“Do you see anyone?” asked self-described National Trinket Richard Coles as I spooned a thoughtful piece of tiramisu into my mouth. Richard was in town prior to driving off to Falmer to rehearse with the Brighton Festival Chorus, and we were finally in situ at the Regency.
Do I see anyone? It’s a good question. It implies, for one thing, that I live a reclusive and hermit-like existence; St Simeon, perhaps, perched on his pillar, looking out over the desert. “The basest of mankind,/From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,/Unfit for Earth, unfit for Heaven,” as Tennyson put it.
The thing is, I have been seeing people. I went up to That London on Monday to hear the novelists Tom McCarthy and Deborah Levy in conversation at Foyles. I had not seen Tom in years, and I missed him. I can’t remember when I first met him but what I can say with certainty is that we hit it off immediately.
I arrived early and thought I’d pop into the Coach & Horses for auld lang syne. I saw a few people there. I saw two barmaids, one barman, two people I borrowed a lighter off of, and 100 ghosts. I thought of Debbie, the barmaid I squirted with a soda siphon and whose lover I became the next day because I apologised with a packet of chocolate-coated Brazil nuts. She was staggered, because they were her favourites. How did I know? I didn’t. God told me to buy them.
I remembered, a bit late, that my eldest child worked in Soho and they turned up on their motorbike and I hoped the pavement drinkers were impressed at the sight of a man on the fringes of old age being embraced by a pint-sized biker on a Royal Enfield Interceptor.
I saw Tom and Deborah, of course. She and I were once on the Goldsmiths Prize judging committee and we ended up on the same side of an argument as to whether Rachel Cusk should win the prize. We thought she should have. I am glad I was on the same side as her; it is a brave person who contradicts her. I spoke to Tom, who was busy signing copies of his excellent books and he invited me to join him for a drink atthe Coach & Horses once he was done; but I was agoraphobic suddenly, and his invitation had included others. It was also getting on, and it’s a two-hour or more journey back to the Hove-l. Besides, we could meet up in October, when he was next due in London.
At Farringdon Station I saw that I had 25 minutes before the next train and went over to the pub opposite and had a large whisky. Taking it outside,I saw a group of three men and asked if any of them had a light.
“Don’t smoke,” they said.
“Then what’s the point of being outside?” I said. They thought this was hilarious and for some reason asked me for advice about women.
“They’re always right,” I said. “No, really.” They thought this was hilarious too. I noticed that one of the men had a battered Penguin copy of Casanova’s memoirs in his bag.
“Ask him,” I said, pointing to the book.
On the platform again, I saw a text from my old friend C—, with whom I have had a fraught relationship over the years: we have held hands, and looked into each others’ eyes, and sighed, but done no more, for each time we have been going out with someone else, and It Could Not Be. This time I learned she was a) in town and b) single. But I had to get on the train: central London may have modernised itself in my absencebut the number of cancelled trains on the departure screens told an older story.
Everyone crammed into the first-class carriage of the Thameslink train; there were no seats elsewhere, and I would have bitten the head off any inspector demanding to see an appropriate ticket, and I had a feeling my fellow passengers would have done the same too.
I saw a young couple in front of me, each of them taking turns to rest their head on the other’s shoulder, or in their lap. He was wearing a hoodie with lots of fluorescent writing on it. They got off at Burgess Hill and I felt moved to say something.
“Don’t tell anyone I don’t have a first-class ticket,” I said. For I was wearing a tweed jacket and waistcoat and they might have thought I did. The boy smiled and said, “Have a really good evening, boss.” So yes, I do see people. The thing is, before I set off for London I had seriously considered staying in bed. Not because I was ill or anything, but just because I felt like staying in bed. In the end I felt overstimulated, like a child, and found sleep difficult.
Anyway, I suppose you all want to hear how my lunch with Richard Coles went. It went splendidly. We had oysters and spaghetti alle vongole and he had a minty ice cream. Never mind that, I hear you say, what about the gossip you promised last week?
Sorry. My lips are sealed. But it was great.
[Further reading: Liz Truss is still at war with the Deep State]
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This article appears in the 25 Sep 2025 issue of the New Statesman, “Are you up for it?” – Andy Burnham’s plan for Britain
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