Читать книгу Instrumental - James Rhodes - Страница 8

La Tête

A short play in one act by James Rhodes.

THE CHARACTERS:

A man; dishevelled, troubled, stubbly, skinny.

A woman; hot, blonde, too good for him.

The man is lying in bed next to the woman. His eyes flip open next to his girlfriend.

She is asleep. He is awake and restless.

The clock says 3.30 a.m.

With his extremely expressive face, he reveals that he shouldn’t be with someone as good as she is. Shouldn’t be sharing a bed with anyone. Shouldn’t be this normal, dangerously intimate, quo-fucking-tidian.

The girl is too pretty, kind, generous.

The man hugs her. She doesn’t move.

He reaches over and lifts her hair off of her eyes.

Man: I love you so much darling. I miss you. I want you.

Woman: (croaky and still half asleep) I love you too, precious one. It’s all OK, baby. Promise.

She falls back asleep

The man starts to stroke her right breast and kisses her neck. He’s clumsy with it and desperate in a bad way.

Woman: Mmmm. Can I have just a little bit longer to sleep, darling? You’re so sexy. It’s dreadfully early still.

She falls back asleep.

The man stumbles out of bed passive aggressively, gets dressed noisily and shuts the bedroom door.

He walks into the kitchen and puts on the coffee machine.

Man: (imitating her) It’s dreadfully early still . . . Fuck’s sake.

Pinteresque pause

Man: (walking about in a strop, to the audience) She fucking hates me. Anyone else and she’d be fucking his brains out. For a really long time. She’s probably taking care of herself right now, thinking about some asshole in the gym. Someone who isn’t insecure and whiny. One of those dicks who is all self-assured and confident. Who can effortlessly get away with using the word ‘fella’. Can talk about football convincingly. Find and use a stopcock.

He sits at his computer with his coffee cup.

Opens up a program, lights a cigarette, and starts typing.

Man: (speaking as he types) My love, You’re in bed masturbating over one of your exes or your boss or some other well-built, handsome cunt as I write this. I know you are. And so I have to punish you from the other room, using only my mind.

Sips coffee.

I know they’re everything that I’m not. In my head I’ve imbued them all with a magical, effortless reality of ‘massive cock and total genius’. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I am so furiously angry at you. So angry I am shaking. The adrenaline is flowing. My breathing is exploding. I am high from too much or too little oxygen, I don’t know which one. I am right and you are wrong. I know what you are really thinking about and who and what you really want, and it cannot, will never, be me. Thank you for making it so clear to me. Now, once again, my world somehow fits. Order is restored and butterflies can flap away with impunity. Once again, anything that has threatened to make me less of a victim, a little bit happy, content, human, has been disregarded and dealt with. And it’s not even ten past four. This is on you, you heartless, cruel bitch.

The man positions the computer screen just so. He pulls open the kitchen drawer, removes a knife and slits his throat.

End

That scene, that Brechtian fucking masterpiece – except for the last sentence because I’m too much of a fraud to follow through – was my morning head today. It plays out in a thousand similar ways each and every day and involves most people I come into contact with. It is how my head works, has worked, will probably work forever. Usually I manage to keep it to myself more successfully. Sometimes it comes out sideways. Always, it is there. And that is why I can’t help but feel like I’m a mentally ill loser.

A quick caveat before you read any further: this book is likely to trigger you hugely if you’ve experienced sexual abuse, self-harm, psychiatric institutionalisation, getting high or suicidal ideation (the oddly charming medical term for past or present obsession with wanting to die by your own hand). I know this kind of warning is usually a cynical, salacious way of getting you to read on, and to be fair, there’s a part of me that put it there for precisely that reason. But don’t read this and then carve your arms up, spin out thinking about what happened to you when you were a kid, self-medicate, beat your wife/dog/your own face and then blame me. If you are one of those people then you’ve no doubt put responsibility for doing all of those things on the shoulders of other people your whole fucking life, so please stop it and don’t foist your pathological self-hatred onto me. I have, from time to time, done the same thing myself and it is as misguided as it is pathetic.

The better part of me doesn’t even want you to read this book. It wants anonymity, solitude, humility, space and privacy. But that better part is a tiny fraction of the whole, and the majority vote is for you to buy it, read it, react to it, talk about it, love me, forgive me, gain something special from it.

And, again, this book will talk, in places, about classical music. If you have concerns about that, then just do one thing before either throwing this book away or placing it back on the shelf. Buy, steal or stream these three albums: Beethoven Symphonies Nos 3 and 7 (you can buy all nine of his symphonies played by the London Symphony Orchestra on iTunes for £5.99); Bach Goldberg Variations (played on the piano by Glenn Gould and ideally the 1981 studio recording, on iTunes for under a fiver); Rachmaninov Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 3 (Andrei Gavrilov playing piano, £6.99). Worst case, you’ve paid for them, hate them all and are out of pocket the price of a takeout. Call me an asshole on Twitter and move on. Best case, you’ve opened a door to something that will baffle, delight, thrill and shock you for the rest of your life.

During my concerts I talk about the pieces I’m playing, why I’ve chosen them, what they mean to me, the context they were written in. And in that vein I’m going to offer a soundtrack to this book. In much the same way as fancy restaurants will suggest wines to accompany each course, there will be pieces of music to accompany each chapter. You can access them online at http://bit.do/instrumental – they’re free, carefully chosen and important. I hope you like them.