Read by Patsy Prince
It was a joke, once. It might still be a joke, but it’s been going on for so long that I don’t think I can tell any more. It certainly isn’t funny any more. But then there are plenty of jokes that aren’t funny.
He always used to say that normal human relationships were a fiction, a fantasy, because – he said – they were always founded on language. And language, he said, was always a lie, because it could only ever be a crude approximation, a rough sketch, of what truly went on in the deeps of the human soul. Humans, he said, were doomed to mistruth. Life was a lie. Love was a lie.
And, because I thought he was cool, and witty, and sort of handsome in a skinny, beaky sort of way, I went along with it. Besides, he was a writer, and my girlfriends told me that writers always talk shit, or at least the good ones do. And in any case, it was only supposed to be a joke.
We were sitting one night – the night I finished college, I think, but whenever it was it was late, more morning than night, and we were drunk. I don’t remember what I’d been drinking but I remember his mouth tasted of white wine. Anyway we were sitting on a sand dune and he took my hand in his.
I started to say something. I don’t know what it was – ‘you’re really great, Steve’ or ‘Steve, I really dig you, you know’, or some bloody stupid thing. Neither of us found out what I was going to say because he cut me off – pressed three fingertips to my lips.
‘Shh.’
‘But – ’
‘Whatever it is, don’t say it. Don’t tell me anything that’s – that’s true.’ He spat the word theatrically. ‘Because it isn’t true, it just isn’t, because it can’t be. Nothing anyone can say is true. Only what you feel, Prue, is true.’
‘But I – ’
‘Don’t sully your lips with the shit other people call the truth,’ Steve said. He smiled – he was handsome, you know, in his way. ‘Don’t you dare ever speak the truth to me again.’
I laughed.
‘I won’t if you won’t.’
‘Starting now.’
‘Starting – ’ I smiled, and I think I kissed him – ‘now.’
It was funny, really it was. Daft, but funny. So he’d tell me he was late to the pub because he’d been kept working after hours at the investment bank, and I’d say it was all right because I’d had my twin Greek lovers Phonus and Bolonus to keep me company, or he’d say he hadn’t finished the story he’d been working on because a team of doctors had called round to check whether his testicles were of roughly equal weights and had taken all afternoon about it, and I’d tell him not to worry about paying the bills because I’d heard on the news that thanks to a sudden global shortage his bellybutton spuff was now second only to uncut diamond in the commodities market, and as soon as we unblocked the plughole we’d become instant millionaires.
We got married, in the end. We did love each other, you see. And at the altar the vicar asked him if he did and he said he didn’t and then he asked me if I did and I said no, I didn’t either.
It was still a joke, then. Our joke. Or if it wasn’t a joke, at least it made me smile.
All the time, we did it. It was silly, I suppose, thinking about it – I mean, of course it was silly – but, now I think about it, it was – well, it was fucking stupid, wasn’t it? And silly’s all right but I wish it hadn’t been stupid.
Saying no when you mean yes is just the same as saying yes in the first place, isn’t it, really. I mean, if the other person knows you’re lying. It’s like one of those logic puzzles. A really easy one, in this case. A logic puzzle for idiots.
Even in bed. I’d say ‘that’s rubbish’ when actually it was really good – and when it wasn’t really good, well, I’d cheat, and not say anything. I told him I was always fantasising about other men and that I did mind doing all the mucky stuff he wanted me to do. I told him I’d seen bigger ones than his and that, yes, I’d had an orgasm before I met him.
All bollocks, of course. I mean – oh, hell, I hardly even know what I mean.
Steve was right, I think. Language is a mess, a botch-job, a car-crash. It makes you say things you don’t mean and when there’s something you do want to say it won’t damn well let you.
But I don’t think life’s like that. I don’t think language is all there is to life. Steve did. That’s why he wanted to be a writer. He didn’t make it, in the end, sadly for him. Funny thing is, he does work for an investment bank, now. In accounts.
I don’t think life’s a botch-job or a car-wreck. Or I don’t think it has to be.
I asked him where he was off to this morning. He had his briefcase with him, his car-keys, his lunchbox. He said: ‘The third moon of Jupiter.’ I laughed.
He’ll be back soon. There’s a stroganoff in the slow cooker. And I suppose on a normal day we’d sit at the table and eat the stroganoff and – well, and talk rubbish at each other, because, oh, what’s between us and within us is so special that mere words can’t express it, because so-called language is inadequate…
But I reckon language is the best we’ve got. And today it’s going to have a good go at expressing what’s within me.
When he sticks his beaky head through the door, I’ll say: ‘Hello, darling. I love you.’
And I hope, please God, please, he’ll look at me, and smile, and say: ‘I love you too.’
Love Says Truth by Richard Smyth was read by Patsy Prince at the Liars’ League Cock & Bull event on Tuesday 8 February 2011 at The Phoenix, Cavendish Sq., London
Richard Smyth is a freelance writer, editor, researcher and proofreader. He also draws his own Christmas cards. He's been freelancing for two-and-a-bit years and is still not entirely sick of it. Before that, he worked unhappily for a publisher, unhappily sat by A-roads counting traffic, and unhappily sold waterproof trousers. Emma Thompson bought some once.
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