notebook entry
My name is Rebecca E. Wilkinson.
I am as old as the mountains and I died and I was then born again many times and every time it felt important. Of course, I barely remember any details. But it was always on a rainy Wednesday, cold and damp. My favourite day.
That kind of Wednesday when you are alone in the house, no one breathes but the wood embracing you, and you can distinctively hear the scratching of graphite on paper. And nothing else. It is those Wednesdays made out of warm soup with anise and cloves, large jumpers, only socks and melancholia.
But I am not at home now.
I am sitting in a large, silky leathery vermilion old chair, tacks an'all. The room is perfectly square and my shoulders sit uncomfortably within the dimension of the space and the direction the chair is facing. I feel like the needle of a compass, vacuumed under glass. I feel I should move this darn thing I am sitting on, but it is an old hall, panelled in weathered oak. It rains and it is Wednesday. It's late and this is my second whiskey. There are about 50 people (I like to call them my "old deluded boyfriends") who are waiting for me to walk out there and entertain them. They are all either weirdly interested in stories they don't really understand and await for the celebrity writer, the fame and the pzazz (followed by canapés and Sherry); or so old they are there just because someone dragged them while inveigled them by senseless flattering.
Pathetic.
But the whiskey is good and I still have about 10 minutes alone before being thrown on the stage and I could do with some olives. Black. Pitted. The line between a published researcher and an entitled rock star is just so fine.
"Have you got your notes ready?"
"Yes, I have", I answer.
"I mean, you have given this talk so many times, you should know..."
"... it by heart", I finish the sentence. "I know. I know".
It has been the same talk for the past couple of years. The same panelled rooms, the same red chairs, the same whiskey. The same sleepy eyes of the men in the first two rows, in tweed jackets, gently nodding probably to some resurfaced 50-year-old memories. As usual, I am wearing my "I know what I am on about" uniform of smooth jeans and light blue Converse that my knees will tremendously regret tomorrow; a white linen shirt and a blue jacket in such soft cotton you wouldn't believe it is actually real. I wear red lipstick because why not, and I leave half of it on the glass.
Because "why not?".