you?’
‘Well, it could be both.’
I half-punched Alex, just enough to spill his beer.
At home, with barely enough time to think over what I’d heard, I had to fend off my mother’s questions.
‘What did you find out?’
I told her a little of the how.
‘It must have been very unpleasant for the poor policemen. The things they have to do. Did he have girl trouble?’
Part of me wanted to say: Of course – he was going out with Veronica. Instead, I merely replied, ‘Alex said he was happy the last time they met.’
‘So why did he do it?’
I gave her the short version of the short version, leaving out the names of the relevant philosophers. I tried to explain about refusing an unsought gift, about action versus passivity. My mother nodded away as she took all this in.
‘You see, I was right.’
‘How’s that, Ma?’
‘He was too clever. If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything. You just leave common sense behind. It’s his brain unhinged him, that’s why he did it.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say? You mean you agree?’
Not replying was the only way to keep my temper.
I spent the next few days trying to think round all the angles and corners of Adrian’s death. While I could hardly have expected a farewell letter myself, I was disappointed for Colin and Alex. And how was I to think about Veronica now? Adrian loved her, yet he had killed himself: how was that explicable? For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn’t work out – perhaps especially when it doesn’t work out – promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life. And though subsequent years might alter this view, until some of us give up on it altogether, when love first strikes, there’s nothing like it, is there? Agreed?
But Adrian didn’t agree. Perhaps if it had been a different woman … or perhaps not – Alex had testified to Adrian’s exalted state the last time they’d met. Had something terrible happened in the intervening months? But if so, Adrian would surely have indicated it. He was the truth-seeker and philosopher among us: if those were his stated reasons, those were his true reasons.
With Veronica, I moved from blaming her for having failed to save Adrian to pitying her: there she was, having triumphantly traded up, and look what had happened. Should I express my condolences? But she would think me hypocritical. If I were to get in touch with her, either she wouldn’t reply, or she’d somehow twist things so that I’d end up not being able to think straight.
I did, eventually, find myself thinking straight. That’s to say, understanding Adrian’s reasons, respecting them, and admiring him. He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense. Did I think Adrian’s action an implied criticism of the rest of us? No. Or at least, I’m sure he didn’t intend it as such. Adrian might attract people, but he never behaved as if he wanted disciples; he believed in us all thinking for ourselves. Might he have ‘enjoyed life’, as most of us do, or try to, had he lived? Perhaps; or he might have suffered guilt and remorse at having failed to match his actions to his arguments.
And none of the above alters the fact that it was still, as Alex put it, a fucking terrible waste.
A year on, Colin and Alex suggested a reunion. On the anniversary of Adrian’s death, the three of us met for drinks at the Charing Cross Hotel, then went for an Indian meal. We tried to invoke and celebrate our friend. We remembered him telling Old Joe Hunt he was out of a job, and instructing Phil Dixon about Eros and Thanatos. We were already turning our past into anecdote. We recalled cheering the
‘Well, it could be both.’
I half-punched Alex, just enough to spill his beer.
At home, with barely enough time to think over what I’d heard, I had to fend off my mother’s questions.
‘What did you find out?’
I told her a little of the how.
‘It must have been very unpleasant for the poor policemen. The things they have to do. Did he have girl trouble?’
Part of me wanted to say: Of course – he was going out with Veronica. Instead, I merely replied, ‘Alex said he was happy the last time they met.’
‘So why did he do it?’
I gave her the short version of the short version, leaving out the names of the relevant philosophers. I tried to explain about refusing an unsought gift, about action versus passivity. My mother nodded away as she took all this in.
‘You see, I was right.’
‘How’s that, Ma?’
‘He was too clever. If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything. You just leave common sense behind. It’s his brain unhinged him, that’s why he did it.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say? You mean you agree?’
Not replying was the only way to keep my temper.
I spent the next few days trying to think round all the angles and corners of Adrian’s death. While I could hardly have expected a farewell letter myself, I was disappointed for Colin and Alex. And how was I to think about Veronica now? Adrian loved her, yet he had killed himself: how was that explicable? For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn’t work out – perhaps especially when it doesn’t work out – promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life. And though subsequent years might alter this view, until some of us give up on it altogether, when love first strikes, there’s nothing like it, is there? Agreed?
But Adrian didn’t agree. Perhaps if it had been a different woman … or perhaps not – Alex had testified to Adrian’s exalted state the last time they’d met. Had something terrible happened in the intervening months? But if so, Adrian would surely have indicated it. He was the truth-seeker and philosopher among us: if those were his stated reasons, those were his true reasons.
With Veronica, I moved from blaming her for having failed to save Adrian to pitying her: there she was, having triumphantly traded up, and look what had happened. Should I express my condolences? But she would think me hypocritical. If I were to get in touch with her, either she wouldn’t reply, or she’d somehow twist things so that I’d end up not being able to think straight.
I did, eventually, find myself thinking straight. That’s to say, understanding Adrian’s reasons, respecting them, and admiring him. He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense. Did I think Adrian’s action an implied criticism of the rest of us? No. Or at least, I’m sure he didn’t intend it as such. Adrian might attract people, but he never behaved as if he wanted disciples; he believed in us all thinking for ourselves. Might he have ‘enjoyed life’, as most of us do, or try to, had he lived? Perhaps; or he might have suffered guilt and remorse at having failed to match his actions to his arguments.
And none of the above alters the fact that it was still, as Alex put it, a fucking terrible waste.
A year on, Colin and Alex suggested a reunion. On the anniversary of Adrian’s death, the three of us met for drinks at the Charing Cross Hotel, then went for an Indian meal. We tried to invoke and celebrate our friend. We remembered him telling Old Joe Hunt he was out of a job, and instructing Phil Dixon about Eros and Thanatos. We were already turning our past into anecdote. We recalled cheering the
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