Loneliness is not about being alone; it is about not having someone to come back to; whether you are working alone at your job, in your office, or away on a trip. Couples need their own space, their own time to be by themselves, to work, or to refresh themselves, to find their own inner peace… Rilke wrote that ‘marriage should be the nurturing and guarding of two solitudes.’
But always in the knowledge, the anticipation and joy, that they would be together again.
I would spend the morning in the Workhouse at the end of the garden, fighting a deadline; and at twelve or thereabouts, D would appear, often with a ‘whisky mac’ in her hand… Or else, I would appear prematurely at the Pigsty; D would see me through the kitchen window where she had been sitting, looking at her garden, the birds, with a drink in her hand – and a cigarette, and open the door for me. Or I would pour her a drink and climb the stairs to find her at her computer in her little bedroom/office. And maybe she already had a guilty glass by her side.
‘I’m so glad you’ve filed,’ she might say. She was more concerned than me about my deadlines… And we would go downstairs to the dining room table and talk and talk. There was always so much to talk about, so much time to retrieve from times before we had known each other and yet had vicariously shared.