Lars Iyer - Spurious

Only the pedestrian has the measure of the world, we agree. The pedestrian is the true proletarian. Drivers have always been mysterious to W. and I. What do we know of them? How can we understand what goes through their heads?

Sometimes drivers or their passengers shout abuse at him when they pass, W. says. It’s his hair, W. says, his ringlets. Drivers hate ringlets.

W.’s hair is very long now. It’s a year since he last had it cut. He looks leonine, I tell him, like the lion of Judah.

If you’re not going to be a thinker, you should at least look like a thinker, W. says. And if you’re not going to be religious, then you should at least look religious, that’s what W. believes. Genuine thinking and genuine religious belief might follow from looking like a genuine thinker and looking like a genuinely religious person.

‘Love’, says W., reclining on his sofa, ‘your favourite topic’. I’m not discussing love with him, I say. Forget it. — ‘Why are you so afraid of love? Why?’

How many nights have passed like this, W. drunk and I half drunk, and both of us looking for a way to fill the empty hours until dawn?

Occasionally W. will speak of his love for Sal — this is always moving — but mostly he likes to probe me with questions, one after another. — ‘What do you think love is?’; ‘What is love, for you?’; ‘Have you ever loved anyone?’; ‘What do you consider love to be?’; ‘Do you think you’ll ever be capable of love?’; ‘What is it, do you think, that prevents you from loving anyone?’

For his part, W. is eminently capable of love, and happy to say so. As for me, W. says, I remain eminently in capable of love. — ‘You only love yourself’, he says.

‘Why do you think you’ve failed as a lover?’, asks W. ‘What do you think you lack? What’s missing in you? What crucial stage of development have you missed? You lack depth. You lack seriousness. You need a woman who abuses you’.

Sal has complete contempt for him, says W. — ‘That’s how it should be. Your partner should always have contempt for you’.

Sal improves him, says W. She makes him better than he is. That’s what I need. And then, after thinking a little, W. says, ‘You have to feel proud of your partner. Of her achievements’. W. feels proud of Sal, he says. — ‘Have you ever felt proud of someone?’, he asks me. ‘Are you proud of yourself?’

The living room is filled with examples of Sal’s glassware. — ‘We could never do that sort of thing’, says W. ‘Look at us!’ But Sal, he says, has a natural gift. — ‘She’s talented. Not like us’. He feels proud, he says. — ‘All my friends prefer Sal to me. That’s a good sign’.

If it can’t be explained to Sal in the bath, then it’s not a genuine thought, says W. That’s his test: the bath, Sunday night, he tries to explain his thoughts to Sal. She’s merciless, says W. She demands that everything be absolutely clear. She doesn’t tolerate vagueness or prevarication, he says. She wants to understand, and if she doesn’t, it’s invariably his fault, W. says.

Do you remember what she called us when she heard us speak? Vague and boring, says W. You were vague, and I was boring. Or was it the other way round? Either way, she’s more intelligent than us, W. says. And she can actually do things, make things, he says. She’s got more to give to the world than we do.

In fact, all of his friends prefer Sal to him, W. says. Whenever they visit, their first question is always, Where’s Sal? They’re always disappointed when it’s just him, W. says. In fact, even he’s disappointed, says W. What is he without Sal? How would he think or write anything if it were not for their weekly bath?

We’ve dressed up for town. — ‘My God, look at you! You’re so scruffy. That jacket! You think you look attractive in that jacket, don’t you?’, says W. ‘It’s shapeless; it looks like a sack’. It makes me look obese, he says, which is why I always think I’m obese. But in fact it’s the jacket that makes me look obese. — ‘No, on second thoughts, you are obese’.

W. keeps his suit very carefully for Saturday night, when he and Sal go out for cocktails. — ‘What are you going to wear? You can’t go like that’. My shirt’s unironed, for one thing. W. says he’ll iron my shirt. ‘Go on, take it off’. And then, ‘God, you’re getting really fat’.

‘How dry do you want them?’, the barman asks us of our Martinis. — ‘On a scale of one to ten, where ten’s driest, about eight please’, says W. The barman asks us what kind of Vermouth we want. W. tells me they stock three kinds of Vermouth, all imported from America. They even import the salt for their Margaritas, he tells me.

W. likes cocktails which are as close to pure alcohol as possible, he says. Our Martinis are served in frosted cocktail glasses with a curl of lemon rind floating in the clear liquid. — ‘When I’m feeling rich, I’ll buy you a Martini made with Navy strength gin’, says W.

‘The trick is not to stop drinking’, says W. In Poland, he drank five shots in a row, stood up, and fell under a table. — ‘The Poles pace themselves’, he says, ‘but we don’t’. And then, ‘Where were we? Oh yes: love’.

‘Companionship is very important’, says W. ‘It’s the heart of a relationship. You have to get on. Sal and I get on’, he says. ‘If you’re working class, like us’, says W., ‘you show your affection by verbal abuse. That’s why I abuse you — verbally, I mean. It’s a sign of love’. W. reminds me of what Sal said about a joint presentation she saw us give: we were vague and boring , she said. Vague and boring! It’s great. Your partner should be full of contempt for you. It’s a good sign’.

All evening, Sal berates W. and I. — ‘Why don’t you write your own philosophy?’—‘She’s right!’, says W. ‘Why don’t we? You explain’. And then, to Sal, ‘Open your eyes! Isn’t it obvious! Look at us! Look at him!’

Sal thinks W. spends far too much time on revisions. His book was better before he started working on it, she tells me. It’s true, W. admits, he cut so much of it that parts make no sense at all. — ‘Still it’s better than your book, isn’t it? You should see his book’, he says to Sal, ‘my God!’

The damp’s worse than he can imagine, I tell W. on the phone. Mould is growing in patches, the damp is blackening, and a fine layer of downy salt covers the plaster. I brush it and it flakes down, salt from the wall. Salt leached from the wall: isn’t it rather beautiful? Above me, the new joists and the wooden boards fastened over them. Dry as a bone now; nothing comes from there, I tell W., the corner from where the leak ran.

But I can still hear the water rushing. Every night I hear it, rushing in the dark as though on an unknown and urgent journey. Every night, going into the bathroom, I hear it rushing beneath the floorboards.

‘Keep it warm’, said an expert on the kitchen damp. And the damp in the bedroom? — ‘Keep that warm, too.’ So where do I point my heroic little fan heater? It does a shift in the kitchen, and then a shift in the bedroom. I carry it from one room to the other, over the bits of kitchen furniture that are scattered everywhere.

In the living room, the washing machine on its side as though it were stranded on a beach, covered in black mildew. Then a cupboard, the back of which is greeny-black with damp. I have to keep everything dirty, the expert tells me, to show the original surveyor tomorrow. — ‘Keep it mouldy. Then he’ll be able to see’.

I have no idea how to talk to people, W. says. I lack even a basic sense of the reciprocity of conversation. W.’s going to write a book of etiquette for me, he says. The art of conversation, that’s what I’ll have to learn, he says. Give and take. And table manners. — ‘You never learned them, did you?’ And keeping myself clean. — ‘Look at you! You’re filthy! When did you last wash your trousers?’ And wiping off that morose expression on my face. — ‘Why should anyone want to talk to you?’