16th April 2001 - 7:09 p.m.

I spend my extended weekend holiday-of-sorts mostly pacing around my bedroom and swearing under my breath.

On Saturday, shortly before leaving the house to meet my parents at the British Museum, it strikes me that I’m actually, honestly, really really unwell. The day passes in a blur of excusing myself to stagger outside and sit down on a bench, wishing that, being unable to speak much, I could at least smoke in front of my parents, and hoping against hope that my legs will somehow not give way beneath me. Saturday night is tremendous fun. I lie in bed for hours, preparing my deathbed orations, praying that my wordiness and self-awareness will still be sufficient to escape the default role of ‘tragic shadow in old photographs..’.

Easter Sunday comes on gently, affectionately, curled before the tv. I watch the Pope’s Easter Blessings for a while, becoming more and more annoyed by the failure of the commentators to mention that His Holiness is literally – no, not metaphorically – dribbling. After which I get irritated by Hollyoaks, then by ‘The Hurricane’, and then by the fact that I’ve now watched everything I wanted to see today, and there’s nothing else on. Some hours pass. Prone on the couch.

A few weeks ago, my Gran sent me a book on ‘Walking Village London’. I imagine that most people would be rather bemused at having received such a gift. I imagine it’s the kind of thing that Grandmothers send to Grandsons when both parties view each other with mutual-incomprehension. I am bloody delighted with the book. Today, I escape from the house to trudge through deserted streets in the rain. Having to stop and catch my breath when I suddenly come across a dilapidated workhouse or prison. In the churchyard of St.Marys, I stop and peer over the railings at the mossy tombs and headstones. “Whatever happened to you? And YOU..?”, I mumble to myself, passing each resting-place. The world’s greatest loves, greatest lovers, reduced to this – he in an upended stone obelisk, and she perched atop, sealed in what would appear to be a concrete bathtub. “Baby…where did our love go?” Whilst the rain whips down, the walkman whirrs.. The Highwaymen’s ‘The Highwayman’ and Donna Summer’s storming rendition of ‘MacArthur Park’ from the Jimmy Webb compilation, ‘Walk/Don’t Walk’ and ‘Two Stars’ from that MyLifeStory lp. Things feel cold, things feel cruel, but things feel ok..

A Sunday night spent gazing longingly at my new mobile phone, under the mild misapprehension that having such an attractive toy will make more people want to call me. Cradling it in my hands and knowing, somehow, that it holds within it the promise of contact or warmth or something. And yet the little orange book of instructions gives no hint as to which glowing button I should push for this purpose. The only numbers that spring to mind are those of my parents and the police. And both seem moderately inappropriate at One in the morning, as I lie spread-eagled on the bed and dream of living somewhere far away, where the sleepy haze can’t get to me.

And then, Monday, it’s all too much. No money, no appointments, a housemate in the livingroom, one in the kitchen, leaving as the only escape-route the one from my bedroom to the bathroom. I have three baths on Monday. For lack of anything better to do. I swear seven or eight times a minute, pull the bedclothes over my head, and consider smashing a 5th Dimension record to bits, stopping myself only at the thought of quite how silly I’ll feel whilst picking all the pieces from the floor, and the realisation that I would never hear ‘One Less Bell to Ring’ again. Instead, I wander around the house with my hair slicked back in homage to the Jazz Age, or the Luftwaffe, naked but for a warm furry coat. I make an ass of myself on the phone, drop a glass, and retire to bed soon after Nine, thinking of nothing (almost nothing – existential bleating removed..) but returning to work tomorrow and being absolved of the burden of free time.

N: “Fucking bank-holidays are the bane of my life”.

T: “Nick, isn’t everything the bane of your life?”

N: “Fuck”.