Secret Thoughts Read online

  Scene One

  A winter evening. HELEN REED, an attractive woman in her early forties, sits at a table in her flat, typing on a laptop. She stops typing and reads aloud what she has just written. After reading a few sentences she looks up from the screen of the laptop while continuing to speak. It is implied that these words are a continuation of her thoughts, a mental draft of what she intends to write next. At the end of the speech she resumes typing. (There may be other ways of performing HELEN’s monologues but it is important to establish that she is recording her thoughts in a journal on her laptop. In the course of the monologues she might move from the desk, but she normally returns to the desk at the end of them.)

  HELEN

  Thursday evening, the seventeenth of February. Well, here I am, settled in, more or less. I’ve been allocated a little flat on the campus, reserved for visiting teachers. An open-plan living room with kitchenette … and a bedroomette and a bathroomette. It’s quite big enough for me, actually, but I must say I miss the spacious rooms and high-corniced ceilings of home. Home! I must stop thinking about home.

  This is my home for the next fifteen weeks, the spring semester. I saw my name in the arts faculty handbook today: ‘MA in Creative Writing. Prose Narrative. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2–4 p.m. Tutor: Helen Reed.’ It felt like the confirmation of a jail sentence … In fact, Harrogate University is a bit like a very nicely landscaped open prison. It’s one of those universities built in the 1960s, on greenfield sites outside cathedral cities and towns of character. They were called ‘the new universities’ then, but this one is already showing its age, the concrete and tiles haven’t weathered well – except for a building made of stainless steel and mirror glass, with a domed roof divided down the middle, an Institute of Cognitive Science, I’m told. Whatever that is …

  I haven’t met my students yet – classes don’t begin until next week. Perhaps I’ll feel more cheerful once I get started. I hope so – that was the whole point of taking this job. In the meantime my only prospect of society is a dinner party on Saturday, hosted by the Vice Chancellor, to welcome new members of staff – a professor of metallurgy and me, a combination which may present a conversational challenge.

  It seems to get dark earlier here than it does at home – there I go again! Of course it’s never really dark in London – all those millions of street lamps … It’s eerily quiet, too, after five o’clock, when the faculty drive off to their homes in Harrogate or the local villages. I can actually hear the sound of single vehicles on the road beyond the perimeter fence. (Pause.) God, I feel wretched.

  Coming here was a terrible mistake, I want to run away, I want to scuttle back home to London. Leave a note saying, ‘Sorry, I made a mistake, all my fault, please forgive me.’ But I can’t. I must do my time. (She resumes typing.)

  Music.

  Scene Two

  Morning. Professor RALPH MESSENGER, a handsome man in his fifties, is alone in his office in the Institute of Cognitive Science, of which he is Director, on the campus of the University of Harrogate. He is a self-confident man, both intelligent and sensual. He is casually dressed. He sits by his desk in a chair that tilts and swivels, and holds a pocket micro-cassette voice recorder in his hand.

  RALPH

  One, two, three, testing, testing … (He plays back these words.) Recorder working OK … It’s a bit of an antique now … I bought it at Heathrow in the duty-free on my way to … where? Can’t remember, doesn’t matter … The object of the exercise being to record as accurately as possible the thoughts that are passing through my head at this moment in time, which is, let’s see … (glances at watch) 9.53 a.m., on Sunday the 20th of Febru— San Diego! I bought it on my way to that conference in San Diego, ‘Vision and the Brain’. Of course – Isabel Hennessey. She gave a paper on ‘Modelling Three-dimensional Objects’. I tested the range of the condenser mike … (hesitates) Yes … Where was I? But that’s the point, I’m not anywhere, I haven’t made a decision to think about anything specific, the object of the exercise being simply to record the random thoughts passing through a man’s head, all right, my head, at a randomly chosen time and place … well, not truly random, I came into the Institute on purpose knowing it would be deserted on a Sunday morning, I wouldn’t be interrupted, distracted, overheard, nobody else around … The object of the exercise being to try and describe the structure of, or rather to produce a specimen, that’s to say raw data, on the basis of which one might begin to try to describe the structure of, or from which one might infer the structure of … thought.

  Pause.

  Lights down on RALPH’s office. He remains seated, thinking.

  Lights up on HELEN’s flat. She is seated at the table, typing on the laptop. She begins to speak, at first reading from the screen and then uttering her thoughts aloud, as in Scene One.

  HELEN

  Sunday morning, the twenty-first of February. Yesterday evening’s dinner party was less of an ordeal than I had feared. There was just one sticky moment during the pre-dinner drinks when the Vice Chancellor’s wife complimented me on writing one of Margaret Drabble’s novels. I didn’t like to correct her publicly. Luckily one of the other guests, Carrie Messenger, spotted the mistake and deftly changed the subject. She’s the wife of Ralph Messenger, who’s Director of that strange-looking building, the Cognitive Science Institute, and something of a star here. I knew his name as a reviewer of science books in the Sunday papers, and I saw him once on television. He was standing in front of some machine, a brain-scanner I think, and saying to camera: ‘So is happiness – or unhappiness – just a matter of the hard-wiring in your brain?’

  Lights down on HELEN.

  Lights up on RALPH. He resumes dictation.

  RALPH

  Is consciousness like a stream, as William James said? Or, as he also rather beautifully said, like a bird flying through the air and then perching for a moment, then taking wing again, flight punctuated by moments of – Incidentally, how is the audiotypist going to punctuate this? I’ll have to give instructions – say, put dots for a short pause, and a full stop for a longer pause. (looks at recorder) Nifty little gadget … Isabel Hennessey … I recorded us in bed to test the range of the condenser mike, left it running on the chair with my clothes without her knowing … She made a lot of noise when she came. I like that in a woman … Carrie won’t unless we’re alone in the house, which doesn’t happen very – Jesus Christ! I can’t have this stuff transcribed! Even if I send it to an agency there’s always a risk somebody would recognise the names and send it to Private Eye, or even try to blackmail me, fuck, and I can’t change the names as I go along, be too difficult, too distracting, I’ll have to transcribe the bloody thing myself, fuck, what a bind. I should have thought of that … But then I only got the idea this morning in bed, lying awake in the dark, I didn’t sleep well, a touch of indigestion, I didn’t really like that starter at the VC’s dinner party, crab mousse or whatever it was … Where was I?

  Lights down on RALPH.

  Lights up on HELEN. She is still musing over her laptop.

  HELEN

  It was interesting to meet him in the flesh. He’s friendly, clever, amusing, but a bit vain, a bit arrogant. His wife calls him ‘Messenger’ which has a curious effect, half deferential, half ironic. She’s American, and rich, I gather, so they live in a style above the standard of the average professor, with a listed house in Harrogate and a weekend cottage in the Dales. She must have been a real beauty when she was young, but, as she disarmingly confessed to me, lost the battle against cellulite between her second and third babies … She’s still lovely, though … They make a handsome couple. I watched them leave the house with a pang of envy, walking across the gravel drive to their big Mercedes, his arm round her shoulder. Couples can still have that effect on me, even a year after Martin … (tears welling) I thought I’d stopped that.

  She closes down the laptop, gets up, and goes out to the hall. Lights down on HELEN’s flat.

&nb
sp; Scene Three

  Lights up on RALPH, who continues to dictate.

  RALPH

  Where was I? You don’t have to be anywhere, remember. But it was something interesting … Isabel Hennessey … no, not her … not that she was uninteresting … What a lot of pubic hair she had, black and springy and densely woven, like a birds’ nest … James! Yes, William James, and his idea of consciousness as a bird, flying and perching … The interesting question is, are those perchings of the bird completions of a thought or pauses in thought, blanks, white space? White noise would be better because there is brain activity still going on all the time or you would be dead … ‘I think therefore I am’ is true enough in that sense … Must be the best-known sentence in the history of philosophy. What’s the second best-known? I wonder … But is thought continuous, inescapable, or is it, as somebody said against Descartes, ‘Sometimes I think and sometimes I just am …’? Can I just am without thinking?

  Of course, this experiment is hopelessly artificial because the decision to record one’s thoughts is bound to influence the thoughts one has … For instance, I feel a little stiffness in my neck at this moment, I move my head, I stretch … I swivel round in my chair … I get up … I walk from my desk to the window … (He does so, and looks out of a window.) All these things I would normally do without thinking, I would do them ‘unconsciously’ as we say, but this morning I’m conscious of them because I hold a tape recorder in my hand, specifically for the purpose of –

  HELEN, in raincoat and headscarf, enters, stops, looks around.

  RALPH

  Who is that wandering about the campus on a wet Sunday morning? She doesn’t look as if she’s going anywhere, just going for a walk, but who’d go for a walk in this drizzle? Oh, it’s that woman at the dinner party last night, the writer, she’s taking over Russell Marsden’s course while he’s on study leave, Helen Somebody … Helen Reed, yes of course, she’s living on campus in one of those flats on the west perimeter, she told me before dinner, she’s let her own house for the semester. ‘So you won’t be nipping back to London from Thursday evening to Tuesday morning like most of our visiting writers,’ I said. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve burned my boats, or is it bridges?’ and smiled, but there was a sad look in her eyes as she said it, nice eyes, very dark brown irises, attractive woman altogether … And then dinner was served and I didn’t have another chance to speak to her, we were at opposite ends of the table … Carrie sat next to her and said she was very nice … Apparently her husband died suddenly about a year ago … There she goes, round the corner of Biology. Wonder where she’s going, what she’s doing, at ten fifteen on a wet Sunday morning, must be lonely as hell living here on her own … I could go after her now, pretend to bump into her, or say ‘I just happened to see you from my office window, we didn’t really have much chance to talk yesterday evening …’ Why not?

  He switches off the recorder, grabs his coat and goes out. HELEN goes off.

  Scene Four

  The campus. RALPH looks around, puzzled. In the distance faintly the sound of a Catholic hymn being sung by a congregation. RALPH’s mobile rings. He takes it from his pocket.

  RALPH

  Messenger. Oh, hi. Yes, fairly soon … Milk? OK, I’ll get some at a garage on the way home … Yes, there does seem to be some singing coming from somewhere – it must be our ecumenical faith centre, all superstitions welcome … Well, I just popped out for a breath of air … What’s for lunch? … Then I certainly won’t be late … What? … Oh. (disappointed) I was hoping the kids would amuse themselves this afternoon, and we could have a little siesta … Because you are my wife, Carrie, and I desire you … And because you didn’t want to last night. Then I can’t rest until I’ve had you, even after all these years … (Carrie evidently terminates the call. He addresses the phone.) Well, that’s life, Carrie. Or men. Or me.

  Music.

  Scene Five

  The campus. A sunny winter morning. HELEN, wearing her raincoat unbuttoned, is sitting on a bench reading a small hardback book. RALPH, passing, notices her.

  RALPH

  Hello.

  HELEN

  Oh, hello.

  RALPH (goes over to her)

  Enjoying the sun?

  HELEN

  It’s amazingly warm for the time of year.

  RALPH

  How are you settling in?

  HELEN

  All right.

  RALPH

  Only all right?

  HELEN

  I haven’t started teaching yet – I expect then I’ll feel less …

  RALPH

  Lonely?

  HELEN

  Well … marooned.

  RALPH

  Actually I saw you wandering about in the rain yesterday morning, looking a bit lost.

  HELEN (disconcerted)

  How did you see me?

  RALPH

  From my office window.

  HELEN

  Do you work on Sundays, then?

  RALPH

  Er … sometimes. I went out to look for you, I was going to offer you a cup of coffee, but you’d disappeared into thin air.

  HELEN

  I was in the chapel.

  RALPH

  The chapel?

  HELEN

  I went in to shelter from the rain.

  RALPH

  Oh good.

  HELEN

  Why ‘good’?

  RALPH

  I was afraid you might have had a religious motive. It’s impossible to have a serious conversation with religious people – or an amusing one for that matter.

  HELEN

  I was brought up as a Catholic, and I recognised the hymn they were singing in the chapel, so I went in and sat at the back and heard the rest of the Mass.

  RALPH

  But you’re not a believer?

  HELEN

  I don’t believe in the doctrine any more, but sometimes I think there must be a kind of truth behind it. Or I hope there is.

  RALPH

  Why?

  HELEN

  Because otherwise life seems pointless, ultimately.

  RALPH

  I don’t find it so. I find it full of interest and deeply satisfying. Why d’you need religion?

  HELEN

  I don’t need it exactly, but there are times … I lost my husband, you see, about a year ago.

  RALPH

  Yes, I heard about that.

  HELEN seems to expect some commiseration, but it doesn’t come.

  HELEN

  It was very sudden, an aneurysm in the brain. Our lives were going so well when it happened. I’d just won a prize, and Martin had just been promoted, we were looking through holiday brochures when … (on the verge of tears) when he just collapsed. He went into a coma and died the next day in hospital.

  RALPH

  That must have been tough for you … But for him it was a good way to go.

  HELEN (shocked)

  How can you say that? He was only forty-four. He had years of happy life to look forward to.

  RALPH

  Who knows? He might have developed some horribly painful degenerative disease next year.

  HELEN

  And he might not.

  RALPH

  No, he might not.

  HELEN

  He might have made lots more brilliant radio documentaries and gone round the world and had grandchildren and … all kinds of things.

  RALPH

  But he didn’t have time to think about that before he died. He died full of hope. The pain of loss is all yours.

  Pause.

  HELEN

  So you think that when we die we just cease to exist?

  RALPH

  Not in an absolute sense. The atoms of my body are indestructible.

  HELEN

  But your self, your spirit, your soul … ?

  RALPH

  As far as I’m concerned those are just fictions produced by certain kinds of
brain activity. When the brain ceases to function, they cease too.

  HELEN

  And that doesn’t fill you with despair?

  RALPH

  No, why should it?

  HELEN

  Well, it seems so pointless to spend years and years acquiring knowledge, accumulating experience, trying to make something of yourself, as the saying goes, if nothing of that self survives death.

  RALPH

  I hope to leave a permanent mark on cognitive science before I go, just as you must hope to do in literature. That’s a kind of life after death. The only kind.

  HELEN

  Cognitive science … what is it, exactly?

  RALPH

  The systematic study of consciousness.

  HELEN

  Oh, that.

  RALPH

  You know about it?

  HELEN

  Vaguely. I’ve noticed a lot of books being published with that word in the title. I haven’t read any of them, I’m afraid.