Why people act the way they do (what I've figured out so far)

I’ve realised that my writing all centres around one core obsession: why people act the way they do.

I was quite aware of it before, but this week I’ve been interviewed (lah-di-da!) at length about my novel, Strange Nervous Laughter, and the one topic that kept resurfacing is this fascination with why people act the way they do.

You know what, it’s a detective game for me. I’ll hear a story about someone and it sounds as if they must be the lowest form of human filth. They’re clearly 100% bastard, a fully fledged bitch.
But then, almost imperceptibly, a small detail will creep through about them … some past relationship, perhaps, or something about their childhood or their parents or their job situation or the fact that they have false teeth. And it cracks the veneer, allows me to see inside just a little.

Once that veneer is cracked, it’s a simple matter of asking a few probing questions and all of a sudden they open up like one of those rare cacti that flower once every hundred years. And suddenly, slotting them into the nice little cardboard box of “unnecessary human” is more tricky. The lid just won’t close.

One of my characters (Meryl) is wrapped in a corset of cynicism. She’s taken every moment of hurt and disappointment and unhappiness and spite that she’s ever experienced and knotted it around herself into this kind of body armour, which she hopes (and fears) will never come undone. But, inevitably, it does.

I think part of being human is having those painful, tender (pink and swollen) bits exposed to someone. And we just have to hope that that someone will be kind with us when we do.

I saw a man begging from a lamppost yesterday. He was standing in the gutter, both palms outstretched, head bowed. Every now and then he would look at it beseechingly, wondering how it could ignore his pleas. But he didn’t look desperate. It was just part of his day.

Five minutes later, I overheard a couple saying their goodbyes outside my kitchen window. I’m all about kissing at the moment (because of the Strange Nervous Laughter kissing competition — more at www.bridgetmcnulty.com), so as soon as I heard the word “kiss”, my ears pricked up.

It was around dusk, and the air was soft and full of promise.

“I want a kiss,” she said. “That’s what I came here for. Did you think I came here for a book?”

“Well, ja, that’s what you said,” he replied.

“No, I came here for a kiss,” she said.

There was one of those pauses that make your skin prickle.

“Maybe you should take one,” he said at last.

“What, a book or a kiss?” she asked, her confidence faltering a little.

“A kiss,” he said softly.

The air sang with relief.

“I can’t kiss you here, in front of the whole Muslim community!” she answered, clearly hoping for an invitation in.

They moved back into the hallway and emerged a few moments later.

It wasn’t as she had hoped, I could tell.

“I’ll let you out,” he said. She mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“Just get your priorities straight, man!” he retorted.

Just. Get. Your. Priorities. Straight. Man.

Six words no girl wants to hear after a kiss in the balmy dusk air.

The “man” hurts the most of all.

But that’s what I’m trying to get at, here. Perhaps we are nothing more than strange, confused souls trying to muddle our way through this thing (called life) and all we want is someone to look at us, take away the brown paper and knotted string and concrete we’ve erected around our hearts, and sit with us, quietly, as the sun sets over the city.

And then maybe, a little later, lean over and give us a kiss.

Without us having to ask for it.