is friendship but a celebration of equality?
My friend sets the table. I watch him bring out the clean plates and glasses, the gleaming cutlery. I watch him lay the places. I watch him bring out fish and bread and bowls of greenery. The kitchen is warm and comfortable. To be at this ceremony of the table again is almost painful; my daughters hover, not wanting to sit down. Can we go now? they say. My friend pulls out chairs for them, fills their plates. If you don’t like it I can make you something else, he tells them. I’ve got other things, or maybe you just feel like eating bread. He offers the bread, and they take some. Then they eat what’s in front of them, all of it. When we leave my friend gives me a loaf of his good bread. He and
his wife suggest meeting again in a few days’ time; they offer to take my daughters swimming with their son. My daughters don’t say very much but later, when we go home, they admit that they enjoyed themselves.
I meet my oldest friend – J – for a drink. The children are with their father: I have begun to think that in these periods alone I ought to socialise. I see it as a kind of duty arising out of a vast and possibly terminal neglect, for I have no sense of a future: when I go out to see my friends it is in the service of an illusion. I am trying to pretend that nothing has happened, that nothing has changed, like the orchestra still playing while the Titanic sinks.
But it’s a bad day, the day on which I meet J. Things are difficult; it’s hard to talk about anything else. I can talk to J without anxiety. She knows my life and I know hers: our talk is the talk of episodes; the story itself never needs to be explained. All the same I feel guilty. The drama of my life dominates, uses up the fuel of conversation like an ugly army tank guzzling petrol. This is not equality. I’m sorry, I say, I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. I admit to J that I find it almost intolerable when the children are away. I admit that the night before I lay awake until it was light again and I could get up. I admit that I often spend these vigils in tears.
J leans across the table, grips my hand. Don’t ever do that again, she says. Call me. I don’t care what time of night it is, but don’t ever cry on your own again. Call me instead.
My daughter’s friendship with S has been augmented by her friendship with P. The three of them make a little giggling murmuring organism, their heads together. S’s gadgets are sidelined to a degree in this more complex social structure. The blue light can’t encompass three: there’s always one who’s out of it, who can’t quite see. The entrancing properties of the screen fail to mesmerise them. It strikes me that it is like love, a trance of two that is broken by a third.
Yet the new structure of three is more boisterous, noisier, happier on the surface. I quite like P. She has some of the traits of S – crisps and nail varnish – but shares similarities with my daughter too. She is more loquacious than either of them; she chatters away, her face bright and smiling. The three of them are always together. When one goes to another’s house, the third has to come along too. I am pleased for my daughter, pleased that she’s found friends, though in my heart I’m disappointed. Privately I feel they’re not good enough for her. Her distinct qualities, the things I know her by, don’t feature much in this new social world. Who is she without those qualities? I’m not quite sure. She has taken on the interests and opinions of S and P but she doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on them in quite the same way. Her old friendship with H was a relationship of greater equality, of mutual influence, of qualities shared. They were mingled together, my daughter and H, in a way that reflected well on both of them. Yet that friendship has mysteriously come to an end.
Not long after the arrival of P, another girl, D, joins the group. Now they are
My friend sets the table. I watch him bring out the clean plates and glasses, the gleaming cutlery. I watch him lay the places. I watch him bring out fish and bread and bowls of greenery. The kitchen is warm and comfortable. To be at this ceremony of the table again is almost painful; my daughters hover, not wanting to sit down. Can we go now? they say. My friend pulls out chairs for them, fills their plates. If you don’t like it I can make you something else, he tells them. I’ve got other things, or maybe you just feel like eating bread. He offers the bread, and they take some. Then they eat what’s in front of them, all of it. When we leave my friend gives me a loaf of his good bread. He and
his wife suggest meeting again in a few days’ time; they offer to take my daughters swimming with their son. My daughters don’t say very much but later, when we go home, they admit that they enjoyed themselves.
I meet my oldest friend – J – for a drink. The children are with their father: I have begun to think that in these periods alone I ought to socialise. I see it as a kind of duty arising out of a vast and possibly terminal neglect, for I have no sense of a future: when I go out to see my friends it is in the service of an illusion. I am trying to pretend that nothing has happened, that nothing has changed, like the orchestra still playing while the Titanic sinks.
But it’s a bad day, the day on which I meet J. Things are difficult; it’s hard to talk about anything else. I can talk to J without anxiety. She knows my life and I know hers: our talk is the talk of episodes; the story itself never needs to be explained. All the same I feel guilty. The drama of my life dominates, uses up the fuel of conversation like an ugly army tank guzzling petrol. This is not equality. I’m sorry, I say, I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. I admit to J that I find it almost intolerable when the children are away. I admit that the night before I lay awake until it was light again and I could get up. I admit that I often spend these vigils in tears.
J leans across the table, grips my hand. Don’t ever do that again, she says. Call me. I don’t care what time of night it is, but don’t ever cry on your own again. Call me instead.
My daughter’s friendship with S has been augmented by her friendship with P. The three of them make a little giggling murmuring organism, their heads together. S’s gadgets are sidelined to a degree in this more complex social structure. The blue light can’t encompass three: there’s always one who’s out of it, who can’t quite see. The entrancing properties of the screen fail to mesmerise them. It strikes me that it is like love, a trance of two that is broken by a third.
Yet the new structure of three is more boisterous, noisier, happier on the surface. I quite like P. She has some of the traits of S – crisps and nail varnish – but shares similarities with my daughter too. She is more loquacious than either of them; she chatters away, her face bright and smiling. The three of them are always together. When one goes to another’s house, the third has to come along too. I am pleased for my daughter, pleased that she’s found friends, though in my heart I’m disappointed. Privately I feel they’re not good enough for her. Her distinct qualities, the things I know her by, don’t feature much in this new social world. Who is she without those qualities? I’m not quite sure. She has taken on the interests and opinions of S and P but she doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on them in quite the same way. Her old friendship with H was a relationship of greater equality, of mutual influence, of qualities shared. They were mingled together, my daughter and H, in a way that reflected well on both of them. Yet that friendship has mysteriously come to an end.
Not long after the arrival of P, another girl, D, joins the group. Now they are
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