The Extended Remix of Chloe Green
written by: Andy Houstoun
Finn eased through the loft hatch into the dark attic. Heat hung heavy, as if whole summers had been boxed up and left to gather dust. Boards creaked as he climbed in, pushing aside a scuffed suitcase.
“Get out of the way,” he muttered.
How his life had changed. Just three weeks earlier, his wife had stood in the kitchen and told him their marriage was over.
“I tried to ignore what I felt for him, but it kept growing.”
Her voice had been steady, almost gentle, but the rest of her words moved around him without landing, as though they’d been spoken from the far end of a corridor. Now, the house felt misaligned, as if it had shifted on its foundations.
Last week, she told him she wanted the loft cleared. “I don’t want anything from up there. But it’ll need sorting so we can put the house on the market.”
He pushed aside a box of tangled Christmas lights and moved deeper into the narrow space, swallowing the tightness in his throat. Dust shimmered under the fluorescent light, drifting past beams.
A cardboard box sagged at the sides, bowed by years of neglect. Finn crouched and lifted out a Walkman with foam-padded headphones. As he drew it free, the thin orange wires caught on a black leather bracelet, studded with metal cones. Finn held it around his wrist, and smiled, despite himself.
To his left sat a blue plastic milk crate, stacked with records.
When Doves Cry.
He narrowed his eyes and inspected the cover.
It took him back to 1984, seventeen years old, standing in HMV, making calculations in his head. Could he afford it? Did it matter? The thrill of carrying it home had outweighed the financial damage.
Every detail felt vivid – Prince’s stare, the tiny white chevrons on his collar. Such a familiar image. One he had inspected hundreds of times in his teenage years. He turned it over. Prince and The Revolution. The ornate lettering stirred his gut. Records had felt illicit then. Possession of them meant access to a different world.
He pulled out another.
Shake the Disease by Depeche Mode – Extended Remix. He loved the longer versions. More groove. More excitement. More possibility.
His thumb ran along the edge of the sleeve, and he recalled a girl from his youth.
Chloe Green.
He still had photos somewhere. He knew it.
Beside the crate lay an old biscuit tin. He prised it open and revealed dozens of glossy prints.
Hair feathered back in sculpted waves, held rigid by hairspray. Blue eye-shadow. Pink blush. Large gold hoops. An oversized blouse tucked into a high-waisted skirt. She looked directly at the camera, and his heart quickened.
Her curves had unsettled him at the time, the softness at her waist, and fullness at her hips. She occupied space without apology.
She had to have known he liked her. He could see it in the photographs. The way she leaned toward him. The way her eyes held his.
Finn sighed. Back then, he’d hidden his feelings. Better to be cool. Wanting too much felt dangerous.
He found another picture of them sitting on the floor beside a pile of records. Culture Club and Human League. He looked toward her, mid-sentence, and she gazed at him with an expression he hadn’t noticed before.
Fondness? Desire?
Finn could smell the faint scent of Lulu Blue perfume, and for a split second, the photo moved – her lips parted.
He dropped it back in the tin, and his pulse raced.
In the shadows, half-covered by a white sheet, sat his old stereo. The one he’d saved months for, scraping together every penny. It had survived his cramped bedsit, and his first flat, and had been placed up here when he got married and his wife told him to move it out of the way. An artefact from a previous life, when music felt so alive and important.
He ran his fingers over the lid, remembering the careful ritual of its setup.
He squeezed through the loft hatch, the stereo cradled against his chest, the steps creaking beneath him in protest. Every step down the ladder made him conscious of the weight in his arms, and the balance between careful transport and sudden catastrophe.
He set it in the dining room, and positioned the speakers with care. He picked up the frayed copper wires, twisting them and threading them into the amplifier. Red to red, white to white. With each connection, he felt the meticulous care he remembered from his youth. He connected the turntable, adjusting it with deliberate precision, as though any misalignment might shatter the fragile bridge between past and present.
From the crate, he lifted Purple Rain. Prince stood in white frills and a purple trench coat, with his guitar angled across his body.
Chloe had introduced him to this song.
“I’ve never heard anything like it. The lyrics are profound,” she’d said, lying on her stomach on her bed, chin in her hands. “He wants her desperately. But he knows he can’t have her. Purple rain is the fantasy. The place he wants to dance with her, but knows can never be.”
Had she been talking about them?
She was twenty-one. Four years older than him. She had a job. Money. He brought blank tapes over and hovered by her stereo, waiting for the exact second to press record, while she dissected lyrics like they were secret messages.
Even now, the song felt enormous.
He slid the vinyl onto the platter. Adjusted to 45 rpm, and pressed play.
A soft click.
The turntable spun.
The needle lowered and landed with a delicate crackle.
The opening chord filled the dining room, swelling beyond its walls, and as the purple record label turned, Finn felt the air shift, tuning into a different frequency. The space trembled.
He inhaled, and the scent of Chloe’s perfume filled the air.
He stood in her bedroom. Scarves hung over warm lamps. Madonna looked down from a poster on the wall. Cassettes lay discarded across the floor.
“You’re somewhere else,” Chloe said.
“Maybe.”
Seventeen-year-old Finn would have deflected, and mentioned the new Thompson Twins single. But older Finn held out his hand. “Dance with me.”
She tilted her head, studying him. The moment hung in suspension, waiting for approval from another dimension. Then she placed her hand in his.
They stood close and moved slowly at first, but she pulled him nearer. He felt her breath against his neck, the scent of hairspray, and the warmth of her body.
The music rose around them. Purple rain. He understood it now. At the time, his relationship with Chloe could only be a fantasy under coloured lights. But now?
“Could we?” he whispered.
“You tell me,” she said.
They held each other tight, and Finn moved his hands across her back. He took a deep breath, but when he opened his eyes, the dining room returned. Grey and still. The air thinner and colder.
The needle crackled into silence and lifted, and he sat down at the dining table. A tear slid down his face, dropping onto the chair’s worn, beige fabric.
He had searched for Chloe a few times over the years, but every attempt had proved futile. She may have married. Changed her name. Moved continents.
Finn stared at the crate of records.
A pink Post-it note clung to the sleeve of Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
He peeled it off.
Her handwriting.
The address of the house her parents moved to in 1987.
His pulse raced.
Purple rain was fantasy. But addresses existed in the physical world. On real streets.
Outside, rain fell.
He walked to the window and looked out at the street, cold and dull under dark clouds, folding the pink note carefully and slipping it into his pocket.
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