Lanley-Jake Fackitt – he gives a shit about nothing. He drags himself listlessly to the cafe, tripping over paving stones because he can’t be bothered to lift his feet high enough to clear the edges.
He stares into the windows of various places he could stop for a drink, surveying the scene of life within each one. He notes the number and type of customers, and searches within himself for a trace of any emotion that they might inspire. He feels nothing about any of it, so he carries on staring in his usual sad way. Eventually he hangs his head and trudges on to the next place.
Eventually he finds a cafe that looks warm and inviting.He’s sick of the cold and loneliness outside, and he knows he’s running out of time before they shut, so he chooses this one and enters.
He sits down and immediately he feels isolated. He wonders if he’s made the wrong choice. Around him is a proliferation of couples and happy groups. They talk and laugh while Jake sits in silence in the corner. He thinks to himself “Fuck! I should have gone somewhere else”. He mutters it under his breath and then worries that someone might have heard him.
Yet then he calms down a little, and takes out his little exercise book and begins to write. “I write for company and to escape solitude” he scribbles, and looks knowingly at the surrounding throng. Do they know who he is? Do they think he might be famous? Dutifully, he records these and other thoughts in place of the conversation he might be having.
All is well until he gets a thought that perhaps the one person in the room who might be interested in him in some way is sat looking in the opposite direction. He looks at the girl and sees that she has what seems to him a kind-looking neck. He ponders this and writes about it, but there’s no way she might notice him. The scenario remains stuck and twisted. Destiny cannot carry on his business for him, and Jake resents that.
How foolish! He realises this, that destiny cannot be thwarted at all. He realises that it is his life as a spectator that he must become happy with if he is to understand it’s meaning. How else can he escape it? He is not doomed to loneliness, but blessed with it.
