Starting out as someone incidental to my life, she remained on the edge of it so long, she...

Alan Bennett: [at his writing desk] Starting out as someone incidental to my life, she remained on the edge of it so long, she became not incidental to it at all. As home bound sons and daughters looking after their parents think of it as just marking time before their lives start, so, like them, I learned there is no such thing as marking time, and that time marks you. In accommodating her and accommodating to her, I find 20 years of my life has gone. This broken-down old woman, her delusions, and the slow abridgment of her life, with all its vehicular permutations, these have been given to me to record as others record journeys across Afghanistan or Patagonia or the thighs of a dozen women. Alan Bennett: [other self, in chair] You wanted me to make things happen. And I never have much, but it doesn't matter. Because what I've learned, and maybe she taught me, is that you don't put yourself into what you write. You find yourself there. Alan Bennett: [at desk] I never wanted to write about her. If there'd been a bit more in your life, I wouldn't have had to. Alan Bennett: [in chair] Maybe I will now.