by Vesna Main
–There are a few others.
–At the same time?
–More or less. She starts seeing one of them, Patrick, regularly. In fact, she usually spends Thursday nights at his flat in the Docklands.
–What does Richard say about that?
–Nothing. He feels he has no right to complain. In fact, Anna tells him that she’s staying at Sarah’s. He chooses to believe her; he doesn’t want to know.
–And then one day, Anna will realise how all these affairs are meaningless and that none of the men is as good as Richard.
–I doubt it.
–So you know what will happen?
–No.
* * *
–Good day?
–Not bad. Yours?
–Nothing to report.
–Okay. I understand.
–Who was it today?
–Richard.
–What’s he been up to?
–He’s in New York.
–Looking for a job?
–He has one.
–Already?
–He contacted a prof he knows – they’ve met at conferences many times – a guy who in the past has tried to tempt him. Richard might have been interested but Anna wasn’t keen on leaving London. This time, he flies over and within days bags the job.
–At last something good happens to him!
* * *
–How was your day?
–Not as good as I’d have liked. And yours?
–Nothing unusual. Who was it today?
–Richard with Stuart.
–You mean he’s back in therapy.
–Oh no, I’m redrafting an earlier chapter.
–What happens?
–Richard talks about Anna, about her vulnerability.
–?
–I’m showing Richard at a therapy session, one of the later ones. The reader is told that the sessions have drifted into topics not directly related to the main issue and Stuart lets Richard talk about whatever he wants. After all, Stuart believes that what Richard really needs is a friend, a shoulder to cry on. So they talk about cricket – a subject Anna finds unbearably boring and she makes Richard feel guilty when he checks the results—
–Sounds familiar.
–I’m not the only woman who can’t stand sport.
–As long as he isn’t me.
–Or the other way around.
–?
–?
–What do you mean?
–Nothing.
–Why did you say it then?
–A joke. Don’t be so touchy.
–Well—
–Do you want to know what happens?
–Yes.
–Sure?
–Yes, I do.
–Well, Richard and Stuart talk about music and Richard enjoys that. He complains that Anna has a very narrow taste—
–You just don’t want to give her anything that isn’t you.
–A little detail of characterization here and there.
–I wish you would make things up, not take them from us—
–From me.
–Not quite. It may be about you but what Richard says, those are my words, my words in Richard’s mouth.
–No one will know.
–Sometimes I think you’re writing this novel to expose our private life—
–That doesn’t make any sense. You aren’t doing what Richard is doing.
–How do you know?
–?
* * *
–Why did you put that inscription above your desk?
–What inscription?
–That quotation.
–Which one?
–You know which one.
–I don’t. I have lots of notes pinned above the computer.
–You know very well what I mean.
–?
–As if it’s not enough for everyone to recognise us.
–?
–You need to rub it in.
–?
–Stop raising your eyebrows.
–I don’t know what you’re talking about.
–You do.
–No. I don’t. I have loads of notes, sayings, quotations.
–I am talking of the one about sadness one can bear if put in a story—
–Oh, that.
–Yes, oh, that.
–Isak Dinesen. A good sentence for a motto, don’t you think?
–
* * *
–?
–?
* * *
–Good day?
–Fine. Yours?
–Nothing to report. How’s the writing?
–I don’t want to talk about it.
–?
–I said I don’t want to talk about it.
–Why?
–Because it doesn’t feel right.
–The writing or talking about it?
–Neither.
–Can I help?
–No.
* * *
–Good day?
–Fine. And yours?
–Nothing to report. How’s the writing?
–Nothing to report.
–?
–?
* * *
–?
–?
* * *
–How was your day?
–Good. Yours?
–Okay. The same as always. Who was it today?
–Richard.
–I may be wrong but you seem to have more on Richard than on Anna.
–There’s more to come on her.
–I think you find him easier to write than her.
–Do I?
–You said it once.
–I don’t think so.
–You take things from me and make them Richard’s but you’re more circumspect with your own past.
–That’s unfair.
–That’s what it looks like to me. Remember, I’m your reader, the first and most critical.
–Biased too.
–I disagree. I strive to provide honest feedback.
–Sometimes you do.
–So, what happened to Richard today?
–He admits to Stuart that he wasn’t telling the truth. Not completely.
–What about?
–His earliest sexual experience.
–Masturbation and the stained pyjamas?
–No, the first time he had sex, or tried to.
–Yes?
–Well, he tells Stuart about a prostitute, a prostitute he went to see after the two failed attempts to have sex with that girl from his school. He was too ashamed to try again with the girl and so he got some money together, money from his paper round – and visited a place where he had heard street walkers operated. He had to make a couple of trips before he had enough courage to speak to one—
–But—
–Sorry, can I finish?
–But I—
–Let me finish. Her name’s Paula and she’s only a couple of years older than him. He finds her kind and she talks to him and doesn’t rush him and so he manages to control his orgasm. A week later he goes to seek her again but she isn’t there. He goes again and again but can never find her. Another woman talks to him but he doesn’t go with her. He even fantasises of going out with Paula, helping her leave prostitution.
–This is ridiculous.
–Why?
–I don’t see why you need it. It’s perfectly okay for him to have that girl in an abandoned house. Why a prostitute?
–Because of his later interest in prostitutes. He has had a good experience and he wants to repeat it. He is searching for Paula in all t
he other women.
–Bullshit.
–Look, from what I’ve read, most men who have been with a prostitute once, revisit that experience.
–Why haven’t you told me this before?
–Haven’t I?
–No, you haven’t. Don’t pretend.
–It might have slipped my mind. In any case, I haven’t told you everything that’s in the novel. Just enough to whet your appetite so that you buy—
–It’s not funny. As for this Paula, I draw a line here.
–What do you mean?
–You can’t have that.
–Why not?
–You know very well why.
–No I don’t.
–Listen, you take it out or . . .
–Or what?
–Please. Take it out.
–Why?
–You’ve gone too far this time.
–Don’t walk away. I don’t understand why you mind so much.
* * *
–Hello.
–Hello. How was work?
–Nothing to report.
–You still haven’t told me why you mind that Richard—
–I don’t want to talk about it.
–Why?
–Don’t push me. I’ve had enough of Richard.
–?
–I’m not like him and I’m fed up you stealing my life and giving it to him.
–?
–She wasn’t called Paula.
–?
–She wasn’t called Paula.
–What? You don’t mean—
–Yes.
–I had no idea.
–I don’t believe you.
–It’s a experience for a working class boy and, I suppose, not just for working class but many young—
–I was only seventeen. And drunk.
* * *
–Good day?
–Yes. Yours?
–Fine, thank you.
–I’ve gone back to Richard talking to Stuart about Anna.
–Yes?
–He tells Stuart how he used to think of Anna as very strong but recently he’s realised how vulnerable she can be, just like him. He says, it’s as if before she could cover it up, but she can’t anymore. In the past, he says, the only issue Anna appeared to be vulnerable about was her ageing, her fear of the menopause and that used to irritate him—
–Not again.
–What?
–Do you do it to annoy me?
–You may not believe it but it’s not about me and it’s not you. Loads of women fear the menopause and loads of men don’t understand and it’s useful for the story—
–You say that about everything.
–I really need this one. I don’t see why it bothers you if I take stuff from myself.
–Because it always involves me.
–No one would know. You’re too sensitive. As for Richard, he admits he wasn’t much help to Anna. He couldn’t bear her complaining about the lines on her face or worrying about her periods stopping. Just a natural, biological process he would say but Anna hated that. As if natural meant anything. An academic should know that, she would snap. I could see how my response irritated her, Richard says. But what else did she expect me to say, he asks.
–I’m with him on that one.
–Surprise, surprise.
–So, what happens?
–He didn’t think of her as being vulnerable. He thinks she was making a scene, drawing attention to herself. But when he told her about his secret life, he was shocked to see how she reacted, what it seemed to do to her – that’s when he saw her as truly vulnerable.
–Because she didn’t shout?
–Perhaps.
–He should be thankful for small mercies.
–Don’t be insensitive.
–Well, I’d be glad if your reactions didn’t include shouting.
–I would be glad if you didn’t provoke me to shout.
–When do I do that?
–Do you want to talk about us or what happens in the chapter?
–Not sure.
–Okay then.
–Look, I’m sorry. Don’t go away. Please. Tell me, what happens next?
–You aren’t interested.
–I’m. I really am. Look, I’m sorry.
–Richard says that was the first time he saw her as defenceless, fragile. Anna completely withdrew into herself, became somebody else. He thought she looked mad and yet she was completely still, quiet. Instead of exploding, she imploded, he says. She scared him. He thought she had gone mad, in that really frightening, quiet way. It crossed his mind that she might have lost the power of speech, like that woman in the Carter novel.
–Which one?
–That’s the question Stuart asks and Richard at first can’t remember the title of Angela Carter’s novel but after a moment it comes to him: The Magic Toyshop.
–Oh, yes. Does Stuart know it?
–No, I don’t think so.
–Whether she shouts or goes silent, her reactions seem completely over the top. No wonder Richard is scared of her. She makes up for the silence later, anyway.
–As usual, you’re being unfair.
–I’m a reader. Remember? It’s up to me to have my own interpretation.
–A very biased one.
–That’s what you think.
–As for Richard, he says he knew she wanted to humiliate him but he wasn’t in a position to refuse anything.
–He should have put his foot down.
–Well, he didn’t. He’s more caring than you.
–Bloody hell. You use every opportunity to put me down.
–Who’s shouting now?
–Just showing you what it’s like.
–What’s like what?
–Being shouted at.
–You’ve shown me that before.
–Not as often as you have.
–You’re more irritating. You provoke me more than I could ever provoke you.
–That’s not true. You don’t know yourself.
–Look, I don’t want to argue.
–Don’t you?
–No, I don’t. But you do.
–I don’t.
–Well, let’s not argue then. And let’s leave us out of the story.
–Okay.
–Do you want me to tell you what happens next?
–Yes, all right.
–Richard says he cannot see how he could have gone through with it.
–But he agreed to?
–He had no choice.
–Poor Richard. And when she is back with him, she presents him with the ultimatum that he should have counselling. No compromise. That’s horrible. I understand how he feels.
–What do you mean? That I put conditions and—
–I’m talking about Anna, a character in your novel.
–I see.
–Well, sometimes you do behave like that.
–So, I was right. You think I impose conditions.
–Sometimes. But look, I don’t want to talk about us.
–Fine.
–What else does Richard say?
–Well, now it’s him who’s playing the amateur psychologist. It’s bizarre, he says, that Anna’s been reading about sexual addiction and claims she can identify all the signs in me. But the irony is that she’s become an addict herself. And she can’t see it.
–Good on you, Richard. Spot on.
–This isn’t a football match. No cheering.
–Okay, tell me what happens in the second half?
–Ha, ha. Well, Richard talks about Anna’s obsession with checking prostitutes on the Internet. For six months she was on thei
r sites every day. He couldn’t understand what she was looking for. She rang a few, and e-mailed one of them, pretending to be him. She wrote to the woman that his wife had found out about his activities and the prostitute wrote back, advising him to work on his marriage. Richard is astounded that the prostitute wasn’t bothered about her loss of business.
–The whore with a golden heart. Sometimes clichés come alive—
–You won’t believe it.
–What?
–That’s exactly what Richard tells Stuart.
–What?
–That sometimes clichés come alive.
–You’ve been stealing from me to make him and now it’s the other way around. I’m copying him.
–Don’t say that!
–It’s not my fault if I’m turning into Richard.
–What you do is your responsibility.
* * *
–Hello.
–Hello.
–Good day.
–Yes, thank you. Yours?
–Yes, thank you.
* * *
–Hello.
–Hello.
–Good day?
–Yes, thank you. Yours?
–Yes, thank you.
* * *
–Do you think Richard has a good heart?
–What do you mean?
–I was thinking about him talking to Stuart about Anna’s vulnerability.
–Yes?
–Why is he doing it? Is it because he cares about Anna?
–Up to the reader to decide. It could be that he’s trying to absolve himself of any responsibility.
–Responsibility for what?
–For her state of mind. For her obsession.
–?
–Well, as he talks, he tries to explain, he tries to make sense of what’s going on. He’s talking to Stuart but he’s doing it for himself too. You could also say that he’s trying to assuage his guilt.
–He can’t be responsible for the way she reacts.
–He provokes her reaction.
–You could say she provokes his behaviour, his interest in escorts.
–Rubbish. Anyway, it’s more than an interest.
–We will never agree on this one.
–You’re so entrenched in the stereotypical male position.
–I wonder if your readers will be split according to gender.