Heavy quiet

This morning I got a surprise ‘phone call from Claire asking if she could come and see me in the afternoon which she did, staying a couple of hours. We sat in the clock-tick silence of the front room and with the usual enthusiasm she told me about her life. At times the heavy quiet of the house seemed to weigh down on our conversation.

As she left I told her I hoped to see her again. “I have five days off” she said, and I felt like asking her out for a drink, but I doubt we’d have anything in common, so I didn’t. Then she was gone.

It was a bright brilliant day of sun and wind, a day to be across the moors, far away. 

“He never resolves the conflict between his family’s values and those of his friends, brooding only that while ‘all his friends were engaged in their morbid demonism, these people were working gravely & living earnestly and enjoying their evenings with quaint and homely gladness.’”

I stayed up until two watching the Darlington by-election. Stiff-backed and arrogant O’Brien held the seat for Labour, Screaming Lord Sutch, hair dyed green and wearing a leopard-skin suit, got 374 votes, the Yoga and Meditation candidate 15.