It seems that north Norfolk is in the grip of an outbreak of absent-mindedness. Like those inexplicable incidents of mass hysteria when hordes of adolescent schoolgirls collapse one after another in fainting fits.
A couple of days ago I was driving along some country lane and came round a corner to find a whole host of bits of paper strewn right across the road. You could tell that these were important bits of paper, with phone numbers on them, etc., and, being a civic-minded sort of person, I stopped and gathered them up – including a doctor’s appointment card, a couple of folded five-pound notes and a pair of glasses – and took them along to the nearest police station. Judging by the state of the spectacles (i.e. aged and greasy) I’d guess they belonged to some doddery old fellow. I assume that he just liked to keep all his phone numbers and addresses in his specs case and was cycling along when they fell out of a pocket. Either that or he was abducted by aliens.
Then, less than an hour ago, I was marching through the drizzle to the Spar shop when I spotted some woman driving off with her handbag perched on the roof of her car. I had to flap my arms up and down as she drove towards me and was seriously considering throwing myself into the road. But when she finally stopped and I explained the situation she seemed to find the whole thing unbelievably amusing. She couldn’t stop laughing. Whereas, if that’d been me, I would’ve been beside myself. I would’ve had to go and lie down in a dark room for half an hour.
I’m pretty sure that neither incident would have bothered me half as much if I hadn’t recently spent a couple of days up in the attic trawling through John’s belongings and generally trying to sort things out. I’d gone through the clothes and shoes and so forth well before Christmas, which was its own particular nightmare. But these were his personal things – most of which hadn’t seen daylight for a decade or more.
Christ, but what a hoarder that man was. There’s something rather morbid, I think, about hanging onto every last little thing. I’m quite the opposite. I pride myself in my ruthlessness; my lack of sentimentality. If it’d been my own stuff most of it would’ve gone straight into the recycling. But as it was John’s, and what with him being so recently dead, it wasn’t so easy and it’s very hard sometimes to know where to draw the line between what’s of any sort of significance and what’s not.
There were stacks of mags, including some of a 1950s boxing variety, in various bundles and tied up with string, which all went straight to the charity bookshop. There was a great stack of archaic photographic equipment and slide projectors, which I put aside for one of John’s old cronies who’s into that sort of thing and who can decide whether or not they’re any use to him. It was all the personal papers and documents that were the problem.
To be fair, John probably hadn’t planned on dying when he did do. Perhaps he’d envisaged many a long evening in his dotage sitting up in the attic, getting all misty-eyed surrounded by boxing mags and his old cricket whites. The problem is, whatever I fail to dispose of now will only be disposed of later by some complete stranger. We never had kids. When he wanted them I didn’t, then vice versa. And by the time we were finally in accordance it was pretty much too late. I only note that here because when I’m gone there’ll be no one with heavy heart sifting through all our combined junk. And even if there was, most of it wouldn’t mean anything to them. Most of it doesn’t mean that much to me.
I occasionally wander round some saleroom, on the lookout for an old rug or piece of furniture, and there will always be several dozen cardboard boxes, full of letters and photographs and so on, usually labelled ‘Ephemera’. It’s just stuff that’s been dredged up along with everything else in some anonymous house clearance. But some of these things are deeply personal and private. That photograph of four men in the 1940s, posing on some unidentifiable beach in their big trunks with their arms around each other’s shoulders – to someone, somewhere that photo will have considerable emotional weight. Just not for you or me.
But it’s a salutary lesson. Personally, I shall be leaving strict instructions regarding exactly how big a bonfire to build. The alternative is surrendering your most intimate possessions to some man with a van, called Steve or Gary. And the prospect of a crowd of strangers rummaging through your most personal mementos one Saturday morning. And that really does make me feel rather queasy, I have to say.