What Matters

Street haunting. The city and its ghosts.

Wednesday 6th November 2024

I get up. I make coffee, I listen to the radio for a bit, I start writing this. 

I’m going to London today and time is ticking but my run this morning is non-negotiable. I lamely foam-roll my perpetually niggling left leg, queue Laura Marling’s new album and get out into the misty morning. It’s 7:20am. That’s okay. Even at my slowest shuffle I should be back in time to dash to the bus and the train. But none of that actually matters.

What matters is that the same two deer have been in the same spot every morning that I’ve run through this field (The Field) for the past few weeks. Usually we just stare at each other, today they stare and then spring away, the white under their tails flashing as they recede into the distance.

The next field, freshly ploughed, is a bright deep brown - tones of magenta, I feel - against the grey sky. Anti-cyclonic gloom is what’s going on. It’s lazy to say that it’s miserable; it’s short-sighted to only see value in the bright, clear days. I am dazzled by browns, oranges and reds. 

This is what matters.

The amphitheatre of bird sound has calmed down since early autumn but what is left is a soft, subdued stillness as the scent of dead leaves and saturated ground rises and soothes my lungs. Walk a bit - because there’s actually no rush - then back to it. 

I turn for home feeling stronger than I have in months. Since before Lavaredo in June, probably. To go to sleep tired and wake up with energy (insomnia, fatigue) is a precious gift. To look at a busy day in the city ahead of me and know - without a shadow of a doubt - that I can take it.

I am late home but the bus is late too. The view from the train window is hessian, is tapestry, is simply trees and fields in England in November. 

I haven’t been away from the city for long enough yet for the force of it to overwhelm me. But I have been away long enough to bask in it. I go to my favourite coffee shop and they still use the same beans - my favourite - and yes, even compared to everywhere else I’ve been, this one is still my favourite. Sweet solidity. 

Down a random side street I bump into a friend I haven’t seen in well over a year. Neither of us even live here anymore. No time has passed between us, besides the baby growing inside her. This matters. This is all that matters. 

I take the Tube from Oxford Circus to Vauxhall. The tips of the buildings down here are beheaded by a layer of fog - the gloom. This too is an old haunt, but finally, a little park has appeared and the walkway I so eagerly watched being constructed is open. I stood within the building I’m heading to and watched it unfurl. I saw trees brought in on trucks. I saw a snowman appear on the building site and then by the afternoon, disappear. I became an expert on it with ready anecdotes. I held a mug of tea in my hands and from behind the floor-to-ceiling windows, I saw it all. 

And there, old faces, old friends. New ones, too: what are you doing here? He tells me someone has thrown yellow paint over the U.S Embassy, opposite. I go over and see: yes, heavy police presence, but they seem calm about it. By the time I pass by, the paint is being jet-washed off. What does it even mean? Are they on our side? Either way, you look hard enough and it’s how we all feel. 

I head East, to a building that locks into the fractal shapes of my eyes and floods me with a feeling of home. Lockdown, keys, love. I obliterated my life from within this building, cataclysmic, terrifying, but was also held by it. It holds me now. 

Time to kill, so I go to a pub up the road, one I used to frequent even earlier in my London life. The Betsey Trotwood is opposite what used to be the offices of The Guardian, which Theatre Delicatessen then turned into a theatre space. We had six floors of performance, rehearsal and creative desk space. We hid gin in the ceiling tiles. We slept in a photography studio while our friend filled the room with incense. I made the most ambitious piece of theatre I’ve ever attempted. I was allowed to be wild, encouraged, even. But in this very pub, I interviewed for a job in audiobooks with the woman I bumped into on the street earlier, and the man who would become my boyfriend, lockdown companion and now, friend. 

Circles. Spirals. They make you dizzy if you stay for too long. 

I miss home. I miss him. It’s nearly time to go home. And this is what matters. 

And then a walk, one I have done many times and in many ways. Out of poor necessity, aged 24, walking between Oxford Street and Farringdon because back then, you had to pay for each bus. There was no “hopper fare” yet. And then again at 30 years old, living comfortably, living on Lamb’s Conduit Street. I still dream of this walk. I have done multiple times. I am sometimes cycling through a patch of astroturf which doesn’t but might yet exist.  Sometimes I’m running, sometimes walking, but I’m always happy and most importantly, always going somewhere. I don’t stay.

I left because of ghosts. 

They still sting a little, sing a little. It’s nothing but the ‘psychogeographic’ effect of being back in a place and time. You pass through it. It’s only time travel. It is warping and wobbling for only a second. 

It’s nearly time to go home. 

But first: the main event, the purpose of the whole trip, in the calendar for weeks and the train tickets booked and the entirety of today arranged around the event. Checked, checked again. To be in the presence of a novelist whose words compress my ribs and make my eyes scrunch up and make me gasp. I read sentences over and over, before setting the book aside to process it in awe and in love, hurled against a wall. Him, an American, who today of all days can maybe soothe this British audience with poetry and sensitivity and leave us feeling like the world isn’t ending. It might be okay if we - yes - if we just hold on. 

I sit on a bench by the lifts. I wait until it’s nearly time. I eat a banana. I ready myself. 

I’m here for the - 

I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is. Good luck!

So I check again.

I’ve got the wrong day. 

The ringing in my ears as I check the ticket, check the poster. It must have changed. I can’t have got this wrong.

I’ve got it wrong. 

Very tired, suddenly. 

How could I have got it so wrong?

And that’s that. That’s sort of how the day ends. The magnificent day that went off without a hitch has launched itself off a cliff.

I could make other plans. I should make the best of it. But haven’t I already done so?

Very tired, suddenly. 

I want to be back with my home. 

So yes, that’s that, and I get on a train. 

Those hessian trees are covered in night. But that’s okay, I am too. 

I go back to my air. 

What really matters?

What really matters?

I got up. I made coffee, I listened to the radio for a bit, and I started writing this.