Journo

Friday night, half past seven. Or is that evening?

Washing up the last few dishes from a lovingly prepared but simple dinner, I stare out into the rainy dusk. This is what my life is - days full of obligations, the object of my life to love and to do some good. She, on the other hand, is at some gala dinner in London, hobnobbing with journos and bloggers, dreaming of fame. I don’t know her well enough to say for sure what the objects of her life might be, but at a guess, to be loved and to be famous probably feature in the top five. She claims to want a family some day, but shows no sign of settling down in the way I, who eschew any notion of having children, somehow have.

We’ve been in our respective relationships with tall, handsome, nice men for a similar length of time, although hers was punctuated by a dramatic separation period a few years back. Like something she no doubt saw in a film or read about on the pages of a glossy celeb gossip rag, right? I forget whose idea it was - his or hers - but it doesn’t really matter. Drama over, they are back to where they were.

Her daddy is rich, while mine is eccentric. That means that she owns a house in an expensive town and has done for as long as I’ve lived here in mouldy flats or grim shared houses. All my dad has been able to give me is a critical mind and a critical heart. His medical bills are mounting up and him being unemployed due to mysterious, crippling health problems for the last fifteen years means I’m unlikely to inherit anything other than guilt.

The rain beats a stuccato pattern as it leaks from the gutter at the back of the house onto the paving slabs below. Looking out, all I can see now is darkness. Somewhere, sixty miles away, she’s probably on her second or third glass of champagne and the networking is well underway. The day for her was spent in a blur, worrying about what to wear to look like someone they’d want to hire, to look like someone they’d want to give this science-writing prize to. I almost suggested, tongue in cheek, that she go in her lab coat. You know, the one she only wears for the promotional videos because, let’s face it, she dreams of labs like you see on CSI and could never be a pure scientist. Maybe I couldn’t either, but that’s not the point - I don’t venerate the image, wave the lab coat like a flag. I always knew I preferred people to petri dishes.

I could easily be accused of being jealous of her, and I’m acutely aware of that fact. In reality, though, it doesn’t feel like jealousy. It feels more like disdain mixed with a faint curiosity about what it would feel like to be that way. I almost wrote “lucky”, but changed my mind. She’s been fortunate, sure, but would I take a relatively shallow, relatively meaningless existence over the passion and vigour I aim to approach life with? Would I really want to wear designer clothes and go to shindigs? The way I network is to find the other awkward, lost soul, and proffer friendship in the guise of career building, so we both feel a little bit less useless and alone.

I’m going to spend the rest of my Friday practicing my cello to the accompaniment of rain, reconnecting with my sister, and dreaming of tomorrow. The image of her in her finest designer-wear with her Chanel perfume and perfect makeup won’t haunt me, and if she wins this prize and becomes a science writer, I think I’ll just forever be glad that I don’t feel the need to suck up and pursue - I’d rather live the slow life, show love, help others, and heaven help me, never refer to someone as a journo ever again.