Ghosts

I have been thinking a lot lately about absence. I have written elsewhere that I am determined not to become a professional grief merchant, and that remains my hope. So I'm not going to bang on about the loss of my father. I still rail against the cruelty of what Uncle Monty so wonderfully calls "some vulgar little tumour", which has taken my grandfather, my father, Big Pete, my lovely principessa Celia (the fairest, calmest and most level-headed clerk there ever was) and so many others. But no-one ever promised the world would be fair. No-one would sign up if they knew the full terms and conditions. We're pitched into this maelstrom and we have to make the best of it.

I chose the word "absence" deliberately, because I suppose the more obvious choice would have been "loss". But I think there's a distinction. Loss is awful. Dreadful, appalling, heart-wrenchingly awful. It passes. There is probably some modish new theory on the different stages of grief - it's the sort of thing that clever people can make vast sums of money out of. (For purists, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said there were five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.) Myself, I like Tom Lehrer's description of a philosopher as someone who makes money from giving advice to people who are happier than they are. Absence is permanent. That's what gives it its crushing weight.

Another parenthesis, if I may (will he ever start, let alone stop? I hear you cry). In a debate about the power, for good or otherwise, of religion, Christopher Hitchens, whom I revere, even if I thought he was right only 50 per cent of the time, made a throwaway remark that the Catholic Church's association with fascism before the Second World War was a stain from which it had not recovered, and - here's the rub - "and never will". Now, I don't know if he's right about that. As a proto-atheist, I'm not sure I care, though as an historian I should. But those three words, in that delicious English accent, have come to haunt me. "And. Never. Will." I don't know if Hitch meant much by them, or if they were just a niggling coda to annoy his opponents. Either is possible of him, which is what made him so great and so infuriating a polemicist.

Now, though, I feel their power almost crushingly. They inform almost everything I do. When I think - as I know my siblings do in this time of still-raw loss of our father - that I must say this or that, or, to be more accurate, text this or that to the old man, it's not just that I can't. I hear Hitch. Those terrible words. And. Never. Will. So, to return to my theme, loss passes. Absence, by its very nature, never can. And. Never. Will. I feel sad currently, that my dad is not around. In time, I hope, I will feel less sad. But the essential truth will remain, until my dying breath (whether it be soon or distant), that he is not there. Absent. Gone. Gone forever.

I said I wasn't going to become a grief merchant, so let me talk about something else, albeit connected. In the Times magazine this past weekend, William Leith, whom I like (and wondered, erroneously, if he was the son of Prue), wrote an excellent article about attending a support group, for want of a better phrase, for people who had recently left relationships. (It was interesting, to me at least, that he was the only man in a group of about a dozen. But I draw no conclusions.) It was led - because she may as well have a plug to the handful of people who will read this - by a woman called Sara Davison, who sounds formidable.

I am, as those who know me will attest, after they have stopped laughing so hard the Kenco comes down their noses, no lothario. So my charge sheet is not a lengthy document. I have loved maybe half a dozen women, not all of whom have returned the favour. I am also - and this is not an advertisement - currently single. That handful of relationships is a mixed bag in terms of termination, but I give away few secrets when I say I have not generally been the protagonist.

What I can say, with my hand on my blackened, shrivelled heart, is that I have loved each of them honestly and wholly. Nor has there been much of the overlap which seems to suit so many of my more skilful friends. Good luck to you - I couldn't keep up.

Anyway, this is dangerously close to another digression. I was talking about William Leith (with whom I have never been in love). In his Times article, he mentions that one of the exercises he was asked to perform as part of that recovery, if one can call it that, was to write down the characteristics of his ideal partner. His response broke my heart. "I wrote down the characteristics of my ideal partner. It is a description of my ex."

Here, I hope, is where I come back to absence. I know exactly what I would write in the same situation, and I know exactly whom it would describe. Friends probably know too. But where there was once presence, now there is only absence. And, to subvert Hitch, always will be.

How does the human heart - or whatever organ you want to consider as the seat of love, attachment, fondness, affection, caritas - deal with this? I suppose it runs the spectrum. We are tougher than we think. We have to be. Life is more lemons than lemonade, as anyone who, like I have, has reached middle age, must know. We are torn between two extremes. Well, I say "we". Of course, I mean "I". Don't we all? On the one hand, we venerate and visit and revisit the rushing joy of youth and early love. If you put me back in a rehearsal room at the age of 15 with ***** playing the piano, I could be there in a second. (I am not musical at all. I just gawped.) The blood would rush in my ears, my knees would go weak. Equally, stick me in a dingy piano bar with ***** and my great friend Tom battering away at the ivories, and I would be in very heaven. But it's not going to happen. And. Never. Will.

I think - and this is the end-of-He-Man lesson moment - we cope in two distinct ways. We cherish these memories, and revisit them, perhaps in our dreams, perhaps in our reveries, perhaps in conversation. But we also harden ourselves. There is, I think, an emotional, a mental equivalent of scar tissue which covers the heart (insert own organ of choice). Because how could we survive otherwise? Life is not a dress rehearsal. The young heart beats so violently that it could not survive the inevitable disappointments without some kind of defence mechanism. Otherwise the old oaks of England would be festooned with hanging bodies.

Another parenthesis: I don't know if this is true of women. I am a man and understand - if only a little - other men. Women may be entirely different. I would be stretching it to say I am a feminist, but I am all for equality, so, in a way, I hope women are the same (though it's a terrible burden to lay on them). But I really cannot say with any authority, despite having been married once and engaged twice.

Absence. I knew I had a point. It is a hard station. Worse, it is permanent. But it is part of the human condition. Perhaps I should go to Sara Davison's classes.