The one thing a grudge offers

Bitterness is the most dependable thing a person can own.

Think of the shopkeeper whose regulars drifted to the bigger shop across the road. Better stock, longer hours, a car park. He did nothing wrong, and he lost them anyway.

He has a choice about what to carry from that, and most of the options are uncertain. He could try something new in the window, and it might not work. He could ask the customers who left what would bring them back, and they might not come. He could change the hours, the range, the way he greets people, and still lose.

Bitterness asks none of that of him. It is there when he lifts the shutter in the morning and there when he pulls it down at night. It needs no effort to keep going. It does not soften when the big shop has a bad year, and it will not be talked round by a good month of his own. It never surprises him.

That is its whole appeal. Every other response on offer is a gamble, and bitterness is a sure thing, the one feeling guaranteed to be waiting tomorrow exactly as he left it.

But being reliable is all it does. It does not sell anything, bring anyone back or teach him a single thing about the street he trades on. It simply stays.

It is easy to mistake that for strength.