Mushrooms

W. remembers when I was up-and-coming, he tells me. He remembers the questions I used to ask, and how they would resound beneath the room’s vaulted ceiling. You seemed so intelligent then, he said. I spread my arms. I shrug. Of course, of course. But when any of us read your work …, he says, without finishing the sentence.

I know, I tell him. There’s no excuse. But then, I point out, I think it encouraged you to write, didn’t it? And W. admits it’s true. He started to write encouraged by my writing. Until then, he said, he spent 7 years on each paper. How long do you spend?, he says, five minutes?

It was different for your generation, I point out (W. is slightly older than me). Of course, I’m not even part of a generation, I tell him. At least for your lot, there was a chance of a job. At least everyone who wanted a job, got one. But for us? W. finds it funny when I become self-righteous. But that’s got nothing to do with it, he says. You have to work, he says.

You don’t work, do you?, he says. – ‘I do.’ ‘What on? What are you writing?’ – ‘A review. A long one.’ – ‘Oh yes? And what are you reading?’ – ‘Lacan and Zizek’, I tell him. – ‘Oh yes, what Lacan?’ – ‘Well, it’s more Zizek.’ – ‘What do you know about Lacan?’, he says. – ‘Very little. But I’m only reading it as a background.’ – ‘Oh it’s background reading.’ – ‘You have to follow up all the references when you’re reviewing’, I tell him. ‘It’s a long review – 9,000 words’, I tell him, ‘and then, after that, I’m reviewing your book’.

‘Of course it’s different for people in your class’, I tell W. (W. is from a slightly higher social class than me). ‘Oh yes? How?’ – ‘You still have expectations. You don’t know how bad it is.’ I look at my fingernails. ‘I’ll bet you were a prefect, weren’t you? There’s something of the prefect about you’, I tell him, without knowing what a prefect is. ‘You haven’t been crushed‘, I tell him. ‘It should be part of your education – to be crushed.’ W. finds this very funny. – ‘You’re being self-righteous again.’

I go out and buy pork scratchings and a four pack of Stella from the shop. ‘I was never really up-and-coming’, I tell him. ‘Shameless – that’s what I was. And desperate.’

‘Do you know I’ve got mushrooms growing in my flat?’, I ask W. – ‘I think you should harvest them.’ W.’s house, which is very large, was fitted out by interior decorators and only cost him £50,000. ‘They completely rebuilt the foundations,’ he says, ‘layer by layer.’ There is no possibility of damp, he says. And it’s true: there’s no damp there, nothing at all. ‘The air is so dry’, I say, as soon as I get in. ‘I know. It’s great, isn’t it?’, he says.

‘So were you ever up-and-coming?’, I ask W. He was, he remembers. That was a golden time. Everyone looked up to him. What went wrong? Booze – and fags. But wasn’t there another golden age, a few years later when he became single? ‘Oh yes’, says W. ‘I only taught one hour a week. Every morning, I got up and read and took notes until I went to bed. I had a desk and a bed in my room, and my books, and nothing else. I didn’t go out, I didn’t drink, I just read, and took notes, day after day.’ We’re both moved, sipping our Stellas and eating pork scratchings.

I remember a short interview I conducted with W. a few months ago. ‘What do you consider your greatest weakness?’ – ‘Never to have come to terms with my lack of ability.’ – ‘What’s your greatest disappointment?’ – ‘To know what greatness is, and know I will never, never achieve it.’ – ‘What’s your worst trait?’ – ‘Fear and anxiety cloud all my judgements and relationships.’ – ‘What is your greatest academic gift?’ – ‘I don’t have any. My whole career has been a crushing failure. I only carry on out of debilitating fear.’