Darling by India Knight

Author:India Knight [Knight, India]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Published: 2022-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

19

Linda had wanted a new social circle and within a few weeks, as Christian’s girlfriend, she got one that was comprised of people unlike any she’d come across before. Christian’s close friends were mainly unpublished authors, fellow poets and writers of essays for small online journals. They had day jobs that they mostly hated, and came to life at night, when they gathered in each other’s flats after work, several times a week, to discuss the arts generally and their own writings in particular. There were readings. Since Linda came on to the scene, they mostly gathered at the Sausage after hours. ‘They’re divinely unglamorous and basic,’ Linda said delightedly over lunch at Alconleigh. ‘Awful clothes. And they’re all obsessed about being ignored by a magazine called the London Review of Books,’ she added. ‘They talk about it for hours sometimes, getting crosser and crosser. The other night I said that perhaps the London Review of Books wasn’t so much ignoring them as unaware of their very existence, but Christian said not to be silly and that that wasn’t it at all. He got quite cross, actually.’

Jassy started to laugh.

‘Shush, Jassy,’ Linda continued. ‘Christian said if they hadn’t heard of him even though Fish with the Worm is nominated for the Popotin Prize, then it just showed how out of touch they were with the young intelligentsia, and that just showed they weren’t doing their job properly and had become complacent and bloated. Anyway, I said, why not ring them up and have a cheerful chat and say, “I have written a 15,000-word essay on the role of cheese in the work of Dickens,” and see what happens, but apparently you can’t do that. I don’t see why not, do you?’

‘No,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘Of course not. Worst thing they can say is no thank you.’ This approach to life was what caused Aunt Sadie to often ask workmen if they’d mind quickly rehanging a picture – she moved pictures around on a weekly basis – on the understanding that anyone with any kind of tool kit – plumbing, building, electrical – was bound to know what they were doing. She would pay them extra for this, and encourage them on to worktops or wonky chairs by patting the surfaces encouragingly and saying, ‘Up you pop! Uppety-up tup tup!’ in a cheery voice.

‘Cass would say that was our privilege talking,’ Linda explained. ‘Because we’re so entitled. Which we are. We’d just pick up the phone and say, “Oh hello, I don’t suppose I could interest you in a tiny little essay about cheese,” without thinking twice about it, because that’s the sort of people we are. Cass says she just couldn’t do it because she doesn’t have unshakeable bourgeois confidence. Cass has very much fallen out of love with me, by the way, thank goodness.’ It was just like Linda not to mind this at all. ‘But she does have a point.’

‘There’s nothing privileged about taking a punt,’ Aunt Sadie said mildly, adding, ‘I’d 100 per cent read a 15,000-word essay on cheese in Dickens.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.