During one weekend, when Jamie was able to stay the night as his girlfriend was out of town, they touched on a new topic. Over a lavish meal they couldn’t even finish, Jamie asked Olga if she thought they had been cheating on their partners. Were they having an affair, he asked her. Olga was not entirely sure if Jamie was troubled by the pangs of guilt or his artistic commitment was slacking, but she knew this – he gave her the best cunnilingus and she wasn’t ready to give that up. Art or no art. So she told him it was unproductive to define their practice as an affair: that would limit their work and their artistic growth. What they had, she convinced him, required no labels and so wasn’t a threat to their respective relationships. Jamie showed no relief after that. His face twisted in a slight yet very distinct sort of pain – a pain of a lover being rejected. He told Olga he was developing deep emotions for her, something that was superior to the commitment he felt for Clare. To Olga, Jamie suddenly felt like a fraud. If he was just using her to deal with his own emotional rubbish, it wasn’t fair. Even so, she stopped herself from throwing a tantrum – while a succession of blissful sexual scenes flooded her mind – and decided to play along. Developing feelings was normal, she soothed him. But no, they were not committing adultery and they did not know where all this would lead them. It was painful for her to come so close to breaking her marriage disclaimer, but that night, she let Jamie enter her with his finger.
During the six summer weeks Olga and Jamie’s breaking of boundaries stayed within the agreed limit. They slept on the sofa mattress, which was permanently arranged on the living room floor. What they had going defied any labels. It was certainly not an affair and not a secret relationship. They were not in love with each other so there was no need for them to ever feel guilty of committing adultery. If anything, they felt proud that they had been influencing each other to grow as people, which surely was only a bonus for their respective partners. Their creative practice reached unprecedented heights. Jamie felt delirious with his arse being smacked until red raw. The sessions were initially administered by Olga’s hand but later included other objects obtained from sex shops. His emotional release was often followed by short but intense bursts of tears – which was great for his art, he told Olga. The finger concession, on the other hand, that Olga reluctantly and fearfully agreed on, turned out to be more than a valuable experience. Olga had her first G-spot orgasm. She wouldn’t even know what it was had she not read somewhere that there were three different types of female orgasm.
At the end of August, Olga submitted a much-praised dissertation on using art to develop a freer sense of sexual self. Jamie’s work was a two channel installation: a close-up of his bare arse being spanked by a leather whip set to a loop on one screen while on the other he read definitions of random concepts from a dictionary. After they submitted their work, they had coffee on the back lawn and watched the leaves that still hadn’t turned red. Steve was back home, the course was over and it was time to slow things down. At least that’s what Olga suggested. She walked Jamie to a back street behind Rosemary Branch and hugged him by his car. When he drove off, she walked back home. The traffic was so thick, she was faster than the 21 bus which kept crawling by her side.
***
It was several weeks before Steve agreed to a difficult conversation with Olga. This time she nagged. There was no logic in keeping hold of their overgrown little worlds any more. The distance between them didn’t make her want him more as it had done in the past. Before the words were uttered, she knew they had both lost the battle. Steve confessed going all the way with prostitutes he was reporting on. It was a combination of things, as he explained to her. One was certainly her growing coldness in the months before his trip. Olga looked at his defeated face. Then she slapped him really hard. He stood motionless, waiting for more. It was strange but for a moment it all seemed like another annoying thing spouses do to each other, something that could blow over in a few days. But then she realised that it was Steve who had crossed the line they had agreed on – not her – and that was mostly why she was so angry. Because she wanted to forgive him, but it was not up to her. Their agreement wouldn’t let her.
Olga and Steve said nothing for a week. They slept in the same bed and went on with their days as usual. In the evenings, they both decided to spend time with each other. They cooked together and then watched TV while holding hands. One morning, while Steve was at work, Olga met up with Jamie. They drove south for an hour, parked in a quiet, leafy spot and had penetrative sex. It was good. Jamie was gentle, he could make it last long and all the while he kept whispering into her ear that he loved her. While Olga was buttoning up her blouse, he told her he really meant it. It wasn’t only a sex routine and it had nothing to do with art, he said in a more determined tone of voice. He was leaving his girlfriend. On the way back, Olga said nothing, she only cried. Jamie kept one hand on the wheel and the other on her knee. He glanced at her from time to time while repeating in a slow monotonous rhythm: everything will be fine, we love each other.
***
Some lines cannot be crossed, Olga repeated in her head in the weeks ahead. Steve said it after confessing his indiscretion. But perhaps if both people crossed the same line, they could make a new agreement, with new lines. She slept with Jamie to give them a chance at a clean slate. The idea almost made sense, so they kept talking about their future. In reality, they spent more time crying behind each other’s back. And then, just before the beginning of winter, they separated. Olga knew that if they were ever to divorce, they wouldn’t remain friends. He would always be her Steve, and she could never stop wanting him.
A year later, though, Steve insisted on attending Olga’s graduation party. It made her happy. They drank champagne on the back lawn, standing awkwardly far from each other. It was a sunny day and she sweated underneath her gown and cap. The leaves were red again. She could barely see Jamie at the opposite end of the lawn, holding hands with his new girlfriend. When their eyes met, she pretended not to recognise him.
GREENWICH
Notes to Support Funding
Application Modestly Proposed
to the Woolwich Tourist Board
Stella Duffy
Dear Sirs,
Please see below outline for a promenade performance, to be conducted over five afternoons/early evenings, in and around Woolwich Town Centre in the London Borough of Greenwich during summer 2011, leading to a fortnight of events during the 2012 Olympics, Woolwich being perfectly sited to welcome visitors from Stratford.
We propose that this piece will more than adequately cater for the many tourists (primarily but not exclusively from North America and Western Europe) who regularly flock to visit Woolwich’s famous sites over the summer months, and will also encourage them to visit the lesser known attractions – e.g., Eltham Palace, Greenwich Park, the Maritime Museum, Observatory etc. We further predict that even locations north of the river (Canary Wharf, the Isle of Dogs) could benefit from some of the spillover. It seems only fair that a centre of such world-renown as Woolwich should make more of a conscious effort to share some of its gains with the less-lauded areas of the Borough, and we look forward to making this possible through our work.
We await your response with interest,
Two Sisters Arts
The Characters
Sister 1: is a nurse. She has just finished night shift at the Dagenham Ford factory. She is the mother of four adult children with three grandchildren. One of these adult children died fourteen years ago – orphan and widow/ er are useful terms, there is no word in English for the parent of a dead child. She has had three hours sleep and prepares for the journey to Woolwich. Transport for London has predicted it will take her an hour.
(For promenade purposes, we envisage a bus journey from Essex into SE18, the reverse of the journey undertaken by so many working class families when they ‘migrated’ to Essex in the 60s and 70s.)
Sister 2: is a maker. Books, cakes, theatre, gardens. She lives in
Lambeth. TFL predicts her journey – two overland trains via London Bridge – will also take an hour.
(We imagine the possibility, with TFL’s assistance, of collecting groups of audiences at both Denmark Hill and London Bridge. We are also in talks with the Thames Clipper service about the potential of an integrated journey downriver from Westminster or Waterloo Piers, to Greenwich. Again, this would bring our promenaders past the lesser known elements of Greenwich – Cutty Sark, Observatory, the Painted Hall – on their way to the more popular tourist destination of Woolwich Market.)
The Journey
Once on their trains the Sisters (and their collected audience members) begin texting each other in an on-the-move multi-media flash event. Starting at two different destinations in a journey forward to their past.
The Show
On arrival in Woolwich, the Sisters perform the classic ‘Which Exit Are You At?’ sketch, so beloved of our audiences who have seen us work up the same routine very successfully at Oxford Circus and Waterloo Stations, and also across all levels of the Barbican and the National Theatre.
(If time and funding allow there is a possibility this could be extended to include a Woolwich Arsenal/Arsenal–Islington stations comedy mix-up, similar to the company’s highly successful 2008 show: ‘Oh, I Thought You Meant The Other Lyric – Lyric Hammersmith/Lyric Shaftesbury Avenue’)
Having met and united their Essex and south London audiences, the Sisters will then begin the actual Woolwich Promenade. Based on the original journeys taken by those working ‘up town’ in the 1960s, the Sisters will walk from the station to the Ogilby Street flats and back again, taking in sites of particular interest in the journey. These include (but will not necessarily be limited to):
Woolwich Market
Sister 1 tells Sister 2 about the time she became lost in the market. She was only separated from her mother for a moment, but was ‘found’ by a kindly local woman who whisked her away to the Police Station before the mother had a chance to find her child. She was later retrieved from the Police Station by an irate and relieved father. Sister 1 recounts that even at a young age she was aware that the father was torn between the two options of tears of relief or rage at the child for getting lost. She recalls being surprised not to be hit for getting lost and noting that the father was expressing a conflict of emotions – something she had not previously seen in him.
(For educational purposes, we believe this will provide a very useful opportunity for teacher & school groups to discuss the changing nature of behaviour towards children, not least in the use of corporal punishment. Appropriate material will be included in our Schools Pack.)
Woolwich Library
Sister 1 marvels that not only are the carved wooden banisters of her childhood still intact, but the large wooden doors are still very much part of the main building and must obviously be used when the building is fully locked. The sisters then discuss, in Dr Seuss-like rhyme and rhythm, the first books they read, or that were read to them, in a library. They share the feeling that the Children’s Library always seems warmer and more comfortable than the adults’ section, and how – as children – they used to sneak adult books from the shelves and sit reading in quiet corners. They did not do this in the same library, but in libraries almost 12,000 miles apart. The action however, was the same – a librarian reads to a group of small children, that group of small children discover that stories can also happen outside the home, the world is never quite so small again. E.g.:
The books that we found in the corners of town
The books that were there on the carved wooden stair
The books and the stories their glorious glories
They took us to places and found us new spaces and they were quite aces
The books we found there.
The books that were tales of drama and whales,
and wails with an I, and Wales with no aitch, or whales with a Y
(there’s a Y in your wayles? Like fayre and like tayles, the olden days spayles …)
Spells.
The library smells. That peculiar, junior, scents of a room for you,
Place for us, space for us, here on the shelves for us.
That’s what we found in the library in town.
(Our intention is to include local children’s lines in creating an epic poem/story with potential for our promenading audience to join in on the choral line, ‘that’s what we found in the library in town’.)
Mulgrave Primary School
At the site of Mulgrave Primary School, now the Mulgrave Early Years Centre, both Sisters share with our audience the games of their childhood. On the school playground (permission has been sought), the audience are divided into teams and play games of hopscotch, kick-ball, four square, keepy-uppy, tag, hide and seek, stuck in the mud (aka candlesticks), culminating in an audience-wide game of British Bulldog. After the games the audience will be further entertained, as they catch their breath, by the local children’s choir. In case of bad weather (though this is exceedingly rare in Woolwich’s excellent micro-climate) the games will be moved inside to include drafts, chess, Monopoly, Twister, Operation, the Game of Life etc.
(The games will give a chance for our audience to enjoy each others’ company, create intra-audience relationships, and also to relive their own past glories. We are proud to say we believe this makes us the first UK theatre company to fully comply with the new government-approved Arts & Olympic Council ruling UKA& OCE106789.5 that it is not appropriate for any member of an audience to remain in a static position for more than one hour at a time, all shows therefore to have an element of participative physicality. We expect to include children from all parts of the borough in the choir.)
Walk To Ogilby Street
The walk, via John Wilson Street and several smaller streets, into Frances Street to see the shops of note (including the newsagent’s where Sisters 1 and 2 went every Saturday morning to collect ‘the books and papers’ – The Magic Roundabout comic, Bunty, Tammy, and The Woman’s Weekly), will bring in street entertainment in the form of parkour-trained poets performing acrobatic leaps from billboard hoardings, utilising the street-running form to turn the billboard frames and the Arsenal’s old brick walls to sites of performance poetry. This technique was first pioneered in 1967 by Sister 1, under the auspices of Big Brother, and has also been noted by Sister 2 in the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Wandsworth. We believe that by extending the parkour form to include active poetry we can enhance what is otherwise simply a physical activity, adding a literary and emotive element.
(We are also aware of the sadly under-used walls and hoardings in neighbouring Greenwich, most especially those alongside the Observatory and Greenwich Park. We trust that our use here, in Woolwich, will encourage Greenwich residents to see the multi-function possibilities of their own walls, thereby giving them hope that their own area might one day achieve some of the international recognition, usually only given to Woolwich and, on occasion, Eltham South.)
At The Flat
Stopping at the council block, childhood home of Two Sisters Arts (also of Big Brother, and the original Four Older Sisters Company), Sister 1 and Sister 2 will lead the audience in a Climb Up the Stairs, a chance to enjoy the startling Original Blue of the wall tiles. On the first landing we will offer Tales From The Shute – a series of inter-connected pieces about rubbish recycling, drawing on stories from all twelve families living in the block. On the top floor we will engage in another participatory programme, this time encouraging the oldest members of the audience to climb on to a recreation of Sister 2’s original 1967 tricycle, and – as Sister 2 did in the 1960s – race against themselves in timed trials the length of the balcony that connects all three top floor flats.
(We perceive this intergenerational work to be one of the highlights of the season.)
Sisters 1 and 2 will also recreate the famous ‘Up the Slope’ image from 1967 – attached.
We will then recreate, in Flat 8, two parti
es that occurred in 1967. The first is the infamous Parents’ Night Out Party. Sisters 1 and 2 having been left in the care of Big Brother and the Four Older Sisters Company. There was a large and diverse ‘youth’ party, mostly young people aged between 15 and 21, with music from a number of popular bands of the time, several friends of friends, and various trips with little girls (in nighties, dressing gowns and slippers) to the off-license. Whereas in the original, this was halted at an early time and involved numerous young men climbing three floors from the balcony down to the ground, then running off into the night accompanied by the shouted threats of Angry Father and Worried Mother, we propose that Party 1 will segue smoothly into Party 2 – The Farewell Party, in which Family of Four (comprised of Sisters 1 & 2 and The Parents) prepare to leave for New Zealand. Music for this will be a medley of Mrs Mills’ Party Favourites and Irish Pub Songs on a looped track, while we will offer our audience the classic south London party delicacies of sausage rolls, and sliced egg and bacon pie.
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