“What’s wrong?” It was a question I’d been dreading for a while. “The usual.” She put the kettle on, and demanded I tell her what was bothering me. She wasn’t going to let me get away with such a non-committal answer. “Lisa, I don’t really want to talk about it.” That was the worst thing I could have possibly said, and I knew it. She was (in the nicest possible way) like a pig hunting truffles now, an unstoppable force once she’d got the scent of a problem she could help with. “You know you can tell me anything.” Sometimes I got the impression that she felt like she had to mother us. She was always trying to make sure that Adam and I ate properly, or manoeuvring us into heart-to-heart chats. She knew that I hadn’t been going to work for the last few days, and she could tell that a big juicy crisis was in the air. This was a job for Emotional Rescue. “It doesn’t do you good to bottle everything up the whole time. You should let go. Don’t be afraid of your feelings. I’m here for you.” I wondered how many clichés she was going to hit me with. Why the hell did she have to be so understanding? I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts, drown myself in a wave of misery and anxiety. When you’re on your own, you don’t have to explain yourself. Your thoughts can remain unexpressed, under the surface. You don’t have to expose them to scrutiny. You don’t have to face up to how ludicrous your fears are. I considered ways of getting rid of her. The phone rang. I felt like a boxer on the ropes at the end of the round, getting a temporary respite from the pummelling he’s getting. “Don’t even think about going anywhere. You’re going to tell me why you’re acting like this.” Maybe I could tell her what was going on. Maybe she could tell me that everything was going to be all right. But how? How the hell do you tell your housemate that you think you might be a murderer? I began to rehearse it in my mind. “Lisa, I think … that is, I might … I think.” She wasn’t even here, and I was having trouble saying it. I had to think of something. Some troublesome female. Problems at work. Family worries. No. Lisa could always tell when I was lying. Avoidance had to be the way forward. “Sorry about that. Right, where were we?” “You were pestering me about some bullshit, and I was just about to change the subject.” “We’ve shared a house for nearly a year now, and I’d like to think you could trust me enough to tell me what’s bothering you.” Oh great, something else to feel guilty about. “Well, it’s not that easy to talk about, because I’m not really sure what I think about it.” “Just talking can help sometimes, you know?” She probably thought I was about to come out. She would have loved that. A gay housemate would have been very good for her liberal credentials down at the school. I heard a noise downstairs. Adam’s keys in the lock. Saved. “We’ll talk later.” The prospect filled me with dread. Lisa watched too many talk shows and soap operas, and she’d read too many books that had changed her life. As a result, she had developed an unpleasant taste for cod psychology and earnest emotional discussion. She was forever trying to persuade us to share our feelings. Didn’t she realise that we were men, and simply didn’t do that kind of thing? Real life isn’t like talk shows. Real people don’t spend their time getting in touch with their emotions, they just get on with living. Only people who can afford therapists have inner selves to get in touch with. Half the time I wasn’t even sure I had emotions. I felt as if I was just going through the motions, constructing a façade of a life. I made what I hoped were appropriate responses. I approximated a sad face when it seemed to be required of me.
I always feel I’m not getting enough out of life. This lovely weather - and I didn’t use it. I should recognize that sitting in Hyde Park is as useful as sitting in front of a computer
A Year With Swollen Appendices