Too much to ask

It still feels unreal to be back, almost as if I’m playing out a role, going through the motions and emotions expected of me now I’m at home. I don’t have that much to say to Mum or Dad, because I must keep quiet about most of the things I remember from last term: the robberies and breaking open of crypts etc.

They wouldn’t be interested in the other events, such as my visit to Manchester to see Psychic TV and Gloucester to see Grant and the Fall . . .

I sense that a gulf between Mum and Dad and I is making its obtrusive appearance. Today Mum asked me if I had any idea about what I intend doing after I leave University and I haven’t. Mum said it was “only fair” that I give them some idea of my direction, as Andrew and Robert have done before me, because they’ll “feel happier both for me and for ourselves if we know you know where you’re going.”

I can’t lie – I want my freedom when I leave University. I voiced my naive desire to live life and sample experience – “for which you need a job,” added Mum. It’s hopeless expecting our minds to meet. We drift apart slowly but surely.

Mum voiced her objections to me about my supposedly “weird” appearance (the army fatigues). As she went on I sat in silence, trying occasionally to voice my thoughts but for the most part not being able to. I can’t talk to them and tell them all this: it would lead to rancour, despairing sighs and fall-outs. It seems it must be an unspoken slide into misunderstanding and bewildered argument.

Later I overheard their conversation about me: Dad fears a “confrontation” over my appearance—“It’s a shame he goes round looking ridiculous and dressing in such childish fashion . . . Three weeks with him looking like that is too much to ask.” Last night, come to think of it, I did detect an air of gloom and things left unsaid before I went to Lee’s. It was Mum who wore the longest face, and it transpires that it’s because of my “outlandish” appearance. Anyone would think I’d dyed my hair green or something. All over a pair of trousers!

Evidently the misunderstanding reaches down farther than I think.