'Compare your life to mine', W. says. 'What does it make you feel?' He has a three storeyed Georgian house, and I have a shitty underground flat. He has Sal, a woman who loves him, and I have no one, and am essentially unloveable. He is liked and respected by his colleagues – they shake his hand in the cloister - whereas I skulk about trying to avoid everyone with whom I work. Where did I go so wrong?
You can't feign friendliness, W. says. You can't feign interest. In the end, the art of conversation is entirely alien to me. The art of greeting people. When he did try and teach me, it led to disaster. I bellowed. Hello!, I cried in my loudest voice. – 'You scared people'.
And I'm a stutterer, too, which makes things even worse. W.'s always amused when the power of speech deserts me, and my interlocutor has to guess what I want. It's at its worst when I have to say something urgently, or have to be succinct.
There's a great stammering and stuttering, W. says. A great foaming at the mouth. – 'You can't get a word out, can you?', W. says, laughing. 'My God! Why don't you gesture? Mime! What is it, ape boy? More food? Something else to drink?'
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