Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

First, you have to pull everything out of it, and there’s this moment when you’re looking around and it’s a total mess. And you feel like, Shit, why did I even start this? It’s worse than before I began. And then slowly, piece by piece, you put it all away. But before you can create order, you have to make a mess.”

She worried that she was one of those artists who care more about being an artist than they do about making art.

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.

‘If you are going to drown, drown in deep water.’

She was sensitive, he knew that, but she was tough too.

Frank looked at Cleo, whose face was blanched except for a single high red dot on each cheekbone. He could sense, beneath the still surface of her, a great roiling of feeling. But she did not move, did not even flinch. She reminded him of some great, noble boxer standing dazed after what should have been a knockout blow. He sprang up from his chair. “I’m sorry, but this is bullshit,” he said. “Cleo, you don’t deserve this shit.” “This language!” said Miriam. “Americans can be so coarse.” Peter stayed silent, his head hanging heavily between his thick shoulders. Frank turned to Cleo and offered his hand. Slowly, with great dignity, she rose to stand beside him. “We’re leaving,” she said. She walked out of the restaurant with Frank following behind her. Suddenly, he turned back and took out his wallet. He strode back to the table and placed two $100 bills on its surface in front of Peter. “The best thing you ever did,” he said, “was Cleo.”

Why did she feel the need to make everyone, even this waiter, like her? What a thing it must be to be indifferent to indifference.

The more the two men drank, the more competitive they became. Cleo watched them and wondered what ancient belief was at play that, despite their lives of great abundance, they felt there could never be enough for them both.

She always said that a building should be two parts contentment, one part desire.

“The park is a place of exquisite beauty and extreme danger.”

“I’d throw myself off a bridge but I’m afraid of heights!”

“You don’t stop gardening because you get old, you get old because you stop gardening.”

“You don’t stop bullshitting because you get old,” she says. “You get old because life’s bullshit,”

“Is it a picture of a cat?” she asks. “The girls from synagogue are always sending me pictures of cats. What the heck do I want to look at cats for?” “I think that just goes with the territory of being an older woman,” I say. “Menopause is the only thing that goes with the territory,” she says. “Everything else is just marketing.”

“Have you ever noticed how closely a butt plug resembles a Native American arrowhead?”

was pointless; gravity worked against her, softening the blow. She wanted the anger knocked out of her, to be left feeling quiet and still, but the punches had been too dull to dislodge it. It surged on.

shame that her mother was dead and she could not ask her for advice, shame that her mother didn’t want to be her mother enough to not be dead, just shame, shame, shame.

The apartment was small and ordinary in every way, forgotten even as one stood inside it.

Did Cleo want that? And if not now, ever? What had she done, marrying Frank? She should have married Quentin. She should have married no one. How did a person learn to live? Learn to be happy? She had surrounded herself with people who didn’t know.

an ego that is large but self-esteem that is small?”

Finally, he humbly asked God for the strength to bear his hungry heart, the heaviest weight of all to bear.

She did think she was special, but she wouldn’t have admitted it. She knew enough to know that there was nothing less special than thinking you were.

“Do you know the word humiliate comes from the Latin root humus, which means ‘earth’? That’s how love is supposed to feel.” “Like hummus?” “Like earth. It grounds you. All this nonsense about love being a drug, making you feel high, that’s not real. It should hold you like the earth.”

“Soz about that,” I say. “What’s that?” “Soz.” I shrug. “It’s how British teenagers say sorry.” “How sorry can you be if you can’t even spring for the second syllable?” “Since when was word length correlative to sincerity?

“God is not always just,” she says. “But he does have a sense of humor.”

“Do you know how Nietzsche defined a joke?” she says. “As an epigram on the death of a feeling.”

“I have a therapist now too.” “You do?” “She’s a Buddhist lesbian from Ireland, but she’s lived in Italy for years.” “I couldn’t imagine a better description of a therapist for you.” “I trust her,” she said. “She’s the first person I’ve trusted in a long time.” “I get it,” said Frank. “That’s how I feel about my sponsor.” “Wow, Frank,” said Cleo. “Look at us forming healthy relationships.”

Eleanor got this version of Frank, the sober, thoughtful man who took her suggestions, while Cleo had endured the drunken predecessor like a fool.

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light. Now she had completed that process on her own. She had met the darkest part of herself and created this.

They just don’t feel they have to do the tap dance, you know? They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.” Cleo smiled sadly. “But how do you stop tap dancing if you’re like us?” “I just got too tired, Cley,” he

‘Wherever you are going, it is waiting for you.’