We’re on the train back home, the Sunday after Lizzie’s London party, and I’m mingingly hungover.
I want to loll my head over and put it on Lizzie’s shoulder, but I know she’ll never let me. She doesn’t go for heads-on-shoulders kinds of poses.
Of course, I have beer fear: alcohol-fuelled-paranoia about what kind of stupid things I might have said to people at the party last night… plus more general paranoia that everyone at the party might have already disliked me, before I even said all those stupid things.
Despite the beer-tinted goggles of insecurity, through which I’m mentally picturing the previous evening, overall I seem to remember I had a pretty good time. I recall talking to lots of people from my old university and actually enjoying it. Sure, at one point a whole glass of champagne got knocked down the front of my shirt… but I seem to remember, dimly, that this wasn’t actually my fault. Hoo ha!
It sounds like Lizzie had less fun, however.
‘I only had two drinks… half a beer and a Prosecco,’ she sighs from the train seat next to me, as she repels my lolling head once again… like an irritated child pushing away a spacehopper.
‘It meant,’ Lizzie continues ruefully, ‘I just couldn’t relax. The whole evening just seemed to go on forever!’
I fuzzily remember going out for drinks, on a dry January a few years ago, and thinking that went on forever too. Obviously, drinking alcohol speeds up time (perhaps it’s a physic consequence of the booze hastening you to your death). A good malt whiskey can make an evening go down as easily as… well, a good malt whiskey. But a social event without booze… Lizzie’s got it right… it can feel like you’re living through it in real-time… not magic, super-fast pissed-time.
‘I didn’t smile the whole evening,’ sniffs Lizzie. ‘Do you remember seeing me smile any of the evening?’
‘No,’ I reply, feeling sorry for her (I mean, she was the one who co-organised this party, after all). ‘I don’t.’
‘Actually,’ says Lizzie, brightening slightly. ‘I had a few good conversations – particularly towards the end of the evening.’
‘Maybe those people hadn’t been drinking either,’ I suggest.
‘Maybe,’ Lizzie shrugs.
Lizzie looks sad and I feel sorry for her again when…
BOOM!!
No, I don’t mean the train crashes. That would be a sad (but at least not drawn out) end to this whole sorry tale. I mean, BOOOM… suddenly, out of nowhere, a bristly, black-haired dog sticks its long snout through the gap between our train seats.
‘OH!’ says Lizzie. Her surprise is quickly dispelled with delight.
‘Who’s a good boy then? Aren’t you gorgeous? Yes, you’re gorgeous, aren’t you?’
Lizzie strokes the dog’s head, between the seats, and coos at it some more… and the dog wags its tail appreciatively back at her.
Lizzie’s beaming… apparently all memory of her unsatisfactory attempts to interact, at last night’s party, completely banished.
Sometimes, when you’re feeling down and uncommunicative, a dog can offer the best conversation.
P. D. Clifton 
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