DAVID
MOTHER
FATHER
VAL
PAUL
JESS
1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
DUNCAN
DEBBIE
DOCTOR
Love and Money was first performed at The Studio, Royal Exchange Theatre on 27 October 2006, as part of a Young Vic / Royal Exchange co-production, with the following cast:
MOTHER / 2, Joanna Bacon
FATHER / 3 / DUNCAN, Paul Moriarty
DAVID / 5, John Kirk
JESS, Kellie Bright
VAL / 4 / DEBBIE, Claudie Blakley
PAUL / 1 / DOCTOR, Graeme Hawley
Direction Matthew Dunster
Design Anna Fleischle
Lighting Lucy Carter
Sound Ian Dickinson
Composer Olly Fox
DAVID: January eighteenth.
Hello
How are you? Just thought I'd email you to say hello.
Hello.
Beat.
Just wanted to say thanks for a really instructive couple of weeks and we hope that you learnt as much from us as we did from you. I can honestly say that despite our differing sales strategies (perhaps you found us a touch aggressive?) your customer service recommendations will have a very real impact on the way we do business. However, you will have to forgive me if I maintain a healthy British scepticism regarding your optical relaying systems. It'll never work!
He laughs. Beat.
Hope the Eurostar was okay. Are you missing our English food? If the pain gets too much my suggestion is have a look behind the fridge, find something brown, stick it in-between two slices of bread, et voila! The taste of England.
Beat.
And as well, I just wanted to say Hi. From me.
So hi.
I had a great time. And I don't just mean that (but that was great). So I thought I'd just email you coz… I just thought it was sort of…
Special.
There. Said it. Now I feel a twat.
David.
January nineteenth.
Bonjour David
Thank you for your mail and your beautiful gourmet. Yes, David, I discover a nice piece which sitting on my fridge waiting anticipatedly to become a Great British sandwich. Do you have any other recipes? Please: keep them.
I am happy to hear for you today. I ask to myself for this ten days ‘Why does this cunt not email me (very British, yes?) Perhaps there is not a feeling that I thought?’ But I forgive you because of your delicious sandwich, so thanks.
Optical relaying is the future. But please, what would a British know of the future?
Eurostar c'est magnifique as always. I get off at Gare du Nord and I see one child holding his mother's hand like an angel while other hand is making a steal of a candy from this stand outside a shop, while no-one see and I think of you, David, and I laugh, because you would laugh and I feel sad.
Yes, it was special. And the that (you have so many words for fucking in English, is this another?) was beautiful.
Write me again you Bastard Piece of English Shit.
Love
Sandrine.
January twentieth.
Dear Sandrine
Sorry I didn't write. I just thought, you know. I don't know, I thought maybe you might not want to write so I delayed or maybe I thought you would think I was a twat if I wrote you too soon. So there you are, now I do look like a twat. Now you think I'm a twat. But I did want to write to you.
Aren't men stupid?
Your description of the child stealing the candy was beautiful. Made me feel very sad that I wasn't there with you to laugh.
Pause. He thinks.
We had a funny thing here today. You remember that deal that Liam closed with Lanstowers? You must remember because he stood on my desk and did a dance (fat wanker)? Well it turns out that he was talking to the owner's thirteen year old daughter.
He laughs. Beat.
So it was really funny.
Beat.
David.
January twentieth. Same day.
Hello David
No, it is not men that are stupid. It is you that are stupid. Why do you say you are twat? And why do you tell me of this stupid story about this fat wanker and his sales of high speed access? Perhaps you believe I am interested so much to the instalment of telephonic lines that I am waiting with an anticipation to see what will happen next? I ask of myself ‘is this the same man who told me my hair was smelled of the future and my eyes were hope?’ I forgive you, of course, because you are British and a twat, but please, you can talk me of this bullshit of the telecommunications or you can talk me of how you feel, you cannot do both.
Bisses, Sandrine.
January twenty-first.
Okay.
How I feel.
Beat.
I feel confused. I feel happy. I feel frightened. I feel horny. I feel desperate, I feel worthless because I'm not getting a pay upgrade this year, I feel angry because I wrote such a stupid thing to you and I feel inspired because you didn't let me get away with it. I feel honest, you make me feel
honest and
I feel
Beat.
I feel like I'm betraying
the
memory
of my wife. Or something. I dunno.
Pause.
There. You wanted to know.
January twenty-first. Same day.
David, this is more to the point than telling of fat Liam's internet access, no? I am glad you are feeling horny. Happy and inspired is also good, but the rest is shit. David, a year is a long time. Twelve months aggressive selling of telecommunications is enough penance, yes?
Tell me of your wife.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Beat.
No, I don't think that would be
right.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Why?
January twenty-first. Same day.
Beat.
I
trust you, Sandrine. And I like you. I live this life here where everything is measured in pay grades and pension schemes and sales targets and people like Liam laugh when your orders are cancelled and you are scared of losing your job. And you
Beat.
I used to be a teacher, I…
Beat.
You
are outside of this. You are beautiful and outside of this and you inspire me and you make me believe in things
that maybe it's not a good idea for me to believe in.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Tell me of your wife.
January twenty-first. Same day.
You asked me to tell you how I feel. I feel scared to tell you about my wife because perhaps if I do you will not email me again and I will be alone with Liam and his fibre optic cabling.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Tell me of your wife.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Sandrine.
Beat.
My wife –
Jess
killed herself.
I do not want to tell you of my wife.
Pause.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Tell me of your wife.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Tell me of your wife.
January twenty-first. Same day.
Tell me of your wife.
What? You think perhaps I take this information and make a book? You think I ask you to make some laugh, like this fat wanker? I kissed your tears. This was a taste of salt and now I taste salt thinking of your body.
Tell me of your wife. This is just a jump to make, yes? Trust please.
Pause.
January twenty-second. Nothing.
January twenty-third.
Okay.
I came home and she was lying on the bed and she'd taken –
Pause.
I'd been test driving this Audi. It was silver. It had ABS breaking, climate control, satellite navigation and roll bar as standard. It had these little push out trays for your drinks and things. It was a lovely car. I loved it. It really held the road
Beat.
well, and the thing was the bloke who's doing the test drive, you could just tell he was thinking ‘you fucking waste of my time’. But the thing was I could afford it, but
Beat.
It felt so good that car. It felt like I'd earned that car, after the things I'd been through, the things I'd
done
it felt like that car was my right.
But we had debts, big debts. My wife had debts.
You see, he could see that I couldn't afford the car. Do you understand? It was visible on me. He could see it on me.
Pause.
So when I came home and saw her lying there I thought
I'll be able to afford the car now.
Beat.
You don't have to email back.
January twenty-third. Same day.
Why would I not to email you back? British twat. You are so honest and beautiful. You think I hate honesty? You think I hate beauty? I do not live in a Disney. And I do not say ‘Oh please, this was some shock because you wife was dead’. This is real world, yes? I am real woman, yes? I go to find some salt to kiss so I can be with you.
January twenty-third. Same day.
My wife wasn't dead.
Beat.
I thought she was dead. At first. But she wasn't.
I thought that seventy thousand pounds worth of debt had just
died, but…
Beat.
She'd taken thirty to forty Xanax. I touched her skin and I realised she was still alive. Hardly breathing.
The debt was crushing us, it was…
Beat.
I sat down.
I waited. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Half hour. Forty-five minutes. She's still alive.
I waited.
January twenty-third. Same day.
Beat.
David, this is a strong thing you tell me. I have to think of this, yes?
January twenty-third. Same day.
I looked it up on the internet. While she was there, dying. About an hour I'd waited. She hadn't drunk any alcohol, you see.
January twenty-third. Same day.
Please, David, this is a very strong to me. Forgive me, please, but I must ask of you calling an ambulance?
January twenty-third. Same day.
You just feel crushed. I understood what she was doing. Then I'm thinking ‘The car's going. I can see the Audi going.’
January twenty-third. Same day.
David, please. This is a hard and real for me. Please.
January twenty-third. Same day.
So I went downstairs. Went out. Got in the Micra. Drove to the shop. Came back with a bottle of Smirnoff.
Started feeding it to her, but it's going everywhere. So I get this straw and I tape it to the bottle with plumber's tape so it's all waterproof. And I put butter on the other end so that it doesn't scratch. And I slip it into her throat. And I start pouring. Get about a third of it in, she starts coughing and I'm scared and I get rid of the straw and tape because she's struggling and I think, marks, you know, marks in her throat. So I go back to pouring. And it's hard, it's very hard and
her
eyes
open.
And they look at me. With the bottle.
Really unfocused. But they knew. They look at me with the bottle.
Beat.
And I managed to feed her about another quarter. Her eyes looking at mine.
Looking into mine.
Looking into mine.
Beat.
No more emails that day.
January twenty-fourth. No emails.
January twenty-fifth. No emails.
January twenty-sixth. No emails.
Beat.
January twenty-seventh.
Sandrine?
Are you there?
I just wanted to say
hi.
Beat.
January twenty-eighth. No emails.
January twenty-ninth. No emails.
Etc. Etc.
Etc.
FATHER: So when we see the name
MOTHER: Keriakous
FATHER: Elena Keriakous
MOTHER: We're thinking
FATHER: On the grave next to our daughter's grave
MOTHER: we're thinking
FATHER: on the wooden cross, fresh grave, so a cross first
MOTHER: Jesus Christ
FATHER: Jesus Christ, what is coming – you put a cross down first then once the grave has had time to settle, once it's stable you're ready for the headstone
MOTHER: we're thinking, Jesus Christ
FATHER: that way the headstone doesn't
MOTHER: what is coming next
FATHER: shift – what is going to replace that cross?
MOTHER: What monument, what skyscraper is going to tower over our daughter
FATHER: D'you see?
MOTHER: Greek.
FATHER: The Greeks are very
MOTHER: flash
FATHER: ostentatious with their dead, not flash, no
MOTHER: great black stone, gold inlay, columns pillars, vulgar
FATHER: it's their culture, no not vulgar
MOTHER: crosses, photographic reproductions in stone of the deceased
FATHER: they're very respectful of their
MOTHER: and he was there every day, wasn't he
FATHER: every day he was there
MOTHER: Eighty if he was a day
FATHER: every day, she had a husband that would come every day and whilst I don't expect, you know, obviously people are busy, but this old Greek woman had a husband who would visit every day, while our daughter –
MOTHER: Everyone said at the wedding that it felt like we were intruders, but in a good way, it felt like there were two people in the room celebrating something sacred and the rest of us were just onlookers. Everyone said that. People were stunned by their love.
FATHER: Well, weddings…
Beat.
MOTHER: And our daughter's headstone is going down
FATHER: the grave's settled you see, it's had time, eighteen
MOTHER: nineteen
FATHER: yes, yes, nineteen months and it's, you know, it's a nice enough
MOTHER: white stone, black lettering, very
FATHER: Three thousand eight hundred pounds.
MOTHER: elegant, don't say how much!
FATHER: plus VAT.
MOTHER: don't say plus VAT!
FATHER: I'm just saying.
MOTHER: I mean for Christ's sake
FATHER: Seventeen-point-five per cent on three thousand eight hundred is a sizable
MOTHER: Well, don't say it all over again!
FATHER: I'm just saying, I'm just giving context and I mean it's two thousand five hundred pounds for the plot alone for the space, for the dirt that you put your daughter inside
MOTHER: We're not rich
FATHER: We once were
MOTHER: We were never rich
FATHER: Early eighties, eight-bedroom house
MOTHER: everyone in the early eighties, but if you haven't got the killer instinct
FATHER: what does that mean?
MOTHER: you've said it yourself
FATHER: yes, but now you're saying it
MOTHER: broke her heart moving from that house
FATHER: what are you saying now?
MOTHER: I'm just giving context, wept from her soul, never the same again
FATHER: that's just not
MOTHER: and all the time we're seeing this plot
FATHER: that's just not
MOTHER: thinking ‘what's coming here?’
FATHER: no, don't distract, because that's just not
MOTHER: and he's bought the plot next to it
FATHER: that's
MOTHER: didn't he, he's bought the plot next to it, so that's more money
FATHER: well, two thousand five hundred, but
MOTHER: and he's fenced both in together, six inch picket fence
FATHER: another two and a half grand, but
MOTHER: and he's put a bench in it, didn't he,
FATHER: nice one too, expensive
MOTHER: like a park bench
FATHER: Yes, like a park bench
MOTHER: which he'd come and sit on every day
FATHER: and we would nod to him, we were friendly
MOTHER: but we're thinking
FATHER: what the hell is coming next? what's going on in that little balding head
MOTHER: and does he know
FATHER: does he know
MOTHER: how our daughter died
FATHER: and is he judging us
MOTHER: he's not judging us
FATHER: because we would've, if she'd come to us we'd've, wouldn't we would've helped, I mean we're not
MOTHER: Don't say rich.
FATHER: rich
MOTHER: Don't keep going on about
FATHER: If she'd have had a husband who loved
MOTHER: She did have a husband who
FATHER: If she'd've come to us
MOTHER: She did come to us
FATHER: yes, but if she'd've asked for
MOTHER: She did ask for help
FATHER: yes, but really meant it, if she'd've
MOTHER: She did really mean it!
Beat.
FATHER: And then it starts
MOTHER: Yes
FATHER: Huge black base
MOTHER: Yes
FATHER: Huge
MOTHER: Yes
FATHER: and we're thinking
MOTHER: Here we go
FATHER: here we effing go
MOTHER: and it's
FATHER: ridiculous
MOTHER: over the top
FATHER: I mean it's a temple
MOTHER: I mean he's practically building a temple on his wife's grave
FATHER: I mean and what does that say about us
MOTHER: I mean there's columns, golden filigree
FATHER: I mean what does that say about our love for
MOTHER: I mean four foot statues of the Madonna?
FATHER: we're watching this, we're seeing this go up
MOTHER: there's even a roof above the statue
FATHER: there's a huge stone photographic reproduction of his wife, thousands and thousands
MOTHER: towering over my little girl
FATHER: fifteen thousand, twenty thousand
MOTHER: this old Greek bitch's grave is
FATHER: twenty-five thousand pounds at least
MOTHER: towering over my little girl's
FATHER: Our precious baby
MOTHER: who slipped away from us
FATHER: out little girl lying there in the ground with a husband that never even visits,
MOTHER: dirty
FATHER: too busy selling, too busy with his job, his precious job to notice
MOTHER: Greek
FATHER: to notice our little angel slipping away from him.
MOTHER: cunt.
Pause. They exchange a look.
FATHER: The hardest part was getting the sledgehammer over the wall.
MOTHER: I passed it to him.
FATHER: I mean pitch black, I nearly broke my foot.
MOTHER: I passed it to him over the wall.
FATHER: And I took it and – do you know something – I knew the way.
MOTHER: of course he knew the way
FATHER: Pitch black and I knew the way.
MOTHER: four times a week, more on birthdays and Christmas, of course he knew the way
FATHER: And I'm standing there in front of Mrs Keriakous’ monument
MOTHER: nineteen months since our baby
FATHER: and I felt
power.
I did.
I felt…power. I felt power over money. I felt righteous. I felt that this was an act of goodness, of the triumph of the little man. Or something.
And
I lifted the sledgehammer and cracked it down on the Virgin Mary's skull and I felt fantastic. I swung it into the columns and I felt God-like as they cracked, as they exploded into white dust, I felt like I had molten iron running through my veins when the roof caved in and I laughed when the stone photographic representation cracked into three pieces and fell to the floor.
I felt like my girl was…
Being brought back.
I felt like my Jess was being brought back into life.
Beat.
MOTHER: He sprayed ‘greaseball’ on the ruins
FATHER: make it look like vandalism
MOTHER: make it look random
FATHER: pissed all over it
MOTHER: Bit much.
FATHER: took a shit on her broken face
MOTHER: I didn't like that
FATHER: Stupid fucking Greek bitch, my daughter, my daughter
MOTHER: We did what we had to do.
FATHER: And we made love that night.
MOTHER: Well you don't have to say that.
FATHER: Sorry. We did though.
Pause.
He was…
broken.
He was shattered into pieces.
MOTHER: Well, he shouldn't have
FATHER: Mr Keriakous, he cried and cried.
MOTHER: it shouldn't be allowed
FATHER: It was like she had died all over again.
MOTHER: such big monuments, grotesque
FATHER: I felt so
MOTHER: Weak.
FATHER: bad
MOTHER: you're just being weak
FATHER: Pouring out of him, this
MOTHER: vulgarity
FATHER: grief
MOTHER: Your daughter, for Christ's sake
FATHER: Pouring out of this little man
MOTHER: Your effing daughter!
FATHER: and I just
MOTHER: ‘we're not rich’ you said
FATHER: felt like I'd taken that sledgehammer to his wife
MOTHER: ‘she does have a husband’ you said
FATHER: I felt like I'd smashed his wife's body into pulp in front of his eyes
MOTHER: ‘she'll never make it if we keep bailing her out’
FATHER: I've never seen a person so
MOTHER: ‘she'll never learn’
FATHER: broken
MOTHER: ‘we had to learn’ like you've ever learnt anything
FATHER: so shattered
MOTHER: like you've ever learnt to do anything apart from lose things.
Beat. He turns to her.
FATHER: I still love you.
Pause.
MOTHER: He's having it rebuilt.
FATHER: Just the same.
MOTHER: Money to burn.
FATHER: Exactly the same.
MOTHER: Well, we'll see what happens.
Won't we.
Beat.
Won't we.
Beat.
I said we'll see, won't we.
No answer.
VAL, DAVID and PAUL in an office. They are all laughing.
VAL: …go on, tell him
DAVID: No
VAL: Tell Paul about your award
DAVID: it's nothing, it's
VAL: It's not nothing
DAVID: No, come on
VAL: He's so modest, you're so modest
DAVID: it's no big deal, I just got this award for
VAL: it's no big deal, listen to this
DAVID: I just got this award for a short story that I wrote.
VAL: See? See?
DAVID: It was nothing, it was local, a local
VAL: Don't be falsely modest, David, it's repulsive.
DAVID: It was an award
VAL: Paul's never won an award, have you Paul, I've never won an award, I've never won anything
DAVID: a local paper, I mean
VAL: and what was it called
DAVID: (Laughing.) Now, don't, because
VAL: (Laughing.) you tell him
DAVID: because that's not fair
VAL: tell him, tell him
DAVID: you're gonna kick me out
VAL: I will kick you out if you don't bloody well tell him!
DAVID: Okay, look; it was called:
The Photosynthesist.
They laugh. PAUL wants to laugh but he doesn't get the joke.
VAL: Tell him what I thought photosynthesis was.
DAVID: She thought photosynthesis was
stealing photographs.
They laugh harder. Beat. PAUL joins in.
VAL: Thick or what?
DAVID: It sounds like it could be though, doesn't it
VAL: what a cunt
DAVID: it does sound a little
VAL: they didn't let me live that one down
DAVID: well…
VAL: It's something boring that happens with plants, Paul.
DAVID: funny.
VAL: perhaps, yeah. You had to be there.
Pause.
Look, I can give you a job, David.
DAVID: Can you?
VAL: Yes.
Beat.
DAVID: Good. Excellent.
VAL: If that's what you want?
DAVID: Yeah. It is.
VAL: Is that really what you want? A job here?
DAVID: Only if you have one.
VAL: In this? Commerce?
DAVID: Only if you have one, Val, I'm not asking you to make one for me.
VAL: I don't have one. I'd have to make one for you.
DAVID: Right.
VAL: David?
Beat.
DAVID: Could you make one for me?
VAL: Of course I can. I could, couldn't I Paul?
PAUL: Yes, you could. You definitely could.
VAL: I don't have one, but I could make one for you.
Pause.
DAVID: Okay then. Look, Val, could you make one for me?
VAL: Is this you?
DAVID: I think it could be.
VAL: And how are you going to feel working for me?
DAVID: Fine.
VAL: Fine?
DAVID: Yes, fine.
Pause.
VAL: You were always very proud.
DAVID: Val, if you're gonna be my boss you're –
VAL: You say that now, but how will you feel in six months’ time?
DAVID: Fine.
VAL: You keep saying fine.
DAVID: Because it's fine.
VAL: And what does Jess feel? About you working for me?
DAVID: Fine.
VAL: You keep saying fine.
DAVID: Because it is fine.
VAL: I'm just asking you.
DAVID: Sorry, I didn't mean it like –
VAL: You see, I haven't even employed you and already –
DAVID: No, I didn't mean it like…you got the wrong end of the –
VAL: Did I? What did I get the wrong end of?
Pause.
DAVID: If you employ me I will be aware of where the boundaries are because –
VAL: Because I'll sack you if you're not, just like any other employee, but that's not what I'm worried about, what I'm worried about is you.
DAVID: I'm fine. I will be fine. I'm not as proud as you think I –
Pause.
It's easy to swan around saying this or that's shit when you're younger –
VAL: Do you think this is shit?
DAVID: No…
VAL: Do you think sales is shit?
DAVID: No, I –
VAL: Do you think telecommunications is beneath you?
DAVID: Val, I don't
VAL: soiling your hands –
DAVID: I don't think that, Val.
VAL: I'm just asking. It's fine, David I'm just asking a question, we're having a chat here and I'm just asking a question.
DAVID: I do not think sales is –
VAL: And this is an interview situation so you shouldn't really say shit, but never mind.
DAVID: I don't want you to do me any favours, Val, that's not what I'm here for.
VAL: I would be doing you a favour.
Pause.
DAVID: I love teaching, but –
VAL: Well, teaching.
PAUL: We’d all love to teach.
VAL: Five star life on a two star salary.
PAUL: Fucking disaster.
DAVID: The problem is I don't have a background in sales, so –
VAL: David, that is not a problem.
DAVID: No?
PAUL: Not at all.
VAL: Do you see anyone from college?
DAVID: No. Yes, I see Claire sometimes.
VAL: How is she? She hated me.
DAVID: No she didn't.
VAL: Well, she didn't like me.
DAVID: You used to say that about everyone.
VAL: That's because none of them liked me.
DAVID: They did, they–
VAL: They didn't, David. When we split up they were all of a sudden your friends, not mine.
DAVID: That's just the way –
VAL: David, for Christ's sake, what makes you think I care about it now? They didn't like me, I know they didn't, I was ‘uncool’. It's years later. Who gives a shit?
Pause.
DAVID: Well, I suppose, maybe…
VAL: See?
DAVID: Yes.
VAL: I would be doing you a favour.
DAVID: That's what I'm here for; I'm here to ask you for a favour.
VAL: I'm not saying that to rub it in, I'm just saying that because I'm thinking about your pride.
DAVID: I'm not proud anymore.
VAL: Did you dump me because I was a Christian?
Beat.
DAVID: Look, the moment I said that about me not being able to reconcile myself to your beliefs I instantly regretted –
VAL: I think we can make a job for you. We can can't we, Paul?
PAUL: We can.
DAVID: Can you?
PAUL: Oh, yeah.
VAL: So why did you always tell me that they liked me?
DAVID: What do you mean?
VAL: What do you think I mean?
DAVID: They didn't hate you –
VAL: They didn't like me though did they.
DAVID: They didn't not like you, they just didn't actually like you.
VAL: So why did you always say that they liked me? You insisted that they liked me, I used to say to you they don't like me, it's you they like, they don't like me at all, and you'd say no, no, they like you, they really do.
DAVID: I suppose I was just… I didn't want you to feel…bad.
VAL: I did feel bad.
Pause.
David? I did feel bad.
DAVID: I didn't want you to.
VAL: So you lied. You did, you lied.
DAVID: Yes, but only to make you feel –
VAL: You basically said that I was wrong that I was imagining it all and that I was making it up and was just paranoid, but I knew I wasn't.
DAVID: I'm sorry.
VAL: But the thing is I'm not that person anymore. I've learnt a lot and I've learnt that although they all liked to take the piss out of my beliefs
DAVID: No-one took the piss –
VAL: They all believed in something just as powerfully but they didn't know that they did, and they pretended it was other things they believed in, do you follow me?
DAVID: I'm not sure if I –
VAL: Paul used to be a socialist
PAUL: Still vote Labour.
VAL: I don't believe in God anymore.
DAVID: No?
VAL: No I don't. Do I Paul.
PAUL: You definitely don't.
VAL: What do I believe in now, Paul?
PAUL: Cash.
VAL: Money. I believe in money.
David.
That's my thing now.
David.
And in the same way that a plant takes oxygen and nutrients and uses the process of photosynthesis to turn sunlight into energy, I take customers and employees and use the process of hard fucking work to produce cash.
I am a photosynthesist of cash.
Beat.
Paul?
PAUL hands her an application form. She hands it to DAVID.
You have to fill this in now, David.
DAVID: Okay.
VAL: I already know what you can do and what qualifications you've got but you have to fill it in just because –
DAVID: Because I have to fill it in.
VAL: Because you have to fill it in, of course. So, we can start you in the stockroom and –
DAVID: In the stockroom?
VAL: Yes.
Pause.
Did you expect sales straightaway?
DAVID: Well. I… I suppose I…
VAL: But you don't have a background in sales.
DAVID: That's why I came to you. Look, I mean I'm not expecting you to do me any favours –
VAL: I am doing you a favour.
DAVID: Yes, sorry. But I thought…
Pause.
I mean I thought I might get something…
VAL: You didn't think here?
PAUL: Here?
VAL: In management?
DAVID: I don't know what I thought, I thought (Noticing something on the form.) Jesus, I can't live on that.
VAL: It's low.
DAVID: Val, I can't –
VAL: It's a starting salary.
PAUL: Once you get into sales. I drive an Audi.
DAVID: That's less than I'm getting –
VAL: It's a starting salary, but once you get into sales –
DAVID: I need money now.
VAL: There's a grading system, we have to start you at grade two.
DAVID: What grade did you start at?
VAL: Grade five. But I've got a degree in business studies.
DAVID: I've got a degree.
VAL: English Literature. You've got a degree in English Literature, David. It's the only way, isn't it Paul?
PAUL: It is.
DAVID: Where did you start?
PAUL: Grade five.
VAL: But that's different.
DAVID: Val, I fucking need money.
Beat.
VAL: Paul, could you give us as minute.
PAUL gets up and goes out. DAVID goes to apologise but she silences him with a gesture. Beat.
Have you ever sucked a man's cock?
DAVID: What?
VAL: That's a way of making money.
DAVID: Val –
VAL: You or Jess could suck men's cocks, take pictures of it and sell them on the internet.
He sort of laughs. She doesn't. Beat.
I know someone who does it. Serious. He makes quite big chunks of cash that way.
DAVID: No, I'm not going to suck men's cocks.
VAL: I know you're not. I know you're not, David. I'm just trying to tell you that, yes, there are quick ways you can make money, but in general you have to do it the hard way. In fact it's all the hard way. If it wasn't you wouldn't get money for it. Did you ever get that mole checked out?
DAVID: What?
VAL: I was always nagging at you to get it checked out. Did you ever get it checked out?
DAVID: No. No I –
VAL: Can I see it?
Beat.
DAVID: What?
VAL: Can I see it?
Beat. He roles up his sleeve. She gets up, comes over and inspects the mole on his forearm. She looks at him. She reaches out and touches it with her finger. Pushes it. Beat. Licks it. Beat. Goes back to her seat. He rolls his sleeve back down.
Keep your head down, get on with stuff. I'll look after you. Really.
1: You want to feel that not every working day is like wading through blood.
2: You want to feel there is more to life than just getting through it with the least possible amount of discomfort
1: there's that thing about live to work and work to live and I can't remember which one is the right one, but perhaps – despite what the world seems to tell us, despite the general feeling in, let's face it, what has become an almost terminally cynical world
3: perhaps it's possible to care about what you do
1: perhaps it's possible to believe in what you do
3: perhaps it's possible to believe in something, for Christ's sake
1: I mean how many hours are you spending at work? a third of your life, a quarter?
2: You want to do something that you feel, okay, and you're not some kind of, but…proud of.
1: So you try.
3: you work, you work hard to do better
2: yes
3: Because it's not wrong
2: yes, yes
1: to believe.
4: yes
1: it's not wrong to want to believe in something.
JESS: When I was a child I saw this programme on aliens and I suddenly realised with absolute clarity that I was an alien, I realised that my mother had been impregnated with alien spores and that was why when all the other kids were laughing at cartoons or something, a moose or a cat I think it was, getting killed, I would be horrified and wonder why they were laughing at such terrible things and I spent a good four years terrified that the CIA were going to take me away for some sort of bio-military experimentation.
4: You work for a credit card company
5: let's say
4: you are in charge of policy
5: for example
4: okay, you'd rather be a movie star or a footballer or a super model or an aid worker in the Sudan, but you aren't and you're happy, with, you've done well to get this far, you do a job, you do it well, you get on with it
5: you're a good person
4: not perfect
2: no-one's perfect
4: you hate it when your friends do well
5: but you feel terrible for feeling like that
4: an ordinary fucking human fucking being
3: so let's not judge
4: You have ideas, for Christ's sake, you think, you have an imagination
3: you want to do well for your family
2: there are children
5: one of each
3: a girl of three and her eighteen-month-old brother
4: a three-year-old girl who looks just like your partner and it's funny because she's even beginning to act a little bit like her, and that is funny to see this tiny version of someone you know so well growing
5: you argue about money
2: but you also argue about telly and child-care
3: And one day you have this idea
4: Yes.
You have this idea.
JESS: I sometimes fantasise about when I become an alcoholic, hiding bottles, unable to do anything without a drink and people talking about me and saying ‘it's such a shame, she's so talented’ and being admitted to a treatment centre where I fight against them with all my might but eventually succumb to the inevitable logic of the twelve-step programme before finally telling my story of triumph over degradation, but to be honest if I drink more than one bottle of wine I get sick.
2: You happen to notice that a large amount of the people you turn down for credit get their credit from other sources
1: not so reputable sources
3: but these days you can always get credit
2: and they pay incredibly high rates of interest
1: sometimes the equivalent of an annual interest of ninety-five percent, one hundred percent
2: you've heard of as high as a hundred and sixty percent
4: and you wonder about offering
2: not the package they've applied for
1: no
3: and sorry if this is boring, but it's actually quite exciting
2: but a different credit package for people whose credit is too bad for the one that they've applied for
3: See? See?
2: and of course because their credit is bad they pay more money
3: which makes sense
1: less, actually, than they would be paying to the less reputable sources, so you're sort of doing them a favour
4: business, this is how business
2: and you look at the amount to be made on the interest repayments
1: and you look at the amount to be lost on the people who default
5: and you take the second sum away from the first sum and you realise that the difference is a sizable chunk of cash
3: a very sizable chunk of profit for your company and its shareholders
4: and your job is to make more profit for your company and its shareholders, that's what having shareholders is all about, that is the point of
2: and you realise that this is one of those ideas. You know? One of those ideas that come along, one of those great ideas. And you somehow feel that this great idea – and this may be silly – that this great idea has been given to you from a higher source
3: that's silly
2: that is silly, and you know that's silly, and you don't believe that, but that's how it feels
3: and you know that this is your chance, the world is holding out its hand, there is some kind of alignment going on, a portal or something, and it’ll only last for seconds, alright, maybe not, but it feels that way, it feels…
2: and you know that someone else is bound to have this idea, any day now, ideas like this, they don't hang around long
5: and the question you have to ask is ‘Are you the person who sat on the sidelines?’
1: ‘Are you the person who watched?’
2: The question you have to ask is simple: ‘What kind of person are you?’
JESS: Last week I was standing in front of this window staring at this bag that I couldn't afford, and – it was a really nice bag, it was – and I felt like, I felt like I couldn't move, I couldn't leave because of the bag, I mean physically I was rooted to the spot and all the hair was standing up on the back of my neck and I felt terrible because I was getting so emotional about a fucking bag and meanwhile there's still no sign of a two-state solution in the Middle East and it suddenly dawned on me that the bag was designed, not to hold things, but to hold me and it was like hearing for the first time and I felt so elated at this discovery that I immediately went in and bought it because it no longer held power over me, and I felt brilliant for the rest of the day. But when I thought about it again that evening it just seemed…
stupid.
She laughs.
I cried.
1: It. Works. Beautifully.
4: Increased turnover of thirty, thirty-five million in the first year alone, it's attractive
3: people are attracted to it
5: and you made it, it's something you made
1: and you're rewarded
2: and you're promoted
4: pay upgrades, yes, and bonuses
1: and the respect of people around you and you notice that when you are introduced to people they already know who you are and sometimes they raise an eyebrow and say ‘Oh’, in recognition before shaking your hand
4: which is nice
5: that is nice
2: and maybe you start thinking about a new child
3: maybe?
2: Things are good.
1: Things are really good.
JESS: I'm thinking about becoming a Buddhist because I am attracted to its philosophies of acceptance, of being, of being in the moment, of the idea of being on a journey and its attraction to the universal but I can't decide if it's the right thing to do because on the one hand David Lynch is a Buddhist but on the other so is Richard Gere.
I've also thought about becoming an evangelist Christian, a tramp, some form of terrorist, a communist and a lap dancer, actually, actually, actually anything
that
isn't
me. I suppose.
1: But…
your mind might find itself wandering back to those figures
4: yes
2: to the second sum
5: the defaulters
3: things are still good
2: oh yes, things are still good, but your mind might find itself wandering back to the people in that second sum, and you might, though you try not to think about it, you might find yourself thinking of some of those figures as
4: people
2: because they are, really
4: you're not responsible,
2: No, of course
3: we're all adults for Christ's
2: but
4: you're not responsible, but
2: you might think about these people
3: and their hardship, and that's a stupid word, yes, like something out of the nineteenth century, yes, but it keeps coming back into your head
2: hardship, it's stupid but hardship
1: and you might find yourself thinking that what one person does to another is a thing. Like a real thing. And that systems and numbers and the way we do those things are in some way not real, even though everything we have ever learnt has taught us to believe that they are real, you might now come to believe that in actual fact they aren't, and the only thing that is real is the thing that you have done to another human being. And strangely you begin to feel alone. Separate. And you might begin to think – and this is silly – but you might begin to think of something you saw on a documentary, a card written in German that was part of a filing system – and this is really not the same at all, it's ridiculous – but you might think of the person who put those terrible figures on that card, and that they must've thought of them as figures and figures only and you might wonder how they managed to live with, and though this is silly and though this is ridiculous and though you know you're being stupid and that this really is not the same at all you know that in some way it might be, in the mechanics of how you actually do something, and you can't get the image of the fucking card out of your fucking head.
Pause.
5: And you might think of someone
4: a woman
5: a woman
1: at odd moments
2: when you're out with friends, giving a presentation, making love to your partner
3: the image of someone
4: a woman
5: overwhelmed
1: a woman
2: overwhelmed
3: and no, it's not just the fault of, I mean there are contributing factors
2: maybe this woman never felt
4: at one with
3: but I mean who fucking
5: the world
3: who fucking does
1: but you begin to see this woman again and again, but in greater clarity, like you know her
3: like you are her, or something
2: not are her, but are part of her, I don't know, I mean are we a part of each other? aren't we part of…
1: and you feel her becoming overwhelmed with…life and maybe just trying to fucking well fit in, I mean isn't that what we're all, isn't that what you are trying, aren't we just trying to do what we think someone like us is supposed to be doing?
4: and you might suddenly feel her panic
5: her confusion
1: you might suddenly feel her panic and confusion overwhelming
JESS: I'm staring at these forks, just standing there in this shop staring at these forks in my hands and praying for a sign like one set of forks, the squared-off three-prong brushed steel ones for example, are going to suddenly get heavier as a sign that I should put back the curved, silver, more weighty, more traditional Terence Malone forks, but then I thought would the forks getting heavier be a sign that I should put them back or that I should keep them and a sweat broke out on my forehead, I felt prickles in my armpits and suddenly I felt the cold that sat around my heart like a blanket of oil creep out and begin to expand into the rest of my body and I thought ‘Here we go. This is it. Here we fucking go’ and I don't remember the rest.
Beat.
1: And you might see her on a ward.
3: Gone crazy in a shop, of all things
1: crying, screaming
2: panicking, actually, real terror
4: and she's taken to a ward
2: Sectioned.
4: Only a weekend, but…
1: just a weekend, you might see her in there for just a weekend, but
2: When her husband visits, he's
5: shocked
4: he's shocked
1: not so much at her, she looks, I mean she's unhappy
3: embarrassed, if anything
1: but she's not too
4: but the people around her are, I mean he didn't expect
5: dribbling
3: and rocking
2: he didn't expect
5: a ward
4: he should've done because they said she was on a ward but he didn't expect
3: he's frustrated
1: he counts thirteen people that have seen his wife in that one weekend, she's telling the same stuff thirteen different times
Beat.
And maybe, while you're going about your daily business, getting a coffee
2: playing hide and seek with your little girl and letting her win
1: you're doing these things but this story is still running through your brain
2: and you imagine this man, you imagine him
5: this teacher
4: you imagine him…
1: He sits there in their living room.
3: He spreads out everything on the floor.
2: He has a pad and a pen and a calculator that he nicked from work, statements, bills, invoices even.
3: that weekend, that very night, after having to leave his wife in that place, and he's
2: He's shocked
1: again he's shocked because he understands that all the numbers and figures and pounds and red letters add up to a void
2: a void in her that he should be filling
5: shouldn't he?
1: And then he finds your great idea.
2: And he finds your beautiful idea.
4: and he cries.
3: He cries deep from within his insides.
1: And he wonders how it ever got to this.
Pause.
5: He resolves to get through it.
JESS: I'm feeling much better
5: He's going to get both of them through it.
JESS: I'm feeling great actually
5: He's gonna get a new job
JESS: Back in the real world
5: He thinks he knows where he can get a job that pays, real money
JESS: I'm not taking time off
5: He's gonna get a job that pays, get her back home, tell her how much he loves her and start putting things right
2: He loves her
5: and she loves him.
2: but you…
5: you…
Beat.
1: You might no longer want another child.
2: You might not be able to look your partner in the face.
1: You might find that food now tastes the same.
3: like plastic
1: You might find that eating food is like putting plastic into your mouth.
4: You might find that you are increasingly prone to dark moods
2: and you might wonder how to get rid of this feeling
4: and you might drink
3: and you might sleep with strangers
2: and you might buy stuff and buy stuff and buy stuff
1: and you might find that nothing, nothing, works
2: and you may have this terrible fear that
4: and you might have this terrible fear
1: and you may have this terrible fear that every day, working or otherwise will actually be like wading through blood.
DEBBIE and DUNCAN in a shitty pub, DUNCAN leaving, slightly drunk.
DUNCAN: (Pointing at the card on the table.) You've got my card?
DEBBIE: Yes.
DUNCAN: You know where to get me?
DEBBIE: Yes.
DUNCAN: S'up to you.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: There's lots of ways we can take this. Lots of possibilities. Take this any way you want.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: I'm not a fruit bat. You got my card.
DEBBIE: Yes, thanks.
DUNCAN: You can see, can't you.
DEBBIE: Oh yeah.
DUNCAN: Not taking the piss.
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: Not a cunt.
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: Long as you don't treat me like a cunt, that's all I ask of anyone. You're waiting for someone. I'll go. Forgive me. But there's lots of ways we can take this.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: Have you given any thought to where you want to take this?
DEBBIE: No, I –
DUNCAN sits back down.
DUNCAN: Don't worry about that yet. That's my job. That's what I get my percentage for. Swallowing vomit, this place. Animals. Fucking animals. Have you given it any thought?
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: You don't need to. This is filth. This is real dirt. You don't need to be in real dirt. Acting. Modelling. Singing. There's all sorts of ways.
DEBBIE: What, really?
DUNCAN: All sorts of ways. Have you ever felt that you were meant for something better?
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: They should napalm this lot. Makes me sick. Get Bin Laden round here. You just need to know the options. I walk out there, I got Kurds shitting on my doorstep. You're better than that. Have you thought much about TV?
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: No. Course you have. Everyone's thought about TV. Don't call me a cunt. Anyways. You're waiting for someone. I'll wade off through this crowd of diarrhoea. The great British public. Cunts. Have you thought of them shows?
DEBBIE: Which shows?
DUNCAN: Saturday night, millions of viewers. Think. Think, think, think. But let me do the thinking. You see, there you display your naivety, Debbie, but if you weren't naive people like me wouldn't exist.
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: (Getting up.) Out of the blue, I'm not some sort of cunt, yes, I'm lonely, boo fucking hoo, but this isn't that, this isn't about that. My business this is the way it works; you see, you strike, do you understand, Debbie?
DEBBIE: Yeah.
DUNCAN: Do you understand?
DEBBIE: Yes.
DUNCAN: Do you understand, Debbie?
DEBBIE: I think so.
Beat. DUNCAN sits down again.
DUNCAN: I wanna show you something.
DEBBIE: Okay.
DUNCAN: Because I think we've made a bond.
DEBBIE: Thank you.
DUNCAN: You're waiting, I know, one minute, I wanna show you something.
He pulls out a Polaroid-type photo out of his pocket. They look at it for a long time.
It's a man with a cock in his mouth.
DEBBIE: I know.
DUNCAN: You see?
DEBBIE: Yeah, I don't really think –
DUNCAN: (Putting it away.) No, of course.
DEBBIE: I don't –
DUNCAN: Absolutely.
DEBBIE: It's just –
DUNCAN: It's just, it's just, I'm putting it away, I'm putting it right fucking away, but you understand it's my job to cover all bases.
DEBBIE: I see.
DUNCAN: Lots of fucking ways, Debbie, lots of fucking ways this can be taken.
Beat.
Six hundred quid. Plus expenses.
But forget that.
Look at that barman.
DEBBIE: Which –
DUNCAN: Yeah. I see people like him I want to cry. What the fuck's the point? Do you know why? Because I've been there. It's about sacrifice. The things I've had to sacrifice. My wife won't touch me. I started off with pets.
DEBBIE: Pets?
DUNCAN: Pets. Pet models. Adverts. What? Please, you think when they want to sell dog-shit gravel they just pop down Battersea? Nothing works like that. I got one client, his dog's got his own bedroom. Bought it a telly. Sandwiches and Müller Fruit Corners for lunch. What? You think that's excessive? You got a dog?
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: Well if you did have its lifestyle would cost you more than the average yearly earnings of the majority of the population of Eritrea. It's a sick world. I don't blame her. I wouldn't touch me if I didn't have to. We had a boy once. Leukaemia.
DEBBIE: No.
DUNCAN: Yeah.
DEBBIE: That's awful.
DUNCAN: Yeah. Tore her into shreds. Aged twenty years in a weekend. Don't wash, doesn't smile, breath like disease.
DEBBIE: Jesus.
DUNCAN: Ah well, you know what they say: life's a cunt and then you get old as well. This is filth. This is really filth. There's a lot of ways we can take this, Debbie. You've got my card.
DEBBIE: Yes.
DUNCAN: You know where I am.
DEBBIE: Yes.
DUNCAN: (Getting up.) I'm off then.
DEBBIE: Well thank you.
DUNCAN: (Picking up a beer mat.) Can I take this?
DEBBIE: Well…
DUNCAN: (Picking up one of her dog ends.) And this?
DEBBIE: Er, yeah, I –
DUNCAN: I'm not gonna lie it's so I can be near you. You see what I am? Please don't laugh at me.
DEBBIE: I'm not, I'm not laughing.
DUNCAN: You should laugh, you should laugh at the idea of this dirty old man crying himself to sleep at night holding your fucking beer mat, it's sad, it's disgusting, I'm disgusting
DEBBIE: You're not disgusting.
Beat. Sits back down.
DUNCAN: What's the one thing you love about modern life most?
DEBBIE: Erm…
DUNCAN: No erm.
DEBBIE: I suppose…
LOVE AND MONEY: ONE
DUNCAN: Yes?
DEBBIE: I dunno.
DUNCAN: Think.
DEBBIE: Well, maybe, the travel; you can go on holidays –
DUNCAN: No, not the travel.
DEBBIE: No?
DUNCAN: No, something else.
DEBBIE: The telly's quite –
DUNCAN: Something else.
DEBBIE: I…
DUNCAN: Less physical.
DEBBIE: I like, I think there's quite a lot of choice –
DUNCAN: It's not the choice, Debbie.
DEBBIE: What is it, then?
DUNCAN: I'm asking you, I'm asking you what you love most.
DEBBIE: Right. I think, oh right, I think it's the communication, so many ways, now, we can –
DUNCAN: No.
DEBBIE: Is it bars and pubs? like better, some better, going out some are better, than they used to
You know.
Beat.
DUNCAN: No, it's not that.
Belief.
It's belief.
The absolute conviction that all this is right.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: Only we don't really, do we, Debs. That's the great secret. Not in our heart of hearts.
Pause.
Tell me something about you.
DEBBIE: What do you mean?
DUNCAN: The real Debbie. ‘Who is the real Debbie?’
DEBBIE: I'm just me.
DUNCAN: Something you've never told anyone else…
DEBBIE: I don't think…
DUNCAN: Please. Let me in, Debbie. Touch me.
Pause. She thinks.
DEBBIE: I put wall-paper paste in the coffee machine at work.
Beat.
You know the powder, you buy the powder in, while no-one was looking I put it into the machine and stirred it all in and left it and it clogged up the machine and they all stood around it staring at it, hurt, like it was a dead puppy.
Beat.
When you print orders at work, they come out face up with the address on, on, on the front and you never see the backs until they, you know, come back from the clients completed, the order form is on the back, you see, so you never see the, until, so I stayed late one night and I photocopied the word ‘cock’ on the back of all the order forms, with a big picture of a cock and balls that I drew in magic marker, and then I put them back in the printer, and the next day they sent out thousands and they got hundreds of complaints and lost their two biggest clients.
I keep falling asleep in meetings and no-one's noticed yet. They think I'm concentrating.
Last week I caught a mouse in my flat, I have mice, which is something I don't really, I don't really like that, I have mice and I caught this one on glue paper, you know, the glue traps, I've tried everything else and that's the only thing that works and the worst thing is that when you catch them they're still alive so you have to, you know, despatch them, so I put a cloth over it and I hit it on the head with a cup, a mug, but it took quite a few, you know, hits and it was screaming and I felt sick and I was crying and everything and then I peeled it off the paper, you have to be very careful because the body's quite delicate, and then I took a scalpel that I have for handicrafts and I slit its little belly open and I tugged out all its insides and I stuck them and the body onto this Christmas card, so that it was splayed open with the guts out into this Christmas tree design, and I sent it to my boss with writing cut out from a newspaper saying ‘Thanks for all the hard work and good luck in the new job cunt-face’. They called the police.
Beat.
I wanted to be a newsreader when I was a little girl.
Pause. She picks up the card. He stares at her.
DUNCAN: (Pointing at the ashtray.) That your chewing gum?
DEBBIE: Yeah
DUNCAN: Can I take it?
Beat.
DEBBIE: Well…
DUNCAN: Am I making you sick?
DEBBIE: It just seems a bit
DUNCAN: Weird?
DEBBIE: Weird, yes.
DUNCAN: I understand.
I want to take it and put it in my mouth and chew on it because I think that by chewing on something that someone like you has chewed on something of you will become some part of me, like I might become infected by your goodness.
DEBBIE: Well…
Beat.
She nods. He takes the chewing gum from the ashtray, puts it in his mouth and starts chewing on it.
DUNCAN: You really do all that? With the mouse and that?
She doesn't answer.
Not like this once you're a client. I'm a professional.
You're very easy to talk to.
DEBBIE: Am I?
DUNCAN: One of your strengths. Like a priest. We should remember that. Capitalise on that. Chat shows, maybe.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: He was a teacher.
Beat.
The man…
Makes blowjob sign.
DEBBIE: Right.
DUNCAN: Or something. Nice fella. Married. In debt. You know the sort. We're all dealing with something, Debs, we're all trying to fill some gap. Make a decision, Debbie. Stop fucking around.
DEBBIE: Well –
DUNCAN: So many ways we can take this. I think a lot about the future. I used to like thinking about dinosaurs when I was at school but now it's just the future.
I'd like an item of your clothing?
Please.
DEBBIE: What?
DUNCAN: Please. Please, Debbie, just to let me know that you're real.
DEBBIE: My clothing?
DUNCAN: Yes. That's what I'd like. That's what I'm asking for.
DEBBIE: It just seems…
DUNCAN: Sign of good faith.
Pause.
Debbie?
DEBBIE: Like what?
DUNCAN: Handkerchief.
DEBBIE: Handkerchief, I haven't got a –
DUNCAN: What else?
Sock?
DEBBIE: I can't walk around in one sock.
DUNCAN: S'that a jumper?
DEBBIE: That's quite expensive.
DUNCAN: I just want something
DEBBIE: It cost, it's quite an –
DUNCAN: Your knickers.
DEBBIE: What?
DUNCAN: Please. I want to be dead.
Pause. She takes her knickers off and gives them to him. He puts them away. He gets up.
I was young once. Glad it's over. It was like love.
(JESS sits in a hospital waiting room. She is deep in thought. She stays like that for a while. There is blood on her sleeves. DAVID enters.)
DAVID: Fucking hell
JESS: I know
DAVID: Are you alright?
JESS: Yeah
DAVID: really?
JESS: yeah
DAVID: Are you?
JESS: Yeah, no I mean
DAVID: No?
JESS: No, I mean yeah, yeah, I am, I'm
DAVID: Are you?
JESS: Yes, please, stop
DAVID: are you sure, I mean have they fucking seen you or what?
JESS: Look there's nothing wrong with me, don't get all
DAVID: I mean is there anyone here?
JESS: clingy, because there's nothing
DAVID: doctors or, I mean fucking hell where is everybody?
JESS: busy, they're busy
DAVID: I mean have you spoken to anyone?
JESS: The police.
DAVID: Clingy?
JESS: Everything's
DAVID: I'm not clingy, I'm worried
JESS: fine
DAVID: Are you okay?
JESS: I am, I'm
DAVID: You've got blood on your sleeve, Jess.
She looks at her sleeve.
JESS: What?
Yeah, no, that's the man's
DAVID: The man's…blood?
JESS: Yes.
That's the man's blood.
He hugs her. They stay like that for a while.
DAVID: What happened?
JESS: He just stabbed
DAVID: Who, the man?
JESS: No, he stabbed the man.
DAVID: Who?
JESS: The other man
DAVID: Why did he stab him?
JESS: Because he bumped into him.
DAVID: He stabbed him because he bumped into him?
JESS: Yeah
DAVID: Because he bumped into him?
JESS: Yeah and
DAVID: Fuck
JESS: Yes, yeah, because he fucking
DAVID: What because he bumped into him?
JESS: Well, he was on the phone
DAVID: Who?
JESS: The man – no, sorry, the other man, the other man was on, he was on the phone, phoning he, and the man, he was running for a bus and the street was crowded so
DAVID: Where was this?
JESS: Oxford Street, he was running for a
DAVID: On Oxford Street?
JESS: Yes, he was, he was running for this
DAVID: On Oxford Street?
JESS: Yes, on, it was on Oxford Street, I said it was on Oxford Street
DAVID: Sorry
JESS: and he bumps into the other man and he knocks, right, and he knocks the phone out of his hands and it goes skittering
DAVID: The phone
JESS: yes, the phone, it goes skittering under this bus
DAVID: are you okay?
JESS: Yes I'm fine.
DAVID: under a bus?
JESS: yeah, yes, like in a joke or something
DAVID: Was it broken?
JESS: It was fucked
DAVID: Was it?
JESS: It was completely fucked
DAVID: You didn't say it was Oxford Street.
Beat.
When you phoned. When you phoned you didn't say it was Oxford Street
JESS: No, but I'm saying it now.
DAVID: Yeah, but you didn't then
JESS: Because a man had been stabbed in the chest, David.
DAVID: Right.
JESS: He was stabbed, he was stabbed in the chest.
DAVID: Okay, I'm just
JESS: What?
DAVID: No, nothing. Sorry, I'm just
JESS: He was dying, the man was
DAVID: Is that what they said, that he's dying?
JESS: No, they're not saying anything
DAVID: Why not?
JESS: Because they're trying to save his life.
DAVID: Why were you on Oxford Street?
Beat.
JESS: I was on my way to the fucking tube!
DAVID: I'm just asking, Jess.
JESS: He was stabbed!
DAVID: I know I'm just
JESS: Because of a phone
Because of a…thing.
Beat.
I think it was a Nokia.
DAVID: Was it?
JESS: Yeah, it was a, like Jane's.
DAVID: Jane's is a Nokia.
JESS: That's what I'm saying, and this man, the other man
DAVID: It's a nice phone
JESS: It's not that nice.
DAVID: Did he know he'd done it?
JESS: Who?
DAVID: The man.
JESS: No, he was just running for a bus
DAVID: right
JESS: I mean it was a bit rude and everything, but Jesus he didn't know he'd
DAVID: No
JESS: and this other man he was
DAVID: What did he look like?
JESS: The man?
DAVID: Yes.
JESS: Or the other man?
DAVID: The other man
JESS: Just like an ordinary man, just a man who's been to work and is making a call on his Nokia before getting on the bus
DAVID: Jesus Christ!
JESS: Late twenties, early thirties, maybe
DAVID: fucking animal
JESS: and he just pulls out this knife
DAVID: A big knife?
JESS: Yeah, yeah, a big fucking knife and he stabs him
DAVID: Jesus!
JESS: Just stabs him
DAVID: What's he doing with a fucking knife?
JESS: in the chest
DAVID: Fuck!
JESS: Yeah, yeah
DAVID: I mean do people walk around with fucking knives these days?
JESS: Just stabs him right in the chest, he just pushes it into him, right into his chest, he just pushes it into him. And the man steps back. Because the force, you know, because he's pushed so hard. He steps back a little, to keep his balance. And the other man pulls the knife out and blood just starts running down this man's chest like a leak.
DAVID: In the middle of Oxford Street?
JESS: It was like he was leaking, but quite a lot, you know. And then he just sort of, he sort of sat, just sort of gently sat on the pavement.
DAVID: And the other man?
JESS: He was gone.
And I just, I just, I was just, I just put my hands on him.
DAVID: On the man?
JESS: Yes.
DAVID: On his
JESS: Yes.
DAVID: wound?
JESS: Yes, I just
DAVID: You put your hands on his wound?
JESS: Yes, I just covered, I just, he was lying down, and, I just put my hands on the, like no-one else wanted, I mean I think they didn't want to get their clothes sticky or
DAVID: Cunts
JESS: no, no, because I think they just didn't think, because you don't
DAVID: no, but
JESS: and everyone's got such nice clothes these days
DAVID: Are you okay?
JESS: No, I'm fine.
Beat.
And an ambulance came. And I got in the ambulance with him. And I came here. With him.
They took him in there
DAVID: In there?
JESS: Yes.
DAVID: You don't know how he is?
JESS: No.
DAVID: Right.
Long pause.
What tube?
JESS: What?
DAVID: What tube were you getting?
JESS: (Beat.) Leicester Square.
DAVID: Right.
That's not on Oxford Street.
JESS: No I was cutting through
DAVID: From?
JESS: What does it matter?
DAVID: I'm just asking.
JESS: Where I had my interview.
DAVID: Which was?
JESS: Poland Street.
DAVID: Right.
JESS: Where I had my interview.
DAVID: How did it go?
JESS: Pricks.
DAVID: So you didn't get the job?
JESS: No I got the job, but they're pricks.
DAVID: So you're not going to take it?
JESS: Of course I'm going to take it, I need a second job.
DAVID: And it's on Poland Street?
JESS: Yes.
Beat.
It was leaking out of him. It was like it was just leaking, just ebbing out of him and you'd see, you know, you could see him shutting down. You know? Like blood is what, I don't know, we are, or something, just this liquid, like we're bags of water walking around and one day someone pokes a hole in the bag, and that's it, you know, end of story, you start leaking and everything starts shutting down until you close, just close down and then that's it.
I was worried that the blood would go somewhere it shouldn't. Like I'd be blocking it and it would be jammed and go back into his body and it might poison him because it had gone into the wrong bit. I don't know if that happens or if it's just a thought, I tried asking but they didn't know what I was, so do you know if it does?
Beat.
If that happens?
DAVID: That's a detour.
JESS: What?
DAVID: Oxford Street. That's a detour.
JESS: No
DAVID: Yes, if you're on Poland Street and you're going to Leicester Square then Oxford Street is a detour.
JESS: (Beat.) Is it?
DAVID: Yes. It is.
Beat.
JESS: Well, it's all near each other.
DAVID: But it's a detour
JESS: Who cares?
DAVID: Isn't it.
JESS: Yeah, but who
DAVID: Is it or isn't it?
JESS: Yeah, but it's all next to each other, so
DAVID: Is it or isn't it?
JESS: Yes, but
DAVID: Yes?
JESS: Yes, but
DAVID: Yes, then.
Yes, it's a detour.
Beat.
JESS: Fucking hell, David, a man's
DAVID: Right, it is then.
JESS: been stabbed, he's
DAVID: So you took a detour to Oxford Street.
JESS: lying in there
DAVID: Why?
JESS: What?
DAVID: Why?
Why? Why did you take a detour to Oxford Street?
Beat.
JESS: Why are you being like this?
DAVID: Because, Jess, because you had an interview on Poland Street which is, as far as I know, as far as I remember, which is south of Oxford Street, and you wanted to get to Leicester Square tube station, which as far as I can also remember, Jess, as far as I also know, if it hasn't fucking moved, Jess, is also south of Oxford Street. So what I'm wondering is what you were doing on Oxford Street? What I am trying to figure out, Jess, is for what reason my wife would take a large detour out of her way to go north to Oxford Street, which is without a doubt one of the most crowded, unpleasant, shitty streets in this city.
Pause.
JESS: Don't talk to me like that.
DAVID: Did you buy something?
No answer.
Did you?
No answer.
Did you go shopping?
No answer.
Is that what you did, you went shopping?
JESS: No.
DAVID: Jess? Is it?
JESS: Look –
DAVID: After everything we've been though? After you being in hospital?
JESS: Don't bring that up
DAVID: In a mental hospital, Jess, in a fucking, after all the shit and fucking, after me getting a crappy, shitty job, after all the things, things I've done that you don't even, the financial fucking, things you don't even
JESS: stop going on about money
DAVID: know about, we have to talk about money
JESS: a man's
DAVID: I want to talk about other things, I want to talk about the future and holidays and education, but instead we have to talk about money because
JESS: a man's been
DAVID: after the things I, after I –
JESS: he's been stabbed
DAVID: after I –
Beat.
Did you?
JESS: It's not like that!
Beat.
I bought some CDs.
I just bought some fucking CDs.
Okay? I didn't kill someone, I didn't fuck a stranger, I bought some CDs and then I watched a man get stabbed.
Beat.
I put my hands on him. I've still got his blood under my fingernails, I watched him shutting down because of a phone and I'm thinking is there anything else and is that it, is this all we are?
DAVID: Where are they?
Beat.
Can I see your CDs?
Beat. She shows him the CDs.
Good CDs. Nice
JESS: David –
Suddenly he gets up.
He goes to break the CDs. Doesn't.
He goes to walk out. Doesn't.
He goes to grab his hair. Doesn't.
He goes to throw the CDs. Doesn't.
He goes to say something. Doesn't.
He goes to almost hit her. Doesn't.
He goes to sit down. Doesn't.
He goes to put the CDs down. Doesn't.
He is in tears. Turns away as the DOCTOR enters. The DOCTOR stands there, awkward, not noticing that DAVID is crying. Pause.
JESS: Oh.
DOCTOR: Yes. Sorry.
JESS: Oh, no, it's okay.
DOCTOR: We did everything we could, the bleeding was just too
JESS: That's fine.
DOCTOR: severe, you did everything you could.
JESS: No, no, it's fine, honestly
DOCTOR: There's this sack that the, the heart sits in and unfortunately the bleeding leaked into this sack and once the sack
JESS: honestly, honestly
DOCTOR: ruptures
JESS: Yeah, no don't worry. I mean are you sure he's –
No, sorry, of course.
Silence.
DOCTOR: Are you going to be alright?
JESS: Yes.
DOCTOR: You've got someone here so…
You did everything you could.
JESS: Oh yeah, I know I'm fine, it's fine, I'm fine.
DOCTOR: There's a coffee machine at the end of the hall.
JESS: Great. Thank you. Thank you for that.
He goes. She sits.
After a while DAVID gets up.
DAVID: I'm going.
JESS: He's dead. The man's dead.
DAVID: I'm going home.
JESS: What about the man?
Pause.
David?
What about the man?
But DAVID goes.
JESS: I don't know if we're alone.
I don't think we want to be alone, do we? Do we want that? Is that what we want? And sometimes you think that the only reason we do anything at all, anything, is to reach out and touch
just touch, just to
feel
something
in our hand, I suppose and, or not in our hands in our hearts, or to reach with our souls and to find out that it's not all just dust and rocks and nuclear explosions in the hearts of stars with some accidentally organic matter moving around on one tiny minuscule planet. D'you know what I mean?
That connection?
Just to connect.
And you look around, don't you, and you think ‘is this what it is? everyone else seems to think it's this, so that's what I'll do, I'll get a job and a house and the right shoes and I'll, you know, because this could be it’ and I'm not saying it isn't and those things are great and I hate it when people are all critical and everything because we all wear
shoes
for Christ's sake, so, you know, but
sometimes I'm left
wondering
and I wonder if others are as
confused
and are also left wondering and maybe there is this entire planet of people wondering but pretending that we know exactly what we're doing and that we fit in perfectly and that we're not scared or confused or
lonely
or anything like that.
Beat.
And I might be saying this because I'm in love.
And
I might be looking for meaning because I'm in love
and what is that? alright, what
chemicals
or
electric pulses racing, yes, yes, but let me tell you – and I'm not arguing with all that – but let me tell you that what I feel is so
real
and tangible
and powerful and honest and torrential it screams through me sometimes and I want to vomit, I want to puke because I'm in love, isn't that fucked, I'm so in love I could puke.
Little laugh. Beat.
So I'm watching this programme last night and they're talking about this big problem in science, it's like this massive sort of, philosophical problem I suppose, and this problem is that the
universe
is just so fucking
unlikely
it's just so kind of
ridiculous, that it has turned out exactly this way that you've got to say
‘hang on…
oh yeah, come on, pull the other one.’
And it's all to do with the values for gravity and the speed of light and electro-magnetic, you know, and these things, these values are set in the first few instants of the big bang, you know, you can't, we can't
go further
than that, our physics just doesn't work that far back, relativity breaks down at the moment of a singularity, blah, blah, blah, but once these
laws
come into
being, they stay, they stay as they are and that is that and they make up the universe, they, you know, you take gravity, for example, and you say right, in the beginning, just matter in clouds, but gravity means that matter attracts matter so matter clumps together forming stars and the gravity is pulling one way, squishing the atoms which causes nuclear explosions which is basically pushing the other way and this is basically, you know, how a star, that's how it works and you have these forces squishing the atoms over billions of years into heavier elements, new elements being formed in these stars which eventually explode and distribute those elements, which is us, which is everything, which is everything in the universe made up of stars, which I find fascinating in itself that we are all made of an ancient super-massive dead star, but that is another, I'm not going on about, that's a sidetrack, but the thing is
that gravity
just happens to be set
at the perfect level for this to happen.
Just happens to be that. So say gravity is like one hundred in ten thousand or something, I mean it isn't, but just say it is because, right, well, if it was one hundred and one: wouldn't work. Ninety-nine: wouldn't work. Has to be exactly one hundred.
Fraction more or less? Wouldn't happen.
Okay. Fluke.
But it's not just gravity. Electro-magnetism,
speed of light, rate of expansion of the universe, all of these
exactly right.
For the universe to exist like this…
Exactly.
And it's all just a bit too jammy, it's just too fucking, not to be, you know, not to be
and this is scientists saying this, not just me.
So.
Science just ignores it.
Bit irritating
but let's get on with things.
Beat.
Then comes the cosmological constant.
Basically it's a thing to do with dark matter, okay, it's something to do with Einstein coz he said well, with all this gravity and whatever what's holding the universe the way it is and they didn't really know, so he ignored it and years later it's dark matter or whatever, I don't know
but the thing is
this
value
for the cosmological constant is
one in
a trillion trillion trillion, trillion trillion trillion, trillion trillion trillion
I mean it's literally like that, I'm not sure if I've got them all, but it's literally that many trillions and you have to go
oh, come on
that's no accident, that's not just luck.
You know.
So it points to
design
which means and no I'm not talking about a white beard or Allah or Buddha or you know, all of a sudden the Bible's right, but you know, I mean maybe the universe itself, I don't know and that's the thing, no-one knows but you can't just ignore it and the
scientists
well, they don't really
they're not so fond of that idea, so
and this is on the programme, this is the scientists’ alternative which is
that there are an infinite number of universes
gazillions and gazillions and gazillions of universes
where every possibility is played out.
Pause.
That's it.
That is the best they could come up with.
And I just thought
Oh, really.
I mean for fuck's sake
just grow up
I mean Jesus fucking Christ, you know, just what is wrong with purpose, what's wrong with, you know, fucking belonging or
or
or just, you know, having an idea that there is something, that there is a point and that maybe it's about more than just I have this pot of stuff here and that's got more in it than your pot of stuff over there, but I'm just talking about, maybe, I dunno, choosing a world that is more than numbers and quantities and saving and choosing a world that is flesh and bone and
love or,
more than just
isn't it more than just
money, mathematics, numbers, values, I don't know
Isn't it?
Don't you think it is?
Isn't money dead? Or something?
Isn't it?
When you look around?
Don't we know that in our heart of heart of hearts?
And that we're looking for more, individually and as a, and all this, all these troubles are just symptoms of that search?
Pause.
He's asked me to marry him.
Beat.
I said yes.
We were in bed and I was playing with his mole, he has this mole on his forearm and I said you should get this checked out and he laughs and he says that's what his ex was always saying to him and I say she was right because it's dangerous and he said thinking of being with me long term then and I said, and I'm talking to his mole as I'm speaking and suddenly I'm telling him that while being with him
I have
discovered
that language is completely useless and that we only bother with it because
we haven't got telepathy
and there is no language
that can express
– this stuff is just pouring out of me –
that can express how I feel about him which is why I have to fuck him because it's the closest
I can get
to
telling him how I feel about him.
And I look up.
And he's crying.
And he's not that sort of man that cries.
And he tells me that I'd better marry him then.
And I say yes and
I
Know, he feels, the same
I know.
So maybe this is why. Why I'm, you know, why I believe there is something more.
Because I have evidence of it.
I live in it.
Beat.
Not saying I don't want things though.
She laughs.
I do. I do want things. I want things for us. I've begun to look at my life and say, well, it has been a little bit
scruffy
and now I don't want that. I want it to be a bit neater, I want it to be a bit like it's supposed to be, I want it to be a bit like
She laughs.
a bit like it is on the telly.
She laughs.
I know, I know. What a cunt.
Beat.
Right now
maybe right now I'm feeling that there has to be
something
because I feel
blessed
and I know that sounds stupid, but I feel
so
blessed and lucky and grateful and looking forward
I'm just so
looking forward.
Beat.
I am.
I just am.
Beat.
That's it.
That's everything I wanted to
you know.
That's it.
End