does it matter? Why do you care what she thinks? You're ashamed of me,are you, is that it?'
It was dreadful.Terrible. Finally we went down in a deathly silence & he paid the bill & turned his back on me in the street & strode away from me.
Then, as now, his emotions had a direct conduit to his actions; the two were inseparable. He is so direct, so single-minded, whereas my mind is more of a filter, Greer thought. Or should I say devious? She closed the exercise book. There was a limit to how much of this she could read at one sitting. She forced herself to take a break, to try to think about it in a more objective way.
Here were her first encounters with Mischa. She had never shown him the diary. It occupied a place that was too revealing, too private, even for him. And not only for Mischa. Although she had carried it with her for a quarter of a century and always knew where it was, after making the final entry she had never wanted to look at it again.
Until now.This is how it all began, the diary was saying, this is how it began
for me. For us. But there is a filtering system at work here, she thought.This
is truly how it was, on one level, on its own terms. On that level it is surprisingly
detailed. On its own terms it is a thorough, almost exhaustive account.The
writer clearly couldn't budge from her position until she'd got it all down.
Whereas if Mischa had written about the same sequence he would have got it down and over with in a few bald sentences.Where he acts without thinking, I mull over, premeditate. At least, I do now. I tend to think too much about consequences.The biographer might prefer to call it making up for lost time.
Because consequences seem scarcely to have crossed the mind of this young writer. If I had no connection to her, if I stumbled on her diary with no preconceptions, how would I feel? I would probably picture its writer as a randy, reckless young woman. It's quite vividly written, in its juvenile way. Wouldn't the biographer just love to get his fingers on it?
This was a thought to make the flesh creep.
I crashed into work feeling totally wrecked.Told V. I'd stayed at a friend's & the alarm hadn't gone off. I had to plaster make-up on in the loo, my face was rubbed raw from his bristles.V. noticed I was wearing yesterday's things (rather crumpled).She said,'Forgot to take a change of clothes,did you?'Annoyed rather than knowing, I thought .
C. rang from NZ, wanted to know where I was last night. Said I'd gone to Lambie's. Had to ring & word her up. Cut her off before she could lecture me...Restless & anxious all morning. Bought more cigs, smoked the lot in spite of V.'s disapproval. Kept going hot & cold – an icy feeling of dread, then a rush of soaking sweat. She must've thought I was having premature hot flushes. I wish that's what it was.
He didn't come in.V. furious because there was a buyer he was supposed to meet. Of course he doesn't have a phone. Finally she wrote down his address & told me to go & drag him out of bed. I shot off, was in the car & outside his door before I realised we were rumbled – I hadn't even stopped to take the address from her hand...
She'd found the front door of the huge two-storey terrace unlocked. Inside was a dingy central passage of scabby, mud-coloured lino with doors off it on both sides and what looked like a kitchenette at the end. There was no way of knowing which was his, so she'd knocked on all the doors. Only the last one was opened, by a bare-legged emaciated girl wearing a man's nylon shirt. She was friendly, told Greer the artist lived in the front room upstairs.
He'd yelled out when she knocked: 'Go away!' When she turned the handle disobediently and found it open she couldn't see him at first. The room was the width of the house with tall,once-elegant Victorian windows and double doors opening on to a balcony, but the windows were caked with grime and a whirling fug of tobacco smoke smothered everything. She was aware of a
It was dreadful.Terrible. Finally we went down in a deathly silence & he paid the bill & turned his back on me in the street & strode away from me.
Then, as now, his emotions had a direct conduit to his actions; the two were inseparable. He is so direct, so single-minded, whereas my mind is more of a filter, Greer thought. Or should I say devious? She closed the exercise book. There was a limit to how much of this she could read at one sitting. She forced herself to take a break, to try to think about it in a more objective way.
Here were her first encounters with Mischa. She had never shown him the diary. It occupied a place that was too revealing, too private, even for him. And not only for Mischa. Although she had carried it with her for a quarter of a century and always knew where it was, after making the final entry she had never wanted to look at it again.
Until now.This is how it all began, the diary was saying, this is how it began
for me. For us. But there is a filtering system at work here, she thought.This
is truly how it was, on one level, on its own terms. On that level it is surprisingly
detailed. On its own terms it is a thorough, almost exhaustive account.The
writer clearly couldn't budge from her position until she'd got it all down.
Whereas if Mischa had written about the same sequence he would have got it down and over with in a few bald sentences.Where he acts without thinking, I mull over, premeditate. At least, I do now. I tend to think too much about consequences.The biographer might prefer to call it making up for lost time.
Because consequences seem scarcely to have crossed the mind of this young writer. If I had no connection to her, if I stumbled on her diary with no preconceptions, how would I feel? I would probably picture its writer as a randy, reckless young woman. It's quite vividly written, in its juvenile way. Wouldn't the biographer just love to get his fingers on it?
This was a thought to make the flesh creep.
I crashed into work feeling totally wrecked.Told V. I'd stayed at a friend's & the alarm hadn't gone off. I had to plaster make-up on in the loo, my face was rubbed raw from his bristles.V. noticed I was wearing yesterday's things (rather crumpled).She said,'Forgot to take a change of clothes,did you?'Annoyed rather than knowing, I thought .
C. rang from NZ, wanted to know where I was last night. Said I'd gone to Lambie's. Had to ring & word her up. Cut her off before she could lecture me...Restless & anxious all morning. Bought more cigs, smoked the lot in spite of V.'s disapproval. Kept going hot & cold – an icy feeling of dread, then a rush of soaking sweat. She must've thought I was having premature hot flushes. I wish that's what it was.
He didn't come in.V. furious because there was a buyer he was supposed to meet. Of course he doesn't have a phone. Finally she wrote down his address & told me to go & drag him out of bed. I shot off, was in the car & outside his door before I realised we were rumbled – I hadn't even stopped to take the address from her hand...
She'd found the front door of the huge two-storey terrace unlocked. Inside was a dingy central passage of scabby, mud-coloured lino with doors off it on both sides and what looked like a kitchenette at the end. There was no way of knowing which was his, so she'd knocked on all the doors. Only the last one was opened, by a bare-legged emaciated girl wearing a man's nylon shirt. She was friendly, told Greer the artist lived in the front room upstairs.
He'd yelled out when she knocked: 'Go away!' When she turned the handle disobediently and found it open she couldn't see him at first. The room was the width of the house with tall,once-elegant Victorian windows and double doors opening on to a balcony, but the windows were caked with grime and a whirling fug of tobacco smoke smothered everything. She was aware of a
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