My Zinc Bed-TEN

TEN

And now Victor, wearing a new, shinier suit, is advancing towards Paul. His manner is louring, aggressive as he heads towards Paul at his desk. The evening sun slants across the offices.

Victor Ah Paul, there you are. I’d begun to think you’d been avoiding me.

Paul Not at all.

Victor Ah good.

Paul No. (Paul smiles, not dropping his guard.) You’ve been away.

Victor It’s true. I must have drawn the wrong conclusion.

Paul I think you did.

Victor Everyone dies after their last meal but that doesn’t mean they were poisoned.

Paul Quite.

Victor gives him a chilly smile.

Victor And you’ve heard of our problems?

Paul We’ve all read in the paper.

Victor There you are. Capitalism at its most infuriating and obtuse.

Paul Is it any other way?

Victor First the market overvalues us and now – capricious, arbitrary – it marks us down.

Paul And neither movement anything to do with you.

Victor I don’t think so. (Victor scoffs at the silliness of it.) The market correcting its own mistakes, it says. It swallows us up and then it vomits us out. What are we? Ping-pong balls.

Paul So it seems.

Victor Our value slashed overnight. And everyone says it’s normal. It’s accepted as normal. An economy used to make things. Now? A world in which ten people do something and the other ninety speculate. Normal?

Victor We’ve lost our ability to see life as it is. We need poets more than ever, wouldn’t you say?

Victor To remind us.

There’s a silence. Victor sits down at the side of Paul’s desk and starts reading a file.

It’s a game, nothing else. Because we lack any wisdom ourselves, we will all pretend that the market is wise. It’s a form of camp.

Victor has not looked up as he says this. Paul is nervous, turning a box of matches over between his fingers.

Paul You seem calm.

Victor Say what?

Paul It doesn’t seem to get to you.

Victor Or is it just that I’m too arrogant to let it show?

Paul (smiles) Perhaps.

Paul waits, not knowing what Victor wants. Victor goes on reading.

Is there something you wanted?

Paul I just wondered … in particular.

Victor Only to talk to you.

Victor looks up.

Victor Why? Should there be?

Victor No hierarchy in the cyber-business. A cat may look at a king.

Victor starts reading again. Paul waits, lost for the purpose of the visit.

Do you never do any work?

But before Paul can answer, Victor erupts unpredictably.

Of course the market gets to me. Of course it does. Why would it not? I’m in a vile temper.

Victor That’s what I’m saying. The humiliation of being judged by people who know nothing.

Paul I’m sure.

Victor I feel like an African dictator. I leave the country for ten days and I return to find there’s been a coup. (Victor looks humourlessly at Paul.) Not for myself. Believe me, I’m not upset for myself.

Victor The money I lose is immaterial. If the business goes belly-up I’m still a rich man.

Paul Can it go belly-up?

Victor I have my creature comforts. My house, my wife …

Victor As you know. As you well know.

This time Victor looks straight into Paul’s eyes. Paul is becoming more nervous.

Paul Your ‘immense personal fortune’.

Victor Quite so. But I also have an estimate of myself, an idea of myself.

Paul Justifiably.

Victor Please. I don’t need corroboration. I don’t need praise.

Paul I don’t mean to flatter you.

Victor One thing I’ve understood. Praise is salt water. Drink it and you become thirsty.

Paul You don’t have to tell me.

Victor frowns, not understanding.

I’m a writer.

Victor Quite so. Exactly. However. It would still be a defeat. Were FLOTILLA to go down.

Paul I don’t understand. Can it go down?

Victor As suddenly as it rose. (Victor looks at him, cheerless.) There are no profits after all. Only the promise of profits.

Paul People know that.

Paul All Internet businesses are about potential. They’re about expectation.

Victor But as in all things, people get tired of waiting. Don’t they?

Now he is staring at Paul, who is extremely uncomfortable.

Don’t you get tired of waiting, Paul? Does life, then, come down to waiting?

Paul is lost for a moment. He moves slightly in his seat.

Victor The business itself is unchanged.

Paul Of course.

Victor Tomorrow it may be judged to be prospering. That is the nature of the current dispensation. It’s tulip mania. It’s epidemic suggestion.

Paul (smiles) Yes.

Victor Ping-pong balls dancing on fountains! What is believed to prosper prospers. Nothing is but what is believed. Everything becomes a question of confidence. We don’t say confidence trick. We say confidence creation.

Paul is unsure how to react but before he can speak Victor becomes purposeful again.

I apologise if we led you astray the other night.

Paul It’s fine.

Victor Back on the taste, isn’t that what they say?

Victor Back on the brew. You tied one on. No, really. I felt guilty.

Victor Elsa and I felt guilty. It weighed on my conscience.

There is a moment’s pause.

Paul Conscience is a weak thing, you said.

Victor Huh. Have you drunk since?

Paul Have I …

Victor Since that evening? Have you drunk again?

Paul No. Not a drop.

Paul is firm. Victor watches.

Victor Tell me, this is academic, I’m just asking, there’s not a hint of reproach, but do you lie about your drinking?

Paul Compulsively.

Paul Like all drinkers.

Victor smiles.

Victor All the time or just occasionally?

Paul It’s …

Victor Though it doesn’t really matter does it?

Victor Given what you just said.

Victor That’s the beauty of lying. You need only do it once to spread infinite distrust.

Paul says nothing.

Good for you. You’re right. It’s nobody’s business but your own. Drink yourself to death if you so please.

Paul Thank you.

Victor Men fought and died in two world wars for the right of people like us to destroy ourselves.

Paul I wouldn’t put it quite like that.

Victor Wouldn’t you?

Victor How would you put it? How do you explain the current passion for addiction?

Victor Tell me, Paul, why does it have such allure?

There is a sharp edge to Victor’s question which makes Paul hesitate, frightened to answer.

Your people say lack of faith, don’t they?

Victor But do they know what they mean?

Paul I’m not sure what it means.

Victor Me neither. (Victor looks at him a moment.) People say to me, ‘Oh you’re so lucky because you had faith.’ As if having faith were such a wonderful thing. But Stalin had faith. Hitler had faith.

Paul That’s right.

Victor Faith in itself isn’t so wonderful.

Victor Regardless.

Victor Would it be wonderful to believe in the Virgin Birth? I don’t think so. Or that the trees speak to you? Wouldn’t that just mean you were mad? You’d call it faith, but so what? Faith’s not valuable. Not in itself. It’s what you have faith in that matters.

Paul is silent, just watching.

Paul Of course.

Paul looks nervous, not knowing what Victor will say next. Victor is bitter now.

Victor I had faith. But then it was stolen from me. I was the victim of a robbery. Like millions of others. History came along and clobbered us on the head. No victim support scheme for us.

Victor Just thrown out into the world and told to get on with it. Given a sharp lesson and told we could have no effect. Do I seem ridiculous to you?

Paul Not at all.

Victor I have felt ridiculous. (Victor shrugs slightly.) I was angry. For years. ‘I was angry.’ Why? Because the world was not as I wished it to be. Yes.

Paul Is it for anyone?

Victor That’s what it came down to.

Victor Of course, it now seems peculiar. What was it? Arrogance? I used to say to myself even then, as I sat stuffing leaflets into envelopes, denouncing iniquity. ‘What is this? What are you doing?’

Victor I used to ask myself …

Paul I’m sure.

Victor Even at the time. Giving my young life. I used to wonder: ‘Things are not as they should be, you say? So the purpose of the world is what? That Victor Quinn should be pleased with how it is arranged?’

Paul It’s a good question.

Victor ‘Who is Victor Quinn? God?’

Victor All this rage, all this indignation, what did it mean? (Victor shakes his head.) Did I waste those years? Or they did waste me? Or were those the only years I ever lived? (Victor laughs scornfully at himself.) Yes, ridiculous. And yet the fire is still in my bones. (Victor looks suddenly at Paul.) What do you make of that?

Paul I don’t know what to make of it.

Victor Nor me. But am I alone? No. All round me I see this. The means of channelling our anger has gone. We no longer dispose of it. But the impetus of the anger remains. (Victor suddenly lets go.) What bloody right do these people have to value us?

Victor looks at Paul.

Victor I took a shine to you, Paul.

Victor I took you on because I liked you.

There is a silence.

But you think that I must live with it, is that what you think?

Victor holds his gaze, not relenting. Paul doesn’t answer.

The poet! The philosopher! Bringing the message the philosopher always brings.

There is a moment’s silence.

Paul You must live with your anger as I must live with my disease.

Elsa has appeared at the back of the area. She is windblown, distraught, as if she has not slept.

Elsa Victor, you’re here …

Elsa I was worried. You haven’t at home. I’ve been trying to call you all day.

Victor Have you? Nobody told me.

Elsa I’ve been trying to find you.

Paul has got up awkwardly to greet her, alarmed by her appearance, but Victor has not moved. Elsa approaches them.

I went home and you weren’t there.

Victor I’m often not there. I’m here.

Victor What, and you were concerned? Why were you concerned, my darling?

Victor holds out a hand towards her. She doesn’t take it. Victor smiles easily at Paul.

As you can tell, we had a row.

Paul I’m sorry.

Victor Last night.

Victor We had a splendid row. It’s rare. We never row. I stormed into the night. I did a runner.

Elsa Victor, we’re meant to be going to a concert.

Victor Of course. (Victor frowns.) When?

Victor Would Mozart match your mood right now? I’m not sure he would match mine. All that life-affirming can seem awfully jangly when it hits you at the wrong angle.

Elsa I don’t mind.

Paul watches as Elsa looks slightly desperately at Victor.

What are you saying? You don’t want to go?

Victor looks at her coolly.

Victor Go with Paul. Take Paul. Affirm life with Paul.

Paul I can’t. (He hesitates a second.) I have to go to the meeting.

There is a long silence. Victor smiles as if he had known this would be Paul’s answer. The three of them are suspended. The lemony light fades a little.

Victor Summer’s end, you see. Always a moment of calm. The slight change in the air. Oh, it’s still August. The sun beats down. But touched with the knowledge of what is to come.

Paul and Elsa watch him, unsure what he means. The light darkens as he speaks.

Elsa Victor …

Victor I met her in a bar, she in a T-shirt, me in a suit. She insulted me for three hours on end, then fell insensible to the floor. You remember? A spirit in her burning like life itself, burning with misdirected passion against itself. Danish, I thought. Interesting. (Victor smiles, at ease.) Oh they were fine times together, travelling together, like in your poem …

Paul Which one?

Victor The first one we read. ‘Travelling to Greece’.

Victor That phrase. ‘The bougainvillaea thrown like paint against the wall.’

Victor Very good, that. Well done. (Victor is lost for a moment in thought.) We lay on the beach, the sun burning the drugs out of her, at exactly this time of year, her two little boys tied round our ankles like tin cans, clattering like cans wherever we went … (Victor is silent.) One believed in the future.

Elsa You still do.

Victor Of a kind. Of a different kind.

Elsa is standing behind him, not moving and he does not turn to look at her.

Believe me, I am no less enchanted, no less enraptured with my wife than on the first day I met her. The fascination. In that respect nothing changes. But life changes around you. You realise only later. ‘How happy we were.’ How much cleverer it would be to know at the time.

Elsa shifts, impatient.

Elsa This is all to do with work.

Victor You think so?

Elsa Of course. You’re depressed because of work.

Victor turns and looks at Paul, his face blank.

Victor When the party is over, I pride myself I will know when to leave. Why hang on? I don’t want the host yawning all over and longing to go to bed. (Victor is thoughtful again.) I read the other day: most people die in the small hours, when their resistance is lowest.

There is a short silence. Then impulsively Victor gets up.

I’m going to get a drink.

Elsa Are you sure that’s fair?

Victor Why not?

Elsa In front of Paul.

Paul I’ve made a new vow.

Victor Have you?

There is a silence. But Victor just turns, quiet, to Paul.

And will this one last?

Elsa Victor …

Paul I don’t know.

Victor Or will it go the way of all the others? Won’t it go down just as the others went down?

Paul Who can say?

Victor Aren’t we patterned? Aren’t we programmed?

Paul You tell me.

Victor Don’t we always promise, ‘Tomorrow I’ll stop. Tomorrow I’ll be good’?

There is a moment’s silence. Paul seems nervous.

It’s the disease of more, isn’t that what they say?

Paul I’m trying to break my pattern.

Victor looks at him a moment, then gets up and goes out abruptly, in silence. Paul goes to his desk and starts quickly gathering his stuff together. Elsa watches, panicked.

Elsa What are you doing?

Paul I’m going. I’m leaving my job and I’m going.

Paul I have to. I have to get out.

Paul stops for a moment and looks at Elsa, as if the answer were obvious. Then resumes packing.

Paul It’s not hard to say, is it? It’s not hard to see why. (Paul gestures in Victor’s direction.) Look at him, for God’s sake. Just look at him. Look at his mood. What do you think it’s about?

Elsa I know what it’s about. (She suddenly raises her voice.) It’s not do with you!

Paul stands a moment, accusing her.

Paul Last night you quarrelled. You think that’s coincidence? You think that’s just chance?

Then Paul resumes, frantically throwing his possessions together. Elsa is serious now.

Elsa What are you saying?

Paul It’s not love.

Elsa Isn’t it?

Elsa I thought it was love.

Paul No. It’s addiction. We’re addicted to trouble. We both love trouble. And he knows it. He knows what’s happening. He knows. It’s clear as day. (He has pointed away into the distance towards Victor. Now he looks at Elsa.) He knows and he’s too proud to say.

Elsa moves towards him, lowering her voice for fear of Victor’s return.

Elsa Paul, I was happy with you.

Elsa For those hours, I was happy with you.

Paul Elsa. I’m happy drinking. So?

Paul Yes! I’m happy with a drink in my hand. Tell me: what’s the difference?

Elsa is shaking her head.

Elsa What do you think? You think I want affairs?

Elsa You think I live that kind of life?

Elsa Is that how you see me?

Paul looks up at her, the answer self-evident.

Then don’t run out on me.

Paul Elsa … (Paul shakes his head, helpless now, as if he could do nothing.)

Elsa You haven’t thought. You haven’t thought what you’re doing. This is who you are. This is you, Paul. You’re the person who runs. You think it’s to do with alcohol? It’s not. Don’t you see? It’s to do with who you are. Given the slightest reason. Given the slightest excuse. (Elsa looks at him, pleading.) You have a friend in trouble. His business is in trouble. You’re the first friend he’s made in years.

Elsa Don’t run.

Paul resumes his packing, unconvinced.

Paul You barely know me, Elsa. You barely had time to know me.

Elsa You’re scared. You’re just scared.

Paul stops, because it’s true.

You’re scared because you’re in love. You’re more in love than ever.

There is a silence, and an admission in the silence.

Paul looks tempted for a moment.

Paul You’re married, Elsa. You’ll never leave him.

Elsa just looks at him, not daring to move now.

Paul I was trying my best. I couldn’t believe my good luck. The miracle of finding two people I like and of them liking me. Two people who’ve frozen up and who need to thaw out …

Elsa stands there, fighting back tears.

I saw the pain you were in and I wanted to help.

Elsa What makes you so stubborn? What makes you so sure?

Paul I am sure.

Elsa Oh it’s easy to be you. It’s so easy.

Elsa Oh yes. The heartbreaker. When anyone needs you, you run. When anyone loves you, you go.

Paul’s gaze is steady on her from across the room.

Paul I love you. It’s true. Explain. How does it help if I stay?

They stand, looking at each other. Victor comes in, whisky bottle in hand. His mood has darkened.

Victor Not even dusk and there’s no one to be seen.

Victor My modernist corridors deserted.

Victor Like an architect’s model. Glass reflecting only glass. It’s a business for obsessives they say. But where are they? On their August beaches, or in their back gardens. Fled. All fled. (Victor turns with a note of drama.) And not a soul remains.

It is darkening considerably now.

Paul No thank you.

Victor pours his own, a large one.

Victor The captain could leave and the ship would sail on regardless. Crew-less. Riding a great wave of purposeless energy. The heaving tide of technology bearing us aloft.

Victor turns and raises his arms above his head, glass in hand. As he does so, by chance, there is the first roar of thunder from outside the windows.

Ah, here it is. Bang on cue. (Victor smiles, satisfied.) No, Victor Quinn is not God, but on the other hand you must admit he has remarkable timing.

Paul I must say.

Victor I timed it.

Paul Is timing one of God’s gifts?

Victor Let’s say: He heightens His effects.

A flash of lightning and another growl of thunder. Victor grins, happy. He seems not to notice that Elsa has walked away, her arms folded, fighting back her feelings.

Isn’t this all we want? The illusion of control. We point – and the lightning flashes. We turn – and the thunder sounds.

The thunder sounds again.

Actions have consequences, we say. But we say it with hope, not with conviction. Because everywhere we see disparity and injustice. Virtue not rewarded and vice not condemned. Only a tangle of intentions – our own fitful intentions …

Victor becomes thoughtful, sitting now, staring into his drink. Elsa, growing more uneasy, is about to speak but Victor interrupts.

Elsa Victor …

Victor Hmm. I’m pretending not to see. I’m pretending not to notice.

Victor I’m drinking my whisky, and ignoring your own intentions. But if I am not mistaken you seem to be clearing out your desk.

Victor An air of drama obtains.

The two of them are looking at each other.

Elsa Paul wants to leave.

Elsa He’s insisting he leaves.

Now it is dark, as before rain. Paul is nervous, screwing himself up for the task.

Paul Victor, let’s be honest. I’m actually hopeless at the job.

Paul You must have noticed.

Victor Again, let’s say, I didn’t want it to be true.

Paul ‘The unsinkable FLOTILLA.’

Paul ‘Float into the future with FLOTILLA’. ‘Hey there, killer, try FLOTILLA.’ I can’t do it. I can’t write to order.

Victor Too much the poet? Too much your own man? (Victor’s gaze does not shift.) A bad appointment, then. We’ll move you elsewhere.

Paul I don’t think so.

Victor Why not? Tell me why not.

Paul doesn’t answer. Victor looks at him, heavy with irony. Paul moves a little towards him.

Paul You’ve been kind. You’ve been good to me, Victor.

Victor Thank you.

Paul Nobody ever tried to help me as you have. But I wasn’t ready.

There is a silence. Paul glances at Elsa who is watching all the time.

Paul It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have taken the job.

The thunder growls once more. Victor gets up and pours himself a second scotch.

Victor It’s not easy, is it? It’s never easy, is it, when you try to help? (Victor stands a moment, thoughtful.) I tell you, I was sleeping last night in Regent’s Park …

Paul I’m sorry?

Victor Didn’t I say? I slept the night in Regents Park.

Paul You didn’t say, no.

Victor Beneath the stars.

Paul Is that legal?

Victor It’s not illegal.

Elsa I didn’t know. (Elsa is standing some way away, shocked.) I didn’t know where you were.

Victor After all, I had to sleep somewhere. Isn’t that what men do? When they quarrel with their wives?

Elsa I had no idea.

Victor Didn’t you?

Paul What about? What was the subject of the quarrel?

There is a brief silence. Victor looks across to Elsa.

Victor I lay last night beneath the stars, the stars bright above me, felt the earth moving below me, the planet hurtling through space. I lay in the night, listening to the random noises of the night, thinking of Elsa in her bed two hundred yards away. I thought of the many nights we had passed, she shaking from the agony of addiction, the passage from high to low, from frenzy and finally to calm …

There is a silence.

Time goes by. It’s tough. Life becomes a narrowing. What was the subject of the quarrel? We quarrelled about love. I’d had an idea about love. For years I’d had an idea. An idea of what love might accomplish. Foolish. No good. (Victor turns a moment and looks at Paul.) Don’t we most of all resent the person who helps?

Elsa That’s not what I said. That’s not what I was saying.

Paul looks between them, unable to fathom the depth of their feeling.

Paul I’ll have to go to my meeting.

Paul moves to the desk to try to take his last things, but Victor is already speaking.

Victor Yes, last night we quarrelled.

Victor Yes, we quarrelled as we have never done in our lives.

Elsa It’s true.

Victor As if a whole life’s anger rose up and seized us by the throat. (Victor smiles, gleaming.)

Elsa He said I was weak.

Victor That’s it.

Elsa He accused me of just being weak.

Victor looks down.

I defended myself.

Victor She did. She defended herself well.

Elsa That’s why we fought. That was the beginning of the fight.

Victor Absolutely. The fight spread, as it were, from there.

Victor Argument, Paul. Dispute.

Paul And was it resolved?

There is a silence. The stage is darkening. Victor turns to look out onto the weather. Then Elsa speaks, clear, compassionate.

Elsa Are we ever cured?

There is a short silence.

Victor That was the question.

Elsa How do we know? As well ask: how can you be reborn? Yes I can sometimes go without drinking. Months go by. And, yes, at another time, I taste just one drink. ‘Just the one,’ I say. Paul is right. It’s for life. I asked Victor to accept that. I want Victor to accept that.

Victor is sitting quite still, listening.

Victor says I indulge the children, spoil the children.

Elsa What else can I do?

Victor You spoil them.

Elsa How can I not? (Elsa shakes her head.) Everywhere I go, I see parents dropping to their knees, they fall to the floor, they search their own offspring, as if looking in their children’s eyes for something which they themselves lack …

Victor It’s true.

Elsa I watch them …

Elsa Scanning their own children for help.

It is almost dark now, the dark before rain. The three of them are still.

As if life were not a gaining of knowledge, but a loss.

There is a moment’s silence.

I was lucky to meet a man. I met a good man. But I met him nonetheless, loved him nonetheless, or rather, have tried to love him. I still do. I still will.

Elsa stands behind him, and now leans down to kiss him. Victor is moved. It comes on to rain outside the windows.

Victor My love.

Victor takes her hand in reconciliation. There is a pause. Then he smiles, gentle.

If we do not enjoy what is attractive we do not feel we are living. Submit to its attraction and we soon lose our way. If God had not intended us to drink, he would not have invented the Sidecar.

Paul (smiles) God, eh?

Victor Nor the Silver Bullet.

Paul The Silver Streak.

Victor Exactly. The Dodge Special. The frozen Daiquiri.

They smile together. The thunder sounds, more distant now.

Elsa The Moonraker.

Victor The Manhattan.

Elsa The Moulin Rouge.

Victor smiles and sips his drink.

Victor ‘Moderation in all things,’ said my mum. And died at the age of forty. I miss her. I still miss her. What will they say of me? ‘He was a communist, he met a woman, then he made some money. Later, he died. He went from believing people could do everything for each other to wondering whether they could do anything. In his youth people held meetings to organise structures of change. Later they met to stop each other drinking.’ In each case, a certain chaos of good-will was apparent. In each case, people reeled away, fearful they had not lived.

Victor is deep in thought. Paul shifts. But before Paul can move, Victor takes firm hold of Elsa’s hand, and squeezes it.

Victor It’s been a summer, eh? What a summer.

Victor It’s what a summer should be.

Paul You think?

Victor In the cold months we have to work, we have to live, we have to get on with living. So let us use the warm months for stopping to think. What do you say, Paul?

Paul goes to collect his things from his desk. Victor seems restored to life.

Victor So. You’re determined to go?

Victor You submit your resignation?

Victor It’s done. It’s accepted. Why not?

Paul Thank you.

Victor Collect your cards. (Victor smiles.) It’s a freelance culture, that’s what they tell me.

Paul That’s what I’ve heard.

Victor The idea of long-term employment is a thing of the past. A job is no longer for life.

Paul Well, I’ve only been here two months.

Victor Excellent. You have grasped the principle exactly.

Paul Thank you.

Victor has got up to congratulate him.

Victor Paul, you are the modern man. You embody the ideal. Experience becomes a ceaseless search for experience.

Paul Precisely.

Victor Slap! It goes on your CV. ‘I worked for Victor Quinn.’ (Victor laughs. He is in good humour again.) It now seems incredible: my father had a job, and the expectation of the same job for life. Now we live longer, we expect to live many lives, not one. Freelance culture persuades us to believe we may start again. But is it true?

Paul Who knows?

Victor It’s a good question.

Victor rubs his hands together, skittish.

Victor Still, everything’s fine, as long as we don’t sit on the pity pot, as they say at AA. (Victor smiles across the room at Paul.) You’re not sitting on the pity pot, are you, Paul?

Paul I’m trying not to.

Victor Good. Good for you.

Paul I’m trying to sit anywhere but.

Victor gleams with pleasure at this.

Victor Very good. A very good line.

Paul Thank you.

Paul now has all his things and is standing by his desk, ready to leave.

I never told you this: I once met a man who said he could only become aroused if he’d entered a woman’s bedroom by climbing through the window, preferably at a dangerous height from the ground.

Paul (frowns) What’s that got to do with it?

Victor The higher the window, the better the fuck. (Victor shrugs, pleased at the thought.) I’m just saying. I mean, I’m just saying. Nobody’s predictable.

Victor We’re all different, aren’t we?

Paul You could say.

Victor And thank God for it.

It has stopped raining. The evening is lightening outside. Victor is standing opposite Paul. He reaches out and embraces him.

Victor holds Paul a moment, his arms clasped around him, then steps back.

Don’t fear for me.

Paul I shan’t.

Victor History threw me up. It may now cast me down.

Paul I hope not.

Victor Today, chicken. Tomorrow, feathers. It worries me not at all. I have written my epitaph. ‘He may have buckled but he did not break.’

The two men smile, uncertain how to part.

And it’s time to say goodbye.

Victor Not the last time we shall see you, I hope.

Victor hesitates a moment.

Victor And you must say goodbye to Elsa as well. I insist. I insist. (Victor turns to her, a little nervous.) Elsa. If we hurry …

Elsa Of course.

Victor At least the second half of the concert.

Victor walks quickly away. He becomes a small figure as his back disappears down the long corridor. Elsa has got up.

Elsa You won’t forget me?

Elsa Promise you won’t forget me. (Elsa moves towards him and kisses him on the cheek.) It’s rare, isn’t it? It’s rare to find love.

Paul looks at her a moment. Elsa turns and goes quickly out. Paul puts his things down, and stands. Then Paul turns also.