Low life | 3 May 2012

I arrived at the hilltop crematorium an hour early. The car park was empty and there wasn’t a soul about. Behind the low crematorium building the sky was black and threatening. I found the door to the gents’ lavatory to be unlocked, however, and the water in the tap above the hand basin unexpectedly hot. I used the facilities and as I washed my hands I leaned forward and stared at my face in the mirror.

I’d been to a party the night before. It was one of those depressing parties where the illegal drugs are taken secretly by a select few in a bedroom, and to be invited in is like being offered a seat in the House of Lords by a committee. I wasn’t invited in. My staple all night was lager. And because I was very tired, the lager had a soporific effect and I fell asleep in an armchair.

Most of the people at the party were half my age at most and I suppose I must have presented a drab picture of age and infirmity. And someone must have taken exception to it because they came up and punched me in the gob. Deeply asleep, I registered the blow, but took a second or two to resurface, by which time the deliverer had melted back into the crowd and all I saw was a tittering row of youthful faces.

I was drunk and tired, so tired, and immediately fell asleep again. And then this person, or another person, either then, or some time later, must have stood over me and shied a bunch of keys at my head, hard, like an in-fielder stumping a batsman out from a position close to the wicket.