We have reached the point of lockdown where there is a complete suite of feelings I want a veto over, from my children’s tiredness to Mr Z’s positive affirmations
When I was young, I was living with a guy and his best friend wanted to move in. I thought it was pretty reasonable, given that he had nowhere else to live and no job, but my boyfriend said that since he was depressed, and the friend was depressed, they might suck each other into a vortex. I countered that, homeless, the friend would be even more depressed, and that vortex might be worse, even if we didn’t have to see him every day. So we reached a compromise: the friend could move in, with a lot of rules attached.
I can only remember two of them, even though I know there were 33, since they covered a side of A4. He was not allowed to mention Cheadle, where he was from, because it functioned as an anti-Chekhovian motif in his imagination – the opposite of Moscow, the site of all disappointment (“This is reminding me of Cheadle”) and failure (“I’m going to end up back in Cheadle!”).
