Rest for the Wicked

It’s taken me fifty years to appreciate being alone, but it doesn’t do to mention it in public. I was always a social drinker and never enjoyed imbibing by myself. The doctor suggested, Naltrexone, but said, ‘The best remedy is to stop drinking. Period’. ‘That’s not easy, Doc’. ‘Enjoy some quality time,’ he said. ‘Go on holiday or get a hobby.’ 

   Alas, my hobby was the problem. They prescribed Naltrexone at the clinic, but after I got the all-clear, I ditched the last tablets. The side effects were fairly unpredictable and there’s only so much constipation and stomach churning one can tolerate. I’m strong-willed and can do this, I said and booked a flight to Spain. A quiet time, drinking fruit juice for a week on the Costa Brava should do the trick. I bought some factor 50, loaded up my Kindle and set my sights on the end of the month. However, the road to relapse is paved with good intentions.

   Two weeks after I returned from the clinic, I got a couple of voicemails from Ben Pickles, my old pal and racing correspondent from The Sporting Times. The first message welcomed me home, and the second sounded more urgent.

   ‘Meet me later at Ye Olde Cock Tavern for a natter and a hot meal,’ he said. ‘A swift half will do you good and their steak & onion pie should sort you out.’

   Ben was in the upstairs bar when I arrived at six thirty and had a couple of large gins waiting in abeyance. ‘Welcome back to reality, matey!’

   ‘You know I’m on the wagon?’ I said, biting my lip. 

   ‘Rubbish!’ he said, sliding the effervescent liquor across the bar.

   ‘It’s been six weeks now and---’

   ‘Just the one won’t do any harm.’

   ‘Cheers, Ben,’ I said, as we clinked glasses. 

   ‘Now then,’ he said, leaning on the bar. ‘Let’s get you fixed up with a new lady.’ My jaw almost smashed a hole through the floorboards. ‘I’m sure there must be some flightless bird who’ll be an easy catch.’ 

   The cheek of it. I don't like things to be that easy. I've worked hard for my four wives, unlike certain colleagues I won’t name. They’d marry anything in a skirt, as long as it could walk and breathe. Snorting, I raised an eyebrow.

   ‘What?’ He shrugged and hailed the barmen. ‘Same again, old chap!’

   ‘That’s the last thing I need,’ I said, steadying my hand

   ‘Listen,’ he said, thumping my shoulder. ‘We’re all worried about you.’

   I rolled my eyeballs and sighed, resting my glass on a beer mat. 

   ‘You need a decent woman to keep an eye on you.’

   ‘I can’t even think about that right now.’

   As it happens, I met a possible fifth Mrs H yesterday, but it turns out that she's got the most extraordinary ideas about what's called 'settling down'. Settling down is a very curious phrase. It’s used only by women. I have seen feathered birds settling down, and I have seen dust settling down and I have even seen bookmakers settling up, but just quite what women mean by settling down is another matter. I suspect it means that life is no laughing matter. But what puzzles me is what on earth did my four wives think they were getting when they married me? I mean, you can see a juggernaut as it rushes head on, can’t you?

   My fourth wife, who was and is quite lovely, said to me, when she called it a day, 'I thought you'd change and settle down.' I’d apparently given her that idea whilst we were on our honeymoon. I remember we were relaxing on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean after enjoying a leisurely lunch. I was dosing off on a sun-lounger after one too many Southsides when she clutched my hand and said, ‘I wish we could stay here forever, darling.’ ‘Sure thing, love,’ I said. ‘No, I’m serious,’ she said, tightening her grip. That was when the alarm bells sounded with ear-splintering clarity and my eyes pinged open. I blinked and turned to reassure her. ‘Of course, we can stay here forever, love.’ She grimaced and said, ‘And once more with feeling?’ I crossed my fingers out of sight and presented my sincerest fixed grin. It satisfied her anxiety, and she never mentioned the notion again. However, if I gave her the impression that I had any intention of changing, it wasn’t deliberate. I wasn’t in the mood for a public spat and needed a cat nap. I mean, change? Settle down? Really?

   What they don't understand is that it takes money to change and settle down. Lawnmowers aren't cheap, don’t you know? Nice little detached properties in the suburbs don’t grow on trees. Anyway, one of us had to be sober, and it wasn’t going to be me. It was part of my job description to entertain clients. Alcohol is Fleet Street’s lubricant and without it, the stories stop. Besides, if settling down means swapping oysters and fizz on a race day for shepherd’s pie and pale ale, I’d rather not bother. It’s hardly the high-life. Perish the thought.

    Of course, it would be churlish to accuse all women of having settling-down syndrome. I’ve known lady writers and fellow hackettes who could hold their own in a bar, let alone put up a good fight afterwards. I recall stalwarts from the Wapping days who’d learned hard drinking from careworn professionals in Fleet Street. They lived on expenses and drank vodka every night until their livers screamed out, Mercy!

   Now, there are certain conditions under which I could change and settle down. The night I collapsed, before two paramedics resuscitated and escorted me to the clinic, a woman approached me in The French House and said, ‘When I first saw you, I thought to myself, what's that handsome man doing surrounded by rogues?’ She'd answered her own question, if you see what I mean. Surrounded by rogues, say no more. Apart from her dubious eyesight, I was flattered. She was an angel with eyes like simmering pools of molten lava and lips with a life of their own. I caught a waft of her delicate scent when she leaned over to drop her card in my top pocket and followed her like a lamb when her taxi arrived at the door.

   For her, I'd try to change and settle down, however I'm not sure whether it's the change or the settling down, that's the hardest part. I’ve got used to my own company and it has its advantages. I can always have another double and not be scowled at or asked, ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ What a stupid question. Make mine a double and easy with that tonic. But, bless my soul, don't the ladies mean well when they ask you to change and settle down? Never trust people who mean well, I say. Stalin probably meant well when he systematically starved 20 million peasants and when Cromwell banned Christmas, he certainly hoped we'd all change and settle down.

   Alone has almost become a dirty word. With unadulterated sentiment my heart used to ache when I spotted a single man or woman eating in a restaurant. Others find the sight disturbing, because they presume that he or she is on the verge of suicide, living in filth and surrounded by unwashed dishes and as friendless as a Jehovah’s Witness.

   Anyway, Ben looked aghast when I announced my trip to Spain.

   ‘But,’ he said, shaking his jowls. ‘You’re not going alone?'

   No, I've had my share of holidays for two, and rubbing factor 50 into someone's back while they scroll through miles of celebrity gossip. It isn't my idea of a healing fortnight and having a row with someone on holiday is a pain. You can’t escape anywhere private to lick your wounds, and then the next meal throws you back together with fake smiles and cheery chit-chat. 

   Then, just as things settle down, she spots that couple in the room next door and they ask if they can join you. In no time at all, you're together having a drink as though it's Christmas. They tell you they come from some dreadful suburb and recount their tales from abroad, producing reams of blurred photographs of their ‘kids’. Of course, last year they went to Greece, but they won’t go back there ever again, and they've booked a cruise for next year in seven-star-luxury that's only £60 a day and ‘all in’. Then you pair off. He tells you he's in computers and when you tell him you're a writer, he says he can't say he's ever heard of you. I sigh and he says, ‘I’ll bet you meet lots of famous people’.

   Back at the hotel, between bouts of diarrhoea, Madam’s not talking again. Her shoulders are peeling and suddenly it's don't touch me time. A cockroach crawls out of the bathroom and it occurs to you that by London time, Ben will be lining them up on the bar and everyone will be saying, ‘Jammy Sod. I bet he’s having a whale of a time.’ Instead, what I hear is, ‘Promise me, you won’t be rude to those people again, darling.’ 

Not unless I can't help it, I say. But who knows? 

This wouldn’t happen if I was alone. 

Bring on my week in Spain. 

I can’t wait for it.

The End