Confidence

by Rowland Manthorpe

  Click click. ‘Squ-ares.’

  Click click. ‘Chip sticks.’

  Click click. ‘Monster Munch.’

  Click click. ‘Twig-lets—’

  ‘Er,’ Bradder interjected. ‘Twiglets – a type of crisp? Please.’

  ‘Well, what else are they?’ asked Ben, on Big Derek’s behalf. Derek was horribly hungover and quietly bracing himself on the front seat – not that it made any difference to his conversational style. Sober, drunk or hungover, Derek never said anything. It was central to his charm. He kept his thoughts to himself (if indeed he had thoughts), emitting an air that he was simply pleased to be there.

  ‘Are they made of potatoes? That’s got to be the question.’

  ‘Nobody knows. They’re not even food.’

  ‘Vodka’s made of potatoes. Doesn’t make it crisps.’

  ‘Oooh, write that down. The Tao of Bradder.’

  From this position, they had a clear run to the puddle. It was a question of marrying the moments when P-Lo arrived and the traffic lights changed. Students ambled across the road as if they’d forgotten it was there. Miry and enormous, the puddle lapped invitingly at the kerb.

  ‘Poor old P-Lo,’ said Ben.

  ‘We are such cunts,’ cackled Bradder.

  ‘But ask yourself,’ said Charlie. ‘What would P-Lo do?’

  The traffic lights went green. ‘Fuck,’ muttered Lucas. The car behind them beeped repeatedly, and finally took over, the driver gesticulating as he passed.

  In the pause, Charlie noted and resisted the urge to bring up the break-up. He’d have loved to unburden himself to Ben, but around these guys it would be conversational suicide. Quite why sensitive, normal-sized, geographer Ben lived with this group of reprobates was something of a mystery. Ben had been in the year above Bradder at school, and for Bradder that seemed to translate to undying loyalty. Despite this connection, in almost three years of uni Charlie and Bradder had never got beyond ‘Hey, mate.’ In fact, Bradder was often quite aggressive towards Charlie, not in the ‘banterous’ way, but the way that stemmed from straightforward dislike. If Charlie ever tried to moan about this to Ben, Ben told him Bradder was like that with everyone. (Charlie often suspected that Bradder’s aggro attitude towards him was really his love for Ben finding expression.)

  Bradder played for the uni rugby second team. He was a real lad, measured in the only ways that counted: the ability to drink and (same thing, really) to take abuse. Bradder didn’t have relationships – ‘Girlfriend’s an oxymoron’ – but he didn’t seem to miss them. True laddishness was like becoming a monk or a marine; it took absolute commitment and a certain recklessness when it came to your own life. Whereas Charlie left his housemates to hang out with the ladz, Bradder left the ladz to hang out with real ladz, people with names like ‘Unit’, ‘Machine’ and ‘Ferret’.

  Charlie wasn’t even a level-one lad. He didn’t want to be. It was unpleasant, painful and degrading. That was why he didn’t live with these guys: then he’d be Ben, who last term was kidnapped by twenty masked men, tied up, thrown in a boot and driven to Durham to be ‘the gimp’ on rugby tour. The ladz were awful and stupid, yet despite that Charlie couldn’t help being drawn to them. There was something epic about them, something fearless and undeniable: they went beyond thinking, beyond dignity, beyond social convention, beyond the constraints of self. They weren’t like the cool kids Sara was friends with, always playing some ironic, self-conscious game. They were living for the moment, making the most of their time at uni. Yes, it might be horrendous, but you’d never forget the experiences. By the time you’d pissed yourselves in public and been sick on each other’s heads (it was disgusting, it really was), you were bound in an eternal knot of pride and shame.

  A bike caught the edge of the puddle, spinning up a wave of spray.

  ‘Oi!’ Lucas yelled. ‘That’s my puddle!’

  Lucas wasn’t like Bradder either, but in him it didn’t seem to be a failing. He had this trick of being inside and outside at the same time. Coming from London somehow meant he circumvented the whole posh thing and could treat laddishness as a three-year-long joke. He was laughing with them and at them, and they were all laughing too. Charlie envied Lucas that freedom.

  ‘There’s P-Lo!’

  Through the rain-flecked window, they scanned the edge of campus. In regulation hoodie and joggers, P-Lo was picking his way down the hill, a chubby chap sheltering under a ringbinder and fiddling with his phone.

  ‘To business.’ Lucas gripped the wheel. Ben sucked his breath through his teeth, as the light flicked from red to amber.

  ‘T minus three.’ Charlie had the puddle in his sights. ‘Three, two—’

  ‘Argh!’ growled Bradder.

  A girl had crossed the road and was now trying to leap over the puddle.

  ‘Give it a minute,’ said Ben. ‘She’ll move.’

  ‘I hate girls!’ shouted Bradder, letting out his inner seven-year-old.

  Once she scrabbled to the other side, for no apparent reason the girl stopped and stared into space, gazing at the ends of her hair.

  Lucas wiped at the condensation.

  ‘Oh, it’s Ellie Taber,’ said Charlie. ‘I saw her earlier.’

  ‘Who the fuck’s she?’ demanded Bradder.

  ‘Just one of the select five hundred.’ Ben was the group’s collective memory and record keeper, like the team scorer in cricket.

  ‘She’s only human,’ Lucas smouldered modestly. ‘She used to be fit. What’s happened to her?’

  ‘This may shock you, but she actually thinks we’re all pricks,’ commented Charlie.

  ‘Us?’ Lucas pressed a palm to his chest. ‘Pricks? Surely not.’

  ‘Fucking do it then!’ shouted Bradder, lifting out of his seat.

  ‘She specifically mentioned that you were a selfish lover,’ Charlie grinned. ‘I could barely stop her. She seemed pretty scarred by—’

  Ben’s phone began to ring the Nokia theme tune. ‘It’s P-Lo. Fuck!’

  ‘Now or never, gents,’ said Lucas.

  ‘I don’t know,’ mumbled Ben, holding his phone like a grenade about to go off.

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Bradder.

  ‘Derek?’ said Charlie. ‘Speak up for the silent majority.’

  ‘I’ve got to get out of this car,’ groaned Derek, head in his hands.

  ‘What was that?’ Charlie cupped his ear, full of delicious naughtiness. ‘We should . . . ?’

  Derek mumbled inaudibly.

  ‘Was that “choose life”?’

  ‘Choose life!’ Lucas shouted, putting his foot down. ‘This is too good to waste.’

  There was a moment’s humid hush. They drove past the row of parked cars, a four-wheel drive, a group of Chinese girls in a flash of green umbrella. As they approached, P-Lo lifted his hand, his wave turning into a cringe as he realised what was happening. Lucas slammed his foot down. For a second they flew forward, and then, with a great angry whirr, drilled into the puddle, bombing up a wall of spume that crashed into P-Lo and Ellie. The surf splashed down on the streaming windows, turning the inside of the car a soft, wavery grey. The car kneed the kerb, bounced up, and everything fell silent.

  ‘Derek, you lad,’ said Lucas. ‘Never knew you had it in you.’

  As the windscreen cleared, a gaping, sopping P-Lo sucked himself in, trying to hold himself away from his clothes. Lucas leaned over to take a picture with his phone. Charlie saw Ellie reel backwards and shared a guilty look with Ben.

  In the back, a door opened, letting in cold air and the sound of P-Lo’s whimpers. Derek leaned out and was quietly sick into the churning water.

  Ellie stretched out her arm and slowly, stupidly, studied her sodden sleeve. With a faltering step backward, she sat down abruptly on the wet pavement. Above her, someone was bent forward, wringing his hoodie out, and shouting something about ‘fucking hell’ and ‘mate’. As Ellie wiped the gritty water from her cheek, another guy rushed out of the
car – ‘So sorry, we’re such dicks’ – and extended his arm to her. ‘Lemme give you a hand.’

  Ignoring the hand, Ellie peered up from behind her hood.

  It was Charlie.

  ‘Oh God, you’re soaked,’ he said, rubbing his forehead. ‘I am really, really sorry. We planned it for P-Lo, and you were there and got caught in the crossfire. Seriously, I’m so sorry.’

  Ellie surveyed the damage to her bag. Every time she looked up, Charlie was beaming an apparently apologetic expression at her, all crinkly eyes and pained smile.

  If there was one thing Ellie couldn’t stand, it was being lied to. ‘I don’t think you’re sorry at all,’ she said.

  ‘I am! We are.’ Charlie nodded earnestly. ‘Aren’t we, Ben?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, we are,’ said Ben hurriedly. He’d been pulled from the car and was now scrambling around the puddle’s edge, fleeing P-Lo’s bear hug.

  ‘You’re full of bullshit!’ said Ellie. ‘When people are actually sorry, they feel terrible. You lot are having the time of your lives.’

  ‘Oi oi!’ Lucas piled out of the car, and was immediately dump-tackled by P-Lo.

  Oh God, Ellie thought, not him as well. Her playground instinct was kicking in, a steely inner voice that told her to get up, just get the fuck up and tend her scraped knees elsewhere. She clambered to her feet and swung her rucksack over her shoulder.

  Lucas dragged himself to standing. ‘Sorry, Ellie!’ he called, doing the bare minimum, before kicking the puddle at Charlie.

  Ellie shook her head and turned to leave. A group of Chinese students had come out of the copy shop with their fresh module packs. They parted to let her through, watching this strange English custom in mild bewilderment.

  ‘Wait!’ called Charlie.

  Ellie glanced back. P-Lo was holding on to Charlie’s leg, trying to trip him up. Charlie was crouched forward, laughing and clutching his stomach, all the while still trying to make apologetic eyes in her direction. Short of physical violence, there didn’t seem to be any way to make him drop this palliative nice-guy act. Ellie gave up and left them to it.

  The thought of going back to the flat crossed Ellie’s mind, but changing her plan now would feel like an unbearable defeat. It didn’t matter what had happened, she was going to get to the library if it killed her.

  Campus was hellish. Term had started with a vengeance: people were everywhere, swarming round the revolving doors screaming, ‘Haven’t seen you in ages!’ and clumping by the vending machines. The security guard at the entrance to the library frowned over his desk, taking in Ellie’s sopping clothes. ‘My card won’t let me in anywhere,’ a girl complained loudly. People queuing for the lift turned their heads, one by one, as Ellie trooped across the foyer, her left boot making a loud squeal as it met the vinyl floor.

  Ellie took the stairs. The library had been completely refurbished in her second year, turned from a shabby old sitting room full of comfortable nooks and crannies into a giant branch of Costa, all glass and hard surfaces and carpets the colour of static. As part of the renovation, the first and second floors were designated ‘Quiet Zones’, where talking and mobile use were permitted, which in practice meant that they went on all the time. As Ellie squelched past they squeaked and fuzzed with white noise, like a swimming pool. Only on the third floor, the ‘Silent Zone’, was there any semblance of genuine quiet. But when Ellie reached her desk she found it had been taken, staked out by some mystery bastard with a bumper packet of highlighters, two cans of Coke and a defensive line of Post-its. Aggressive notes and unfeasible piles of books had annexed all the desks on the floor. Her plan was descending into disaster.

  Conscious of people staring at her, Ellie turned and trudged down a random aisle. At the end, she crouched against the wall. Motion-sensor fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered above her head.

  She was soaking, she realised. There was no way she could sit down and work, even if she did find a seat. Her dissertation was a washout, and so was she. She couldn’t even get to the library, let alone think of something coherent to say about Nietzsche. And why had she let those idiots do that? Why hadn’t she told them how out of order they were?

  That group: what a bunch of dickheads. They really thought they owned uni, that they were above everyone else, and whoever got in the way of their pathetic ‘bants’ was expendable – ‘collateral damage’.

  She couldn’t believe she’d slept with Lucas. It was a horrible, confusing bind: on the one hand, she loathed the idea of them talking about her, of her being a tool in their moronic game; on the other, she defended her right to sleep with whomever she wanted. Regretting it went against her principles. So she didn’t regret it – she just wished it had never happened. This lot weren’t mature enough for principles. It didn’t matter what you did. You couldn’t win; you couldn’t trust any of them.

  Of course, Lucas was just an arsehole – he’d probably be like that in any context. The ones that really drove Ellie insane were the guys that, on an individual level, were all right. But you weren’t allowed to relate to them as individuals, because they were too busy with their weird little boys’ club and all its stupid rules. Take Charlie. He used to be a perfectly decent guy; someone who would talk to you like a human being. And now look at him. He was such a two-faced liar, doing stuff like that and then trying to make up for it with his let’s-keep-things-amicable, don’t-take-it-too-seriously bullshit. She knew, the minute she was gone, he’d be rolling his eyes and congratulating himself on smoothing things over. It was pathetic. It was really contemptible.

  Ellie clenched her teeth and pulled out her laptop. It wasn’t a good idea, but she couldn’t face seeing anyone else. Stretching out on the ground, she propped the computer on her stomach, laying her head on the dry side of her rucksack. Ellie opened a new document and, for the millionth time, stared at the screen. She felt she had something to say, but this blank page sucked all her thoughts into it like a black hole. Signing into the library wifi, she logged into Facebook.

  ‘Uni guys are a bunch of liars and fakers, who are under the impression they’re “good blokes”,’ she wrote. ‘Their only interest is homosocial status, and the only reason they want to have sex is so they can talk about it with their friends afterwards. They all think women want to be lied to and they truly believe that by lying, they’re doing the right thing. This essay asks: where do they get these strange ideas? Why are they such dicks?’

  Ellie wrote all evening, and not a word was about Nietzsche. About one, she fell asleep on the library floor.

  At half past two, Ellie was woken by somebody kissing her face.

  ‘Mwoah! Mwoah! Mwoah! Mwoah!’ said Justin. His pale eyes and black hair and irrepressible grin were all she could see. She smelt his crisp, earthy smell, like dried leaves.

  ‘Hello!’ Ellie sang. She was incredibly happy to see him.

  ‘Mwoah!’ Justin kissed her neck. ‘You smell terrible, Taber. Mwoah. You smell like a changing room.’ Ellie laughed. Her jogging bottoms had dried against her leg like a mudpack. ‘Mwoah. I love you. I missed you.’

  ‘Aaaaah!’ Ellie grabbed handfuls of his hair. ‘I love you! Where have you been?’

  5

  Say Yes to Life

  Nietzsche aimed at nothing less than a revolution in the way human beings behaved, thought and felt. Undaunted by the scale of his task, he compared himself to those other rebels, Socrates and Jesus. Both those figures succeeded in reversing what was commonly thought of as good. Seen from the perspective of today, it almost appears as if Nietzsche managed to do the same.

  Nietzsche called his endeavour ‘the revaluation of values’. Now that God was dead, Christian values weren’t strong enough to keep nihilism at bay. New, more vital values were needed – and he, Nietzsche, would provide them. The ideals he battled for were confidence, creativity and self-expression. If this sounds slightly less than radical, that’s because we are all Nietzscheans now.

  Nietzsche was born in 18
44 in Röcken, a small village in the Prussian province of Saxony. His upbringing was textbook nineteenth-century German conservatism: patriotic, Protestant and stiflingly conformist. The popular image of Nietzsche as a renegade mystic, cape whipping around him on a windswept mountain peak, is a dramatic exaggeration. This was a man who read the newspaper every day, a conscientious, straight-A student, who swore by moderate drinking and a good night’s sleep. Nevertheless, the basic insight is accurate: Nietzsche was an individual in a society in which individuality was less than welcome.

  For Nietzsche, confidence was both a means and an end. It was the way he would break free of his conformist background, and it was also the eventual goal, the foundation of the society he wished to bring about. His books were written as guides for fellow nonconformists, the ‘free spirits’ struggling to escape the dead weight of nineteenth-century orthodoxy.

  Nietzsche rarely used the word ‘confidence’ in the modern internal sense, preferring instead to describe this sensation through an array of slogans and metaphors. Sometimes he referred to it as a bearing, sometimes as a state of mind or an emotion, a flexible use which continues today. Nietzsche was not a precise or a systematic thinker, but in this case he was loose for a reason: because confidence for him was everything. It was a personal and psychological attribute, but it was also a worldview, a total philosophy of life, which, if understood correctly, would free us from despair and bring us into the bright world of un-self-consciousness.

  The key to this mindset was what Nietzsche called ‘world affirmation’. Broadly speaking, the idea was this: nihilism turns us against the world, so to escape it, we must embrace life in all its fullness. Yes, God was dead and, yes, suffering was meaningless – instead of despairing, we should celebrate our freedom. We should live: not because God tells us to, but because we want to, because we have things to do.

  Nietzsche urged his readers to say ‘Yes’ to life, a sentiment which could be loosely translated as ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ He celebrated ‘growth’ and ‘the power of positive thinking’. To the modern ear, this sounds like so many platitudes, but if today Nietzsche’s aphorisms have the air of self-help clichés, that only shows how successfully his thought has penetrated our collective consciousness. The reason it’s so popular? Because it’s so relevant. Whether he brought it about it or simply predicted it, Nietzsche defined a world in which confidence is the always-just-out-of-reach key to life itself.