W. is convinced his IQ is a few points higher than mine. ‘Just a few points – it makes all the difference.’ Evidence: he can be witty, whereas I am just filthy. Still, W. likes my filth. ‘You’re my id’, he says. I give him permission to act badly, he says. He likes my new paper giving style. ‘You’re so truculent’, he says. ‘A truculent ape.’
Bored, I ask W., since he is certain of his IQ, to rank our friends in order of intelligence. He considers each in turn. ‘So you put X. at the top?’ – ‘Why, where would you put him?’ – ‘And where am I on the list?’ – ‘At the bottom.’
We return to our favourite theme. Our problem is, we’re not quite intelligent enough. We can appreciate thinking, but we’re not thinkers. Faces pressed up against the glass, and no one to let us in. ‘But at least we know our limits’, says W., ‘we have that. And at least we can support the thinkers amongst us.’ Yes, that’s our role. To remember our limits and to support those who are not bound by them.
Where did it all go wrong? We agreed: literature. The literary trap. Perhaps we should have been writers. But although we appreciate writers, we cannot write. ‘You have a comic talent,’ says W. ‘But when you try to write seriously, it’s terrible.’
Conversation falls to Kafka. ‘I always ask myself what Kafka would do,’ says W. ‘He wouldn’t keep a blog, that’s for certain. ‘
In a pub by Mount Edgcombe, W. speaks of his greatest temptation. ‘I thought if we had a community of friends, thinkers, then thought might be possible.’ Was he wrong? He was wrong. ‘Look at us’, he says. W. seems morose. Sometimes I like to sing him a snatch of ‘No Bad News’ from the new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album. ‘Hey little Will …’ W. joins in, happy again. ‘But there’s no excuse’, he says. – ‘Except for our low IQs.’
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