never realised.
Our neighbours had a grand shouting match this morning, not loud enough to hear the words but enough to feel the anger. Enough to hear the silence when it was finished with a slammed door. How I wish I could have that row, provoke that reaction, engage that emotion. Not that we have never rowed because we have. Precisely three times. And now that I come to think about it, to write about it, to define it and consign it, maybe we have not. She has not shouted at me once. But we did row on our first holiday together after we were married when she took some [ ] at something that I know notwhat and did not speak to me for a day until I refused to go further until she told me what was wrong. And we did row a year later when the same thing happened for a week with just monosyllabic grunts instead of speaking. That time she took herself away to some spot until she came back and said she was sorry and that she would try again, whatever that meant. For a couple of weeks she was sweetness and light, but it all seemed such an effort and I was just holding back waiting for the spell to be broken, until it was. Maybe five years ago one night when I drank a little too much, defences lowered I complained of feeling as if I were dead and wanting a life again, and she with a little drink inside her too, wept a little and said how she knows it has not been very good but she would try harder and she was scared to lose me. There was a difference for a few weeks before the indifference seeped back. I think I tried to respond but I was too wary, suspicious, untrusting of this artificial attention. Now a bloody good row seems like a good thing to have, a thunderstorm to clear the cloying air. I can hardly bear to look at her any more, she just looks away.
12 th entry
I went to the centre again today to see if I could make an appointment with the woman who listened. I didn’t even remember her name and couldn’t say why I needed to see her. Then I needed to go to the office but could not work out the best route to take. There are two obvious ways, each really as good as the other, but I needed to take the best one and I could not decide. I know the best one from here, but not from the health centre. So I sat in the car unable to move until rudely prompted by the person waiting to get out of the car park. Panicking, I drove home, to where I knew I could choose the correct route. I think this is the start of madness. It may be beginning of the end of madness or it may be too late for anything. Tonight I have waited a long time after she has gone to her bed to write this. First I got this book out and two pens set beside it. One works well but I don’t like it. The other works less well and blobs ink from time to time but it sits well in the hand and is comfortable. Now I have waited, deliberately letting myself think about which pen I should use. I am testing whether or not I can make a simple decision, one of no consequence whatsoever. There is ink now on the page under the very tip of the pen that writes this but it is from neither. I have become transfixed by the choice and put it off by choosing neither and huntinguntil I found a biro that neither works well nor is comfortable in the hand. I know that the pens still sit here beside me, each unused, each with its virtues, each its faults. The third way is the worst of both pens. I look at them and think that I may never use either again. I see that this is strange behaviour, but I cannot control it only observe that it is odd. Even the observation of it is odd and I can see that too.
13 th entry
She is asleep and has been for more than an hour. I have not slept at all, I have been waiting for her to give me an answer to the question. By chance, certainly not by design we got into the same bed at the same moment. After a few minutes of darkness and silence as if in a trance, someone who might have been me, said that they wanted to make love and had wanted to for ages. Then in a
Our neighbours had a grand shouting match this morning, not loud enough to hear the words but enough to feel the anger. Enough to hear the silence when it was finished with a slammed door. How I wish I could have that row, provoke that reaction, engage that emotion. Not that we have never rowed because we have. Precisely three times. And now that I come to think about it, to write about it, to define it and consign it, maybe we have not. She has not shouted at me once. But we did row on our first holiday together after we were married when she took some [ ] at something that I know notwhat and did not speak to me for a day until I refused to go further until she told me what was wrong. And we did row a year later when the same thing happened for a week with just monosyllabic grunts instead of speaking. That time she took herself away to some spot until she came back and said she was sorry and that she would try again, whatever that meant. For a couple of weeks she was sweetness and light, but it all seemed such an effort and I was just holding back waiting for the spell to be broken, until it was. Maybe five years ago one night when I drank a little too much, defences lowered I complained of feeling as if I were dead and wanting a life again, and she with a little drink inside her too, wept a little and said how she knows it has not been very good but she would try harder and she was scared to lose me. There was a difference for a few weeks before the indifference seeped back. I think I tried to respond but I was too wary, suspicious, untrusting of this artificial attention. Now a bloody good row seems like a good thing to have, a thunderstorm to clear the cloying air. I can hardly bear to look at her any more, she just looks away.
12 th entry
I went to the centre again today to see if I could make an appointment with the woman who listened. I didn’t even remember her name and couldn’t say why I needed to see her. Then I needed to go to the office but could not work out the best route to take. There are two obvious ways, each really as good as the other, but I needed to take the best one and I could not decide. I know the best one from here, but not from the health centre. So I sat in the car unable to move until rudely prompted by the person waiting to get out of the car park. Panicking, I drove home, to where I knew I could choose the correct route. I think this is the start of madness. It may be beginning of the end of madness or it may be too late for anything. Tonight I have waited a long time after she has gone to her bed to write this. First I got this book out and two pens set beside it. One works well but I don’t like it. The other works less well and blobs ink from time to time but it sits well in the hand and is comfortable. Now I have waited, deliberately letting myself think about which pen I should use. I am testing whether or not I can make a simple decision, one of no consequence whatsoever. There is ink now on the page under the very tip of the pen that writes this but it is from neither. I have become transfixed by the choice and put it off by choosing neither and huntinguntil I found a biro that neither works well nor is comfortable in the hand. I know that the pens still sit here beside me, each unused, each with its virtues, each its faults. The third way is the worst of both pens. I look at them and think that I may never use either again. I see that this is strange behaviour, but I cannot control it only observe that it is odd. Even the observation of it is odd and I can see that too.
13 th entry
She is asleep and has been for more than an hour. I have not slept at all, I have been waiting for her to give me an answer to the question. By chance, certainly not by design we got into the same bed at the same moment. After a few minutes of darkness and silence as if in a trance, someone who might have been me, said that they wanted to make love and had wanted to for ages. Then in a
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