“
My mother died,’ he attempted, quite unable to hit the note he meant to. ‘So I know what you’re going through. I was younger than you when she died. Much younger.’
‘That would probably explain it,’ she said. She lost her smile and replaced it with a thoughtful scowl. ‘Why you can’t say I like the tomato.’
Howard frowned. What game was this? He took out his pocket of tobacco. ‘I – like – the – tomato,’ he said slowly and pulled the Rizlas from the bag. ‘May I?’
‘I don’t care. Don’t you want to know what that means?’
‘Not terribly. I’ve got other things on my mind.’
‘It’s a Wellington thing – it’s a student thing,’ said Victoria rapidly, coming up on her elbows. ‘It’s our shorthand for when we say, like, Professor Simeon’s class is ‘‘The tomato’s nature versus the tomato’s nurture’’, and Jane Colman’s class is ‘‘To properly understand the tomato you must first uncover the tomato’s suppressed Herstory’’ – she’s such a silly bitch that woman – and Professor Gilman’s class is ‘‘The tomato is structured like an aubergine’’, and Professor Kellas’s class is basically ‘‘There is no way of proving the existence of the tomato without making reference to the tomato itself ’’, and Erskine Jegede’s class is ‘‘The post-colonial tomato as eaten by Naipaul’’. And so on. So you say,
‘What class have you got coming up?’ and the person says
‘Tomatoes ..... ’ Or whatever.’
Howard sighed. He licked one side of his Rizla.
‘Hilarious.’
‘But your class – your class is a cult classic. I love your class. Your class is all about never ever saying I like the tomato. That’s why so few people take it – I mean, no offence, it’s a compliment. They can’t handle the rigour of never saying I like the tomato. Because that’s the worst thing you could ever do in your class, right? Because the tomato’s not there to be liked. That’s what I love about your class. It’s properly intellectual. The tomato is just totally revealed as this phoney construction that can’t lead you to some higher truth
– nobody’s pretending the tomato will save your life. Or make you happy. Or teach you how to live or ennoble you or be a great example of the human spirit. Your tomatoes have got nothing to do with love or truth. They’re not fallacies. They’re just these pretty pointless tomatoes that people, for totally selfish reasons of their own, have attached cultural – I should say nutritional – weight to.’ She chuckled sadly. ‘It’s like what you’re always saying: let’s interrogate these terms. What’s so beautiful about this tomato? Who decided on its worth?
”
”