boat? What do you mean, what do I mean in the same boat? Didnât Charlie chuck you the same way he chucked me? Used us and crumpled us up and threw us in the bin like an old Kleenex? OK, look, Lucy, we canât talk about this on the phone. Believe me, even though you must be thinking that Iâm totally weird. Just a minute, Lucy, just a minute, donât hang up on me. Listen. Itâs like this: Iâm not with anyone. Man or woman, if thatâs what you happen to be thinking. Iâve got nobody at all. Apart from you, I mean. Because often in my thoughts and even in my dreams in the middle of the night I imagine you and me together, Lucy? In a relationship? Partners? No, not what youâre thinking, like, more like two sisters? Youâre probably thinking itâs a bit wild? Totally wild, even? Arenât you? What, donât you ever think about how the two of us, you and me, one week after the other, one after the other, in the same hotel in Eilat, in the same room, in the same king-size bed, how we both did it for him at night and even in the middle of the day? We did, like, exactly the same positions for him. First it was you then a week later it was me and a week after that it was you again? There were a wholelot of times when he called me Lucy in the dark, once in broad daylight, in a sushi restaurant, and I was literally over the moon each time he called me Lucy. I expect there were a whole lot of times in the dark when he called you Ricky? No? And didnât he say to you too sometimes suddenly, Come on, sweetie, give me a goblet â
you
know what I mean â and do it as slow as you can? Or, Come here, doll, let me tie you up a bit? Or, Let me watch you peeing standing up? No? And then, after he chucked me out and went back to you, and the two of you went to the same hotel and the same room in Eilat, donât tell me you never thought about me there? Just a few times? Just thinking, like, that Ricky did exactly this for him, and this? And maybe that? Didnât it ever cross your mind that he must have taken that Ricky out to the Las Vegas Bar and fed her from the spoon and tickled her there under her skirt with the cocktail stick from the olive? Donât tell me youâve never thought about the two of us as though we were the same woman only split in two? What do you say to the idea that we could go, the two of us, to Eilat some day, letâs say â take a room in the same hotel? The same room even? Lucy, no, donât hang up on me, Iâm not nuts or anything, youâvegot to believe me, Iâm just not, give me another couple of minutes? Lucy? Lucy?
*
Walking down an unfamiliar back street in the dark the Author collides with some barbed wire that has apparently been stretched across the pavement by children, between a No Parking sign and the railings of a fence. The wire was positioned at chest height and the Author, who has been walking briskly, lets out a short but angry cry of surprise, pain and above all of outrage: it is as though someone has slapped his face in the dark. Yet somehow he feels that the slap was not unexpected, that it was definitely deserved and has even made him feel a little better.
Surely Arnold Bartok, the gaunt, bespectacled man who lost his part-time job sorting parcels in a private courier firm a few days ago, could be found some work in the accountantsâ office where the Author is a partner: even something quite menial, in the postroom or in maintenance. He could enjoy a small monthly wage, and in time, who knows, it may turn out that he is equipped for some other work, in accountancy or records. The Author himself is incharge of the tax affairs of four or five middle- to large-size export companies, particularly relating to their foreign-currency earnings. Arnold Bartok would surely turn out to be an obedient, grateful and unobtrusive worker. But he wouldnât be able to curb his irritating tendency to make sarcastic
you
know what I mean â and do it as slow as you can? Or, Come here, doll, let me tie you up a bit? Or, Let me watch you peeing standing up? No? And then, after he chucked me out and went back to you, and the two of you went to the same hotel and the same room in Eilat, donât tell me you never thought about me there? Just a few times? Just thinking, like, that Ricky did exactly this for him, and this? And maybe that? Didnât it ever cross your mind that he must have taken that Ricky out to the Las Vegas Bar and fed her from the spoon and tickled her there under her skirt with the cocktail stick from the olive? Donât tell me youâve never thought about the two of us as though we were the same woman only split in two? What do you say to the idea that we could go, the two of us, to Eilat some day, letâs say â take a room in the same hotel? The same room even? Lucy, no, donât hang up on me, Iâm not nuts or anything, youâvegot to believe me, Iâm just not, give me another couple of minutes? Lucy? Lucy?
*
Walking down an unfamiliar back street in the dark the Author collides with some barbed wire that has apparently been stretched across the pavement by children, between a No Parking sign and the railings of a fence. The wire was positioned at chest height and the Author, who has been walking briskly, lets out a short but angry cry of surprise, pain and above all of outrage: it is as though someone has slapped his face in the dark. Yet somehow he feels that the slap was not unexpected, that it was definitely deserved and has even made him feel a little better.
Surely Arnold Bartok, the gaunt, bespectacled man who lost his part-time job sorting parcels in a private courier firm a few days ago, could be found some work in the accountantsâ office where the Author is a partner: even something quite menial, in the postroom or in maintenance. He could enjoy a small monthly wage, and in time, who knows, it may turn out that he is equipped for some other work, in accountancy or records. The Author himself is incharge of the tax affairs of four or five middle- to large-size export companies, particularly relating to their foreign-currency earnings. Arnold Bartok would surely turn out to be an obedient, grateful and unobtrusive worker. But he wouldnât be able to curb his irritating tendency to make sarcastic
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