set herself loose on a sea of unbounded emotion. ‘The truth’ wasn’t just abstract and unconsoling, it had become positively malign, like being thrown an anchor after falling overboard.
The day hobbled on with unrelenting horror. By the time we got home again we were too tired to make love and too upset to sleep. We stared out of the window, admiring the suave transition from hideous day to hideous night.
Our parting was silent. There was nothing to say. Tears belonged to a luxurious world we had left far behind.
I went to the station and, contemplating the departures board, chose Toulon, the nearest place with no reputation for merriment.
17
I think continually of Angelique, the sharp crease of her thigh tendons, the soft hollow behind her knees, the throb of her jugular. I think of her on all fours, slippery with sweat, that last time when she turned her head and smiled, confident that I would enjoy myself, anxious that I would know she couldn’t.
I want to lift her in my mouth like a lion cub and carry her to safety. I want to push my thumbs up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, until the pleasure floods her brain. I want to hook my arms around her shoulders and draw her closer. I imagine us foundering onto the bed, my chest against her back. We sink into a humming realm, a bell jar of bees, flesh buzzing. We are not absorbed in ourselves, or lost in each other, but both feeling the sting of the same rain, as if the rain was intelligence.
She begged me not to ring her after I left. It was easy enough to agree at the time, but the restorative influence of this terrifying loneliness has made me forget the agony of our parting and the seriousness of my promise. Perhaps she regrets her request and is longing for me to ring. I would do the kind thing if I had any idea what it was.
Impatience, when it intensifies beyond the banal agitation of the ticket queue, and the anguish of a pacing lover, changes its nature and nails one to the floor. Instead of a single stimulating obsession, a universe of cattle prods prevents the slightest movement. Today everything had the impossible urgency of already being too late. I spent the morning breathless on my hotel bed. If there was an Oscar for Best Corpse, I would currently be making the longest acceptance speech in the history of that sincere ceremony. Who could I not thank, what could I not thank, for bringing me to this perfect paralysis? A thousand lines of tumbling dominoes crash in on every moment, bringing their descent to the character of each situation. Of course the dominoes don’t stop tumbling just because I call something a situation. The situation is itself a tumbling domino.
It is already too late to spend a significant amount of time with my daughter. Would it help her to be grasped by a dying stranger with the troubling title of ‘Daddy’? I would do the kind thing if I had any idea what it was.
It is already too late to master the field of consciousness studies, a field which in any case trumpets the insoluble nature of its enquiry. You name it, it’s already too late. I lay there, my thoughts anticipating themselves hopelessly and collapsing at their inception.
What finally got me off the bed was the wallpaper. I couldn’t stand that fucking wallpaper.
Why can’t I just crawl under a bush and die quietly? Why am I sitting here in the Brise Marine, waiting for the ferry to take me over to the island, worrying about how to put it, how to describe what happened to me this morning? The answer is simple. The moment I stop writing, a fungus invades my mind and, instead of the marble on which I was carving my epitaph, I am surrounded by the soft garbage of circumstance, my own death amounting to nothing more than a further mess.
Putting aside my reservations, I rang Heidi to arrange a time when I could see Ton Len. They were away for the weekend.
18
What an island! The straggling branches and peeling bark of the eucalyptuses in the dusty village
The day hobbled on with unrelenting horror. By the time we got home again we were too tired to make love and too upset to sleep. We stared out of the window, admiring the suave transition from hideous day to hideous night.
Our parting was silent. There was nothing to say. Tears belonged to a luxurious world we had left far behind.
I went to the station and, contemplating the departures board, chose Toulon, the nearest place with no reputation for merriment.
17
I think continually of Angelique, the sharp crease of her thigh tendons, the soft hollow behind her knees, the throb of her jugular. I think of her on all fours, slippery with sweat, that last time when she turned her head and smiled, confident that I would enjoy myself, anxious that I would know she couldn’t.
I want to lift her in my mouth like a lion cub and carry her to safety. I want to push my thumbs up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, until the pleasure floods her brain. I want to hook my arms around her shoulders and draw her closer. I imagine us foundering onto the bed, my chest against her back. We sink into a humming realm, a bell jar of bees, flesh buzzing. We are not absorbed in ourselves, or lost in each other, but both feeling the sting of the same rain, as if the rain was intelligence.
She begged me not to ring her after I left. It was easy enough to agree at the time, but the restorative influence of this terrifying loneliness has made me forget the agony of our parting and the seriousness of my promise. Perhaps she regrets her request and is longing for me to ring. I would do the kind thing if I had any idea what it was.
Impatience, when it intensifies beyond the banal agitation of the ticket queue, and the anguish of a pacing lover, changes its nature and nails one to the floor. Instead of a single stimulating obsession, a universe of cattle prods prevents the slightest movement. Today everything had the impossible urgency of already being too late. I spent the morning breathless on my hotel bed. If there was an Oscar for Best Corpse, I would currently be making the longest acceptance speech in the history of that sincere ceremony. Who could I not thank, what could I not thank, for bringing me to this perfect paralysis? A thousand lines of tumbling dominoes crash in on every moment, bringing their descent to the character of each situation. Of course the dominoes don’t stop tumbling just because I call something a situation. The situation is itself a tumbling domino.
It is already too late to spend a significant amount of time with my daughter. Would it help her to be grasped by a dying stranger with the troubling title of ‘Daddy’? I would do the kind thing if I had any idea what it was.
It is already too late to master the field of consciousness studies, a field which in any case trumpets the insoluble nature of its enquiry. You name it, it’s already too late. I lay there, my thoughts anticipating themselves hopelessly and collapsing at their inception.
What finally got me off the bed was the wallpaper. I couldn’t stand that fucking wallpaper.
Why can’t I just crawl under a bush and die quietly? Why am I sitting here in the Brise Marine, waiting for the ferry to take me over to the island, worrying about how to put it, how to describe what happened to me this morning? The answer is simple. The moment I stop writing, a fungus invades my mind and, instead of the marble on which I was carving my epitaph, I am surrounded by the soft garbage of circumstance, my own death amounting to nothing more than a further mess.
Putting aside my reservations, I rang Heidi to arrange a time when I could see Ton Len. They were away for the weekend.
18
What an island! The straggling branches and peeling bark of the eucalyptuses in the dusty village
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