AVATAR

It’s four ‘o’ clock in the morning and I can’t sleep.  I know why.  This afternoon I have to sign a contract that commits me to nine months of full-time interim work in Glasgow.  I know that slumber is useless so I haul myself out of bed and peer out of the bedroom window.  A host of tiny stars sparkles in the firmament and the street is as quiet as a badge’s sett.  Tiny lamps in a garden across the way give out a glow-worm’s output of light.  I sit at the computer in my study and rub my eyes vigorously, in order to see the screen properly. 
I have worked in Glasgow before, though never full time.  I did not find it the easiest place to get along with, with its rutted roads, ominous subways, menacing overpasses and brooding river.  It can be an overbearing, bullying place for a lonely man far from home.  I could not possibly commute from Haddington: the distance is too far for the daily grind, the common task. 
I wonder where I will stay:  last time I lived in a hotel with khaki walls and underdone sausages.  Perhaps this time I will reside in a rented furnished apartment.  I have looked these up on the interweb and to rent anything half-decent, one is obliged to live south of the Clyde, in New Govan, say, and pay upwards of six hundred pounds per month, plus Council tax, plus bills all found.  That buys you a modern apartment in a soulless block on a cloned estate, a flat with laminate floors and no carpets, a shower but no bath, and a bed that looks just like a mattress slung on the floor. However, the budget hotel will cost forty pounds per night bed and breakfast, and that adds up to eight hundred pounds a month, but without the extra bills. I am lost in a sea of indecision, and I have just twelve days to go before I start my new job.   
I wonder anew about the logic of a man in his early sixties, comfortable as an old cardigan, taking on such a responsibility.  Even the journey there fills me full of dread.  Up at six ‘o’ clock of a Monday morning, driving to Drem station, catching the 06:51 to Edinburgh Waverley, then decanting onto the 07:30 to Glasgow Central, snatching a quick snooze in a seat with more leg room reserved for the elderly and infirm, before hauling a heavy suitcase on tiny, lunatic wheels a mile to the office to arrive there at 08:45. 
Then I wonder how I will spend the evenings.  Last time I wandered aimlessly about, exploring everything from the Sick Kids’ hospital to the A81 Aberfoyle Road.  It was fine in summer, when I could stroll around the Botanic Gardens and take in an outside performance of Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ performed on the grass by eager young thespians, or wander along Byers Road, with its lively bars and restaurants, peering through windows and watching young people enjoy themselves. I almost plucked up the courage to join a tennis club and play on a decent surface, but my nerve failed me when I remembered my temper on court.  What was acceptable in Haddington might not have been so in Kelvinhaugh.  In the winter, it was much more difficult, though the Mitchell Library was often a great comfort. I always knew that I was an outsider; I belonged nowhere and no-one gave a hoot whether I prospered or sank under the weight of my own melancholy.   
I leave the computer, go downstairs to boil the kettle and conjure up a cup of hot chocolate. There is no point in going back to bed – I have had these turns before and it is impossible for me to go back to sleep.  I take a sip of the soothing, warming chocolate and know in my heart that I am going to sign the contract this afternoon: the opportunity is far too good to miss.  I know that the driving force behind this decision is that retirement is a far, far worse proposition than any personal privation might be.  I have been very fortunate indeed to have been offered the opportunity to contribute my skills and experience to an organisation that presumably needs them.