This Valentine’s Day, as the nation does its duty and celebrates by dining out, often in stilted discomfort, it occurs to me that many of my finest restaurant experiences have been in singular company. No offence is meant to my wife, whose conversation has remained fascinating to me over the 21 years of our relationship. And no snub to my friends, either, especially those – a non-trivial number – with whom friendship has been founded on sharing long lunches and prolonged dinners. But in a life filled with superb restaurant meals, some of the best, I realise, are those I have spent alone.
Valentine’s Day triggers these thoughts, with its annual rush for restaurant reservations amongst the nation’s couples. The scene on the evening of 14 February is so often glum – but it is only an exaggerated version of what takes place every other night of the year. Fine to see families having to work at their conversation, and lapsing awkwardly into silence – family is an obligation, and falling into easy chat with children is never guaranteed – but sad to see how often it afflicts couples.
Life really is short, and it is not only dining opportunities that are limited
I am not talking about the easy, companionable quiet between a couple which is always honourable to dip into, and a pleasure to be around. I mean instead the painful, desperate silence of those who cannot heave their hearts into their mouths, or find thoughts with which to entertain each other. On Valentine’s night the restaurants are packed with such couples, but the rest of the year, in smaller numbers, they are there all the same.
Occasionally I have caught these couples giving me pitying looks, as I walk into a restaurant by myself. Sometimes the waiting staff feel awkward. They seat me at my table for one as though in the presence of bereavement. Perhaps in that other country of the distant past I once felt awkward myself, but no longer.
The table is set for one, but it is wrong to say I dine alone, for I always have a book. In Sesame and Lilies, John Ruskin spoke of how crowds would pack the streets to catch a glimpse of someone famous, or hear a word fall from their tongue, but how few would take the opportunities – so readily available! – to allow the truly famous to unfold their most intimate hearts at great length. How easy it is to let them do so. A friend once told of his delight, as a young pianist in a hotel, of seeing the novellist David Niven, in full white tie, seat himself at the bar and order a martini. ‘I thought then,’ said my friend, decades later, ‘that my life would never again be so near to glamour, and it never was.’
Having sat through dinner with David Niven’s work on many occasions, I can report the glamour is still available. To eat while reading The Moon’s A Balloon is a delight. One’s eyes sparkle at the company, and chuckles and occasional roars of laughter spill out. Enjoyment is infectious, and the sadly sympathetic glances of waiting staff, when they see you smile, are replaced by smiles of their own.
Yet even the most convivial of us can flag. For all of us, the wheels of being sometimes turn slow, interest drains out of life, and our inner monologue stumbles and seems stale. Strange that it should be so, when beneath the sun and the moon is so much of perpetual interest, waiting to be discovered, but occasionally we all find ourselves stumped for inspiration.
Those couples who sit in hangdog silence each Valentine’s aren’t necessarily unhappy, or foolish, or wasting their lives. Some may just be shattered, or having a bad evening. But many are missing out – if only for those reasons. Life really is short, and it is not only dining opportunities that are limited. Poetry is generally too rich a fare for a man dining alone, but the well-stocked larder of any British mind includes A.E. Housman:
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.Now – for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart –
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Life, like a meal out, is ephemeral, and it behoves us to have the best food and the best company we can – which does not mean the poshest or the most expensive, and certainly doesn’t mean the most pompous. The finest companions don’t take themselves seriously, because they take life seriously instead. And they know that doing so demands appreciating life’s comedy and that the best comedy is good-humoured. Works by Clive James and Joseph Epstein are recurring favourites. Moral weight makes their aphorisms epigrams, and you are likely to laugh out loud with delight as you scrabble to record their sentences in your commonplace book – which, in my case, has become a file on my phone.
Adventure is out there, and life is too full of fascination to waste an evening in tongue-tied awkwardness. One need only pick up a book – and, perhaps, invite it out for dinner. Even on Valentine’s.
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