“I’ve never really understood that one, you know. ‘Cogito ergo sum’: ‘I think therefore I am’. I mean it’s not really a sequitur, is it? Not like, I don’t know, it’s hot therefore I sweat. I mean, it’s just as rational, isn’t it, the thought that ‘I think therefore I think I am.’ When you think about it, I mean.”
+++
“You’re crying.”
“Not crying, Trove. A sniffle, no more.”
“Some sniffle! You’re crying.”
“Something in my eye.”
“Yeah, right! Like tears, maybe.”
“It’s a ballet, Trove.”
“And ballets are like onions?”
“It was very beautiful. —-”
“I thought it was beautiful too, Mike. …”
“—- So beautiful.”
“… You don’t see me crying.”
“It’s good to cry.”
“Sure it is.”
“Healthy.”
“Even healthier, Mike, if you know why.”
“It’s the ballet.”
“That’s the pretext. What’s the reason?”
“It’s ‘Cinderella’.”
“I was there, remember? Sitting next to you? I do know, Mike, which ballet it was.”
“You don’t think it’s redolent?”
“Redolent? Don’t tell me what the word means, Mike.”
“No.”
“I know what ‘redolent’ means, ‘kay? Why is it ‘redolent’?”
“It’s a love story.”
“My sisters aren’t ugly, hon. I was not treated like a scullery-maid. I’ve yet to come across my fairy-godmother. And, let me tell you, if she is there, she’s doing a pretty crappy job.”
“And I’m not Prince Charming, right?”
“No, you are. That’s it, the whole problem. There in a nutshell.”
“Sorry?”
“You are Prince Charming, hon. I see that now. That’s what makes me uneasy around you.”
“Trove, you’re talking in riddles.”
“I don’t want Prince Charming, Mike. You know what, the second the fairy-tale finishes, there is no Prince Charming any more. The djinni returns to his bottle. I don’t want Prince Charming, Mike. Mike, it’s Mike I want. And all you can give me is not-Mike, is Mike-as-Prince-Charming Mike.”
“It would be Mike, Trove, who would live with you.”
“Yeah. But which one?”
+++
“We had a great time in Madrid. It’s a great town for lovers, and we loved a lot being there. In just about every sense, now I think about it. And I was happy just going on the way we were. Just, I don’t know, having this occasional-dirty-weekend sort of fling thing, whatever the hell it was.
“But Mike?
“No, Mike wanted more. Is it a law of Nature, do you suppose, that the more you want the less you get?
“I told him I couldn’t cope with that, cope with the level of commitment he was expecting from me. I told him, on that last day in Madrid, we’d be better off being just the friends we’d always been.
“And I seriously thought I’d be okay with that!”
+++
Thru Security etc Qing 4 coffee. How’s the drive? MxXx
Can barely c the rd 4 tears. B gd 2 yrself. Safe flight – T
Must this be the end? Can’t we just say au revoir? MxXx
Yes. & no. I will always love u – TxXx
+++
Know something, Drew? This time it wasn’t okay. I don’t know whether you remember, but you kept asking me what was wrong. And I kept telling you I wasn’t sleeping well or that my back was troubling me or that it was just the bloody British weather, nothing to worry about. And, because I had let you know so little of me, that satisfied you. And you suggested things to make me sleep or pills that would ease my back, or chuckled wryly in sympathy about the weather. All very ‘pub-friend’ly. Nothing dangerous or toe-threatening.
Inside I was slivered. Not eviscerated. Nothing so merciful. All my organs were sliced to wafer-thinness by an electronic cleaver, but they were still pounding, still throbbing. Still bleeding. I wanted to cry like a baby. And, like a baby, I wanted Mummy and for Mummy to make the world go away, and make the horribleness of the world go away.
I tried to find some solace in Franklyn. I told myself I was closer to you. Starting, at least and at some kind of level, to communicate.
But – I see this now and I apologise – you can’t communicate when you’re in that kind of pain. It’s not possible. When they’re tightening the thumb-screws you may ask about the neighbour’s cat, but you won’t be listening to the reply.
And when I woke up to that, I also woke up to the fact that I was involved in a fool’s errand. How could I possibly expect to have a relationship? With you, I mean? The fact that we’d had none to date would sour any we might have in the future. And any I might have had with Franklyn would also likewise be soured. Yet again I repeat that, for all of which I hold myself completely and exclusively responsible. You are a remarkable man, Drew. And you will, I feel sure, be the father to Franklyn that I never was to you. But that is what you are: You are a man. Even remarkable men are men. And we forget that at our peril.
I know you will be angry with me at the moment. No, I don’t know that, but I think it is a sensible surmise. If you are not angry with me, then you are an even more remarkable man than I took you for. A saint, as near as dammit.
I’m sorry that you’re angry. More sorry, I’m sure, than you’ll believe. But I did what I did from what I sincerely believed were the best of intentions – those same best of intentions that the road to Hell is paved with! Maybe your mother was right, her little ‘joke’. The only thing I’m committed to is a lack of commitment – the only thing I should be committed for.
The pain of having lost Trove this time was indescribable. So much worse than the previous times. But rather than swamping all the other pains around it, it seemed to force them all to the surface. Just as, in fact, it was physically. My aching back was making me aware that my teeth were also aching, so was the instep of my right foot and my left shoulder-blade. Trove was my back, but my teeth were you, and the instep was for a wasted life, and my left shoulder-blade was for all the pain I had caused. Shit, that pain was a real pain too. All the pain, in fact, it was all real pain. All too real even. It was, in fact, so real that I can feel it again as I write. May God forgive me.
+++
“Orgasm, it’s not one thing, is it? I mean, it is one thing – of course it’s one thing – but the one thing it is, it’s an agglomeration, isn’t it, of all sorts of other things? Smaller things? Spasms, jerks, gushes, on-rushes – all sorts of different sensations – some of which, in fact, taken in isolation would not even be pleasurable; may even, in fact, be quite painful. Like I understand the elements which combine to make sugar are all bitter. Orgasms, they’re all sorts of sensations combining together into one sort of whoosh of an emotion or a discharge or whatever the hell it is.
“Well, what I went through on the drive back from Madrid, that was, in that case, orgasmic. ‘Cept it was an orgasm of absolutely no pleasure whatsoever. Oh, not too much pain either. Which was curious. Not pain, at any rate, in the accepted use of the word. Just … turbulence. Violent and remorseless turbulence. And anger. Jesus, was I angry?!
“Angry with Mike. And then angry with myself for being angry with Mike. Mike hadn’t done that much for me to be angry with him about. Not yet. Angry with Al. Furious with Al. And angry with myself that I hadn’t been angry with Al at a time when it would have served some purpose my being angry at him. Angry at myself for a whole host of other reasons too. Opening that Pandora’s box, getting involved in the first place, not having noticed what had been happening to Al and me … happening, for Christ’s sake, under my very nose. Furious with myself, spitting tacks at myself, hellfire-and-brimstoning at myself. And at the world, Fate, God, the universe … you name it.
“Boilin
g, raging, searing, seething, scorching …
“And I kept expecting some kind of peace to descend, some kind of eye of the hurricane. And none came. Like I said, it was remorseless. Just wave after wave after wave of turbulence and rage and more rage and more turbulence.
“I wasn’t fit to drive like that. Fit to drive?! Shit, like that, I wasn’t fit to live! And I couldn’t live. Not like that. I couldn’t contain life like that. It would be confiscated from me, or, in some volcanic spew, life would explode out of me.
“I got back to Toulouse in one hit. I stopped twice for the restroom and once for gas. I didn’t even have a coffee. It’s in these kinds of mood, I’m sure, that murders are committed. I had to get rid of it. I had to.
“I got home and got drunk. Very drunk.
“I staggered to bed and collapsed. But the turbulence didn’t stop, it just reeled. And the waves kept coming – wave after wave – except that now, as an added bonus, they were also making me sea-sick!
+++
Home? M xXx
No. Not home. Where the f’s that? In this s/hole in T/lousy. V NOT @ home. I cannot stop crying. We can see each other, no? – T
Whenever. MxXx
+++
Maison d’arrêt de Toulouse-Seysses, 25th July 06
Dear Trove – my dearest Trove – my darling:
My first night as a convicted prisoner! It doesn’t feel too different, if I’m honest, to my other nights here as an unconvicted prisoner. I feel more sorry for those who have today been convicted without having been remanded. It’s a considerably bigger shock to their system than it is to mine.
I’ve drafted this letter endless times. Endless times. I’ve got all the drafts here. I had imagined, what’d I’d do, I’d read them all back again, steal the best bits and cobble those bits together. And you know what? There’s only one way to write this, and that’s from scratch. Oh, the previous drafts will be there, of course. If for no other reason than that they will have informed this one. But there is only one right time to write this letter and that’s today. And it has to be written from me today. It’s not, I don’t think, that the spontaneous is necessarily more truthful, but it is more honest. I can’t remember who said it – Nietzsche, probably – but whoever it was once wrote, ‘Misery introduces a man to himself’. There can be few places of greater combined misery than prison. And at that level, it is therefore the building probably housing the most honesty, or at least self-awareness, in the entire of society. But that’s just crap, frankly. Sentimental eyewash. There is no place on the planet where self-delusion rules more firmly than in prison. Maybe because survival in prison depends on it. And maybe that’s why, finally, prison so seldom works.
It’s under a year since the whole thing started. Under a year, can you believe that?
Meanwhile, as I can hear you saying, back at the point …
+++
“And that, I think, is quite enough about Al and Trove for one day. Time, I think, to concentrate on quite another romance. I have this overwhelming urge to kiss you. I think I may have to do something about that urge before we repair to dinner.
“Isn’t that better? Hasn’t that urge been intruding, oh, certainly for the last hour? In my case, if I’m honest, from when you walked through the door. We could have dinner here.
“No, what am I thinking? You’ve seen enough of this place for a day. ‘Le Bistro d’Orléans’, I think. Dinner, my dear, is ours. What I mean by that is, just ours, ours exclusively, no third parties. Petrova and Al can rejoin us, say, at breakfast tomorrow morning? Okay? Alright?
“Just one more kiss, I think, before we leave.”
Chapter 13
“Answer me something: Why is it that women in men’s clothes look so sexy? Whereas men in women’s clothes just look grotesque? You look so lovely in that dressing-gown of mine. Pretty, sexy, so desirable. Can I take it off for you?
“I made Eggs Benedict.
“Want to know why?
“I made Eggs Benedict because there’s an old joke. Have you heard the old joke?
“The old joke goes: ‘Why is Eggs Benedict like a blow-job?’ No? ‘Because you don’t get either at home.’ Well, ... let’s call it my concession to the concept of quid pro quo. Bon appétit.
“You switched your tape-recorder back on.
“Already? How are the eggs?
“I don’t know about Petrova. I didn’t see Petrova during that time. Mike, of course, was still in England. But I did see Al. I did, rather, see the red fedora. And ducked into the nearest shadows when I did. He’d got to the really boring stage of being a drunk. Well, drunks are drunks are drunks, of course, and drunks are always boring, but you know what I mean. The stage, I’m talking about, when the drunk’s boring even when he appears to be sober. Because, of course, he never is. Sober. Not really. Not fully. He’s just, I believe the phrase is, ‘topping up’. Talking of topping up, how does a buck’s fizz sound? It’s so naughty, isn’t it, drinking champagne for breakfast? Naughty but delicious. Like last night, no?: naughty but delicious. Naughty, rather, and delicious. What do you say? Buck’s fizz? What do you say?
“Shall we take them outside? Drink them on the terrace? It’s such a lovely day. But then, even if it were pouring with rain, it would be a lovely day. Noël Coward was once asked by a journalist whether it was true he always drank a bottle of champagne before breakfast. Coward fixed him with his enigmatic, lightly contemptuous stare, and replied blandly, ‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Santé. Doorstepped on another occasion by another hack … – not that you’re a hack, my dear. Perish indeed the thought. There is a difference, and I recognise it, between the dope-peddler and the chemist. – Doorstepped, as I said, by one such of the more tabloid variety, he was asked: ‘Do you have anything to say to “The Sun”?’ Again that withering half-smile. ‘Shine!’ the dramatist enjoined.
“Mike?
“Mike sulked. I think that would be the way to describe it. Oh, we still talked often on the phone. Sulked not in a petulant way, but in a feet-stomping way.
“‘How are you?’ I would ask.
“‘Fine,’ he would stomp in reply, slamming the door shut. Metaphorically, I mean. Very firmly. And venturing no further.
“I once saw Dustin Hoffman being interviewed by a talk-show host called Michael Parkinson. You won’t have heard of him. Not here. He’s a sort of professional sycophant, arse-licker to the stars. I’m sure you have an equivalent. ‘You’re here, Dustin, I understand,’ said Mr Parkinson, ‘to promote your new film.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Hoffman. Parkinson waited for him to continue. Nothing. And he waited and he waited. Still nothing. Eventually Parkinson continued, ‘In it you co-star with …’ whoever it was. ‘Yup,’ said Hoffman and said no more. ‘And how was he to work with?’ Parkinson floundered, his professional Yorkshire accent flattening a few more vowels than usual. ‘Fine,’ replied the star. And thus it continued. Between you and me, I actually quite enjoyed it. Quite enjoyed Parkinson’s discomfort with it all. Those prepared to sojourn in astral recta, I smirked to myself, must expect occasionally to find themselves in shit. And the schadenfreude involved in watching him drowning in the stuff … well, it was what the young today would call ‘wicked’.
“But the point is, that’s how it was ‘talking’ to Mike in those days. You had to supply the entire dynamic of the conversation. Though even the word ‘conversation’ would be an exaggeration. It was very one-sided: You talked, he grunted. Talking of grunting, could we go back to bed now?”
+++
Wld it help us 2 talk? Or not? U decide – T xXx
Sorry. If we talked Id just fall in love w/ u again. Wld that b helpful? Mxx
I understand – T
Hasta …? Mxx
+++
… I know Mike wasn’t your first fling, Trove. When I say ‘fling’ I’m not trying to underestimate the affair with him. But I know he wasn’t your first detour off, let’s call it, the matrimonial path. And that was okay. Was, and
is. I had a couple of flings myself, one of which might even have developed into something serious. It didn’t because, I suppose, aged around 40 I became aware that I wanted comfort more than passion. In my work as well. I remember we even talked about it. Yeah! One of the rare occasions when we did talk. We talked about the way my pieces lacked the passion of ten years previously. That they had mellowed. And I liked that they had. And you … you, let’s say, were less sure. In the same way, I became aware too, around that time, that I was comfortable with you. I became aware that all the passion inside me had mellowed: the fire was no longer roaring, embers (rather) were glowing.
Oh, I could see the passion in you – you were passion, Trove. You’ve always been passion. Since before I knew you. All those stories your folks told about your childhood, always the hallmark was passion. You made Carmen look like a lump of granite. I’d loved that about you, revered it. More, I was in awe of it. And then, at around that same age, 40 thereabouts, I became aware that I was no longer in awe of your passion. It wasn’t sudden, the realization. It was a creeping awareness that some time in the recentish past I’d come to that realization. And know what I realized I now felt? Instead of reverence for your passion, I mean? Instead of awe for it? I pitied you your passion, Trove. I felt sorry for you that you had it, like feeling sorry for someone with diabetes – it’s not usually a life-threatening condition, but it is one helluva drag.
Patronizing or what? …
+++
“A one-edged sword – think about it, hon – is not a sword at all: It’s an overgrown carving knife. So I’ve never been too sure why it’s used so often as a metaphor, a ‘two-edged sword’. I mean, a more appropriate image, wouldn’t it, would be a gun-barrel with holes either end – so you don’t know whether the bullet’s going to kill its target or you. Kind of cumbersome, though – I take the point –, for a metaphor. I guess we’re going to be stuck with a ‘two-edged sword’ – like ‘not having your cake and eat it’: another phrase I could never quite grasp how to use. Me and Marian Keyes both! You know Marian Keyes, right?
Al's Well Page 17