Yes, I have roused myself, but only barely, in denial and still saddled with a laundry list of obligations and duties, trying desperately to pull away from more than just tedium and boredom. I carefully array my defences, organise the troops, and retreat to a safe distance. A metre-high pile of books to devour, each night, punctuated with guilty sessions of trembling, then with weak fingers, I flip through what comes tomorrow. Every little bit of isolation counts; from my grim Westone UM1s, blue nano, to my stumbling gait that brings me away from you even as I half-turn to toss a hurried goodbye. Today there was more Coetzee, Marivaux, Mamet, echoing the past, and even it is too late for me to pull out lines, already half-forgotten, leaving behind the warm afterglow, all I need, I still must, must recall lines:
Anna He worships me. What could go awry?
Claire Has he, for example, a wife?
Anna Why would he require a mistress if he had no wife? Of course he has a wife. But does this ‘wife’ hold his affection? Does she wear This Jewel, magnificently wrought, unique in all the world?
Claire I must say that it suits you.
Anna I am told some ancestor once staked it against a half province in the Punjab.
Claire At what contest?
Anna …could it have been croquet?
- David Mamet, Boston Marraige
I was there, 5 years ago, lost in Leicester Square, frantically running up and down streets clutching the hand of a stranger, crying out for the Donmar Warehouse, falling through the door and shedding tickets, scarves, coats to land heavily in a chair and behold, almost late, the curtains opening, and I can still see (not hear), in my mind, one of the opening lines, hurled from actresses most amazingly garbed, of a necklace and other violent observations: I wear it, should I be summoned on the instant, to choke a horse.
Oh.