Colourations of the mind

Barry, Lee and I went back to Pouncey’s in the early hours of this morning and loaded the rest of the subsistence foods into our bags. We made two visits, and when Pete came back from Castle Mount Court with Mo, they both made a trip as well. I’ve got enough food to last me several weeks, perhaps even until the end of term if I’m very careful, and certainly enough soaps & talcum powder, etc., to take me through to the summer. For some reason we were very nervy this second time, as if something was about to go wrong. We’ve now virtually emptied the shelves in that shop and got around £150-worth of goods. I got to bed at 4.30 a.m.

Today I’ve struggled with the beginnings of an essay on A Farewell To Arms. Sometimes I doubt whether I deserve the support Mum and Dad give me; if I put in commitment to my ‘studies’ here then I should have a first no problem. As it is, I think I’ll be lucky to get a third.

My attitude is the problem: for example, before Watermouth, I’d frequently search the libraries and bookshops for a copy of Thoreau’s Walden, but when it was assigned for my major a few terms ago here and I knew I had to read it and look at it critically, I struggled to find the motivation to even pick it up, let alone finish it. Is it some chronic mental malaise? This attitude is like a cancer, clouding my perceptions. Sometimes I feel so frustrated and imprisoned by circumstances that I can’t bring myself to sit and settle on one thing. I find it hard to rationalise these moods, feelings and colourations of the mind, & force myself to write about them.

Barry’s Mum and Dad and sister came down to Watermouth this afternoon. He met them in town and they came round here to see the flat. Just Lee and I were in, and we were quite amused by Barry’s obvious unease and embarrassment as his Mum, fur-clad and showy, discussed tea-towels and mug-trees. . . . I wouldn’t like my parents to see this place; they’d be shocked at the shabbiness and air of decay, which living here immunizes you against.

When his Mum saw the kitchen shelves overflowing with obviously newly acquired jars of jam, honey, lemon curd, tins of celery soup, and Vesta curries, etc., she seemed pleased that Barry was “eating well.”

John Turney turned up as we watched the F.A. Cup tie between Brighton and Liverpool live on TV. He seemed to want to be ‘muckers’ again (as Del would say) and held himself in check, but by the evening the John of old was pushing through again. Brighton beat Liverpool 2-0 (two goals in one minute) and could be at Wembley again. I like to see the big clubs go out of the Cup.

At ten o’clock Gareth, Stu, Lindsey and Susie called round and we all went out for a drink to the Westdorgan. They have moved in to a house five minutes from us on Westdorgan Road. We went for a look at the place after the pub, a claustrophobic building of narrow stairwells and landings. The décor didn’t help, all garish reds and blues and clashing patterns, giving everything a two-dimensional feel, but the rooms are large and clean and comfortable and it’s only costing them £17.50 a week each.

Lindsey came back from the IFM demo early: the snow and Leon Brittan’s ban on marches in South Yorkshire complicated things, although she sounded to have enjoyed it. She seems to be growing sure of herself, politically speaking. I remember our mutual doubts at the last IFM conference a year ago. In this—as in all other things—she and I seems aeons apart.

It’s scarcely credible that things happened the way they did and the era of Wollstonecraft Hall is another age away. I can’t allow myself the luxury of thinking about her in that way anymore—if I did, I’d be just as susceptible to her quiet charms as ever, so he less I see of her, the easier it is for me, or at least, that’s the way it appears. I fantasize about her often enough, and tonight’s contact, brief as it was, triggered plenty of echoes inside.

I’m playing Stanley Clarke’s Journey To Love as I write this. It reminds me of those long ago days at home with Andrew, before he went to college, those hot evenings baking in my bedroom, watching the sun set beyond Knowlesbeck and listening to records.

Back then the future seemed a little like those sunsets, bright and hopeful: there are more clouds now.