It was the middle of November. I had not seen as lovely an autumn for many years. Leaves falling slowly and no frost. Each morning a deeper carpet of leaf holding the light and assaulting my eyes when I opened the curtains. Even the birds on the feeder seemed relaxed and unworried about the impending winter as they pecked at the peanuts.
And I was happy. I had not been stressed or depressed for a long time. I took pleasure writing columns every week and talking about my recently published book. I even bought tickets for a Nick Cave concert in Dublin. The world seemed rational. I felt rational. I was in control of the universe.
And then last week I went to the cinema to see Small Things Like These. Which is where the trouble began.
It’s a movie about women suffocating in Ireland’s religious institutions during the 20th century. I knew the cinema would be packed so I selected a good seat on the website and arrived 15 minutes before the show.
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The first thing that went wrong was the ice-cream machine. I had already indulged in curry chips on the way into town, and my tongue was still tingling with curry sauce. The ice-cream would have been a perfect antidote. And what a lovely way to enjoy a movie; reclining as if in my own bed.
I collected the ticket and then inquired about food but the boy behind the counter announced that there was no ice-cream.
“What do you mean?” I wondered.
“The machine is broken,” he chirped, a bit too cheerfully for my liking.
So I ordered popcorn. And apparently there are three sizes of box when it comes to popcorn, and it was not easy to estimate which I might need for the film.
I opted for a middle-range box and added a vitamin drink. That came to €9, but I didn’t complain. Although I could feel a slight rumble of irritation inside me.
I fumbled in the dark for my seat only to find that I was too close to the screen, especially during close-ups of actors’ faces, or whenever there was a lot of heavy breathing and whispering. And the accumulation of these minor irritations was turning a slight rumble of annoyance into a hurricane of rage inside me.
Needless to say I couldn’t fling the popcorn at the boy behind the counter. I couldn’t shout up at the projectionist to lower the f**king volume. I was obliged to grin and bear it for as long as necessary. So all I could do was sublimate my disturbing emotions into a kind of rage against the movie. And it was a long movie. So by the time I emerged I had concluded that the film was crap.
The fact is the film was beautiful, earnest, poetic and sublime. But that’s not what I saw.
Anger is irrational when we try to suppress it. It rises up in the most unexpected places and we find ourselves attacking the thing we love.
Almost immediately I realised that I had sucked all the air out of the room and soon our conversation petered out and she finished her drink and said she needed to get home early
I met a friend for a drink after the film. She had said in a text that she was looking forward to a chat in a bar near the cinema.
She had already ordered a pint when I arrived and we hugged and she bought me a whiskey and I was happy for a moment to be there with her, in an intimate corner of the bar beside the fire. There was so much we could have talked about. So many pleasant memories to share. So much laughter to be enjoyed. But we didn’t get a chance.
“What did you think of the film?” she wondered.
It was the wrong question. For me it brought the bile back to the surface. By the time I had deconstructed the plot, evaluated the acting, commented on the set, and complained about the sudden ending, I had risen again to a disturbing peak of indignation and fury.
Almost immediately I realised that I had sucked all the air out of the room and soon our conversation petered out and she finished her drink and said she needed to get home early.
It’s not that I am addicted to ice-cream. It’s not that sitting up close to the screen was going to damage my eyesight. It’s just that small things can become big things. A pea in the shoe can turn a princess into a monster.
I suppose that’s the flaw we all share. We’re rational creatures, only until we become irrational.