strong element of calculation in these little bursts of wistfulness and wonderment. By which I do not mean to imply that the boy was cynical exactly. Simply anxious to please. He had observed that Sheba
liked him best when he was saying sensitive things about paintings and so on, and he was beefing up his moony ponderings accordingly. If this was cynical, then we must allow that all courtship is cynical. Connolly was doing as all people do in such situations—tricking out his stall with an eye to what would best please his customer.
For a long time, though, Sheba didn’t see any of this. It did not occur to her that Connolly’s schoolboy profundities, or his “passion” for the kiln, were anything other than heartfelt. And when, at last, it did occur to her, she seems to have been touched rather than disillusioned. To this day, she furiously defends Connolly’s “brilliance” and “imagination.” If he did affect interests that weren’t his, she says, the pretence demonstrated “a very sophisticated social adaptiveness” on his part. The school is embarrassed by the idea that Connolly might be clever, she claims, “because they’ve always written him off as dim.”
The school has never written Connolly off as dim, of course. The fact that he has been identified as a special needs pupil—that he receives help for his dyslexia—indicates quite the contrary. No one on the staff has ever been quite as excited about his intellectual capacities as Sheba, it is true. But, then, the plain fact is that Connolly is not a very exciting boy. He is a perfectly average boy in possession of a perfectly average intelligence.
Why, then, was Sheba moved to such an extravagant estimation of his virtues? Why did she insist on seeing him as her little Helen Keller in a sea of Yahoos? The papers will tell you that Sheba’s judgement was clouded by desire: she was attracted to Connolly and, in order to explain that attraction, she convinced herself that he was some kind of a genius. This is reasonable
enough. But it is not the whole story, I think. To completely understand Sheba’s response to Connolly, you would also have to take into account her very limited knowledge—and low expectations—of people of his social class. Until she met Connolly, Sheba had never had any intimate contact with a bona fide member of the British proletariat. Her acquaintance with that stratum did not—and still doesn’t—extend much beyond what she has gleaned from the grittier soap operas and the various women who have cleaned her house over the years.
Naturally, she would deny this. Like so many members of London’s haute bourgeoisie, Sheba is deeply attached to a mythology of herself as street-smart. She always howls when I refer to her as upper class. (She’s middle she insists; at the very most, upper-middle.) She loves to come shopping with me in the Queenstown street market or the Shop-A-Lot next to the Chalk Farm council estates. It flatters her image of herself as a denizen of the urban jungle to stand cheek by jowl in checkout queues with teenage mothers buying quick-cook macaroni in the shape of Teletubbies for their children. But you can be quite sure that if any of those prematurely craggy-faced girls were ever to address her directly, she would be frightened out of her wits. Though she cannot say it, or even acknowledge it to herself, she thinks of the working class as a mysterious and homogeneous entity: a tempery, florid-faced people addled by food additives and alcohol.
Little wonder that Connolly seemed so fascinatingly anomalous to her. Here, in the midst of all the hostile North London yobs, she had found a young man who actually sought out her company, who listened, openmouthed, when she lectured him on Great Artists. Who proffered whimsical aperçus about the curtains. Poor old Sheba regarded Connolly with much the
same amazement and delight as you or I would a monkey who strolled out of the rain forest and asked
liked him best when he was saying sensitive things about paintings and so on, and he was beefing up his moony ponderings accordingly. If this was cynical, then we must allow that all courtship is cynical. Connolly was doing as all people do in such situations—tricking out his stall with an eye to what would best please his customer.
For a long time, though, Sheba didn’t see any of this. It did not occur to her that Connolly’s schoolboy profundities, or his “passion” for the kiln, were anything other than heartfelt. And when, at last, it did occur to her, she seems to have been touched rather than disillusioned. To this day, she furiously defends Connolly’s “brilliance” and “imagination.” If he did affect interests that weren’t his, she says, the pretence demonstrated “a very sophisticated social adaptiveness” on his part. The school is embarrassed by the idea that Connolly might be clever, she claims, “because they’ve always written him off as dim.”
The school has never written Connolly off as dim, of course. The fact that he has been identified as a special needs pupil—that he receives help for his dyslexia—indicates quite the contrary. No one on the staff has ever been quite as excited about his intellectual capacities as Sheba, it is true. But, then, the plain fact is that Connolly is not a very exciting boy. He is a perfectly average boy in possession of a perfectly average intelligence.
Why, then, was Sheba moved to such an extravagant estimation of his virtues? Why did she insist on seeing him as her little Helen Keller in a sea of Yahoos? The papers will tell you that Sheba’s judgement was clouded by desire: she was attracted to Connolly and, in order to explain that attraction, she convinced herself that he was some kind of a genius. This is reasonable
enough. But it is not the whole story, I think. To completely understand Sheba’s response to Connolly, you would also have to take into account her very limited knowledge—and low expectations—of people of his social class. Until she met Connolly, Sheba had never had any intimate contact with a bona fide member of the British proletariat. Her acquaintance with that stratum did not—and still doesn’t—extend much beyond what she has gleaned from the grittier soap operas and the various women who have cleaned her house over the years.
Naturally, she would deny this. Like so many members of London’s haute bourgeoisie, Sheba is deeply attached to a mythology of herself as street-smart. She always howls when I refer to her as upper class. (She’s middle she insists; at the very most, upper-middle.) She loves to come shopping with me in the Queenstown street market or the Shop-A-Lot next to the Chalk Farm council estates. It flatters her image of herself as a denizen of the urban jungle to stand cheek by jowl in checkout queues with teenage mothers buying quick-cook macaroni in the shape of Teletubbies for their children. But you can be quite sure that if any of those prematurely craggy-faced girls were ever to address her directly, she would be frightened out of her wits. Though she cannot say it, or even acknowledge it to herself, she thinks of the working class as a mysterious and homogeneous entity: a tempery, florid-faced people addled by food additives and alcohol.
Little wonder that Connolly seemed so fascinatingly anomalous to her. Here, in the midst of all the hostile North London yobs, she had found a young man who actually sought out her company, who listened, openmouthed, when she lectured him on Great Artists. Who proffered whimsical aperçus about the curtains. Poor old Sheba regarded Connolly with much the
same amazement and delight as you or I would a monkey who strolled out of the rain forest and asked
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