Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Books by Sheryl Browne
- Dedication
- KARLA
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Epilogue
- The Affair
- Hear more from Sheryl
- Books by Sheryl Browne
- A Letter from Sheryl
- The Babysitter
- The Second Wife
- Acknowledgements
I am reminded of something as I leave: ‘Paradox of the Actor’, an essay written by prominent historical philosopher Denis Diderot. Abstractedly, I recall a class on the subject. Diderot believed the actor should be ‘free of sensibility’, likening him to a blank slate. Waiting to be drawn upon, the slate sits unblemished. An empty vessel, it becomes filled by observations which are then poured into the performance; the actor has the ability to shape his observations to become anything or anyone.
I liked that metaphor. But what happens when you strip away the personas, I wonder, as I wait for my taxi. When the performance is poured into the audience and the vessel is empty, where is the person beneath?
Forty-Seven
JASON
After fumbling to open the front door and get into the house, Karla came into the kitchen. ‘I thought you’d be gone,’ she said, clearly surprised to find he’d come back after dropping the kids off at school.
Stifling a sigh, Jason continued to unload the dishwasher to make room for the detritus that still littered the breakfast table. It was fairly obvious why Karla had struggled to get her key in the lock. He could smell the alcohol on her breath. She’d had a good night then, out with the ‘friends’ she didn’t care to share details about.
‘There’s fresh coffee in the jug,’ he said, assuming she could use some.
Prising her pumps off and kicking them into a corner, Karla didn’t answer him. She didn’t look at him as she headed towards the coffee machine. Jason didn’t pursue it. There wasn’t much point when they couldn’t even communicate civilly for the sake of the kids any more. His fault. He hadn’t meant it to be this way, but he couldn’t change things any more than he could change who he was. At least he now knew why Fenton had always seemed to openly loathe him. The feeling was mutual. It was small compensation that the world’s smuggest fat cat and self-proclaimed ‘entrepreneurial genius’ was getting his just deserts for the destruction he’d caused.