{"id":12939,"date":"2025-07-04T13:53:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T12:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12939"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:16:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T12:16:16","slug":"our-life-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12939","title":{"rendered":"Our Life Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Image: \u00a9 Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t know when it started. I, for one, have never been that interested but it\u2019s happened that gradually, over the years, as our life together has become ever more uneventful so our desire to discuss politics has increased.<\/p>\n

You could argue that it\u2019s not surprising given the fact that for the past few years we\u2019ve had an especially dysfunctional government which means there\u2019s always plenty to talk about, but I\u2019ve noticed that the more disruptive and incompetent the government, the more calm and appealing our life together feels.<\/p>\n

Only this morning, having read about the Prime Minster facing his third vote of no confidence, I came downstairs to windows full of a soft grey light and sofa cushions still neatly plumped in the positions I took the trouble of putting them into last night, and felt as if I were entering a great peace.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t read novels or watch dramas anymore, relying instead on this particular administration to provide all the entertainment we need. Something will always be happening. It\u2019s as if the people in power will not survive unless it is, even if it\u2019s bad \u2013 in fact especially if it\u2019s bad so we can react to it, ideally with outrage. We love to be outraged and the worse the thing the more satisfying our outrage.<\/p>\n

\u2013 It\u2019s disgusting, we say, appalling, it\u2019s just incredible!<\/p>\n

And when we\u2019ve run through our gamut of such phrases and forgotten them we go back and use them all over again. It\u2019s useful that we forget quite easily these days. The words we use to express our outrage always feel fresh which means our outrage itself feels continually, outrageously, fresh.<\/p>\n

\u2013 How simply fucking awful they are, we say.<\/p>\n

We like to say \u2018fucking\u2019 a lot when we talk about politics. We like how its hint of violence never fails, no matter how many times we use it. And I like to say \u2018lurch\u2019, as the journalists do when they describe the way the government \u2018lurches\u2019 from one crisis to another. I like how it makes me feel, by contrast, very much in control of my own movements as I go about my day, moving this and that \u2013 the cushions on the sofa, for example.<\/p>\n

When we tell each other stuff, like some contentious new piece of legislation we\u2019ve just heard about, there\u2019s an intensity in the way we look at each other. We see reflected there our own anger and disbelief. Something is happening, not only miles away in the corridors of power but right here at the kitchen table. We feel strongly, we like to feel strongly. We like that we feel strongly without feeling the need to change anything about our life together which is, it must be said, pretty comfortable.<\/p>\n

Take lunch, for example, a simple but nutritious meal, made not so much out of hunger as to mark a brief functional pause in the middle of our day.<\/p>\n

I place a bowl of salad on the table.<\/p>\n

Hard rivers of white in the purple cabbage.<\/p>\n

Golden pool of oil.<\/p>\n

I know exactly how the rest of the day is going to pan out. I think about the bed I made this morning. I feel almost virtuous knowing it\u2019s already made, that I made it, that it\u2019s waiting up there, that it\u2019ll wait all day for when I return to lift the covers and slide back in.<\/p>\n

We eat, take an occasional sip of water. The silence is fine to begin with. You might even call it companionable, each chewing our mouthful, thinking our own thoughts. But as the meal proceeds the silence grows and the larger it grows the smaller we become inside it and inside us, even smaller, each of us alone and somewhere inside that some tiny flapping thing I can hardly see.<\/p>\n

And I have a horrible feeling that this is it, that we\u2019ve said all there is to say to each other, that in this silence that expands, that fills itself, nourished by its own wordlessness \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2013 Those boats, he says.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Don\u2019t, I say, holding up an oily knife, don\u2019t get me started.<\/p>\n

When what I want is, precisely, to get started on something, anything, other than this meal and its terrible radiating silence.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Did you see about that immigration bill? I just can\u2019t \u2013<\/p>\n

Our eyes lock together. Something is happening at last, as our attention turns to the Home Secretary who we like to call \u2018catastrophic\u2019 and, by extension and with a sense of collective responsibility we try to feel, to our failure as a country to become a destination for a better life.<\/p>\n

Whatever you might be thinking about our life together, it cannot be said to be chaotic or unruly. We\u2019re not vengeful, we don\u2019t need to score points or shout at each other across the room, as they do. In fact we want nothing to do with those people\u2019s cynical and manipulative shenanigans. That\u2019s not strictly true. We do want something to do with them, we want to hear about them so that we can talk about them and feel ourselves to be properly informed. How is anything going to change if we don\u2019t keep ourselves properly informed?<\/p>\n

Anyway, the point is that we know all there is to know about our life together which is maybe why we don\u2019t feel the need to talk about it. What is there to say about our neatly-made bed, our humble lunches, never mind our relationship? In fact, it occurs to me that we talk more about the relationship between the PM and the Chancellor than we do about ours.<\/p>\n

I watch as he lifts both glasses with the fingers of one hand and the water jug in the other and walks to the kitchen. I take his plate and stack it on top of mine and sit there a moment, looking out the window.<\/p>\n

We speak about other things of course. The birds, for instance, which he loves to identify and talk about in great detail. Sometimes I do too and we discuss what we\u2019ve seen on the feeder. Once, a very rare bird appeared, which got us quite excited. We asked questions about it we knew the other wouldn\u2019t be able to answer. I think it was a surprise to us how happy it made us, how much we wanted it to come again. For a while we were full of expectation as we stared out the window but I grew tired, a great weariness came over me. All I could think about was the bed waiting for me, the one I had made. I climbed the stairs telling him that I\u2019d look out for the bird from there, knowing that our bedroom window was only ever full of sky in which no bird could ever land. But I liked knowing he was downstairs, looking out. I liked knowing someone was there waiting, with hope.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Greta Stoddart<\/strong> has written 4 poetry books and a radio poem that have each been shortlisted\u00a0for the Forward, Costa, Roehampton and Ted Hughes Awards. She is also a winner of the\u00a0Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her latest book\u00a0Fool\u00a0was published by Bloodaxe in 2022.\u00a0She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2023. She lives in Devon, teaches for the Poetry School\u00a0and is currently working towards a collection of prose.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: \u00a9 Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries I don’t know when it started. I, for one, have never been that interested but it\u2019s happened that gradually, over the years, as our life together has become ever more uneventful so our desire to discuss politics has increased. 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