Gridlocked

A wet and gloomy 8.20 morning. A million lavatories jettison their cargo, and the sewage farm braces itself, in trembling anticipation of the impending onslaught.

Of course, I slept with her, in the end. In the end cubicle at the hostel. Lionel was out selling the ‘Big Issue’, and Major Dunwoody – a man of divided loyalties - was conducting High Mass at the Praed Street Synagogue. So I was able to smuggle her in.

We didn’t have sex though. I have always considered ‘sleeping with…’ a misnomer. It used to be said that 70% of human life begins on the back seat of a Ford Cortina. And that is my point: you don’t have to sleep with someone to indulg in sexual intercourse. Conversely, you may sleep with a person without having sex. Myra and I slept together.

It took us 4 hours to drive the 10 miles to my temporary place of abode. I can see a time, not long off, when you will have to fill in a request form if you want to make a journey by car, and obtain a permit. This will be the only way to prevent total gridlock.
Anyway, Myra was so tired that I did not want her driving home in that state, so I suggested she stay here for the night. She accepted my offer.
I said to her, 'The trouble with motor-cycle combinations is that they have all the disadvantages of the motorbike without any of the advantages.'
'You've said that before.' She retorted, in a tired voice.
'No, but I mean, if we had been on a solo machine we could have gone down the outside of all that traffic - and been home in an hour'.
Myra looked at me in a way that made me think it best not to pursue that line of argument.

Uncle Mort, in Peter Tinniswood’s I didn’t know you Cared, said that when a woman falls asleep she doubles her bodyweight – and then you are struggling under a mountain of icicles… something like that, anyway. Be that as it may, I found Myra a quite congenial sleeping partner. ‘Pleasantly pneumatic’ is a phrase that springs – or perhaps limps – to mind.

We lay, side by side, in the narrow hostel bed, covers drawn up to our chins, like two dolls, carefully tucked in by some giant child.
Myra fell asleep as soon as her little round head hit the grey, standard issue pillow. I lay awake, counting the cracks in the ceiling and wondering what it must be like to be a woman.

I eventually succumbed to sleep: that phenomenon we take for granted, and yet the true purpose of which eludes our scientists; at least for the moment. When I awoke, a dismal dawn light was struggling through the net curtain.
‘Are you awake?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Myra, ‘are you?’
And so we talked. We talked about marriage.

I asked Myra about her relationship with my brother; when first she had noticed things starting to go wrong ‘I think’ she said, ‘that it was our 2nd wedding anniversary: I asked Hector what he thought we should do to celebrate. He said, “How about going down to the Cenotaph and observing two minutes silence?” I knew then that things were not going to be “Happy ever after”. But there was Bonar to consider – Hector’s child from his first marriage. Well not marriage (as I am sure you know) relationship, to use current terminology. His mother suddenly dumped him on us, when he was six, while she went off to South America with that Polish circus performer. Of course she never came back, Bonar grew up into the prize twat he is today, and left. But we had sort of got into a habit and it was easier to continue than to make a clean break – which is what we should have done.
Instead, I bought a motorbike. That gave me an interest – and space, quite literally. Without that bike I think I would have gone mad.’
‘And what about my brother?’ I asked.
‘Well, he’d always had a hobby: other women. I didn’t really mind: we had not been sleeping together for some time. But lately, it has begun to get to me – I’m not quite sure why this should be, but it’s the reason why I blew my top that evening before Christmas – unjustifiably, as it turns out. Still he’s done it so often that he couldn’t really complain.’
'So you never had a child of your own?' I asked.
'No, it would not have seemed right - even in the height of passion we were never close.'

Myra asked me about Georgina, saying we seemed totally unsuited. I said ‘Aren’t most married couples?’
She said ‘But there must have been something – at the start, I mean?’
‘Sex.’ I said. ‘And that – as I am sure you know – soon begins to pall.
We were both twenty years old when we got married; we didn’t know ourselves, let alone each other. We really had nothing in common, only we concealed it – from ourselves and from each other. Later, we had to admit that we were two very different people – with not a lot to say to each other.’
‘So why did you stay together?’
‘Well, I suppose it was for the sake of the rabbits. But just when myxomatosis saw them all off, Sydney came along. He gave us a common interest. But of course, he grew up. And we were alone again – together but alone. Sad, really.’
Myra said nothing. So I continued. ‘I find many things sad. So much so that I sometimes wonder if ‘sadness’ is the norm, the reality. And the depressive, the person with the binoculars, who sees more clearly – and we come and muddy the lenses with our drugs, so his view will be cloudy – but he will be happy. He will “fit in”.’
‘Nah’ says my bed-mate, ‘the depressive just needs his thermostat adjusting – thank God for good old Fluoxetine. But anyway, you’re out of all that now, aren’t you? I mean the divorce?’
‘I’m not sure where that’s up to – it hasn’t been finalised; what do you call it, decree absolute? That has not happened yet.’
‘But you do want a divorce?’ asks Myra.
‘I’m no longer sure what I want. My head is all muddled. Sometimes I feel like just giving up.’
‘Not another bridge job! Another railway line farce!’
‘No,’ I find myself saying. ‘I think I would be more likely to sink deeper and deeper into depression – suicide by degrees.’

‘You have to fight, George. It’s unpleasant, I know; it would be much nicer if people would be reasonable, tolerant, be prepared to listen, negotiate – but they’re not. Well, at least some people are not – usually those closest to you. So you have to stand up for your rights (actually, I don’t believe we have any “rights”, other than those we either negotiate or fight for.)
‘So, yours is the religion of the sword?’ I said, with what I hoped was a cynical smile.
‘No, the religion of “whatever comes to hand” bottle, brick, tyre-lever… ' She said, matching my sarcasm. 'You know what I mean, George. Ours is the religion of Pragmatism.'