Look homeward, angel

Rob, Carol, Lynne and Paul (ex-teacher friend from London) came back from their revelries at two thirty or so. I’d waited up for ‘em and what with talking and drinking tea it was hardly worth going to bed, so while Paul kipped down in the dining room and Rob, Carol and Lynne retired upstairs, I laid down on settee cushions in the front room and idly read Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel until it began to get light out and the birds started singing. I slept until Dad woke me at eight. Rob & co. went soon after.

I’m having difficulty maintaining interest in Wolfe's novel sufficiently long to finish it and he’s not my favourite author by any means. It’s rare I avidly read a book through in one sitting: usually it’s a several-weeks affair, and I drift sporadically from one to another and then back again. I should be reading all the time. Wolfe's OK in parts though, and what strikes me is a sort of naïve innocence he shares with Kerouac.

Claire rang at teatime and asked if she could come over again which she did, staying an hour and a half; we sat up in my room and I drank green ginger wine and we talked. At least she keeps asking to come and see me, so I can’t be that bad, can I? This will probably be the last time I’ll see her for a long while, maybe even until next year, and I thought of this as I bade her goodbye in the warm blowy evening. I wonder how we’ll both change? How remote she seems, how far apart now from me and my world to be. Soon we'll be in different places completely.