What are you about?
My girl. And the sweet air from my garden. Through my French doors.
You don’t have a girl. Or French doors. Or a garden.
Faith in a swerve in my life. That’s what I’m about. I’ll round some corner one day and there’ll she’ll be.
Do you think it’ll ever happen?
We could go on holiday to Italy, or something, my girl and I. imagine that. To the Mediterranean. I’ve never been to the Mediterranean. In fact, I don’t think I even believe in the Mediterranean. Is there any such place as the Mediterranean?
I wouldn’t know.
You sound about as well travelled as I am… Anyway, we couldn’t afford it, my girl and I. Or only if the university paid for it. Only if there was a conference there, for which I could claim expenses. Wouldn’t that be something?
She and I could fly out. And she’d get even more suntanned. And wear her big floppy sunhat. And be even more gorgeous. Effortlessly. Chicly. And I would have to delight her. That would be my job: to delight her. I’d become a delighting-my-lover machine. In the Mediterranean!
My soul would grow… expand. I’d open myself to everything. To the whole world. What’s the opposite of an agoraphobe?
An agora-phile, I guess.
I’d be one of those, an agora-lover. An agora-phile. I’d never want to be indoors again. Or rather, I’d understand the inside to be but a temporary folding of the outside. A temporary enclosure. And I’d understand the point of life was to unfold all the foldings… To turn everything to the light.
We need to be brought outside, you and I. By our lovers. We need to be educated in the arts of life. In fine food and fine wine. Fine dining. Fine life.
So I have to have a lover as well?
We’ve studied too long. We’ve been in the dark too long. We need to plunge into life for ourselves. We’d need to be there, in the midst of life. Splashing around in the surf, or whatever.
I can’t actually swim.
Nor can I.
Or drive.
Me, neither.
Or do DIY. Or anything…
You and me both.
You have to be able to do some of these things in a relationship.
But our lovers would embolden us. They’d make us do stuff. Backstroke. Hand point turns. Getting handy with hammer and nails…
My girl would teach me the art of a good posture. I’m getting a widow’s hump, from looking down at my laptop screen. My posture’s terrible. My girl would show me how to look up at the sky. Crane my neck upwards…
What would you actually do in the Mediterranean?
Throw a beach ball to each other, or something. Punt it to and fro on the sand. Or play beach croquet.
Is that a game?
Or boules. Or we’d just sun ourselves. Or take a dip. Anyway, the crucial thing is that we wouldn’t talk about work. Or writing. I like the idea of that.
The coast is the great clue to life, that’s what I think. Actually, I’ve thought that for a long time. I think that’s what I moved out here, to the coast. I was in search of life. I liked the idea that life might be possible. And why wouldn’t it be? Even for me! Maybe that’s all I need: the idea that life might be possible. That there might be a girl. Some sweet girl. My girl. Who would she sit on the sofa as I worked.
Or garden.
Or garden. Such a beautiful idea.
There are beautiful things, philosopher. She’d be in love with me, and I would obviously be in love with her, and wouldn’t that be fine? She’d look over at me and I’d feel it in my heart. Like a stab in my heart. I’d catch my breath. I’d think: she’s so beautiful.
And she’d be looking to me. For life. For adventure. And that’d be the making of me. I’d become an adventurous person…
And sometimes she’d need me for reassurance. To tell her I loved her. It’d matter to her, that I loved her. Imagine that! She’d look to me for affection, for attention, for whatever. And I’d be good for something. I’d praise her beauty. And her grace.
I’d be an expert in her beauty. Her own private connoisseur. It’d be like The Duke of Burgundy, did you ever see that. She and I, that’s all. No one else, pretty much. On our figurative island. Me with my work and she with… whatever it is she was doing. Learning parts for the theatre. Practising her guitar. Or just – gardening. She’d be happy, gardening.
We could take tea in the garden – in our imaginary garden. Imagine it, taking tea. Sipping tea. From China cups. Pouring tea from my teapot. In the garden, in the sun.
It’s always sunny, in my fantasy. Because it’s never sunny here. That’s the problem with the coast…
The days in the sun. The days of the sun. In the northeast England sun. We’d have a car. Imagine that: being able to afford a car. To run a car. We’d drive around the Northumberland countryside. We’d get to know it.
We’d have a convertible. We’d drive along, playing great music. Summer music. Motorik stuff. Harmonia stuff. Michael Rother solo stuff. Neu! stuff. I’d choose the music. She’d be delighted. That would be my job. To entertain her. To find the right music for her. And I’d like that. That would be what I was for: to delight her.
And driving. I can actually drive, in my fantasy. I’d have had lessons, passed my test. I could drive. And I even had a car. An unaffordable, impossible car. And I’d drive her around. We’d have daytrips. We could plan them. Consult maps. Plan out a lovely day for ourselves. A jolly time…
Driving along, on the open roads. Country roads. They’re so beautiful, the country roads. Summer with my beloved. My beloved making sense of summer. My beloved and I making use of the summer. Doing together what summer was for…
And we’d stop off somewhere lovely. Like the beach by Bamburgh Castle. And walk along together.
And I’d be wondering what I’d done to have such a beauty on my arm. And she’d like being the beauty on my arm. And we’d walk along, my liking the beauty on my arm and she liking being the beauty on my arm. And wouldn’t that be just dandy?
I’d pour our tea. And she’d been out and bought us friands, or something. Some treat. A friand each. On a China plate. And the plate and the teacups on a very pleasing tray that we’d found in some antique shop.
Because we’d go shop for things. For our ground-floor flat. For our garden. We could go to garden centres, or something. Have you ever been to a garden centre? Or to an antiques shop? It’d be the garden centre and antiques shop phase of my life. Everyone has to have one. The domestic phase.
It’d be just a phase, though. It wouldn’t last forever. These thing don’t. And it would be agony breaking up. So painful. But in the end, it’d be for the good. In the end, it’d be what was best. It would have been a phase, that’s all. An island rising out of the sea of my life. A blessed period. Necessarily finite. It couldn’t last. It would have to have a beginning – and an end.
She’d realise I was too in love with my work, or something. That I was too busy with whatever it is I do. With my writing. With my burgeoning academic career…
Laughter.
Composing my oeuvre.
Laughter.
More likely I’d be sacked. The department would be closed down. I’d be out on my ear, and no way to make a living. No way to afford our lifestyle.
Or maybe she’d tire of the northeast. Maybe there wouldn’t be enough adventures for us. We’d done everything that there was to be done in the area. Taken every daytrip. Had enough lovely days out. What more would there be to do?
She’d move on. Find another lover, in some other part of the world. London, or somewhere like that. Somewhere more glamorous. And with someone with a bit more money than me. Someone who could take her out and show her things and do things with her. Maybe they’d take city breaks. Fly here and fly there, if we’re still allowed to fly.
And she’d send me an email every now and again. She’d remember my birthday. She’d send me birthday wishes. A tender email here and there. A tender text. An old photo of us in our car – in our convertible. Imagine that, owning a convertible! Wearing head scarves!
That would bring it all back to me, our time together. But I’d have our summers together to draw on, in my winters of the soul. I could treasure the memory. Turn it over in my head. It could warm me, when things get cold, and dark. I’d remember her, her beauty, her youth.
Because youth is part of it. She wouldn’t be all old and crabbed, like me. She’d be young and a little naïve and beautiful. I’d have been her Educator. I’d show her stuff. Teach her stuff. Not the depressing stuff, I’d keep that from her. Not the world-doom stuff. Not the plans-of-the-maniacs stuff.
No: the good stuff. The cultural stuff that she’d like to know about. I’d be an expert in an art gallery. I’d know my way around a bookshop. She’d like that, for a while. She’d be impressed, for a while. But the life of an academic wouldn’t really be for her. The intellectual life wouldn’t be her life. So the relationship would have to end, in the end. It would be a phase for me, just as it was a phase for her.
So would you end up with an academic?
Maybe. Possibly. Later on. Much later on. I’d shack up with some fellow academic. It’d be a relationship of convenience. Pure expediency. Someone with whom I had something in common. Someone with whom I wanted to present a united front. It wouldn’t necessarily be sexual. I like the young, not the old. I wouldn’t be attracted to someone like me. That wouldn’t be what I was looking for.
But in the end, out of loneliness. Maybe. Someone to keep cats with. Two cats. Someone to share a bed with, maybe. But would I really want to share a bed? All dried up. And dull. But I’d have my memories of my youthful love affair.
You have it all planned out.
I do, don’t I. So planned out that it doesn’t actually have to happen. She doesn’t have to exist, and I don’t have to get a car, and we won’t have our Duke of Burgundy life, our island. We won’t take tea in the garden – there won’t even be a garden. Or French doors. And not even a sofa for her to sit on.
And I’ll be just fine. And I’ll just grow older and older, and die someday. And that’s it. That’ll be a life. And it’s all I need. Because I have this job, right? We have our jobs. We were given this chance, which is all we ever wanted.
— Lars Iyer, from here
Notes from a Room 