Day 8: 17th July 2010

Today by contrast has been more than a little difficult, a little strained at times. However, that does not do justice the laugh that I have also had with (C)Andy when he is around. O.K. in the first place, I am sick to death of putting the ‘C’ in a bracket, so from now on, please refer to him as Candy – it also prevents any confusion when I’m in the room as well.
So; last night I arrived at the pub (The Royale), and we sat and downed a very nice, very cold beer together. The party had started well before I got there, primarily because I didn’t know when I would arrive and nobody likes to sit and stare at beer. The evening consisted of beer, wine, Guinness (cheers Dave), and a BBQ in the garden, followed by a game or two of Backgammon. Now I have never played it, so was more than happy to watch, listen and learn. We chatted, I got confused by some of the moves, and we ate. In all it was a damned fine evening, which ended in the early hours of the morning. Candy had work, and I was just plain exhausted. It was the first night that I had not slept in a bed for more than a week and as soon as my head went down, the lights went out. Sleep found me very easily.
Dave is a special kind of a guy and I really like him for all manner of reasons, not least that we have history from our childhood. But there comes a time when you begin to get concerned for someone. (I know he’ll hate me for mentioning it, but Dave get your kidneys checked out mate.) He had been up all night in his own little party and it hadn’t finished by mid-morning when I finally surfaced. That in itself can be a little disconcerting, but more so is what happens when things really deteriorate. I sat with coffee in hand and chilled for a while, Dave with his cocktail (it wasn’t really a cocktail, but it’s really the best way to describe it at that time of the day). We talked and talked and talked for hours about the plans for the house (and the one next door), Dave tried to get me to understand household circuitry, and I tried to help him understand that I could work it out even after he’d explained it for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th times. He laughed. In all, up to that point it had been a bloody good laugh.
Then something changed, I can’t remember if he said something, or I said something, but evidently something really pissed him off. For about the next hour he spoke to me in a mix of French and English and became more and more frustrated the more I said he needed to be clear and speak to me in English. My French is less than holiday French and the speed that he was talking at and the fact that he would then break into English before roaring back in French really made the whole experience something surreal. The breaking point seemed to come when I said, ‘Sorry Dave, I don’t understand, what do you mean?’ to which he seemed to take great exception and snapped back
‘Why what are you some kind of f#*’!ng psychologist.’ I paused and then he laughed.
The thing is that was the disconcerting point, what followed was. He then began to question me about beliefs, knowledge, understanding, family, and desires. That doesn’t sound like much of a problem you might think, apart from the fact that he really didn’t look like he was taking any of it in and the speed at which the questions came, made it seem that the interest lay somewhere else. And then he picked up his knife.
Now there have been moments in life when I have slapped someone, or knocked the living daylights out of someone, it’s not something I have done for a very long time, but it never involved a blade.
He looked at the blade. He looked at me.
‘Should I be concerned Dave?’ I said.
‘Aren’t you?’ he replied. Then laughed. Put the knife down and picked up his drink. I will admit that at that point I was somewhat confused and being me, drank my coffee and let it stew. Coffee finished, I turned to him and said, ‘What was all that about Dave?’
‘Don’t keep pushing it.’ He said. Fair enough I thought, but before I could do anything about it, I found myself saying
‘No problem bud, but why the knife, I don’t understand.’ That seemed to incense him even more, and the knife was back in his hand (blade open) as quickly as any man I’ve seen. We sat and looked at each other for a time, I don’t know how long and in that moment, I decided that I needed to head home. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his head lolled. I left him like that and made another coffee. The minutes turned into the best part of an hour and then with a swig of Gin, he threw the bottle to the floor and staggered off upstairs. I sat and smoked a cigar, I had a small glass of wine and then I began to write...
It was nearly, 10:30pm when Candy walked in through the door, all smiles and happiness.
‘You alright mate?’ he said ‘How’s Dave been today, bit of a twat?’ and laughed. ‘I knew that would happen when I saw him down here this morning’.
Candy and I sat and talked, we talked about Dave and the history we have from our school days, the connection through my brother and how we got back in contact, and we similarly spoke about how he and Dave had got to the point of sharing (and rebuilding) a house over the last few years. We talked about motorbikes, the project he has in the living room and a whole host of other things as well and the rest of the evening went off very well. Dave joined us at about 1am and had absolutely no recollection of the day’s events, so Candy and I filled him in and he just looked at us (I think in somewhat disbelief).
So that was it, Candy persuaded me to stay – at least for breakfast in the morning – and we sat, talked, and drank another glass of wine.