“I didn’t realize you thought Channel Eight was so great.”
“That’s not the point and you know it. I don’t give a fuck about Channel Eight.” He had cowed her for the moment. “What I’m trying to get through to you is that whether or not you are ultimately existentially right about Channel fucking Eight, other people have different opinions, and they might, just might, turn out to be as clever and as insightful as yours. And you have to start understanding that. Because otherwise you can’t learn anything. Because otherwise all your insight and x-ray vision will amount to nothing more than the worst kind of pathetically disguised egotistical evangelism. Because otherwise these other people will get up and leave, like Becky did just now, thinking you are an arrogant, naive, conceited little bitch.”
“Whereas you—you are all heart, right, Gabs?” Her throat was reddening but she was leaning forward to meet him now, the space between them narrowing. “You think and feel on their behalf, on everyone’s behalf… and then—and then—you go right ahead and do it anyway. Straight to the torture: fuck with everybody around you, but it’s all okay, because you’re doing all the feeling and thinking on their behalf.” She jeered at him. “Very kind. Thank you on behalf of all the women you are so graciously caring for.”
His voice was flat and cold. “All your life you have just come in and taken my friends and used them, transparently, when you thought they could help you, and then ignored them the minute you thought they could not. You even bullshit one lot of my friends about how close you are to another lot if you think the second lot can get you something. But you never understood that the reason they’re my friends in the first place is because I give back, I put in, I keep the fucking friendships going. I don’t just turn up and ask, ‘What can you do for me? I’m waiting.’ I write the letters. I make the visits. I listen to their stories. I try to help them in return.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“But you’ve always taken it anyway.”
“Because… because you know what? Your help—which is a joke anyway—your help comes with way too much baggage. Your help comes with too much moralizing and too many conditions. And you know the sickest part? The sickest part is that you’re not even sure what your fucking morals are. Or you’re too much of a coward to act on them. So in the end your help just comes with one big fat stamp on the side that says control. Isn’t that right, Gabs? And you know who that reminds me of? Speaking of cowards and controlling bastards. No, no, of course you don’t want to hear it.”
He recoiled. “Fuck you.”
“Why don’t you come out and face it?” She was sneering. “Deal with it. Deal with the fact that you lie to yourself. Get past—”
“Oh, fuck off with your therapy bullshit.”
“Sorry—that’s your area, isn’t it? What are you afraid of, Gabriel? You’re—”
“I am not afraid of anything.”
“What are you afraid of?”
They faced each other.
His scornful features mirrored hers exactly. “We’d all love to quit our jobs, Isabella, and sit around crying or screaming or smashing our heads against the wall. Or however the fuck it is you like to spend your time. But you’re going to have to grow up now, Is. Life is about ignoring the fact that life isn’t about anything. That’s it. Get used to it. And stop looking for excuses.”
“You are afraid of being yourself. You are afraid of facing up to what and who you are. Now you sit here trying to control me. You do, you do, you remind me of—”
“You never faced one single thing.”
“I face the fact that my father is my father.”
“I have lived every day—every day since I left college—in the real world. Facing it. Doing it. Doing it despite. Despite the fact that I know it’s senseless.”
“Well, then you are an idiot.”
There was raw rage in their voices now, bloodiness in their eyes.
He pointed his finger. “You’re the one who can’t face anything. Can’t do it. Keeps on avoiding, hiding. Cowering away from real life. You know why? You know why you don’t have the nerve to try anything for long enough? Because you’re afraid that after all, you might not be very good at anything. You might just be a talentless piece of shit. The same as the people you think you are so much better than.”
“Whereas you seem delighted with your mediocrity.”
“You… you sit here bullshitting me. Lying to me. When I know… And I’ve known it ever since you came back. I know that you are in touch with Dad. Why lie to me? Why lie, Little Miss Facing Up? When it’s so fucking obvious that you’ve been calling, writing, probably planning a cute little family Christmas get-together. So obvious. And yet you haven’t got the guts to tell me to my face. Who’s the coward? Who’s controlling you now, Is? Today? Right now? Doesn’t feel like you’re in control to me. You contact Dad behind my back and expect me not to realize. Then you bullshit me, hide it. Feels like Dad is in control to me. Feels like Dad is stopping you from having some kind of a conversation with your brother. Feels likes he’s totally in control.”
“I can’t believe how fucked up you really are. It’s actually a surprise.”
“Is he giving you money as well? Is that how come you’re so relaxed about not finding work that you can tell Becky her life is a bag of shit? Fine, take his money. Enjoy it.” He got up. “This is crap. Use some of his money to pay the bill. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m going to work.”
“That’s a lie too,” she said to his back. “You haven’t been in all week.”
But he was gone.
43
A Numbness
All through the city, her brother’s words stalked her. Sinister clowns or blithe assassins—she could not tell. A few steps behind, peeping after her around the corners she had just turned, pretending other business if ever she swung around to confront their whispering.
By eleven a vicious staccato wind that came in from the east had begun to whip at the last of the morning’s mist. By noon it was utterly impossible to imagine such a silent foggy stillness as had delivered the day, and by two she was being lashed by the belts of freezing sleet that the easterly carried in its chattering train. From Hackney to Acton and from Finchley to Balham and at all the bitter points between, the weather nagged and thrashed at the city, and nowhere was there enough shelter or relief. The doorways were all too shallow, the roofs of the buildings never quite overhung the pavements, the shops had insufficient frontages, the streets were all too wide. There was nowhere to get out of it, no Renaissance-built arcades, no Mall of America, nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape. On days such as these, she realized, the people of London felt it hard in their bones that their city was fashioned for neither one thing nor the other: not for sun or shade, rain or snow.
All day long she struggled through this weather, looking at one flat after another: a crepuscular Vauxhall basement (“excellent access”), a converted half-floor on the Maida Vale border (“vibrant community”), a “reclaimed” council flat in Bethnal Green (“superb views—up to your ears in real London here, love”), an attic in Bal-ham (“good new bars”). Had she actually been seriously looking for somewhere to live, she might have said something. But she wasn’t. Or not anymore. Indeed, she did not know what she was doing. All she was sure of was that she was grateful for two things: that the day was full of appointments to mark out the hours so she was continually moving, and that the moving itself was done on the blessed tube—dry, sheltered, out of it. If anything, she wished that she had been even more haphazard in selecting possible flats—the more time traveling, the better.