I've achieved a new kind of surliness, W. observes. I make even less effort in conversation than I used to, and I was never a great conversationalist, says W., I never had any wit. But now I sit like some great surly ape making no effort whatsoever. He, on the hand, is a great maker of conversation, we both agree. He asks questions of everyone. He engages with them, it's quite remarkable.
It must be something to do with guilt, W. reckons. His Catholicism, perhaps, or perhaps his Judaism. He is turned towards others, we agree, whereas I'm turned away from them. I tell him of the great lengths I will go to to avoid people, how I walk up unknown stairwells and through unknown corridors to avoid saying hello to a single person. What a torture it is to say hello, I tell W., who notes for his part that I never look at anyone in the face when I talk to them. You always look away, he says, like some great surly ape.
My apishness has always amused W., who likes to do impressions of me taking notes. The way you hold your pen is just like an ape, he says. And your massive arms, well they used to be massive, what's happened to them now? It was worst in my vest phase, W. remembers, shuddering. Those vests! How many of them did you buy! 30? 40? And all of them from Primark, made by child labour, says W.
30 vests! I remind him my washing machine had broken down. It was a dark time, I say. What's your problem with people, W. wanders. You're a bit autistic, aren't you? Your monomania, for example. Your obsessions. They're a sign of autism, W. proclaims. For his part, W. is a more well-rounded person. He has a life, he says, though he notes that I have a life as well. But you're only pretending to live, W. says, it's not real. I have an autistic heart, W. decided long ago, and am incapable of love.
Who else would buy 30 vests?, he wonders. Or was it 40. 40 vests!, my God, says W. Of course W. has always been concerned with being a better person, an idea that must be completely alien to me, W. decides. I'm getting worse, not better, he points out. He's even impressed. You don't bother at all anymore, he says, it's amazing.