Thought

Has he had a thought over the weekend?, I ask W. No, he says, not one. He never thinks when he’s with me. But I think sometimes, W. notes of me. There’s always a parting of the clouds, it’s amazing. For a few minutes, I make sense, speak clearly and thoughtfully, and everyone is amazed. Sal was impressed at Oxford, says W., remembering the conversation in the beer garden. Ah yes, the beer garden, I say, a moment of illumination.

The problem is that I fear time, W. has decided. I have no stretches of empty time in my day. W., by contrast, always allows for empty time in his day. When he eats, he eats, he doesn’t work. When I eat, by contrast, it is in front of the computer screen. What time do you get up?, says W., wanting to be taken through my work day. At 6.00, I tell him. He gets up at 5.00, sometimes earlier.

I got up at 4.00 yesterday, I tell him. ‘And what did you do?’ – ‘Worked!’ – ‘But did you think?’, W. asks. ‘You can’t think and work.’ My problem is, he has decided, that I fear empty time. Does he fear empty time?, I ask him. No, he says, but then his house is nicer than my flat. And his living room walls aren’t pink. ‘What were you thinking when you painted those walls?’ – ‘It was to bring out the colour of the wood.’ – ‘Pink, though! Why pink?’ It would depress him, says W.

‘So what are you going to do about your leak?’, says W. – ‘It’s being fixed.’ I show him the kitchen. The dehumidifier, working 24 hours a day, has sucked all the damp out. It fills up every 12 hours. ‘That’s a lot of water,’ says W. ‘Where does it come from?’ I tell him not to get Talmudic. The greatest experts on damp are baffled by the damp.

Still, the dehumidifier makes a big difference, W. decides. Thought, says W., are we capable of it? And if not, why not? What does it come down to? Intelligence, I tell him. Raw intelligence. That is lacking in us, less so perhaps in him than in me. Those few extra IQ points make a big difference. But W. works very hard of course. And he even has thoughts, or something like thoughts on occasion.

We wander out into the world, W. with his manbag. He sleeps with it, he says. He keeps it close to him. Can he carry my jumper?, I ask him. He says no, his manbag is full. What’s in there? A book?, I ask him. And tell him there’s no point carrying books, because soon we’ll be drunk. He carries a notebook, says W., in case he has any thoughts. But you won’t have any thoughts, I tell him, because soon you’ll be drunk. ‘I’d drink if my living room was this pink’, says W. ‘It’s depressing.’

I haven’t had any thoughts this weekend, W. observes of me, and I agree. But he admires my new declamatory style, says W. ‘You get louder and louder’, he says appreciatively of my paper giving. Oh yes, I say, like X. ‘No, X. actually has a point to make by bringing things to a climax. You just get loud.’ – ‘And then soft,’ I tell him, ‘it’s dynamics.’ –

‘Dynamics!’, says W., who is always impressed when I drop musical terms into conversation, ‘is that your new word? Go on, what does it mean?’ – ‘It’s when things get loud and then soft. And then loud again.’ – ‘I like the fact that your loudness and softness has nothing to do with what you’re actually saying’, says W. I tell him I knew it would amuse him. ‘Pathos instead of thought,’ I say. ‘Ah yes, pathos. Whining, I call it. You’re good at that.’

W. thinks we should go shopping for a manbag. ‘You need one,’ he says, ‘in case you have any thoughts.’ – ‘I’m not planning on having any thoughts,’ I tell him. – ‘You drink too much, that’s your problem. Mind you, I’d drink if I had your life.’ W. feels ill from all the drinking. Last night, we had a bottle of red wine, then beer, then he drank Tequila from the bottle (‘it’s a sipping Tequila’, I told him), then we finished off the bottle of Plymouth Gin, then a bottle of Cava and then a bottle of Chablis. ‘It was a good Chablis, wasn’t it?’, I say. W. says he was in no position to appreciate it. The next morning, he asks for asprin. ‘And how are you feeling?’, he asks me. Fine, I tell him. Better than usual. – ‘Any thoughts?’ – ‘No.’

We go out to the coast for the day, and eat fish and chips on the Fish Quay. ‘Your problem is that you fear empty time,’ says W. ‘That’s why you don’t think.’ And then, ‘Thought has to surprise you, when you least expect it.’ We watch the big seagulls going about, and the pigeons. What do you feel about pigeons?, I ask him. The Romans brought them with them to England to eat, he says. We should eat them. For his part, W. prefers the seagulls. Thought, when it comes, always surprises him, says W. He’s ready with his notebook, he says, which he keeps in his manbag. That’s why you need a manbag, he says, in case thought surprises you. But you fear the empty time which makes thought possible, says W., so you don’t need a manbag.