Trying to Make Sense of it All

“He’s drinking far too much.”

When I heard Maggie say this I was in the kitchen making myself a cheese and tomato sandwich.

“For the last year he’s been drinking way too much,” said Maggie.

I wasn’t sure who they were talking about. I could only hear part of the conversation and I didn’t want them to know I had been eavesdropping. I carried on eavesdropping and tried to hear what they were saying.

“We need to talk to him about it. We are his oldest friends. Who else is going to do it?”

I couldn’t hear the others. But who were they talking about? Did they mean me? I hardly ever drank. 

“I’m really worried about him,” said Maggie.

At the time it didn’t seem to be important but now looking back it takes on a significance that I could not have guessed at the time. Now I know what it all meant. Then I was in the dark and jumping to conclusions as I just couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation. So I decided that it must be me. How dare they talk about me behind my back? Time to join the rest of the group and find out what was going on.

“Don’t tell…”

As I walked into the lounge with my sandwich and a glass of milk the conversation suddenly stopped and swerved off in a different direction.

“…me that you think the UK are going to win tonight. Impossible.”

I decided to play along and keep the conversation going in this harmless fashion.

“I agree,” I said, “no chance. I fancy France to win this year.”

“I wouldn’t put any money on them. They have had to pull out because the President died.”

“Richard Nixon’s dead?” I asked, completely puzzled.

“No stupid, the French President. They French President has died and they have dropped out of the competition.”

A red sports car speeds down the M6. The driver gets annoyed when a lorry overtakes. He swears and shouts abuse. Then he takes a sip from the hip-flask sitting on the passenger seat. He checks his watch and puts his foot down. He doesn’t want to be late. He has been looking forward to this weekend for weeks.

The year was 1974. It had been my idea to book a cottage for the weekend in the Sussex countryside so a group of us could watch the Eurovision Song Contest together. In those days there wasn’t the same level of hype or the saturation media coverage we have now. In those days we had to make do with only three tv stations. The song contest was on BBC 1 - I expect BBC 2 was probably showing something more highbrow like a ballet or an opera. ITV had one of the Bond films on. There was a good-natured argument between us about whether to watch the Bond film or Eurovision. There were 6 of us or rather there were 5 of us as Dan didn’t turn up. We were expecting him to arrive later as he was driving down from Manchester. It was a bit of a reunion as we had left university a couple of years before and tried to stay in touch. The cottage wasn’t great. There was no telephone and the TV was black and white. That was the one thing that I hadn’t checked with the owners. So I was not popular. Maggie was cross with me because she wanted to watch the song contest in colour. Jenny was unhappy about the TV and the kitchen. Bob was happy that the cottage was so remote - the nearest village was two miles away - but unhappy about the TV as he had a big colour TV at home. Liz was trying to be positive about the cottage but I could tell that she was just trying to be nice. In the bedrooms there were narrow beds with uncomfortable mattresses and thin pillows so it wasn’t easy to get sleep.

I think that was why I was still awake at 3am when I heard the noise. It sounded like a knocking noise from somewhere outside. I couldn’t work out whether it was just the sound of the wind in the trees or the sound of an animal tapping on the front door of the cottage. I was too tired to get up and at some point I must have fallen asleep. It was only the next day that we found out what the noise was. The song contest was great. We all wanted the UK to win but we knew that Abba was the best song and they deserved to win it. But that wasn’t the main reason we always remembered that weekend.

The sun shines down as an ambulance speeds down a narrow country lane. The siren seems incredibly loud and it drowns out the early morning birdsong. It passes the wreckage of a red sports car wrapped around a tree and it slows down as it approaches a small cottage. Standing outside are 5 young people. They are still dressed in their colourful pyjamas and nightdresses but their faces are white, completely and utterly white. In the middle of them is a body surrounded by a pool of blood, which is completely and utterly red. It is a young man about their age and it looks as if he had been trying to knock on the door.

Dan’s funeral took place about two weeks later. The others hadn’t been talking about me. They had been talking about Dan and his drinking, which had been getting worse. When I was lying awake at 3am in the morning the noise I heard must have been Dan trying to knock at the door of the cottage. If I had gone downstairs and opened the front door would things have turned out differently? If I hadn’t booked that cottage for the weekend would things have turned out differently? It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now.