Me Again

45

2005-02-07T17:36:00.000+00:00

Drunk again, night again, alone again, I ambled along the edge of two worlds. Here the dry sand, still hot from the high-summer sun of the long June day, and not far beyond my uncle’s beach-hut and my home for this holiday with its bunk-bed and books. And then the shop where they always asked for proof of my age, the stale shower-block and cheap café, and soon past the other huts, the start of a snaky road that channelled from the cosseted Spit, through sparse woods and semi-cliffs and calm golf-courses, and back into the concrete and careers of the city. And, then, there, only a step away, the sodden sand, recently soaked and sieved by the suck and the stroke of the sea, and then beyond that thin threshold the rhythmic, slow, silvered sea itself, its horizon bleeding into the black of the night imperceptibly, dotted with starlight from distant, perhaps-dead solar-systems, rippling and running to its dark depths with planet-sprawling currents.

Of course, I was thinking of Laura. Not of her long, brick-brown hair, or of her shape in that ivory dress which I never saw her wear – but I stole a photo to show all of my friends back home. Nor of her little lips lifting up out of the darkness of a near-dream in that undergraduate single room to meet mine, sleepily at first, then sudden and hot, me mouthing my limp words of love no longer, silenced by the lick and tingle and touch and –. And, not of how she might be doing now, in her holiday still studying German and dreaming of a job in another country after graduating. And not of the shame of how my excited garble to the regular geezers down the usual boozer about my new, beautiful, brilliant babe (only to be icily dumped a month later forever) exposed my ignorance and optimism, naivety and idiocy, and the sheer embarrassment of being that nineteen-year-old fool of a me amongst them the men – no, I wasn’t thinking of any of that.

It was her voice. Small and sinewy sometimes, then childish and chirrupy, as she whispered to me the anecdotes of her ship-wrecked soul (a year of modelling and its the weirdos who wowed then worried her which bought her the money to study, her poverty-level family who ran a ramshackle farm out in the middle of nowhere, her mother who would tie her to a chair and beat her for no reason, her father who turned both of his blind eyes to television through a blur of cheap spirits, and her older sisters who had escaped long ago, one to make pottery, the other to start a family, and of a school that never once asked whether regular fainting and bruises had something to do with anorexia and assault) that she herself was saving through study; it was her voice.

Once, after an evening of vodka in the student union’s half-priced Russian night, after careering back to her kitchen for coffee, teetering into her tiny room, stripping shamelessly and collapsing under the covers, the ceiling a swirl, she spoke in another voice. As if hypnotized by headlights, staring straight ahead; or like a stutterer, striving to speak the raw sound of a rudimentary sentence, all passion lost to the purpose of proper pronunciation; or like a computer, coldly computing vowels and consonants without connotation – or, or, or…

Back on the beach, I didn’t dress in detailed description the nude facts. The farm wasn’t making enough money. Parents needed help. A local handyman would lumber past each day on his way from odd-job to odd-job, eying little twelve-year-old Laura with a smile and a hello. I have no idea what is name was; Harmer, let’s say Harmer. Harmer got chatting to mother. Harmer could help with the fencing, the draining, the plumbing, although he was a bit pricey – one job at a time, eh?

Harmer didn’t have a family of his own. Was a bit lonely, like. Would he like to have dinner? Very much would Harmer like to have dinner – and Harmer wasn’t worried about the money for fixing the gate after all. And after dinner, would Harmer like to take little Laura for a drive? Harmer would like that very much; and he had a spare hour or two tomorrow, could pop in and help with something or other. And Laura – there’s a good girl, now – little Laura would like another saunter round the local lanes in Harmer’s truck tomorrow night too, wouldn’t she?

And Harmer – it’s so very generous of you, helping us like this! Yes, like you’re one of the family now, after all these weeks. Now, did we ever tell you that, funnily enough, strange to mention it, but here it is, that little Laura’s always wanted to camp out in a field, and with us being so fatigued – you would? O – all this, and the work for free! What a love. And – and really, the electrics wouldn’t be too much to ask – and into her tent that night he went. And into her tiny mouth, through those lovely lips, one hand round her neck, one pulling down his pants, he went.

For months his work was paid by her mouth or hand, but it was her voice, her tiny, tragic, voice, a touch timorous in my memory, that I thought of that night on the soft, hot sand. Her clear voice as she concluded this cold tale: one afternoon she was off school sick, her parents off in their tidiest clothes to the bank in town, and there Harmer suddenly was at the front door, bringing around some parts. In he came. And soon in the kitchen, there he spoke his usual spiel: she really did love him, underneath. She really did want him, secretly, in spite of what she said. Would she not admit it, as he finally made full love to her, pinning her against the wall, tearing down her trousers, thumping apart her thighs, scratching at her sex, would she not tell him, as his cock crammed up against her child’s cunt – say it, as he edged to house himself inside of her –

Say it little Laura, say the word love, he insisted, not noticing that her fist had found a frying pan from somewhere, and was hurtling it down onto his head with all the life-force she could find, not imagining that he would be unconscious in an instant, that she would drag his deadweight frame through the house and shove him outside into the front garden, locking the latch behind him. That barren garden: where, presumably, he soon woke, wounded, worried, gathering himself together, and vowed never to return. Laura’s parents stayed silent, Harmer’s name a taboo, some understanding presumably reached, and on they all struggled on without him, in the pits of their separate ways, for the coming years.

Vivid her voice in my mind that night on the sand, centimetres from the swarming surface and cemetery-cold fathoms of the sea. I had phoned her a few times. She was glad to hear from me – but O, had to pop out in a minute. What’s my number again? She’d phone if she had some news. It was good to remain friends, of course it was! We would never speak again, of course. She spoke on the phone with the same voice she used the next morning, so hot and hungover, when she would not or could not remember, her voice as frail as a weak finger – but strong enough to silence this lip, then rein it in with a cigarette, as if a scarf of silk soothing a burning throat. Frail as a weak finger – but firmly on the lips saying shush now, shush; insistent as an old lady who will not be questioned by a child, shush now shush child.

The sea breathed softly beside me her music of murmurs. I saw in its shifting mosaic Harmer’s face, fantastically large and gnarled features, jeering and ghastly, as he travelled the countryside with eyes rawly peeled for schoolgirls. I saw it as he slouched in the village pub, saliva sated with sex and soothed by beer, the usual again is Harmer me old mucker? I saw it as he charmed a mother here, teased a daughter there. I saw it as I, with singular purpose, tracked him down along country-lanes, spied and made sure, and then unstoppably entered his favourite nook in his cosy local – the log crumbling in the fire, the ruddy landlord all red grins, a young couple in a corner winking over wine, all as sturdy and sane as a stereotype – I saw it as I, knife in hand, or chair held above head, marched over to him; and I saw his face break into a million pieces, the splinters of his skull shed about him, or I saw rampaging fingers ransack his ribs, or his shattered legs a tangle of tendons and the shrapnel of beaten bone and the shedding skin, and, all-in-all, I saw his final breath forced and beaten from his blood-drenched lungs, his crime of rape punished by utter ruin, his body broken the way cities are sacked in a world of war on TV.

It was the last luxurious, workless summer of such thought and sea and sand, the last of whatever confused lust or love or lunacy of mine that was Laura. We were studying at different universities she and I, all those years ago, met on a weekend organized around a pub-crawl by a charity in a city, all hello’s and snogs. That world went that summer. And the season simply passed with its flimsy festival of forgettable novels and fruitless flying of kites. And today for me, a heavy in-tray. And a laddy lunch with a loud buddy. And a jokey email from a chance new chum. And an office typing with the usual hum. And perhaps it’s a madman who is stood brewing up the coffee. Perhaps it is a Saint who struggles with a photocopy.

And a google search says Laura is now a lawyer living in some little English town doing a fine job of untangling red-tape for the construction trade and there’s a photo of her sat on a table of burly men with ties lustfully loosened celebrating some poultry award at a dull yearly ceremony but O, she’ll be married in the new year to Nathan who works in the same office, sat a slick computer no doubt much like mine – where a murder or a marvel is only click away. Where a circle of hell and a hint of a heaven only a touch away. Where an ocean of man-made misery and human hope laps up at our fingertips. A loveless inevitable ocean, an illogical ocean. Perhaps I have banished it, the ocean, as if an all-powerful King, from my orderly life. An orderly life; submerged in a shuffle of paperwork, buoying up the day with electronic messages, sent out to the world like vain love-letters, circulating amongst the confused lonely strangers of a vague little school. Perhaps it cannot be banished, that which pours so much salt into eyes and tongues and ears and pores, perhaps blessed are those blind and deaf to the roaring void of its massive flood.

44

2005-02-01T10:46:00.000+00:00

Sifting amongst the books, I was anguishing over more Austen, balking at the banalities of Banks, calmed by the cool, contemplative Calvino, delightfully detecting the delectable Doyle, estimating Eliot’s eschewing of evangelicalism, frowning at Franzen’s flictions, gaping at the gap of Garland’s gone, hugely hopeful about hundreds of Hemingway’s, inching past the ignoble I’s, jostling with the jinormous jenius of Joyce, kontinually kourting the konvoluted konfusing K’s of Kafka, loving that long-lost loser Larkin, mocking meddling middle-class McEwan, nabbed by Nabakov’s nefarious nymphet, ordering ’opeless Orwell orf, passing over the prick of Palhaniuk, quietly quaffing the quasi-Quixotic Queneau, reading Reading – couldn’t resist that fictional one, btw, scratching the surface of Salinger, tutting at that twit Tolkein’s turgid untailored tales, umming at the utter umbrage of the U’s – worst of letters for an author’s surname it seems, and yes, that includes you, Updike, veering my voyage avay vrom Verne, winking at weird and wonderful West, X-ing X, Yes-ing Yates – actually I can’t stand Richard Yates, however, for the sake of alliteration and expediency, a simple Yes following by a swift move on to the final letter of the alphabet seemed best – I hope you forgive me and agree? probably your impatience proves my point and so, and finally, and after all, and in conclusion, and last but not least, and now ladies and gentleman drum roll please, I zoned in on Zola and his zero-weight, zoom-lens look at Zeds, and wondered about maybe picking up an Auster instead.

It was then that I noticed Thomas: he was crouched down, and peeping at me through the stand of discounted calendars, his eyes amongst those of painted cats, dogs on bikes, dying pop-bands and gooney footballers. I pretended I hadn’t noticed and turned my back, marching off to Auster. I’d been in a bad mood on the rush-hour tube: bookless, and with him blathering on about how wonderful the tube is, but why didn’t the commuters talk to each other? or have a bit of fun even with each other? If my blunt, obvious answers had hurt his feelings, I didn’t want to face that now, meandering in a soothing mind-mist amongst the shelves.

Or perhaps he was upset because he was getting manoeuvred into a job in the post-room? I woke him this morning, lent him a shirt and tie, informally introduced him – and the interview proper is early next week. But spying on me from behind the calendars? Why was I making excuses for his weirdiosity, I thought – turning back to see Thomas jump – literally, jump – behind the shelf of novels running N – Q.

I decided to go and ask him what the matter was – but when I got back to N – Q, I realised he was gone. Not browsing at all. But was that a flash of his yellow jacket over near the magazines? I marched over – thinking I might have a look over the newspapers while I was at it – to see him creep out of the section via the bit with all the stuffy magazines – The Economist, The Ecologist, The Scientific American – that kind of thing – and then zoom through Cookery and up the stairs.

There, I finally caught up with him near the World Cinema DVDs – where he was kneeling in a corner, facing the wall.

“Thomas!”

“Ahh, you got me. Want to play again? No – enough’s enough.”

“Thomas, what’s going on?”

“Didn't you get my text message?!”

“Your text message?”

“Yes – on your mobile – I said I thought you needed some fun after a stressful commute, so let’s play hide and seek, like we were kids again - you know, the stuff I was going on about on the train. I sent it just after I’d checked to see if any posthumous Milosz was out – you didn’t? You didn’t get it? Then I’ve been – O no, how embarrassing! I feel so stupid!”

“No – you look as happy as Larry.”

“Well... Going to buy anything?”

“I can’t, for the life of me, remember,” I said.

43

2005-01-31T17:37:00.000+00:00

Sometimes someone emails you over something – and then you get chatting.

And sometimes you get to know a bit about her, her life in South Africa, her business and her dogs and her man, and sometimes she gets to know a bit about you, too.

And then you discuss other things, musical tastes say, and end up arranging to send each other tasters.

And then she’ll write – before you’ve sent it – that maybe she’ll learn more about Adam through his choice of music than through all the emails in the world.

And then as you sit burning the CD on Saturday afternoon, you wonder just what can you say about all this music?

1 Cassandra Wilson – Tupelo Honey

Lilting, lovely, relaxed, night-time music. Music To Ignore The Washing-Up With. If only there were more women singing to me such songs.

2 Paul Weller – Broken Stones

From an illegal recording of a live session: our student union markets were full of such pirate music. Mostly, you listened to them and realised the long haired man with the electric guitar really couldn’t sing and was an idiot. Like a monkey at a typewriter who got lucky, and typed out a lost sonnet of Shakespeare’s, this song from that period of my life has endured in my affections. Whereas the music of the big posturing overgrown adolescents, funnily enough, hasn’t. Except:

3 The Stone Roses – Going Down

A mythic band: hurtling from the hard, northern, working-class streets of Manchester into moody or groovy bedrooms everywhere. They were the fountainhead of several strands of new, ‘authentic’, musical subgenres, that became cool in 1990s, and which were a blessing to sincere male students across the land who wanted to belong to something, or feel like they did. This is a b-side and not one of their more famous or ambitious songs, but I’ve always liked it. It’s about oral sex.

4 Aretha Franklin – Call Me

That emphatic, powerful, tender voice making a masterpiece of truly naff lyrics, probably towards the end of the most successful part of her career.

5 Royksopp – Sparks

The football TV programme had this loopy, crazy tune they used in the stylized highlights. And an advert for a phone had this strange, edgy, electronic symphony, which accompanied images of a baby that were scattered throughout a city: on the sides of buses and buildings, in shops, in newspapers. A metaphor for picture messaging. Both were by Royksopp an internet search showed, but this is the song that I have ended up really liking from their otherwise disappointing album that tired quickly, neutered of the momentum that moving images provide. Funny how these things come about.

6 Presence – So Far Far Away From My Heart

I used to read a lot of music magazines, and have a lot of friends who were DJs or aspiring DJs or carried around their university work in record bags, at least. A lot of them liked ‘deep house’. Well, one magazine said Presence’s album was the best deep house album of the year, so back home during my summer holiday, I bought it. I didn’t like it much (it’s grown on me a bit now) but this particular track, a melancholic, late night cry, I do.

Back at university, it turned out Presence isn’t ‘deep house’: it’s tuneful house or garagey house or vocal house some other type of inferior house. What they meant by ‘deep’ was usually either intricate (i.e., some detailed thought went into the percussive arrangements) or better still, intricate with an emotional force (usually some sad instrumentals above the beats or something like that.) Although, probably what they really meant by ‘deep’ was, I’m deep for understanding and liking this stuff.

Where are they all now, the deep DJs? In offices, in banks, in pubs, their bedrooms stuffed with old records, if they haven’t overcome their nostalgia and sold them. Although to be fair, a few of them, fuelled by blind optimism and a sniff of cocaine to see them through the garish night, still make fools of themselves by entertaining at parties. Whatever. I like this tune. It doesn’t mean anything now, just that I like it.

7 Stevie Wonder – All I Do

Ok, I like 70s music. Great stuff. I have no idea if this tune is actually from the 70s (doesn’t Mr Wonder do the same thing in every decade, blissfully blind to the changes which time brings?) but it suits the coherence of my memory to say it’s from the 70s.

8 Daft Punk – One More Time

Probably the best kind of all-round house music: good to dance to, complex and groovy enough to listen to, if you can get into it. I’m really not sure if you’ll like this tune or not – some familiarity with the type of music makes it more accessible. I don’t know what you listen to out there in South Africa, on the other side of the world. Are Daft Punk famous, world-wide? Or just a little European phenomenon? I have no clue. Probably best played loud, on your own, when you can try to bop around a bit. But maybe you’ll hate it. If so, here’s the bad news: the next track is similar…

9 Cassius – Feeling For You

… although a bit more obscure. The type of people who really like this kind of music aren’t my type. It’s Saturday night music for people who’ve been in an office they don’t mind, are doing reasonably well in, but like to on the weekend indulge in something of the drugs and dancing available to them. Contented, normal, mostly-unthinking 20-somethings. They like to wear trendy clothes, have stylish hair, seduce each other randomly and promiscuously, proudly announce the quality of the drugs they’ve got, and then aggressively stride back to work on Monday, admittedly feeling a touch off-colour. But knowing they wear a knowing smile. And email each other accordingly, using code words.

But make no mistake – there’s nothing counterculture here, except the fact of illegality; there’s no spirit of rebellion, no dream of a utopia, no energy for meaningfulness. It’s an instant, intense, speedy, shared fun – with no pretences or desires to be more. (Occasionally the lyrics will suggest a little bit more – but this is an illusion, a mist. A mist suggesting magic. A mist thinly spread amongst the parochial utilitarianism of their particular fair, which is nested in no more than a village market, disguised as a world. Mist.) But some of the music is really good.

10 Nightmares on Wax – A Nights Interlude

Music for short people from the suburbs who want to dress cool, in a hip-hoppy way, and sit around stoned with music that has a bit of emotional content and depth. It says, “I may be a midget, but I have quite a mind, you know.” Handily for such awkward, self-conscious creatures, you can’t really dance to it either. I’m tall and was never really one of them, although some became my friends, and this is the only track from a whole album of this kind of stuff that I can listen to without being bored. Years later, I heard Quincy Jones’s version of ‘Summer In The City’ (?), and realised this whole song is basically an elaborated version of a section of that song, which is a much more interesting song. But I don’t have that tune to hand I’m afraid.

11 Roy Davis Jr with Peven Everett – Gabriel

A beautiful song I think, slow-paced for its genre, a dispersed jazziness interlacing with an ethereal, lamenting voice. I found it on an album of music that blurred the line between jazz and dance music, and which features many excellent, unusual tunes: Gilles Peterson & Norman Jay’s ‘Desert Island Mix’. Gilles Peterson is a famous DJ whom has introduced a lot of interesting, eclectic music to the scene in Britain. Unfortunately, it’s part of a mix, so the beginning is blurted, and has some stupid, ugly voice hectoring you to “Listen, Listen” and some other crap over the top. O well.

12 The O’Jays – Back Stabbers

I like quite a lot of tunes like this – some of which are a lot more disco-y, whereas this really is soul-pop music, I suppose, from the 70s. (Unfortunately, most of it is on tape – copied from a friend years ago – so I can’t record it for you.) The lyrics of love and the streets being tough, with people out for themselves, might sometimes form an evocative cliché. Useful for those who wish to suppose music gives them a connection with distant others, others whom for some reason have come to have a certain cachet. Black, tough, urban, American, but with a 70s strut and stomp – I suppose that is the particular cachet. And perhaps the attraction of this alien world has something to do with a lack of a feeling of authenticity for those growing up comfortably with dull parents, here in little old Britain. Anyway – most of the lyrics from this type of music, especially the more obscure stuff, can be a lot more interesting. My favourite, from an otherwise unremarkable song which isn’t on this CD, features a couple arguing about where to make love: outside or inside? Public or Private? The closet or the park? Duets, especially of this sort, are all too rare.

13 Donald Byrd – Elmina

I have always had an interest in jazz; my Dad liked it, I improvise at the piano, and used to play the trombone in a jazz band. This is a flukey find: an obscure album I picked up in a student union market. Perhaps it’s deservedly obscure, because the improvising isn’t that great. But what I like is the timbre – a fuzzy, lush mix of jazz and electric instruments, a warm but also energetic and perhaps even edgy sound, and also the complicated, fast rhythms that, remarkably, anticipate certain types of sophisticated 1990s electronic music. It’s slightly hard to listen to: going on for a long time and that. But it’s highly representative of a lot that I like. There’s no accounting for taste? Or the music you like says a lot about you? You tell me, my lovely Michelle!

14 Herbie Hancock – Dolphin Dance

I like a lot of the jazz from the 60s which is called, I think, hard-bop, and a lot of jazz tunes and artists from that period are rightly listened to still, it seems to me. The music is accessible and subtle, energetic and emotional, complex and tuneful – tricky binaries to achieve. Herbie Hancock was a master – but this tune is not so famous and somewhat atypical, being slower, odder, more spacious and more reflective. I think it’s a great song – but I know people who find it overlong and dull. I’ve never seen Dolphins; maybe it expresses something of the way they dance, or maybe it doesn’t.

15 Bill Evans – Some Other Time

I, naïve and ignorant, was at a university interview, and announced to my interviewer that I played jazz piano. He told me that I had to get hold of some Bill Evans, whom I confessed to knowing nothing of: in fact, technically the most brilliant and innovative jazz pianist ever. I have several of his albums now, which I like to different extents. This is my favourite song from my favourite album of his (‘Everybody Digs Bill Evans’.) A lilting refrain, reflective, emotionally acute, but very calmed, I think. There’s nothing aggressive at all here; a similar number on the same album is called ‘Peace Piece’. I think it’s also an influence on Miles Davis’s everlasting masterpiece of an album ‘Kind of Blue’ – where Evans was also the pianist. Certainly track 5 of that album – ‘Flamenco Sketches’, I think it is called – is another version of this song. Also very beautiful. I can’t seem to locate it at the moment in my CD collection, but I’m sure it will turn up somewhere.

When I try to play jazz piano, sometimes I try to capture the mood of this track. (The style – slow, spacious and simple – is elementary to emulate, I should say.) Anyway, maybe I have even done that once or twice. When I was 21, at the end of November, my Dad died at the end of a long illness. A week or so later I was booked to go for a weekend away somewhere with some people from a creative writing course I was taking. I made a mistake I suppose, and went. The course was held in this beautiful mansion in the middle of the Welsh countryside – think rolling lawns, covered with snow on the second day, then woods, and a backdrop of mountains. Think dark-panelled rooms, old portraits, high ceilings, old-fashioned sofas, roaring fires. There was a grand piano in one such room, and it was the right kind of piano for me – not too diffuse a sound, quite clear and loud when you struck the keys – so I could use the pedals to hide my lack of a controlled technique, which makes my playing somewhat painful on much better pianos, such as Steinway’s.

One night a few of my friends were sat on the sofas, and I played my version of this song – or something like it, more melancholic maybe. I had a beer on top of the piano and was very drunk, and would swig from it when I wanted to give my right hand a rest and allow the lilting, lonely left to pose centre stage. My friends listened in total silence from over in the lounge area, and somehow I improvised without a single slip.

Afterwards I saw some of the sensitive women were crying a little, probably thinking of my Dad – all thoughts of whom I was desperately trying not to show, to them or myself. Later some of them would ask about him, trying to get me talk about it. I didn’t know them well, and didn’t do so. I’m not in touch with any of them now. At the same time, I had a new girlfriend whom I liked a lot (and still do) and was very attracted to. She had only known me two months I suppose, and our relationship was fresh and raw. She didn’t know how to speak to me about what I was going through, and avoided the subject like it was a tribal taboo. She didn’t even accompany me to his funeral, although perhaps in a sense that was appropriate; she’d never met him, we didn’t know what the future held for us.

Anyway, when she listened to the kind of music that is on the last track of this CD, or me playing the piano and trying to emulate it, which she deigned to do once, she would never say anything – about whether she liked it, or the emotional content, or anything. She’d sit stony faced, avoidant, unable to communicate anything – even indifference or boredom or dislike, which would at least have been an honest response... She liked political rock music, scruffy men shouting about what is wrong with The System. I should like to look back on the changes in me and on those missed opportunities and such differences in people with a sense of wonder – but it is only really in sadness. If this last track on this CD hints at a distant sadness from some other time in its emotional tone, then at least it is a sadness which has been resolved into something for other people to listen to. Sad whispers transformed into a beautiful, wordless thing – clear and pure and good after all.

42

2005-01-27T15:36:00.000+00:00

“Thomas, look. You’ve been staying at mine since – the 11th? And you haven’t found a job yet. And you don’t seem to have anywhere to move out to. And Dimtrios is back in a week – and he has to have his room back. And also, I don’t mind lending you my laptop while I’m out at work – I know it helps you writing your poetry and stuff – but I checked the websites you’ve been on. Porn? For an hour? So, young man, time to get a job and get a place and generally just get your damned act –”

“Hi Adam!” said Thomas, interrupting the little speech I was constructing in my head as he walked into my office. “I’ve just been having a look around the British Museum – God London is wonderful – and anyway realised you were near by – and just wondered if you’d like to go to lunch with me?”

“Well – I – ” I can’t think of any reason why not. “Sure.”

Soon we were in a Pret, me again trying to work out which soup would have the most soothing affect while Thomas was paying for his vegetarian salad.

“O no,” I heard him suddenly say from the till. “I’m seventy pee – Adam! Hold on – I –” I passed my blushing cousin some extra change and soon he was sat down while I was ordering. Soon he was sat down – next to the beautiful temp, as it turned out. The beautiful temp called … whose name is …

She picked her head out of her book and spotted me just as I was walking over.

“O hi Adam!”

“Hi there,” I said. “I’m just having lunch with my cousin Thomas here.”

“Hello there,” she said, smiling her beautiful smile at him.

“This is,” I said, fumbling my soup with a pause.

Silence.

“This is – look actually you looked very absorbed in that book. Are we disturbing you?”

“No, no, it’s pretty boring anyway!”

“He usually is,” said Thomas of the author, masterfully.

Silence.

“Anyway, Thomas. This is – Te – Th – I’m sorry, how do you pronounce your name?”

“Teresa.”

“Yes – I thought – never mind. Thomas, Teresa.”

And soon he’s recommending some Ian McEwan novel or another instead and telling her about the poets he likes and that he’s a poet and that cuz Adam here (touching me on the shoulder) is putting him for “a while” – a while – and –

“That’s kind of you Adam,” said Theresa, turning back to Thomas. “Very supportive. Just what a young poet needs.”

“Thomas is looking for temp work, actually. Know of anything, Theresa?”

“Well – no – I –”

“Actually Thomas that reminds me. There’s usually some spare work going in the post-room – the people they have down there are pretty unreliable sorts – not that well paid – a bit grotty – but for you –”

“You may as well have a look, Thomas” said Theresa. “Don’t look so doubtful! Heh – I’ll show you where it is on the way back.”

And suddenly I want to say that I wrote a poem once, while I was at university and slowly working out why Marx could be fun but wasn’t for me and I didn’t think he had it all worked out right at all and even why Lukacs was wrong in his famous statement and in a quiet moment in a café on my own how I worked out the little feeling I had about it all and I never even showed anyone it once – and – and – and now I’m back at my desk, having dug the thing out of some old discs I keep locked away in a draw, mementos of distant memory, with nothing better to do than let go of it all. And wondering if I should offer Thomas my bedroom floor for a few weeks more when Dimitrios returns.

The Other

2005-01-27T15:32:00.000+00:00

When the curtain of reason finally falls
and the cup of knowledge is full to the top
with God’s secrets and the essence of man,

and from earth’s confused and violent lands
the borders and flags have gone forever,
and ever-ripe gardens hold no trace, no scar

of history and its endless nightmare,
and universal truth is the speech of all –
the universities of false philosophy

as quietly dead as forgotten tongues,
and the things I have wondered upon all my life
are little problems cleared up in Primary School,

if Primary Schools are needed at all –
and when the books I’ve suffered or enjoyed
are unmasked as devils of a wrong belief

whom played upon my eyes to make me blind
to the horror of the world and the truth
of the need for violent change,

then this wandering poem about you,
O complete being of the perfect future,
this uncertain and disorderly thing,

this deceived dream and shallow whim,
this failure of artful knowledge,
will speak silence on that which I wish to say
of me, of this, of that, of the other.

40

2005-01-27T01:11:00.000+00:00

Last thing at night now, and first thing this morning is the one thing on my mind:

“George here, Adam,” said the voice of my superior on the end of the phone. “Working from home this morning and can’t find my notebook, the grey one. Think I left it in C69. Important stuff. Have a look for it please and phone me back in five.”

“Seen a grey notebook in here?” I soon asked the temp, having her coffee alone in the room. “Ahh there it is!”

“Good morning, Adam!” she said.

“Hello! Sorry to dehumanize you like that, first thing in the morning!”

She smiled a fragment of her beautiful smile and said: “Actually, do you mind if I ask you a question? I have to take something to the post-room and can’t work out where it is!”

O, how angelic, how polite, how swift I am, as I tell her: “bottom of building over the road. I can show you if you’re not sure.”

But she is sure. It was a different story when bursting into my office like the door is just a tube station gate, some French woman blurted out: “C69! Where is that?”

“69? Rings a bell – yes. yes,” I replied idly. “Now… You know the double doors you’ve just come through?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Well you took the wrong turn there. See, rooms one to fifty are always on this side of the building – the rest the other. Now, 69. Go back through them. Remember the photocopying room opposite the lifts?”

“Yes – I think so – I –”

“Go around that. You’ll come to the stairs again. Now, C69. You did say C, didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes –”

“Not B?”

“Yes!”

“Yes you said B?”

“No – yes – C – B –”

“Not B? Not D? Because they’re different –”

“C69!”

“Right, C69. C69. What you want to do is – ahh, that’s right, there’s another set of double doors just after the stairs. Probably you missed them. They have a sign saying rooms 50 to 80 above them, and – well, go through them. Follow the corridor around. It branches off into a little kitchen area on the right. Don’t take that. You don’t want to go into that kitchen! Anyway. Carry on a little bit. Not too far, just past the post-box for internal mail. The blue thing. Then there’s a lift. Take it down one level, and –”

“And it’s there?”

“Sort of. It’s –”

“Right I’ll find it.” And out she stormed, forever hopefully, as if storming away from a malfunctioning ticket machine in a tube station.

“You’re smiling like a little devil,” said a little voice from an obscure corner of the office.

39

2005-01-20T18:34:00.000+00:00

“Here, have my seat” says the young man to the pregnant lady, rising from his tube seat with a homely smile. Always nice to see? Even when she and her huge belly have been stood in front of him since Holloway Road, and now he’s getting off the tube anyway, a good five minutes and two stops later at Kings Cross?

A family unit, negotiating the rush-hour tube at Holborn, all worried looks and checks on each other, with mum manoeuvring a push-chair behind and father up ahead with twin-boys hanging off him. Always a sympathetic plight, the sight of such innocent, close-knit explorers, braving the big city? Even when Thomas politely tells the woman she keeps running over his feet, and she stings back with, “you pushed ahead of me at the top of the escalators, mate”? And when Thomas looks sickened and strides off?

A deliberate act of minor violence from a mother against a perfect stranger: always a horror? When Thomas hasn’t shut up for the last hour about how ‘wicked’ the tube is? How some ‘beauty’ at some shoddy temp agency excited him by suggesting, ‘marketing’? That euphemism for slave-wage telesales? And when Thomas sits in my chair each night, as deserving as a pregnant woman? And hasn’t said when he’s going to move out? And when I ask him which couch is next in his sofa surf, says, “something will turn up, Adam, I’ve got lots of friends here”? Friends whom he never seems to see? Preferring to stay in and bond with his family? Meaning me? Each night?

At Holborn, we make it over to the central line platform without further incident. I was ready with pins of sarcasm with which to puncture various bubbles. But Thomas had sad eyes and a fallen smile, I saw there on the platform, and then on the tube. “At least it wasn’t the wheels of the train,” I say, as we crawl on to his false, temporary home, at mine.

38

2005-01-13T17:36:00.000+00:00

Two men standing in a packed tube-train, one accidentally kicks the other, says, "I'm sorry about that." "That's quite alright." "Oh, ok - I'll do it again then." :D

One man walking down a street, brushes past a meandering cutie, says "I'm sorry about that." A vague scowl and away she turns. Oh - I - :(

Daily the city delivers one thousand unnatural knocks, lapping up around eyes with a small sea of such shocks. And the mind just notes it all down. And the face just plays along, like an obedient emoticon - an immortal jester, no skull beneath.

37

2005-01-12T16:13:00.000+00:00

How to sleep, after this:

Midnight, and finally the doorbell rang. Did it wake Alexa? Creeping down the stairs I think not. And it rang again. Longer.

“Adam,” cried the weary voice of the confused, beautiful Greek from her bedroom. “The door’s binging. Thomas at last.”

“Got it.”

No need to creep down now.

“Thomas,” I said answering the door to the unfamiliar face of my cousin – staying for a few weeks (no longer) with me while he finds his feet in London, if not his watch. “Welcome!”

“Thanks, Adam. Sorry I’m a bit late.”

“Three hours late. What happened?”

“O, you know – trains.”

“I was worried, but didn’t have your mobile number,” I went on, lugging loudly up the stairs a heavy bag of his stuff. “Neither did Mum.”

“O, I don’t have a mobile,” he said, slumped in the lounge now, in my favourite armchair. “They destroy conversation.”

Text me, phone me, someone, I thought, distract me before there’s a murder. No-one did. Go to bed Adam, now, I told myself; then told myself I’m hardly calm enough to sleep.

“Speaking of conversation,” on went Thomas, “I’d love to catch up with you. It’s been – how long?”

“Since we were kids.”

“Since we were kids. I don’t, to be honest, remember anything about you, Adam,” he went on, as though smiling brashness made for humourous charm.

“Me either,” I lied. Had I remembered the fat, sweaty eight year old at that wedding, who ran around and around and around, then glooped down glass after glass after glass of wine some bridesmaid fed him, then puked and puked and puked in a plant-pot, perhaps he wouldn’t be here now. That was Thomas, I realised, looking over the plump, red-faced infant spread out uncomfortably all over my chair.

“So man to man, family being family, we should get to know each other. What are you – what do you do?”

“Well,” I stumbled out. “I have an admin job at—” and go on to explain it’s dull, but pays the bills, just about, but not enough to buy a place, but enough to have fun on the weekend – that kind of waffle. Twenty-something London stuff. “Er – what about you? Where are you at?”

“Well, actually… I’m a poet,” he said. “A poet. My influences are Allen Ginsburg and Ted Hughes, mainly. Your Mum said you read a bit of poetry – so you know what I mean. I’ve been published in” – and I forgot the few, obscure names he listed, on purpose. “And while I’ll have to work for now in London, it shall not be for long,” he stated. “I hope – I dream – of course, because who really knows,” he added, falsely.

And then I knew how I could get to sleep: type out his crap for this blog. Exorcise the stupidity and rudeness and irritation of it all, by making a mild joke out of Thomas; Thomas, my companion for the next few, two, three, eighteen, nineteen, no more than twenty-one days. Twenty one days!

Hardly days: brief corridors of passing contact, between coming home and going to bed, nothing much. And soon he will be gone. And soon it was time to sleep. And soon breakfast and the beautiful fact that Thomas is slow, quiet and dull in the mornings. And too soon the post; to expel the night before, grim-faced for grim-time tonight.

36

2005-01-06T13:00:00.000+00:00

“Any gossip? From the political world, I mean?” I asked Becca last night, her sprite features shadowed in our cosy, quiet corner.

I’d just been telling her my favourite bad old joke for my new year’s resolution. Do not die of a heroin overdose in the next twelve months. And I’d just been complaining about the looming stay of my long-lost ‘kid’ cousin Thomas. And we’d already exhausted the tragedy of the tsunami, the obvious football talking point, whether Strada pizza was better than Sapori, exchanged more than one bad joke, discussed how to best roast potatoes and where to get goose fat, the rise of London train prices, indoor gardeing for life in rented flats – and what we’d been up to over the holiday – and were now half drunk and in a nice pub and in a good mood. It was getting late.

“Only – well, you probably know this already?” she replied, drawing herself forward. Try and concentrate on what Becca’s saying, I told myself, Becca, Becca. Becca … cleavage.

“Heck, I’m out of political loops proper – let alone gossipy ones.”

“Well, you remember the Hutton Inquiry? It’s sort of to do with that.”

“Of course I remember it,” I answered, trying to remember it over the waves of wine. “I’m not that out of it! The BBC, the scientist, and the war in Iraq.”

“Yes – whether Blair had lied about intelligence in the build-up to the war, that kind of thing. Well, this isn’t really gossip,” Becca related on. “The night before Hutton’s report was published – Blair’s teenage daughter – she’s still at school – fifteen or so I think … she attempted suicide.”

“What?”

“She attempted suicide.”

“No, no – I heard the first time. I mean – ?”

“She gets bullied mercilessly at school. You can imagine – given the public view of her father, and the war – terrible isn’t it – you know what kids are like – but anyway,” Becca went on. “The gossip, although it’s not really gossip, well that’s not it. Remember all that stuff in the papers about Blair will resign soon, and Brown is in the ascendancy? Probably you didn’t notice. Well anyway, that actually was the plan, but the real reason Blair wanted to resign was because of his daughter. Except then he was cleared by Hutton and his advisors convinced him not to go. Brown’s lot were hopping mad, of course. Don’t know about his daughter.”

She paused her ramble, sat up, and then announced like a newsreader nobly concluding a speech: “The media know about her troubles – and it’s by no means just that one night – but they choose to keep it quiet. The public may be interested, but it’s not in the public interest.”

There was a certain silence as she regally observed my responses.

“Is her troubles why Blair stayed on holiday this Christmas, despite the emergency?” I asked. “The papers say that is unusual. I’ve noticed that, at least.”

“Well I can hardly know that now,” Becca answered, obviously.

“No.”

“But such things don’t stay private secrets for long, in our lovely day and age.”

“No?” (No.)

We chatted briefly on, about that and other things, and soon our separate ways off we went. It seemed appropriate that the thin sheets of a newspaper or two lined the floor of my tube carriage; muddy footmarks stamped over the scattered pages of barbed headlines, dramatic pictures, clear simple diagrams, sports news, bold advertisements, the gloss and colour of the lifestyle sections.

35

2005-01-05T10:50:00.000+00:00

Occasionally, I’d unfold a little leaf of information myself:

“Alexa’s had her friend I don’t like staying again in December –”, or,
“be quiet in the flat in January – Dimitrios’s not back in the till the end of the month–”, say.

But more typically, for stems our talk had small things like:

“So I was watching that chat show late last night, and”, or “for lunch, fancy –”, or “whatever happened to that guy from school –”.

And immediately, the big instant bloom would be something like:

“Ooh Adam could you hear me snoring through the ceiling I bet you could you know because after three glasses well alright maybe four I’m always off and I was sound off straight away as soon as down my old head went down and out like a light it went out and I slept ever so sound until guess who why yes of course Petal woke me snuggling against me at three in the morning it was snuggling and meowing and I was still snoring and there Petal was dribbling and purring and I hope I didn’t wake you or spoil your programme for you…”

Or:

“Not cheese, no, you’ve had enough cheese well you can have some cheese if you like I’ve got some of that nice Wensleydale left but you should watch your weight Adam you’ve put on a bit you know I saw it when you arrived home and cheese won’t help oh that red cheddar is delicious isn’t I was thinking of making cauliflower cheese for tonight you’d like that wouldn’t you course you would with potatoes they’re a bit fattening too not as much as cheese but so delicious and no don’t offer to help I don’t have you home often and how about some cheese for lunch now? You were going to suggest a salad, were you? With some nice feta? Well you can burn it all off in the New Year, back in London!”

Or – last one that doesn’t involve the plot of this entry, I promise –

“You know a new boy joined the top-set I teach English to last term and didn’t half remind me he had such a lovely smile really wide you could see all his teeth really just like yours although he’s a bit of tearaway only fourteen and got a girl pregnant already such a shame with such a smile and smart lad too just isn’t interested and no, I suppose he’s not really like you, but did I tell you that before, on the phone? I did did I O deary me O…”

Bored one late morning this Christmas holiday, trying not to picture cheese, whole cheese and nothing but cheese, as I lolled like a cat on the sofa, I quietly supposed such half-conversations of ours were like vase-flowers: fragments cut from abundant life elsewhere; fitting with the comfy furniture in the cloistered lounge; but going nowhere, half-dead even – dying in fact; in stagnant waters and misty glass, dying.

“Now,” my mother interrupted my muse, “I’ve brought you some nice cheddar, a bit of bread and pickle, some grapes and a cup of tea, and you’ll never guess who I spoke to the other day!

“No, not Elvis. Your kid cousin Thomas – well he’s not a kid anymore he’s 21 and he’s been through a bit of a rough patch one way and another but I won’t bore you with that but he’s a lovely lad reminds me of you in a way anyway I was talking to Thomas well his father your uncle you see and the thing is Thomas has decided to drop out of his Masters degree. It’s not that he’s not bright enough it’s just money I think or something anyway it wasn’t very clear – and he’s going to start looking for work in London and as Alexa has people to stay at yours and Dimitrios is away, I didn’t think you’d mind if–”

“He stays at mine?” I blurted. “Thomas? I haven’t seen him in years! And –”

“Well it’ll be a great opportunity then. He’ll be up on the 11th. Alexa won’t complain will she? Not with the number of times that friend of hers has stayed! Like you said. Anyway. It’ll only be for a week, or two. Or until Dimitrios is back, or – anyway. Until Thomas finds his feet.”

“As long as he doesn’t plant any roots.”

“It's only a short while and I'm sure he'll be as quiet as a mouse.”

“Makes me wish I had a cat.”

“Now, now, Adam. I’ll tell him that’s alright then, shall I? And I was thinking, I might come up one weekend – go to the theatre with you both perhaps and maybe lunch or dinner or perhaps…”

O well-arranged, predictable image of a vase, o orderly object, come back! All is forgiven! The disorderly family tree sways, reaches, grows; subject to such unpredictable weather.

34

2004-12-23T11:30:00.000+00:00

Someone somewhere is talking about santa. Good myth or bad lie? Ghosts of Christmas past drift about the conversation:

Davey McGrath has a secret to tell me. We clamber off the climbing frame, wander to a corner of the playground.

“Santa isn’t real,” he whispers into my ear, earnest and excited. “He doesn’t exist.”

“He does!” I tell him, scandalized. “I saw him last year.”

On the way home, I tell myself that my best friend has got this all wrong, terribly wrong. I’ve seen Santa’s hat – surely I did – bobbing past my window, as red as tomato ketchup. I heard the whinny of Rudolph, the scrape of the slay as it took off and soared up, up and away. I did, I did, I did!

But then doubts flood my mind: how could he get round all the houses? Why would he exist? How come that bike he got me last year - it had been stood outside the local second-hand-shop for a month before?

“What’s wrong?” mum asks when I arrive home. I tell her. Soon she is explaining: Santa’s part of the magic of Christmas for children. I’m growing up, so now it’s time for me to understand that. But I better not tell my baby sister.

Of course, I know straight away that I’m joining in with this game: it’s what grown-ups do! I’m seven years old, and the entire world makes perfect sense again.

Years later, I’m covering my chips with tomato ketchup in front of the TV. Long ago my father had given up trying to stop me drenching food in the stuff. All his warnings – that it’ll kill me, that it’s processed rubbish, that it drowns out taste, that it’s no good for you, full of E numbers probably (whatever that meant) – have been firmly ignored. The news is on: the light-hearted feature at the end. The image of a bottle of ketchup suddenly occupies the corner of the screen. “Surprising news from scientists now,” the announcer begins to say. My father looks stunned as the newly-discovered health benefits from the stuff get reeled off – including, even, protection from cancer.

Now, you might expect that I gloated, or we joked about it, or he started eating the it with everything, like I did; hell, you might be picturing a pantry with piles of the magic stuff, bought in bulk. Or maybe that he stormed off, changed the channel, dismissed the claims. But by this time, we already knew about the brain tumour – which, as it turned out, would kill him at the age of 51. There he sat, as fat as santa should be from all of the drugs, letting the cold irony pass in silence, and soon the sports news was on anyhow.

Santa: good lie or bad myth? Ghosts of the past drift around without answers, and the ghosts of the future hold unknown questions. My last day at work this year, and nothing is left to do. Except to wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year.

33

2004-12-16T14:05:00.000+00:00

"Not been writing that blog much, Adam?" said an old friend last night on the train. We were heading to Clapham Junction, for a dinner party in the sought-after part of town, where 20-somethings cluster around exotic markets and over-priced bars, exchange telephone numbers and sexual fluids, discuss the city or legal jobs they do so well, remember the university days and all those parties, remark on the smallness of the world bumping into old School pals, or offer to show them the photos from their gap-year mucking in for charity, or from their sponsored 10km run last summer. Lives lived as they should be: your teacher says these are your best subject, your parents say do this at uni, your careers advisor says this will earn you most money, and heh presto. Lovely life just falls into place.

"Writing bits and bobs," I answered. "Got a few unfinished entries. I hate posting anything I'm not happy with. Hate it. Don't know why."

"You shouldn't. It's only a blog. So what's been happening? You never even told the world, or all three of your readers at least, that you shaved off your beard."

"True. But who wants to know about that? Dull story: I decided to keep it, bought some clippers to trim it into shape, and started hacking at it this way and that, that way and thot. And then ten minutes later, an uneven mess stared at me from the mirror, while strands of hair settled on surfaces all over the bathroom.

"Shaving is easier. And now, what to do with the clippers I don't need? Skimp on the hair-dresser and go for a short hair-cut, or be naughty and break them and return them and ask for my money back?"

"Keep your hair long while it lasts," my friend replied, peering at my hair-line, and its slight - slight - retreat from my temple. The train was packed: I noticed a black woman, crammed facing the doors, newspaper held at her side, no space to read it, smiling at our conversation. In a nice way, I thought to myself, in a nice way.

"You know what I'm having trouble describing at the moment? I told you about the dog?"

"No."

"I keep getting bitten by a dog on the way to work. Happened twice now - yesterday and the day before."

"You're kidding?"

"About the dog? Or describing it?"

"The dog, Adam, the dog."

"No. You know my street ends at a right-angle, like an L-shape, into an alley? Well, the day before yesterday, I turned into the alley and walked into this dog. I jumped back, swearing, and the vicious thing sprinted forward, then sprung up at my leg. Gnashing, furious, claws out. Razor-sharp teeth, gleaming. Biting, attacking. Up, up it leapt - about as high as my knee, I suppose."

"About as high as your knee?"

"Yes... that was about as high as the evil thing's little legs could get him. I suppose it wasn't much bigger than a guinea pig, really." The black woman is laughing by now under her breath.

"And the same thing happened the next day? What did the woman say?"

"Same thing next day - almost exactly the same. I swore a lot at her. Jesus Fucking Christ mainly, I think. Then, she asked me to listen to her explanation. Apparently she and her husband have been away on holiday for a couple of weeks, so the poor little thing has been in kennels - sorta hotels for pets. He was a bit upset by it, and isn't normally like that at all, she said. In fact, he's more scared of me than I am by him! Or something."

"And what do you say?"

"Well, I could have said (all hurt and vulnerable) that I've had nightmares about dogs ever since I was a kid, but given that the mutt was no bigger than moderately-sized rodent, I didn't. I could have said (all sarcastic and clever) that if the poor little creature had been traumatized by a holiday, then by all means it has the right to bite me. In fact, why not aim higher? What are my privates compared to your dog's peace of mind? I could have said (all superior and moralising) that I have the right to walk to work without getting bitten, and what if I'd been a little kid or baby? And that if a dog bites someone it's a criminal offence and he can be put down by law - and so I'm calling the cops."

"And what did you say?"

"Jesus Fucking Christ. Can't you keep it on a tighter leash. That, I think.

"I suppose at least I said something, even if it was blurted, uncontrolled, rushed, embarrasing, ridiculous - but something. Although she wasn't there this morning." And on we traveled, amused, a few chuckles about us, to a night of photo-albums and chatter about politics and sport, and delicious chicken wrapped in bacon, cooked according to fine recipee, dictated by some distant and successful TV chef in a luscious, solid, hard-backed book.

32

2004-12-09T16:42:00.000+00:00

"You always tell me what you think, Adam," some friend or other was saying a while ago, "but never what you feel."

O. Let me think. Feel, I mean. No, or - ahh, you know. Well, here goes:

A strange encounter: The woman I sat next to on the tube last night, flicking through a holiday brochure, ticking various hotels or places of names with a blue biro, then putting boxes around others, then scribbling across the page, stabbing it, hacking at it, peering at it - all before she turned and stared and grinned at me with this crazed, mad, pale, so young and awful face. Right then, I suppose:

pity.

Or some nothing moment: A brash business man queue jumps at an escalator out of the tube:

hate.

A bolshy business woman queue jumps just after, and I watch her beautiful figure clamber up the stairs:

love.

Someone or other clearly in a real rush queue jumps with a sorry:

a pragmatic justice,

if that counts. Or some office moment: a phone call from someone asking for someone's phone number. "It's not on the internet? In the document I emailed you last week? And come to think of it, how come you always do this? Unlike anyone else? And I don't even work for you?" - is what I don't say, reading the digits off.

Irritation,

of course. In they come later, a Christmas card and some home-made biscuits I don't enjoy: a blip of lofty

benevolence

passes. Walking outside my office at lunch with such thoughts, feelings going blip-blip-blip, as I wade through meandering students and sniping chuggers and the suited masses, I wonder what I feel about them all. I'm in a bad mood. Maybe I feel about the whole world roughly what I feel about heavy metal: I just don't like it, and can't work out how anyone really could. People-cars-birds-litter-shops pass, and feelings go

blip

blip

blip.

Surely life isn't just a graph with two dimensions: one, stuff; the other what you feel about it, there on a grid, with speech the only attempt at the smooth line that connects the dots of reality that randomly pop up?

At some point I'm walking around the side-ways C of the Aldwych: and the traffic has stopped. And the road is cleared. And everyone at the bus-stop is staring. And lights are flashing. And ambulance men are rushing over. And a figure lies still, dying probably, in the middle of the road. Further along a white van is stopped, alone.

This should remind my feelings of the essentials of life, its fleeting, precious nature and sudden end, this should be the image that provides the perspective, that gets rid of the bad mood, clarifies the feeling. "I know who I hope it is," I think, and walk on.

30

2004-11-30T17:02:00.000+00:00

"Adam's Beard-o-Meter" stands opposite the reviews of teas. It reads:

Week 1. He says: Kicked off nicely. They say: What beard?
Week 2. He says: Feels itchy. They say: Looks it.
Week 3. He says: Looking good. They say: Has ginger tendencies.
Week 4. He says: Possibly needs a trim underneath. They say: Not for an Abraham Lincoln impersonation it doesn't.
Week 5. He says: Has the authority of Charles Darwin. They say: No, of Captain Birds Eye.
Week 6. He says: Ha ha ha. Ho ho ho. They say: Santa?

And now, decision time: to shave, or not to shave. Trim, or not to trim. It may have profound consequences, a symbol of ultimate power, or at least a statement of it over my own face; or perhaps some other consequence, as certain interesting, and probably single men, can attest to.

29

2004-11-26T17:28:00.000+00:00

These few days: why not stand around sipping at the wine and gulping at the beer, as if they were any other?

Now, it's time to go home. And still paper work to get through. Still emails to answer. I have been trudging all day.

Social engagements for tonight and tomorrow cancelled. A Thanksgiving party, starting at 4. A celebration of something in the usual bar. An offer of dinner.

Perhaps on Monday I will just be watching television, or eating a meal, or snoozing on a train, at the cinema, maybe, and 6.57pm that night will drift by unnoticed, like any other.

Just disappearing, just like that. Like what?

Like the breath of a man, unconscious and slightly green, laid out in a hospice bed, his brother, his wife, his son stood uselessly around him, like his breath that slows without deepening, once, twice (while a clock must say five minutes to seven one minute, and four minutes to seven the next, unnoticed) - and then the pause between each breath gets longer, and longer, each breath more and more shallow, fainter, going now - a great pause - a final attempt at breath - and then ending, forever. Just disappearing, like that.

So utterly desolate, I looked around the room that night, anywhere, for anything; at the flowers; my uncle's face; to the clock which told me the time - three minutes before seven at that moment, that evening, on Sunday the 29th of November in nineteen ninety-eight. Heh, this Monday, this weekend, however much I empty it out, it won't be like that.

28

2004-11-24T10:17:00.000+00:00

"Gloucester Road station," the announcer announced, "is closed due to fire-works. Customers are advised..."

Closed because of fire-works? What? Celebrations? At this time of the morning? Customers escorted off the trains, an amazing spectacular promised, the roof of the station rolled back, the sky as open as a basket, and then the mouths of the formal stuffy commuters gaping up in marvel, like captivated children, as the bang of gun-powder announces a million brilliant dots, each plucking a colour from the rainbow and placing it upon the sky?

Or, what? Closed because of a disaster? Some madman, seething at the indignity of it all or some crazy cause, crammed in at the end of a carriage; dammit, he mutters, dammit, I'll do it this time - and then the flick of a match, and a woosh, an explosion, and ... And clothes on fire. Faces on fire. Screams through flames. The tube screeching to a halt. And the slow drift of a smoke that is scented with burning human flesh.

"Once again," the voice repeated, "Gloucester Road is closed due to an earlier fire-alert. Customers..."

My mistake; my imagination. I left the tube to find the world as usual: the old buildings and the morning sky as grey as each other. Albeit with the occasional black stain, and dotted with the bold colours of the advertisements, flashing out such brilliant promises.

27

2004-11-18T17:44:00.000+00:00

We speak once, twice each week, and have done so for the last two, three years - since I've worked here; the plump, greying, always-suited, soft-voiced, smiley bar-manager and I.

Pretty much, it's either: "The usual is it? And how are you?" "Thanks. O, same as ever. Struggling on. Battling through. Yourself?" "Same. Surviving, just about." "Yeah. Thanks. See you." "Thanks, see you."

Else something like: "And how are you? Here's your usual." "O, thanks. Not bad actually. Work going well at the mo'. Yourself?" "Yeah - business is looking up actually. Good time right now." "Great. Thanks. See you." "Thanks, see you."

Last night it was one of those two again, with a "here's your change" as he passes the coins into my palm. And then a regular, sat opposite him at the bar, as I was walking away: "So you're into all that dominatrix stuff are you?" I turn a touch, stopped in my tracks, to see the bar-manager shrug his shoulder in subdued agreement.

He notices. "Problem with the change?"

"If anything," I say, "it might just be a bit too much."

26

2004-11-16T13:08:00.000+00:00

November, I hate you.

Last year – under your endless slates of cloud cover, the wind punching about your short frozen days, the rain pummelling your grey streets, and three months to come of the same – I said that I hated you then, too. And I did. I do.

For instance, for instance... The year before last, my girlfriend was a New York business woman. She was here on a study year out, staring into my eyes at night, lunching with contacts-cum-friends on afternoons, ticking off one more box from a list of museums and galleries each weekend, and lounging around pricey coffee shops, in classy London knee-length socks, while reading anything-but-politics. And she did not understand, November, that fight at a party over nothing, in front of all her friends, or when I turned up stoned to meet her parents, or dumped her just for not being right for me (twice, and each time right out of the blue), or forced her to try a restaurant that I must have thought she would hate, her being a Jew. November, it's true: it can’t be her fault. So I’ll blame you.

But that was nothing, really, November.

Remember, remember.

A phone call to an office bureaucrat about the tax I pay: it ends in swearing, shouting, slamming. And stares from all over the open-plan.

A drunk student, his arms spanning entire width of the door of the train as it pulls into Putney: he gets pushed out and pinned against a wall, told never to get in my way again.

A towel on the back of the door shoots upwards as I fall downwards: two hours later I come round on the floor of the bathroom, someone from the party has been banging on the door, wondering whether they should get a screwdriver and take off the hinges. I was trying to fucking sleep, I tell him, dizzy and slurring.

Shop-lifting, even! And the personal emails left unanswered, culling a few distant friends – all for what? Only for you, November, and I hate you.

Seven November’s ago, I did not know what I know now: that I hate you. O, my second year at university. The nights lit by disco lights, the days dozing in a warm daze. A dingy bedroom, a cheap wine or whiskey hardly touched, and the flame-red shirt of she from the lecture slips from her shoulder like a shadow. Then, a free weekend and the student loan just in? To London! To Amsterdam! To Paris!

But the year after was different. The November when I first hated November. I was only 21: I didn’t think to quit University to be with my father; I didn’t know that getting a mobile – so I could rush home in an emergency – was a token safeguard that guaranteed only bad news, and that however short a future is, more should be asked of it than that; I didn’t even know, deep down, really deep down, that when the Doctors told me that “he has a couple of weeks, a month at the most”, they actually meant it, nor that they were right.

November, kicking about in your leaves, why have I never looked for consolation? In their symbolism say, or a joke. Their yellows, their reds, their rustle underfoot: such a beautiful, massive death that only happens in November, that only happens to leaves, dropping like hair from a cancer victim.

25

2004-11-03T17:13:00.000+00:00

At first, I thought this:

Four more? Unbelievable. I knew this would happen. Up and down the platform I muttered to myself: murder, murder, I could murder someone. That businessman flicking past the pink pages of his paper - he'd do. The half-stoned student buying sweets from a machine - him perhaps. The man in the blue uniform lazing by the dirty wall - anyone. All these unfazed others, casually waiting like me on this grey platform of dull light, for a machine to hurtle out from the black tunnel, slow for a few arbitrary exits and entries, then hurtle on unchanged. Why aren't they, like me, hopping mad?

Murder, murder: a four minute wait at this time in the morning? Unbelievable. Of course those thoughts go nowhere in the stuffed carriage of strangers that eventually arrives. Stupid to feel all that, when we are all here collected under the same artificial light, swung along with the same bumps, our lungs sifting the same dirt, all late, late, late; but all with a hidden faith in getting there. The train sweeps in and out.

Then looking around on the train, I thought this:

All the millions underground: each of us have that power in us, to go mad, pull a lever, shout; any one of us could step off a platform, jump under a train, push a stranger. Of course, we all judge ourselves safe, there on the tube, with a hidden faith in strangers. And what good to do it? The power to take action is not the power to make consequence, and as the train speeds into the inevitable darkness, whose hand will deliver good things, whose distribute bad stuffs, is unknowable. Someone folds up a newspaper with a fatalistic headline. And as the future speeds on after a brief wait at a platform, like a train into a tunnel, who knows what murder or marvel nests in each coming moment, minute, year, set of four years.

24

2004-10-29T17:41:00.000+01:00

So, much chatter could have crammed this clear silence.

But long days have been left to die unwritten, as if slept through like nights of forgotten, but tumultuous, dreams.

24.1

2004-10-29T17:40:00.000+01:00

There were lots of little tales I could have typed here, and didn't.

Here’s one. The effete and single Russell at a party, all night like this with the boys:

“Monica is a hotty, isn’t she? I know she’s engaged. But Greg says her man Mike is working in Brasil. Think I should try with her? You do? I will then. It’s been too long for me – and too long for her I bet – ! I’d love to get her bed. And you definitely think I should give it a go? I will then. After a few more drinks, that is.” Hours later, a “hello.” Soon, Russell is attempting to flirt, every now and again his head swivelling furtive glances back at the boys, like a snake dancing out from his blankets in a box, panning the crowd, then returning to his master, who plays a tune on a flute or whistle.

At the end of the evening, Greg overhears Monica asking Russell back to her's. Russell would love to he says, but has to be up early next morning. (Visiting someone or other, somewhere or other.) On Monday over lunch, he explains: turns out he really likes her. More than a one night thing, so he decided not to. When’s he going to call? Not sure. His mobile sounds and her name is on the display. He doesn’t answer. Not in the mood. Tuesday over lunch: she’s called twice without leaving a message, and has now sent him a text message. “She’s so keen! Like a stalker. Better give this one a miss.”

Single and sexless he is once more! – but you know what judgement we all silently decide upon. And we all know that at the next party, he will be equally as excited and convinced in talk - and that he will sleep alone later, deceived and fruitless.

24.2

2004-10-29T17:39:00.000+01:00

Ah, there have been a few sights in these weeks, months.

I could have noted this one:

An early morning meander via the heath and its pond, heading for a paper. And there in mid-air, a crow, spinning and bobbing. This way – but only a bit. That way – but only a bit. Swinging with the bursts of the breeze. Then faster, then a swivvle, a turn. Then still. All above the pond. Its wings were splayed as if for flight, but they were not flapping. Its black beak was open but was silent, not squawking. An amazing sight I wandered towards than morning – how did it do that? – why? – and then I spied the fishing line.

A mistake, slung by clowning children perhaps? Either way, slung too far; caught on the branch of the tree that overhangs the pond, and just left there. An invisible slice of wire, sharp as razor, a tight little line of death above the pond. The crow had severed its neck on it, the crow must have flown right into it, everything totally stopped in just one second. Horrible thing, I watched it for a while, suspended like a piece of lifeless plastic art in some contemporary exhibition – before heading off to scan the headlines about terrorism and football.

24.3

2004-10-29T17:38:00.000+01:00

Perhaps you would not like some nasty story, out of the blue and just like that.

Instead, there is my new housemate. A friend of Alexa’s from Greece called Dimitrios. He tells his Grandma that he only applies for jobs on Wednesday. Wednesday is his lucky day of the week. She told him so in the letter which flew-over with a bundle of food. Dabbing olive oil with bread and picking at feta and tomatoes (with a sprinkling of oregano) he sits around stoned a lot while we beat him at cards.

24.4

2004-10-29T17:36:00.001+01:00

Get it while it’s hot! When the man in the Indian takeaway shakes your hand, when the guy in the fallafel place stops you in the street to say hi, when the Chinese boy not only knows your name but you also know what Universities he’s applying to and why, when you can’t recall the time you did a weekly shop, it’s definitely time to get back to the gym and get on a diet. (I must have thought that first a month ago; perhaps when passing by the pizza place with the police sign outside it – the one asking for witnesses to the murder of the delivery biker to come forward.)