Tired of London by Richard Ayres

Author:Richard Ayres
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reunion, old friendships, relationships, love, marriage, adultery, gay, conflicting memories, secrets, ageing, generational conflict, terminal illness, contemporary London, pub crawls, tube journey, student days, 1960s Leeds, drunkenness, violence, Accident and Emergency, alcoholism, racism, homophobia, multiculturalism
ISBN: 9781785384608
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2016-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Eric

Bankside

I’d just had to get away from Jim. He was getting drunk, and he could be unpleasant company when he was in his cups. He’d been riled at my allusion to his homosexuality. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t homophobic in the slightest. How people lived their lives was their own concern. I didn’t have a problem with the physical act, because it was beyond my comprehension, and remained private. It was the growing tendency for public expressions of masculine affection that I found disturbing - there was a couple in Leamington who held hands as they walked down the Parade, and once I’d seen them kissing. It made me turn away in disgust, well, embarrassment really. And the domestic side of gay love I found bizarre - two men choosing bed linen, having breakfast in bed together, making joint visits to parents. The image came to me of Jim cosying up to his partner on the settee while they watched TV, or discussed recipes - Jim, of all people!

But those innuendos he’d made about Tony and Viv: total nonsense! If Tony had tried one of his come-ons, Viv would have put him down like she always had. And she would have told me about it. She always did, when blokes had tried to chat her up.

And all that sniping was unfair on poor old Al, whose gaze had swivelled between me and Jim like a tennis spectator. I had no wish to continue the spat, so I told them I could do with some air.

It was quite good to be by myself for a while. I’d forgotten how claustrophobic prolonged contact with a group could be. It was years since I’d last experienced it, not since I’d been working, and even then I’d had the luxury of a headmaster’s office to which I could escape.

But the downside of being retired was that I now led a rather solitary existence. Viv’s days were spent at the library and many of her evenings with her literary friends. At first I’d enjoyed the freedom to potter around the house alone, to indulge my fancies, but after a while it had begun to pall, and sometimes I was haunted by the bleak vision of what life would be like were I to be widowed, for, let’s face it, I had no close friends. These morbid thoughts came to me most often when I woke alone - Viv had taken to sleeping in the spare room - at 2am in the morning, wanting to piss.

My self-esteem had always been at its lowest while the rest of the world slept. I’d worried about my effectiveness as a head teacher. In my guts I knew I lacked charisma, that diligence and enthusiasm were not enough for inspirational leadership. I suspected that I’d been a risible figure to some of my staff: there was, I knew, a rather silly man underneath the shell of professionalism with which I’d faced the world. With retirement, that shell had been removed.

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