‘When do you work?’, W. says. ‘When do you have ideas?’ But he knows the answer. I am too busy to work, I tell him. I am too occupied to have ideas.
He knows what I do all day. He knows I’m busy with bureaucracy and administration. But what about my evenings?
He sees me, in his mind’s eye, W. says, opening a bottle of wine in the squalor of my flat after a day at work. He sees me, booting up my laptop, getting ready to write.
But that’s my problem!, W. says. I think that writing about ideas is the same as having ideas, when in reality they are entirely different. You have to stop writing to have an idea, W. says. You have to pause and wait.
Of course, it’s worse for me when I do stop writing, W. says. It’s worse when I collapse into my bed and try to sleep. He pictures me, staggering around my flat in the early hours, preparing for bed. He sees me, ranging around my flat like the abominable snowman, my dressing gown flapping around me ...
‘You can never sleep, can you? You’ve never been able to sleep’, W says. He sees me, lying sleepless in bed, full of great paranoid imaginings about the way I think they’ll sack me. He sees me, lying there, quite panicked, fearing that I’ll be sent back to the dole queue. And he sees me, falling asleep at last, collapsing into unconsciousness at last, just as dawn breaks, and the birds start singing, just as, at the opposite end of the country, W. is waking up, ready to begin his studies. He sees me, dreaming fitfully about working out my notice and exit interviews. He sees me, mouthing the words, No!, No!, in my half sleep ... And he sees my eyes open again, the Leviathan awake, rolling out of my bed like a Spital Tongues Gargantua ...