Three weeks later. Sunday afternoon.
The living room space of Marcus and Liana’s home. The residence is upper middle class. The room is sparse. The few pieces of furniture are mostly covered; redecorating is making its slow progress. A low coffee table and three nice chairs have been partly uncovered for the occasion, for afternoon tea and cake. Marcus is dressed comfortably but still smart. He has Liana pinned in a chair. They are both laughing and struggling with each other.
LIANA: No. No! Quit. Quit it.
MARCUS: We’ve got twenty minutes.
LIANA: That’s not enough time!
MARCUS: But we skipped our last few dates.
LIANA: Redecorating always slows us down.
(They struggle.)
MARCUS: Do you really want to stop me?
(Marcus manages to thrust his hand into Liana’s trousers. She resists again, but not enough to dislodge him. He touches her. She grips his arm to try and stop him, but then, after some moments, she is helping him.)
Know what I love about you? Steven. Who teaches chemistry? He says it takes his wife four full minutes to get really wet. He’s timed it. But you . . .
LIANA: Shut up . . .
(Liana begins to make small sounds of pleasure. Marcus is behind the chair now, leaning over her.)
MARCUS: Extraordinary. With one finger I can turn on the taps.
(Liana slaps his face, quite hard.)
LIANA: You bragging bastard.
MARCUS: A grateful, bragging bastard. You’re gorgeous.
LIANA (Breathless): Let me touch you.
MARCUS: Not now.
LIANA: But I want to touch you.
(Liana reaches to touch him but he won’t let her touch him.)
MARCUS: Just for you this time. You’re so very beautiful, darling . . .
(Marcus’s fingers move deeper inside her.)
LIANA: My God you’re romantic today . . . Did you get a raise? . . . A bonus?
MARCUS: You’re a celestial sphere inside . . .
LIANA: Ah . . . Teaching the Renaissance again . . . Always gets you spunky . . .
(Liana gets closer to cumming.)
MARCUS: Louder. I want to hear you.
(The phone rings, loudly, just as Liana cums. On the fourth ring Liana picks it up, composing herself quickly.)
LIANA: Hello? (Beat) Oh, hello darling . . . No. Not at all. We were just. Redecorating. (Beat) Everything all right? (Beat) Oh. The bank said it went out Thursday. (Beat) Well it’s not like it used to be. All those security checks on transfers slow things down. Wires can take up to three days now, at least.
(As Liana talks, Marcus takes a napkin from the table and, with relish, carefully dries his hand, his fingers, as he watches Liana, who shoes him away. Liana arranges herself as she speaks. Marcus hands her the napkin and she quickly wipes herself.)
Yes. I got that one yesterday. No. I didn’t get the nude. Send it again. You might have to compress the file.
(Liana throws the used napkin playfully at Marcus.)
I do love the charcoal drawing of those woods. They look so. Black and dead. (Beat) I didn’t mean that in a negative way. Of course there’s life to it! I just mean dead things can be so . . . lively, don’t you think? (Beat) Exactly. (Beat) All right. We’ll call you in a few. Be safe. Act like you know the streets.
MARCUS: Tell Dom I love her. Very much.
(Marcus looks to throw the napkin in the bin but there’s no bin in sight, so he pockets it.)
LIANA: Your father says he loves you very much.
MARCUS (A bit too seriously): He says: the verys never end.
LIANA: He says, “The verys never end.” (Beat) Yes, you too. Love you. Bye.
(Liana hangs up. Silence a moment.)
Dom’s truly happy there. So far from us and so happy.
MARCUS: She can forget all about us. That’s how secure she is. We did a good job, didn’t we?
LIANA: I miss her.
MARCUS: So do I. Sometimes my chest literally aches for her.
(Liana just looks at Marcus. For a moment she’s concerned.)
LIANA: Are you all right? Something like that could be medical.
MARCUS: No, it’s just a. I’m fine.
(Liana nods.)
The head at school has suggested I apply for deputy.
LIANA: But Marcus, that’s wonder /
MARCUS: Yes. But it means more admin, and less teaching.
LIANA: But also a raise. Congratulations. You deserve it.
MARCUS: But it’s the teaching that keeps me going: all those small, eager faces—
LIANA: You’re very good.
MARCUS: —imploring me, begging me to feed them the facts, to give them the answers, no questions asked, just the answers; it doesn’t matter to them if they can use what I give them because they don’t want to think or take a position: Please sir, just give us the facts. So I tell these young ladies that statistically one in ten of them, or something like that, will die over the coming holidays; which one of you will it be, I ask? How’s that for a fact?
LIANA: That’s cruel, darling.
MARCUS: I want to see their faces crumple with doubt, with misgiving, disbelief, outrage; I want them to feel something other than recording the facts about medicine through time or the Holocaust, the American West, Hiroshima; to get behind the notes, to sense on their skin that the facts are as alive as they are. But it’s like a quagmire and each day I wade in to retrieve the fucking actualities, dead and rotten and floating on the surface.
LIANA: Marcus?
MARCUS: Why shouldn’t we throw out the certainties, surprise ourselves and all the little expectant faces sucking at the tit of fact, at the factory— I just thought of that—the factory; free up history . . .
LIANA: And?
MARCUS: I don’t know. Free up history and . . .
LIANA: Isn’t that a little dangerous, darling? History as bunk?
MARCUS: No. I mean. Yes, maybe it is but sometimes I feel like a tour guide wandering through a graveyard pointing out this or that historical fact. I want them to feel the past on their skin. I want to feel it.
(Silence a moment. Liana wonders at Marcus’s outburst, but then she looks at her watch.)
LIANA: I hope your mother isn’t having trouble finding the address.
MARCUS: I drew her a map.
LIANA: How strange.
MARCUS: What is?
LIANA: That I’m saying, “I hope your mother isn’t having trouble finding the address.” We’ve never said something like that before, between the two of us. And now it just slips out of my mouth like it’s always been there.
MARCUS: You think she’ll like the house?
LIANA: Well you’ve seen hers, of course she’ll like it.
MARCUS: Maybe we should sit in the garden.
LIANA: This is fine, darling. She’ll be impressed with how well you’ve done. It’s about time she comes here. I’m flexible but I won’t have you away visiting every evening.
MARCUS: It’s not been every evening. And just these last three weeks.
LIANA: No, but you’re home at eleven and ten is our bedtime. From now on, please bring her here more often. Then we can all have a visit and I will see more of my husband.
MARCUS: She’s very reserved. Very shy.
LIANA: She is. I had to give her a good squeeze to get her to tell me anything about herself. And even then there wasn’t much /
MARCUS: She’s very smart, you know.
LIANA: Is she? Oh. I hadn’t— Okay.
MARCUS: She’s never had a proper education but she reads an enormous amount.
LIANA: Does she?
MARCUS: And quite widely too. Not the good stuff, but with a little careful guidance she could be persuaded. And she does watercolors on the weekends. Birds. Trees. You can definitely see there’s a bit of talent there. She’s very precise. And she showed me a couple of rare, old art books from the ’20s she found at a boot sale. She’d like to give them to Dominique.
LIANA: I’m sure Dom has all the art books she needs.
MARCUS: Of course. But it’s a kind thought.
LIANA: Yes it is.
(A silence in which Liana feels comfortable.)
She’s a solitary woman. Even when I stood close to her it seemed she was alone.
(Marcus is quiet.)
I’d bet she thought her life would never change. That it would keep to the same track. Then I walked through her door. And now you’ll be at her bedside.
MARCUS (Startled): What do you mean?
LIANA: You’ll be at her bedside when she dies.
MARCUS: Oh, yes. Of course.
LIANA: It must be an unimaginable comfort for her to wake up in the morning and suddenly she’s got you!
(Liana looks her husband over admiringly.)
And what a striking man you are. And tonight we’ll go to bed early so we can have a good read in bed. But before we do that, I’ll lay you down on this floor and open your trouser buttons one by one, with my teeth. Then I’m going to suck your cock. I won’t tire; my tongue never does. I’ll tease you until you’re furious and rigid in my mouth. When you finally cum I want you to cum so hard—
MARCUS: —that I knock out the back of your throat—
LIANA: —and scramble my brains!
(They both laugh, a little breathless, a little silly. Then Marcus stops smiling and is serious.)
MARCUS: In all these years.
LIANA (Unsure but still playful): What? (Beat) What is it?
MARCUS: I want you to. I know that I. (Beat) Liana—
(Before Marcus can finish, Doré appears. She is still shy, though perhaps a little less so. She is initially uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings, and still rarely looks either Marcus or Liana directly in the face.)
DORÉ: I knocked a few times. Hello!
LIANA: Doré! I’m so glad you’re here. We were just babbling and didn’t hear you knock.
DORÉ: I didn’t want to use the bell.
(She greets Marcus, but with reserve, hardly glancing at him.)
Hello.
LIANA: Come here. Let me hug you.
(Liana hugs her. Doré is stiff but then begins to respond just as Liana pulls away.)
Now please sit down. You’ll have some tea. And do forgive how bare it is in here. We’re redecorating and most of the furniture’s in storage.
DORÉ: That’s nice.
LIANA: Just the usual. A new color on the wall, new curtains. Every six years we do it. We enjoy the change.
DORÉ: The walls are a lovely yellow.
LIANA: Well, it will be a pale orange as soon as our painter remembers us.
MARCUS: And the plastering.
LIANA: He’s always five or six months behind. Isn’t he, Marcus?
MARCUS: He does an excellent job once he starts. I think he missed being born during the fifteenth century. He seems to think plastering a wall is preparing for a fresco and insists that the plaster has a life of its own, adventurously reacting to the light, air and various pressures of his brushes. On top of it, he believes he’s reinventing color. The bastard looks down his nose at us when we insist on paying him!
(The women laugh.)
LIANA: How are you?
DORÉ (Earnestly): I’m well, Liana.
LIANA: I can imagine.
DORÉ: Can you?
LIANA: Of course, darling. I do have an imagination. That’s our secret: we self-described Advert Whores.
DORÉ: Oh my.
LIANA: Oh yes. Though often seen as money-grubbing executives of mass deception, intent on finding the precise instrument to stir the soul into spending its last pound of silver, we’re more like poets, really. We find the “it” and then find a way to say it in other words. Our best jingles are set in iambic pentameter, metaphor as bribe and promise, image as loophole, as exemption from the rest /
DORÉ: I had no idea.
LIANA: So in these weeks I’ve deployed this same imagination dozens of times to picture how it would be if I hadn’t seen Dom since she was born. I shudder when I imagine it but I try and understand. The joy. I think I’d explode with it.
(Doré thinks for some moments.)
DORÉ: It’s not really an explosion is it Jonathan?
MARCUS: No, I suppose it’s not.
DORÉ: It’s more like a bang but without the sound.
LIANA: Jonathan?
DORÉ: Oh. I’m sorry. (To Marcus) You didn’t tell her I call you Jonathan? (To Liana) It just felt too foreign to call him by his other name.
LIANA: But Marcus is not his other name. Marcus is his legal name.
DORÉ: Yes but Jonathan just comes out naturally I hope you don’t mind too very much?
LIANA: Well . . .
MARCUS (To Doré): Would you like a piece of cake? It’s orange cake.
DORÉ: Yes please anything orange delights me.
(Marcus gets her cake. Liana just watches. Marcus spills the cake into Doré’s lap.)
Oopsie.
MARCUS: I’m so sorry. What a klutz . . .
DORÉ: No harm done.
(Gingerly, he picks a few of the larger cake bits from Doré’s lap.)
LIANA: I’ll do it, Marcus. Why don’t you get a cloth from the kitchen?
(Marcus steps into the kitchen. Liana bends over Doré and deftly sweeps the cake from Doré’s lap onto a saucer. Suddenly Doré can’t resist and she clasps Liana’s face in her two hands. She kisses her hard on the forehead.)
DORÉ: You were right Liana thank you thank you.
(Liana smiles. Both women share an intense moment. When Marcus reappears he sees their intimacy and just stops and stares until Liana sees him and pulls away. Doré quickly wipes a tear away.)
I’ll take that.
(Marcus hands Doré the cloth and she tidies herself up. She tastes a piece of the broken cake.)
Delicious. Did you make it?
LIANA: Yes. I like to bake.
DORÉ (Sincerely): But how does a senior account director find time?
MARCUS: She bakes even when she doesn’t have the time.
LIANA: Please. Let’s all sit.
(Marcus remains standing.)
DORÉ: I won’t stay long. I know how busy /
LIANA: Nonsense. The afternoon is yours.
DORÉ: How kind of you to say so.
(There is an awkward silence for some moments. Doré makes a few furtive glances at Marcus.)
What should we talk about then?
LIANA: Well. There are so many things.
(Silence. We hear the sound of spoons in cups.)
DORÉ: I’ll start I’ll tell her about the tree yes Jonathan?
MARCUS: The tree?
DORÉ: My dreams, you silly.
MARCUS: Oh. Why don’t we talk about. My teaching. I was thinking that this term I would do something different for art history and dress up as Cellini’s Perseus. I’ve already got the shorts and the sword—though Medusa’s head might be a challenge /
DORÉ: Jonathan. I want to tell Liana about my dream. (To Liana) Ever since I gave Jonathan up I still have a hard time saying it gave Jonathan up because I didn’t really give him up he was pulled from my arms pulled from my /
MARCUS: That was a very long time ago.
DORÉ: That’s just what I’m saying.
(As Doré tells about the tree she becomes more lively, less shy, and for some moments we see an energy in her we hadn’t seen before. She does not rush the story, but rather tells it as though every sentence is connected to the whole.)
Ever since I was a girl a young girl of fifteen I dreamt night after night that I sat in the branches of a very large tree not afraid of the height no but of something else in the taller branches above me I can see its movement but not its shape I begin to climb up after it I have to know is it good or is it evil but just when I am close enough to grab its foot if it has a foot it falls I don’t know if it’s slipped or thrown itself. As it falls I reach out my hand and grab whatever I can and I got it I got it I’m so happy I forget to look at what I’ve got when I do look in my hand there is something small and wet and jelly and warm it’s a piece of flesh and—
LIANA: How awful.
DORÉ: —I should be disgusted but I’m not I’m not then I feel a sudden pain in my thigh sudden I say though at the same moment I know it’s been there all this time I lift my dress and there’s a gash a wound the size of a lemon and then I just do it the most natural thing in the world I slide the piece of meat because that is what it now seems like into the wound in my thigh it fits perfectly it melds into me melts into me and the pain stops there’s a lightness in me of my floating among the branches as the leaves do I don’t come down ’til I wake.
(Silence some moments.)
LIANA: Wow. That’s quite a dream.
DORÉ: But don’t you see?
LIANA: See what?
DORÉ: In that tree above me what I’ve been climbing after all these years is Jonathan.
MARCUS: I think we should talk /
DORÉ (Not hearing Marcus): But the most amazing thing isn’t my actual dream it’s when Jonathan first tells me he’s been drawn to trees all his life.
(Liana looks at Marcus, who is uncomfortable.)
LIANA: You have?
(After a moment:)
MARCUS: Yes. I have.
LIANA: I. I didn’t know. You never /
DORÉ: But that’s how the two of you met you told me he was resting in a tree when you first saw him.
LIANA: No. He was leaning on a tree.
DORÉ: He was being carried up inside that tree. (To Marcus) Isn’t that how you said it to me?
MARCUS: That’s what it. Felt like, yes.
LIANA: Marcus. You were dozing against a tree. I was there, remember? I asked you what you were doing and you said:
MARCUS (Smiles): “I was just having a little doze.”
LIANA: Exactly. That’s exactly what you said /
MARCUS: It doesn’t really matter.
LIANA: It matters to me. Those were the first words you ever said to me: “I was just having a little doze.” I cherish those words.
DORÉ: Maybe he was dozing but in his head he was climbing those branches and something down below something dark and warm and strong (To Marcus) that’s how you described it is coming after you but you’re afraid and keep on climbing even though you want to stop you ache to stop—
MARCUS: —to let it catch up with me—
DORÉ: —to let it devour you.
(Marcus looks straight at Doré for the first time in the scene.)
MARCUS: But I didn’t have the courage.
(Doré smiles quickly at Marcus, then looks away.)
LIANA: So. Well.
(Doré suddenly deflates again and is shy.)
You both have a thing about trees.
DORÉ: I know it sounds silly.
MARCUS: Of course it does.
LIANA: It must be. It could be. Genetic. That you both are drawn—
DORÉ: Yes! Perhaps in the genes!
LIANA (Continues): —to trees. Trees in your genes. The both of you.
DORÉ: Well, we are a family tree!
LIANA: And you’ve certainly put the tree into family in quite an original way!
MARCUS: Liana. Please don’t mock.
LIANA: Darling. I’m not mocking. I’m.
DORÉ: Trying to understand Jonathan give her a chance there’s bound to be some upset.
LIANA: Upset. I don’t get upset about trees.
DORÉ: It was a maple in my dream it was never any other tree but a maple.
LIANA (To Marcus): And your tree? Did you also dream of maples?
MARCUS: I never dreamed it. I just felt. It.
LIANA: So when you wanted to be “with” a tree, so to speak, did you seek out a maple?
MARCUS: I did.
LIANA: And all this time I thought a tree was just any old tree. Sorry. I’m mocking again, aren’t I? (To Doré) Your tea is cold.
(Doré says her words all with the same weight:)
DORÉ: No worries cold tea wakes my mouth up don’t you sometimes like it cold we’re going to be living together from now on Jonathan and I he won’t be coming home anymore after tonight to you.
LIANA: I could make a fresh pot if you like?
DORÉ: Please don’t bother.
LIANA: It’s no bother. Another slice of cake?
MARCUS: Doré. Why don’t you wait in the car.
DORÉ: All right Jonathan.
LIANA (To Marcus): Doré?
DORÉ: It can’t be helped.
LIANA: In the summers I do enjoy a glass of cold tea. With ice and a lemon slice. (To Marcus) Don’t we?
(Doré speaks hesitantly, repressing her excitement, but the words she uses, she tastes.)
DORÉ (To Liana): I want to say forgive me but I feel the day black as it always was now has shapes and color /
MARCUS: Wait in the car. Please.
DORÉ (To Liana): —balloons are nothing bells celebrations couldn’t touch me but now in here—
(She lightly touches her chest.)
I feel so tall that if I straightened up I’d tear your roof off.
MARCUS: That’s enough.
LIANA (To Marcus): Darling, what is she saying?
(Silence. Marcus looks away.)
Marcus. Tell me what. What is she. You need to. (Beat)
Marcus?
(Marcus won’t look at Liana. Doré looks into her hands.)
Marcus?
(Suddenly Liana understands, with her gut more than her head. But it is as though this understanding is still very far away. There is a long, awkward silence.)
How did. Are you.
(Liana takes some moments to find her words.)
This. Did this. Happen?
MARCUS (To Liana): We’ll talk about it later.
(Liana is disorientated but composed.)
LIANA: How. Marcus?
DORÉ: It happened on the third night.
MARCUS: No. I will explain.
DORÉ: It was the third night he visited.
MARCUS: I will talk to her.
LIANA: Not the first night?
DORÉ: Nor the second. It was the third night.
(Liana takes this in. Silence some moments.)
LIANA: How did the. The first moment of it? Happen.
MARCUS (To Liana): Don’t. (To Doré) Go to the car, Doré.
(Doré makes a move to go, seeming small again. Liana’s voice stops her.)
LIANA: Did you . . . How? . . . His hand a moment too long /
MARCUS: Don’t do this. Please darling.
LIANA (Calmly, to Marcus): Shut the fuck up.
DORÉ (Firmly): Jonathan. Let her ask.
LIANA: How. Exactly did you. Seduce my husband?
(Doré tells the facts, with no gloating.)
DORÉ: My father was French he taught me how to make biscuits so light they float in your mouth and gravy like nectar there was stew I made stew and a light green salad I had gravy on my chin Jonathan wiped it away with his thumb such a tiny gesture I thought nothing of it then he slipped his thumb into my mouth /
MARCUS: Stop!
DORÉ (Fact): She has a right to know.
MARCUS: The facts. A right to know the facts, nothing more.
DORÉ: But those are the facts. You put your thumb /
LIANA: Oh. I see. I see. (Laughs with relief) You are lying. Both of you are lying. This is a trick. Wow. A scam. What is it? Huh? What is it? (Beat) The house! You want the house. You conniving bastard.
MARCUS: I don’t want the house.
LIANA (To Doré): He wants my house, doesn’t he? To give it to you. To make up for.
DORÉ: I have my flat.
LIANA: That’s it. Yes. That’s it!
DORÉ: It’s small but we’ll make do.
LIANA (To Doré): And money. I’m sure you want money. Who doesn’t? (To Marcus) She’s blackmailing you for money!
DORÉ: I have a little money of my own but /
LIANA: Exactly! When I visited you I offered to help you. How much do you want? (To Marcus) How much does she want?
DORÉ: Jonathan?
MARCUS: We don’t want money.
LIANA: We. (Beat) Say it again.
MARCUS: We don’t want money.
LIANA: We.
MARCUS: Yes.
(Liana is silent some moments. Then she begins to slowly say “no,” over and over, sometimes with short beats between the “no”s, sometimes running them on. But there are no hysterics. Just firmness. She says “no” anywhere from twenty to thirty times. Marcus and Doré just listen.)
LIANA: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
(Doré holds out her hand to Marcus and he moves to take it. They wait for Liana to stop.)
DORÉ: Yes.
(Liana regards them in silence for some moments, gathering herself.)
LIANA: Leaving aside that you’re his mother, you are. An old woman. (To Marcus) She’s an old woman.
(Doré looks away, shamed for a moment. Liana returns to the facts.)
The facts are. The facts are my husband is still in his prime. You are. Rotting.
MARCUS: Don’t do this.
DORÉ: Shhh. Let her.
LIANA (To Doré): You. You are certainly not. Sex! Sexy. Your skin is. Floppy. Your buttocks. Well. I have a tight ass—
(Liana smacks her own ass hard.)
—like I did when I was twenty. When you have a good laugh you probably leak urine in your panties. Yes. That’s what happens when the body ages. My own mother wore pads from the age of fifty-one. Do you wear pads, Doré? For that unexpected leakage?
(Doré looks away.)
Whatever insanity you are stirring up here, you should know that Marcus still wants me. Yes he does. And right now he’s got the smell of my pussy on his fingers.
MARCUS: Oh Jesus . . .
LIANA (Triumphantly): He made me cum just minutes before you arrived.
DORÉ (To Marcus): Did you? (Beat) Well, I’ve always thought a good fingering before any stressful event makes a woman more relaxed, more able to take it all in.
LIANA: You are. Sick.
DORÉ: We all have our own way of saying good-bye.
LIANA: Get out of my house or we’ll call the police.
(Liana goes to stand by Marcus, takes his hand. At first it seems he responds. He grips Liana’s hand tight. Then he slowly pulls away. Liana takes this in for some moments.)
(To Marcus) I will never believe this. Never.
(Silence between the three of them. Marcus looks away. Doré slowly approaches Marcus and speaks to him. It is difficult for her to put herself forward but she makes herself do it.)
DORÉ (Kindly): Do you still love your wife, Jonathan, your sad beautiful wife?
MARCUS: Yes, I do.
LIANA: There. Those are the facts. Ha. He loves me. Fact.
DORÉ: Then you must free her from you. From us.
(Marcus just looks back at Doré, completely present with her.)
You owe her. If you still care for Liana don’t leave her with hope.
(Marcus nods slightly, then kisses Doré, lightly at first, then more deeply, and she responds. He envelops her in his arms like a lover. It is a quiet, focused moment of passion, restrained but therefore the desire all the more evident. Liana watches them, frozen, mesmerized. She watches long enough until all doubt is erased and the image of their embrace is burned into her mind and body. Then Liana turns slowly away, quietly, striving for dignity. The only sign of her near collapse is a brief moment when her knees give way. But she catches herself immediately.
Marcus and Doré break off their kiss, not forgetting where they are but still in the privacy of their passion. Doré glances at Liana’s back, then leaves quietly. Marcus watches her go. When he turns back around, Liana has turned around also. They look at each other some long, painful, and on Liana’s part, angry moments. She attempts to suppress her emotions.)
LIANA: I. (Beat) I.
(Silence.)
You. (Beat) We . . .
(Silence as Liana contains herself, trying to regain control.)
What will we. Tell Dominique?
MARCUS: I don’t know.
LIANA: Have you molested her?
MARCUS: Christ no. Jesus, how could you— No, no!
LIANA (Convinced): I believe you. (Beat) We’ll tell Dom we’re getting a divorce. It will be hard for her but better than.
MARCUS: Yes, a divorce.
LIANA: Not an ugly divorce. But a quiet. Considerate divorce. No need for her to fret. Civil. Liberating for the both of us.
MARCUS: She’ll like that word, “liberating” . . .
LIANA: She will. I’ll say that we were. “Oppressed” by our many years of. Familiarity.
MARCUS: Divergence of interests.
LIANA: Yes. That’s better. Oppressed by our divergence of interests. It’s common.
MARCUS: That’s right. So many of our friends, their marriages have stalled. Gone stale. We’re not any different.
LIANA: Not at all. Middle-age crisis. And mutual. (Practicing) “It’s all mutual, Dom. It’s even . . . exciting.”
MARCUS: “We’re excited about our new lives.”
LIANA: Yes. I think I can say that to her.
MARCUS: And that we’ll remain friends.
LIANA: Not that.
MARCUS: Then she won’t believe us.
LIANA: We’ll say we need a complete . . . severing. So that new . . . shoots can spring up.
MARCUS: A severing. (Beat) All right. For the new shoots.
LIANA: I’ll tell my friends the same. My clients. My boss. I will put a spring in my step. My coworkers will say, “Look at her. Wow. That’s what divorce will do for you.” I’ll say, “I’m looking forward to being single again after so many years.” But Dom is so sensitive. What if she suspects?
MARCUS: We can’t let her.
LIANA: No. (Beat) I will never say, “Dominique. My darling. Your father never kissed me with such. Abandon.” I will never say, “Dominique, my only child, my treasure, when he kissed her I could see his cock hard through his trousers.”
(Marcus starts to speak. Liana silences him.)
No. No! (Beat) Dom would ask me, she always asks. She is so blunt: “Who? Who?” Though now she’ll be weeping. Weeping as I’ve never heard her weep, even as a child. “Who was it you saw Father kissing?” She’ll be standing on a street corner in Chicago, the dirty snow puddled at her feet, crushing the phone to her cold winter ear, the traffic swearing all around her so it makes it difficult for her to hear me. And when I answer, when I say, “His mother,” three thousand seven hundred miles away, on the other side of the ocean, there will be a sound neither of us will hear. A “crack,” almost imperceptible. And like a clear glass ornament, our daughter’s heart will drop from her small body and hit the pavement.
(Silence some moments.)
MARCUS: Don’t tell her. I beg you.
LIANA (Firm): You’re going to lose everything. I’ll make sure.
MARCUS: Liana.
LIANA: Don’t say my name again.
MARCUS: This is not about us. This is not about. Let me try and explain /
LIANA: Don’t! Don’t you dare. Use. Words. To try and. To make me, understand. I will never.
MARCUS: Please. Just let me . . . (Beat) I’ve done some. Investigating.
LIANA: Investigating. Ah.
MARCUS: And it turns out that it’s more common than you think. (Beat) GSA. Than we think. Genetic Sexual Attraction.
LIANA: Oh? So there’s a name for it. Genetic Sexual Attraction. Well what do you know? That draws a line under it then.
MARCUS (Facts): There’s very little written on it in academic circles. This. This phenomenon. But the few post-adoption experts say—
LIANA: Experts?
MARCUS (Facts): That this . . . occurs. That this. Genetic attraction. Occurs in over half of these reunions. Some believe almost as many may act on this . . . On this . . .
LIANA: Phenomenon . . .
MARCUS (Facts): Yes. When meeting for a first time. That a subconscious memory, even the smell of one’s own. Family. Can cause an acute physical reaction. An urge for intimacy that sometimes becomes . . .
LIANA: Incest?
MARCUS: No! (Beat) The same experts distinguish GSA from. That, as there’s no force, no coercion. No victim.
LIANA (Flatly): No victim . . .
MARCUS: In fact, it’s a largely normal response to an extremely unusual situation.
(A moment of silence while Liana seems to take this in.)
LIANA: GSA . . . Though I’m not sure that it’s more precise than SFM, Son Fucks Mother. Or MFS, Mother Fucks Son.
MARCUS: This I won’t do. No /
LIANA: Oh yes you will. You will answer every fucking question I ask you or I’ll phone our daughter right now. Right now! (Beat) You owe me. (Getting control again) Do you sit in her lap and suck your thumb?
MARCUS: No.
LIANA: I read that once somewhere. Do you wear a diaper and shit, so she can clean you up?
MARCUS: Of course not.
LIANA: Sprinkle your bottom with talcum powder?
MARCUS: No.
LIANA: GSA. Genetic Sexual Attraction. The first time on top of her or under?
(Marcus hesitates only a moment.)
MARCUS: On top.
LIANA: Was your tongue in her mouth when you came? (Quiet, threatening) Answer me.
MARCUS: Yes.
LIANA: You used to do that with me. But . . . (Sings a line from Barbra Streisand) “You don’t bring me flowers anymore.” When we were youthful. Radiant.
MARCUS: We’ll talk about this later. I should go.
LIANA (Firmly): You. Will. Go. When. I. Am. Finished. These last moments are mine. (Beat) We have a life other people envy. A beautiful child. We have more sex than teenagers do. We both love seventeenth-century Dutch painters and we’ve seen two of Dürer’s self-portraits together. We were going to Madrid next spring to see the third. We travel well. We listen to one another. Laugh at each other’s jokes. Why? Why?
MARCUS: I don’t know if I can. Explain in a way that makes sense or. Translates into.
LIANA: Give it a go.
MARCUS: The head or the brain, it’s not a part of that, so there’s no “why” I can talk about. When she opened the door and I saw her face it was like looking at someone I’d been looking at all my life but never seen. We didn’t embrace. She held out her hand and I took it. And that simple contact.
(Marcus falters.)
LIANA: Yes?
MARCUS: Just the skin of her hand to my hand. That contact. It was. It was.
(He falters again.)
LIANA (Quietly): I’m listening.
MARCUS: Unbearable. Necessary. In another time and yet so firmly rooted in that moment I felt for the first time fully alive. In agony yes, but fully alive.
(Liana feels a moment of intense physical weakness but quickly steadies herself.)
LIANA: Well who could compete with that?
MARCUS: I’m not explaining it correctly. Saying it the way I. If I could /
LIANA: I’m quite sure I can say that I have not felt such an intense sensation, ever. No. Not even with you. The birth of Dominique was. Fierce. When her head crowned, I felt a. Force tear through me I thought would rip me in half but I’ve never felt what you. (Beat) Do you long for her? Don’t lie.
MARCUS: Every moment.
LIANA: Even when you had your fingers inside me just an hour ago?
(Marcus nods.)
Why did you touch me if you were going to leave?
MARCUS: You’re the most brilliant woman /
LIANA: Fuck brilliant. We’re talking desire, lascivious need.
MARCUS: There is something about you that is always. Gone. I’ve never grown tired of trying to find it.
LIANA: But you don’t want me like you want her?
MARCUS: It’s different.
LIANA: How is it different?
(Marcus just shakes his head.)
Or is it just the taste that’s different? (Beat) Did you go down on her?
MARCUS: Jesus, Liana.
LIANA: Let me rephrase: Have you licked your mother’s cunt?
(Marcus is suddenly enraged and furiously kicks one of the chairs over. We have no warning that this rage will erupt. It seems to come out of nowhere, and then disappears just as quickly. Silence between them.)
All right. We’ll let that one go. Allow for a little mystery here.
(Marcus rights the chair, checking to see he hasn’t broken it.)
I wish I could believe that you are insane. I could try and believe that.
MARCUS: I know it doesn’t make sense, Liana. Even to me. But wanting her /
LIANA: Say “my mother.” I want to hear it.
MARCUS: Wanting my. Mother. I’m filled with. Rope.
LIANA: Rope? Well, isn’t that novel.
MARCUS: Rope. Yes. And there’s no room left inside me. Filled with it, tangled, knotted, packed so tight my skin will burst and one touch from her. She takes the small end of all that mass and begins to pull, to wind me out of myself and it hurts like fucking hell but it feels perfect and unmitigated, exactly what I need until I’m pooled at her feet, miles and miles of me pooled at her feet and me still standing there. Utterly emptied. And utterly.
LIANA: Complete?
(Quiet some moments.)
I don’t think I’ve ever felt that either. Though I’m not sure I’d want to because then it’s game over, isn’t it? (Beat) You know what was the best part for me all these years? Monday through Friday when I come home you’ve already finished up in Skipton, at the school, and you get here first. Fifteen, twenty years it’s been like this and in all this time I’ve never tired of it. I ring the bell and you come to the door and open it and greet me when I get home. That moment when the door swings open and I see your face. Refreshing like a mint or a wedge of orange. Why do you always want to open the door for me? I’ve wondered many times but never asked. I suppose I was afraid that if I asked, you’d stop. Most couples use their own key. Only strangers ring the bell. No one waits at the door. But you are always. Were always there as I crossed the threshold.
MARCUS: Doré is waiting in the car. It’s started to rain.
(Liana looks at the window.)
LIANA: We were never bothered by rain, you and I. Just a few weeks ago, I think, it was the first of November. No, it was the second because it was the day before Dominique’s twenty-first birthday and we stood in that window. Together. And listened to the rain.
MARCUS: Yes we did.
LIANA (Facts): Everything. You have ruined. But my heart, now a filthy, contaminated bear cage, when I have finished will be pounded clean, sterilized with a fire hose. Nothing inside of me will remain of you. (Beat) Give it to me.
MARCUS: What?
LIANA: What? What? What? What?
MARCUS: I don’t under /
LIANA: What the hell do you think I’m asking for? The receipt! You were going to pick up our winter blanket at the dry cleaner’s on Monday. You won’t be doing that now, will you?
(Marcus takes out his wallet, slowly searches, finds the receipt, gives it to her. Liana almost unconsciously caresses the receipt. At some point she’ll put it in her pocket.)
MARCUS: And now that this is done /
LIANA: “This”?
MARCUS: Yes. Now that this is done, I want you to ask me. (Beat) Go on.
LIANA: Ask you what?
MARCUS: Something you might have asked a few weeks ago.
LIANA: What?
MARCUS: “Marcus. My love. My husband. My life’s companion. I’ve got an idea. A rousing idea! How would you like to meet your mother, for the very first time, for your fortieth birthday?” Because really, Liana, one should ask, don’t you think? It’s not quite the same as, “Would you like a new scarf for your birthday? Black perhaps? Or dark green, in cashmere?”
(Liana just looks at him.)
Why didn’t you ask me?
LIANA: It was a surprise.
MARCUS: I’ve had her address for twelve years.
(Liana is startled.)
LIANA: What?
MARCUS: Yes. Twelve years. But I never contacted her.
LIANA: You never told me . . .
MARCUS (Ignoring her): I didn’t want any more than that. It was enough to know that she was. Alive. That she was out there somewhere.
LIANA: Wait a minute. Don’t you dare try to blame me /
(Suddenly Marcus picks up a fork from the tray. He pulls back Liana’s blouse and holds the fork to her heart, dangerously, letting it push at her skin.)
MARCUS: You conniving, ignorant bitch . . .
(Liana is surprised but she doesn’t struggle.)
LIANA: A fork? There’s a knife lying right next to it. Why don’t you pick up the knife?
MARCUS: A fork will make an uglier hole. I’ve got the strength for it. You know that.
(Liana is quiet a moment, then:)
LIANA: I dare you. Jonathan.
(Marcus raises his arm suddenly, as though to strike at Liana’s heart. There is violence in his voice.)
MARCUS: You. Never. Asked me.
(Liana touches his cheek with one finger, sensually, briefly.)
LIANA: Feel that? The last time I’ll touch you. I won’t ever do so again. Not if a gun were held to my temple. Or my child’s.
(Marcus suddenly lets Liana go. He puts the fork back neatly on the tray. He moves to leave.)
Before you disappear into your. Trees forever. We should conclude with a few parting words.
(Marcus waits, his back to her. Liana, briefly, almost unconsciously, rubs her chest where the fork touched her skin; she is bruised.)
How about . . . “Go to hell” or “Forgive me”? Or that old standard “I hope you drop dead”?
MARCUS: We could just say good-bye.
LIANA: Too mundane.
(Liana thinks. Marcus turns and watches her.)
How about I stand here. As though I’ve just got home and it’s late afternoon, almost dark. Winter is coming fast. And then you say to me what you’ve said to me for twenty years. And then you leave. And I won’t open my eyes again until you’re gone.
MARCUS: Liana.
LIANA: Pay attention. (Beat) I’m closing my eyes. There. I’ve just rung the bell. I’m tired. My scarf has slipped and the wind is cold on my neck. I’m so glad to get home. To unwind. I hear your footsteps in the hall, quick, quick. You never let me wait! You open the door. We look at each other, and you say:
(A moment of silence, then Marcus answers:)
MARCUS: “My darling. How was your day?”
(Liana stands still, eyes remaining closed. A slight smile on her lips, remembering. Marcus goes. After some long moments Liana slowly opens her eyes. The smile fades. She looks out into a new distance. As though she can see herself, far away, standing on an empty horizon.)