Against An Orange Background

I do not recall seeing any fireworks, which, although not particularly high on my requisites for New Year’s Eve, form a traditional fixture, generally speaking, and might have bestowed the occasion with a modicum of fanfare. It was perhaps fitting that an unremarkable year end unremarkably.
Every year my aunt throws a party in her kitchen – or the large space that runs from her kitchen into the dining room and a small lounging area – and every year I attend on account of wanting to share midnight with my parents but, more decisively, lacking any invitation elsewhere. It is very kind of my aunt to play host. Her son and grandson set up a rig with lights, mixer, decks, laptop, amp and two very large speakers more befitting of a dancehall than someone’s kitchen. There are nibbles (stale, warm, Anglo shades of orange & brown) and a collection of drinks on the worksurface: lager, ales, both whisky & whiskey, vodka, champagne, soda, non-alcoholic beers, soft drink alternatives that veer dangerously close to copyright infringement or straight into shameless imitation, pasteurised fruit juice and cartons of squash. After a couple of hours, dinner is served by the aunts (my mother included) at each old pan, its lid raised, steaming into the room full of soul and jazzfunk: a biryani, two vegetable curries, chili con carne, macaroni cheese, tomato chutney, raita and basmati rice. The aunts waltz around the room with generous servings heaped onto a plate held in each hand, presented Christlike, offering them to anyone who makes eye contact, thrown beneath their nose with aggressive kindness—‘Have you eaten?! Have you!?’
Once dinner is finished, the music’s volume is raised and the lights lowered. Family members arrive and leave throughout, friends of the family, too; thirty-or-so adults in total, and however many children they bring along with them, friends of the children also; it is common for me to not know the person stood in front of me, both of us spitting mutton bones into the bin or passing each other outside of the toilet. Strangers.

In years gone by, I would drink myself silly from boredom, from social awkwardness, and be left with a pounding head on the first of January, however I tired of that and decided that I would be sensible from now on. A new man! In control! This is what people meant when they spoke about growth. Where are my tobacco and rolling papers? I gave that up, too. No longer able to surface for cold air on the front porch, pushing butts into the first can I had emptied down my gaping neck; five minutes alone, or I could take off down the brittle pathway and come out on the lacquered backstreets to stare at the dew or lamplight in the mist. I note here, for the benefit of my biographer, that the challenge of not drinking to excess provided something of a distraction throughout the evening, as though the event were not a celebration but a trial.
The countdown was messy, all over the place, numbers blurred and slurred. Auld Lang Syne boomed out of the PA. It is a terrible song, I thought to myself, I would much rather something else – Like Sugar or Cross The Tracks– but there will be other opportunities to listen to better music. If a year is anything, it is an opportunity to listen to better music. As all went wild at the chorus of ‘Happy new year!’ I remained somewhat unmoved at the edge of everything, holding my breath, clutching a bottle of beer against my chest as if it were essential to my maintaining a regular heartbeat. My father and youngest brother, both sober and next to each other when the clock chimed, embraced solidly and held for a long time with words being said back & forth between lips & ears an inch apart. What was being said? As nothing as the year had been for me, for my brother it had been quite the opposite, his most difficult and affecting yet. I sensed a huge relief from my youngest brother in that clench. Do you know the worms of addiction? The closing of the year felt like more to him than his Six Months keyring. My father was sober because he was the designated driver; my brother because he had a plan; my mother was merry off two bottles of champagne; and I was just right, not sober enough to operate heavy machinery but just enough to tap my foot perfectly in time to the kick in Candy. Yes, my father and brother embraced for quite some time and I wondered what they might be saying to each other before my father turned, embraced me quickly and went off to others.

When we got back to my parents’, my father put a comedy on the television that we had seen a million times, during which we could slow down, allow our ears to adjust to the altitude of a new year and find our centre on the compressed sofa cushions. Loosened from the noose of a busy kitchen, I was much freer and laughed loudly at the comedy until I was short of breath and tears ran down my cheeks. No one else found it as funny as I.
Five years ago, much was different about my life. It felt like I was going somewhere closer to happiness than I had been before. I was at the same party hosted by the same aunt in the same kitchen, but I would often steal away to send my own bathroom selfie in response to someone else’s, miles apart against an orange background, and she would wish me happy new year (First selfie of the decade 4 u lol), and we would speak of how we could not wait to see each other again. Less than four months later, everything came apart. How amusing! right on cue! It was most unfortunate, and if those times are recalled in any detail beyond my surface acknowledgement that they occurred then I am quite overcome with sadness and believe that it was another life I had back then, another me, and how lucky I was that it should happen, albeit briefly.
Ten years ago, I was returning from Peckham with a partner who, in the dying days of our relationship, had rightly ignored me all night. On our walk back from Bow Church station, they asked me—‘So, what did you think of my friends then?’
‘They all seem like cunts.’
‘You’re so rude.’
That was the last New Year’s Eve I had spent outside the company of my parents.
In the morning, I was gloomy but not hungover. Although every effort could be made to not get drunk, what happened in my dreams was just bad luck and I awoke to the grey clattering of windows being blown in their frames. In a sense, it was a victory. My mother asked if I wanted champagne; I told her I did not. The Christmas tree was drooping, each branch curving downwards, strings of lights barely holding on as I watched Match of the Day. Another storm had been announced and could be seen playing out on the horizontal lines of the road and neighbour’s trees. Might I ask myself why I was gloomy? It was an emotion at least, as it was like hearing one’s native tongue in a foreign country, and there was champagne in the next room while all the radiators around me hissed.

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