Fever pitch

On Saturday I went to a wedding and didn’t touch a drop of alcohol and it was fine. I enjoyed myself more, I think, than if I’d been slinging them back. On Sunday evening, pleased with myself about this, and seriously considering permanent sobriety, I went to the pub. The England v. Germany match had been over for several hours and every face in the bar could have stood in as a model for that wonderful Picasso of the absinthe drinker, put up for auction the other week.

Of the people in the bar I knew to speak to, two were the drunkest I’ve seen them. One, a genial, chuckling character who is always pleased to see me, was unusually sullen and apparently so preoccupied with unhappy thoughts that he failed to acknowledge my greetings. Later I came across him in the gents, swinging punches at the tiled walls. Another chap, constitutionally morose and known for his cynicism, had been stripped right back by the drink to the basics, exposing an unexpectedly warm, affectionate and cheerful person underneath.