London 5

October 4, 2010

The west gleams peach and gold, deepened by blue-gray, the great round tower with the revolving purple band at the top stabbing through. It is early Monday evening, and I have arisen from a sleep that accompanied some kind of sickness, though I don’t know what. Flue-like symptoms, maybe flu. Arrived back in London in the midst of an underground strike, which didn’t affect me as I was walking anyway, but Kings Cross was apparently the epicenter of discontent.

Took the train yesterday To Cambridge. Steve can’t drive because of a series of DUIs, so I was picked up by his girlfriend Karen and driven out to Willingham. I assumed she was his mother, so I’m glad she introduced herself first. The back of the car, and indeed everything in their lives, smelled sharply of dogs, specifically three versions of a ratty terrier I forget the name of. Steve has two of them, with much too much personality, and a certain amount of time needed to be spent learning to keep them under the level of hysteria. Willingham is a quaint and scenic Fens town, the kind people put in TV shows, but the old town is surrounded by council housing, such as Steve’s, heavily subsidized by the government for people in various stages of ill luck. I did a riff on “Willingham”– reluctant pork, eager bacon, etc– which Steve didn’t seem to understand. Steve and I cooked an elaborate curry, and then headed out to the local in Willingham, the Black Bull. The Black Bull was joyful, friendly, and at the end of the evening four of us were left– the landlord, a man whose speech could barely be understood, Steve and I, the three Brits talked with surprising knowledge and interest about American comedians. Steve was broke, so I bought the drinks, which included samples of all five colors of Sambucco, which each taste mostly of anise, and are each a little more disgusting than the real thing.

What do I say of the visit? I came away feeling that my love for him is better informed and stronger for the weathering of contact with his actual situation. I looked at him watching TV, and I knew I have a friend for as long as circumstances allow. I had hoped for romance different from the kind that happened. It was romantic, but chaste and poor and sad. Steve cuddled me as he did his dogs, as a physical comfort, as a kind of living wall between himself and the darkness. Finally, one of us had nothing to give. It was all right. I might have gone to Willingham for the sake of both of us, but it turns out I went for his sake, and that is well. Any purpose is a purpose.

Steve is handsome and presentable and capable of suave conversation, and has an MBA, so it’s clear his present state of near-indigence is caused by something other than ability. He’s in the midst of a soul-quest, of which he speaks at length, but how can you tell someone the gods are speaking something other than he thinks they are? The book he is writing is fascinating to a friend, as it is autobiography and fills in the blanks of his conversation, but it has no commercial value–unless he were already a celebrity. He foresees a time, a few months off, when the money from selling that book puts his life back on track. I am powerless to say what I think, even though he asks me. And at then end of it, how do I know I’m right? Things may go exactly as he foresees.

He found the wishbone in the chicken, and we pulled it, and I won, but I did not get my wish. I’d be glad to relinquish it if I thought he got his.

Stopped between the hotel and the station to eat at a Greek restaurant. The tables were on the sidewalk, and I’ve become enough of a Brit not to be bothered by the mist of rain. A boy was singing at the next table, singing to the music of his headphones, loud and happy and oblivious. He was partially annoying and partially festive, and at last I decided that the festive won.

A bird sings on my balcony, a sweet small London bird singing in the gathering darkness.