【有声英语文学名著】CHAPTER TWO（9）（打印版）

And how is Rome? How is La Dolce Vita? (look it up). I imagine you right now at a café table,

drinking one of those ‘cappuccinos’ we hear so much about, and wolf-whistling at everything. You’re

probably wearing sunglasses to read this. Well take them off, you look ridiculous. Did you get the

books I sent you? Primo Levi is a fine Italian writer. It’s to remind you that life isn’t all gelati and

espadrilles. Life can’t always be like the opening of Betty Blue. And how is teaching? Please promise

me you’re not sleeping with your students. That would just be so . . . disappointing.

Must go now. Bottom of page looms, and in the other room I can hear the thrilling murmur of our

audience as they throw chairs at each other. I finish this job in two weeks THANK GOD, then Gary

Nutkin, our director, wants me to devise a show for infantschools about Apartheid. With PUPPETS

for fuck’s sake. Six months in a Transit on the M6 with a Desmond Tutu marionette on my lap. I might

give that one a miss. Besides, I’ve written this two-woman play about Virginia Woolf and Emily

Dickinson called ‘Two Lives’ (either that or ‘Two Depressed Lesbians’). Maybe I’ll put that on in a

pub-theatre somewhere. Once I’d explained to Candy who Virginia Woolf was, she said that she

really, really wanted to play her, but only if she can take her top off, so that’s the casting sorted. I’ll

be Emily Dickinson, and keep my top on. I’ll reserve you tickets.