Affair I

I think I’ve caught the void from you. Is it contagious?

 

What’s it like being one of your students? God. Pouring all your despair into their ears. Is this what they pay fees for?

 

I’ll miss our talks. I’ll miss talking like this.

It isn’t over yet.

It is though, really. It was always over. 

 

We’re stranded in the bedroom. In your flat. We’ve suspended the world in your studio flat. We’ll never leave. We’re here forever. We’re stuck here. Some part of us will always be stuck here. Forever and ever.

 

You should have a word with your landlord. The double glazing unit’s failed. What a depressing sight. And all those dead flies …

 

Our romance. Our love affair. Laughter. Doesn’t it sound stupid? It’d be okay if you’re French. If you were European. It probably makes sense over there.

The English can’t be sexual in an adult manner. It isn’t part of our culture. Don’t you agree?

We’re having a go at it. We can’t but be self-conscious. We can’t but be disengaged.

So we should have le sex.

 

What would we do all day, if we were together?

We could work at opposite ends of the table. You could be doing your organisational management work, and I’d be doing my philosophy work. Of course, it’s not his and hers offices, but still …

 

I think I’ve forgotten how to read. I can’t read anymore. Is there such a thing as reader’s block? God, all these books … I don’t think I want anything to do with books anymore …

 

I think you made up the void. I think it’s a name for miserabilism. I think the void’s just a lack of fresh air and exercise. You should get out more. Feel the sun on your skin.

 

What’s going on out there?

What’s ever going on out there? Nothing. Everything. The most important things. The least important things. People getting on with their lives.

 

Does anyone else visit your studio? I can’t imagine you having dinner parties up here. Are you into solitude? Is that your thing? Do you like to contemplate things all alone?

 

There’s nothing to say about sex. Nothing that doesn’t sound stupid, anyway.

So sound stupid.

I don’t see why we have to talk about it. Why can’t we just do it? There is no philosophy in the bedroom.

That’s where you’re wrong.

 

The sky’s thinking about itself. It’s thinking its own thoughts.

Is it thinking about us?

It’s got other things to think about.

 

I feel disgusting today,

 

Maybe it shouldn’t just the two of us. It’s very intense, isn’t it – just the two of us. Always the two of us. No one to bounce off. No one to set us off in new directions. No one to talk about. No other couples, or anything. It’s very … self-devouring, or whatever. Self-reflexive. Just bent back upon itself.

 

There’s something unfulfilled in you, too, organisational manager. You don’t believe in anything you say.

I’ve always thought I’d be better off doing something practical. Instead of, like, lecturing. I should start my own business. Go on Dragon’s Den, or whatever.

Do you have an amazing business idea?

I have several.

I don’t believe you.

Actually, I’m just someone who could go into a business and reorganise it. Make It more efficient. More … productive. Amazing. I could operatioanlise it more effectively.

 

Maybe we should ask each other questions. What’s your earliest memory? What’s your favourite film? What did you like to eat most, growing up? What’s your favourite tipple? How did your parents meet?

I don’t think I’m that interested in your past.

Thanks.

A love affair is about the present. It’s about now.

What’s happening now?

 

Tell me about something that happened to you when you were young.

When I was young … I lived an ordinary life. Compared to you. I did ordinary things. I had ordinary happinesses and God knows ordinary sadnesses. Which is to say: nothing happened. Nothing extraordinary, anyway.

I wasn’t talking about anything extraordinary.

Of course you were. You were determined to be extraordinary. Which means you’ll always run up against my ordinariness. I’m just ordinary. Just Jane mundane. Are you disappointed?

No.

What you really want is a European. An East European, probably. Full of Eastern European promise. The inheritor of decades of suffering. And black humour. The darkest humour – forged by all the oppression, or whatever. Full of Eastern European folklore …

 

I always wanted to write the perfect book, and then kill myself. The work, I called it. Everything was about the work.

And did you ever write it?

Maybe I’m trying to write it now.

And kill yourself?

But that’ll never happen. Because I’ll never write anything perfect. Or even any good.

 

So you’re ready to slide in alcoholism.

Perhaps I’m already there.

It’d be romantic for you, alcoholism. It’d be … an artistic destiny. You’d be a truer philosopher, that’s what you’d think. Like you’d been driven to drink because of your profundity. Or maybe that you’d become profound from drinking …

 

Have you ever read the stats on how many children have no genetically relationship to the husband?

Is that what you’d like: a child with me? A cuckoo in the nest?

Maybe.

The fruit of my sober womb. Of my all-too sober womb.

 

Why are you with me? Why do you want to be with me?

For the sex.

No, seriously – what do we actually have in common? Why me? Why not anyone else?

Because you’re … you. Is that a good reason?

It’s because I’m here. Right in front of you.

 

Are you going to start drinking now? In the afternoon?

Why not in the afternoon?

What about decency? What about decorum?

Fuck decency. Fuck decorum.

I’m doing this to you, aren’t I? Driving you to drink. Driving you … somewhere wrong …

Would you like to have that effect?

I have to admit it, I do … I like being … efficacious. I like the idea that the universe isn’t entirely indifferent to my presence …

 

Do philosophers ever write about lust? They should. A philosophy of lust. What would that look like?

 

I want to do it again.

Do you really. So soon?

Why – can’t you get it up?

I’ll … try.

It shouldn’t be hard … I mean difficult. Whereas this should be hard. And what do you know – it is. A miracle.

 

What if I did some dance for you? If I went all … sexy … or is that too sleazy for you? What if I gave you some love-bites? What then?

Then nothing.

What If you gave me some? What would happen then? Our secret would be out.

 

Well, the day’s wearing on. I must away. I can’t think of a good excuse why I should be away any longer than this.

 

Who am I, for you? That’s what I want to know.

I’m blocking your vista. I’m getting in the way of your precious work. Of your thinking-time. Or your reading time. Of your writing.

 

Maybe all this is the opposite of organisational management. Is it the opposite of philosophy?

 

Reading: If I cried out, who would hear me, among the angelic orders. Is this poetry? The kind of thing you read?

It’s like intruding on something, reading this. On some old European dream. What are we doing, reading this kind of thing? Who is it addressed to?

Someone, over our heads. God, maybe. Some European God.

What’s wrong with us? Why aren’t we reached by this? Why aren’t we touched by this? Why don’t we have the time … the space for this sort of thing? It should open us … to the infinite, or whatever. To the sky, or whatever. To death, or whatever. All those things. All those things our great-great-grandparents might have understood.

 

Do you ever wonder how deeply dead we are? How far things have gone wrong? The fact that this poetry just zooms over my head. Over our heads, because I don’t think you understand it either.

It’s so beautiful. And too beautiful for us, for the likes of us. Once upon a time … once people would have set themselves to learn it by heart. To be able to quote this. To remember it all, line by line. And deliver it.

And look at us. We’re fallen. Desperately so. And yet the word, God, still means something. And the word, angels. And the words, angelic orders. The first lines …

I think we’re fallen. Desperately fallen. Because we don’t lament our fallenness. We don’t experience it, not really. It hasn’t reached us, in our depths.

We don’t have any depths. We’re unanchored. We’re drifting. But we don’t know it.

 

I swear time’s slowing down. It’s supposed to go quickly when you’ve having fun.

Is that what we’re doing: having fun?

 

The chapters of our love. What chapter are we on now?

 

It could all just end. If he finds out. Then that’ll be it. We’ll never see each other again. It could be snatched away at any moment. How precarious. He could have followed me here. He could be looking up at this window now, wondering which number flat it is.

 

I keep talking about you to his friends. Our friends. All of them are so old. So much older than I am.

What do you tell them?

About my new gay best friend.

 

I can’t stand the deception anymore.

Really?

So I told him everything.

And then what?

He smashed things up. It was quite impressive really. I didn’t know he had it in him.

How soap-opera-y.

So this is the last time we’ll ever see each other. This is goodbye.

I think I should be allowed a goodbye fuck.

You’re shameless.

It had to end sometime, didn’t it?

This’ll be good for you. You can meet someone else.

These are the most clichéd lines. Why are we speaking clichés? It’s painful.

Are you going to miss me?

Don’t say stupid things.

 

I won’t be able to save you from philosophical gravity anymore. From high-minded seriousness. I’m not serious enough, that’s the problem.

So, what did we learn? What was the great lesson? What can we take from this? What next? Fuck. Nothing’s ever going to make sense. Closure. Is that what we need?

So we’re actually not going to see each other again?

Maybe by accident. And then we’ll be embarrassed. What will we say? What did we ever say?

You’ll still have to write your book about afternoons. Our afternoons. Your philosophy of fucking in the afternoon. Laughter.

 

We could host dinner parties. We could drive to visit friends …

What friends do we have?

… Spend long nights with our besties.

What besties would we have?

 

You should write a memoir.

Now you’re joking. A memoir of what?

Of nothing happening. Do they teach you to write about nothing – about nothingness – in philosophy?

 

And your husband, head of it all … It’s his empire … I liked his three-piece suit. It gives him some distinction. Is that why you went for him?

The question is why I went for you.

I suppose you’ve had a series of lovers. I suppose he likes it.

No, actually. Nothing like that.

And his northern accent. And his easy going manner.

 

What conclusion have we come to?

That lust is all. That fucking trumps all. Is that it? The desire to fuck. The addiction to each another.

There’s a whole world of people out there, but only you will do. You’re the only one for me. The only one.

The only other one, anyway.

 

My husband’s an enthusiast. He thought it was a good idea, the philosophy meets organisation management thing. A cross fertilization. Exploring synergies.

How can you use these words? Without irony. Without quote marks. Why’s everything supposed to be so adaptable? Why is everything supposed to plug into everything else?

 

The management styles of your husband. The organisational management style.

 

The sea’s so far out. Let’s walk out there. Let’s see how far it out it’s gone.

 

Everyone’s gone mad from low tide. From this extra low tide. Will there be an extra high tide now? Will Cullercoats essentially flood?

 

Piles of seaweed, rotting. Flies.

I that flostam? Is that what flotsam looks like? How do you tell it apart from jetsam?

 

The tide’s out. Life’s out. And we’re just stranded. Nothing has any meaning – any context. Nothing’s borne by anything. It’s just deposited. Just left here. 

 

Are there whales out there? Or at least dolphins. You can see seals up at St Mary’s lighthouse.

What do they do?

Lie there, fatly.

 

Everything’s wheeling. The clouds are wheeling. The gulls are wheeling.

 

Is it low tide? High tide? I can never work out the tides.

I think it has an effect on mood. This is a high tide mood. Or a low tide one, I can tell.

 

Those guys with metal detectors. What are they looking for? What are they hoping to find?

 

There comes a dog. Hello, dog. What do you want, dog? Where do you stand on animals, philosopher?