I don’t think I’d want to be with a scholar. Maybe a singer. Or an actor. Someone creative. Instinctual … Like Serge Gainsbourg went out with Jane Birkin. And I look a bit like Serge Gainsbourg, don’t I?
Jane Birkin said Gainsbourg was so much fun. He didn’t want to stay in working all the time. Writing songs, or whatever. Recording stuff. He wanted to be out – with her. Having adventures. Going places. Driving off to some remote beach and making love in the surf. That kind of thing.
My love would make me want to be out – with her. Our in the sun. Out in the day. I wouldn’t be about work all the time. I wouldn’t be all about sitting in the dark.
And when I did work, when I had to work, she’d be in the room with me. Watching over me. Doing her own thing, but watching over me. Making sure I didn’t go too far into Susan Taubes world. Into all the doomy stuff.
Did you ever read Duras’s book, Practicalities? About the daily life of living with her young lover, Yann Andrea? All this stuff about shopping and cleaning and cooking and just hanging out. And what they read and what they did. And gardening. All the domestic stuff, right? She was in her seventies then, and he was twenty-six.
I like knowing those details. How she lived. How they lived. I’d like to live like that.
Would you?
So long as there’d be time to write.
I can see her sitting back, feet up on my table, long legs in jeans and cowboy boots, reading Proust. Reading Swann’s Way. She’d be the most beautiful Proust-reader who ever was. There, sitting as I wrote, reading Swann’s Way and occasionally gasping over the beauty of the prose. Occasionally reading a sentence out loud. Oh honey, listen to this.
Yes, that’s how I see her: reading Proust in her white jeans and cowboy boots. Feet up. In a blouse, like some lady explorer. So beautiful. As beautiful as Proust’s sentences. And reading out Proust sentences that she liked. Oh honey, so beautiful.
And I’d read to her from Susan Taubes, and she’d wrinkle her nose. Yuck. Too death-haunted for her. Too deathly for her. Too dark, for her. Too morbid, for her. Too depressing, for her. Nothing to do with the garden. With the outdoors. With the lily pond – we’d have a lily pond, in my fantasy. With drives out to the countryside – we’d have a car, in my fantasy …
She’d pioneer, like, Proust reading chic. She’d be the Anita Pallenberg of reading Proust and looking fabulous …
A silk scarf round her waist. A tiara. Pearls. I love pearls. A pearl necklace. Pearl earrings.
Sometimes twinset for that irresistible posh, posh look. With white jeans. And her cowboy boots. Wouldn’t that be something?
Of course, she’d really want someone with money. With a lifestyle. Some rich woman. Or some rich man, maybe. Who could keep her in style. Fly her here and there. Take her off around the world. Show her the great world-capitals.
But for the moment, as she read Proust, long legs perched up on my desk, I’d do.
She liked to be adored. Loved. Admired.
She'd like to be taught things. Shown things.
I'd introduce her to Blossom Dearie. Or Nancy Wilson. Or whoever else. Play things that would delight her. Make her a playlist.
With her so-feminine features. With the delicacy of her nose. Her cheekbones. She’ll say, honey don’t ignore me. Just because I’m reading Proust.
She’d be ballet-trained. She’d run like a ballerina. I’d love to watch her run, ballerina-style. They have a special way of running, ballerinas. She’d be so graceful. The way she’d move.
She’d tell me about her ballet training. And the finer points of ballet appreciation. And what was so great about Syvlie Guillem. About ballet choreography. Yes – that’d be her world. Her elegance. So why would she be with you? Because she was intellectual, too. Or she admired intellectual things. She loved the intellectual world. The literary world. Which is why she could just sit there, lost in Proust. Sighing this is so beautiful every now and again.
She’d be full of the spirit of adventure. And maybe she’d be exotic. Maybe she’d come from overseas. Where, though? Somewhere sunny. A tropical island. Faraway. In the Caribbean, or somewhere. She’d talk about that, too. And maybe I’d go over there, for Christmas, or something. And get my taste of the tropics.
We’d drive around her tropical island. Seeing the sights. Visiting the beaches. See tropical fish in the green sea. And it’d be so warm, even in winter, when we were visiting. An island paradise. The most beautiful place in the world. With big blue skies. Summer, basically, every day.
She’d do yoga every day. Just, like, in the flat. She’d always be doing yoga. Like that woman in that film Wim Wenders made about Nicholas Ray. Cultivating her body. Or Pilates, maybe.
And what would you be doing?
Writing, of course.
But you’d know you couldn’t keep her, right?
I’d know that. And she’d know. Sometimes she’d talk of afterwards – when we split up. She’d begin, After all this – when we’re not together anymore … And ask whether we’d keep in touch. Whether we’d send email to each other. Whether I would keep sending her book recommendations.
And then she’d look a little sadly and say, But I don’t want to think of afterwards.
Work in Progress 