2007-02-08
Monday night I went along to my bell-ringing practice; for the most part this consists of me standing by people who are learning from scratch ready to step in should they lose control and ropes start flying around. We don’t yet have enough people competent enough to ring complicated stuff.After, we went for a drink in a pub by the station, down a dark back alley, a decent place with decent beer, quite a few people in but not enough to stop us getting a seat. I had one pint and then left back up the alleyway and home by 10.15.
Not a very interesting tale.
Next morning Jo said:
“You have no idea what you did last night, do you? Dave was in the [insert pub name] from 8 until 11.30 last night. I can't believe you didn't notice. He was there before you and you were apparently only a few feet away when you went to the bar.”
She was angry with me. She was angry on his behalf because he was angry and apparently furious with himself for not ‘doing’ anything. I don’t know whether he really believed I had seen him – in which case he must be thinking I had just brazened it out by staying to have my drink and how contemptuous is that? Or maybe he took the same line as Jo did - that this has all become so easy for me that I sail through life without thinking to check whether there is a potentially explosive situation.:
“Unfortunately you didn't notice, you just carried on oblivious. and now it seems just a further addition to you floating through this, your life unaffected while I have to deal with all of the fall out.”
For that one evening I guess that was true – it didn’t occur to me that there was any problem with an out of the way pub on a Monday night, late on in the evening. So many times over the last four years I have gone places and been very wary, scared even, convinced that the moment that I considered inevitable that would eventually come, would be that day. But not this time. And when it happened I didn’t know (I guess if I had noticed I would have been out of there like a flash – making implausible excuses – that’s if I was given the chance to escape).
But when it came to it, nothing happened. Dave is angry with himself that he did nothing. Even if he didn’t want to make a scene in front of his own friends (how would he explain that?) it was perfectly possible to follow me out when I left alone and make his presence known down that dark alley. In whatever way he chose.
But he didn’t.
I don’t feel any more secure; I don’t know whether his failure to act makes it more likely that next time we meet he will, or less. I feel I should know what I’m going to do or say, but I don’t know.
And Jo’s reaction tells me where her loyalties lie (and I can’t disagree with her). She said she hates to have him upset (but didn’t say whether that was because she suffers accordingly). She also said she feels the way she used to when she had a friend her parents disapproved of – feeling the need to defend, but feeling the need to comply. And again she didn’t say who the ‘friend’ would be in this analogy.
I suspect I’m the shit. And I won’t go into any pub without having a good look around for some time yet.