The Sense of an Ending

Not just pure, but also applied intelligence. I found myself comparing my life against Adrian’s. The ability to see and examine himself; the ability to make moral decisions and act on them; the mental and physical courage of his suicide. ‘He took his own life’ is the phrase; but Adrian also took charge of his own life, he took command of it, he took it in his hands – and then out of them. How few of us – we that remain – can say that we have done the same? We muddle along, we let life happen to us, we gradually build up a store of memories. There is the question of accumulation, but not in the sense that Adrian meant, just the simple adding up and adding on of life. And as the poet pointed out, there is a difference between addition and increase.

Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? This was the question Adrian’s fragment set off in me. There had been addition – and subtraction – in my life, but how much multiplication? And this gave me a sense of unease, of unrest.

‘So, for instance, if Tony…’ These words had a local, textual meaning, specific to forty years ago; and I might at some point discover that they contained, or led to, a rebuke, a criticism from my old clear-seeing, self-seeing friend. But for the moment I heard them with a wider reference – to the whole of my life. ‘So, for instance, if Tony…’ And in this register the words were practically complete in themselves and didn’t need an explanatory main clause to follow. Yes indeed, if Tony had seen more clearly, acted more decisively, held to truer moral values, settled less easily for a passive peaceableness which he first called happiness and later contentment. If Tony hadn’t been fearful, hadn’t counted on the approval of others for his own self-approval… and so on, through a succession of hypotheticals leading to the final one: so, for instance, if Tony hadn’t been Tony.

But Tony was and is Tony, a man who found comfort in his own doggedness. Letters to insurance companies, emails to Veronica. If you’re going to bugger me about, then I’m going to bugger you about back. I carried on sending her emails more or less every other day, and now in a variety of tones, from jokey exhortations to ‘Do the right thing, girl!’, to questions about Adrian’s broken-off sentence, to half-sincere enquiries about her own life. I wanted her to feel that I might be waiting whenever she clicked on her inbox; and I wanted her to know that even if she instantly deleted my messages, I would be aware that this was what she was doing, and not surprised, let alone hurt. And that I was there, waiting. ‘Ti-yi-yi-yime is on my side, yes it is…’ I didn’t feel I was harassing her; I was just after what was mine. And then, one morning, I got a result.

‘I’m coming up to town tomorrow, I’ll meet you at 3 in the middle of the Wobbly Bridge.’

I’d never expected that. I thought everything would be done at arm’s length, her methods being solicitors and silence. Maybe she’d had a change of mind. Or maybe I’d got under her skin. I’d been trying to, after all.

The Wobbly Bridge is the new footbridge across the Thames, linking St Paul’s to Tate Modern. When it first opened, it used to shake a bit – either from the wind or the mass of people tramping across it, or both – and the British commentariat duly mocked the architects and engineers for not knowing what they were doing. I thought it beautiful. I also liked the way it wobbled. It seemed to me that we ought occasionally to be reminded of instability beneath our feet. Then they fixed it and it stopped wobbling, but the name stuck – at least for the time being. I wondered about Veronica’s choice of location. Also if she’d keep me waiting, and from which side she’d arrive.

But she was there already. I recognised her from a distance, her height and stance being instantly familiar. Odd how the image of someone’s posture always remains with you. And in her case – how can I put it? Can you stand impatiently? I don’t mean she was hopping from one foot to the other; but an evident tenseness suggested she didn’t want to be there.

I checked my watch. I was exactly on time. We looked at one another.

‘You’ve lost your hair,’ she said.

‘It happens. At least it shows I’m not an alcoholic.’

‘I didn’t say you were. We’ll sit on one of those benches.’

She headed off without waiting for an answer. She was walking swiftly, and I would have had to run a few steps to get alongside her. I didn’t want to give her this pleasure, so followed a few paces behind to an empty bench facing the Thames. I couldn’t tell which way the tide was running, as a whippy crosswind stirred the water’s surface. Above, the sky was grey. There were few tourists; a rollerblader rattled past behind us.

‘Why do people think you’re an alcoholic?’

‘They don’t.’

‘Then why did you bring it up?’

‘I didn’t bring it up. You said I’d lost my hair. And it happens to be a fact that if you’re a very heavy drinker, something in the booze stops your hair falling out.’

‘Is that true?’