Envy

[….]

‘Are you going to tell me?’ Julia said as the song ended.

‘Tell you what?’

‘Why you aren't going to the lectures? Why you act so pissed off all the time? Why you don't make me laugh like you used to?’ She knelt up on the bed, looking at me. The light of the desk lamp behind her made her blonde hair a pale halo around her head, her face in deep shadow.

I sighed and sat up slightly. ‘All right...’ I paused for a moment of thought. ‘It is the contrast, the difference, the gap. In my tutorial group, we all sit in this small room around a table talking quietly about rages, angers, passion, despair, love and confusion. Then after an hour of this we pick up our books, put away our pens and walk away for a cup of coffee....’ I paused again and took a long drink of my wine, holding my hand up as Julia opened her mouth to speak.

‘Then, I come back here to Alison. I think about food, whether or not I need a shower and if we have enough dirty washing to go to the launderette. Now, I find myself thinking of The Wasteland as I watch the tumble-dryer, and thinking of sweat-stained shirts in the tutorials. But neither of them seems to be of any help, of any use. I can connect nothing with nothing. The shirts will only get dirty again, and what real use is the other stuff?’ I took the cigarette from between Julia's fingers. She sat with her head down, deep in thought. I laughed as I lit the cigarette. She looked up at me, slightly puzzled.

‘It's a silly thing, I know. I thought I was too old for any of this teenage-angst stuff, walking through the rain in a too-long second-hand overcoat, raging at the cold indifferent moon and moaning in existential despair.’

Julia shifted slightly and I could see her eyes as she looked at me. ‘It doesn't sound silly to me,’ she said. ‘I get upset by things like social injustice, inequality, the Tories winning the election again, university underfunding and the poverty of students, and things like sexism and racism, but I've never felt so... so lost as that.’

I reached out and took her hand in mine. I shook my head slowly. ‘It's not that bad, honestly. It just gets like that sometimes.’ I smiled, squeezing Julia's fingers. ‘Anyway, it will soon be Christmas; perhaps I just need a holiday.’

Julia turned, and moved back to sit beside me. I let go of her hand, but she picked my hand up and held it in both of hers, resting in her lap. ‘You will come back though, won't you, after Christmas?’ Julia looked down at my hand and stroked her thumb across the back of it.

‘Of course,’ I said. I still felt, despite everything, that this was my last chance. My last chance to find some sort of life for myself, some sort of meaning, nothing else had worked for me. Nowhere felt like home any longer. If I gave up, I would have to go back to my parents' house. I would have to face my sister's confirming sneer, my mother's reproach, but most of all I would have to stand face to face with my father.

‘Good luck, son,’ he had said with a shy, almost proud, smile. ‘I wish I could've had a chance like this. There's always been so much I wanted to know, to learn, I envy you.’ I felt the rough skin of my father's hand as he held mine, tight, for a moment. He winked and then smiled at me. The sound of my sister's car horn jerked me into movement and I let go of his hand. As we drove away, I looked back to see them both, my mother and father with their arms around each other, waving.

Until that point, I had never felt my father needed to know anything. He was a man who could fix anything with a short, sharp intake of breath, a shake of the head and a screwdriver. He had a screwdriver with a shining shaft and a worn, sweat-stained wooden handle, far older than me, and probably of far more use.

I had no use for those screwdrivers, but I felt I could use some of my father's envy. The envy that had so surprised me. I could envy Julia and her belief in the rightness of her socialism and feminism. I could envy Guy's desire for the music, noise and crowds of a good party. I could envy Ron's desire for a good degree to get him a good job, and his easy social manner. I could envy Margot's arrogant disregard of those around her. I could envy my sister's tabloid certainties, her desire for the money, expensive clothes and jewellery that spelled success for her. I could even envy Alison's ironic distancing of herself, turning away from the university life she no longer felt she needed. There was also my parents' stable, happy contentment with each other, which I could envy too.

I could use some envy, but only if I could feel it like the solid, purposeful weight of that screwdriver. But, I had no strength for envy. Strong emotion feels out of place with me, fraudulent in some way; I am not built for such things. At that moment, I couldn't even feel the true weight of my own doubts about the value of what I was doing at the university. They seemed airy, light and insubstantial. As I had said to Julia when I tried to put them into words, they seemed silly, adolescent even. I was getting very tired of words.

‘Do I dare eat a peach?’ I said.

‘What?’ Julia said sleepily, letting go of my hand to stroke her hair back from her eyes.

‘Oh, nothing,’ I said. ‘Do you want a cigarette?’

[….]

[Extract from Hanging Around Until]