brought about a change in Ian – as far as I knew he had stopped experimenting with drugs. This was a great relief to me because I (mistakenly) assumed he was happy. As someone who had never so much as smoked a cigarette, I found his desire for escapism through drug-induced detachment incomprehensible.
    Ian’s bedroom was the front parlour at his parents’ house and it was here we sat, hour upon hour, listening to Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. I didn’t mind this as I had developed my own favourites. The only album of Ian’s that I never took to was Lou Reed’s Berlin. One afternoon he decided to read to me from the works of Oscar Wilde. He chose ‘The Happy Prince’. It tells the tale of a bejewelled statue and his friendship with a swallow. The bird postpones flying south for the winter in order to help the sad prince. The swallow picks off the jewels and gives them to the people of the city who are suffering. ‘Dear little Swallow‚’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering ofmen and of women. There isno Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’ As Ian’s voiceneared the end of the story, it began to crack like the leaden heart of the statue and he cried like a baby.
    A constant obstruction to the potential smooth-running of my life, Ian made it difficult for me to feel comfortable in my first job. His persistent questioning about the men I worked with would make me self-conscious about becoming friendly with anyone. He would telephone every night and interrogate me. We argued during one such telephone conversation and Ian deliberately put his foot through a glass door at his parents’ house.
    He was my first lover but one evening his unfounded, obscene ranting and raving about my friendships with previous boyfriends got out of hand and I became ill. My father took time off work the next day to take me out to lunch. He and my mother hoped it was an end to my relationship with Ian Curtis. They had always found Ian strange, although up until then he had behaved towards them in a fairly innocuous manner. Initially, it had been the earring, the sunglasses worn in the dark and the Marlboro smoke that bothered them. What alarmed them later were his selfishness and his desire to be the centre of attention. Ian turned up in Macclesfield the following Friday. Knowing that my mother wouldn’t allow him over the threshold, he booked in at the George Hotel on Jordangate.
    As we sat in Sparrow Park that night, I endeavoured to let Ian down gently. I suggested we stop seeing each other for a while or just not see so much of each other. He was distraught and kept on and on, begging me to reconsider. Eventually I gave in and agreed to carry on with the relationship, promising myself at the same time to try to finish it another day. The next morning, armed with a bouquet for my mother, he apologized to her. She did her utmost to feign forgiveness, but I knew she was still furious.
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    On 14 February 1974, Ian gave me another valentine card with a rhyme inside. It described a dream he’d had about me, walking alone and lonely on a deserted beach – definitely not a love poem. I threw the card away as I felt that he was trying to frighten me. Nevertheless, the dream was to come true in June 1980 in Carnoustie, Scotland,where I holidayed with my parents and Natalie after