Last night I was in a restaurant and there was a middle aged couple at the next table who ate their meal without saying a word to each other, in studied and grumpy silence. Either they had just met and quickly realised they had nothing in common or most likely had known each other for a number of years and had run out of things to say and didn't even want to pretend they liked each other anymore. In that case they had slowly realised they had nothing in common, which I suppose is a lot worse than quickly realising that. To imagine you had something in common and then to gradually find out that all that was was a rapidly delining sexual attraction is perhaps one of the crueller tricks that life can play on us. They finished their meal and then the man gestured with his head towards the door and they left, still not speaking. Perhaps they were unable to speak, but apart from the abrupt jerk of the head they made no attempt to communicate by sign language. Even mute couples can end up not talking to each other. It was pretty horrible.
Tonight on the way back from a gig in central London I was on the yube and feeling strangely content. I had had two glasses of wine, which helped (
the grape based equivalent of one and a half pints of Guinnness), and I'd just bought Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" for £2.99 from HMV, feeling warmed that I could buy a great work of writing for the same price as a magazine. Also my senses were slightly enlivened by having done a good gig. I was more observant and feeling more alive.
At Green Park an elderly couple got on and sat next to me. They were maybe around 70 or so, though the woman might have been a little younger or older. They sat down without saying a word and without looking at each other, but the woman immediately and casually slipped her hand into the crook of her husband's elbow. The instinctive and immediate need to provide this contact spoke volumes. It was affectionate and sentimental and celebratory and showed the strength of their relationship and love in just a moment of time. They might have been together for four decades and yet they still coveted one another and needed that contact.
They remained sitting in silence for practically the whole journey, but it was a silence of strength and calmness rather than the silence of regret that I had witnessed last night. The old couple knew each other so well that they didn't have to talk. There was a calmness and stillness to it all. They had enjoyed a night together somewhere and now they were quietly enjoying it, and occasional smile or squeeze enough for them.
The only time they spoke was at Baron's Court where a couple of people rushed from this Piccadilly Line train to a District Line one at the next platform. The man mumbled something about the people which might have been, "They're changing trains" and the woman said, "Yes".
Whilst yesterday silence had made me feel uncomfortable and cynical about love, today's silence made me feel warm and hopeful.
I hope you can all find a person where silence is a duvet rather than a bed of nails.
