Studio

Your room. Your thinking place. Here’s where it all takes place.

You’re taking the piss.

You must think what you’re doing is really worthwhile. That must be your motivation.

I’ve got nothing better to do, that’s all.

Is that it?

I just wanted to find things to do alone in a room, that’s all. Other than masturbate, I mean.

Don’t try and be funny. Don’t try to pass it off.

I like staying in. I’m doing this because I don’t like it out there. Because I don’t like … life, or whatever it’s called.

So this is a consolation.

You’re a consolation.

 

I don’t know what to do except write. Read and write.

I think it’s because my life is essentially empty.

Or perhaps you want it empty – so you can do this. Whatever this is ….

 

Do you mind me being here? Am I a distraction? Do I get in the way of your work? Ha – I quite like getting in the way of your work.

 

Your studio. Laughter. And this is all your stuff. These are your books. These are your notebooks. (Reading) My God, the way you address yourself. You take yourself so seriously. Someone, at some time, must have told you that you were great. That great things were expected of you. God, you have such confidence. Like the world wants to know your thoughts …

I wrote it for myself.

You wrote it for posterity. I can tell. These aren’t just notes. You actually think you’re great – or could be. That all this is worth preserving. Like Francis Bacon’s studio, or whatever … I’m lucky to be here. To be admitted into the studio of a genius …

 

Face it, I’m just the interruptor of great work. A regular villainess. You’re so profound, so melancholic, so romantic … And I’m just shallow, selfish and full of basic needs.

 

You’re holding out for someone who’ll be fascinated by you. Be in awe of you and think you’re a real genius. Someone who doesn’t just want you for your body, like I do. But for your – mind. For what’s in your head. (Laugher.) For all your thoughts. (Laughter.) For your desire to be some world-leading intellectual. Wouldn’t that be something? She’d be quite in awe of you. She wouldn’t disturb you when the Muse visited. When you needed to be alone to think. She’d tiptoe around you.

 

See, your dream is to be taken very, very seriously. For there to be documentaries about you. Special editions of journals on your work. Conferences to be held in your honour. My God – I can see it now, the vanity. Which would pose as anti-vanity, of course. In a refusal to appear on camera. In turning down awards. In refusing to be a guest of honour … But all the while enjoying the attention …

 

Share one of your ideas. Or some idea. Or anything. Show me you can think. Do your thinking thing. Think, pig.

 

God … I have a thinker for a lover. (Laughter.)

 

Would you rather I not be here, needling you? Would you rather be left alone? Couldn’t you make great use of this time? Imagine what you could be writing now …

 

Here I am in your most private sanctuary. Your thought refuge.

 

We actually have his and her studies.

How bourgeois. Mr and Mrs academic … What do you get up to in your study?

Learn German.

Is that right?

I’m rather good at it, actually. I’m going to become fluent. I’ll bet you think German’s wasted on me … All the Germanic things I could be reading …