returned to matters previously discussed in Session 3, namely the distinction between orgasm and ejaculation, and the relation between dreams and masturbatory desire. My uncle evidently had little to contribute on these subjects.
I had, of course, no suspicion of this future corroboration when I saw my uncle for the last time. This was in November of 1984. Aunt Kate was dead by now, and my visits to ‘T.F.’ (as I am inclined to think of him nowadays) had become increasingly dutiful. Nephews tend to prefer aunts to uncles. Aunt Kate was dreamy and indulgent; there was something gauzy-scarved and secretive about her. Uncle Freddy was indecently foursquare; he seemed to have his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets even when wearing a two-piece suit. His stance, both moral and physical, had the bullying implication that he truly understood what manhood consisted of, that his generation had miraculously caught the elusive balance between earlier repression and subsequent laxness, and that any deviation from this beau idéal was regrettable, if not actively perverse. As a result, I was never quite at ease with the future ‘T.F.’. He once announced that it was his avuncular responsibility to teach me about wine, but his pedantry and assertiveness put me off the subject until quite recently.
It had become a routine after Aunt Kate’s death that I would take Uncle Freddy out to dinner on his birthday, and that afterwards we would return to his flat off the Cromwell Road and drink ourselves stupid. The consequences mattered little to him; but I had my patients to think of, and would annually try to avoid getting as drunk as I had the previous year. I can’t say I ever succeeded, because though each year my resolution was stronger, so was the countervailing force of my uncle’s tediousness. In my experience, there are various good but lesser motives - guilt, fear, misery, happiness - for indulging in a certain excess of drink, and one larger motive for indulging in a great excess: boredom. At one time I knew a clever alcoholic who insisted that he drank because things then happened to him such as never did when he was sober. I half-believed him, though to my mind drink does not really make things happen, it simply helps you bear the pain of things not happening. For instance, the pain of my uncle being exceptionally boring on his birthdays.
The ice would fissure as it hit the whisky, the casing of the gas-fire would clunk, Uncle Freddy would light what he claimed was his annual cigar, and the conversation would turn yet again to what I now think of as Session 5(a).
‘So remind me, Uncle, what you were really doing in Paris.’
‘Trying to make ends meet. What all young men do.’ We were on our second half-bottle of whisky; a third would be required before a welcome enough form of anaesthesia developed. ‘Task of the male throughout history, wouldn’t you say?’
‘And did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Make ends meet?’
‘You’ve a filthy mind for one of your age,’ he said, with the sudden sideways aggression that liquor imparts.
‘Chip off the old block, Uncle Freddy.’ I didn’t, of course, mean it.
‘Did I ever tell you …’ and he was launched, if that verb doesn’t give too vivid an impression of directness and purpose. This time he had again chosen to be in Paris as map-reader and mechanic to some English milord.
‘What sort of car was it? Just out of interest.’
‘Panhard,’ he answered sniffily. It always was a Panhard when he told this version. I used to divert myself by wondering whether such consistency on my uncle’s part made this element of his story more likely to be true, or more likely to be false.
‘And where did the rally go?’
‘Up hill and down dale, my boy. Round and about. From one end of the land to the other.’
‘Trying to make ends meet.’
‘Wash your mouth out.’
‘Chip off the old …’
‘So I was in this bar …’
I caressed him with the questions he
I had, of course, no suspicion of this future corroboration when I saw my uncle for the last time. This was in November of 1984. Aunt Kate was dead by now, and my visits to ‘T.F.’ (as I am inclined to think of him nowadays) had become increasingly dutiful. Nephews tend to prefer aunts to uncles. Aunt Kate was dreamy and indulgent; there was something gauzy-scarved and secretive about her. Uncle Freddy was indecently foursquare; he seemed to have his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets even when wearing a two-piece suit. His stance, both moral and physical, had the bullying implication that he truly understood what manhood consisted of, that his generation had miraculously caught the elusive balance between earlier repression and subsequent laxness, and that any deviation from this beau idéal was regrettable, if not actively perverse. As a result, I was never quite at ease with the future ‘T.F.’. He once announced that it was his avuncular responsibility to teach me about wine, but his pedantry and assertiveness put me off the subject until quite recently.
It had become a routine after Aunt Kate’s death that I would take Uncle Freddy out to dinner on his birthday, and that afterwards we would return to his flat off the Cromwell Road and drink ourselves stupid. The consequences mattered little to him; but I had my patients to think of, and would annually try to avoid getting as drunk as I had the previous year. I can’t say I ever succeeded, because though each year my resolution was stronger, so was the countervailing force of my uncle’s tediousness. In my experience, there are various good but lesser motives - guilt, fear, misery, happiness - for indulging in a certain excess of drink, and one larger motive for indulging in a great excess: boredom. At one time I knew a clever alcoholic who insisted that he drank because things then happened to him such as never did when he was sober. I half-believed him, though to my mind drink does not really make things happen, it simply helps you bear the pain of things not happening. For instance, the pain of my uncle being exceptionally boring on his birthdays.
The ice would fissure as it hit the whisky, the casing of the gas-fire would clunk, Uncle Freddy would light what he claimed was his annual cigar, and the conversation would turn yet again to what I now think of as Session 5(a).
‘So remind me, Uncle, what you were really doing in Paris.’
‘Trying to make ends meet. What all young men do.’ We were on our second half-bottle of whisky; a third would be required before a welcome enough form of anaesthesia developed. ‘Task of the male throughout history, wouldn’t you say?’
‘And did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Make ends meet?’
‘You’ve a filthy mind for one of your age,’ he said, with the sudden sideways aggression that liquor imparts.
‘Chip off the old block, Uncle Freddy.’ I didn’t, of course, mean it.
‘Did I ever tell you …’ and he was launched, if that verb doesn’t give too vivid an impression of directness and purpose. This time he had again chosen to be in Paris as map-reader and mechanic to some English milord.
‘What sort of car was it? Just out of interest.’
‘Panhard,’ he answered sniffily. It always was a Panhard when he told this version. I used to divert myself by wondering whether such consistency on my uncle’s part made this element of his story more likely to be true, or more likely to be false.
‘And where did the rally go?’
‘Up hill and down dale, my boy. Round and about. From one end of the land to the other.’
‘Trying to make ends meet.’
‘Wash your mouth out.’
‘Chip off the old …’
‘So I was in this bar …’
I caressed him with the questions he
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