Barbarians

The Stork

My friend the drunk said she looked like a stork. He didn’t like her; he had just moved back in, and went with me to the cafe every morning. She would come too, but unbidden and uninvited, taking a seat with us although she had no reason to be there. Who was she, anyway, to be sitting with us, with her car and her big house and her husband and her job? Who was she to think she might join us, who had fallen from life, and came to the cafe at that time to try and hold ourselves together? We were braced against the day, but she rode on top of it; we sought rhythm, regularity, but she was greedy for novelty. We were her toys and baubles, but she unsettled us.

This was after the affair – after it was agreed we would not see one another, that I would not seek her (but when had I ever sought her?) and she would not seek me. It had ended; she had told her husband, now he knew, and they were to move so they could leave the old memories behind. They were looking for a new house in the winding streets of the former Quaker village; soon they would move there; soon, champagne socialists, lecturers and consultants in business, they would hold a party to celebrate the election of New Labour. It was 1997; they were Blair’s people and I was not, and nor was my friend the drunk. It was enough for us to cross the day, enough to arrive at the other end intact.

The day stretched ahead of us, but there was the cafe, which opened at 11.00. Half an hour there, then back to the house, full of espresso. Then the long wait until 5.00, the second visit to the cafe. But there was J., who haunted us there. J. who lay in wait. She’s like a stork, said my friend the drunk, and by this he referred to her height, her sleekness. She was tall, sleek, gym-toned – why wouldn’t she be? And around she drove in her car. Into work and back again, and then into town. In the days of the affair, I went with her. Her husband, much older than her, did not care for the new places in town she liked to visit. So she took me, and that’s how the affair began.

How could I feel guilty about deceving someone who liked Shed 7? The first time I visited their house, I thought, so this is how they live, the champagne socialists. This is what it means to have money. And I thought: I would like to defile this house. I thought: I do not belong here, I was brought here, and I would like to defile it. What did they understand, the champagne socialists? They had two cars, they drove all around town, the town was theirs, the world was theirs, and what did I have?

Now I would defile their world – and how I delighted when the secret was out, when he, I was told, smashed up the house in rage. I don’t believe it, though. He wouldn’t smash anything. The world was his; what he had lost was not the world; he kept his place. It was a temporary setback. An excuse to move house. And so they prepared to move. And in their new house, when New Labour won, they held a great party to celebrate. Back together, affair over, they had their party.

She had said to me, I want a child. Her husband didn’t want a child, but she wanted one. I met her sister, who had a child, but not a husband (he hadn’t wanted one either). I met her mother, who did not want her husband.

Socialism or Barbarism

This was in the months before my friend the drunk had moved back in. No one in the house but my landlord and I. No one but he and I, and he liked to harass me. No one but my landlord and I and the monks who visited, and my landlord’s sport was sexual harassment. Go and get yourself a fella, he said. Can’t we have a half-and-half relationship?, he said. Monks circled the house, some on a far orbit, appearing once every few months, some arriving every night. But there was my landlord and I, and my landlord was unhappy when she appeared at our door in her gym lycras. She was running home, she said, and was just calling in. There she was, calling in.

She’s an elf, said my landlord, meaning she had just one side. She’s made of tin, said my landlord, meaning she had no depth. But she had a friend whom we introduced to my landlord, who was happy to entertain a young Canarian monarchist. Happy to talk of the Royal Houses of Europe with the son of a rich family who found himself in a Salford highrise, studying something or other.

The affair began. I’ll never leave him, J. said of her husband. But later she said, I want to leave him. Why had she sought me out? She found me on a train; she told me she had walked up and down the train to London to find someone to sit next to, and there I was, in my yellow shirt. She sat next to me. She sat there, and I knew she wanted to talk, but I didn’t want to talk. But she talked, and I, reluctantly, talked to her of celebrities and fashion. We enjoyed ourselves; the hours passed, talking happily about celebrities and fashion.

It was 1997. K. had already said of New Labour that it would make no difference. Socialism or barbarism, he said, and this is barbarism. Blair was young and Major grey, but it would make no difference. So I was young and J.’s husband grey. So was I novelty and he routine. And I who wanted to escape from my house found my escape and the days blossomed in the countryside around Manchester. We passed through the halls of summer and she said, I want a child. Let’s have a baby, she said. I want a baby like my sister, she said.

This was in the woods around Manchester, to which we drove. For me, this was already magic: driving from one place to another, driving out of the city and to the woods. For me, it was enough to escape from the house, from the city, to the woods. Here I was in the woods, in the halls of summer, I was driven there, a car took me. I was picked up and taken to the woods: this was already a big deal. How else could I have taken myself to those woods? How else could I have made my way? But there I was, in the woods.

Her husband didn’t want a baby, she said. She had been his student; he found her a job, she worked in his department. He didn’t want a child and she was in her thirties, and tired of her life, of her house. Let’s move away, she said. Let’s move south, she said. They had a house on Gran Canaria. Let’s move there, she said. She owned a house of her own, let’s move there, she said. Three houses they had between them and two cars. Three houses, two cars and they took half a dozen holidays a year. She said, I want a baby, and I liked that their happiness was caving in and that I was the occasion of their unhappiness.

Efficacy

Efficacy, I said to my friend the drunk when he moved in, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to feel real, I told him, to know I could make changes in the world. I wanted to put a dent in New Labour I said. I wanted New Labour ruined, I said. It was 1997. Those who had grown fat from Conversatism wanted to assuage their consciences. New Labour arrived and it was already clear they were a continuation of the same. New Labour arrived and still the rich would live far above us, still their world was far above ours. Socialism or barbarism, said K. and this is barbarism, said K., and he was right. What money there was in the world! How well they had done, those sixties radicals! How well had they done, those radicals! How many houses they had! How many holidays they could take!

Their lives streamed above us; we watched them. Soon, the drug dealers disappeared from our part of town. The dealers opposite were replaced by a family who transformed the house, opening it to the light, sanding the floors, minimalising everything. Next door, another family moved in, then another, until the whole street was full of them. What had happened? This was the time of the property investors. This was the time of profiteering from property, unabashed and unashamed. Now property was bought and sold by everyone. What began under Thatcher completed itself under Blair. What was despised by socialists under Thatcher was completed by those who called themselves Blairites, and without shame. The world was bought and sold, and without shame.

We haven’t got a chance, I said to my friend the drunk. We haven’t got the shamelessness, we haven’t got the money. So the world of the rich arched above us. So they crossed above us, the rich, it was magnificent. The street was transformed, unrecognisable. Floors were sanded, closed curtained windows which for years had hidden drug dealers were opened; yards transformed into gardens. The takeover was happening, and faster than before. Big new cars outside the houses. Hanging baskets from the lampposts. What had happened? Derelict parts of town were redeveloped. City lofts appeared. Cafes spread across the city. Tramways. It’s finished, I said to my friend the drunk, the takeover is complete. There’s nothing left, I said.

He, meanwhile, had decided to join the enemy. He bought a suit and briefcase and went to work. I received an invitation through the mail to the party at J.’s new house in Chorlton village. I didn’t even dent their relationship, I said to my friend the drunk. Nothing changed, nothing happened. Look at this I said, waving the invitation, nothing happened, don’t you see?

Poison

Long after the affair, J. and I walk through Chorlton Ees. Are you happy now?, I said. You should see our house, she said, it’s beautiful. Then she said, I don’t really want children, not anymore. Maybe I never did. I thought, the affair didn’t happen. Nothing happened, and nothing will happen. It’s over, nothing will ever happen again. Barbarism, I thought, it’s the unashamed reign of barbarism.

J.’s husband was consulting in Bulgaria again. They don’t know anything about business over there, she said, it’s hilarious. I remembered the stories the husband told me. They don’t wash, he’d say. It stinks over there, he’d say. And it’s so inefficient!, he’d say, but so cheap! He was there to advise them, to bring them the good news. We’re buying a place over there, said J., it’s really beautiful. Unspoilt. It’s really cheap. Then she said, he’d thought it was hilarious, when I said we were going to move South together. What will you live on?, he’d said. He’d thought it was really funny. You like holidays too much, he’d said.

I thought, it’s the end, we’re living at the end. Nothing will happen, ever again. Barbarism, I thought, the barbarians are not at the gates, but they’ve passed through the gates, and now they live among us, I thought. It’s finished, I thought, we’re the barbarians. We’re turning into barbarians, I thought. The colonisation is complete. It’s like the X-Files, I thought, but no conspiracy was necessary. And I knew it was hatching in me, too, that one day I would fall away and a barbarian would step forward in my place. But I thought, I’ll do my best to destroy the barbarian inside me. I thought, I’ll poison him with my poisoned thoughts. I thought, I’ll drip poison in his ear. I thought, I’ll poison him by the sheer extent of my hatred.