thursday
(More NANOWRIMO that never worked out.)
SHARI. I find it such a luxury sitting at a table. I'd love a table. I live in a bedsit you see so it's just me with a tray on the bed spilling things all down myself.
LORCAN (distractedly). A nice table, yes.
SHARI. I have my cooker here, my sink on the other side and a bed beneath the window. It doesn't leave much space for your belongings. (Begins to make a line-drawing on the telephone pad before her.) If it were up to me, I'd get it a bit more like this. There would be a front salon before you arrive at the bedroom, and in that there'd be the kind of settees we used to have at my mum's place. You know, nice upholstery, something you could invite people round to sit on.
LORCAN. Oh, so did you move out from your mum's in the end.
SHARI. Yes I did thanks. I'm still round there most evenings though. I never thought I'd experience any loss when I moved to a room with no telly in it, but it's funny the way these things get at you. We were watching a good programme the other night, all about Oscar Wilde, very interesting it was. Do you like Oscar Wilde yourself, Lorcan?
LORCAN. I wouldn't really have the time to bother with anything like that.
SHARI. It would be worth your while though for Oscar, Lorc. Such a fascinating character. Did you know that he became a Catholic while he was on his deathbed?
LORCAN. Hmm?
SHARI. I'm serious, all tucked up in bed he was, with his face a horrible greenish colour - there were re-enactments on this programme, very realistic - and they got the priest round and he had it all done. (Making the sign of the cross.) Well. Not all of it. He couldn't take the Eucharist, you see. And his fringe kept on getting all in his eyes. Do you have much truck with the Church yourself, Lorcan?
LORCAN. Well. Not so much now I suppose. My wife will take the kids from time to time, and we make a point of going on Christmas Day and funerals.
SHARI. I don't believe in it myself, I must admit to you. There was a time when I was a young girl at school that I quite enjoyed the whole ceremony of it, you know, the smell of incense, I love getting a whiff of all that, the candles as well. And it was just one of those things me and my mum used to do together, we'd go to the mass and then maybe out for a slice of lemon drizzle cake afterwards.
LORCAN. Did you now?
SHARI. I did, Lorcan. But then a funny thing happened when I got to my twenties. I think I can only describe it to you as that I found myself. I went on some travels when I was - I must have been twenty-three at the time - and from the day we landed in Greece I became so aware of all the cultural differences. They're not Catholics there, you see, Lorcan. They're Greek Orthodox. It means they don't understand a lot of our customs over here. Well, I say our. But I was something of a Catholic at the time, and fairly well-placed for telling them all about these beliefs and traditions they just didn't know a thing about. And then, when I got back, after all that, I just had a couple of epiphanies. I thought, I've been travelling now, and I've found out a thing or two about the world, and about myself. So that's when I first became a Buddhist.
LORCAN. Didn't know you had, no.
SHARI. Funny that, isn't it? I can't believe I didn't get round to mentioning it till now. I'm Theravada, you see. Well I'm mostly Theravada. Generally I'd say Theravada, but I'm a bit of a Druid as well. I just like to amalgamate the customs until I find out what I'm exactly suited to. Do you know much about Buddhism yourself, Lorcan?
LORCAN. Not a great deal I suppose.
SHARI. Well I won't bore you with it just yet, we've only known each other a couple of hours after all. What I will say is that it impinges upon every nuance of my life, and makes me more complete as a person. I don't know why more of my family and friends haven't picked up on it yet, really.
LORCAN. Have they not?
SHARI. Well, my mum always says she's got enough on her hands what with the veganism. I turned vegan a couple of years back, I'd always been veggie before that, but after a while I realised that I just had to cut the cheese out of my diet. You know what that's like, I was just feeling bloated all the time. (Mimes rubbing a vastly inflated stomach.) And with bread, as well. Now you see bread is one of the things that I will still eat, but within reason because I can't go letting myself eat some of the loaves I would have gone at before. I've got a friend who bakes lovely bread and he'll put things like chickpeas in it. So that is one of the things I'm alright with. The trouble is, you see, I would try my hand at doing something like that myself, but there just isn't the room in my place. I usually tend to head across to his when I smell the yeast rising through the corridor. And I say things like, Pete, what you're doing in here's amazing, I never knew anyone except my nan who could make such lovely bread as you're making, but half the time he doesn't offer me any. He just won't take the hint!
LORCAN. Hm.
SHARI. He's a great guy though. It makes me glad sometimes that I moved in where I did, because I wouldn't have got to know the fella otherwise.
LORCAN. Everybody needs good neighbours, so they say.
SHARI. They do, Lorcan, they do. One thing about Pete is that he does in fact have rather a nice apartment. He did all the decorating himself, I believe. He has a long-term partner, called Rhea I think her name is, but I can't see her helping out to be quite honest. She prefers to just flit here and there, I think, when it suits her, rather than put herself at any inconvenience. Because we all do that, don't we, we are only human after all. It's probably for the same reason that we don't find a whole lot to talk about when I pop round, we've only got one thing in common and that's Pete. So it would probably be a bit artificial if she didn't march out of the room in her pyjamas when I knock on. Do you have anyone like that in your life, Lorc? When you don't really need to go on with the formality because it's very obvious that there's no common ground?
LORCAN. Something like that.
SHARI. Well like I say to you, most of the time I will go round to my mum's of an evening. Now, where was I up to? Oh yes, we were talking about my mum saying she must have the patience of a saint to let us both go vegan. Because the remarkable thing is, I've got her started now. In the beginning it was quite a lot to manage, she'd be roasting legs of mutton with one hand and braising parsnips with the other, and there was just something that didn't quite mesh when she brought our two plates to the table. Now in some ways I think this was more a problem for her than it was for me, in that, she felt as a parent she had somehow deprived me by letting me eat my vegan portions while she was feasting on all these other things, but to be honest I never gave it a second thought. And I did often say so.
LORCAN. Can't be very much of a diet.
SHARI. That's where you're wrong. But it's also the same idea my mum got into her head. She felt terrible when she would see me munching on this saucerful of vegetables, and would say things like Shari, I hate having you there like a beggar at the feast. It got to the point where she'd cook herself the same thing as me just so she didn't have to think about it. And now, if anyone asks her if she has any food preferences, she'd probably say she was vegan.
(Lorcan stands up and walks over to the coffee machine.)
SHARI. Cheers Lorcan, could I have a de-caf? I've had to cut caffeinated coffee out of my lifestyle because it was making me burst hurricanes.
(Lorcan returns and places two cups on the table, one of which he edges slightly away from himself.)
SHARI. Lovely. Now, I'm sorry to tell you this but I've just looked at my watch and I think I'm going to have to gulp down my decaf and go. There's a meeting I said I'd be at in about twenty minutes. Up on Dale Street.
LORCAN. Yes, you would have to hurry I'd imagine.
SHARI. But I don't want to drink this too fast, you know how coffee goes straight through you. (She slurps at the rim of the cup she has just picked up.) I could be on the toilet for weeks. (She swills.) That'll have to do I'm afraid. Sorry to dash out on you like this, it's very bad manners to leave people in the lurch but you'll have to find someone else to talk to.
LORCAN. Yes.
(The remainder of Kari's speech becomes gradually more muffled as her footsteps recede down the corridor.)