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Storyline and first chapter>
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OBLIVION
Storyline
Laura Bolton is dead, but she will not go away. Her mother, torn apart
by grief, keeps a shrine to her memory, and Andrew her husband, a
successful young journalist, is haunted by her presence - even when
he is making love to another woman. Unable to move on with his life,
or to commit himself to Sarah, who loves him, Andrew comes under the
influence of an uncompromising and manipulative playwright, Catherine
Samuelson, whose subject is death: "Death is a double dealer, Mr Bolton.
First he deals us our mortal death and then our real death - oblivion
- when we are finally forgotten."
Caught between the living and the dead, compelled by Samuelson's harsh
philosophy - "happiness is decision. Make it. And don't cry"
- Andrew comes to the shocking realization that, in the essential
ruthlessness of the living, the memory of Laura will be lost.
Oblivion is a daring and beautiful novel which confronts disturbing
truths about death and sex, love and remembrance.
Chapter 1
This is an elegant room. Is this is an elegant room? Absorb the colour blue. Mark the dark blue curtains, light blue bedspread, the fine chairs, upholstered in pale grey silk.
Now, listen for sound. Note the rain on the tiny balcony. As though
orchestrated, it beats a rhythm on the tiles. Listen to the music.
What am I doing here? Oh, God, why did I think I could do this? I must do this. Others have done this. It is a rite of passage. Concentrate. I am here because of my desire. Say it yourself. I am here because of my desire.
Now, concentrate on your nakedness. I am … am I here? Desire is here, but am I here? I have been shattered, as though I were a pane of glass to which someone had taken a hammer. Could desire reassemble me? Does the body, just the body, have a soul? I'm looking for the smallest truth, then I can, perhaps, move on.
My desire to be here is genuine. I have genuine desire: this at least is true. After all, the body does not lie in these matters. And in these matters, a man's body is a more truthful map than a woman's. My body is more truthful than hers. But I believe she desires me too. There is little proof at this stage. At this moment I stand opposite her in a hotel bedroom. I am naked, therefore my desire is known. She is naked, but her desire is hidden. The desire of women is always hidden. Except in her eyes?
Where will I lead her? Where in this room shall we lie down together?
Upon the floor, or on the bed, on its pale blue cover? Or will desire
overcome us and shall we lie against the wall? Can I do this? I do
not know. And there will be discoveries before such a decision is
possible, discoveries of the strength, the pliability, the suppleness
and speed of the body opposite mine. When I have made these discoveries,
they will move us finaly towards the vertical or horizontal, hard
or soft meeting place, of this particular two, made one.
I move a number of steps closer to her and stop. She does not take a step back. And my desire mixes for a moment with gratitude for her grace and it is a sweet feeling. I have not known sweetness since beyond a point in my memory which I do not visit. I look at her body. I try to see her body. I try to clear the haze that sometimes clouds the eye when desire, now almost blind, panics for the sense of touch. I resist. I continue to look and to see. I concentrate on the sight of her. She is tall. We are virtually the same height. I must concentrate only on her. Her shoulders are thin and they slope slightly. Her breasts are small and pointed. I concentrate on them. I move closer. I bow my head and suck her right nipple. She does not move away. She raises herself a little on her toes. To help me, I believe. And the sweetness comes again and settles itself in my desire, an undernote of a most unexpected nature.
I move my mouth to her left nipple and now caress her right breast with the fingers of my left hand. I concentrate totally on these actions and on the sensations they elicit. Now I listen to certain sounds she is making. A chorus of the breath. Short then slow, then fast then nothing, then a panting that flutters somewhere in her throat and which I can almost hear, as she bends her neck and head towards mine. Taste and touch and sound mingle in my mind. And concentration has taken me to this point. And, at this point, I know only her.
I move to kneel before her. I press my face into her stomach. It is
as pale and flat as the white of a page. It is the stomach of youth
and nothing has been written on it. I move my head down and past the
hip bones and I move my mouth onto and into the hair, then my tongue
onto and into her. I know in a sense the first step to oneness has
been taken. My tongue unites me with her. I listen to the sounds above
me. And I stop. I remember what they are telling me. I remember what
my tongue knows from the swelling it encounters now. I remember. And,
now, I do not know only her.
You are here. You are here with us. And I am trapped here with her.
You cannot stay here. It is not right. You cannot stay here with me.
I desire you, I always desired you. I desired you in the body of your
long-legged teenage triumph and in the body of your formal power of
wife. I was unusual, I desired my wife. Oh my darling, now I see you
in your body fertile, filled up, bursting. And I can see again your
aggressive stomach, that swelled but only for a short time. Was that
loss a harbinger of the other, more terrible loss? Now your later
body is here, too, and I want to weep for it. I am nailed weeping,
perhaps forever, to that grey vision of your body battling, formidable,
then lessening, ever lessening, on and on to less and less. And then,
your body quiet: the quietest quiet I will ever know. Where did all
the swelling go to? And all that rising and falling? Where did it
all go to? How did it come to such and end? Come to me. Come back
to me. Oh, please, come back and stay with me. Come to me. Come to
me.
Oh, God, I'm tired. I lay the girl on the floor. I don't have the strength to move her to another place. More truthfully, I no longer have the inclination. I'm tired. I am so tired. I lie above her as though to hide her from you. Darling. I do not want to hurt you. And as I slide into her, the ruthlessness sickens me and yet I cannot stop. She moves a little, in her generosity, to accommodate me. I know that she is close to what I would most willingly bring her. You are angry. You turn to leave. Come back, come back, forgive me. Please forgive me. Please come back to me. Come back. Come. Come.
And she came. And you didn't. And you never will.
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