Guilt

How can I do this to Alan?: that’s what you’re thinking. But I like doing this to my husband. I feels right to be doing this to Alan.

My husband …

Why do you never call him by name?

Because he’s anonymous. Because he’s a force. Because he’s a collection of husband drives. (Laughter.)


Where does he think you are?

You know – exercise class. Which is why I’m dressed like this. Actually, I have been to exercise class … He’s suspicious now. He follows me, in his car.

Maybe he’s outside now.

Have a look.

There’s no one there. Just the street.


A soap opera staple. A TV drama staple. All the ingredients for a melodrama. And a crappy melodrama, at that.


This deception can’t be good for anyone, can it? It can’t be good for us. Do you ever wonder what it’s doing to us?

We’re demons. Or I am. I’ve become demonic. And I don’t mind, that’s the thing. Which makes me doubly demonic.


We’ve become liars. Dissemblers. We won’t tell the whole truth. Well, I say ‘we’, but I mean ‘I’.

Because you’re okay. You’re just the occasion of adultery. But then you have meetings with him, don’t you, my husband. My provider. You’re lying to him, implicitly …


The other night, I went into the bathroom and found myself just crying and crying. I was, shuddering. And trembling. Quite grotesque … Oh don’t feel sorry for me. I‘m not asking for you to feel sorry.


What are we doing with our lives? Are we being reckless with our lives? Are we spoiling them, our lives? But we’re free to do that, aren’t we? We’re free to do exactly as we please. That’s the thing. That’s the problem with too much freedom.


There’s some other way to live, isn’t there? We don’t have to be who we are. We don’t have to be this. There’s another life. Another way of living our lives. Isn’t there?


It’s not like I have an excuse. I wasn’t brought up really savagely. There was no major trauma in my life. I wasn’t, like, abused or anything.


What sort of person am I? The sort of person who doesn’t care what sort of person I am – that’s clear. Who doesn’t have a conscience. No, who doesn’t act on her conscience.


I’m not even mean. I’m not even calculating. I just helped yourself to this. I wanted an affair, and I got to have an affair and that was it. Simple. No qualms. No inner objections. No wrackings of conscience. No anxiety. No: who am I if I do this? No: what kind of person does these things? No: who am I becoming?


I must be … two dimensional or something. I must have no depth. No soul.


Look what we’ve reduced love to. This. Some … cuckoldry. Some affair.


I’m searching for it, my guilt. I’m looking for it but not finding it, my sense of guilt. Some last shred of decency.


I think I wanted a bit of drama. I think all this is about drama. I wanted something to happen. I wanted to be caught up in some imbroglio. Is that the word for it: imbroglio?


We’re depraved, aren’t we? We’re depraved and we love our depravity. It’s what gives us the feeling of being alive. But we’re not … actually … alive.


We’re mockers. Despoilers. Isn’t it enjoyable: loathing ourselves? Aren’t we indulging in it: self-hatred? Just as a way of entertaining ourselves.

Twisting the knife. Turning it deeper. On ourselves. Just for the drama …


What are we living out – what psychodrama? Where’s this supposed to be taking us? Hell, probably. Somewhere dreadful. But it won’t, will it? We don’t really feel that. We don’t fear that. This isn’t the fucking middle ages.


What does God see? What does God think of us? Not very much. God’s thoroughly sick of our kind …