The second installment of my intermittent, rambling diary, detailing the various woes that have befallen me since leaving Edinburgh, and a few that befell me upon my temporary return...
Friday, 24th August
Signed on today. What a demoralising experience. My brother was still a bit drunk from last night so I had to make my own way to the bus stop. I don’t drive because it scares the shit out of me, and I don’t like knowing that, in effect, I hold not only my own, but the lives of everyone else on the road between my sweaty, sweaty hands. Also, I can’t. So a forty-five minute walk it had to be. Got up at half-past seven, did a lot of swearing, showered, dressed, fought back tears, and headed out at eight o’clock to make sure I made the nine o’clock bus into Perth. Perth recently gained ‘city’ status. I think it had something to do with the fact the Queen visited during her jubilee tour or whatever the hell it was, and that Perth College has become an outpost of the University of the Highlands and Islands. City or not, Perth is still a post-apocalyptic cesspit at ten o’clock on a Friday morning. I was acutely aware that the wastrels meandering past me as I tried to enjoy my Tesco-bought breakfast constituted my comrades in unemployment. I do not think I have ever felt so downhearted as I did this morning. I fell asleep on the bus back so I was furiously groggy when I arrived back in Crieff with another forty-five minute walk ahead of me.
Last night my brother went out to some God forsaken club or other, and brought back several friends at four o’clock in the morning. To be honest, this didn’t really faze me as I was still awake and am fairly accustomed to late night drunkenness. However, I am not accustomed to teenage girls stomping around my house, pummelling doors and shouting obscenities. Neither my brother nor I have any idea why she was in our house, or what she wanted, but we could be in no doubt she was willing to raise the building to the ground and - for all we knew - rape and murder us both to get it. When I had put on my dressing gown and hobbled through to the living room to see what was going on, ready at a moment’s notice to dispense severe chastisements, she shouted ‘WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?’ and stared at me as if I had just shat myself.
I do not believe my fractious state was unjustified.
Sunday, 26th August
Once again I had to walk home from the bus-stop, this time after an hour and three quarters on assorted public transport. Never mind. Spent the weekend in Edinburgh for the purpose of seeing a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. Still suffering the effects of sleep deprivation, I fell asleep on the train and awoke some time later, frightened and confused, as well as racked by uncertainty as to how and why I was on a train hurtling through Linlithgow. Managed to pull myself together by the brain lobes, and de-trained at Waverly. Is de-trained the word? I don’t think it is. Disembarked? No. Alighted! I alighted at Waverly. Then headed off to see Bee, which I was looking forward to, and enjoyed immensely. They’ve got themselves a flat very much like the one I lived in on Buccleuch Street. Much like that pit of despair, this flat exhibited some of the typical architectural features of student flats: not one of the walls appeared to be where it should have been, neither lighting nor ventilation seemed to have been considered a priority, and the kitchen had no windows. Still, it was on the top floor, so it already had the Buccleuch Street flat beaten hands down.
I was feeling a little under the weather, made worse by exhaustion, and soon after Bee had ensured I was fed and watered I began to feel quite ill indeed. From that point onward, not a single aspect of my visit went according to plan. Seconds after meeting Michael I had to sprint (or as near as it is possible for me to sprint) to the bathroom for fear of vomiting all over Bristo Square. Poor Bee was convinced her cooking had caused me to suffer instantaneous food-poisoning, and unfortunately my pallor and trembling voice did little to support my assertions to the contrary. Michael and I left her and made our way to St Giles' Cathedral, me feeling very guilty.
The performance itself was, broadly speaking, commendable. The choir was superb, all the more so for being, if I remember correctly, a youth choir. Usually, Mozart’s Requiem utilises an orchestra, but for this performance the instrumental aspect was placed in the hands of a single organist. This was ambitious to say the least, and executed with incredible skill. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it worked. The intensity of the choir made what in other circumstances would have been a fine piece of virtuoso playing seem contrived and faintly anaemic. The important thing about Mozart’s Requiem is its sheer power; at it crests the vocal apex of ‘Kyrie Eleison’ and surges into ‘Dies Irae’ it should rain down fire and brimstone on an audience, blast a listener’s very soul from its weak, fleshy prison and cast it prostrate onto the wind. Regrettably, the organ sounded a bit like a synthesiser, and I don’t believe a synthesiser can adequately capture the drama of the Second Coming.
Anyroad, missed the last train and found myself without anywhere to sleep. Michael kindly offered his couch, but this would have involved gate-crashing his friend’s birthday first, which I was loath to do. After I had made him about an hour and a half late by dragging him around town while trying to think of an alternative, I eventually remembered Bee and Signe and their largely uninhabited flat. I do not think I will ever experience such relief again in my life.
Monday, 3rd September
The only detectable advantage to having moved in with my parents is that I now have a sensible place to store my books. In my little flat in Edinburgh they lined every available level surface, multiple layers of some of the greatest works composed in and translated into the English language stacked haphazardly on top of each other in a vain attempt to utilise the limited space available to me. Now, as I sit on my bed (I don’t have a desk), I am face to spine with what can only be described as a wall of books, a formidable collection of over two hundred novels, anthologies, biographies, and collections of poetry, not to mention the complete works of the Marquis de Sade, representing the sum total of twenty-two years’ fickle and not always particularly discerning literary indulgence. Beyond this, however, I cannot conceive of a single reason why I would willingly spend more time than it would take to reach the front door marooned here in the middle of nowhere, three miles from the nearest pub, where human beings are outnumbered fifteen to one by livestock, and where the setting of the sun heralds complete, unyielding darkness. Here, nestled in the putrid armpit of the earth, one could quite simply die and never be found. The smell of my festering corpse could never hope to overpower the perpetual miasma of cow shit and agricultural chemicals.
I never imagined I would miss urban life with quite the lacerating intensity I now do. Not that I ever really took full advantage of my tenure in Edinburgh; I spent much of that time - the last year at least - carving out a life for myself as a recluse. I was quite content to shuffle around the flat in my slippers, drinking tea, reading, and listening to Elvis Costello or Mahler at biblical volumes, punctuating this routine with the occasional burst of biscuit-baking. Somehow, and I haven’t yet fathomed exactly how this works, none of these delights is available to me here. If I make a cup of tea I have to drink it there and then, because there is nowhere in my room to put it the fuck down, except the floor, which is out of the question because I am not a savage. My parents go to bed before eleven, which means I cannot listen to Count Basie or Jimmy Reed at two o’clock in the morning, and if I can’t listen to them then, why even bother?
Furthermore, I am as much a bachelor here as I was in Edinburgh, but with comparatively few opportunities to have my wicked way with myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment