The Sin of Envy (2)
Being English, he would play the Tea card with care, using it carefully only a few times a day, in real emergencies. This, this having of a f*m*le head in one's lap, was such an emergency. He played the card, and managed to slide out from under her when she said Fine. The kettle went on.
He was still young, a student, and still thought that life contained possibilities and important choices, and that not all doors necessarily concealed, for him, goats. Right now, in his college-supplied room in the "Annex", he thought there was such a choice, there, lounging on his bed. If he did and said the right things in the right order, there would be puppies. She would see to it that he would have puppies, and his whole life would be transformed. In order for this to happen, he supposed he would have to inspire "love", or something roughly in that semantic vicinity. He did not know how to do this. There was no set way of doing this, since his situation was absolutely unique, and had never been faced before in the history of the world, except by the sort of people who are never written about. Since he was not lovable, getting himself loved would of course involve some sort of elaborate, morally excusable fakery. But what exactly?
"Music?"
He'd been dreading this. His entire record collection consisted exclusively of things he'd found he liked, without any regard for social propriety. He tried: "You?"
"Chieftains. But will lower myself to Sinatra: am broad-minded."
He'd never heard of the Chieftains. It occurred to him that she'd made a terrible, embarrassing mistake, and that the bloke she wanted, the one she assumed she was with, was actually waiting two doors down, checking his watch. The one who knew who the Chieftains were, and was Irish, and lovable, and all that. Suddenly she'd realise who he was, or wasn't, and he'd have to apologise and grovel at the door as she stormed out. "Er, Supertramp?"
That worked. A couple of songs in, there was some tentative invading of personal space a droite et a gauche, sans lunettes: lip fencing, and suddenly, there you are, your first real snog. Immediately he realised that the movies lied: there was nothing whatsoever pleasurable about kissing, per se: it was simply an objective correlative for what went on lower down your body, a marker, a ritual, a coming of age. A distraction, even. Her face looked different at that microscopic proximity: scrubbed, hairless, vaguely porous, with a bloom on it and a pallor beneath: marine, cuttlefish-like, and achingly blind.
He was still young, a student, and still thought that life contained possibilities and important choices, and that not all doors necessarily concealed, for him, goats. Right now, in his college-supplied room in the "Annex", he thought there was such a choice, there, lounging on his bed. If he did and said the right things in the right order, there would be puppies. She would see to it that he would have puppies, and his whole life would be transformed. In order for this to happen, he supposed he would have to inspire "love", or something roughly in that semantic vicinity. He did not know how to do this. There was no set way of doing this, since his situation was absolutely unique, and had never been faced before in the history of the world, except by the sort of people who are never written about. Since he was not lovable, getting himself loved would of course involve some sort of elaborate, morally excusable fakery. But what exactly?
"Music?"
He'd been dreading this. His entire record collection consisted exclusively of things he'd found he liked, without any regard for social propriety. He tried: "You?"
"Chieftains. But will lower myself to Sinatra: am broad-minded."
He'd never heard of the Chieftains. It occurred to him that she'd made a terrible, embarrassing mistake, and that the bloke she wanted, the one she assumed she was with, was actually waiting two doors down, checking his watch. The one who knew who the Chieftains were, and was Irish, and lovable, and all that. Suddenly she'd realise who he was, or wasn't, and he'd have to apologise and grovel at the door as she stormed out. "Er, Supertramp?"
That worked. A couple of songs in, there was some tentative invading of personal space a droite et a gauche, sans lunettes: lip fencing, and suddenly, there you are, your first real snog. Immediately he realised that the movies lied: there was nothing whatsoever pleasurable about kissing, per se: it was simply an objective correlative for what went on lower down your body, a marker, a ritual, a coming of age. A distraction, even. Her face looked different at that microscopic proximity: scrubbed, hairless, vaguely porous, with a bloom on it and a pallor beneath: marine, cuttlefish-like, and achingly blind.
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