19th January, 2012

I got blind drunk last night, it’s just what I needed.
My head had been hurting all day, with stress twisting through every part of me – I still don’t know where Alison is, my dreams seem even more intense this week – and I just thought that I had to get out of my skull. That’s what I needed. Too much time sat in the office not speaking to anyone, too much time in my flat by myself, are not good for my mental well-being. So I decided to get some friends together and go out for drinks. It was the best course of action.

Of course this is London and myself – and my friends – are all in our thirties now, and so getting a group of people together is not as easy as it once was. Still I got Roberto and my old friend Toby (I used to work with him) out and we hit the town for a few beers. It was fun. We went to a bar I’d never visited before in Soho, and had a few laughs and told a few wild stories and all was grand. However it was a Wednesday night, a tad too early in the week to go bonkers, and after a couple the two of them decided to go home. I offered to buy them another drink, but they kindly refused, and I was left by myself.

There was no way I wanted to go home.

I spent the night wandering around Soho on a solitary pub crawl. Some of the pubs I went to were good, old fashioned boozers; some were more trendy and expensive bars; some were absolute dives. In most of these places I just kept my head down and concentrated on my pint. In others I did raise my gaze slightly to engage briefly in wider on-going discussions into sport or whatever was catching the punters’ fancy at the time. Only in one bar did I try to create any more meaningful human contact, when I tried to chat up this fairly attractive brunette girl with the brightest red lipstick I’ve ever seen. She took one look at what must have been my drunken, stumbling gait and gave me no more than five seconds of her attention.

Towards the end of the evening I remember finding myself in some seedy lap-dancing club off Rupert Street, being performed to by a dead eyed blonde girl with a slight tummy. I’m not even sure she could speak English. She was a visual representation that all the good feeling I’d managed to grab for myself earlier that evening had vanished, and there was only gloom around me.

I charged out of there (maybe before she even finished her dance, I can vaguely remember her staring at me bitterly) and plodded my way back to Piccadilly Circus. On the way I called Alison. I knew I’d get her voicemail, but just left her a long and rambling message. What did I tell her? I think I must have said I missed her, but did I tell her I loved her? Surely not, as she’d know that wasn’t true. What else did I say? I think I may have finished off by wishing her the best for the rest of her life.

Fortunately I got the last tube. And as I walked back to my flat checked the emails on my phone, And incredibly I saw that my book has now been published. This is it! It’s out there on Kindle and soon to be in hard-copy. Fantastic news! It should have been one of the happiest moments of my life, but all I wanted to do is cry.

Work was very tough today.