Conversations with Strange Men Part Six

I was at Snape Maltings Concert Hall today to hear a string quartet. I arrive to find my seat sandwiched between two men. The man on my left is I think, rather posh and reticent, or maybe can't get a word in edgeways as the man on my right is from Suffolk and chatty.

Him: Hello.

Me: Hi.

Him: I love it here. This is a special place.

Me: Yes, I'm really looking forward to this.

Him: I love the starkness of it and the sound.. I've been coming here 25 years.

Me: Really? This is my first festival.

Him: I'll tell you something. I used to suffer from asthma. This place cured me.

Me : Wow! That's amazing!

Him: Yep, they wanted to pump me full of steroids and I didn't like the idea of what it might do to my bones, so I said forget it and I came here instead. Never had an attack since. I tell you this place... I expect you think I'm mad don't you?

Me: Not at all. I work in this field....in creative writing in health...

Him: Well Bach is my cure. And I tell you Shostakovich is the cure for cancer.... when that music get inside you.... and it's what's inside that make you ill, do you agree....?

Me: Oh yes. I often work in mental health and I see how all the arts help a lot.

The Zehetmair Quartet arrive onstage play and are pretty amazing. Afterwards our conversations continues as if it hadn't left off.

Him: Well there's more mental illness than ever before isn't there? There's too much of it about since they closed all the hospitals... it's everywhere and some have ended up in prisons and people don't know where to turn... there's no church and the politicians... no one can look up to them can they? And people are let out and they're murdering people...and no one knows which way to turn... but if people just came here they'd see.... they'd know.... I should be dead really you know... in fact I have been dead and come back and music saved me... and the Masons.... you know the Freemasons don't you? Well they've got it in for me....because I broke my wrist and couldn't work and they wanted £1000 off me and I couldn't pay it so they want me dead... and I climbed Ben Nevis for Cystic Fibrosis and I helped this girl and fell in love with her, but she didn't love me back because she had three children and I had no money, so that was that, but I loved her, so every year on the anniversary... you know the anniversary is special, so I climb Ben Nevis every year...I need to so I can break that demon... and if people would only come here, they'd realise, they'd forget everything... all your troubles just go... you agree with me don't you?

Me: I have to go now I'm afraid...