Two months in the life of miserable old, me: Part 7

Tuesday 16th February

In a quest to have a game of tennis, I rang an old friend John, the best man at my wedding in fact, but not only unwilling to play me, he also, completely misunderstanding the purpose of my call, and blinded by guilt and good intentions, invited me around to his house, out of a sense of duty; something I could see he didn’t really want to do, something which I was also loathe to do.

I really dislike him as he is now, overburdened with a wife, a mortgage and three teenage children and overworked in his job. He was so lacking in spirit, so jaded. Physically he’s aged, got balder, fatter, looks worse for wear. But spiritually too he’s run down, apparently never, absolutely never having five minutes of solace in his life, his time perpetually taken up with work and children, with unremitting, unrewarding stress.

And so blinded by the fact that he in no way wanted to see me, has no time to do so, or is in any mood to be reminded, in my presence, that he once was youthful, happy and had a life, he invited me around, thinking it was what I wanted, seeing me only as a nice, kind, sensitive person desperate to meet up with him and be his chum, and in no way perceiving that it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.

We sat in his desolate, dirty, run-down little kitchen. He was sick, depressed, soul-sore after work, and it was almost unbearable to sit with him and eat. Their kitchen was so shabby, the wallpaper so tatty and miserable, and there were messy pans here, there and everywhere, symbolising their spiritual unhappiness, their run down, dead in the water existence. They had so many spices in their kitchen, I mean so many, and as I saw John grind out some black pepper onto his chicken, saw his desperate eyes as he screwed out tonnes of the stuff, I saw that spices – the near to murderous look in his eyes as he twisted more and more of it on, desperate for an extra hit of it, tolerant off it as he is becoming – I saw that only spices can provide any comfort to him, and that his soul and spirit are undernourished and in an awful, terrible, critical state; and that anyone who goes in for a career, marriage and children, risks losing all the calm, good sense and serenity that the young John whom I once knew possessed in abundance.

And so we sat in the kitchen, he unhappy at heart, trying to be pleasant, I only wanting to be gone. Their whole house seemed repulsive to me. It was untidy and slovenly for one thing. But there is just something about other people’s houses that can sometimes afflict me. Perhaps it is the subtle odour, captured in the wallpaper, of someone else’s house. Perhaps it was the dingy lighting of John’s house. I don’t know, but God, I felt so low, so miserable, so depressed by it all. I remember how once when I was young, I went after school to my best friend’s house. But there, succumbing to a horrible feeling of doom, I had to go home early, and was relieved to get back to my own house. I don’t know what it was, whether physical or psychological, I don’t know. But I wanted to be out, I hated it in there.

So we sat there, and not only was John in such an awful mood, but I felt completely unwelcome, like the unwanted guest that I was, as his wife, now a tired, spiritually run down, hag woman, popped in to see me, to explain how she had already planned a night out, and how she was sorry she couldn’t have dinner with us. I saw, in her tired, energyless eyes that she is suffering the same fate as John, is sick of her life and has no solace in it. Then I was briefly introduced to the moody, repulsive teenagers. Huffy and hormonal, they were able, on seeing me to slightly modify their behaviour, forcing slight smiles, but being incapable of hiding the spiritual torpour that seems to infect their whole family; the son, dissolute and dissatisfied, a teenage bully and waster, a horrific concoction of hormones, e-numbers and intoxicants evidently at war within his body, came and said hello briefly; and in his revolting eyes and false smile I got a sense of greasy, pent up anger, a sense, in his low, low spirits, his joyless eyes and the yoghurty, old fish, cheesy odour he disseminated that the worthless son of a bitch had just masturbated. Then the daughter too, putting on a pleasant face, but not really able to hide the fact that she too, is huffy, moody and spiritually discontent. And with all this the totally infuriating fact that they made the effort to be polite to me under the illusion that I am a nice, kind, dear old man, who wanted to come and see them all, a bore, an intellect and teetotal churchgoer, someone who they should be pleasant to.

Later on John, recalling my skill with science, suggested to his daughter Jenny, when she happened to pop in, that I could probably help her with a bit of homework she’d been having problems with. As she went off to get her books I was overcome with hatred of John for doing this, for trying, so unsubtly, to bring me and his daughter together like this; to try and show her that I am not just a kind but worthless individual, and to try and do me a favour, by helping me overcome the reluctant, awkward, uncouth behaviour I showed, when I was introduced to her.

When she brought the books I sat there in puzzlement, a look of intense agony on my face, as I tried to work out what the fuck the book was talking about, bewildered by it all, my memory an absolute blank, my brain struggling into gear, pressurised by the presence of John and his daughter, who seeing me struggle, only upped the pressure on me, by demonstrably saying it really didn’t matter, and don’t worry about it; sitting there looking at the book pretending to think but actually, my mind wholly vacant – it was intractable and unwilling like a wild beast that refuses to drink the water it’s been lead to – just wishing the earth would swallow me up; looking at the question and seeing how hard it is, and thinking on how society and middle-aged miseries like myself are perpetually going on about how easy school is these days; and wondering whether the daughter, who so clearly thinks that physics is boring, I mean BOOOOOORING, and that school in general and miserable old gits like me are beneath contempt, I wonder whether the daughter a) would at least like to know the answer, for the sake of getting her homework out of the way, and that I can in fact do her a favour, or whether b) she in no way at all cares, and is just doing this because her father asked her to.

I struggled for some time, but unable to work out the answers, and hating myself as a teacher anyway, in the end gave it up with a half explanation and apology to Jenny. And as I told her, I loathed myself for speaking of physics to her, for playing teacher, loathed myself, absolutely despised myself, whilst she put on a pleasant act and accepted my words of apology.

Eventually the evening came to an end and I was let out.

When I stepped outside into the cold, dark, wintry night and was ridded of John, his family and his home, I felt utterly, utterly low. It was almost like a shock, as if in the cold, dark night, my breath panted out of me in relief; as if I had been, whilst at John’s, held down under water; and that on being released, I bobbed to the surface and was desperately, desperately panting for breath. It was a cold night, it was a dark and lonely sea; my person was still cold and wet; I was breathing for life, panting dramatically, at the surface. I don’t know whether I was relieved to be alone at the surface, after the horror of being at John’s; I don’t know whether in fact as I panted for breath, in the awful, gloomy deserted sea, I was in fact in a worse state. I do not know.

And so I made my way through the cold, winter’s night, a dreadful feeling of depression rankling in my heart, an awful, clinical, suicidal feeling gnawing at me, at my soul. I felt so low, so dreadfully, dreadfully deflated. My mind swirling with the memories of John, how awful he has become, his abysmal house, the dinghy lighting, the dirty kitchen, the peeling wallpaper, his worn out wife, the hormonal teenagers, my feeling of being utterly worthless, the horrific memory of trying and failing to teach Jenny, gnawing at me, biting at me, a feeling of contempt for myself, of self-loathing for being so worthless – all of this swirled around chaotically in my head and heart. I was so, so low.

I walked through the dark winter’s night in dismal Newcastle, a lonely man in this seemingly hostile, unfriendly, doomed place, and as I looked up and saw the cold, half moon, one edge removed like a worn down rubber, I felt a total sinking of my spirits. This is the lowest point of life, almost profound in a way, the sinking of my heart, the spirit of suicide, the cold, half moon. It was not the feeling of deadness, dullness, frigidity that I experienced after fighting with my wife; it was not the feeling of loneliness and isolation I felt on Saturday; there, though I may have been alone, my person was insulated, wrapped up in cotton wool, alone in my own home. I may have been lonely, but happily cosseted, not profoundly dismal; nor either is it the sort of depression I used to suffer, that second Autumn after Joanna left for university, when on a dark Autumnal night I would sit in my arm chair, terrified, profoundly upset, wondering what the hell was wrong with me, my soul set upon by a horde of nagging doubts. Those nights were thoroughly horrific, as inexperienced as I then was, my depression terrified me, it nagged at me and manifested itself in rages and anger. Then I felt myself sink with uncertainty. Now I know the score, I know what is happening. I am wise to it. Unlike back then I can see my death ahead of me, my demise at the end of it, I can see that, it is almost reassuring. It was a profound depression, a final depression of a man who has come to the end, an old hand. Physically my death may be a while away, but spiritually I see the end.

It was horrific and awful to experience, I was so sad and lonely. But it was almost with a religious awe that it bit me, nagged me. The loneliness, the dark night, my sinking, sinking heart. And in this mood, with this sinking heart, I saw up ahead of me a group of fashionable school girls, sixteen or seventeen or so, tall, slim, beautiful, laughing and happy and excited, entering their private school for girls up ahead, on what must be a parent’s evening or open night or theatre production or something; and as I saw them my heart sunk further. I felt so alien to them, the days when I could say I was in league with women are long gone, that part of my life completed and over, dead and buried, and as I saw them, saw their youth, beauty and excitement, I felt doubly doomed, and I crossed over the road deliberately to try and get as far away from them as possible.

And so I walked through the gloomy night and as if all was not already lost, I found myself taking a deliberately out of the way and lonely route back into town, a route that lead me down a deserted alley, where I heard myself crunching snail shell after snail shell underfoot, unable to do anything to avoid it, condemning those fantastically intricate and artistic works of nature to what must I presume have been a slow and sad death; unable to help, my feelings of guilt being tormented by the realisation that I couldn’t help but stand on them, that it wasn’t really my fault, that terrible things simply happen, that there’s no justice or reason in this God-awful world and that I would, as I continued down this alley way murder yet more poor snails. The thought of somehow trying to save them flickered momentarily through my mind before I gave it up for ludicrous. My heart was low and lonely. God, I was depressed.

Lonely and forlorn I entered the city. On this bleak night when all seemed lost, when I had no friends or solace to comfort me; when all about me seemed darkness, gloom, loneliness and desertation; where everywhere seemed shut up and closed for the night, no more room at the inn – one light in town shone brightly and promised food, warmth and shelter, a place to sit down and be amongst others. It was McDonalds, and I entered it, and sat down with a cheeseburger and a coffee, in the gaudy light of its interior.

Somehow I was brought back to life, resurrected, the coffee played its part, but so too the light of the interior, the sight of other lonely specimens like myself, the feeling of gathering here on this dark, cold night and of socialising. However much people may badmouth McDonalds for killing off the rain forest and inflaming the obesity crisis, it is one of the few places one can come to of an evening and not feel unwelcome. McDonalds opens up its doors to all waifs and strays, there is no pretension as with many other coffee houses and restaurants, it is egalitarian in that sense. Lowly, dirty and unkempt, even the homeless may enter in the hopes of finding a hot coffee, a hot burger, of finding food and shelter. There is something in the spirit of the place that is admirable.

I come here quite often and just sit, looking doomed and lonely. Others do too. Mainly the old, the middle aged, the divorcees of this world. A woman sitting alone, reading a gossip magazine; a young man reading a book. There are many Macdonalds loners out there. One man whom I saw in here the other day, I had also happened to see, earlier that same day, in a different McDonalds, which I had entered to use the toilet; so that I was left to conclude that he merely goes around from one outlet to the next in the hopes of socialising. He cuts a lonely figure, hopping along on crutches as he does, and is always on the lookout to start a conversation. For example yesterday, as a fight threatened to break out, he used the opportunity to try and start a conversation with some pretty, young girls sat next to him, who just as quickly made an exit.

There are lots of loners like this, like me. Some will make a pretence of reading or being busy, but others like myself merely sit there, in no way disguising the fact that they are lonely, unhappy and came here to ‘socialise’. I am not worried what people may think. I have friends, friends like John, and it would be a lie to somehow pretend that with them I am happy. I am not. I am lonely and alone, and when I come here I sit with the other Macdonalds loners and am proud of it.

Like I say, anyone and everyone seems welcome, no one cares a jot. The old, the lonely, the destitute, the homeless – no one is turned away. There is a spirit of egalitarianism, of Christian moral; and though one could write from here to eternity on all the misuse, abuse and misrepresentation the Christian religion has suffered since Christ died 2000 years ago, one can see in places like Macdonalds, that actually our society, slowly, surely and without fuss, is realising the core values of equality and respect for all at the heart of the Christian teachings.

Amidst the McDonald’s loners is the Black Raven. Emboldened and brought back to life by the coffee, I decided to go and sit next to her, to see what she had to say, to have her discern my fate from her tealeaves. Yet my illusions were soon shattered.

Although she seemed to recognise me, I found her in no way wise or special, but even the reverse. She is deaf I learnt, a good enough rationale for her homeless state. She stinks horrendously, and to the core, of body odour and excrement: It would take a lot of bathing and scrubbing to make her wholesome. But she was a good enough, kind enough, old soul. And she told me her tale of woe, moaned to me about her problems, that no shelter is interested in taking an old woman like herself and so on and so on. And so I sat there and listened to her problems, she was glad of the chance to talk, and warmed to me. For myself I felt a tad foolish for ever having believed she was something special, holding the secret of my destiny.

Tuesday 23rd February

A man sent me an email in reply to that confession I made as regards feeling lonely. He commiserated with me on this score, and told me a bit about his life. Although I posted the comment with a vague wish to share my feelings with others, I found it almost an invasion of myself and a thorough nuisance, to have this chap replying to me and lending me his thoughts. He was so open, friendly, and annoyingly nice, that I felt a full four-quarters irritated, as if I’d put myself in the position of moral responsibility, of leadership; as if I am to guide the many lonely souls of this world to a better existence, an existence which in truth I have no idea how to even bring about for myself, let alone for others.

But putting these cursory feelings aside, and warming to the genuine and sincere, last dog in the window approach of this man – as much as I was worried he would cling to me in a desperate need for friends, I also found an honesty, a truth in his simple admittance, that he too is lonely, and is unashamed of it, as he believes we all are – I decided to meet up with him, on his invitation, out in the country around Morpeth, where he fishes regularly. It was difficult and slightly awkward to meet with him, thoughts of axe murder, rape and sexual perversion all running through my mind, as we met in such a spot, but I realised I had nothing to lose, that I am in need of friendship, and what is the point of spending another day alone, why not gamble and see what happens.

He turned out to be a very agreeable man. In his fifties, he was a retired joiner, having lived in the north east all his life. Although there was an evident gulf in our educations and outlooks, our paths having diverged so long ago, we put all that to one side, as if it did not matter anymore, both of us simply interested in the pursuit of human bonding. Probably, I imagine, at school he was the sort of joker and ridiculer, the sort who used to tease me for being small and intelligent. But in his genuine, open manner, his way of portraying himself as nothing but an ageing, weakening man, who simply wants to make peace with the world, and bury old hatchets, to try and find some sort of human fellowship, I really warmed to him. And I found him to be quite well read, one of those non-university-educated, working class people, who have a thirst for knowledge, and devour books on history and so forth, and have one of those souls that seem full of wonder, youth. There was something pure and young in him.

And so, after making me feel welcome and offering me coffee and sandwiches, we talked awhile about life, and he spoke so openly about his lack of friends, how he and his wife are alone, but really how everyone, in this modern society of ours, is. And he told me of a project he is thinking of doing. Apparently he has heard of groups of men of our age going off to the wilds, to deserted islands in the pacific even, to set up a sort of primitive camp and to live in a simple way as men once did; working together on making camp, fishing, hunting, and living in simple huts and cooking on a camp fire. He told me how all men go naked, and are discouraged from worrying about their nudity. It is an interesting picture, that which he presents, and I am in some ways drawn to it, seeing myself naked on a tropical beach with other men, building a boat, a hammock, sitting around a campfire talking, eating; no women being present, men only, as if the mere presence of the opposite sex would spoil it all (though he was at pains to tell me that they too should seek to have their own exclusive camp, that he was no misogynist, that it’s just better to segregate the sexes for something like this); and the men only mature and middle aged like ourselves, only wanting to live together in a commune.

I am seduced somewhat by this image, of returning to the wilds, to the simple life, this male bonding, though I have reservations, concerns that the men, far from being mature will turn out to be immature macho-men, he-men, and that power struggles will ensue, each man believing himself to be the chief; and that, what with all the nudity, there will be some sort of lude undercurrent to it all, some sort of sexual hanky panky lurking in the background, something which I’m not at all interested in. Anyway my friend promised to send me some details.

And so we sat there, on this beautiful, calm day in February, the sunshine so quiet, so cool, yet so bright; and shining down on the river so splendidly, a river overhung with the bare, grey branches of trees, wholly naked in winter. And as we sat there the two of us, both of us retired and far removed from the world of work; but here also physically removed from the noise and dirt of the world, secluded in the countryside on this bright winter’s day, I saw how strange it was that I was infinitely happier when in the company of a man I have never met, who I have no ties with, than in the company of a man like John, my best man, whom on account of the life we once knew, that is now long gone, I find it nauseous to even be reminded that he exists.

Wednesday 24th February

Well I’ve been to the football tonight, and what better way to not only drown my sorrows and kick to shreds, at least for an evening, the misery of my life, but also what a great way to round off this excursion of mine.

Not that football has always been my cup of tea, or that I don’t find the endless, mindless obsession with it tiresome and detracting, not that I don’t find the swarm of squawking seagulls that forever and anon hound and follow the trawler a sapping, tiring nuisance, I do. In fact for many years I didn’t even follow the sport. Even, on what was one memorable night of European glory for an English side, I remember that A, J and I all headed off for a bike ride through the East Anglian countryside on what was a beautiful spring evening. We rode through the quiet country lanes, along paths bordered by bramble, past fields full of tranquil cattle, and churches wrapped deep in slumber, before stopping in some strawberry fields to pick some produce. We made our way finally to the beautiful little villages of Eye and Diss, where we stopped and rested in the silence, in the calm, in the immortal, monastic peace that reigned there. I recall feeling joy at being so free and happy and alone on that spring evening, so removed from all the fuss and nonsense of the football match. And when we got home, and when on the next day I spoke of my evening with work colleagues, who spoke of nothing but the football, I felt joyed and happy to have missed out on all the false glory of the Champions league final, to have spent my evening in the poetry of a bike ride with my family, through the quiet of the East Anglian countryside, on a beautiful, peaceful, spring night.

But of course those days were soon consigned to the crypt, and on the dark, lonely, depressing evenings that followed in the wake of J’s departure, I soon realised that football and especially the mid-week European matches on the TV, could provide a relief, an escape, a dark well of drowned sorrows, down which to bury my head. It is of course no solution. But it is certainly a distraction.

And more so than the matches on TV, I do like to go to live games from time to time, the atmosphere, the commotion simultaneously attracting and repelling me. I’ve been to some good games in the past. The chief highlight of which was a European game, where the English team, going behind to an early goal, required to get four goals back to survive and live on in the tournament: a very tall order; a very tall order which they somehow managed to pull off, so that the feeling of collective desolation that beset us spectators as our side went down by three and we thought we were out; that sickening feeling of despair and deflation, as the entire crowd went silent, save for a collective sigh, a hallowed requiem of the doomed souls as if we’d all been herded in to the arena for our execution; that feeling was ultimately succeeded by one of utter jubilation, untold joy at our reprieve, a feeling of life-everlasting, a cheap, hollow feeling yes, but not one to be scoffed at in this lonely world, in a life devoid of true happiness and peace; a feeling of elation, a feeling of common union and communion with fellow fans, so that I hugged the odourous man next to me, embraced the other supporters in one mad, dizzying moment, where we all seemed as one, where the usual barriers between us were dissolved and disintegrated, where a drunken man, who had sat eating pies next to me the entire match, put his arm around me in the celebrations, told me I was his friend and tried to French kiss me.

And so on this dark, cold diamond of a night, I gave myself a night off from feeling lonely and depressed and headed off into town, there to make the trail to the stadium. And as I got nearer, and more and more fans appeared as from nowhere, one here, one there, an army of us forming, as with every corner turned and every cross road crossed, from all directions they converged, sorting into one burgeoning stream, like Pilgrims to Mecca, like roads to Rome; so that I found myself in rank and file amongst them, slightly wary of them; and then I began to get a glimpse of the towering, domineering stadium up ahead; and on this cold, winter’s night, the wind swirling and howling, an atmosphere is brewing up there, in that cauldron of fire; as out from it pumps the harrowing, stark, religiously inspiring music – we were like Druids come here to make a sacrifice – that classical piece, I don’t know which – Carmina Burana by Carl Orff apparently – that bleak yet inspiring music booming out of the stadium, mixing with the howling, swirling wind, creating such an intimidating atmosphere that bubbles over the cauldron, and that must have been scaring the living daylights out of the lonely team from London, having to play up here on this freezing cold, electric night. What daunting music it was. What an atmosphere.

And so I found my seat and in the noisy, deafening atmosphere looked down and watched the subuteo players and subuteo managers, act out this drama. Not one for following the herd, I do however give myself up to the mob mentality on a rare occasion such as this, enjoying the humour of it, and feeling uninhibited; so that when the referee, a diminutive man attempted to dodge the ball, but inadvertently and amusingly failed to do so, so that our side’s attack broke down and a horde of fans cynically shouted ‘cheat-cheat-cheat’ at the poor referee as if he had deliberately helped the opposition; as this happened, I didn’t worry about the truth of the situation, but taken by the frenzy of it, and with a sense of humour and a regression to the child within me, stood up and shouted ‘cheat-cheat-cheat’ with cynical passion, as loudly as anyone around me.

For all the rush and excitement of it however, the result is a bore draw, and disappointed I boo the players off at the end.

Friday 26th February

So I’m on the train back to Norwich now, and I realise that this is the end of my narrative. I know it might not be a very conclusive note on which to end, and I know my tale somewhat tailed off toward the end, but I feel I’ve said all I want to, and to be honest, have grown wearied of this self-indulgent, emotional, outpouring of mine.

The life of my wife and I, will I anticipate, go on in much the same way as before, probably getting worse as we age and become more prone to illness, more house bound, more incontinent, more grouchy and irritable on account of our agedness. It is all down hill from here. There may be good points though, J may get married, may have children, we are not finished yet. So it will be just as dreary as ever, just as lonely, though I think I will always hope, it is in my nature to do so, to always hope and dream for something better, something more, to always search for an antidote to the misery of the world.

I visited an art gallery up in Newcastle and was given there a rather bleak view of the future of humanity. The picture depicted a catch of fish on the deck of a small boat, in the harbour of a small fishing village. The picture was excessively gloomy and bleak: in the hinterground the sky was dominated by grey leaden clouds, whilst beneath it there was a choppy, grey sea, dangerous and frightening. It appeared to be raining. Inland of the sea, the beach looked dirty and unbecoming, and was completely devoid of people. The whole landscape was bleak and deserted, the weather grey and fretting, and up land of the desolated beach, there was, situated at its head, a cliff side; and upon this cliff side was some fashion of industrial works, basically six or seven chimneys pumping purple clouds of effluence into the air. It was all so representative of our cold, sterile, industrial world.

But this was just the backdrop. The foreground, the focus of the painting, was the pile of captured fish. They lay there in the gloom of the open air, piled together, one on top of the other, some dead, others dyeing, all with mouths wide open, some gasping desperately for one last breath in this poisoned world, wriggling desperately, squirming for life. And in the fate of these fish I see my wife and I. We have been caught, fished out of the ocean of life, where we once swam so freely, so easily. And together, and in the irritating presence of other fish, we squirm and wriggle on the deck of the boat, suffocating, taking our last gasps in this world. All of us desperate to save ourselves, but totally incapable of doing so, not able or willing to save our neighbours, who we selfishly wriggle against in our final agonising moments. My wife next to me, underneath me, as we both squirm and wriggle, gasping for breath, each unable to help the other, but forced nevertheless to die with such indignity next to each other, the both of us stuck in the middle, lumped together in the same catch as the other fish; the undignified melee of it, as we, the middle agers, loving not our neighbours, squirm and wriggle helplessly for life, in the backdrop of a lonely, dismal, sterile world.

I arrived back in Norwich, and in the back of a cab, looked out of my window and saw the country lanes leading to the farmhouse, then the farmhouse itself, then the drive out to the cottage. When I got out of the cab I just stood awhile looking at my house and looking out on the distant fields, some green, some black, simply looking out on the ever so flat East Anglian landscape, the land so utterly flat, the sky so pastel blue and pure, and so dominating on this calm, sunny, winter’s afternoon.

And as I stand here, there is a bit of commotion over at the farm house; and I look and see one of the farm hands, a taciturn, stolid young man come out of the house and walk with amazing calm and slowness towards me; whilst ahead of him runs the irrepressible Harry, barking and yapping, running to see me, happy to be reunited after his stay at the farm. He comes, I lift him, stroke and mollycoddle him, and he licks my face. The figure of the farmhand slowly makes its way toward me. I’m feeling positive and happy for some reason; and I’ve got tennis to look forward to this evening.