VIGNETTE

I wake up at eight o'clock without the aid of an alarm. I use the toilet, I shower, I dress, I shave. I eat a healthy and filling breakfast, toast and Alpen. I always clean my teeth before I check the post. I could open the mail while I eat, since it always arrives before I begin the meal, but I like to savour every bite, giving each my full attention. And it's slower this way. Time stretches out around me, there's no need to multi-task.

I open the envelopes, most boring-looking first. They're all boring up to a point, but the bills slightly moreso than the junk mail. As soon as I find a bill, I pay it. There's no bill for most things these days, with the wonder of direct debit, but some companies still require me to write cheques. I print them neatly, then make a tidy pile of envelopes.

I read the adverts carefully until I find the scam. There's always one. However, that doesn't necessarily mean I'll bin them. I don't have many interests: I don't want furniture or holidays, I don't trust charities, and I've never cared for music. But I'm a member of several book clubs and always on the look out for new ones. I don't see the harm because the only risk is forgetting to send back "Book of the Month" in time.

I never forget anything.

After that, I start on The Times. I read all the major articles, but have little interest in the other sections. It's a waste of money, certainly a waste of trees, but I pile up the copies to take to the recycling place. I go there once a week with my paper, but I've no use for the bottle banks.

No one would guess I used to be an alcoholic.

It's usually ten thirty by the time I finish. It's the next five hours that present the greatest problem. I often have things to read, books I've ordered, but I never feel like reading in the middle of the day. It seems too much like relaxation. It's been seven years since I finished work, but my body still hasn't to adjusted to not having to make its way from classroom to classroom. Now there's nothing I have to do.

I'd surf the Internet, but it's expensive before 6pm. As a second choice, I'd watch television, but there's little that's any good on until the evening. Sometimes I've recorded things that were on in the night, films and Open University programmes, so I watch them, but that never fills more than two hours. Sometimes I go on the computer. I'm teaching myself to program in C++, although what I'll write once I've learned it, I don't know. I have lunch. I have a lot of cookery books from the book companies and often try out new recipes. Raised on good old-fashioned English stodge, I don't care much for the finished products, but I don't care much for my old favourites either. Then I force myself to read, but I still find myself at a loose end at some point before 3.30 arrives.

I'm lonely.

I know a lot of people, but they don't know me. They don't even know I exist, but that's how I like it. I enjoy following people's lives without them realising I'm doing so. I'm not a peeping Tom: I've no interest in seeing what my neighbours are wearing or how ineptly they park their cars or what they're growing in the gardens. No, I'm intrigued by people who choose to share their lives. I hate soap operas with a passion, the plot twists are recycled thousands of times over and the reactions of the characters are always the same, so fake, so predictable. But I must have seen thousands of documentaries about real people. They all fascinate me, whatever the situation of the protagonists. I'm watching the life I don't have.

Then there's the Internet. Thousands of people across the world are sharing their lives with the general public. Shyly saying, "Here are my thoughts for the day, read them if you like." They like feedback, so they say, but I don't give it. The e-mail account that came with my connection has never been used. Why would a fourteen year old girl in Florida want to hear the words of a sixty year old man living in England? What have I got to say to her anyway? That the squiggly underlines in Microsoft Word are worth paying attention to and that her boyfriend is a complete idiot? I'd rather not interfere. Her ignorance is what makes her life so fascinating to me, even if her choice of font size leaves a lot to be desired.

Of course I see people in the flesh too, but it's not the same. The woman who lives downstairs says hello to me whenever we meet and one of the bus drivers grunts, "Awright?" The cashiers in the supermarket mutter the amount I have to pay and one or two of them say thank you when I hand over my money, but I don't get a real glimpse into their lives, their thought processes. But they walk past with indifference. They don't smile at me, but not one of them glares.

I don't look like a man who used to beat his wife daily.

I go to meetings every day at 4pm. They're in a comprehensive school, not the one where I taught though, thankfully. I've got a car, but I take the 3.35 bus, it forces me to see more of the world. When I arrive there's always a few kids still around hanging around, but if they know why I'm there, they don't say anything. They probably think I'm a governor, or more likely are too wrapped up in their own affairs to see me at all. The only ones who know who I am are Ellie and Jack, who go to the meetings. I didn't think it was possible to be an alcoholic when you were still a teenager, but their stories shocked me, and I've known a lot of kids in my time. Been around them, anyway.

I don't need to go to meetings now. It's always the same faces and the same slogans, but like everything else I do, it fills the time. It's hardly a day to day struggle I have with alcohol, more like an hour to hour one, but I can overcome it on my own, thank you.

The only hard part is when I'm in the supermarket. I go after the meetings on Fridays and work through the aisles meticulously, examining every product. Do I need this in next week's meal plan? I often have to go back and return things to where they came from, when I realise I've got enough for fifteen meals instead of fourteen, but no one notices. No one is charting my progress.

But I always hesitate at the beer.

It's not as if anyone's going to think badly of me if I buy it. Moreover, it's not going to do me any harm to purchase and even consume it. Four cans, even if I have them all in one night, won't do any damage.

But no. I've acquired perfect control over my body. I get just the right amount of minerals and vitamins, sleep and exercise. Apart from shopping days, when I have too many bags, I walk back home from the meetings, which takes about an hour. And I've no need to surrender that control, even slightly.

I'm just looking for a use of it. Well, not so much looking as waiting.

Because the nightmare isn't over yet. I'm sober now, a nice guy. I lead the most boring life imaginable, but my self-imposed education could probably give me things to talk about if I was ever to have a conversation. I'm slightly voyeuristic but without a cruel bone in my body. I never had one, I just got upset and distressed too easily. Well, I would, an English teacher who could barely remember the alphabet, so I took it out on the most easily available victim. But I'm making excuses and I shouldn't. Because I'm still in the wrong and I'm waiting for my punishment.

I don't know when it'll come, but it's in the post, amongst the identical bank statements and leaflets. It'll come.