Page 295 - A Little Life: A Novel

as another’s in public, to finally be a member of the tribe of sons and
daughters. Later, Harold had resumed his rant, and he had pretended to be
upset, but really, he had been happy the entire night, contentment saturating

his every cell, smiling so much that Harold had finally asked him if he was
drunk.
But now Harold too has started to ask him questions. “This is a terrific
place,” he said when he was in town the previous month for the birthday
dinner he’d commanded Willem not to throw for him and which Willem
had done anyway. Harold had stopped by the apartment the next day, and as
he always did, rambled about it admiringly, saying the same things he

always did: “This is a terrific place”; “It’s so clean in here”; “Malcolm did
such a good job”; and, lately, “It’s massive, though, Jude. Don’t you get
lonely in here by yourself?”
“No, Harold,” he said. “I like being alone.”
Harold had grunted. “Willem seems happy,” he said. “Robin seems like a
nice girl.”

“She is,” he said, making Harold a cup of tea. “And I think he is happy.”
“Jude, don’t you want that for yourself?” Harold asked.
He sighed. “No, Harold, I’m fine.”
“Well, what about me and Julia?” asked Harold. “We’d like to see you
with someone.”
“You know I want to make you and Julia happy,” he said, trying to keep
his voice level. “But I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to help you on this

front. Here.” He gave Harold his tea.
Sometimes he wonders whether this very idea of loneliness is something
he would feel at all had he not been awakened to the fact that he should be
feeling lonely, that there is something strange and unacceptable about the
life he has. Always, there are people asking him if he misses what it had
never occurred to him to want, never occurred to him he might have:

Harold and Malcolm, of course, but also Richard, whose girlfriend, a fellow
artist named India, has all but moved in with him, and people he sees less
frequently as well—Citizen and Elijah and Phaedra and even Kerrigan, his
old colleague from Judge Sullivan’s chambers, who had looked him up a
few months ago when he was in town with his husband. Some of them ask
him with pity, and some ask him with suspicion: the first group feels sorry
for him because they assume his singlehood is not his decision but a state

imposed upon him; and the second group feels a kind of hostility for him,