Читать книгу I Take You - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 17

For beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself

Connie collects Tracey Emin, the brazen knot of her. Cliff lets her because she’s ‘kinky’.

‘She’s not kinky, she’s honest,’ is the retort.

The soft glare of the neon in startling corners of the house.

‘I said Don’t Practise ON ME.’

‘I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW.’

‘MY CUNT IS WET WITH FEAR.’

The latter in the shared bathroom off the main bedroom that Connie hasn’t used since Cliff’s accident.

On the stairs leading to her eyrie is the wiry delicacy of legs splayed, a plunged hand, a labia scurried. Reddened, raw. The titles: Self Growth, Thinking About It, and Those Who Suffer Love, a series of heels and ankles wide, as wide as they can be, in homage to Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde.

Connie is drawn to Emin as she is drawn to Dickinson, Réage, Duras, Plath, for their vulnerability, authenticity, anarchy, courage, truth. Cliff just thinks she needs a fuck, quick smart. ‘That’ll fix her up.’