Life – do you ever want to know what life is? I’ve always wanted to know. Well, this would be life. I’d find my way into life, with my girl on the sofa, watching over me.
And French doors open to the air.
You don’t even have French doors.
But if I did. And if I had a little garden. The doors open, and the air coming in, sweetened by the flowers.
Is that what flowers do?
She’d know, my lover. She could garden. That could be her project, in between performing or acting or whatever. She’d be happy gardening. And I’d be happy writing, and we could meet each other for tea breaks.
And sex breaks.
Sure – sex breaks. And she’d be Life, capital L. She’d make me want to bust out of the study. Be outside. Out we’d go. And it’d be bright. And we’d walk along the beach. The South Shields beach, maybe. Or maybe we’d get the ferry to North Shields, and walk up to Long Sands. Or we’d drive up the coast – in my dreams, we’d have a car – up to Alnwick. Somewhere like that. And I could drive. I’d actually have a driver’s license. An outdoor life, right? I’d be driving her along. And she’d be, next to me, in the passenger’s seat, tanned and long-limbed and beautiful. And she’d wear a big floppy sun hat. Wouldn’t that be something? Like a young Jane Birkin.
But what about you? Don’t you ever have enough of the essential solitude, or whatever? Dreaming your Blanchotian dreams. In your high room, with its skylight. Pretending to be profound. Pretending to be European … It’s no good, you know. You’ll never be European. You have to be something British instead. Something lower class, which you are, and I am.
In a time that doesn’t give a fuck about Blanchot and books of any kind. In which everyone’s watching boxsets. Or playing computer games. Or getting dopamine hits from social media …
Sure, I’m in the same situation, if not worse. Susan Taubes in South Shields. Susan Taubes anywhere in the English speaking world. Where no one – no one’s interested. Apart from maybe a few in New York, or something. Sucks, doesn’t it?
We’re martyrs of indifference. Of obscurity. Of pointlessness.
But somehow we make a living at this.
But not for long.
Not for long, maybe. We’re fucked, maybe. And this is an interlude. This is our brief time in the sun. This is time out from the world. This is a little opening, a vista.
For a few years.
And we’ll have to enjoy these few years, right? Before it all collapses. Which it will do, soon.
Will it? We always think it’s going to collapse. Because we can’t believe the idyll will last. When we actually have jobs. When we’re not scrabbling about. We can’t believe our luck, so therefore it has to end.
It is going end. Have you seen the levels of US debt?
So we have to have a bit of fun, right?
Fun: you only know how to have fun in your fantasy. With your dream girl. Your young Jane Birkin, or whatever …
Sure – she could garden. She’d be life. And when she was tired of gardening, and making lunch for us both, she’d make me want to take her out. And off we’d go. I’d be totally cured of agoraphobia. I wouldn’t be some scholar-recluse. And she’d be tanned. And long limbed. And beautiful.
I like your fantasy. Blanchot knew Bridget Bardot, you know. He met her in this village where he lived on the south coast of France. Bridget Bardot was making a film down there, and he met her.
Is that what you’re going to do: meet Bridget Bardot?
Work in Progress 