Butt-Phillip Goes to University

1. Missives of Mass Destruction

Mama, Thank you for writing to me so swiftly, and with such obvious pains and effort but I do wish that you could master of the grey areas in your mind with regards technology; explicitly Mobile telephones and e-mail. Until that day becomes glorious reality I will tell you a little of my housemates. As you saw for yourself on Sunday, my room is one of two on the ground floor, furthest from the front door, yet ascribed “A”, you may also remember that some noises and an opened window announced my immediate neighbour: “B” to be in residence yet unwilling to present himself. I have just discovered why. A overtly slimy gargoyle he lounges for hours upon his bed in a manner which perhaps he believes seductive with the result that whenever I feel the need to answer one of natures frequent answer-phone messages I can feel his glare boring into my spine as I cross the hall to the toilet. He is, of course, made visible on the return visit, seemingly engrossed in his television. I believe he nurtures a sublime hatred for me, uniquely (perhaps in the history of the world) this seems to be centred around his door-stop. After your departure, I began the unloading of the various boxes which required much movement between room, kitchen and hallway, "Gorgoroth" (for such I call him) peered swamp-beast like from his door and offered me a door-stop which I accepted gratefully. My accent caused the first seeds to be sewn. I am rather afraid he will begin a class war with me, the truth being of course that, if anything, his family purse-strings could entwine my shrivelled bill-fold in the manner of a large Python or such devouring a recalcitrant guinea pig in the Amazon. All this is away from the point. As he passed me the damned articled his door seemed supported from closing by a door-stop of his own. This, along with admittedly rather muddled logic led me to assume him in control of house supplies. A sort of quartermaster dispensing the minutiae of daily life when the need arose. Thus, for the next two days I made good use of his kind gift, even through some madness that seems unfathomable now, making very obvious use of it in front of him to express naive and beaming thanks for his benevolence and general splendidness. Needless to say he but intended the door-stop as a temporary loan and he rather sternly knocked to "collect it" two hours ago. I now creep about the room, worrying about making noises: even such small murmurings as turning the light switch, for fear of awakening the mad-eyed murderer of children that so clearly lurks behind his superficially placid grey eyes.

I do not wish to suggest that my first few days severed from your apron strings have been misspent and that I haven't, as you constantly implored me: "made the most of it". There a large, jovial man (well, "boy" I suppose... hmmm, let us settle with "young man") whom I affectionately term "Darbishire", after the portly hanger-on of Jeremy Buckridges novels. The name was applied hastily and I am beginning to regret it, as the differences are slightly too pronounced for him to carry it well. No matter, he was, is and shall ever be Darbisher to me. He is a Conservative, a local youth counsellor, a know-all, a bore and a marvel. As such he is a rich source of entertainment. I delight in entwining him in conversation, often forgetting that I nominally detest him, losing myself in his elaborately crafted oratory. For instance, when passing him on the stairs, regardless of your urgency to be elsewhere he will ensnare you first with a mindless gabble about the house, a gripe such as a fag end left floating forlornly in his Starbucks coffee mug. Then when the silence descends, he will state a simple paradox, "you know" he may begin "whenever Sittingbourne looks like flooding in the winter, it is the local Canterbury council that begins to fret". He then leans towards, his gut straining against an ill-advisedly tight-fitting jeans and tucked in UKC t-shirt, and with a wag of a portly fore-digit and say "...reason why...". He resembles a magician from a cheap ITV light entertainment show in the 80's, supposedly keeping children enthralled and in suspense until the last moment, then gush forth the most pointless guff that you wonder if he suffers from some sort of Tourettes Syndrome wherein low-level government statistics substitute for swear-words. As I said that despite his tremendous flaws, he emerges as a likeable man, untouched it seems by puberty, adolescence, by sex and by life. He will drift through his existence cheerfully boring the hell out of any and everyone he meets. There is a grandeur to him, an English might that recalls a teenage Roy Hattersley; he is so far removed from sadness or madness that he makes a refreshing change whenever I escape the view of Gorgoroth.

I remember you frowning at me when declined to tick the "object to mixed housing" box of my housing application form and your worst fears for my safety were confirmed when, some 45 minutes into my tenure at 10 Sandersfield Court, a small blonde girl entered to introduce herself. She is attractive seemingly by default than any great gifts of nature or nurture, she is, in short, entirely the same person whom I have met or encountered for many years since Surbiton Park Primary. Lacking the confidence in naked wit or intelligence, she floundered about, feeling the need to fill any silence with small ejaculations such as "...So that was fun", "...And I was just like, like sooo" or slurring the ends of sentences hoping to bridge any gaps in our discourse, which was mercifully brief. For these purposes I shall style her after Tolstoy's "Kitty", a character for whom I hold much contempt. Furthermore, the house is often beset by young men with the same manner as her who call sometimes alone, but often in groups. If I had but a hand in the structure of this unfolding adventure, I would keep Levin hidden from view and pack her off with Vronsky and the life that she deserves. Goodness, I just re-read that sentence and it came out a little harsher than I intended. I leave it in however because there are some people who one simply does not gel with, and any comments cannot help but sound bitter and uncaring, so I may as well do the thing properly and consign to the cold rustic corridors of Vronsky's country house and deny her forever her loved-up quarrelling with Levin.

There are two other residents living in the house, one I shall call "Septimus", not this time for reasons of classical referencing but solely because the same fits his sharp, bony face like a plaster mould made while he slept. Its almost Gothic unpleasantness bespokes his under-nourished Dickensian countenance. He is a bland, bland fellow, a student of law, as are Gorgorath and Kitty (Darbishire naturally studies English politics). He and I take no more notice of each other than we would the sanitary waste-bin in both toilets: It is plainly there for a good reason, a reason that makes as much sense as 1+1=2 and yet, for all it's perfection in concept and execution, it remains worthless to us. It has no bearing on our lives either positive or negative. In short we both technically exist in the same rough area of space, but never met on common ground, after the parade of other housemates it is a relief to find someone whom I can simply ignore, and he likewise.

The last resident I first met when he and a number of friends rang the bell at 4 in the afternoon and staggered in to much laughter and the man in question took one look at me, heard me greet him and instantly began laughing, affecting my accent to his friends and saying things like "I do apologise for not making your acquaintance M'lud, but I was out getting sloshed". He ("Myshkin" hereafter) and I will, I fear not be able to ignore each other and I am thus beset by malice from beside and above.

Very little else has happened, I have only had one introductory lecture for my Early Drama course, it could yet yield interest but since the text is no inherently dry and dull it will depend entirely upon whomever tries to teach me it.

Much love, your affectionate son, Philip Butt-Philip

2. Late Arrival at the Hunt Ball

That letter is printed wholesale aside from the inclusion of my housemates pseudonyms which will be used from now on, I have no particularly damning or libellous accusations to sling at them, but it took some 4 months for me to actually learn all the names and apply them to the drear faces I encountered in the kitchen or hallways, and so in effect, those were their names. Naturally some details were unsuitable for mother's ears and so it seems fitting to fill in the blanks. My first day was immeasurably sad. I found myself friendless and without purpose, bouncing off the walls of my small room as one by one, any hope of becoming friends with my immediate neighbours was destroyed: Each in turn came to pay their respects (I was the last to arrive) and each in turn left with deflated visages convinced that I was someone "not prepared to make the effort".

People have been slinging that at me for years now but I refuse to ever let it stick, people may wax laddish about "getting out of life what you put in", but by this they simply mean that you if you act frivolously, flit about and converse shallowly, then what you get is shallow and frivolous friends to do shallow and frivolous things. There's nothing wrong with this of course, but it's not for me. This combined with my appearance, accent and general demeanour make me a snob and of course, there is something wrong with that. University life accentuates this, and, in all sincerity the number of notches on your bedpost are probably a more accurate measurement of success that grades in the first year. Anyway, I digress slightly, I left myself in my room and at a loose end.

Bored and claustrophobic I took a wander about the place, peeked into Woody's bar, which is apparently the centre of night-life for Park Wood, it had (and may still have) a large painted cartoon of a cowboy on it's roof which represents the first and last of it's merits. It was a ten minute walk to the main campus and I meandered about with my map and a twenty pack of Marlborough Reds affecting a louche, 'seen-it-all-before' weariness, dramatically arranging myself over the various wooden benches outside the colleges and it was here that I first met Theo Brooke, only fleetingly for this was solely to be a day of disappointment and futility and whilst Theo frequently offer both of these qualities in extremis, they were of a different kind altogether.

I was smoking by a small diamond of gravel beside Eliot college when it's side-door slammed alarmingly with a bang, a scrape and a rattle. I took in the figure that had exited, I took this welcome opportunity to examine him, having exhausted the delights of weighing up first the breasts and second the behind of any girl that had the misfortune to pass my gaze. A preposterously lanky and gangling disposition offset his traditional metal garb of Motorhead T-shirt, leather jacket and torn denim. He stumbled down the concrete steps into the diamond of gravel and, his attention absorbed in rolling a cigarette he tripped and with remarkable skill managed to throw his tobacco, his cigarette and his lighter into one of the sodden bushes that ran around the gravel. He managed to keep his balance though and, after cursing loudly became circumspect and made furtive glances about to see if anyone witnessed his clownery. He caught me looking at him and advanced. Fear rising inside me I made a faint wave and tried to affect an expression that combined all of the following sentiments: "could have happened to anyone" "bloody steps" "please don't do me a mischief" and "you are a wonderfully rounded person with great prospects whom I should never deign to insult for fear of being dwarfed by your clearly enormous intellectual prowess, furthermore you are the very picture of loveliness from your flaxen mane to your delightful toes... not in a gay way, I'm perfectly straight but should you ever take a fancy to any girlfriend I might obtain, I would gladly cede the bed to allow you to service her in a more efficient, pleasurable and cinematic way that I could ever hope to accomplish". His response to this was, if nothing else, economical: "Can I ponce a fag?".

With that gruesome incident behind me I returned home and paid a visit to "Park Life", a small-goods shop adjacent to the aforementioned Woody's. Unfamiliar with the etiquette of the place I entered via a door, through which I saw rows of shelves. Upon entry I found myself actually in a long, narrow store-room that ran alongside the front of the shop. A woman was sat there on a plastic stool pricing toilet duck, arranging tins of gumbo or whatever else she found to occupy herself during her break. Upon my entrance she fixed with the most malevolent stare I have ever encountered. "You're not allowed through here" she spluttered through her clenched teeth. She did all but growl, her features contorted into a most cosmically unpropitious arraignment and I did my usual collapsed-spine apology and backed through into the shop on bended knee beating myself with a handy banana as a penance. The shop was under stocked, overstaffed, overpriced and unhelpful. To their credit, they had made use of the space available, but I could never help but feel that having tampons and toilet duck next to the soups was an unwise and potentially dangerous serving suggestion.

Resolved to end the day with a bout of nihilism I bought more cigarettes and retreated home, quivering with rage and indignation. Ensconced, I smoked myself some two weeks closer to the grave and, in that state, even the stares of Gorgoroth which were perceptible through the wall (The paintwork seemed to warp itself into an even more demonic mimic of his gross features) couldn't ruin the perfect hours of desolation and settled, somnolent night.

3. The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores

My only task over the next three days was the attendance of an introductory English lecture. The man talking had the disquieting look of one who, battered by decades of flinging poetry at uninterested walls of students like so many coconuts at a fairground had caught too much emotion on the rebound. He resembled nothing so much as a twig in sweater-vest. Balding and in his fifties he stumbled, stuttered and generally earned the contempt of every person in the room.

"English" he said "Is the exploration of identity, in Early Drama we will look at the fear, hopes and..." here he paused, sucked in a huge breath of (by now fetid) air, savoured it like the dying kiss of Christ then exhaled with the expression of a man achieving the simultaneous experience of death and tantric climax at once "...desire". The last word was breathy, an uncontrolled glimpse into the wasted soul that stood before us. He dropped backwards but seemed to have wandered free from his chair and was forced back into consciousness and snap his legs back upright to prevent a fall. He sat at last, there was silence. He rose slightly, there was silence. He looked imploringly at the other lecturers in the front row, there was silence. Dead time elapsed. Second after painful second where not one person felt compelled to throw this drowning man a life-preserver. Eventually he muttered something, rose and exited, I could swear I saw tears in his wrinkled, emaciated face. The mans name I discovered Dr. Harry Shale, a man whose novels were published to great acclaim in the 1950's and 60's. Novels with titles like "Autumnal Flower", "The Chorus Sings For Thee", I read one of them once out of sheer curiosity once found it dense, pointless and very, very drear. Like many literary types of this era: Richard Yates, Auberon Waugh, his success proved temporal, Shale's career, bereft of family name and scabrous humour followed the former's more closely. He taught me Emily Dickinson in my second year and the sight of this broken man standing erect but quivering before a semi-full lecture hall invoking the spirit of "It might be Lonelier without the loneliness" was nothing short of alarming.

Literature, or more correctly academia can do this to people, can puff them up with ideas, can convince them that time spent writing and reading is important, but of course it is not. A man can study literature from the age of 5 until he gains a phd at the age of 27, he can expertly delineate the birth of 'the modern novel', can weave, spin and wind the national threads of French, Russian and English novels into the complex tapestry of 'European literature' but it is still essentially evanescent. Arthur Waugh is a case in point of this, he made the bold move of breaking away from his overbearing father to pursue a literary career (if emptying owns sentimental bowels over paper and signing it with nancy tears can be called literature) because he believed that it was the duty of the artist to help bring ideas to the public. Aside from the rather obtrusive condescension in this ethos it didn't stop him from pointing everyone he knew towards his son Alec, who spent more time fornicating Socratically and avoiding his wife that he did writing anything of worth whilst ignoring his son Evelyn, about whom too much has been said already.

It was a strange path that I followed through that first year, and indeed it is one that is not disposed towards a straightforward narrative. I shall leave this first introductory passage then with me poised to attend my first Early Drama seminar, wherein I was to acquire both a friend and a mortal enemy.

end of part 1

by J.L. Cranfield

Copyright October 2005