A Christmas Tale of Tolerance & Goodwill

Those who know me mostly know me for my wit and charm, for my fine social skills and above all for my discretion. Those who know me better also know also that I have a brother with whom I never speak. I have literally had two short conversations with him since 1978.

One of the many wonderful things about life here in Darkest Dalston is that I’ve now lived here for over twenty years. The Uncertainties of the Transformation are always mitigated by the familiarity of so many old faces among the new. I can be at a pop-up bijou vegan eaterie or alt-vintage coffee installation, alone in a sea of extravagant facial hair and checked shirts, and I’ll spot a face I know, someone I recognise from Not-Sure-Where and Can’t-Quite-Place. We’ll wave, or nod, or smile, gnarled and knotty old things in a forest of spindly saplings climbing for the light.

There’s the old boy with the two chows, one cream and one caramel, straining at the leash. His matching beard is a living record of his breakfast. There’s the tattooed woman, bare-armed and skinny, on her bike with tinsel around the basket. There’s Mikey, the busker at Sainsbury’s. There’s Nicola, and Rowena, and there’s the fruit & veg man on the market, and there’s the lollipop lady. There’s Ali, who runs the café at The Premises and who I bump into at the barbers, or at the Turkish Food Centre. Cat people, neighbours, shopkeepers, people whose paths criss-cross with mine, binding us into a community.

Then there’s Gareth, the photographer. He’s quite well known, and smiley, and his son was a classmate of my son, and Heather knows him from photo stuff, and I’d see him at parents’ evenings or photo events, and we’d chat a bit. And then I saw him in the Post Office and said hello, and he said “ah, I think you know my brother, Gareth, people often confuse us. We’re not twins, but we do look alike. I’m Simon.”

Then I saw him in the stationers, and wasn’t sure if it was Gareth or Simon, but I said hello anyway, and he said that he was Simon, and then every time I saw him it turned out to be Simon.

Once, we bumped into each other in Sainsbury’s, and had a long conversation about brothers. He told me he hadn’t spoken to his brother for decades. We connected in that moment, and parted with a little self-conscious man-embrace.

So when I saw him at the Eastern Curve last night, listening to Andy Diagram’s electronic trumpet performance, I put my hand on his shoulder and grinned warmly and said “Ha! Remember that chat we had the other day in Sainsbury’s, when we agreed our brothers were utter cunts?”

And now, of course, I’m working out the probabilities. Was that Gareth or Simon? The only certainty, from the puzzled, crushed look I got in the cosy Christmas candelight, is that whoever it was at Sainsbury’s, it was the other last night.

Merry Christmas, one and all.