A trip to John Lewis for a refund on the insufficiently-penitent cushion (see Day Forty-Five). The trip was a penance in itself. Suffocating crowds, thrusting elbows, flushed faces - both in the store, and outside on Oxford Street. I escaped as soon as I could, then got caught up in drifts of tourists gawping at the lights on Regent Street. Resorted to walking in the gutter (although looking at the stars, obv) - best bet for speed and a frisson of danger, as buses clip your coat.
Finally took sanctuary in the Apollo Cinema - to watch 'Dreams of a Life', a drama documentary film about Joyce Vincent, a thirty-eight year old who died alone in her Wood Green flat, and whose body was only discovered three years later. Skeletal, surrounded by wrapped Christmas presents, with the television still on. The film sets out to discover how this could have happened, without anyone noticing. An extraordinarily beautiful woman (these pictures are her in real life - not the actress who played her), who'd worked at Ernst & Young, and was a talented singer. A fractured family background. A friend-drifter - someone who socialised with the people in her immediate environment (work, flatshare) and then moved on, largely leaving that set of friends behind. But still with friends. And ex-boyfriends - many of whom she still knew. Terrifying. For whatever reason, she chose to cut herself off. Many of the friends interviewed assumed that she was off somewhere, leading a glamorous, exciting life - an assumption based on the glossy image she worked hard to maintain. Not living alone in a shitty flat above Shopping City, surrounded by piles of washing up.
Can't get the film out of my head. It's prompted a lot of discussion in the media - how have we created a society where people can fall through the cracks unnoticed? And there are some obvious answers - lack of community, individualism, broken homes etc. But to me, one of the most interesting issues raised is the disparity between how someone appears to be - their social mask - and the truth behind it. We all wear different masks all the time, for different reasons. They can be very useful. But I think it's absolutely essential to have at least one relationship in your life where you don't need the mask. Or you run the risk of real isolation. Which is dangerous. More dangerous than loneliness - because at least loneliness is a product of the desire for company. Not always the case with isolation.
Sometimes it's just easier to stick with the mask. It feels safer, less complicated. But it comes with a pretty hefty price tag.
So I was grateful to be spending the evening with old friends from university. We laughed, we drank beer in a horrible pub in Euston where you needed a special code to access the toilets. We then went for an aggressively servile curry on Eversholt Street. We laughed some more. We wore the masks we created when we were twenty, and it was fun to wear them again. But we took them off too.
Good times.
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