*
Dorothy groans from the next room. Red Moran and she are wrapped in sheets and sunlight and only you and the rose wallpaper can see them. Moran is on his knees, his huge body rocking. His stomach is tense and hairy and Dorothy loves it so much she almost bursts and he bends like a swaying baton over her as she lies there gazing at the cream-colored curtains billowing out of the window. Then he is on his knees in the bed and Dorothy is on all fours tensed like a desert dog; her thin, glowing body trembling in ecstasy. Her mouth is a gash on her face that you wish you could mend instead of standing there with the flies, staring into their pulsating pit of sweat and glassy eyes. And their smell that will follow you through the forest. A smell of something sour and sweet, like old fish or hamburgers.
VALERIE: I intend to keep the name Solanas.
DOROTHY: A father’s name is beautiful on a girl.
VALERIE: I’m going to keep it because it means ocean bird.
DOROTHY: Your father will always be able to find you.
VALERIE: I have no father.
DOROTHY: You know I love you?
VALERIE: I know.
Bristol Hotel, April 11, 1988
When you wake again patches of sunlight are spreading over the hotel room; you are not sure if the shimmering and flickering by the window are disco lights, or miniscule neon cities or only little fairgrounds on the wallpaper. For once there is silence in the corridor and on the street, just a gently buzzing light, the sound of overstrained electricity and a hazy strip of sky behind the curtains. By the window it looks as though someone has left a silver fox fur or a fox boa, and her perpetual cloud of menthol smoke obscures the view of the room. A silver thread flashing in her hand.
Dorothy?
DOROTHY: My little sugar lump.
VALERIE: What are you doing?
DOROTHY: Sewing lucky threads.
VALERIE: In what?
DOROTHY: In your silver coat.
VALERIE: It’s too late.
DOROTHY: Threads of gold and silver. Lucky threads in your clothes at all times.
VALERIE: It’s too late and they’ve never worked. Like your fortune-telling cards.
DOROTHY: Sometimes my predictions were right.
VALERIE: Bullshit. What do the cards say now?
DOROTHY: They say that you’re not going to die. That love is eternal. That by May or June you’ll be out again in your silver coat. And I’ve been sewing lucky threads in it. It will all be alright. You have to believe that.
VALERIE: Your predictions have never come true.
DOROTHY: They did sometimes.
VALERIE: Put your cigarette out and name one occasion when they did.
DOROTHY: Lots of men thought I was beautiful and I predicted they would carry on thinking that.
VALERIE: And now you’re an ugly, hunched old hag with rustling skin and bad teeth and nicotine hands.
DOROTHY (looks at her hands as she splays her fingers): Red Moran said I was beautiful. Mr Emin said I was beautiful . . . Everybody said it . . . By the way, did I tell you Moran died of that terrible lung disease?
VALERIE: You told me, yes.
DOROTHY: I thought everything was alright. That we were doing fine. And then he went and got that cough keeping me awake at night. I visited him in hospital every day. He should never have taken the job at the filling station. I said all along it was full of poisonous fumes and gases and shit.
VALERIE: He cut up all your clothes and pulled huge chunks of your hair out.
DOROTHY: What did you say?
VALERIE: You’ve got a memory like a sieve, Dorothy. All you’ve got in your head is sweet wine.
DOROTHY: I can’t remember anything anymore, Valerie.
VALERIE: I remember everything.
DOROTHY: I know, thank you very much. It’s like a photograph being developed inside that sharp little brain of yours. I have always chosen to remember only the wonderful things . . . clouds of pink flamingos flying low over the house . . . those skies that never return . . . kites and soap bubbles . . . a petticoat of the Stars and Stripes that I sewed for Independence Day . . . I looked fantastic in that cretion.
VALERIE: Cre-a-tion, Dorothy.
DOROTHY: Oh yeah. You’ve always thought words were important. I’ve always had so much else to think about.
VALERIE: I can remember Alligator Reef, for instance, and the ocean . . .
DOROTHY: That’s right. I could see it in my cards. You and I on that beach. The umbrellas. The miles of sand.
VALERIE (emits a laugh edged with steel): And then what, Dorothy? What happened then, Dorothy?
DOROTHY (her needle moving faster and faster, up and down): I don’t remember. There are lots of things I don’t remember. I haven’t thought about my hands before. It’s true, Valerie. Completely yellow with smoke and night-time. But it’s night-time now. You’re going to go to sleep now, my baby.
VALERIE: I’m not a baby. And there is a very literal beach. There are a number of unanswered letters. Did we stay on the beach? You have to answer my questions.
DOROTHY: I’m going to concentrate on sewing now. And you’re going to concentrate on sleeping now. Goodnight, little Valerie.
VALERIE: Fuck you, Dolly.
The Oceans
Bristol Hotel, April 12, 1988
THE NARRATOR: I can help you sort out your papers. I can change the light bulbs so you don’t have to lie in the dark. I can help you get up for a while.
VALERIE: Thank you, but I’m fine like this. And I prefer lying alone. But you go ahead. Knock yourself out. I’ll sleep for the time being.
NARRATOR: We need to talk some more about prostitution, talk some more about the American women’s movement. You have to tell me more about your relationship with the emancipation project.
VALERIE: I don’t have to do anything. I need to lie here and wait and see if I opt for life or death. My heart is still beating. I am still full of hate. I can still see you. And all your papers. That means I’m not dead yet.
NARRATOR: Being close to authentic material.
VALERIE: Am I the material?
NARRATOR: There’s more than one kind . . . You are the subject of this novel. I admire your work. I admire your courage. I’m interested in the manifesto’s context. Your life. The American women’s movement. The ’60s.
VALERIE: Whore material. Screwing material.
NARRATOR: The context—
VALERIE: —there’s no such thing as context. Everything has to be wrenched out of its setting. Frames of reference can always explain away the most obvious causal connections. Buyers, sellers, slack dicks, slack pussies. It’s a question of phenomena that can be totally taken apart.
NARRATOR: I’m interested in your world.
VALERIE: This is not a world I want to live in. Marilyn Monroe. Sylvia Plath. Cinderella. Lying raped and murdered on the beach. I ran home to Dorothy across the desert with dying creatures in my arms. I waited for the animal to decide on life or death. Sometimes it chose death, sometimes life. Sometimes it was a giant dragonfly that would die before nightfall anyway. It has always been like that with me, I’ve always found it hard to decide. It’s been neither life nor death. And it seems from now on it will just be death. Well, at least it’s a decision to abide by. Something of a lasting nature.
NARRATOR: Tell me about the manifesto, about S.C.U.M.
VALERIE: A worldwide anti-violence organization. A utopia, a mass movement, a raucous slather slowly spreading across the globe. A condition, an attitude, a way of moving across the city. Always filthy thoughts, filthy dress, filthy low intentions.