Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

[He takes a deep breath which makes him burst into a hacking cough.]

I never wanted to hurt you, Jon … Or to make you feel that I never cared … Things were hard, you know. But Laura, she meant so much to me. Have you ever known … no, felt …. have you ever felt beauty in your life? I do hope you have … Even though it didn’t last I still count myself one of the lucky ones, the lucky few, if that makes any sense, I don’t know … But how could I be? … How? … How could I be there for you throughout your life like a real father should, how could I? I didn’t know how to cope, what to do, who to speak to … I couldn’t speak to anyone, all I could do was remove myself, to keep away, to do the right thing … I wanted to, though … I thought about you every day, planned and schemed to make you mine, thought about every possible way … I begged and begged and fucking begged Laura, I mean … your mother, to come away with me, but it was no use, she wouldn’t listen, she wanted nothing to do with me … and who can blame her, the things I did, everything I did, the way I … I couldn’t convince her … There was Cal for a start … And your father, I mean, my brother … it would have torn things apart … So I simply hung around on the sidelines, you must have noticed? I watched, I watched you all from afar, I mapped everything you did, recorded it all, layered it in film, in memory, digitised it … I watched, I adored, I watched from a distance … Oh, Jon, I never thought Laura, your mother, would just walk away from us all. From you and Cal. I never thought that would happen. I never thought she’d be capable of such a thing.

[He gets up again and walks over to the camera to adjust it. Zooming in a little, so that when he sits back down his face almost fills the screen. He has picked up a book, too. His face is tense, his eyebrows furrowed into a wrinkly V. He reads the book for a bit, nodding to himself, flicking through it. Then he stops and looks directly into the camera for about six to ten seconds.]

I’d see the snowbound roses of her lips … Quivering … and that glint of ivory … That marbles the onlooker … every reason … I’d see wherefore my joy of life outstrips … The pain of it … I shout exultantly … That I am kept into this elder season …

[He looks back at the book. A smile almost appears on his face. But it disappears. He begins to cough again, taking another swig of the whiskey to quell it.]

His words … His words seem to make sense to me. His words always have, because I loved her. I loved that woman and I’ve never been able to get rid of this … It’s never left me … There was a time, a darker time than this, when I thought I could save her, take her away from him, from her life, convince her that a life with me would be better, that I could make her happy … Oh, Jon, that’s what I wanted … A happy life … That’s all anyone wants, right? … Not to be stuck in this elder season of pain and regret …

[He stops. Takes another swig of whiskey and wipes his eye with the back of his hand.]

You see, I tried to write all this down. That would explain everything to you, all my pain, everything I have been through, the reason why you breathe … But the words wouldn’t come, and if they did, then they came all jumbled, and they didn’t look right, or sound right when I read them back to myself, they sounded second-hand, far-fetched, and what I wanted to do was write a new morality for myself, as truthfully as I possibly could so that you would understand one day … of myself, for myself … something that would correct my actions, reflect them the right way … But I failed, my whole life I have failed to write this book for you …

[He sets the book down on his lap and then leans over to the side of his chair to pick up his manuscript, waving it about in front of the camera.]

Vulgar Things … That’s what it is … the common voice … that’s all I wanted. A common voice … This book to sing the truth … I wanted it to reveal everything, in a clear and beautiful language … But I failed to do that, and I’ve spent my entire life talking into this thing, because of it, trying to come to terms with it, trying to work things out, talking, talking, talking, in the hope that one day something real would appear, you know, that crystallised moment when I speak reality … I’ve waited a long time, a whole lifetime, but nothing, reality has eluded me … it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t fucking exist … It seems easier this way now, things just seem easier, sitting here, talking into the lens, nothing really to disrupt me … and then it hits me, you, you listening, watching me, that’s the true reality, I’ve created reality for you, not for me … And it feels different, like these aren’t words, like what I’m doing is automatic, and it’s not like the writing, nothing like the writing, the stupid sitting down with a pen, my vision already clouded by the thought … before it hits the paper … ink leaving its mark … my mark … It’s not like that at all … That’s what I like about it, it feels better this way. It feels like me. Digitised me, overlapped and recorded me, like I’ve aborted order, proportion … Like when I look up at the sky now, it’s the skull, but when I try to write the sky, how the sky is, it doesn’t feel like a true representation of the sky, it’s still stuck in here, in my skull, it still exists as the sky up there, and not on my page. But here, this representation of me, this overlapping of sound and image, this ghost, this is real, this is really me. The ghost is reality. The sky, you see, the sky I try to write, it seems to be without any plan … like a painting begun without a preliminary sketch. In my wayless way, my unending failure to capture everything begins and ends right here … But it has made me a lonely man, a failure too … A man who yearns for his Laura in the night … I’ve got to leave this behind, and this, these recordings, seem to be the right way to go about leaving things behind … And if you are listening to me now, I’ll have known, in some future now, that I’ll have made the right choice …

[He picks up the book again. Leaving the manuscript on the arm of his chair.]

There was one memorable night … When she was here, when I took her here, before I decided to move here permanently … at the end of the jetty … I’ll never forget this, I’ve got it taped here now … The vision of her, my Laura, swimming by the jetty … the fire inside me no wind could extinguish, nothing could rattle this from me, nothing … By the jetty, the image of her pale skin, pale moonlight … The pale skin … When I suddenly saw this, the fire within … Nothing could remove it from within … I watched her there, pale skin in the gloom, in the black water … I saw here there, alone. She could have gone, but she stayed, breasts, the dark gloom around her pale skin, her breasts, in night … It was at that moment … I knew, I knew … I knew what it was, I knew … I knew she would soon go, all those horrible fucking things, and still she let me come to her, to lie down by the jetty, the warm night, a blanket, under the pale moonlight, my head on her lap, her warm breasts, her heart beating, my heart beating … we lay there together until the moon disappeared, the sea tickling our toes … That was the only moment, and then it was gone … she was gone … He came in the morning, to take her back home. There’s a fire within me, the same fire, it still burns …

[He drops his head. Rubbing his hands through his grey hair. Then looks up again, holding on to his book tightly.]

Now it’s silence. All is silence. As if nothing else exists. The night. The dead black night.

[He lifts the book up and reads from it.]

Perhaps, from uttermost annihilation … we’ll see some new … Strange, marvellous thing arise … and our suffering we shall know, was not in vain.