The End of Loneliness

by Benedict Wells

When I was seven, my family went on holiday to the south of France. My father, Stéphane Moreau, was from Berdillac, a village near Montpellier.

She turned to me. “For you, Jules.”

Liz,

My sister was eleven, a tall girl with blonde, curly hair.

Marty took a few photos. He was the middle child. Ten years old, glasses, dark hair, pale, nondescript face. You could clearly see our parents in Liz and me, whereas in appearance he had nothing in common with them.

We’d all been born in Munich, and we thought of ourselves as German.

Apart from some special meals, hardly anything at home indicated our French roots, and we rarely spoke the language.

Three and a half years later, in December 1983: the last Christmas with my parents.

“The most important thing is that you find your true friend, Jules.” He realized that I didn’t understand, and gave me a penetrating look. “Your true friend is someone who’s always there, who walks beside you all your life. You have to find them; it’s more important than anything, even love. Because love doesn’t always last.”

I drew deeply on the joint and wondered whether I should tell her about how my brother and sister and I had become strangers to one another.

“My sister’s living in London at the moment, I think. And my brother’s in Vienna.”

Alva was nowhere to be seen in any of these pictures, and without her there was nothing else to save me from loneliness.

Then I swallowed, and for a moment the stale taste of youth was in my mouth: a mixture of smoke, canteen food, cheap beer, and the moment when Alva took my hand.

A difficult childhood is like an invisible enemy, I thought. You never know when it will strike.

“Yes, but the antidote to loneliness isn’t just being around random people indiscriminately, the antidote to loneliness is emotional security.”

“I mean, if you spend all your life running in the wrong direction, could it be the right one after all?”

Time isn’t linear; nor is memory. You always remember more clearly things you’re emotionally close to at any given moment.

“To find your true self you need to question everything you encountered at birth. And lose some of it, too, because often it’s only in pain that we discover what really belongs to us . . . It’s in the breaches that we recognize ourselves.”

God wants us to learn to look after ourselves. He doesn’t give us the fish and hear all our prayers, but He listens to us and observes how we cope with everything down here—sickness, injustice, death and suffering. Life is there in order to learn how to fish.”