This week, I finally got around to reading one of those seminal works of English Literature that old-timers like me feel obliged to tick off their list, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. What took me so long is that there are so many novels to read that the classics, already familiar through osmosis, get pushed to the back of the queue by the noisy newcomers. What prompted me to pick it up at last was that, within the space of two days, I had heard a radio programme about the author and come across an unopened copy of the novel on a bookshelf at home. Also, with my birthday fast approaching, I was aware that time is running out. Nowadays, birthdays are not so much a cause of celebration as of contemplation and a reminder to complete whatever ambitions you still have.
We are currently on a road trip to Manchester and beyond, where my OH has business and I am free to spend time catching up with old friends, another activity that gains urgency with the passing of years. And, whilst nostalgia plays its inevitable part in our meetings, I have been taking care not to imbue them with the whiff of a ‘farewell tour’, focussing instead on continuing companionship and future dates. It’s been a busy time, but for the last two days I have been left to my own devices in the Lancashire town of Southport. This genteel seaside resort was and is the retirement destination of choice for many a Mancunian and Liverpudlian, vestiges of whom are evident in charity shops in the form of cravats and twinsets. The place has seen better days, but much of its heritage remains intact despite some fraying around the edges. An amateur social historian like me can find much of interest. Lunch options, however, are limited, so I returned to the reasonably authentic, family-run Italian deli that I had discovered on a previous visit.
The deli is a corridor space, with a counter on one side and four tables-for-two along the other. I took the only free one, passing as I did so another solo diner, a woman who apparently had finished eating but was still nursing a glass of wine. After placing my order, I looked up and noticed that she appeared to be staring at me. I busied myself with my phone, thinking that she had probably not meant to catch my eye and that, anyway, she would soon depart. She did not. She and I were facing each other and, with nothing blocking our line of sight, the only way to avoid eye contact was to read. She, however, sat very still and upright, reading nothing, phoning no one and looking right at me. She didn’t look crazy, or eccentric, just a bit vague and faintly smiling. When my food arrived, I was grateful for the distraction. Then she started talking, very quietly. I assumed she was on the phone but, after a while, realised she was addressing me, though I could not quite hear what she was saying and, despite my telling her so, she would not or could not raise her volume. Exchanges were impossible so, eventually, having cleared my plate, I took my unfinished drink to her table.
She just wanted conversation, it seemed, but not about the weather. In a wistful manner, she told me about her two failed marriages, the second of which was to a man “below her social class”. Whether her strangeness was due to anti-depressant drugs, I don’t know, but the fragments of her story suggested loneliness and regret, like some character Mrs Dalloway might have known – and certainly shunned. Eventually, the waiter (who was unsure what to make of our relationship) came to take her empty plate and she inferred she might have another drink. It was then I took my leave, gently. I detected disappointment, but I hope she understood that I was just a passing stranger, willing to lend a kindly ear.
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