even have an exclusive flat-share. My best friend, Jess, also rents with us. Normally, I acknowledge that this is no bad thing. She is (largely) single and so we are each other’s on-tap company on those nights when she doesn’t have a date and Adam is at work.
Adam is in the music business. Don’t get excited. He’s not a rock star, or a manager, or producer, or anything remotely glamorous and promising. He’s a rigger; which, if I’ve understood things correctly, is one step up from the coach driver on a tour but not as important as the people who work in catering. He freelances, and while he must be quite good at his job (offers of employment are regular) it’s clear he’s never going to be a millionaire. For that matter, he’s never going to have so much as a savings account.
This didn’t used to bother me. I’m a florist and work in someone else’s shop: Ben’s Bunches and Bouquets or Ben’s B&B for short. Ben, who is as camp as a glow-in-the-dark feather duster, is an absolute angel of a boss but I only earn a modest wage. Jess works in a bookshop and, after thirteen years’ service, she has just reached the dizzy heights of store manager. We’re not the type of people to be motivated by money (one of my other great friends, Lisa, is married to a City lawyer and he’s rich but we think he’s nice despite that). I don’t resent Adam’s lack of cash. I resent his lack of… oh, what’s the word?
Commitment.
His inability to grow up. To move on. It is Adam who has jammed our brakes at the ordinary station because he’s a settler. He lacks ambition. When challenged, he says he’s content and throws me a look of bewilderment that’s vaguely critical. He thinks I’m unreasonable because I yearn for more than a tiny two-bedroom flat-share (all we can afford despite working endless, incompatible hours). I long for something more than Monday to Wednesday evenings in front of the TV, Thursday nights at the supermarket, Friday and Saturday nights at the local and Sundays (our one day a week off together) sleeping off a hangover.
Recently, I’ve been overwhelmed with despair as I’ve come to understand that not only do I currently have very little in my life to feel energized about but, with the exception of hoping my lottery numbers come up, I have absolutely nothing to look forward to in the future. This is it for me. The sum total.
When I was a tiny kid I once saw a deeply unsuitable sci-fiTV show where the goodies were trapped in a room and the walls were closing in on them, about to crush them to death. The same menace was used in Star Wars Episode IV but Princess Leia had it really bad because she was knee deep in garbage too. I found the concept truly horrifying and suffered from nightmares for months. Lately, as I watch the (supposedly) best years of my life amble off into the dim distance, I’ve started to experience the same nightmare again. I wake up sweating with the taste of fear in my mouth. I’m going to be squashed to death by the walls of a tiny room.
In the beginning I was impressed by Adam’s joie de vivre; his jaunty carelessness was part of the attraction. I loved it that he would find the time to listen to some demo disc from a yet to be discovered band. A demo disc that he’d scrounged from a no one and would pass on to Someone; not because of the lure of brash financial gain but just because he thought this band might be the next ‘it’ – more, he thought they deserved to be the next ‘it’. I didn’t care that I didn’t actually understand what he was on about when he said something like, ‘This band is totally thrashing with PJ Harvey-meets-Throwing Muses Fire, yet it’s so completely purring with hectic pop.’ I wonder if he cared that I just smiled and said nothing. Maybe my lack of knowledge about the pop scene has been interpreted as a lack of interest, because Adam’s stopped urging me to listen to lyrics that are ‘all about a breakneck chase through messy relationships’. I think he’s accepted that my music tastes are mainstream. It’s a shame in a way, because while I didn’t understand what he was on about I did respect that he was on about