Exciting Times

by Naoise Dolan

We agreed it was an exciting time to be alive.

the college brain came with a dial. I turned it up for people I hated, and down for people I liked.

British men were resourceful, and found school not only interesting, but the most interesting thing they’d ever done.

wondered if he was being nice because (usual reason) his friends wanted to fuck me, (holiday special) I was lonely enough to not only spend Christmas with terrible people but be glad they’d tolerated me, or (clever girl) I’d come faster than usual and he believed in positive reinforcement.

Julian often reminded me to eat. It made him feel better about liking that I was thin.

‘I remember the first time I saw you. You were walking so carefully in your heels. I was wondering what this shy person was doing having so much hair.’ ‘That’s a good line. Did you prepare it in advance?’

In Topshop I tried on sickly synthetics and thought: these clothes are both hideous and necessary.

‘You’re so pale,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’ ‘It’s a compliment.’ ‘Sorry.’

you were really sick you couldn’t just harness your self-loathing like that, so I knew I was fine.

You deployed the subjunctive for the less-than-factual. If I avoided it, did that mean I only said true things?

never admitted to remembering things people had told me in passing. But I knew that this trait, which made Edith look frank and organised, would only make me seem like I didn’t get out enough.

tried to imagine Julian admitting he enjoyed something frivolous, and couldn’t.

gave her the remote and she chose a channel showing Inglourious Basterds. She said the title was spelled that way because Tarantino had misspelled it in a leaked screenplay and then insisted he’d done it on purpose. We agreed this was extremely male.

I’d given her what I thought of as the spare key, though it was really Julian’s.

That evening I had pot noodles and wine for dinner.