Jeanette Winterson: Written on the Body

We had rented this room, your idea, to try to be together for more than dinner or a night or a cup of tea behind the library. You were still married and although I don't have many scruples I've learned to have some about that blessed state. I used to think of marriage as a plate-glass window just begging for a brick. The self-exhibition, the self-satisfaction, smarminess, tightness, tight-arsedness. The way married couples go out in fours like a pantomime horse, the men walking together at the front, the women trailing a little way behind. The men fetching the gin and tonics from the bar while the women take their handbags to the toilet. It doesn't have to be like that but mostly it is. I've been through a lot of marriages. Not down the aisle but always up the stairs. I began to realise I was hearing the same story every time. It went like this.

Interior. Afternoon.

A bedroom. Curtains half drawn. Bedclothes thrown back. A naked woman of a certain age lies on the bed looking at the ceiling. She wants to say something. She's finding it difficult. A cassette recorder is playing Ella Fitzgerald, `Lady Sings the Blues'.

NAKED WOMAN

I wanted to tell you that I don't usually do this. I suppose it's called committing adultery. (She laughs.) I've never done it before. I don't think I could do it again. With some one else that is. Oh I want to do it again with you. Over and over again. (She rolls on to her stomach.) I love my husband you know. I do love him. He's not like other men. I couldn't have married him if he was. He's different, we've a lot in common. We talk.

Her lover runs a finger over the bare lips of the naked woman. Lies over her, looks at her. The lover says nothing.

NAKED WOMAN

If I hadn't met you I suppose I would be looking for something. I might have done a degree at the Open University. I wasn't thinking of this. I never wanted to give him a moment's worry. That's why I can't tell him. Why we must be careful. I don't want to be cruel and selfish. You do see that don't you?

Her lover gets up and goes to the toilet. The naked woman raises herself on her elbow and continues her monologue in the direction of the en suite bathroom.

NAKED WOMAN

Don't be long darling. (She pauses.) I've tried to get you out of my head but I can't seem to get you out of my flesh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read it's you I'm reading. When I sit down to eat it's you I'm eating. When he touches me I think about you. I'm a middle-aged happily married woman and all I can see is your face. What have you done to me?

Cut to en suite bathroom. The lover is crying. End scene.