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成人快手 Truths
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About John Peel
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The Reunion
Bryan Gallagher can't even remember who took the photograph that's made him confront his own mortality....
There we are, fifteen young men who had just graduated as teachers, smiling confidently at the camera, a few of us hunkered down in front and the rest standing close together behind, arms around each others shoulders, frozen forever in the sports coats of the late fifties. You get an impression of youthful masculinity, dark hair, unlined faces, broad shoulders.
We didn't shake hands or say a formal good-bye. we just went our separate ways. So when I retired, I thought it would be a nice idea to have a class reunion and renew my acquaintance with my old friends.
Alec, my closest friend, the big man from the glens of Antrim, wouldn't be there. I had carried his coffin on an autumn day twenty five years ago, and I remember the awful feeling when his sister had rung to say that he had died suddenly of a massive brain haemorrhage. But I was really looking forward to seeing the others, especially Larry, the fearless footballer with the head of thick wavy black hair.
I suppose I should have been warned after the first few phone calls. One man, when I explained who was didn't seems to know what I was talking about and then his wife came on to say that he had Alzheimer's disease and would I please not call again as it only upset him.
Another, when I explained my idea of a class reunion, said 'that was a long time ago' and put the phone down.
But I persisted and I got together six or seven to meet for lunch in a centrally located hotel. When I arrived, I seemed to be the first there. There was nobody in the hotel lobby, just a few old men huddled in a corner. I was going back out the front door to look for them when I stopped in my tracks. I looked over. This was the class reunion, these were my classmates. I walked over, and they got stiffly to their feet. One man, with whom I had kept in contact reminded me of their names.
You remember Larry, he said, and of course I shook hands with a small, stooped, frail little man with a few strands of thin grey hair.
I had a bypass' he said, almost apologetically. It was the same with everybody.
We told each other how well we looked and that we hadn't changed a bit. The conversation was stilted was all about pensions and hospitals and money and prostates and most of the faces had that querulous discontented look that old men often have. But as we had our meal and a drink, the encrustation of the years gradually peeled away and we began to reminisce and to use sentences that started,
'Do you remember the time that...or, I remember when...'
And sometimes, a turn of the head or a gesture of the hand would take me instantly back forty years and I would glimpse with a pang of recognition the young man with whom I had once shared a lecture room.
But it didn't last, and everyone was secretly relieved when we got up to go. One man who was always a sardonic wit said,
Well, we're all in the departure lounge now.'
I said, 'well lets hope the flights delayed', but it rang hollow.
We exchanged telephone numbers and promised to keep in touch and to meet again. But we never will. It is not pleasant to be confronted with the evidence of your own mortality.
It had all been a dreadful mistake. I should have kept the youthful image of the photograph in my mind, not this broken down selection of humanity. How badly they had aged, I thought.
And you know, such is the vanity of human nature that I was half way home when I realised that they were thinking the same about me.
How do you feel about reunions?
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