This is a slow Sunday dispatch, one born from a succession of two severe hangovers, the kind that leave you vowing to not touch alcohol for the whole month of May and commit yourself to a day of virtuous activities to wash away the costly hedonism of the nights before.
Rock cakes are warming slowly in the oven, the kitchen has been cleaned, and the living room walls are weeping after I have steamed them free from the hideous reams of wallpaper that were left here since we moved. I am savouring the small but wholesome domestic homemaking moments that are typically reserved for a Bank Holiday. A rose to be planted in the garden. A chest of drawers to be painted. A tent to be tested in anticipation of a spontaneous camping trip next weekend somewhere we are still yet to decide.
It has been a quiet but socially momentous week, as, seeking to meet like-minded people in this new city, I joined my first ever book club - a commitment I have been flirting with since the move. I had been rushing through Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - the club’s choice and my decider in finally plucking up the courage to join.
As someone eternally awkward in small group situations, I didn’t know what to expect as I walked through the rain to the Alexandra Arms one dark Thursday evening, listening to a podcast about the book to try and arm myself with intelligent talking points. The whole affair took me back to the days of university seminars, where I would often sit on top of a growing pile of unspoken thoughts and opinions that would have me burning with frustration afterwards for not having aired them. It was either total silence, or occasionally speaking but not at all what I meant to say in an irritating jumble of insufficient words. I find that feeling in a passage from Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Enchanted April, a copy lent to me by my younger sister for some Bank Holiday escape reading in the final days of the month.
“And I know you by sight,” went on Mrs Wilkins, who, like all the shy, once she was started plunged on, frightening herself to more and more speech by the sheer sound of what she had said last in her ears.
At the bar, I stuck up conversation while waiting for a large glass of red wine with a girl who I can see clutching the book to her chest. It soon transpired she was our host, a woman who was instantly interesting, while also being undeniably interested.
I soon realised how unaccustomed I am to actually talking about books in person, and how enjoyable it can be when conversations with strangers are so clearly dictated by a topic that can be indulged in unreservedly and with little judgement.
I forgot my reservations, and spoke freely, often starting a sentence at the same time as the man sat next to me, as if time were against us and everything that we had to say. It is the most I have heard myself speak in a small group, let alone one of strangers, in a long time.
Why couldn’t two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk - real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still try to hope?
Sat around with five other people, each so different in age, background, language even, we spoke long into the night, to the point where I was embarrassed as the youngest one there to be the first to leave. Getting late, dinner to be eaten, trains to catch in the morning.
We each threw a book into the hat for our next meeting in a month’s time, and I genuinely look forward to it, grateful for this small window, so close to home, but taking me so far out of what I know of it so far. Within it, I found a voice that spoke confidently and I am keen to hear it again.