Lazy Days (3 page)

Telemann is lying on the sofa and doesn’t think much of the YouTube clip entitled Nigella Goes Shopping. She buys Italian-striped ribbons to tie around serviettes for the evening’s guests, to whom she will serve Calabrian lamb chops or whatever. He tries to work out why he reacts negatively to this. It worries him. Is he at the turning point in his relationship with Nigella? Is he going to lose her? In which case all he has left is the theatre, he muses.

It could be that her being outside the home is what he finds disturbing. Nigella should be in the kitchen, Telemann believes, but he pulls up short, he doesn’t believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, he has never believed that, but something is wrong because he gets agitated at seeing her in a bric-a-brac shop. This is not Nigella as he knows her. It’s a different Nigella. Outside, he can hear Nina laughing and playing with Berthold and Sabine, some summer-type game, which no doubt involves rolling in the grass, the Nazi grass, Telemann thinks. Nazi grass! Christ. That’s theatre. He will have to make a note of it. Jumps up and writes something on a random newspaper lying about. NAZI GRASS! In capitals with an exclamation mark. But he has second thoughts, crosses out the exclamation mark. It looks stupid with the exclamation mark. Then it isn’t theatre. Just stupid.

Telemann poured himself a glass of wine a short time ago while Nina and the kids were shopping and now he closes his eyes. Laughter from the garden. The usual screech of Bavarian yodelling in the background. The heat. He dozes off. And in the grey area between dozing and being awake he sees something, what’s that, he thinks, is it theatre, he hopes it is, it’s the perfect situation, he visualises how he will be able to tell journalists and theatre bosses for years to come how he was dozing in Mixing Part Churches when the idea for the monumental, pioneering play just came to him, because he was ready for it, because it was his turn, so to speak.

But it turns out that it isn’t theatre. Telemann is slightly unsure what it is. It appears to be some kind of fantasy and Telemann is under the clear impression that it is going to be beneath his dignity, but he can’t stop himself, it is insistent. He’s in London and spills tea down his trousers in a café and scalds himself and feels a fool and a woman at the next table feels sorry for him and invites him to go with her, she lives just round the corner, and they enter a blue London door and go up a great long staircase and into a gigantic apartment and the woman asks Telemann to take off his trousers so that she can wash and dry them, and he takes off his trousers and she asks if he is hungry and he answers that he is, and she says she is quite good at singing and playing music but sadly bad at cooking, but she has a girlfriend who is really good at it, and she phones her girlfriend, and while she is talking on the phone Telemann notices that the house belongs to the one and only Kate Bush, but not the Kate Bush as she is today, this is Kate Bush as she was at the beginning of the Eighties, but he doesn’t mention the fact that he knows who she is, it is as if he instinctively knows that that will ruin the situation, so he keeps his trap shut, and Kate sits down at the piano and says she would like his opinion on a song she has just written, and then she sings
Suspended in Gaffa
, occasionally eyeing him, when the piano allows, with a glance Telemann thinks can only be one of great anticipation, and when the song draws to a close and Telemann gesticulates to say how fantastic the song was, Nigella surges through the door, carrying some cooking ingredients in bags and wearing that very thin turquoise blouse that Telemann is so fond of, and Kate explains the situation to Nigella, who immediately begins to whip cream for some quick comfort eating, but then she spills wine on her blouse and Kate wants to take it off to wash it, but Nigella doesn’t think it’s necessary, but Kate insists, and in the kerfuffle that ensues when the blouse has to come off, it so happens that some cream gets onto Kate’s clothes, so they have to come off too, and after some hesitation while the two women measure each another up, feeling conflicting emotions, they tear each other’s clothes off, like wild cats, and it isn’t long before they are standing naked and perhaps a tiny bit embarrassed, casting stolen glances at Telemann and Telemann’s organ, which is protruding majestically in a state of complete surprise over the edge of his underpant elastic, and Nigella grabs the cream and a bowl of strawberries together with a small saucepan of melted chocolate and takes Kate by the hand and approaches Telemann and…

Telemann!

Hmm?

Telemann!

What?

Wake up!

I am awake.

Fine. Then you can pick up Heidi from the tennis courts.

OK. I just need five minutes to… to come to my senses. I must have dozed off.

Excuse me, but is that an erection I can see there?

I don’t know.

It’s fairly recognisable. Looks like one to me.

Well, blow me down, now you mention it.

How exciting. Maybe we should strike while the iron is hot?

Aren’t I supposed to be picking up Heidi? And what about Berthold and Sabine?

They’ve popped over to the Baders.

OK. Well. I don’t know.

You’re not normally so difficult to persuade.

There are so many impressions to deal with at once. A little confusing.

What were you dreaming about?

I don’t remember.

Was it about me?

I think… maybe it was.

Yes, because it wasn’t about the theatre, was it.

No. This wasn’t theatre, I think. Even though it is not unknown for thinking about the theatre to give me erections

Was it a fantasy… about me?

The images are a bit vague but… yes, you could say that.

How exciting. But you don’t feel like…

Maybe not just at the moment.

We’ll have to save it for later then.

Yes. We can save that for another day.

Jewish Cuisine? Goodness, what an original birthday present. Thank you very much.

I think you should take a closer look at the title, Telemann.

The Jews have probably got loads of food traditions I know nothing about, that probably Nigella knows nothing about.

Read the title, Telemann.

The… Jewish Question. A History of Anti-Semitism from Olden Times to the Present Day.

Are you giving me a book about anti-Semitism?

I thought you would like it.

Right. Sure. I was just warming to the idea that this was some great tome about Jewish food, so I had to go through a readjustment phase. After all, food is much more pleasant than anti-Semitism.

So you’re a little disappointed?

A little. But I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually. Thank you very, very much.

You’re welcome. Aren’t I going to get a hug then?

Yes.

Many happy returns.

Thanks.

And then, unless I’m much mistaken, the children have some presents for you.

Did they make them themselves, do you think?

Yes.

OK.

This incident makes Telemann nervous. He’s afraid Nina has seen through his relationship with Nigella and realised he hates Charles Saatchi. Is the birthday present a subtle hint? It’s difficult to imagine that Nina could be so perspicacious, but who knows? We don’t really know anyone very well when it comes to the crunch. You can live with people for years without actually knowing what goes on inside their heads. It might transpire that they are living a parallel life to the one they apparently share with you. Some people even have children with their own child. Behind secret doors in the cellar. But they don’t show it. Here you have to make a sharp distinction between people and politics whatever the circumstances, Telemann thinks. It’s not Jews as such he has problems with. Just Charles Saatchi. Nor has he got any problems with Israel as a nation. God forbid, he doesn’t want to be encumbered with any of that. Telemann loves Israel, he thinks. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. But giving anti-Semitism as a birthday present, that’s weird. Telemann reckons.

Do we have to listen to this Teutonic music?

Define ‘have to’.

We seem to be listening to it every night.

Don’t you like it?

Nah. There’s so much longing in it. It gets tiresome after a while.

Music is normally about longing.

All this bloody longing.

That’s your opinion.

What are they all longing for?

The completely normal things that people long for.

Such as?

Well, love, friends, family.

Theatre?

No, I don’t think they are longing for the theatre.

I think they are.

OK.

I think that very often when people are longing for other things they are really longing for the theatre.

Do you now?

Yes.

In a way you’ve formulated your own theory which states that whenever people long for things they are actually longing for the theatre.

Yes.

OK.

They’re longing to sit in a dark auditorium with others to be told a story by living people that enables them to see themselves in a new light.

OK.

All this music and yoga and jogging… it’s just rubbish.

Yes.

It’s theatre they need.

OK.

Aren’t you coming with us, Telemann?

I’d rather do some writing.

It would do you good to see the mountains and fill your lungs with fresh air and re-charge your batteries. And your play won’t go anywhere.

That’s just the problem. I have to get to grips with it.

Come on.

The Baders are coming, too.

For crying out loud.

Nina and Berthold and Sabine want to take the cable car to the top of Zugspitze with the Baders.

Telemann sits down to reflect on the theatre. He thinks about the theatre for five minutes, ten minutes, he thinks about the theatre for fifteen wonderful minutes. Then Heidi wants him to go to tennis practice with her.

I don’t know about that. I was thinking of doing a spot of work.

But you never come to the training.

That’s not quite true.

When was the last time you came then?

It was… well, it was some time last winter, I suppose.

And what season are we in now?

OK; Jesus Christ, then I’ll go with you. But I demand the right to let my mind wander on occasion and to take a few notes.

No worries.

Fine.

Telemann takes a seat in the stands with a pen and a pad he found in the house. He lights a cigarette and closes his eyes, but a groundsman comes and says/tells him that all the court area is a smoke-free zone and has been so for two years. Europe’s going to pot, Telemann thinks. And European theatre too.

Telemann watches Heidi playing against a Russian girl. She is good. The Russian, that is. Telemann reflects that in Russia talented youngsters are spotted at three or four years of age and nurtured and nurtured, probably to such an extent that they have no life outside of it. So when at the age of eighteen or twenty they prove not to be the best in the world after all, their lives are in ruins. Heidi is from a different culture and can fall back on a number of things. If all goes well. A couple of things anyway. But having something to fall back on is cowardly nonetheless, Telemann reflects. If you don’t have anything to fall back on you become rampant, ruthless, dangerous. That’s what people should aim at. In both tennis and in the theatre. Telemann is approaching that good state where the brain takes off and ideas are born. He can feel it. He takes his pen from his pocket and wants to jot down some notes about Russia and groundsmen and risk-taking, this is theatre, all this is potential theatre, but at the top of the pad, in block letters, in an irritating light blue colour, he sees an idiotic logo: HAPPY TIME. That’s no bloody good. You can’t write theatre on a page that says HAPPY TIME. Typical of the Baders to have a pad like this lying about in the house they rent out. In the thickest swathe of Nazism and incest, there is this atrocious predilection for schmaltz. This region has the world’s worst ornaments. Telemann feels sick to the stomach and takes a deep breath to regain some kind of equilibrium. He feels an urge to jot this down, too. About the knick-knacks. The fact that the ornaments must have been here before Nazism. Thus ornaments are dangerous. But he must have another pad. He shouts down to Heidi, who becomes distracted and loses a point.

I need another pad!

What?

I have to get another pad. Can’t write on this!

OK.

Telemann leaves the courts and walks toward the town centre smoking. He flings the HAPPY TIME pad, demon­stratively and provocatively, to the ground. Several passers-by are taken aback and eye one another and think we don’t want this kind of behaviour going on round here. A woman picks up the pad. She is pleasantly surprised to find it is a pristine writing pad. And moreover HAPPY TIME was written on every sheet. Perfect. She thinks. For correspondence. Fancy throwing this away. Heavens above.

Telemann discovers a book shop and sees a classic notebook. A handy size with rounded corners. An elastic band to keep it closed during transport. A whole host of artists and writers have used the same type according to a poster in the shop. Apollinaire, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway and many others. Well, these people did not primarily write plays, Telemann thinks. They mostly scribbled down bits and bobs, and some of them did drawings. Presumably they didn’t have it in them to write plays. Anyone can draw, even children. And turning out droll tales is no big deal either, not to mention writing poems, Jeez! Telemann has to laugh. No, theatre is something very different. It’s not for your average Joe. But the notebook will have to do. At least there’s nothing in blue letters on every page. In fact, they are completely blank. Not even lines. That’s good. Lines are not theatre. Empty, blank pages are theatre. A void. A scream in the void. A scream from the bowels of the earth: Angst! Angst! Now that’s what Telemann calls theatre.

Back in the stand Telemann writes several things in his new notebook. Russia, he writes, ringing the word, he continues with ruthlessness, smoking laws, Nazi ornaments, maybe he could have a groundsman as a protagonist, why not, they wear smart clothes, they have a job that easily lends itself to symbolism, such as clearing up, repairing what has been destroyed. REPAIRING, Telemann writes, in capital letters underlining the word and allowing the line to continue and become an arrow pointing to another word he hasn’t written yet, what could that be now, CLIMATE? He writes CLIMATE, but has second thoughts, climate is boring, it is fundamentally boring, he crosses out the L and turns it into an H, scrubs the final two letters, changes the M to an N, and ends up with CHINA. Repair China? Is that theatre? Telemann spends a long time pondering. Then he smiles. It certainly is.