Lazy Days Read Free Page A

while I hate it. OK, maybe I don’t hate it but I certainly don’t love it. I’m sceptical. Sceptical’s the word.
    Thank you, I get the message. And you take oxidants the whole time while I’m more a fan of anti-oxidants.
    I think that’s because you’re a bit of a shallow person who thinks a lot about appearance and life expectancy and not much about things that really matter.
    And what may they be?
    I could mention quite a few.
    The theatre?
    Absolutely. That’s one. I will not deny that I consider the theatre to be one of the things that matter.
    Do you wish me to think about the theatre as well?
    Not at all. Yes, actually I do. Sometimes. Then we could talk. Have more of a meeting of the minds.
    After this short conversation Telemann goes out for a smoke. He could have smoked indoors, but he feels sure that Nina would have something to say if he did, and he doesn’t want the bother. The whole point of having a fag is to get a few minutes on your own without having to explain or justify yourself, without using any words at all, and while he’s smoking he strolls around Mixing Part Churches and passes a sausage stand and orders and thereafter eats a big, big sausage, the largest he can find, full of oxidants, which immediately mount an attack on Telemann’s innards. But Telemann loves attacks. Attack is what it’s all about. Theatre is synonymous with attack. The mission of the theatre is to break down preconceptions. Above all else, to break down preconceptions. Telemann thinks.

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