Эдвард Докс - Pravda ['Self Help' in the UK]

“So what if I did?” Now she sat forward to return the attack with interest. “I didn’t ask you to find me a job here. Yeah, you’re right—you organized this for me. I didn’t really get much say in it, did I? It was more or less an order. Come down to Westminster at eight-fifteen, Is, I’m sorting you out.” She paused a moment and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I get it. Now that Mum is dead, you’ve decided that you are in charge of my life. Is that it? You’re obviously an expert at running lives.”

“Leave Mum out of this.”

She looked around for a waiter. “I don’t have to listen to you.”

They had not fought in twenty years. And even now they could have stopped, left the café, and perhaps survived without serious wounds. But some furious force was impelling them both.

“No. You don’t. You don’t have to listen to anything, Is. You never have before. Why start now?”

She turned back to him, her eyes suddenly ferocious. “Oh… oh, you have a lesson for me. That’s what this morning is all about.”

He met and held the violence in her gaze. “One day you are finally going to see that other people can be clever too. One day you are going to get it into your tiny stubborn mind that, yes, other people can be intelligent as well— in different ways. And sometimes a whole lot more intelligent than you. One day you will understand that not everyone thinks and feels the same as you—not everyone has the same prejudices. Not everyone has reached the same conclusions. There are lots of different kinds of intelligence. Besides yours.”

Her voice was heavy with scorn. “Say whatever it is you’re trying to say.”

“I’m not trying to say anything. I am saying it. You think you are this… this genius at seeing inside everything, at understanding what’s really going on. You think you have some kind of social x-ray facility. But you’re going to have to wake up and realize that you’ve no such thing. Because the truth is… the truth, Isabella, is that you never—you never see anything from the other person’s point of view. You never even come close.” He leaned toward her, and his words were measured to deliver their payload. “Just now, your body language, your manner, everything about you contrived to make the whole thing a waste of time. You weren’t listening at all. Not really. Every gesture and every remark, you made only to demonstrate your worldview to Becky. That’s all you cared about. Getting across what sort of a person you are. Whatever the conversation was ostensibly about, all you wanted to do was make her understand your way of seeing things, and not only that, but… but that your way of seeing things is… is in some way the coolest. Except she wasn’t really going along with your jocular little tone—about how it’s all shit and a bit of a game and anyone could do it with their eyes closed. Because she works in television, for Christ’s sake, Is. That’s her job. She doesn’t share your opinions. Of course she doesn’t—she can’t. She’s got a job and she is doing it. Sticking to it. Doing it. Going the distance. Actually committing to—”

“I didn’t realize you thought Channel Eight was so great.”

“That’s not the point and you know it. I don’t give a fuck about Channel Eight.” He had cowed her for the moment. “What I’m trying to get through to you is that whether or not you are ultimately existentially right about Channel fucking Eight, other people have different opinions, and they might, just might, turn out to be as clever and as insightful as yours. And you have to start understanding that. Because otherwise you can’t learn anything. Because otherwise all your insight and x-ray vision will amount to nothing more than the worst kind of pathetically disguised egotistical evangelism. Because otherwise these other people will get up and leave, like Becky did just now, thinking you are an arrogant, naive, conceited little bitch.”

“Whereas you—you are all heart, right, Gabs?” Her throat was reddening but she was leaning forward to meet him now, the space between them narrowing. “You think and feel on their behalf, on everyone’s behalf… and then—and then —you go right ahead and do it anyway. Straight to the torture: fuck with everybody around you, but it’s all okay, because you’re doing all the feeling and thinking on their behalf.” She jeered at him. “Very kind. Thank you on behalf of all the women you are so graciously caring for.”

His voice was flat and cold. “All your life you have just come in and taken my friends and used them, transparently, when you thought they could help you, and then ignored them the minute you thought they could not. You even bullshit one lot of my friends about how close you are to another lot if you think the second lot can get you something. But you never understood that the reason they’re my friends in the first place is because I give back, I put in, I keep the fucking friendships going. I don’t just turn up and ask, ‘What can you do for me? I’m waiting.’ I write the letters. I make the visits. I listen to their stories. I try to help them in return.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“But you’ve always taken it anyway.”

“Because… because you know what? Your help—which is a joke anyway—your help comes with way too much baggage. Your help comes with too much moralizing and too many conditions. And you know the sickest part? The sickest part is that you’re not even sure what your fucking morals are. Or you’re too much of a coward to act on them. So in the end your help just comes with one big fat stamp on the side that says control. Isn’t that right, Gabs? And you know who that reminds me of? Speaking of cowards and controlling bastards. No, no, of course you don’t want to hear it.”

He recoiled. “Fuck you.”

“Why don’t you come out and face it?” She was sneering. “Deal with it. Deal with the fact that you lie to yourself. Get past—”

“Oh, fuck off with your therapy bullshit.”

“Sorry—that’s your area, isn’t it? What are you afraid of, Gabriel? You’re—”

“I am not afraid of anything.”

“What are you afraid of?”

They faced each other.

His scornful features mirrored hers exactly. “We’d all love to quit our jobs, Isabella, and sit around crying or screaming or smashing our heads against the wall. Or however the fuck it is you like to spend your time. But you’re going to have to grow up now, Is. Life is about ignoring the fact that life isn’t about anything. That’s it. Get used to it. And stop looking for excuses.”

“You are afraid of being yourself. You are afraid of facing up to what and who you are. Now you sit here trying to control me. You do, you do, you remind me of—”

“You never faced one single thing.”

“I face the fact that my father is my father.”

“I have lived every day—every day since I left college—in the real world. Facing it. Doing it. Doing it despite. Despite the fact that I know it’s senseless.”

“Well, then you are an idiot.”

There was raw rage in their voices now, bloodiness in their eyes.

He pointed his finger. “You’re the one who can’t face anything. Can’t do it. Keeps on avoiding, hiding. Cowering away from real life. You know why? You know why you don’t have the nerve to try anything for long enough? Because you’re afraid that after all, you might not be very good at anything. You might just be a talentless piece of shit. The same as the people you think you are so much better than.”

“Whereas you seem delighted with your mediocrity.”

“You… you sit here bullshitting me. Lying to me. When I know… And I’ve known it ever since you came back. I know that you are in touch with Dad. Why lie to me? Why lie, Little Miss Facing Up? When it’s so fucking obvious that you’ve been calling, writing, probably planning a cute little family Christmas get-together. So obvious. And yet you haven’t got the guts to tell me to my face. Who’s the coward? Who’s controlling you now, Is? Today? Right now? Doesn’t feel like you’re in control to me. You contact Dad behind my back and expect me not to realize. Then you bullshit me, hide it. Feels like Dad is in control to me. Feels like Dad is stopping you from having some kind of a conversation with your brother. Feels likes he’s totally in control.”