Light of God

My flat.

In bed.

I’d like to wake up with you in the morning, Priya says. I’d like to go to sleep beside you at night.

So what’s stopping you? I ask. Leave hubbie. Move in.

What would I be doing living with you? Priya asks. I’d only get in your way.

I’d like you here, I say. I’d like to be with you.

Would you, though? Priya asks. This whole … thing is predicated on our not being together. On separation. That’s its condition. If we were together, we’d just bore each other to death. We’d be just like everyone else. We’d … irritate each other. All the annoying things that you do and all the annoying things that I do. We’d get on each other’s nerves, you know that. And that’s how it would play out, like it plays out for everyone …

And maybe we’d reproduce to distract ourselves, Priya says. Which would make things worse.

Would it? I ask.

I can't imagine you with a child, Priya says. It would get in the way of your work.

I can imagine you with a child, though, I say. Cute.

Maybe you want me to have your child, Priya says. A cuckoo in the bourgeois nest. Would you like that?

I’d like you to stay the night, at least, I say. I’d like to watch you sleep. I’d like to hear you breathe.

I like it when you say things like that, Priya says. I like being able to arouse that in a man, even if I don’t believe a word. Anyway, maybe you’ll get your supposed wish when my husband finds out about us. When he kicks me to the curb. Which is what I deserve, after all. And then what’ll you do? You’d have to take me in.

But he doesn’t suspect, does he? I ask. He has no idea.

I’ve told him you’re my gay best friend, Priya says. What a cliché. Actually, I didn’t say you were gay. He just assumed. He’s from Middlesborough. They’re provincial up there.

And what about you: do you want a child? I ask.

My husband doesn’t want one, and nor do – did – I, Priya says. You know what: I’d like to scandalise him by just saying, I’m pregnant, and it’s not yours …

So cruel …, I say.

I resent him, you see, Priya says. That’s what happens after fifteen years. And I even like to resent him. God, What we’re doing to him, my … husband. The way we’re humiliating him. And ourselves – what we’re doing to ourselves! So greedy. So impulsive. We’re such animals. God, that should sound erotic, shouldn’t it? But it just sounds tawdry. And disgusting. We’re disgusting.

Sin – we live in sin, Priya says. That’s the only word for it: sin. Although I don’t know what it means: sin. And I don’t even feel guilty – about what we’re going to him. I feel the ghost of feeling guilty, that’s all. I feel that I’m supposed to feel guilty, even if I don’t actually feel guilty.

Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I had something else going on …, Priya says. Children to look after, or whatever. Or writing a magnum opus, like you. But you know what? I don’t believe that. I think I would have wanted it anyway, our affair. An affair. Any old affair. I would have wanted the experience. As a kind of self-debasement. Because that’s what this is, I think: an exercise in self-debasement.

And don’t think you’re innocent in all this, Priya says. What do you think you’re doing to my husband? What do you think you’re putting him through?

He’s your husband, I say.

You shook his hand, Priya says.

I did shake his hand, I say. I had to. He’s my new boss. The king of organisational management … I answer to him directly. I meet with him all the time.

All the while secretly enjoying the fact you’re fucking his wife, Priya says. Did you want to humiliate yourself, too? Did you seek out … degradation? Did you want the drama of feeling?

I liked you, that’s all, I say. I thought – I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re the centre of the world. I think that while you’re here, there’s hope for me and hope for everyone, and hope for the world. That it’s not all just careening into darkness.

You like the darkness, too, Priya says.

I like your darkness, I say. I like you like this.

I’ll bet you didn’t bet on this, Priya says. I’ll bet you didn’t think I had it in me … See, I’m becoming you. Your personality is bleeding into mine. We’re becoming indistinguishable. Is my personality bleeding into yours? Are you becoming more organised? More managerial? It’s like that film I saw once … that film on the coast, the Swedish coast. Persona. Very arthouse. The nurse becomes the actress and the actress becomes the nurse … or something.

We’re mockers, that’s what I think, Priya says. Despoilers. That’s what the light knows.

What light? I ask.

The skylight light, Priya says. That beam of light, shining there on the floor. The light knows that we’re enjoying loathing ourselves. That we’re just indulging in self-hatred. Twisting the knife. As a way of entertaining ourselves. The light know that we’re perverse. And we’re disgusting. And that we don’t know how to be anything other than disgusting. And that we want to indulge in new depravities, just for kicks …

The human condition, I say.

I need a … wash, Priya says.

Take a shower, I say.

I need a spiritual wash, Priya says. I need to be spiritual cleansed. So much evil and so much horror. Running through us. Coursing through us. We’re filth. We see filth and are filth. We breathe filth. What isn’t disgusting? What survives of the non-disgusting? What isn’t just death, in this disgusting world of ours? Tell me, philosopher … Tell me what survives …

Love, I say. Love survives.

Liar, Priya says. Look what we’ve reduced love to. This. Some … cuckoldry. Some affair. We’re depraved, that’s all. We’re depraved and we love our depravity. Love indeed.

But why do you think love has to be this pure thing? I ask. Why can’t you accept that it’s bound up with … darker things?

I need something to be pure, Priya says. As pure as light – that light.

The light you called God, I say.

The quivering light on the floor, Priya says. Reflected from the skylight. The quivering light. The light of God, quivering on the floor … Compared to that …What we call love is death …