‘I’m not sure that I know how to be happy,’ said the middle aged man on the table next to me. Close-cut grey beard with cropped equally grey hair, he was speaking to a woman next to him, several years younger, dark hair pulled back, a friendly face. He had a pint, half drunk, around which he clasped his hand; she also had a pint, nearer its end, cider possibly as the branding on the glass suggested a local cider-maker.
‘I’m contented, I enjoy life, but I don’t think I know how to be happy,’ he continued, his accent estuarine and easy going.
‘I thought that might be the case,’ came the slightly muted reply from his companion, her voice streaked with a definite dash of Devonian.
I was in a pub’s beer garden, the sun beneficent and benevolent as its rays warmed my face and created a thirst that helped me drain my stemmed glass of Pilsner Urquell with a rapidity that surprised. The couple’s voices were not foghorn-like in their loudness, but they still carried over to me whether I liked it or not. I switched off, but it was hard not to continue hearing their conversation.
‘I have been happy at times in my life,’ said the man, who I also learned lived locally but that the two of them would be moving back to Essex the following year.
‘The day of my marriage for instance,’ though given the lack of a remark from his companion, I guessed it wasn’t to her. ‘The births of my three kids, and I tell you that you can buy anything you want in the world — cars, houses, travel — but you cannot buy back the times you lost being with your kids when they were growing up.’
She nodded in agreement and changed the subject, perhaps uncomfortable at being reminded of a past life in which she didn’t feature, or perhaps she had heard the story many times before and wanted to anchor the conversation in the present.
My beer was angelic in its presence on the palate, a Bach-like counterpoint between the sweetness of the grain and the elegant floral nature of the hop, alongside a crispness and a full-bodied mouthfeel followed by a bittersweet finish. Even though I was in a Totnes pub’s beer garden I felt a link to my many visits to Czechia.
The couple finished their drinks and left, he saying that they needed to organise the evening’s bbq while she added that she needed to ring her son, who had an exam within a couple of days.
As they left this sun-stroked beer garden, above which patches of cloud drifted by, somnolent in their passage, dreamy in their presence, I thought about the man’s words about happiness. Had I ever been happy? My first thought was semantic. What was happiness, what was different about it from contentment and the enjoyment of life, which I felt pretty sure I possessed? Was happiness an affliction, a condition? I continued in my train of thought. People seem happy about the slightest things these days — a thousand followers on Instagram, a like from a minor celebrity, the pork pie that materialised in front of them.
When was I happy? I thought back to my wedding day, the birth of our son, two instances when I could easily say I was happy, then without remembering specific instances I thought about times when the laughter of a child, the easy exchange of glances with a loved one, the sound of a cuckoo in a wood, the excitement and buffoonery of family dogs, the acceptance of my first journalistic review for the NME, the taste of the first joyous pint of the evening, the sight of a river flowing slowly and majestically through a small Czech town alongside which I sat in a bar adjoined to a local brewery, the moment after a book event in which the audience clapped with the enthusiasm of those I had made happy and the headiness of love and I thought, and then also thought of the sheer joy of love, so yes I have been happy.
I finished my beer and headed to another pub.
Shameless plug: my latest book A Pub For All Seasons has had some great reviews in the press and is available from all good bookshops and online (Headline).