Another Lonely Christmas

It’s a thin line between romantic and lonely. If there’s something wrong with me, the same thing’s wrong with the rest of my family. All four of us, all spending Xmas alone: it’s not that we don’t love each other dearly, just that we’re all solitary types, and fractious: especially on holidays.

When I moved into this neighbourhood, I got a letter from the residents, asking me if I was an arty type. Most people who live here have some creative talent. The man next door plays the sax. A woman down the street paints a new picture every week and puts it in her front window. Even her nativity scene was abstract; the three wise men a carrot, parsnip and potato. I told them I was a scrap-metal merchant.

They also invited me to come to their neighbourhood watch meetings. But it was a different kind of neighbourhood watch that interested me. My house is a maisonette, top two floors of a three-storey building. The woman who lived here before thought it was a big selling point that there’s lots of outside space. Two roof-terraces out back, a balcony at the front. But that didn’t mean anything to me. Except at night when I was lonely and got bored of Babestation on digital TV.

The building behind my house is an old factory that’s been converted into flats. The flats look like a nice place to live, the sort of desirable space you might see in a film or TV show but probably don’t live in yourself. The lights on the top floor were always on, but I couldn’t see into their windows. Opposite me, however, was the perfect neighbour. Whenever I got in, which was usually around two or three a.m., she was up watching TV in the darkness. She was always naked and lying on her front, the duvet tucked just over her bum as if she’d been arranged that way by a French painter. She was a brunette and her body looked incredible in that blue glow. TV always looks different from a distance, the flickers so violent and ever-changing that it’s hard to understand how it could ever exert a narcotic pull.

The first two or three weeks after I moved in I spent every night standing just out of sight, watching her. Voyeurism is a strange curse: an addiction with maddeningly infrequent reward. The worst time: walking back from a 24-hour supermarket at four in the morning, I spotted a woman in a basque dancing alone in her living room, and was so excited when she came to the door to beckon me in. Until I got close enough to see she was a man.

The reason why voyeurism upsets normal people is the implication of impotence, the cardinal crime of not participating in life. But this Xmas story is about a voyeur who was desperate to participate. I realise men who sleep around a lot are considered suspicious too, but all of us are single at some time, and I think there’s something noble about people who don’t just rely on their friends to bring them new partners. Is there anything more inspiring than a relationship that starts from someone finding someone else attractive and approaching them?

Anyway, I was facing, as Prince sings, Another Lonely Xmas. I realise I’ve made myself sound like an isolated, alienated psycho, but I do have friends, both at the depot and elsewhere, and it wasn’t until the 24th that I was totally abandoned. It’s a hard time to call anyone, except your relatives, and a call to my mother, father and brother only took me up to 8.55. Xmas TV was totally depressing, the programmes chosen for non-festive Scrooges somehow worse than the extended specials of popular soaps and sitcoms. I was on my way to my local DVD shop to rent something I’d at least chosen to watch when I passed the big glass window on the left side of my local and saw a woman drinking alone.

She was staring at me like she knew me and the intensity of her gaze made me feel both excited and uncomfortable at the same time. This local, The Pepperpot, is the best pub in the whole of London. I realise most regular drinkers feel that way about their local, but mine is legendary. People come from other countries just to drink here. I once met a bewildered Frenchman in the street crying because he didn’t realise the pub wasn’t open during the day and had to make it back to Paris by nightfall. “I only came to London to go to The Pepperpot,” he told me. “Do you know any other pubs like it?”

“Ah,” I said, “I’m sorry. There’s only one Pepperpot.”

As great as this pub undeniably is, I do my best to keep out of it. I know that if I go in there any more often than I currently do (once a week for Sunday lunch and a pint), I won’t be able to resist going back every night. I’m not an alcoholic, but like a large percentage of English people, particularly those living in London, I have a problem with binge drinking, and it’s best to avoid putting myself in those sort of tempting situations.

But it was a different sort of temptation that drew me into The Pepperpot that evening. There was no way of being sure - the arty neighbourhood has many residents - but I had a strong sense that this woman now staring at me was my nocturnal brunette. I knew I couldn’t just go in and sit down at her table: she’d definitely just been staring at me, but it’s important to separate fantasy and reality, and to remember how to be charming with strangers.

First, I needed to ascertain she was drinking alone. As I said, The Pepperpot’s a friendly place, and it wasn’t unusual for a single woman to go there to meet someone, but it was Xmas Eve and if she was here unaccompanied it seemed likely she was as lonely as me.

I sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The Cure’s latest album, the comeback one, was playing on the pub’s jukebox. The Pepperpot was busy, but the bartender, who had four-day stubble, still found time to stop and ask me what I was doing for Xmas. I couldn’t resist nodding at the brunette and saying, “Her.”

“Oh, I didn’t realise you knew Gwen. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said, “she is beautiful, but you’re right, I don’t know her. I was joking. Is she single, though? I mean, is she here alone?”

“I think so. She’s been here a while. She’s some sort of writer. Spends all her time alone then comes in here when it all gets too much.”

As he said ‘writer’ and ‘all gets too much,’ in my head I heard ‘alcoholic,’ which wasn’t good. But still, I needed to know, “When what gets too much?”

“Y’know, the solitude.”

“Right.”

“Do you want me to introduce you?”

“How would you do that?”

“Send a glass of champagne across from you, ask if she minds you joining her…”

“Reckon that would work?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“OK.”

He smiled and I took a large gulp from my beer. I wished I’d had chance to finish at least one drink before this happened, but I knew if I hesitated I’d only get more anxious.

The bartender took a glass of champagne over and then returned and told me Gwen was happy for me to join her. I sat on the low sofa opposite her. I put my drink on the square wooden table and said, “Thanks for letting me sit with you.”

She smiled. “Thanks for the drink.”

“The bartender…”

“Billy?”

“I don’t know his name. He said you were a writer.”

She smiled and shook her head. Up close, I realised her hair was more black than brunette, darker even than my own. But the colour seemed natural, which was a relief, as I’ve always been nervous around goths. I do find goth girls sexy, but they intimidate me, especially in bed. They always want you to be Count Dracula if they’re going to enjoy themselves, and OK, I might be a bit detached, but I’m far too sentimental to pull off that sort of determined chilliness.

“I’m not a real writer,” she explained, her voice apologetic, “I don’t write stories or novels, or poetry. I do write for a music magazine, but I don’t get paid for that. The writing I do for money I’m not even credited for.”

“What d’you mean? Why not?”

“Well, I call it ‘incidental writing.’ Y’know, like incidental music in a film? The sort of writing that you read without ever wondering who wrote it. Descriptions in catalogues, corporate things…”

“I understand.”

“So that’s why I get embarrassed when someone describes me as a writer.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t be embarrassed. I always tell people I’m a writer, even though I’ve never published anything in my life.”

“But you do write then?” she asked.

“Just as a hobby. Little stories and stuff, not much more than a diary. That’s why I’m spending Xmas alone this year. I’ve got this story I’m trying to finish and this seemed the best time to do it.”

She nodded. “I know what you mean. I wasn’t planning to spend Xmas alone…right up until this morning I still thought I’d go back to my parents…”

“Where do they live?”

“Surrey. But then I thought how often do I get the chance for an uninterrupted run at my own stuff? And it was all going fine this morning, but then I started to feel lonely and in need of some human contact.”

“All of man’s unhappiness stems from his inability to sit quietly in his room,” I quoted.

“Exactly. Who said that?”

“Blaise Pascal. But Paul Auster and Charles Willeford have quoted it in their novels.”

“Are those the sort of writers you like then? Auster and Willeford?”

I felt as if I’d exposed too much of myself. “I used to like them. They’re the kind of authors other writers like, aren’t they? And they’re extremely useful when you’re starting out.”

“But you’ve grown beyond them now?”

I took another sip of beer. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not, I promise.”

“You are, and I deserve it. It’s ridiculous for me to sit here, an unpublished author, and say I’ve grown beyond Auster and Willeford. Even if a lot of critics don’t think they’re all that.”

“Forget all that shit,” she said, her voice surprisingly forceful. “You don’t need to impress me. I’m interested in what you’re saying. I haven’t had a conversation like this in a long time. Tell me how you’ve grown beyond them.”

“Well, I think most authors, even the most original or eccentric, like Joyce or Nabokov, establish their own lineage. And it can be authors they’re influenced by, or reacting against. My lineage is mainly hard-boiled, slightly metafictional authors, but realist. I like books where the main character goes into a bar, orders a drink, starts talking to a girl...”

“Like tonight…” she smiled.

“Yeah.”

“Is that what your story’s about? The one you’re writing?”

“Sort of.”

“Would you like another drink?”

“Yes please.”

“Just a lager? Any particular brand?”

“Whatever. I’m not fussy.”

“Ah, so you’re not so much like those authors you mentioned after all.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, their characters would be very precise about what sort of beer they wanted. Although they’d probably drink whisky.”

“Like I said, I’ve grown beyond them.”

Gwen got up and went to the bar. This was going far better than I could’ve possibly expected. There’s always a huge open fire warming the room during winter months in The Pepperpot, and although I still didn’t know whether she was my neighbour, from her choice of clothes I could tell Gwen hadn’t come far. She was wearing a medium-length grey suede skirt over blue patterned knitted tights, shoes instead of boots, and a thin, reddish-brown top that had a complicated illustration that was clearly some kind of Hoxton joke I didn’t understand. When she returned with the drinks, she teased me a bit more about my story, and then our conversation relaxed into a natural affinity that kept us going until closing time.

“Brett,” she said, as I was getting up to leave, “would you like to spend Xmas with me?”

“I’d love to.”

“OK,” she told me, “come round tomorrow. About eleven o’clock.”

As I walked back to my house, I wondered what to get Gwen for a Xmas present. It was too late to go into town, but my area isn’t all that Christian so most of the shops were still open. I decided to buy her a bottle of whisky (I would’ve gone for champagne, but they only had the cheapest brands in all the local off-licences) and give her a book from my shelves, and hope she found that romantic rather than cheap.

I unlocked my door and walked up to the roof terrace, curious to find out if it was my neighbour who’d I’d just spent the evening with. The light was off, but soon after I crouched down there, it came on and I saw Gwen enter her flat. She took her shoes off and walked over to the fridge. She opened the fridge and looked inside, then went over to the phone and made a call. I wondered whom she was phoning. Oddly, now I knew my neighbour I felt bad about watching her. When we’d been talking about the story I was writing, I really wanted to say something about how my character was spying on his neighbour, but worried that would frighten her. Still, it was weird that Gwen didn’t seem to even have curtains. My house wasn’t the only one with a view into her bedroom.

Still, I couldn’t resist lurking in the darkness, observing. She was on the phone for so long that I got pins and needles, and went to the fridge for a drink. When I came back, she hung up and sat down at a desk, turning a laptop on. I looked at my watch and realised it was only just after midnight. It occurred to me that I’d never seen her naked before two, and realised she probably didn’t worry about being naked in bed because all the other lights in the neighbourhood were turned off. I wasn’t going to stay here until two, so I went to my office to work on my story.

I looked out of my window again, on the way to bed, but she’d already gone to sleep. In a way, it was a relief. It would’ve been exciting to spy on her, with my new knowledge, but now I wouldn’t feel so guilty tomorrow.

I awoke at ten, early for me. I cleaned my teeth, had a long bath, shaved, and changed into my favourite suit to go round to Gwen’s. My mother phoned just before I headed out and I could hear her wishing me happy Xmas, but didn’t pick up.

I’d decided to take her a Robert Coover novel as a present. He was one of my favourite writers, and I thought it was unlikely she’d have read him. I didn’t inscribe it, thinking she might consider this de trop. I left my house and walked round the block, not wanting Gwen to see where I lived in case she’d already noticed me spying on her and realised I was her voyeuristic neighbour.

When I came to her doorway, I was wondering which buzzer to press when I noticed a small note, written on a scrap of paper and taped to the wall:

BRETT-SORRY! HAD A CHANGE OF HEART & DECIDED TO GO BACK TO MY PARENTS AFTER ALL. SEE YOU IN THE PEPPERPOT SOME OTHER TIME.

The vagueness of this note might’ve seemed romantic to some, but I knew I was being given the brush-off. And when I returned to my flat, I could see her alone in her room, watching TV. Maybe this strikes you as a suitable punishment for a voyeur, but like I said, I was trying to participate in life, and to be denied this one night stand, or relationship, or perfect Xmas, whatever it turned out to be, seemed an excessively cruel twist of fate.

The worst thing was, I didn’t blame her, and could even understand why she’d behaved in the way she had. It didn’t even mean she didn’t like me. Maybe when she sobered up (we had drunk a lot the night before), she suddenly didn’t feel like cooking food for a relative stranger. Christmas is an intimate occasion, and maybe the weight of this day would’ve trapped her into a relationship she didn’t feel ready for. I had food for myself, even if I didn’t feel much like cooking it. For want of anything better to do, I went upstairs to my office and called my mother, hoping that, for once, she might be able to cheer me up. Soon I found myself promising her that we would spent next Xmas together, even though I knew it was a resolution neither of us would keep.

Room in Brooklyn, Edward Hopper, 1932