The Seymour Tapes

by Tim Lott

  How are things with your brother now?

  Much better. He’s married again, got two kids. We’re pretty good friends.

  Think you’ll stay pretty good friends after he finds out about this?

  I doubt it. Satisfied?

  I think so. Yes.

  Author’s Note: The telling of the story of my brother and Monique turned out, if anything, to be more painful than recounting the secrets about my uncle. I thought it would almost certainly smash up Jeff’s and my long-standing truce, and even our friendship. This left me feeling furious. And it meant that something I had never experienced before in writing was developing between Samantha Seymour and me – at least on my side. Genuine enmity.

  Just as she had felt herself raped by the media, by Sherry Thomas and, finally, by me, I felt violated by her. Although an intellectual part of me recognized the force of her arguments, a deeper part felt that she was bringing non-combatants into the arena, and that this was fundamentally unfair.

  Still, I could see no way to right the balance. For the time being I had to keep playing along – at least until I’d got all my material on file. Then I could try to find some way of excising the confessional dilemma I had been manipulated into – either by Samantha Seymour’s vengefulness or by my own determination to finish the project.

  Interview with Samantha Seymour (resumed)

  So, Samantha, I’ve paid my price. Time for you to pay yours. What was your sex life like with Alex?

  I’m sorry to disappoint you but it was pretty normal. Better than normal, in fact.

  What’s normal?

  Two point three times a week, so I understand.

  You had an active sex life, then?

  Yes, until the baby was born. I found Alex very attractive. He was an attractive man. When we first met, we were at it like rabbits – at least once a day. When you’ve been married as long as we had, it usually drizzles down to once or twice a month – at least, from what my friends tell me – but Alex and I were always quite sexual beings. I think it was the only place he could let go. Lose himself. He was a good lover. Very passionate, very caring. Tough, masculine, energetic. He took me to places I would never admit to myself that I wanted to go. A few months after Polly was born, I was starting to be interested again, but he had a problem, as we’ve already discussed.

  What was he into?

  I can’t believe you’re asking me that.

  Quid pro quo, right? I’ve told you my secret, now you have to answer my questions.

  Do you mean was he into anything weird?

  Specifically, voyeurism.

  I think he used porn.

  You think.

  I know he used porn. But not regularly. Just from time to time. It’s not unusual, is it, among men? Have you used porn? You know, did your session at your uncle’s establish a lifelong dependency?

  It’s still your turn. What did you feel about it?

  Relatively liberal. It didn’t do anything for me, although I sometimes pretended that it did, for his sake.

  So voyeurism wasn’t an alien concept to him.

  Everyone’s a voyeur, more or less. Look at all the gossip magazines, chat programmes. Look at Big Brother, look at reality TV. Everyone watches everyone else. It’s the great unifying passion.

  But did it go beyond a few porn movies? Did he ever want to watch in real life, or be watched?

  No. He never suggested that. Perhaps he was too scared. I mean, I can imagine him being into me and another woman. But that’s just bog-standard male fantasy, isn’t it? Nothing especially pathological there.

  Do you think he was attracted to Sherry Thomas?

  Not sexually, no, but he was attracted to something about her.

  Do you think she had something you didn’t?

  Rather the reverse. She lacked something that I – Alex and I – had.

  Which was?

  Any sense of limits.

  Seymour Surveillance Tape, Week Four

  Author’s Note: This sequence takes place on the day that Dr Seymour attended a medical conference in Birmingham. Both Victoria and Guy Seymour were away on a school trip.

  Mark Pengelly, Samantha Seymour, Polly and Theo appear on the tape. In contrast to her previous appearances with Mark Pengelly, Samantha Seymour is wearing no makeup, and is dressed in baggy, unflattering clothes. Theo and Polly are on the floor, playing with a selection of brightly coloured plastic toys. Pengelly and Samantha are sitting some distance apart, he on the sofa and she on the adjacent armchair. Both are drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits.

  Sequence One: Front-room Camera,

  Sunday, 20 May, Time Code 11.55

  – Polly’s such a pretty girl.

  – Yes, she is, isn’t she? Aren’t you, darling? You’re a pretty girl, aren’t you? A gorgeous little sausage.

  – It’s not surprising, with you as her mother.

  – Do you think she takes after me?

  – Absolutely. She’s got your eyes. Those flecks of bottle green mixed with the richest, brownest…

  – It’s sweet of you to say so, but I think they’re more her father’s eyes.

  – Where is he this weekend?

  – Some boring bloody conference.

  – Come on, I know about those conferences. All they do is get pissed and flirt.

  – Not Alex. He’s far too moral to do anything like that.

  – I thought you said he –

  – A momentary aberration. It was all that stupid receptionist’s fault.

  Well, mostly. Anyway, once in all these years isn’t so bad.

  – Behaving yourself can be a bit of a bore, though, don’t you think?

  – Without rules, people would find the world unbearable.

  – We make it all up. It’s all in our heads.

  – That doesn’t matter. Without a sense of good and bad, well, it would be unbearable. Would you pass me Polly’s beaker, please?

  – Here you are. It’s just fear of being found out, isn’t it?

  The camera shows Polly hitting Theo Pengelly on the head with a plastic toy.

  – Polly! Stop that.

  Mark Pengelly picks up Theo and calms him down. Then he returns him to the floor beside Polly.

  – We should be mature enough to take responsibility for our own lives and live with the consequences. It’s the twenty-first century. Everything’s biddable, isn’t it?

  – Is that what you’re going to teach Theo?

  – Well, no. I’ll teach him the rules of the game. But they’re not absolutes.

  – Give me an example of a non-absolute.

  – Well… fidelity, for instance.

  – So, you think that if you can get away with it, you should do it?

  – Sometimes, in some circumstances. No one gets hurt if no one knows.

  – But the participants know.

  – So what?

  – Do you believe in God, Mark?

  – Of course not.

  – Neither do I.

  – So, there’s nothing to stop you doing whatever you want, except fear of the consequences.

  Now Samantha stops what she’s doing, which is searching for a book to read to Polly, and turns, almost angrily, towards Mark Pengelly.

  – But that’s not true. Because in the absence of anything else you can only imagine yourself into being yourself. You are only what you believe you are. And if you stop acting and thinking and behaving like that thing, you stop being it.

  – I’m not really with you, Sam. Speak slowly, I’m an actor.

  – Once you start abandoning standards, your boundaries dissolve.

  – Can I get a translator?

  – It’s like if you keep making resolutions and breaking them. After a while, you become weak, incapable of action. In not believing that you have the capability any more, you lose it. And the same with doing the right thing. If you wriggle out of your own morality often enough, if you cheat, it ceases to have any meaning for you. Th
us it stops existing – not objectively, because it was never there in the first place, but it stops existing as far as you’re concerned. And you’re faced with a world that has no limits, and that is terrifying.

  – I wasn’t expecting a philosophy lecture.

  – Let me put it a different way for you, then, in a way that you’ll be able to grasp. Then I’m going to change Polly’s nappy.

  – Please do.

  – I’m not going to sleep with you, Mark.

  – What?

  Mark Pengelly looks bewildered and shocked, while Samantha Seymour is calm and collected. She begins to change the baby’s nappy. During this process, she occasionally shoots Pengelly a glance, but stays focused mainly on her task. She is impeccably blasé.

  – I know that you’re attracted to me. I know that you’ve been low since your wife left you. I know we’ve kissed, once. Can you pass me those Wet Ones? Thanks. Look. I know you think there’s something special between us, and there is. There’s friendship – a tender, special friendship. But nothing more. There never was.

  – Who said I thought there was anything more?

  – I’m a woman, Mark. Not a moron. You’ve been manoeuvring for months.

  – I did think that perhaps – I mean… Your marriage… it’s unhappy, isn’t it?

  – Marriages like mine and Alex’s aren’t happy or unhappy. They’re beyond that. I’m sad you never got the chance to find that out with Catrina.

  – But… do you love him?

  – Things are not good at the moment. I have loved him and I will love him again. Love comes and goes. The marriage remains. The respect remains. The children remain. We’re going through a difficult period. Alex, particularly, is suffering. But he’s trying very hard. I’m not going to smash everything apart just because everything isn’t twenty-four-hour roses. I owe him more than that. And myself.

  – I thought you said he was weak – that you’d stopped respecting him because of it.

  – I did say that, but I was wrong. There you are, Polly darling. Clean as a pin, you stinky thing.

  – You think you were wrong? What? Suddenly he’s changed? Suddenly he’s a different man?

  – Perhaps. Or perhaps I just wasn’t able to see it before. There’s something about him at the moment. Like he’s turned a corner. Seen some kind of light. Though I can’t imagine what that corner might be or where that light might have come from.

  – But surely, between us, there’s been some kind of…

  – I won’t say I’m not attracted to you, Mark. You’re a good-looking man. But you know that, don’t you? And I like you. You’re a good father, you’re kind and attentive. But I have to make this as clear as I possibly can. We’re just friends. We can only ever be friends.

  – But, Samantha, Sam…

  – And if you want us to keep on being friends, you need to respect that. Thank God we never did anything. Because now we can carry on with the relationship that we’ve had. Don’t you think?

  – Yes… I suppose…

  – Be an adult about this, Mark. We’re neighbours, our children are friends. We get on very well, we’re support for each other. It would be crazy to mess that up for a bit of – I don’t know… for a cheap thrill.

  – Right.

  – OK?

  – If you say so.

  Samantha Seymour gets up and plants a small kiss on Mark Pengelly’s cheek. He does not move.

  – You’ll be fine, Mark.

  – I’ll be fine.

  – I know you will. Now, let’s sort out some lunch for the kids, shall we?

  She picks up Polly and moves briskly out of the room. Slowly, as if suffering from some sudden bout of cramp, Mark Pengelly rises and follows. A single tear falls from his left eye, and he wipes it away with his sleeve. Then he gathers himself, smiles carefully, as if testing that the necessary muscles still work, and follows Samantha into the kitchen with Theo.

  Dr Alex Seymour’s Video Diary, Excerpt Four, Monday, 21 May, Time Code 02.03

  Dr Seymour is in his underpants, no dressing-gown, presumably because of the heat – the loft room, at the top of the house, gets very warm even on relatively mild days. His hair is ruffled, but otherwise he seems relaxed. Clearly he has grown used to making his video diary. There is no hint of the embarrassment he exhibited when he began it.

  There goes the self-justification for what I am doing. Kaput. The strange thing is, part of me almost wanted Sam to be having an affair with Mark because, obviously, it would get me off the hook. It would ease my conscience. But now what I’ve been doing looks uglier than it did before I knew she was innocent.

  Even so… even so. Can anyone really judge me? Since I caught Guy out, he’s begun to change. I know that he’s stopped bullying Victoria – I don’t guess it, I know it. Because I can see what he’s doing. Admittedly I had to confront him a few more times, but this time I had the evidence, and even though I couldn’t show it to him, he knew that I knew. He sensed it. And it’s made him manageable, respectful. This has been a wholly positive result. Victoria is protected. She must have picked up something from the change in Guy because she’s made no more attempts to sneak Macy into the house. Guy has learned an important lesson. There’s more peace and order. And, obviously, the change has even registered with Samantha. There’s even a part of me that believes she would have had an affair with Mark Pengelly if she hadn’t sensed the transformation within me, whatever she comes up with about ‘imagining yourself into being’ and ‘abandoning boundaries’, and all that fancy talk she threw at Pengelly. But the fact is, she held back. Because she said I’d changed. And I have.

  But where does that leave me now? What am I to do? One of the central pillars of the justification I’d made to myself about why I was doing this with Sherry has now disappeared. No, two have. No. All of them. Because I’ve protected myself against Pamela Geale now. The tape of Mrs Madoowbe and her sister does it. I’m safe. Victoria and Guy are behaving themselves. Samantha’s loyal. So why don’t I just return all the equipment and never see Sherry again?

  It’s not that I’m in love with her. I’m not. I’m really not. But she does fascinate me. She’s made a change in me. She’s taken me this far. How much further could she take me?

  I’m going to have to go back, of course. I promised her I would. She said she wanted to show me some more of her tapes. And, of course, she wanted me to bring more of mine. But I’m beginning to think this has gone far enough.

  Perhaps it will be enough for me to sit and watch her tapes with her. She’s lonely and a bit strange. I’ve spent my life trying to help people. Why shouldn’t I help her?

  All the same, keeping it secret from Samantha – especially now that it’s plain she’s not being disloyal – feels less and less right. I enjoy it, yes. It’s interesting, for God’s sake, and my life has been so bloody dull for so long.

  OK. I will go and see Sherry Thomas again. We arranged to meet at the shop this Saturday, and I’ll do it. Apart from anything else, I wouldn’t mind some more marijuana. It really is rather fun. But at heart I’m a moderate man. A sensible man. I know there have to be limits to this thing.

  Polly’s quietened down at night. The stress is off at work. I’m sleeping better. I’m getting past my moment of crisis. I’m sure of it. Soon I’ll be able to put Sherry Thomas behind me. I think I already could. But I don’t think it would be fair on her. I can’t just abandon her. Not after she’s helped me. Not yet, anyway.

  I’ll give it a few more weeks. Then we’ll have to have a talk.

  Now Dr Seymour bows his head towards the camera.

  Dear Lord, thank you for saving me. Thank you for giving me once more the gift of healing. Thank you for showing me the way that may lead to my salvation. Thank you for my wife, Samantha, and for the love that keeps her faithful. I dearly want to know how to make her happy, for only if I can make her happy can I make myself happy. But I think, like she says herself, that our marriage is beyond these t
hings of happiness and unhappiness. We are what we are.

  Thank you for my beautiful Victoria, and thank you for showing me a way to protect her from Macy Calder and Guy. I know Guy’s not a bad boy, whatever Sherry says. He’s just going through a difficult time and, with your help, I know that he’ll grow into a good man. Because that’s what I want for him. And now he’s learning about the way you work, God, he’s discovering that there’s no cause without effect, that there’s no transgression without punishment, because he is watched, Lord, by his father, as you, our father, watch over us. He may resent the justice that falls on him now out of a clear blue sky, but how much more must he have hated it when there was no justice other than what he could get away with? Now there is order. Now there is structure. So now there can be peace.

  Please help Sherry Thomas, because I know that the woman needs help, and I will only be able to help her so much by sharing in her pain, in her obsessions. I know the time will come soon when I have to walk away from her, but we must all learn to live on our own, mustn’t we, God? Mustn’t we? All we have in the end is ourselves and you. And you are we.

  I’m tired, now, God, tired, and I want to go to sleep.

  Please help me go to sleep.

  Author’s Note: The only surveillance tapes extant from the days that follow this are a video diary scene and a confessional sequence. Either Dr Seymour made the decision to cease taping, having assured himself that his wife was not having an affair, or he deleted any subsequent footage. Either way, there is a gap in time here until his next visit to Cyclops Surveillance the following Saturday.

  Cyclops Surveillance Systems, Tape Five, Saturday, 26 May

  Dr Seymour arrives at the entrance to CSS to discover, once again, that it is closed. He rattles the security grille, then looks up at the external camera and speaks directly to it.