My doppelganger is no more. If not dead he has at least vanished. My namesake Adam, barman of the pub in my northern home town, has always been my benchmark of wellbeing – but not in a good way. Apart from sharing a name, we have the same build and, most importantly, were born in the same year when the 60s still swung. But, with schadenfreude maxed out, I’m pleased to remark that the last time I travelled north, he looked like crap.
Called to the bar at a young age, my “brother” had spent a lifetime earning the means serving behind it to drink endlessly at it. In many ways it was a perfect “Just in time” supply model. His appearance was consistent with 40 years dedicated to a life seen and lived through the bottom of a glass. This had given him the complexion of a hill farmer whose protection against the elements ended long ago when his bothy blew down.
In many ways, the most unsettling of his traits for the unwary was that his rolling, unfocused eyes were perfect accompaniments to a husky drinker’s croak that interspersed his still relatively effective bar tendering with the mutterings of his bitter subconscious.
He’d shout, “What can I get you?”, but mutter, “A good kicking” or “Pint of Landlord, Sir …”, with the audible rider “… right up your arse”.
It was unclear whether he knew that his conscious mind’s words came with a chaser from his inner monologue but one suspected not.
All this was more than fine. I didn’t need Adam to provide an action standard for sobriety, health and sanity but rather his role had been broadly to look bad enough for me to always look good and therefore feel good. This isn’t something I was proud of, but 20 years of quaffing too much beer served by my gaunt, mad-eyed namesake provided contextual comfort that I was in good shape by any comparison.
“It’s the Fonz factor,” says Pete, close childhood friend and alehouse familiar. “The Fonz looked cool because he hung out in Al’s diner with Potsie and Ralph. If he turned up with James Dean and Marlon Brando, he’d have looked like a short-arsed prick. The fact that your bar-room brother looks like your dad is great.”
I still feel a bit guilty, though. “Would you prefer he looked in better nick than you?” challenges Pete, looking pointedly at the bit of weight that “comfort and kindness” food has added in the weeks since Helen died.
But today when I pilgrimage north to visit relatives, Adam is very publicly not behind the bar. His well-worn path, weaving across the busy road from the bar where he worked and drank to the one in which he drank even more, has caught him out, and with complications caused by years of bottle-led abuse it’s not looking good for his return.
Hearing this has brought to me more powerfully than Pete’s cheeky glance at my muffin top (maybe should be pie crust), that since Helen died I have not been looking after myself. I have yet to go to bed before 2am or entirely sober. The half bottle a day of red wine I’ve been slurping (“half” spelled W-H-O-L-E), plus whisky and the assortment of carbs delivered by well-wishers has seen my head spin and weight climb.
And so I start running. I used to love running and as a means to clear my head and tone my tum I would put in enough distance to give me a “get out of jail card” to eat what I liked. I ran marathons but stopped when Helen, Millie, Matt and I started karate (or at least the kids did and we joined them in support).
I’ll see how I get on, but putting on the running shoes feels like coming home and the first few runs remind me what I’ve been missing but also just how unfit I now am as I pant like Ivor the Engine facing a Welsh viaduct.
But should I really be reaching 180bpm? I book in to see our local GP and get a check-up as I can’t risk ending up face down in a puddle. Going into the surgery, however, brings back at a rush so many visits with an ever more ill Helen and a very dark cloud descends over me. It’s simply too soon to be doing this, so I cancel the appointment and scuttle off.
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
