The Vile Voyeur

Wheels of Torturous Fortune?

And May Week ends. Outside it’s drizzling slightly – there’s a half full but flat bottle of Cava on my desk, defying the surrounding fenland of unpaid college bills, and post-it notes shouting pleas of: ‘quit smoking’, ‘passport, driving licence and debit card lost! be more careful!’, and ‘apples not porridge!’ I suppose this is my version of writing eternal truths on grubby postcards, as Chaucer and Sartre probably did. 

So, the wheel of fortune has done another round. For some, it will have been the wheel of fortune of romantic bygone days. For some it will have been a game show with a theme tune, throw in a slightly naf word puzzle for intellectual value. For others it will have been a casino game, glamour on one side, tackiness on the other. These typecasts become condensed in May Week – the curve of your year is reflected and recreated in your reactions to the final release, to the excess, the vertigo and the glorious nausea. 

For me, it was John’s on the Tuesday, Catz on the Wednesday. I was planning for Jesus on Monday, but having the stamina of a vole on valium, and the complexion of a boiled leek, I figured that two in a row was my best bet for survival. People moaned about John’s: supposedly it didn’t quite live up to previous standards, the un-ironic white piano wasn’t shiny enough, and , whereas the Trinity fireworks had been made to perfectly coincide with the atmospherically blaring music from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, apparently John’s’ were a little out of time. But, to me, everything seemed wonderful. (Even including the marquee with the white piano, which was perfectly designed to look like the set of a '70s porn movie.) From the moment I arrived, sitting sun-soaked at the slightly incongruous beer-garden tables on the backs, through to the open-air 7am disco where the dregs of the guests still danced wildly to ‘Love Shack’ amplified from someone’s laptop, the Ball was undeniably spectacular. The heels of my shoes had been worn down to look like two protruding metal bones. My apricot chiffon vintage dress was delicately perforated with cigarette burns. Branded with a night which moved from elegance to careless rapture. 

I’ve suddenly realised that I seem to have briefly discarded the all-important cynicism. Being someone who is terrified as well as slightly revolted by sentimentality, I often lapse into it more than most – cynicism works as a necessary escape mechanism. And that’s how my year has gone; ‘gone’ as in ‘used up’, but also ‘progressed’, ‘continued’. Repeatedly, beauty is spun into brittleness, towards the other side of the casino wheel in the flash of an eye. And so, for me, Catz May Ball ended up being epitomised by the screams to ‘S Club 3’, screams bottled from the '90s and re-released in strained tones. However, there were some make-believable aspects; the band ‘Lulu and the Lampshades’ were fantastic – playing on plastic cups and surrounded by a glut of nonchalantly exchangeable instruments. A room with a fountain had initial appeal; later you could feel the conference-room carpet gradually becoming sodden. The water crept with capillary effect towards two sleeping lovers, sprawled over each other and dribbling in unison. 

And so, full circle. From extravagant excess comes nausea, from nausea comes respite, from respite comes preparation for more excess. It’s in the doing that things exist: when the first glass of champagne turns into the 5th then lapses into Jagerbombs, when euphoria exists just as much in its downfall as at its height. 

So, I suppose it’s easy to repeat the mantra ‘What’s won is done’ or ‘Every thing is spoilt by use’ – soundbites handed down by earlier cynics posing as philosophers. But perhaps it’s important to keep perishable things. Hence, the Cava takes precedence over the all too concrete college bills. For those who are returning to Cambridge in October, the year has now folded in upon itself to become Michaelmas term – because, when we return, it will seem as if the summer never existed: a concertina effect. It will feel as if it’s the end of May Week again, just with less leaves on the trees and less omnipresent alcohol. It’s worth enjoying watching things seep away, watching them exist and fill and implode. In the watching, the trick is to reap, not weep. Put a spin on it.