A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy

by Charlotte Greig

  “I'm fine. I just haven't slept much, that's all.”

  I told her about my evening out with Jason, and how he'd stayed up all night with Bear and hadn't come to bed and how I'd lain awake by myself until morning and then tiptoed past the pair of them crashed out in the sitting room, surrounded by bottles and glasses and ashtrays. Cassie listened politely, nodding now and then, but I knew she wasn't all that sympathetic to my problems with Jason. She didn't understand why I was so obsessed with him. Her own approach had always been to keep her options open. Her parents thought she was living on campus, but she spent most of her time at her boyfriend's flat in Brighton. She was also having an on–off affair with one of her tutors. Now and again there'd be someone else as well. She kept them all at arm's length and she didn't seem to suffer any pangs of conscience, which, given the fire and brimstone warnings, was pretty impressive.

  Before we could discuss the matter any further, Fiona arrived.

  “Come on you two, get a move on,” she said as she approached. “We'll be late.”

  Fiona didn't stand on ceremony. She was bossy—phenomenally bossy. But she did all the things Cass and I couldn't be bothered to do, such as find out which lecture theater we were due to be in that morning, so we let her order us around. Occasionally she irritated me. Once I'd tried to discuss Jason with her, and all she'd said was, Get rid of him. End of conversation. So now I shut up about him and changed the subject.

  We did as Fiona told us, finished our coffees and got going. When we got to the lecture theater, it was already full but we managed to squeeze in at the back, the three of us jammed up against the wall. Down at the front you could see the scientists. They were all dressed the same, in shapeless tweed jackets, with long hair and beards and glasses. In the middle and further back were the arts students, wearing tight-fitting velvet jackets and long scarves. I spotted Rob among them, sitting next to the dark-haired girl, and once more, ridiculously, I felt a pang of jealousy.

  Then Feyerabend burst through the door at the front of the packed hall, accompanied by a pretty girl of about my age with red plaits, who appeared to be his girlfriend. He was a tall man of fifty, sixty, or so, wearing a black beret, a red scarf, and a long, dark blue overcoat. He looked pale and was supporting himself on a metal crutch, limping over to the blackboard slowly as if in pain. When he got there, he picked up a piece of chalk and wrote on the board, painstakingly, in enormous letters: ARISTOTLE. Then, below it, in tiny, almost illegible letters, he scribbled: “Popper.”

  A roar went up.

  “For heaven's sake!” said Fiona in my ear.

  Karl Popper was the scientists' last hope. His argument was that a theory could only possibly be true if there was some way of showing it to be false. Ideas like God, according to Popper, were meaningless. You couldn't prove them either way. Whereas ideas in science were falsifiable: you could test them. Popper wasn't claiming much for science, but even so, Feyerabend wasn't having any of it. As far as he was concerned, ideas in science weren't verifiable, and they weren't falsifiable either.

  Feyerabend started talking in a strong German accent about witchcraft and science, and the shouting died down. But as he went on, some of the scientists at the front started getting restless and then two of them jumped up from their seats and marched up the aisle, looking furious. The door at the back of the hall was open, but when they got there, some of the arts students blocked their way. A scuffle broke out and the students started pushing each other and shouting. Everyone in the lecture hall was turning round, craning their necks to see what was going on, until at last Fiona strode over to them, pushed them all out of the door, and slammed it shut.

  We turned back round to Feyerabend, who was standing at the board grinning at Fiona.

  “Thank you,” he said. There was an unmistakably flirtatious tone to his voice. All the students turned round, including the girl with the red pigtails, as Fiona blushed and looked down at the floor. Then they turned back and Feyerabend went on talking.

  After the lecture, I spent the rest of the day socializing on campus with Cassie and Fiona, going from the European Common Room to the Falmer Bar to the Gardner Arts Center, taking in the library basement and the crypt on the way. In the early evening, they went off together, so I decided to go home. I wasn't looking forward to spending another evening by myself in the flat, but I needed a bath and a meal and a good night's sleep. So I walked out of the university towards the station, feeling sorry for myself and noticing all the couples linking arms and kissing, until I came to the Meeting House just to the side of the main route out. It was lit up from inside and the stained glass windows glowed in the dark. For some reason, I turned off the path and went inside.

  I'd never been in there before. I didn't know why I had come in now, except that my legs were aching and I felt like sitting down. There was nobody there but some candles were burning, casting a soft light over the brick walls and the wooden chairs. The stained-glass windows were modern ones, just rectangles of red, blue, yellow, and green arranged in random blocks of color here and there, but the patterns they made were oddly soothing.

  I sat down on one of the chairs and stared at the colors of the stained glass through the flickering candles, listening to the silence of the place. It seemed safe in there, and I felt as though I never wanted to move again. And after a while I began to feel a huge sense of relief, just as I had done that night at the gig listening to John Martyn sing, with my head resting on Rob's shoulder.

  “Susannah?”

  I jumped. Someone had come in behind me and was standing silhouetted in the doorway. For a few seconds, I couldn't make out who it was. Then I recognized him.

  “Rob! What are you doing here?”

  He came towards me, hesitant. “I … well, I followed you down here, actually. I saw you walking through campus and I thought I'd catch you up before you got to the station and talk to you, and then I saw you come in here and …”

  He was nervous and his words tumbled out. But when he got near enough to see the smile on my face, he relaxed.

  “Come and sit down a minute,” I said.

  He sat down on the chair next to mine and we both gazed at the stained-glass windows, not knowing what to say to each other. I was acutely conscious of his body next to mine, and I could smell the fresh, cold air from outside lingering on his hair and his jacket.

  After what seemed like a long time, I finally broke the silence.

  “Man, the colors,” I said.

  He laughed. It was the sort of banal remark people made after staring into space for hours when they were stoned out of their minds. Among the students, it had become a shorthand way of describing someone who was always out of their tree.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Red is really far out, isn't it.”

  We both laughed this time, and then silence fell between us again. I went on looking straight ahead, but I took his hand in mine and held it.

  “Susannah …” His voice trailed off. “I …” His voice trailed off again.

  I turned to look at him. His head was framed by the lights in the windows, which formed a circle all the way around the building. With his long dark hair against the candlelight he looked like Jesus Christ, or the Angel Gabriel.

  Then he bent his head slowly towards me and kissed me on the mouth. My heart started thumping. As his tongue slid into my mouth my stomach seemed to turn over and I felt my hands trembling. His hands were in my hair, and they were trembling too.

  As we kissed, we could both feel ourselves beginning to want each other in that way you do when you've only slept with someone once and know that you are going to again, very soon.

  “God, Susannah, I've missed you,” he said as we broke apart.

  I wanted to ask about the dark-haired girl, but it didn't seem the time or the place. It would have spoiled the atmosphere.

  He put his arms around me and kissed me again, pushing his hands under my jacket, burrowing under the layers of clothing until he came to
my skin. Then he began to feel his way up my body until he reached my breasts.

  I took his wrists and pushed him away. “For God's sake,” I said. “Not in here. Anyone could walk in at any moment.”

  We both started giggling like little kids, and he began poking his fingers into my clothing as I was wriggling about. Then I kicked one of the empty chairs by mistake and it skidded across the floor, making a noise, and we both stopped, slightly ashamed of the way that we'd been behaving in this holy place.

  We looked up at the windows again and he began to stroke my hair as he had done the morning we were in bed together. This time, I didn't pull away from him. He looked into my eyes and spoke softly to me.

  “I'm really into you, Susannah,” he said.

  Once again, I felt like asking him about the dark-haired girl, but it seemed wrong to bring the subject up now. I didn't want him to think I was uptight and possessive. And anyway, I wasn't sure what I felt about him, beyond the fact that right now I wanted to be back in his bed again. So I said nothing.

  “Susannah?”

  He needed a response. I didn't know what to say.

  “I need time to think, Rob,” I replied at last. “It's a bit of a complicated situation.”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I mean, I don't know.”

  He heaved a sigh.

  Then I said, “And you?”

  “What do you mean, me?”

  “Well, I mean, you know … is there …” I paused. For some reason, I found it hard to say, even though he'd just said it. “Someone else?”

  “Umm, no,” he said. “I mean, maybe. Sort of. But not if you … you know.”

  “Right,” I said. I got the general idea. “Well, that's … you know, how it is with me. Kind of.”

  He sighed again. We didn't seem to be getting very far.

  I got up and straightened my clothes, buttoning up my jacket.

  “I've got to get home now, Rob. Shall we meet up tomorrow?”

  He stood up too. “Yeah, of course. Where?”

  “Falmer Bar? About one?”

  “Fine. Will you … you know?”

  “What?”

  “Well, will you … know by then?”

  “I'm not sure,” I said. “I really don't know if … if I'll know. But I'll think about it.”

  He heaved another sigh. We walked over and stood in the doorway of the Meeting House. Neither of us wanted to leave. He kissed me again as we stood there, hard this time, biting into my lip with his teeth, as though he wanted to make a lasting impression on me before I went. Then, without saying good-bye, he walked off back into campus.

  I thought about Rob all the way home. I looked out of the window on the train and ran my tongue over the bruise on my lip where he had bitten into the skin. On the bus, I put my fingers under my T-shirt and felt my stomach where his hands had touched it. As I turned the corner of Brunswick Square, the wind from the sea hit me hard, blowing my hair in front of my face, and I pushed it back, thinking of his fingers in it. My mind went back to the night we'd spent together, the night before last, and I replayed every moment of it, from when he had stood hovering over me, to when we had woken up in the night and made love, to when we had lain on the bed kissing fully dressed before I left next morning. Then I thought about what had happened last night in London, lying there on my own in bed for hours listening to the taxis braking and finding Jason asleep on the floor in the sitting room this morning. By the time I got to the street door of the flat, I'd made up my mind.

  I let myself in. As I climbed the staircase, I was making plans. I'd make a cup of tea, have a bath, eat whatever I could find in the flat, and go to bed. I'd get a good night's sleep, get up early, pack my things, and leave a note for Jason. I'd explain that I was moving out for a while, that I needed some space, and suggest that we could meet some time if he wanted to talk. Then I'd ring Cassie and head over to her room on campus. She'd given me a key to the room and said I could use it any time as long as I let her know first—she didn't want me barging in on her and the tutor. I could dump my stuff and meet Rob for lunch and then stay in Cassie's room for a few days while I looked for somewhere more permanent.

  As I came up to the landing, I noticed the light was on in the flat, shining through the glass in the front door. I took my key out and put it in the lock, but before I could turn it, the door opened, and Jason stood there, wearing a blue and white striped apron and holding a wooden spoon in his hand.

  “Susie.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. The wooden spoon got caught in my hair. “I'm making boeuf bourguignon.”

  A delicious smell of rich stew wafted out into the corridor. I was tired and hungry, and it comforted me, as did Jason's big shoulders and chest under the apron pressing against my face. I breathed in the reassuring, warm smell of Jason and the onions and decided not to say anything for the moment. I could talk to him about our relationship over supper. I wanted to end it in a civilized way without hurting him. And I wanted to eat the boeuf bourguignon. After all, I'd had nothing but cups of coffee all day.

  Inside the flat, I took off my jacket, hung it in the hall, and followed Jason into the kitchen. The stew was bubbling away on the stove, and on the table was an open bottle of red wine. Jason poured me a glass and started chopping some vegetables. I took a big gulp of the wine. It was smooth and warming, not like the rotgut stuff called “Toujours” that the students always bought from the pub at closing time. Wine from the Toujours region, Jason called it.

  I watched Jason cooking. His face was flushed from the heat of the stove.

  “I'm really sorry about last night, Susie,” he said. “Why didn't you wake me up when you left?”

  “There didn't seem any point,” I said. “We'd have been late if you'd driven me down.”

  “I would have come to bed, but Bear was in a pretty bad way all night, so I had to stay and look after him. He's a bit down at the moment. He hasn't been going into work and his father's threatening to sack him and make him join the army. Teach him a lesson, and all that.”

  I felt sorry for Bear. The thought of him joining the army was horrifying. But I felt a lot sorrier for myself.

  “Well, I don't call getting pissed and staying up all night drinking with him looking after him, exactly,” I said.

  Jason looked up, surprised. There was a bitter edge to my voice.

  “I came all the way up to London to see you,” I continued, “and you just bloody ignored me all evening.”

  I hesitated. I could have added, at that point, “I'm fed up with the way you treat me and I'm moving out,” but I didn't. Instead, I started crying.

  Jason stopped chopping, put down his knife, and came round to my side of the table. In one movement, he picked me up in his arms, sat down on the chair, and put me on his knee. He murmured silly things in my ear, the way you do with a child, and held me close until I calmed down.

  Then it came out, just like that.

  “Jason, I want to leave you,” I said.

  He didn't respond at first. There was a long silence.

  Then he replied, “No, you don't.”

  He said it in a slow, firm, thoughtful way, as though he was absolutely sure he was right. It infuriated me, but at the same time I felt a kind of relief.

  “What do you mean, I don't? I know my own mind, for God's sake, I'm not a child. I've had enough of the way you take me for granted. I'm going to pack my things tonight and leave in the morning.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “Don't be silly, of course you're not. Susie, I'm sorry, I really am. I promise it won't happen again. I know I get carried away. I know I don't pay you enough attention sometimes. But I love you, you know that.”

  I didn't know it. He hardly ever said it. The funny thing was, when I'd first met him, I hadn't really wanted him to. That day he'd walked into the office, I'd been reading a passage about Dionysus in The Birth of Tragedy. I'd looked up, and Jason had been
standing there, grinning at me. I'd looked down and continued reading, then raised my eyes to his again, and smiled back. He'd asked me out, and then for the rest of that summer we'd gone out together, drinking in wine bars, eating in restaurants, and having sex in Bear's flat when he was out. During that time he'd never once asked me anything: about my father, my family, or my job, about Sussex, about how I was feeling, about whether I was happy. We'd never discussed any of it. He'd taken complete control of the situation from the outset, deciding every detail of what we did—from what dish he should order for me in a restaurant to what position he screwed me in when we were in bed. At the time, it had been a relief, and I'd been grateful to him for not prying into my life, but now I was beginning to want more: I wanted him to ask me what I liked, how I felt, to tell me that he loved me, to let me tell him that I loved him. But we never had that kind of conversation, and I was starting to think we never would.

  But now that he'd said the words this time, I felt better, and I began to realize how difficult it was going to be for me to leave him. Jason was a good-looking, mature man of nearly thirty, who made boeuf bourguignon for supper, and knew how to choose wine, and how to make money, and how the straight world worked. I was only just twenty, and I didn't know any of these things. Neither did Rob. All we knew about was philosophy, and that wasn't going to get us very far, unless we wanted to live in a world of blankets in the windows, bare light bulbs and endless cups of tea for the rest of our lives. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Jason was right. I didn't really want to leave him, not just at the moment, anyway. Maybe I wouldn't go tomorrow, after all. It might be better to leave it for a few days.

  Jason looked at me quizzically. As though he could read my thoughts, he said, “What have you been up to, Susie? You haven't met some hippie boy on your course, have you?”

  My tongue slid over the bruise on my lip.

  “Don't be ridiculous.” It wasn't difficult to lie. It was quite enjoyable, actually. “Of course I haven't.”

  Jason got up and carried on with the cooking. By the time we sat down to eat, he seemed to have forgotten our conversation. The meal was delicious, and he fussed around me, pouring wine for me and loading food onto my plate. Afterwards, we moved from the kitchen to the sitting room and sat among the nymphs and the plaster faces, listening to records. I wanted to hear John Martyn but I didn't ask him to put it on in case he got suspicious. Instead, we listened to Robert Palmer and J. J. Cale and Eric Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard, which I'd heard about a million times before.