21 June 1999

I drove to Bristol today. I hadn’t planned to. I woke early, at four o’clock, head singing, near-bursting with an equinoctial hangover, and went down to the beach with a flask of coffee. Watched the colours seep through the dawn, really watched them, trying to catch them out, the way you watch heliotropes and the flowers that close each evening. A kind of botanical Grandmother’s footsteps. Glance away for a moment, to light a cigarette, to pour a coffee, and when you look back there is purple where there was grey, yellow where there was ivory, red where there was black. I sat watching the world light up and thought of the tower of the Wills Building at the top of Park Street in Bristol, lit by strong, still-warm honey light. Thought of John stooping silently through his days and I decided to go to see him.

I was in Bristol by nine, having coffee on the terrace of the Avon Gorge Hotel, overlooking the bridge, watching the sun slide across the high summer sky. Tracking. Moving fast. I thought I’d take John to the Dog at Old Sodbury - eat mussels in wine and garlic and pints of prawns — and then maybe walk through Westonbirt Arboretum. Maybe even ask if Sonja could come too? Leave the shop for an afternoon? If I saw them both together, perhaps I’d work out what was wrong. I could look in her eyes and see. Maybe. Maybe not.

I left the coffee untouched and drove to their house, but John wasn’t there. So I went to Whiteladies Road, to the deli, and I was parking my car when I saw John’s truck slew past me and stop suddenly, askew, on a double yellow line. I watched my son climb out of his truck to stand and stare at the deli’s window. I could see Sonja, framed by the pillars of the portico. She handed a package to a customer and then laughed, turned to look out of the window and saw John. I watched her expression change. A traffic warden tapped John’s shoulder. John, his face pale, his eyes working, looked at the man and brushed him away. As the warden wrote a ticket John turned back to Sonja and stared, unblinking. Tracking prey.

I left. I just drove home. Because I knew that if I’d moved towards my son, perhaps to stand in front of him, if I’d reached up to touch his face to bring him back, he would have glanced at me and brushed me aside as he had the traffic warden. He would have looked back to the deli. Tracking prey.

2 January 1973

John has stayed in bed for two days now, his eyes closed, breathing deeply. I don’t know whether he’s tired — well, of course he’s tired. The doctors said he should sleep and recover as much as possible and we’ve been running around the beaches having New Years and Christmases one after another. I’ve spent the time of his sleeping writing a letter to him. It’s a long letter. It’s a letter I should have started fourteen years ago. A letter I should, perhaps, have finished fourteen years ago, when my dander was up, when my fury was not spent, when I gave a damn.