Bullingdon Club Night

A high-functioning and wealthy Oxford undergraduate struggles with his murderous tendencies as he is gripped with boredom and insecurity.

The Bullingdon Club is supposed to be an elite institution. You've got to be rich, sophisticated, and well-dressed. So what the f**k is Bruno Hardy doing here?

We are lolling on the sofas in a hired room at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, surrounded by the debris of the preceding meal. Chardonnay and St. Pierre bottles lie despondently on the floor where they were dropped and drip slowly onto the shag-pile carpets. The food situation is surprisingly good. Mostly on the table, some dishes intact, with only a little crème brûlée adorning the windows. That is a shame because it blocks out a glorious view of Christ Church over the cricket field and moonlit river. A pink salmon is nailed to the wall with a carving knife and its lifeless eyes stare balefully at the painting of the College Principal hung next to it. Darts got out of hand. So did the wrestling: there is a pile of crushed caviare laced over an empty section of the room where Bruno and Alexander wrestled earlier this evening.

This is St. Hilda's best room and I was hoping to use it again. I know it's a Bullers tradition to get messy but its a stupid tradition. We have to hire cleaners and that means interacting with a subset of people I'd rather didn't exist. I mean, to land up being a cleaner says a lot about your unimpressive gene pool and life choices doesn't it? And one is who one interacts with. I am glad there will be no cleaners tonight. The college will fine us for the carpets and we will foot the bill. They will then interact with the carpet people, not us.

“Did you see the Varsity Twenty20 match last year? Fifteen sixes. Can you believe that? Fifteen. That's more sixes than Hugo's hit his entire career,” says Bruno, the curly-haired chimpanzee who does not belong here.

I smile tersely but seethe inside. I cannot muster the energy to respond. Bruno continues pacing up and down the room while the rest of us lie prone wherever we fell, recovering from the drugs. Our bow ties are undone and hang loose, and our tailcoats have lost their sheen in the tumult of a typical Buller evening.

“It's a desecration of the game. That's what it is. A six is like an adrenalin rush �" and yeah adrenalin is great, but you don't keep f*****g injecting it all the time otherwise you become a wreck. No, you slow down and try some weed, some painkillers. Then the adrenalin gives you the buzz. But these guys were just banging the ball �" the white ball instead of the red one mind �" into the river ever few deliveries. I mean, you tell me Alexander, you were playing in that game, what kind of rape of cricket is this?”

Alexander Trust has a mediocre intelligence but is an excellent sportsman. A cricket and rugger blue already, and probably a rowing blue soon too. He's a Repton boy with a good old-money pedigree. He deserves to be here unlike Bruno. Bruno is sickeningly nouveau riche. His morning suit is so new its obscene. I don't know which of the previous year let him in, but it was a mistake. His school should have warned them off from the start. I have never met a City of London boy who wasn't either a complete fuckwit, nouveau riche, or a batty boy.

Alexander predictably returns a nice volley for Bruno to continue to run with: “I dunno about rape mate, but I'd rather be playing the longer formats personally.”

Bruno nods knowledgeably like he knows s**t about cricket. “Exactly. We need to return back to the traditions of cricket. Two-day or four-day games at amateur level, and five-day games at professional level.”

Alexander nods. “I know man. What's with all this video review s**t? Let the umpires decide I say.”

“The International Cricket Council are destroying the spirit of the game with all this new crap,” says Bruno. “I mean who needs a video review? They still manage to f**k it up with it anyway. Besides, it encourages a disrespect of the umpire which will seep into our game and destroy its spirit.”

“Bruno mate,” slurs Geoffrey our resident Ketamine connoisseur, “whaddya take? You got too much energy.”

Bruno waves Geoffrey away dismissively. “Look what they've done to the f*****g cricket jumpers. Where the f**k have all the proper wool jumpers gone and why is everyone wearing those white bin liners instead?” He gestures his frustration with a vague faggoty wave to the ceiling �" which I notice is peppered with condiments �" and returns to his sofa to flop down next to Hema and puts his arm around her.

Hema looks bored. As well she should be, having to put up with Bruno as a boyfriend. I appreciatively note Hema's sheer dress made out of a sparkly material and decide she looks very bang-able tonight. Hema is the third fittest girl in the room on common consensus although I would put her second due to her uniquely dusky skin and full figure. I have my arms around my girlfriend Jocelyn Windermere who always looks bang-able as long as she keeps her mouth shut. JW's a moaner both in sex and in life. She's the fittest girl in the room on common consensus, and, upon deep reflection, and casting aside with difficulty my prejudice against her moaning, I would have to agree. She has delicate features with dancing eyes and a gymnast's body and I suppose I should be grateful.

“All that is well and good Bruno, but what about the tremendous amount of money brought into the game by twenty20?” Theo Von Greitling joins the conversation, taking advantage of one of the characteristic moments of lucidity that the Ketamine experience comes with. He as a deep and authoritative voice which I am immensely jealous of. People listen to Theo when he speaks, even if he is talking rubbish. To be fair to him though, he doesn't usually talk rubbish. I am also jealous of that.

Bruno shakes his head. “The money will come even in the longer version of the game if we market it right. Besides, this twenty20 is a fad and it'll pass. The people it is attracting to cricket are not proper fans. They don't really care about the f*****g Delhi Daredevils like I care about Surrey or you care about Leicestershire. And what the hell are they being daredevils over? Paddle-sweeps?” He taps the top hat in his hands to make the point and looks far too energetic to have been taking the same stuff we took. I decide he's gone for crack instead and look for the tell-tale white powder around his nose. There it is. He's a f*****g addict that boy. Can't even toe the party line at a bloody party. He can snort it though, ha ha.

Theo makes a sceptical face at Bruno's point. There is no way Bruno can win this. Theo is top of the pecking order here and Bruno knows it. Theo is the Blues rugger captain, an old Etonian like me, and his family own hedge funds with more money than most European countries' GDPs. Besides this, he's actually clever �" not as clever as Geoffrey and I �" but still far cleverer than Bruno who reads French and German. Theo's arms are draped around Hannah Thomas who is the second fittest girl on common consensus. (I privately disagree with this as I think Hannah's modern fashion sense are not in sync with her large breasts, and I think she'd do better adopting a more classically demure look.) I wouldn't feel as jealous of Theo as I do if he wasn't also an excellent conversationalist and so likeable, but he is. He has it all. I have it all as well I suppose, but the “all” that he has is better than mine. He's also marginally better-looking than me. He's tall, dark, and handsome. I'm merely tall and handsome.

Theo tuts. “I think you're wildly overestimating the changeability of consumer preferences. Once a person is attracted to cricket he develops a link to it which isn't simply broken by a new and exciting sport.”

“Why not?” replies Bruno belligerently. “It's cricket today, it'll be f*****g Indian mud-wrestling tomorrow.”

Theo shakes his head. “I think you're ignoring the most important aspect of twenty20. New fans aren't just attracted to the game, but the entire social dynamic surrounding a game �" the booze, the skimpily-dressed cheerleaders, the music.”

He's nailed Bruno to the cross, but ever the adept socialite, he lets him down and pats down his stigmata with: “but I agree with you entirely on the jumpers. Those new polyester jumpers do look awfully tacky.”

Alexander groans and gets up off the floor and slumps into a plush brown leather sofa where his girlfriend Stacey is sitting. “F**k all this talk of cricket guys, I'm sick of it after this summer. Cricket talk ends in September and we're in bloody Michaelmas.”

“And Michaelmas means only one thing,” Geoffrey grins suggestively. His slur has improved.

“Sharking,” I say with a wolfish grin. “Those fresher girls �" and boys in your case Bruno �" won't know what's hit them.”

I have no plans of sharking this year. Oxford girls are uniformly uninspiring and the fresher girls are the worst, having had none of the development of an Oxford degree that makes second and third years bearable.

Understandably Bruno takes my insult badly.

“You'll have to get them really drunk then, to get over your lack of length,” he says.

No one finds this particularly funny but predictably Jocelyn jumps to my defence.

“Oh it's plenty long enough for my purposes,” she says quietly to me, but audible enough for everyone to hear. It would be cringe-worthy but everyone is too jacked on tranquilliser to care. She rests her head against my chest, looking up at me with drunkenly dilated eyes and I absently kiss her.

Bruno grins at Jocelyn. “Babe, I don't blame you, you've not had the benefit of a comparison. Of course if you'd like one, I'm happy to oblige.”

He rests his hand on her thigh which Jocelyn ostentatiously brushes away, but I can see she is pleased with the attention. Bruno has always had a crush on Jocelyn from as far back as I can remember, but Jocelyn has unfortunately been in love with me throughout that period. I suppose its my fault. I shouldn't have gone after her when he confided to me that she was the one for him. But in my defence, I too have suffered. My eardrums have been violated more times than I have violated her. I wish she'd just cheat so I can dump her. Sometime I have to take paracetamol’s to recover from the moaning.

“This Michaelmas has been horrible compared to our first couple of years,” says Alexia Bates, Geoffrey's girlfriend. “All this pressure suddenly of getting jobs...”

“Yeah it creeps up on you rather doesn't it,” consoles Stacey, Alexander's b***h. “I simply do not know what to do at those networking presentations.”

“Just flash your assets and you'll be fine,” grins Geoffrey. I like Geoffrey. He's an old Pauline and the only other really intelligent guy in the room. He hides it well though. That in itself takes some intelligence.

I pull out a bag of coke, cut myself a line on Jocelyn's exposed shoulder and snort it greedily. The room brightens and things become sharper. Suddenly I feel like talking.

“So Geoffrey, what are you applying for?” I ask as I rub the remaining powder onto JW's teeth.

“Well after the banking internships this summer Alexander and I have completely gone off banking. We were working like dogs doing boring as hell stuff and getting paid really well for the privilege. I'd rather not, to be honest. So we attended a few of these schmoozing things with Mckinsey, Bain, and BCG and I reckon consultancy is the way forward.”

I nod. “Excellent choice. I think the life of a consultant will suit you. The hours are long and the work is pretty hard �" but the hours are not as long as banking and the work is not as hard. Crucially, the work keeps changing so you can't get bored.” I pause, my head tilted, considering other important factors. I raise my finger professorially. “Also, a good work-life balance is key to a happy life and consultancy will deliver that. All the literature points in that direction. Given the data we have I feel that is a strong conclusion.”

I genuinely believe what I say. I like Alexander and Geoffrey as friends. They're fundamentally nice guys with a good head for numbers. They're not social high-fliers of course and don't deserve a place in banking, but consultancy will suit them with their solid data skills and mediocre-to-strong networks. Like them, their girls are average too �" we're talking your standard seven out of ten looks with a cheap private school education. If they were boys they wouldn't be here. But then boys don't have breasts �" and the ones that do are marked negatively. When I see those boys I sometimes wonder how satisfying it would be to do a liposuction on them, just suck all that gunk out and leave an empty husk. Thankfully only one of my associates falls into this category. Faisal is my PPE colleague at college and I have gently insinuated that I'll pay for his surgery. I don't think he understood.

Beside me Bruno continues surreptitiously carrying on with Jocelyn whose rebuffs get weaker and weaker and then eventually cease. His hands are now resting on her upper leg, stroking her inner thigh.

Hema gets up in disgust and fetches the final bottle of of unopened Chardonnay. “Anyone in?”

“Please,” I say. Hema returns to our couch with the two full wineglasses, but instead of returning to Bruno's side, she sits down on the other end beside me. I immediately slip my arm around her waist, and enjoy her musky aroma. She leans into me and whispers:

“Tonight?”

I smile slightly in response and squeeze her against me. Hema is a babe.

“When is the first rugger dinner Theo?” asks Bruno. “I hope you've got a proper restaurant booked this time, not that awful French place we went to last time.”

“Oh, the one in Oxford Castle?” says Hannah Thomas. “I thought that was really nice.”

“Lets put it this way Hannah, the ancient waiters looked like dead frogs, and the dead frogs tasted like ancient waiters.” says Bruno, grinning. He is clearly pleased with his turn of phrase, and sadly for him he's probably peaked with this. He has thick curly blond hair and a snub nose and constantly reminds me of an excitable overgrown cherub.

In an exciting development I manage to find the gap in Hema's dress and start stroking her back. I decide she has softer skin than Jocelyn and make a mental note to ask her what cream she uses and then recommend it to Jocelyn. That wins me points from both �" brownie points in Hema's case, ha ha.

“Well I think your standards are too high. I remember you complained about Blanc too, when we went to London. Everyone else loved it,” says Stacey. “Besides, I'm sure Theo will choose a place to the liking of everyone.”

Bruno shrugs. “Even if the food is s**t, it should be a good evening. Vice-captaincy gets announced then, right Theo?”

I am irritated at Bruno's matter-of-fact tone. He thinks he's already got it in the bag.

Theo smiles and nods. Alexander looks over at Bruno and I.

“Look at you two sweating it out.” He gives a sly grin. “You know Bruno, I reckon Hugo is going to get it.” He turns to Theo. “What do you say?”

Theo smiles again but isn't drawn. “The coach and I haven't really talked about it yet. I reckon both have an equal chance. Hugo holds our front row together while Bruno is rapid at fly-half.”

“It's a tough one to call,” says Alexander.

Theo nods. “To be honest we would rather not give it to either of you, because we don't want to spoil your current form. Either way, it's no big deal.”

But of course it is a big deal. If Bruno gets VC I think I'll kill him. He'll be obnoxious about it and move up the social pecking order. I hate his snivelling ways trying to worm his way into the position. If he wants something �" he needs to be a man about it. I just hope Theo and the coaches realise what he's up to and don't buckle.

Bruno shrugs and grins, “It's no biggie. Certainly not in Hugo's case.”

“You're a juvenile Bruno,” I say, barely containing my sudden anger. “Even if I were Indian you wouldn't be in the same ballpark.”

Bruno knows he's getting to me. He's got that goading look in his eyes. I know I shouldn't rise to his bait but I can't help it. It's like being taunted by an overgrown child. He just needs to be dominated.

“And you're often in the balls park aren't you?” he says.

Everyone grins and watches the exchange develop. I feel the weight of expectation on my shoulders and hate it. The cocaine is starting to wear off and I feel a headache brewing. I am all-too-aware of the cloying smell of expensive alcohol and hot bodies and the thick bile at the back of my throat.

With an enormous effort I say, “I wasn't the man caught “lost” in a gay bar last year though was I Bruno? Or the one who shaves his legs. Come to think of it now, what kind of a batty boy name is Bruno?”

“Easy on the homophobia boys,” says Jocelyn the virtuous. Bruno's hands are straying close to her breasts now.

“I have nothing against gays Jocelyn,” I say calmly. “If you want to play a reverse sweep, play a reverse sweep, but then don't pretend not to. But talking of pretending, Bruno, how's your father's grocery store? Bullish radish market this year?”

Bruno's father made his fortune through a chain of fresh fruit and vegetable stores, much to his annoyance. His eyes glitter with anger. He doesn't like this origins-of-money kind of talk. Most of the nouveau riche don't.

“My father actually earned his money. Unlike yours,” he says, his eyes glittering with anger. He leans in faux-confidentially, and continues: “though your mother certainly does earn hers. I hear she is improving her circle of friends rather rapidly these days.”

Bruno is referencing the recent stories in the press linking my mother to an affair she might be having.

“What can I say Bruno. She's a pretty woman. People like to f**k pretty people �" which is probably why your mother is unlikely to ever have an affair.”

There are chuckles all round and Bruno feels the burn. I'm definitely in the lead here.

“I'd rather have an intelligent mother than a w***e mother.”

“Strong Bruno,” says Geoffrey warningly and the room tenses. I feel Hema's back stiffen under my hand.

“Yes Bruno it is strong. What exactly do you mean by w***e?” I ask delicately. I reckon I could take Bruno in a fight. He has a speed advantage on me, but not too much, and I'm much bigger than him. But Bruno has taken less coke than me so I'm currently at a disadvantage.

“A woman who has sex for money,” he replies.

I tut. “But my mother didn't have sex for money did she Bruno? In fact my mother has never needed to have sex for money her entire life. Which leaves your use of the term “w***e mother” inaccurately applied �" an inaccuracy which, if I may say so, is reflective of a broader malaise in your use of language which often veers towards the fantastic.”

He sneers. “What would you know about language? You're talking to a linguist mate.”

I smile. “That is the irony. The linguists do not understand the language they study. They just learn the words and the grammar. But we philosophers understand why the grammar is the way it is, what its limitations are, and how that affects - and is affected by - the thoughts that precede articulation which require formulation into language.”

“Now, now boys, that's enough,” says Stacey, the most mothering of all the girls. “I'm sure both your degrees are equally rewarding.”

She offers us a spliff, “Here, have a pull of this.” and, after a moment of hesitation, I take it. I'm not a fan of smoked drugs. They mess up the lungs permanently and it just doesn't seem rational to me to damage that corporeal part of us which we rely upon for existence. I gingerly take a pull and pass it along to Bruno. He too takes a pull and looks slightly demented as the smoke billows through his fringe towards the smoke detector on the ceiling which we disconnected earlier.

The girls and Bruno hate it when the conversation turns too philosophical. They all read either a humanities subject or a foreign language. Theo reads Geography too but he's not dull like the other humanities lot. He doesn't talk too much during these debates but occasionally he'll chip in with a question or a comment from which you can see he's been following. Its a shame that he's wasting away on Geography. Even if he was clever at the start of his degree, there is no way his university education will have sharpened his mind as much as ours has sharpened ours.

Alexander is the first to go. He puts his tailcoat on and places three fifty notes on the table. “Morning outing tomorrow guys,” he grimaces. “New coach works us like dogs.”

He looks sorry. As well he should be, being a rower.

“F*****g batty boy sport, my son. Might as well go the distance and get a castration,” I tell him. Alexander makes a face and disappears with Stacey.

Alexander is trialling with the Oxford rowing club this term to try and get into the boat race. He has solid cardiovascular system, a tall physique, and plenty of power in the thighs. I think he has a good chance. The downside is he'll have to wear Lycra and interact with the mediocre-looking women's boat.

Geoffrey is off next. He says he's got an early tutorial. But I know he hasn't. He's working for his exams. They're seven months away but already he's working. I suddenly get a sinking feeling. He's going to do better than me. Bloody exams. People think they're a mark of intelligence but they are not. Of course I'll destroy mine anyway, but there's too much f*****g information asymmetry involved in the whole thing for it to be reliable. No one really knows what it takes to succeed, some papers are easier than others, and then of course you have to consider the examiners themselves. Get a doofus reading it and you are screwed.

I stick around. I want to bang Hema and she definitely wants to bang me. I can't wait to slip her out of that sparkly dress of hers. Her college is next to mine so when she gets up to leave I volunteer to walk her home. JW looks disappointed but I console her with a kiss and whisper:

“Babe, I'm shattered tonight. But let's go on a walk tomorrow. Down the Cherwell.”

She's slightly mollified. Already I know I'll try my best to get out of it.

Bruno beams like the lighthouse of Alexandria. He reckons he's in. I wish he was. He deserves a moaner. But no, JW is far too well-brought-up for that. She's still got a hint of the Catholic about her. Worth Abbey s**t. She has sex before marriage but only with one boy at a time. She is a monogamist fornicator for religious reasons. A religious jezebel. Allahuakbar. But Bruno lives down Cowley so I'm sure he'll find some willing w***e to deal with the rejection. I hope he gets AIDs and dies.

Theo and Hannah come with us and leave JW and Bruno to decide their affairs �" or should I say affair, ha ha. We walk down High Street. It has been raining and there is a sheen to the roads under the street lamps and the mildly acrid smell of rain is in the air. It is two a.m. on the Saturday morning following a Friday night so the street isn't as busy as it would have been an hour ago with revellers making their way back from Cowley to the High Street colleges. There are still tramps trying their luck here and there.

I don't understand tramps. I understand cleaners and despise them. They just failed at life and that thought is tractable in my mind. But tramps? I try and place myself in their shoes the way I am told by my therapist we must do with people different to us. But try as I might I simply cannot conjure up a possible world in which I am sleeping on the streets and professionally begging people for money. How would I end up with that beard, with that skin, in those clothes, huddled around a mongrel dog, on that dirty step? I just can't create the narrative. This failure to understand a part of life which is such a fixture in this city makes me afraid and suspicious of tramps. I know they're hiding something important. There's an unsolved mystery behind all this, hatched in some private night shelter. I recognise one of the tramps. She's old and fat and has a full set of teeth but horrible clothes. She catches my eye and grins at me. “Spare some change sir?”

I hurriedly avert my gaze, trying to work out how such a poor woman can be so fat. Surely fat comes from excess not poverty? How strange that all the rich people in Oxford are thin while all the poor people in Oxford are fat. One group uses money to get fatter while the other uses money to get thinner. Maybe she had lots of babies. I read that childbirth can be very traumatic on the abdominal skin.

This fact concerns me mildly as it means that the women in my age-group in ten years time will most likely have terrible scarring. I am slightly disgusted even now when I see older men going for older, less attractive women who are in their age-group. It seems like they have accepted that their sexual worth has declined and are settling for less. I do not want to do that. Of course, I could go younger, but then one has to consider the age gap and the lack of maturity which comes with it. If I cannot hack the fresher girls now there is no way I'll be able to hack a twenty-year-old bimbo when I'm thirty-five. Although I could still hack her, ha ha.

Theo and Hannah walk with us to Merton Street then turn in. He's a Christ Church man and she's at Oriel. I watch them walk away briefly. Aesthetically, they're a perfect couple. The top of her head comes up to his eye line and the curves of their waists fit together beautifully. They're both mature and ready for life. I can see them living their parents' lives and producing two kids who'll live the same lives they did. They'll go to Eton, play cricket, rugby, and tennis, enjoy expensive hookers, and land eye-watering salaries by the time they are twenty-three. In a way, when you unwrap our lives, that's all we're working towards: to give our kids a better life than ours. But when you've got it all like Theo and I have, you just aspire to giving your kids the same kind of life. I mean, we went to Eton. We're hardly going to send our kids to Pauls now are we? That's the problem with having it all. There's nothing to do.

The Radcliffe Camera looks dark and imposing when we step into Radcliffe Square and I enjoy the silence. This is Oxford at its best. The domed Camera surrounded on all sides by historic buildings. In front of it the austere-looking Bodleian library; to its left the dreaming spires of All Souls; behind it the Church of St. Mary with its steeple rising high into the crisp night air; and to it's left Brasenose College, with its crenellated walls and thick gatehouse. Tourists clog it up too much during the day. I hate them all, especially the chinks. The chinks remind me of Bruno, they're nouveau riche, stingy, and trying far too hard. They live next to Thailand for chrissakes. Go take a holiday there. I hear they have painting elephants there now. Even their animals are labourers.

I live in a large room with a separate sitting room. It's the most expensive room in college. We don't get past the sitting room. Hema's chocolatey skin and full figure make a welcome change from JW's tight, almost muscular torso. She has this wonderful way of arching her body against me which I haven't come across in any other woman. Her entire body becomes a giant S as her back curves and she pushes her pert breasts out. What excites me about Hema is that she knows what she wants and likes to get her way. That makes dominating her all the more satisfying. I feel like a colonialist plowing the fields of the orient. But halfway through our second time I start feeling bored. Embarrassed, I fondle and suck her breasts feverishly in an effort to stay aroused. I come quickly and slide off her.

I am worried. Even sex with Hema has become boring. Boredom plagues me. Education is dull. The work is too easy. JW bores me silly. I'm already a Rugby Blue. I have a job at the hedge fund and will most likely be appointed a lord by the age of fifty. There are no challenges left in the world. None. But I have it all and that's supposed to be a great thing.

Hema is lying on top of me in post-coital drowsiness. On a whim I grab her hair, pull her head back and slap her.

“That was for Bruno's insolence today” I tell her.

She is shocked, clutches her cheek, then gets changed and storms off. I'm not pleased I did that. She's a lovely girl and already has an awful deal being Bruno's girlfriend (she must have been drunk when she decided to get with him in the first place I conclude, no one sane would go for Bruno). But I had to slap her or else it will be too easy to bunk her next time. Even now I'm sure she's too drunk and coked-up to remember it properly and I'll probably lay her again easily. C'est la vie.

Author's Note

Don't worry too much about the accuracy of the depictions - I went to Oxford so these should be fine. I'm much more interested in what people generally think, and specifically, what are the tension points and conflicts/questions/characters which make one read on - if any!

Reviews

[SLD Bailey]

I'm going to dispense with the boring stuff first, and just say that my reading was disrupted by misuse of punctuation, particularly quotation marks which appeared in the middle of sentences where no-one was speaking. I'm wondering if this was a formatting error, as you seem too competent to have made such a basic mistake. I know it's a petty thing, but it does need addressing.

As for the story itself, it feels authentic enough a glimpse into a closed world to intrigue the reader, and the protagonist is suitably detestable. This is a good thing; it makes him interesting.
The protagonist's observations of his fellows and the descriptions of setting/the atmosphere are nicely balanced with dialogue so it reads smoothly. There is occasional repetition of words which can jar a sentence, so it could perhaps use another read through.

The protagonist's world-view is unlikely to be one shared by most readers, which is what makes it compelling. Although in saying that, I'm sure some of his opinions will resonate even if the average person is unlikely to voice those views!

Towards the end, as he walks back with Hema, his musings (while well written) may begin to stretch the reader's patience. Be wary of this; you cannot afford to lose interest at this crucial juncture. The bit about the tramps is great, just try cut it down by a couple of hundred words.

Towards the end of a first chapter the reader is waiting for something to happen, preferably something which will serve as a clue as to where the story is likely to go. A reward for sticking with it as far as they have, and an incentive as to why they should carry on; yours has this. His slapping of Hema is mildly shocking, and nicely foreshadows the violence which is (presumably?) to come. Best of all, it doesn't feel gratuitous or without motive.

Over all, I really enjoyed this. You have a great style, which is pretty consistent, and a strong character on which to hang the story. The supporting cast are interesting and distinct from each other, and although it can be difficult to introduce so many early on you handled this nicely. I hope you upload more chapters soon.

[IK]

Thank you very much for this really helpful feedback. Most of the writing I've done up till now has been third-person comedy or action, so I've really had to graft over this one and needed another person's honest perspective.
Yes that is a formatting problem - I think the system replaced all the dashes for quotation marks.
I am uploading some more edited chapters today and would be tremendously grateful if you'd have a look at them when you can. I also look forward to reading your work!

[SLD Bailey]

I'm so pleased to hear there are more chapters! I've always written third person myself, and I think first person is a brave choice for POV. It's definitely working for you. I look forward to reading the rest of your stuff.