Sometimes I can’t work out why some friends react in a particular way to something I’ve said. I’m puzzled. Maybe I was expecting an interested raised eyebrow or an involuntary titter. Why, for example, didn’t my friend compliment one thing about our newly-built Spanish house when Adrian showed her photos of the finished article? Why, when I mentioned I’d just published a book, didn’t she ask one thing about it, but immediately changed the subject (I thought she couldn’t have heard me)? And how come we don’t even know if she liked what we just cooked, as she hasn’t said one good thing about it and it was, if I say so myself, delicious? Why does she respond with a deafening silence to anything I do that’s positive, but will make sympathetic noises and give friendly advice for hours if I say my dog’s got eczema? Why do I have to decide before we meet for a café con leche which subjects are taboo and which are safe?
To me, the only explanation is envy, or envidia as it’s known in Spain (mixed with a dose of competitiveness). A Spanish friend, Carmela, once declared envidia to be a defining characteristic of the majority of inhabitants of our village in Spain (maybe it’s a national trait?). She believed envidia was at the root of the antipathy shown towards her by many of her old school friends, who resented her success and believed she was now lording it over them. This is a woman whose child had died and who lived every day with that grief; all they could see was her money.
To illustrate the attitude towards Carmela: My English friend Judy worked in a local restaurant (it was a place I found annoying because there were no prices displayed; I would be like a coiled spring before the cuenta was presented, being notoriously careful with my money). One day Carmela had the audacity (bravery) to query the bill after dining with a few friends and Judy was astounded: ‘With all the money she’s got. What does it matter to her?’ Well, Judy, how do you think she got rich in the first place? By not being a fool, that’s how. When I told Carmela how various people thought they could have free access to our money and had tried to stitch us up in various ways, she suggested we tell them: ‘Extranjeros si; tontos no!’ In other words, we might be foreigners, but we’re not idiots.
It was also in Spain that I experienced how envy could lead to covetousness. I’ve only ever come across this in Spain; for that reason, I learnt the word, codicia. People would see something I had (an extendable table, a Scandinavian wood burner, an IKEA potato masher), say, ‘I love that,’ and then ask, ‘Can I buy it off you?’ Excuse me, but why do you think I struggled with loading my bargain table onto the roof rack and drove back from the coast like a nervous wreck worried it might fall off and kill an entire family? Because I like it as well! With the potato masher, the woman asked, ‘Could you get me one like that, por favor?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I got it from el pais de Gales. Give me seven euros and I’ll bring you one back.’
There is also sometimes an expectation that you should hand over your money or belongings just because someone else thinks you’re better off than them. Last year French friends were visiting and the one, who is a close friend of ours, tried to pay the bill for 14 of us in a curry house. Adrian and I obviously refused, an argument ensued and our French friend’s other friends said, ‘Let him pay! He’s rich.’ ‘I don’t care how rich he is,’ I said, ‘he’s not paying for us!’ I didn’t care if he was the richest man in the Universe. Why should he pay for me? For some, however, it seems second nature to take from others. These are the same people who are preternaturally envious and unable to accept what they’ve got but also unwillling to change what they’re doing to gain the objects of their desire legitimately.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with admiring something that belongs to someone else. Just don’t then ask if you can have it! These people brush aside the problems that come with wealth. I’d like a chateau for example, but I wouldn’t like the French taxes or the heating bill. I’d also like to be a world-famous singer, with all the money that comes with it, but if a paparazzo hung round my house and wouldn’t give me any peace I’d punch him in the face. I wouldn’t want these people’s lives and I wouldn’t make the sacrifices they’ve made.
But people who think money is everything have no sympathy for the problems wealthy people face; as though the fact of them having money precludes them from the right to some understanding. I remember reading years ago how Charlotte Ford, heir to a massive fortune and the richest woman in America, had a lying, cheating toe-rag for a husband, and I was shocked; shocked to realise that even that incredible wealth couldn’t protect a woman from the pain and suffering of being cheated on by the man who was supposed to love her. I thought, ‘Is no woman safe from being treated that way?’ Others would have thought, ‘Who cares? She’s loaded.’
When will people realise money isn’t everything?