Midnight All Day

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Can you hear me? No; no one can hear me. No one knows I am here.

I can hear them.

I am in a hotel room, sitting forward in a chair, leaning my ear against the wall. In the next room is a couple. They have been talking, amicably enough; their exchanges seem slight but natural. However, their voices are low; attentive though I am, I cannot make out what they are saying.

I recall that when listening through obstructions, a glass can be effective. I tiptoe to the bathroom, fetch a glass, and, holding it against the wall with my head attached, attempt to enhance my hearing. Which way round should the glass go? If people could see me crouched like this! But in here I am alone and everything is spoiled.

This was to be my summer holiday, in a village by the sea. My bag is open on the bed, a book of love poetry and a biography of Rod Stewart on top. Yesterday I went to Kensington High Street and shopped for guidebooks, walking boots, novels, sex toys, drugs, and Al Green tapes for my Walkman. I packed last night and got to bed early. This morning I set my alarm for six and read a little of Stanislavsky’s My Life in Art: ‘I have lived a variegated life, during the course of which I have been forced more than once to change my most fundamental ideas …’

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