Love, Death and Hitchens

On the ferry to Stornoway, June 2011

Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I look out for their age. Were they over 50? Were they over 70? What did they die of? Was it a good death (natural causes) or was it a bad death (cancer, Alzheimer’s). At what age did they create? Were they married, did they have children, was their life relatively devoid of domestic tragedies but rich in adventure and heroic choices?

Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I sigh with relief – death bypassed my lover, once again, and chose a writer, a musician, a philosopher, a politician. This time death chose Christopher Hitchens, whose opinions I often find in my lover’s rants against religion, power, the empty lives of the overprivileged, and, crime of all crimes, the right wingers who turn right on Great Western Road in Glasgow, and hold up traffic for the others.

I sigh with relief – not him yet, we have some more time. 

My lover is 62. He is so young, so vital, so bursting with projects and ideas and hopes (even though he claims to be mastering the art of doing nothing!), sometimes even at the cost of just being, with me, enjoying the sweet treacle of love on a boring Sunday afternoon, that it baffles me that he could ever not be.

This is the man who brought me love, possibility, a vaster, richer, purer future than the dullness of a life following the whims of the mediocre and unambitious – which I was fast becoming too. This is the man gently removes the rose-tinted glasses (spectacles!) I have on and shows me how reality is even better, even though it sometimes stinks. This is the man who mocks my neurosis and holds my hand during an anxiety attack. If he is that man, how can he depart sooner, leaving me to fend on my own, at an age when most women are yelling at their husband to take out the garbage.

 I try to impart on my lover the sense of urgency, so that we may live and experience in, God-willing, a 20-year period, what others do in twice the time. His will obviously be a good death, as far away in time as it can be. I put all my faith and my belief in these thoughts, sometimes bartering with God in late hours, when he is snoring away into the back of my neck, oblivious to my machinations in keeping him alive just a while longer. 

It can’t come as a surprise then, that I see bad deaths as a particular blow to my plans. If giants as Christopher Hitchens just vanish at the hands of cowardly cancer, why shouldn’t my lover suddenly go as well for some stupid, unforeseen reason? Is God not listening (Hitchens’ reply: there is no God, you silly woman. Now get me a drink!)? His stance on almost anything is different from mine though I subscribe entirely to the overratedness of champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics – and, I would add, that green-coloured blemish corrector thing that is very much in Vogue. And cheap sushi. But his style, oh his style – punch after punch of the right word, the right “fuck you” attitude, the balance between knowledge and stylization. Teach me master.

As for my lover, I send him some quotes that will have him roaring for their bluntness and honesty. And I anticipate my delight the next time I see him, and feel his hands on my waist, his sparkky eyes looking into mine, letting me know I am the loveliest fat girl he has ever met and pretend to be shocked for his further delight. I cannae wait. And, each time I will throw my head backwards and laugh, a part of me will secretly pray that we get to keep this banter for as long as possible.

As for Christopher Hitchens, well, I shall (gasp!) have a nice, tall, gin tonic, and smoke one, maybe two cigarettes in his honour. God, do I live dangerously.

Life goes on, until it doesn’t.