Two months in the life of miserable old, me: Part 4

Monday 26th January

So I promised to detail the holiday my wife and I recently took in North Wales.

One of Anna and my mutual interests has always been travel: a desire to visit new places, to experience new cultures, a wanderlust. It’s taken us to many a place in our time, and we still holiday regularly. Yet though that incipient passion remains, of wonder and awe, that sets us revelling in the prospect of travel, the actual holidays themselves as separated from our expectations, have been very lonely affairs. This was no different.

Arriving in Llandudno, at 2.30pm, on a rainy, overcast Wednesday in Autumn, after a two hour drive, we checked in and received the keys to our cottage. It is difficult to express the loneliness and emptiness, the doom that greeted our arrival. The deserted, hibernating, off-peak holiday camp; the polite but unwelcoming, sterile manner of the reception staff; the loneliness, the sheer loneliness and fear that harassed my wife and I as we opened up our cottage alone, and with sinking, sinking hearts explored the interior. The plain walls, the barren, sterile cottage, the feeling that someone had just died in there.

In fact the cottage itself was reasonably plush; in better times, as when J was little, it would’ve been exciting to have come here, and have this cottage as our own. But now, as my wife and I looked around and settled in, it was impossible to keep at bay a gnawing loneliness, biting at each of our lonely persons. We wished we had never come. As if in coming here we were exposed. We were to be locked in, at the mercy of all our demons, face to face with all of our problems. A sense of loneliness and doom, the end. An emptiness, a fear, with nothing, utterly nothing to lift our spirits. It was as if my wife and I had been sent to prison, so desolate was it as we paced around our new quarters. Or like a house we’d come to in order to die; lonely and cut apart from the world, we had been sentenced to come here and live out our lives, disconnected from everything. Like a nursing home, I guess.

We were both taciturn and curt, morosely unpacking our cases. I switched on the TV in the hopes of livening myself up; it worked for a while; but in the end, not even that feeling of well-being and surety evinced by the good old comforter television was strong enough to overcome the all pervading doom of the cottage. It was a death sentence.

We went off to town to explore before long, the two of us desperate to escape. Yet, driving for ten minutes to the seaside town, and there getting out and traipsing about, that same horrifying feeling of loneliness, of being vulnerable and unprotected hounded our souls. As we walked along the deserted promenade in the miserable grey weather, unsure where we were going, our hopes rapidly fading that we would find anything or anyone of intelligence and culture here; a sense that no one was here to welcome us – how lovely it would’ve been to have our own personal guide, a local, happy to show us around, to talk and joke with us, to listen to our problems; yet the reality was that no one was here for us, we were utterly forlorn. The natives seemed unfriendly, we were scared. We were in need of love. It was not forthcoming. And it was stupid of us, we knew, to somehow expect this friendship. As if the staff at the holiday cottage, or the locals in the town, should suddenly welcome us with open arms, enquire about our life and our problems, go out of their way to make us feel welcome, as if we were royalty. No it was absurd. And yet somehow we expected it. Instead, that atrocious feeling of home sickness infected us, strangling and choking our spirits.

We walked miserable and angry through the unfriendly streets, snappy with one another, curt and short, both of us terrified and afraid; my physical insignificance, my shortness, my unprepossessing looks irritating me; then too those of my dowdy, dumpy old wife, miserable faced, towing along after me, unsure where we were going. The rain, the cold, nothing to look forward to in this desolate, forlorn, God forsaken place. The loneliest place on the planet. How is it that the appetite for travel and exploration can so uplift our souls? And never fade with experience? Why should places like North Wales seem so romantic, pure and cultural? When, in both cases, the reality of it is dreariness and utter alienation. My wife and I, like two little old aliens, terrified, lonely, angry and bitter; cut off from society, wishing we were home and not here; eternally glued to one another like two prisoners – I see us walking the streets, a rope around our necks, a rope around our legs, like two shackled slaves; rowing, bickering, expanding our nervous energy on one another in fits of squabbling. Eventually in one loud and angry argument, my wife went off, I let her go. We roamed apart for a while; then came together again, everything the same, nothing having changed.

We went for a bite to eat. Scowering with trepidation, we eventually entered one of the many little coffee shops, a sense that it was a local den and that we were not welcome here accosting us; entering and ordering with complete lack of assurity. Sitting there, eating our morsels hurriedly and in fear as though people were watching us with murderous, hateful, contemptuous faces; talking to one another in subdued voices, feeling as though the natives were listening to our conversation, scoffing at our sensitive, educated speech; walloping the food down and dashing off hurriedly; and, in speaking to the waitress, and giving our orders, suggesting, blatantly and in clear as day undertones, even though we only asked for coffee and cake, that we were the two most loneliest people in the world, that we were dying here in utter doom, and would you please, waitress, or anybody listening for God’s sake save us, help us, oh God please!

Unsurprisingly, our first night here was one of insomnia. Unsettled, unnerved, wishing only to be back home, neither of us could sleep a wink. The wind howled relentlessly outside, dashing at the window pains ceaselessly as we tossed and turned. We were irritated by each others presence, as we lay there wide awake. The wind, whining like a hyena, aggravating our nerves; and apparently blowing on an unlocked gate, which persistently slammed to and fro, to and fro, to and fro! (I went out to try and fix it but couldn’t get access to it.)

The next day, tired and worn out, our nerves on the highest most point of tension, like plucked violin strings, on the point of snapping, my wife went to reception to complain about the gate. Having a long bitter argument, with a taciturn young hussy at reception, a horrible little war between the two of them. The sullen young girl – pert, sleek and sexy – revelling I feel, in my wife’s evident unhappiness, her contemptibleness for getting so bitter and agitated over such a trifling thing as a gate; eventually agreeing to send out the site’s handy man; and that decent, yet annoying old man, an inverted snob, who, presumably on the over exaggerated and misinformed description of the young girl, held a contemptuous view of us both, attempted to fix the gate, and did so; but implying in his attitude that my wife and I were somehow hopelessly impractical toffs; people who’d been used to having everything in life done for them and not wise and philosophic enough (like himself) to see that banging gates, just like shit, happen, and that you’ve just got to get on in life and be less petty; instead of seeing that we were both in fact intelligent, sensitive human beings, lonely and outcast, at the very limit of our tethers.

Yet it was on the second night that things turned disastrous.

As I sat in front of the TV, my wife already in bed, my stomach felt slightly acidic, I felt a touch nauseous. I presumed this was because I’d rather overeaten that night – in a pathetic way of fighting off my misery. I thought it would die down in time.

But as I lay in my bed wide awake, my wife snoring next to me, I realised I wasn’t going to shake off so easily what was in my stomach. Then I started to consider being deliberately sick, to jettison the burden of my stomach, and so be able to get to sleep. Eventually however, as I lay there thinking on it, I realised it was going to come out of its own accord; and I got up and went to be sick.

It was painful indeed – especially so since I had to kickstart the process myself by placing two fingers down my throat; my stomach felt cut and torn as I threw up; the tension in my head lethal; the groaning, the horrible, stressful process of vomiting, bent down on my knees, concentrating only on that; my two hands on the open bowl. The tension, the silence, the hush, the focus, the concentration, the waiting like a sportsman taking aim on a crucial shot; finally one plucks up the courage to get on with it, to start the gruelling process, even though you know it will hurt. Finally though I did it, hurling up bowl-fulls of acidic-stenching, porridge quaff. I felt relieved to have got it out of my system. It was over. I returned to my bed and to sleep.

Yet half an hour later, I wanted to wretch again. Despite now having so little on my stomach, I still had an overwhelming desire to do so. I lay in bed anxious, caught in two minds; wanting to vomit and relieve myself; yet unwilling to go through the gruelling pain of it, my stomach still aching, remembering how last time it was so torn and pained.

In the end I had no choice; circumstance found me kneeled once more before the toilet bowl, sweating now, concentrating, desperate to be sick; yet for all that, no matter how much I tried to wretch, bringing nothing forth. It wasn’t surprising as I had brought it all up before. Yet the urge to vomit persisted, cruelly putting my torn stomach through the mill. Then as I crouched there in agony, sweating, trying to vomit, but unable to, I was afflicted from a new and hideous angle.

I suffered chronic diarrhoea. I had no idea where it came from, but surprising me, as I knelt concentrating, suddenly it burst out of me, drowning, soaking my pants. That horrible feeling of incontinence, of having no control over it. I knew I was in desperate trouble as it spewed out ceaselessly, the diarrhoea dribbling around the corner, soaking my testicles and penis, creosoting my coarse hair.

The agony of wanting to be sick was unbearable. And I thought it would never end. When it finally did, I felt relieved, lying there on the toilet floor, my head next to the open toilet bowl, what sick there was spattering the toilet and its rim; and then the diarrhoea, the hot curry-stuff, drenching my underpants and seeping and spilling out onto the tiles. I removed my pants and lay naked, shivering on the floor, moaning, recovering.

In time I tried to clear up; to flush away the sick; to wipe up with domestos, the diarrhoea on the floor; to put my dirty pants in a make shift sink; to put on some new ones. Wanting now to be at peace I returned to bed.

But it wasn’t long before the feeling of sickness returned. And now I entered, what at the time, promised to be a never ending cycle, of desiring to be sick, lying there preying it would go away, feeling I wouldn’t have the energy, desperately unwilling to put my stomach through the mill once more, recalling my labour pains of last time; then unable to call it off any longer, racing to the toilet, crouching on the floor, sweating, in agony, beside myself, overtaken by the virus, desperately trying to vomit, my stomach feeling as though it had been run through a cheese grater; producing only minor quantities of vomit, transparent, watery, acidic, lethal to bring up; and then, totally unexpectedly, my body telling me to vomit at all costs, the surprise of the hot diarrhoea spewing out incontinently from my backside; the hot curry-stuff rushing out my backside irresistibly, oozing out and spattering over the floor.

Then when it was finally over, sweating, weak and in disarray, now unable to even contemplate cleaning up, simply returning like one possessed to my bed and there lying down, ill, at sea, fighting now this virus, that threatened to overrun me. I was weak, overcome and pained thoroughly, it was vicious. I was at its mercy, ready to die.

My wife became aware that I was ill at around the third time. I can only imagine what awful sight presented itself to her as, opening up the bathroom door, she must have seen an ageing, naked, scrawny man, his back and posterior to her, crouching over the bowl, in agony, desperately trying to be sick; my pasty, white, naked backside pointing right in her direction. And then to see the hot diarrhoea squirting ceaselessly out of my buttocks, incontinently, God it must have been some sight.

She tried to be sympathetic and to help, but it was clear she couldn’t be bothered with it. She spoke pleasant words, told me not to worry, that it would be alright. But I could sense that she just felt annoyed by the whole affair: tired to have to be up in the middle of the night, when all she wanted was to sleep; irritated that the bathroom would have to be cleaned; irritated that I was in agony and that she was powerless to help.

The sickness was immensely aggravating and painful. I was hot, sweaty, barely conscious, struggling, diverting all power to fighting off the virus; the cycle persisted; the need to get up and vomit; the howling, lurching, retching; the failed deliverance of vomit; the flanking, decoy manoeuvre of the insidious virus, fooling one every time so that I was bent double, my head in the bowl as the diarrhoea spewed hotly out. The pain and soreness of my put through the cheese-grater stomach; the pain and soreness of the base of my rectum; my ever growing reluctance to fight another battle, knowing fine well how sore it would be to lurch and excrete; lying in bed, sweaty, delirious and in agony, trying to avoid another debacle; but in the end the inevitability of it, of having to get up and try and vomit once more.

By the time morning came the bathroom was a litany of sick piles and diarrhoea, an atrocious mess. Piles of sick and diarrhoea lay about the place. In the agony of it, in the madness that infested me, I had irrationally crawled around the bathroom, like a man having a heart attack, grasping, moving, desperate to find some relief, the torture of spewing becoming unbearable, the thought of having to puke once more mentally agonising, my stomach ripped and grated; myself desperately lurching up. And then as a pile formed here and another there, on the next occasion I found a new patch and so on.

It must have been another horrendous sight for my wife that morning. The piles of sick and diarrhoea, the piles of dirty underwear in the sink. I should’ve been grateful that, as I lay in bed, out of it, she dutifully went about cleaning up. I should’ve been grateful that she had expressed some sympathy for me at first. But I wasn’t. Instead I just felt annoyed by her and by the fact that she resented being by nurse. She almost seemed to blame me, as though it were my fault for being ill. She came to me early that morning, as I lay there unbearably, dreadfully ill, trying to stay calm, to sleep off my agony, my illness. But she wouldn’t let me rest.

‘Why don’t you get up, you’ll feel much better for it’ she said irritated.

‘No, no, sleep, sleep’ I said barely conscious.

‘You won’t get any better lying there like that’ she said, peeved, aggressive.

‘Noooo!’ I moaned, giving up. I turned over. Weak, feeble and annoyed, it was only by grunting and moaning that I could possibly try to convey to my wife how unbearable my pain was, and that I had no energy to argue.

Why did she have to be like that? To come and harass me, and tell me what was good for me. A nurse yes, but an irritated one. Why couldn’t she just let me in peace, and concentrate on her own life?

Later on, on another visit to see me in bed, I tried to explain.

‘It’s unbearable, please, I need something to eat. I’m desperate to vomit, to wretch, but I have nothing to bring up. Please, I need something to eat.’

‘No, you can’t have anything to eat. It won’t do you any good’ she replied condescendingly. ‘You only imagine you need to be sick.’

I can’t describe how my wife angered me, telling me what was right and wrong for me, and telling me how I felt. It was stupid and irritating of her, yet probably only borne out of frustration that she couldn’t help me. Yet it was annoying all the same. Why couldn’t my wife have had more sange froide? If it meant she was only going to come to our bedroom to get irritated with me, I’d rather she’d have been an indifferent nurse, and left me alone to ride out the storm. Having said that, I have to express my gratitude. Lying there sick, tortured, she saved me with hot lemonade – having had to go out on a twenty minute walk in the rain to acquire it.

I lay in bed with fever for two days. By the end of the second day, I was feeling a lot better.

Given my wife’s attitude to my illness; her annoyance at it, her patronising remarks about how I was feeling, as I lay there in utter agony; and given how close she’d been to me and my vomit and excrement, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to have worked out that my wife would be next victim.

I felt sorry for her, for being hit by a sucker punch like that, for not having seen the blindingly obvious. I also felt satisfaction, justice.

‘It is unbearable, oh it is’ she said, whining pitifully. I felt such sympathy for her as she admitted this.

‘Oh it’s terrible. All I want to do is wretch, to throw up, but I have nothing left in my stomach. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.’

And so now I, still lacklustre and lethargic, recovering from my illness, became the nurse and she the patient. Now I got to see the horrific site of her naked, pasty, cellulite backside, pointing at me, diarrhoea projecting rapidly outwards, and falling on her naked legs, cascading hotly, as the poor woman, head in bowl, agonisingly attempted to be sick. I spoke kind words, I tried to soothe her, said ‘it’s ok love, you’ll be alright’ just as she had said ‘come on dear, it’ll be alright, don’t worry’ to me. Yet my sympathy was limited. Even just having had it myself, my sympathy was limited. It’s just not natural to be so. It’s annoying for so many reasons: the irritation of having to get out of bed in the middle of the night, of having to play nurse when you want to sleep; having to mop up spew and shit when all you want to do is sleep; the annoyance of having your patient sully the bathroom yet again, just after you’ve cleaned up for the umpteenth time; yet above and beyond all this, the simple powerlessness of genuinely wanting to help but being totally and completely useless. Who would want another human being to suffer? Yet when you are powerless to help, and can only utter a few, condescending, unfelt, disingenuous words of encouragement as they suffer, it really is frustrating.

So that was how it went, I in agony and she the reluctant and irritated nurse; then our roles reversed, and I, after my ordeal, unable to find any real sympathy within myself, an equally tired and irritable nurse, taking it out on my wife, as if it were her fault she was ill. Only in very special cases, when for example the patient is your child, or say, your loved one, in that psychosis of love that exists between lovers in the first six months of love’s illusion; only in these special cases can sympathy be found and the energy mustered to put your arm around the patient and say with genuine feeling ‘you will get better you poor thing.’ To really feel as though you care. Yet even here sympathy is limited. Eventually people become impatient of the sick one, their dependency on others. It’s annoying and depressing to even know about them. One just wants to forget about them. God help the aged, God help them. Only the truest of true Florence Nightingales could have the energy to care for them.

And old, old, old and terribly lonely was exactly how I felt, as I lay on the floor of that alien bathroom, shivering, sweating, my naked, white, weak, pasty old body, lying sprawled and helpless amidst the sick and diarrhoea piles. I am a lonely man. It was brought home to me just how acutely so, as I lay there in agony. We are all alone. It is the cold reality of things. Once I was young, a young, fresh boy. Now a wrinkly, old, lonely man. The arrogance of youth, one’s past crimes and misdemeanours come back to haunt you, as if now your time has come, and justice will be served. The innocence of youth is totally gone. You are old and finished.

A tired, empty, lonely, old man, vomiting, in agony and helpless, shivering, cold and naked, left for the wolves to come and devour him, to remove him from this empty, Godless world.

Tuesday 27th January

It was ironic that two weeks later we had to almost retrace our journey, travelling again from Norwich to the North Wales area, this times stopping just short of the border in Shrewsbury for a wedding, and I think I’ll spend this evening just penning down this, also unhappy little episode.

The wedding was for the daughter of an old school friend of Anna’s. Close when young, they had however had little contact over the past ten or even fifteen years. Most likely, when they were drawing up the guest list for this celebration, our hosts had been in two minds whether or not to invite us; probably we were a borderline case. In the end, presumably not wishing to offend us, on this jovial occasion, they had extended the hand of invitation to us.

Of course we wished they hadn’t. We were to be involved now, in one of life’s little farces, they too polite to dismiss us, we in turn too polite but to accept the invitation. Neither of us wanted to go. Not only would it mean the awkwardness of having to socialise and mingle with people we no longer knew, who we weren’t close to; the loneliness and hassle, the sheer travail of travelling all the way across the country – the North Wales holiday nightmare, still keen in our memories – to stay a night in yet another, anonymous and lonely hotel; then having to put on false faces, false cheer, to help celebrate the marriage of people we barely knew; the two of us forced to socialise with a load of people we never met; and the two of us, in our position of outsiders, borderline invitees, on the fringes of the hierarchy, the poor relations, having to work hard to force our way into the social scrum of this wedding; pariahs, we knew we would be, on the outskirts, the periphery, lowly nobodies, orbiting and in servitude to the centre of blazing glory, the hive of joviality, of joy and genuine happiness and youth, the nightclub at the centre of town, where the revelling persists till dawn.

So not only all of this, but how we would rather have stayed at home! We were still recovering from the Llandudno ordeal for Heaven’s sake. We wanted to be at rest, to be at home. To experience that centrality of spirit, when your soul feels motionless and at centre, at rest. Not, as when we had to make this awful trip, sent into tail spin and waltzing all over the place. And then to see what we were missing out on. Travelling over on Friday afternoon, I would miss my beloved tennis. Then both of us would have to forgo our Saturday. Though we both stopped working several years ago now, we are both so in tune with the week and come Saturday always feel that relaxed, chilled out, soothing of soul. We love to go to a café, to have coffee and lunch, to sit, relax, read, soak up the atmosphere. All of this we would have to forgo.

So stressed, irritated and tense we drove, the journey characterised by an anger and tension, foreshadowing our up-coming act, in which we would have to put on false faces and pretend to be happy. Feeling insecure and lonely, nervous, not looking forward to arriving at our destination, knowing we had nothing to look forward to till, well, perhaps next Friday and Saturday, which was too far away in the future to give solace; angered, terribly angered to have to play out this farce when we didn’t wish to go and probably they would never miss us; oh so angry to be missing out on our weekend pleasures. Angered and peeved to drive two hundred or so miles into the jaws of loneliness, when we could be relaxed and at ease, and at home, delighted playing tennis, or chilling out, at peace in the café. Oh such annoyance.

So did it go. The journey there, the horror of being caught up in the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic; myself at the wheel, tense and irritated, my wife next to me, irritated, annoyed likewise. Then the check in at the hotel. The sterile, cold procedure of checking in; the white walled, unhomely, dreary hotel room.

The wedding, on the Saturday, was to take place entirely at this very same hotel. The ceremony at twelve noon, the lunch at three, the disco at seven and so on. So at eleven o’clock or so, my wife and I, descended once again, with gloom in our hearts, from our imprisoning hotel room, to the congregation area below. The marathon was about to begin.

I think I’ve mentioned earlier my lack of fashion sense, my slovenly style, the fact that I prefer to dress in drab clothes. Usually that takes the form of trainers, jeans, a grey hikers fleece. And I hate wearing suits. Hate it. I don’t know I just feel uncomfortable, foolish, not in my comfort zone. Here I was forced to wear one. But I deliberately wore an old one. The top and trousers didn’t match: I wore a shabby, old, lilac grey, school master’s corduroy jacket, with old black trousers, that didn’t fit. No, I certainly cut a drab figure, not at ease, shabby, the clothes too baggy, not fitting me, hanging off me disrespectfully. I was acutely aware of my physical insignificance, especially at a time like this, my shortness, my inability to impress, my weak looking figure.

And so we descended, I already irked and out of humour, irritated by my clothes, my nervousness in making an entry into the pack, manifesting itself in an uptight expression on my face, that only made me all the less appealing; my drab wife in tow, following me, annoyingly like a sheep, also uptight and unhappy, also cutting a poor figure, old and over the hill, even her dress sense, usually far superior to mine, failing her here, and extenuating all the drab and dreary aspects of her face, figure and soul.

When we entered the vestibule area, we found it a hive of activity. To the main characters of the show, the happy young groom and his cohort of hung-over, yet relentlessly jovial young men; the family of the bride and groom, the fussing mothers and fathers, the well-fed, healthy looking, hale and hearty younger brothers and sisters; the older of them sassy, young and at ease, the yet younger ones running around playing chasy, in excitement; the rows and rows of beautiful, young ladies, decked out magnificently and looking relaxed and easy; to all these central characters with major parts, a sense of well being and joy seemed to enrapture them; caught up in the buzz, the carnival of excitement and activity, they seemed oblivious of all else. Especially the outsiders.

And the outsiders were numerous. Probably more than half the guests, I would say. The lesser relatives, those on the edges of the family circle. Cousins, aunts, uncles even, friends of the happy couple, just not intimately so. The old as well. Yes, I believe that at any wedding, the majority of guests must feel like this, cut out and lonely, having to submissively grin and tip their hats to the bride, groom and main supporting cast, as they buzz around, in excitement, knowing that this is their day, their moment, that today the camera is on them. The majority of guests though are simply supporting cast. Extras. And Anna and myself were right on the fringes of things, the lowest in the pecking order.

So we presented ourselves. Standing there tensely, nervously, I exhibiting a look of undisguised irritation on my face, my wife more humble and self-deprecating, fumbling around looking nervous. In a room full of strangers, brought so close together, not wanting to be here, tensely wanting to be out of it, having absolutely no desire to get into conversation with people I never met; looking out, seeing people in exactly the same state as ourselves, also tense, also unhappy, also pariahs, reluctantly here, wishing they were elsewhere. Then I, looking out upon the hive of activity, the innocent, stupid joy of the bride and groom, getting myself annoyed by the rows and rows of young ladies, beautiful and amazing, but people I have nothing in common with, simple, hollow and boring most likely. Also seeing the well-fed young men and women, young, at ease, relaxed, perfectly at peace with the world; getting myself annoyed by the screaming children, running around chasing each other. And especially on seeing the young ladies, and the dashing, gorgeous, buxom bride, like a plump hen ripe for plucking, feeling anger and rage, which, when I turned to see the shapeless, dowdy old wife, nervously following me about, turned to a black, black anger and impotence.

In this state of tension and irritation – and I mean for many of the guests, as well as myself – did the day sprawl hopelessly along. Whatever anyone may say about the church, I found it irksome, that the couple chose to have their ceremony here, as if to say they were above all the nonsense of religion. At any rate it would’ve broken the day up, to travel from church to reception venue. Instead everything took place in the same room, so that in between events there was much waiting around in the lobby, many tense stand offs in the vestibule.

The ceremony itself was sham and hollow. It might seem hypocritical, for people like the bride and groom (and myself), who never go to church, to turn up there on their wedding day, but the alternative of dismissing such a ceremony, and holding your own, in the commercial atmosphere of the hotel and under the guidance, not of a priest but of a registrar, seemed wrong to me. There may be no God, religion may have many blotches to its name, but for the young couple to confirm this, and arrogantly dismiss the traditional ceremony, left me feeling hollow in my heart. People are foolish when they think they’re above God. Even just in going to Church on wedding days and funerals, just to sing a few hymns, to feel miserable and bored, yet somehow rejuvenated by the dower building, the words of the pastor, the inherent gloom, the sour smell of the cold building – even this, I say, does good to the human soul. Reminds us of something. Seeing it replaced by the smugness of the corporate wedding registrar, the soulless, dull hotel building, hearing the couple with their ‘personal statements’ – as the registrar thought fit to re-brand the wedding vows – their own thought out words of love, amateurish and trite, replacing the boorish and admittedly equally hollow words of the traditional ceremony – seeing this dispirited me. We need God, even just a little bit. Or at least I do.

Then after the wedding, the farce of being introduced to the bride and groom, as all the guests lined up to bestow their good wishes. My wife and I waiting in line, I growing ever more irritated and tense, having spoken to just about no-one, the scowl on my face growing – I didn’t know what else to do; then the embarrassment of having to be introduced to the bride and groom – people I don’t know and never met, people who on another day I would have absolutely nothing to do with; the torture of having to embrace the glowing, tanned, beautiful, buxom, plump peach of a wife, her cleavage on show and drawing one’s attention; my body language terrible. She glowing, radiant, willing to smile on everyone today, to forgive even shabby individuals like myself; I, awkward, tense, bearing an angry, irritated countenance, a scowl on my brow, menacing like a thunder cloud; humiliated by my physical inferiority, my shabby, loose clothes, dwarfed by the physicality of the bride, her beauty eclipsing my plainness, the fumbling, as we half embrace, a handshake, as if I make it clear we shouldn’t kiss – the knowledge that that is what’s going through her head and mine. Suddenly the two of us brought together, face to face and alone, the intimacy of it, the falseness – I think she knew I can’t possibly in my heart like her. Saw in her eyes that she knows I don’t like her. No, no, it was agony for me. I felt humiliated and foolish, and mainly irritated with myself, for not having the bubbly sort of personality, of say, the small, insignificant man up ahead of me, who with genuine joy and happiness, heedless of all else, stepped up to the stunning bride and said ‘give us a kiss love, you look amazing. I’d love to get my hands on you’ and turning to the husband, the proud, strong, handsome man in a kilt next to her, jested ‘God I envy you son, you’re one lucky boy he-he!’ slapping him on the back as he did so.

So the day dragged on. As it did so I became worse and worse. Whereas my wife, even though she too was sick at heart, was at least willing to try and converse with strangers, to put an act on and make small talk, I decided almost from the first instance, that I couldn’t and wouldn’t go through with this farce, and rather than try and make meaningless conversation with people in the same boat, I would just keep my trap shut and show how I truly felt. Which wasn’t good. And the more taciturn I was, the more it came to pass that I scowled and looked angry, simply by being in the presence of all these strangers. Just the tension of it. Not knowing what to do with myself, looking about. The pain of making eye contact with people again and again and again. People like ourselves standing about tense and unsure. Or the young ladies. The constant fuss and hassle as we walked to the vestibule, then were brought in for lunch; then ordered out again while they cleared the tables; then once more in the vestibule; wandering, aimlessly about, constantly going to and fro; seeing how the other guests mingled, feeling left out. Repeatedly passing a group of girls sat on a sofa, the irritation of making involuntary eye contact yet again; the definite impression that the girls thought me a dour old bore and kill joy, and were sick to their back teeth of my presence; my feeing of self worthlessness, hating myself for not being able to socialise.
Then as the disco started, my wife and I moving nervously back into the dining hall, unsure; a look of irritation on my face, a nervous unsurity on my wife’s; the sheer hell of looking about me and making eye contact for the umpteenth time with that same set of girls; quickly breaking the glance and looking around irritated, not knowing where to go, not in the slightest bit interested in the disco, wishing I could be out of it, and knowing that the group of young girls over there are, if they’re not saying it to each other, then thinking to themselves ‘Oh my God, there’s that miserable little man again, with his miserable, nervous looking wife in tow. God! What have they come to the disco for. I’m sick of the sight of them. I wish they’d go home. We tried to be pleasant to him earlier, we smiled at him, made him feel welcome. He had his chance. And yet not only did he remain sour and unwilling, holding himself back, but instead of just heading off home, he’s remained here all day, the complete misery, spoiling the atmosphere for everyone else.’

Finally getting sick, I left the disco hall and marched off upstairs, to escape to our miserable room. My sheep-wife behind me, following me, annoying me by her bumbling behaviour. As we went I deliberately allowed doors to slam in her face, rather than holding them.

‘Where are you going’ said my wife, dropping into an intimate tone as we found ourselves alone in the hotel corridor, upstairs, a long way from the party.

‘I’m going to our room’ I said with real irritation. ‘Why do you have to follow me around like a lost dog’ I said, ‘can’t you think for yourself?’

My wife, seemingly unsure, nervous and bumbling, transformed, thank God, on hearing my words, into a more aggressive tone.

‘Look!’ she said with real anger as we entered the room, as she now, behind closed doors, dropped her self-deprecating, humble attitude and adopted her truer, angered, intelligent, moody persona.

‘I am sick to death of seeing you act like this! You’ve made no effort to talk to anyone. How dare you be so rude to that man and his wife, they were trying to make conversation with you. I am sick of looking at your scowling, miserable God-awful face! I wish you’d wash that bloody look off, I really bloody well do. And make an effort! Because let me tell you’ continued my wife, breaking into a tone as if to make me listen, as if to share some vital, intimate truth with me and only me, ‘I am absolutely sick and tired as well, I’ve absolutely had enough. But I’m making an effort, because you can’t spoil the happiest day of other people’s lives with your own doom and gloom.’

As she said this, she looked intimately into my eyes, and I saw just how tired she was, how stressed, how all she wanted was to be miles away, in the comfort of her own home, going to bed early for a good night’s sleep.

We descended again, and this time I, calmed, made an effort, and joined my good wife in making small talk with some strangers.

As the disco proceeded, and the young and happy danced the night away, we found ourselves at a table on the periphery with another ageing couple, like ourselves, not part of the family, total outsiders. They seem delighted that my wife ventured to sit down next to them – she had spoken briefly with them earlier – and so save them from the torture and embarrassment, the ignominy of sitting there alone, by themselves, and being on the fringes. We were like two lonely boats meeting in the middle of the night.

Yes, as we approached and my wife asked if it’s alright to sit down, and said gently, smiling, did you meet my husband; and as I saw the lights in the eyes of the lady light up welcomingly, pleasantly, as if she’s happy we’ve come to save them; saw her husband change, and shake my hand generously and with exuberant friendliness, as if to say he’s desperate for a friend, a buddy, a chum; as all of this happened it was clear that they were happy to have our company, simply because it removed them from that awkward, tortuous circumstance of sitting there alone.

And I too was glad of this meeting. Relieved to escape the state of moodiness and irritation that had beset me, after hours of sitting and standing around silently, morosely, eye-balling people, getting annoyed, annoyed with others, annoyed with myself. I was glad by this simple act to have drawn a line under all of that agony, and to have entered into something new. True, to any onlookers, all four of us must have cut pretty contemptuous figures; it must have been obvious to all eyes that we only came together for mutual protection, two isolated and lonely couples both on the fringes of the party, lonely and secluded, willing to do anything to escape the horror of sitting alone. And I myself, after my well documented antisocial misery of the previous six hours, where I was rude to all, must have then presented, as I made an attempt to lighten up, a figure of much ridicule and hatred. But I didn’t care.

They were a pleasant couple, she an ex-school teacher, he an engineer of sorts. He told me about his time in Japan, sensitively, a little light in his eyes. We exchanged stories of our lives, and especially about our children. Of course all of the conversation was, as I knew it would be, totally routine and simply there to keep at bay the loneliness that encroached upon us all. I crave intimacy, I want to get to the heart of the matter, to the root of my problems. I despise meaningless chatter, I want that connection, that true bond, that brotherhood of man. Small talk tires me. I can’t understand how the majority of people can make do with shallow pleasantries, and the usual, boring old tales of children and the like. But this time I kept my mouth shut, and half pleasantly listened to the story of the engineer.

It was evident, to me at least, that they are just as lonely and confused as us. Not just here tonight at the wedding, but I mean with life in general. Old, lonely, their children having flown the nest, they have been, like us, hit for six in recent years, loosing all that surety and conviction that the young bloods around us, partying on the dance floor, possess in abundance. They are just as lost as we.

The night went on, it drew to a close, I felt more relaxed. And thankful of my wife, and reminded that she isn’t just a dowdy old fumbler, following me about like a dog that’s had its day. No, in seeing her, her willingness to socialise though she was in no mood to; in seeing her listen to Dave and Margaret; to watch her genial, friendly, sensitive little face, as she pleasantly acknowledged their words; see how well she listened, occasionally chipping in with her own little thoughts; to see again that look of radiance and gentleness on her face, in her eyes, as she smiled, humbly and self-deprecatingly; in all of this, I was reminded again of the woman I fell in love with.