Victories

'What keeps you going?', W. asks. 'What – minute to minute?' If he has my life, W. he says, he'd kill himself straightaway. It's a disaster, a travesty. – 'How do you go on? How -really?' W.'s never been sure. He has enough trouble with his life, he says. It's already too much. But mine – mine!

He shakes his head. – 'If you had any decency …' But I don't, do I? I'm still alive! It's a kind of triumph for me, isn't it? It's a little victory, minute to minute: the knowledge that I still exist and I still annoy him, W. It's why I always look so gleeful. It's why I always look as though I've pulled one over on the world, which in fact I have.