Diary of a Separation

Thursday 22nd March 2018

I came to the conclusion years ago that one of the worst fates one can suffer is total oblivion. Re-reading the opening page of Milan Kundera’s 1979 novel, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” recently, validated my theory. One minute comrade Clementis takes off his fur cap to cover the bald head of communist leader Klement Gottwald and thus protect him from the snow. The next minute he is not only edited out of the photo of the event but also of Czech history.

I wonder if a similar fate will befall me when (and it’s a when) S finds someone else. One side of me has been trying to convince the other one that my reaction will be fine and civilised. The other side keeps shouting out “bollocks”. You can’t wipe out twenty-one years, but you can certainly choose to forget the person who shared those two-decades-plus with you. Is there anything more horrible than being airbrushed from history? Whether a country’s history or our own? Hatred is preferable. At least there is acknowledgement. Oblivion, well, oblivion means that people don’t even get to know you once used your own fur cap to cover someone else’s head.

I go back to clipping my toenails.

Saturday 24th March 2018

Hanif Kureishi, in The Guardian’s Review section says that “I haven’t read anything…