My flat.
In bed.
This is some indulgent existence, Priya says. Who has the right to live like this?
We do, apparently, I say.
Why? How come we deserve this? Priya asks.
We’re luxuriants, I say. We’re self-indulgers. We’re emptying the chocolate box of life.
Surely all this is bad for us, Priya says. Surely it’s ruining us in some way or another. We’re going to be punished, I know it. You don’t get a free pass for this. You can’t just live like this. You can’t just abandon everything. There are consequences, I’m sure of it.
How come you’re so full of qualms? I say.
This must be doing something to our souls, Priya says. Do we have souls? You tell me, philosopher. You’re the expert.
I don’t think I believe in souls, I say.
How disappointing, Priya says.
And I don’t believe in your attack of conscience, I say.
We are pleasing ourselves, aren’t we? Priya says. I’m pleasing you, aren’t I? I'm pleasing me at least. I like lying around, half clothed. I like all this. I like you. I like your intellect. There, I’ve said it. But I do. I like your dedication. I like the fact that you really want to do something.
I like your ambition, Priya says. I find comical. And charming, And admirable. I like that there might be Important Thoughts in that dome of yours.
And you know what else I like? Priya asks. Taking you in hand. Touching you. I like taking you in my mouth. I like the fact that I can make you think of nothing else but fucking. It turns me on. And I like to be turned on …
Now you have to say nice things about me, Priya says. That’s the game. Do my beauty again – go on. Go on.
Your beauty, I say, sitting up. Changing every room you enter. Becoming the centre of the world, for everyone. All anyone wants to do is look at you. Like, bathe in your beauty. Everyone wants to pay you compliments. To talk to you. They feel elevated just by your presence. Your magnificence.
And you’re being supremely generous just by passing through the world, I say. Just by … sharing your body. By curating your body. Enhancing its beauty. Making it yet more fabulous. More special. More exceptional. Dressing it. Bathing it. Making up its face. Making it yet more radiant.
Oh stop. You’re over the top, Priya says. You don’t mean it. I can tell by your voice.
But what you really like is feeling your power’s suspended, I say. Being a little uncertain of your effects on others. Becoming a little unsure … As if there were a gap in the adoration that you’re used to. So you have to win it back. So that the world isn’t completely yielding, completely seducable. So that things don’t always go your way …
A little Doubt, I say. A bit of Uncertainty. The lights go out for a moment. You’re bewildered, for a moment. Loveliness can’t do all the work for you. Beauty, by itself, isn’t enough. There are other games – larger ones, greater games. You have to earn your way by more than beauty and your beauty’s curation …
Is that what you think’s happening now: your greater game? Priya asks.
I think you want some risk, I say. You want some challenge. Your life’s too positive, too straightforward. It’s not that you’re unhappy. But you want … a bit of unhappiness. You want to sabotage things, or the potential for sabotage. Because you’re bored in some fundamental sense.
And that’s why I’m in your arms? Priya says. Maybe. You’re getting the best of me here, in this room, you know. Not the boring me. Not the mundane me. Not the pub conversation me. You wouldn’t like me, I think, if you met my friends. You’d find me dull. My conversation wouldn’t interest you.
I’m better here … This suits me in some way …, Priya says. This way of talking … I’m interesting when I come here. I interest myself. I say unexpected things. I talk into the air. You bring it out in me. This … situation.
I like … becoming philosophical, Priya says. Talking like this, which I can never do usually. Just saying these things. These big things. Just speaking into the afternoon. Seeing where words lead me. Where they lead us.
Maybe you’re used to this, philosopher, Priya says. Maybe you think like this, talk like this all the time. Well, not me. Not usually. Not even when my husband and I go on long car drives. When we drive down to the South to see our friends. Our relatives.
What do you talk about? I ask.
Our friends. Our relatives, Priya says. Our plans. Work. People we know. All that kind of stuff. My dream business, that I want to set up one day. That’s what I should have done, instead of becoming an academic. That would have occupied me, like properly. I’ve always thought I’d be better off doing something practical.
Do you have an amazing business idea? I ask.
I have several, Priya says.
I don’t believe you, I say.
Actually, I’m just someone who could go into a business and reorganise it, Priya says. Make It more efficient. More … productive. Amazing. I could operationalise it more effectively.
Is that an organisational management word? I ask.
Yes. Is it barbaric? I don’t mind it being barbaric, Priya says. See, I don’t take organisational management – that’s what we call it – as seriously as you take philosophy. I’m not an organisational management person through and through.
Thank God, I say.
Fuck you, Priya says.
Silence.
I’ll bet you wish I was all European and mysterious, Priya says. More pouty and moody. I’ll bet you wish I were French, or something. All demanding. All petulant and impossible. Impossible to please. To get in the mood. That would be a proper challenge for you. That would engage all your intellectual resources. And your emotional ones. And your seductive ones. A European would really suit you.
I like you the way you are, I say.
Liar, Priya says. God, this is all very convenient for you, isn’t it? I come to you. I visit you in your room. I park my car and press the buzzer and you let me up. You don’t have to woo me with flowers, although I do like the occasional email. You don’t have to do anything. Except be hard. And you’re mostly hard.
It all comes to your door, doesn’t it? Priya says. It comes on a plate. Here I am … Maybe I should withhold myself. Maybe I should be more mysterious. A bit of distance … that’s what you’d like, I’ll bet. A bit of mystery. I should be more elusive.
Silence.
Priya, looking up at the skylight. The sky’s so white. Like a great white eye, seeing nothing, just blind. It’s, like, God up there.
God’s dead, baby, I say. God’s dead.
Who’s watching through the skylight, then? Priya asks.
No one’s watching through the skylight, I say. Unless your husband’s climbed up there.
I don’t think he’s interested, Priya says. I don’t think he gives a shit.
It is God. But a blind God, I say. A dead God, maybe. And the light from the skylight is his judgement on us. The fact that he doesn’t judge. That what we’re doing doesn’t matter, not really. God’s looking down at us by not looking down at us. Seeing us by not seeing us …
Fucking in the afternoon and talking about God, Priya says. That’s what my life’s about now.
The absence of God, I say.
We’ve been having sex in broad daylight, basically, Priya says. It’s bright, bright. You can’t hide from the sky. Not here. Not with your skylight … And there’s no one to witness our shamelessness. To really tell us off. To really upbraid us. And there’s no one there, just the … afternoon. Which means we’ll always feel disgusting, just disgusting, because there’s no one to forgive us.
I forgive you, I say.
You can’t forgive me and I can’t forgive you, that’s the problem, Priya says. Though, God knows, we don’t deserve to be forgiven.
What are we doing here? Priya asks. Just lying about. Just being alive. Just breathing. Our hearts beating, or whatever. Our brain braining. Our livers detoxifying. Our kidneys doing whatever it is that kidneys do. All that stuff. We’re supposed to catch cancer several times a day and, like, defeat it. Isn’t that something? But what for? What are we living for?
We’re depraved, aren’t we? Priya says. We’re depraved and we love our depravity. It’s what gives us the feeling of being alive. But we’re not actually alive.
What’s it all supposed to Mean, philosopher? Priya says. Does it mean anything at all? It just holds off the boredom, doesn’t it? It’s just some … novelty. A bit of time-off for you. A little holiday from working on the magnum opus.
And for me – what is for me? Priya asks. I’m greedy, I admit that. I wanted it. I drove it. I started it. I think I wanted to disgust myself. I think I wanted to appal myself. Drive myself into some … debasement. Because I am debased. And you’re debased. And what’s worse is that we don’t mind being debased.
I don’t think I believe in your anguish, I say. I don’t believe you feel guilt, real guilt.
That’s because you don’t believe in God, Priya says. And I do. Maybe. Maybe now.
Silence.
My sister had this great religious phase, Priya says. While she was at university. She ended up living with these nuns.
Fuck, I say.
And we weren’t brought up religiously, Priya says. And definitely not Christian. These weren't Hindu nuns.
So how do you account for that? I ask.
Residual cultural Christianity, or something, Priya says. I dunno.
Why do you care so much about God? I say. I thought God had no place in the organisational management world.
Maybe God’s the ultimate organisational manager, Priya says.
God the manager: that’s frightening, I say.
God. What we’ve come to, Priya says. Tawdry, tawdry. I need a shower. I need to get OUT of this place. It’s dragging me under. This is no way to live.
You can’t be anonymous, I say. You can’t be just no one. You’re at the centre of the world wherever you go. What’s it like to be at the centre of the world? What’s it like to change every space you enter? Its rules. How it operates. As everyone makes way for you. Stands back, for a moment. As everyone’s startled.
God, don’t try that on me, Priya says.
What an effect to have, I say. But you’re drawn to the one upon whom you don’t have that effect. It’s like dogs drawn to non dog lovers. You’re interested in the one immune to your charms …
Work in Progress 