Don’t look back. That’s what they say. God knows, I’ve said it so many times I
might qualify as one of them myself.
The ease with which you can become mired in the past, that you can, even
whilst you think you’re ploughing forward in life, catch yourself one day and
realise you have been burying yourself in the memory of the things you thought
you were leaving behind, is frightening.
That said, when you have,
as I have, left a life that was comfortable if not entirely satisfactory - and
for reasons more of duty than desire - it is perhaps inevitable that in your
idle moments your thoughts, which are never far from the pub at the best of
times, will drift back to the pub you left behind. I’ve even found myself contemplating hopping on a train to
go there rather than the local establishments on one of my forays into the
depths of the bacchanalian.
Contemplating it, wanting it, but not actually doing it, because the
cost of a train would be my beer money gone, and the object of the exercise
would thus be defeated somewhat.
The bond with your local
builds up over years, for the most part without your being aware it’s
happening. Circumstance leads you
to a place, a few good nights lead you back. After that, it’s time and commitment, good nights and bad,
but it’s always the first place you think of, the most natural place to
be. Perhaps the old pub wasn’t the
best pub in the world, perhaps it was a bit tatty and perhaps the beer wasn’t
always the best, but it was mine, and it knew me, and it looked after me. And now, here I am in a new town,
actively looking for a new pub, wondering why none of them is the old. Here I am, unable to commit to any pub
which, however congenial, is lacking that one basic characteristic of a pub I
might chose to spend time in: the exact relationship I had with the pub I left
behind.
Still, you have to let go,
you have to move on. They say that
too. It’s a daunting proposition
after so long in a stable relationship, but you do have to get on with your
life. The search continues, you
play the field, and whilst there are some good times to be had that way – some
very good times - you still find yourself remembering how easy it once was to
sate this restlessness. You still,
on occasion, find yourself in a bar looking for a familiar face where you know
there are none, looking for recognition where nobody knows who you are. And sometimes you’ll wake the next
morning, or perhaps the next afternoon, with no testament to the evening you’ve
spent besides an empty wallet and a vague sense of regret.
All this is to say that,
when a little personal business took me back to the city after however long
I’ve been away, there could be no question about my first port of call.
Word had reached me in my
exile that the place had changed.
I’d heard it had renovated and it had changed its name, I’d heard it was
pitching itself at a new demographic.
I’d hoped that it wasn’t my fault.
But still, it was my pub, how different could it be?
The bus ride from the
station was uncomfortable enough to distract from a certain mounting tension,
so when I got off in the old neighbourhood I was surprised to find my heart was
racing. The walk from the bus stop
is a short one, but time enough to realise with some excitement that this
memory of a place which had lived so vividly in my mind, that had exerted such
gravitational force upon my thoughts and my judgement, was just that, a memory:
here, now, was the real thing, here was that strange and particular intimacy
that had never been exhausted, that had always held the promise of something
more. Here was my pub, waiting for
me.
Then there I was, crossing
the threshold into what was clearly not my pub anymore. Clean, bright, and completely devoid of
customers. Unsmiling staff and, it
quickly became apparent, massively overpriced drinks. All the good times gone. It had become a cash generation machine which looked (an
observation confirmed by friends) as if it were losing money hand over
fist. I finished my drink and went
off to have an extremely pleasant evening elsewhere.
So it’s gone, and there is
no way back, just another pub that has turned its back on drinkers. Perhaps this will be the impetus to
give another pub a chance on its own terms, perhaps now I can let go and move on. Perhaps, but then, even though it’s no
longer there it casts a long shadow.
The past, you see, will always haunt the present. Back in this new town, there is only
the hollow sense of loss that comes from the realisation you were, despite it
all, clinging to the possibility of return. Instead, your bridges have spontaneously combusted, and you
are cast adrift. You stand alone
now, and that’s a terrifying revelation.
Only one thing can salve this tragic situation, only one thing can ease
the pain. I’m off for a pint
now. Cin-cin.
