SCENE ONE

A nondescript office.

REBECCA and an elegantly dressed ALICE.

ALICE: Fury.

REBECCA: Fury?

ALICE: Absolutely. Fucking furious! There isn’t a day I don’t think about the strange, unruly beauty of the human brain. A thing that sometimes fails us, but that, at its best, invests our lives with delicacy, joy, imagination, morality, taste, kindness, cruelty… Courage. I founded my career on a conviction that I could make some difference in understanding the way our bodies work. In the face of obstacles, it was fury that drove me.

REBECCA: What sort of fury?

ALICE: Everything. What I wanted to be. What I wanted to do. How the world conspired to stop me. My mother used to say that every time I feel rage, I should count to five before speaking. But everything interesting happens in those five seconds. Lust, envy, outrage: the energy of life is in those five seconds. Rage is passion and passion finds solutions. If something’s too hard you just don’t want it enough.

REBECCA: Well, you clearly won over a world that conspired to stop you. The creation of a drug that penetrates the blood/brain barrier—

ALICE: The modification of a drug—

REBECCA: Of course. In giving the patent to the W.H.O., you forfeited a fortune—

ALICE: Fuck, yes! What was I thinking?

They laugh.

REBECCA: I wonder if you have any thoughts about the gender inequity—

ALICE: I thought you might—

REBECCA: Well, it’s relevant, I think— You’re the first female recipient. In nineteen years.

ALICE: It wouldn’t be the only high-profile prize that has under-represented women.

REBECCA: It’s a significant global humanitarian award. And it seems remarkable—

ALICE: Medical research has been dominated by men. But it’s hard to be angry about a group of human beings who literally cure cancer.

REBECCA: True!

ALICE: Many great women have been overlooked. Hallelujah—I haven’t!

REBECCA: Is that what you’re going to say? When you’re standing up there next week and the paparazzi’s flashes are going off?

ALICE: Yes, I will. And I’m not sure how many paparazzi turn up to humanitarian awards ceremonies. Maybe I’ll flash a nipple!

REBECCA: Some commentators feel that you shouldn’t accept it. As if the prize has been ‘tainted’—

ALICE Frame this response as you wish: Self-interest. Pragmatism. Forgiveness. Take your pick. I’m accepting the prize and who knows, there may be a twelve-year-old girl who sees me up there—Alice Harper—and thinks: Well, fuck it, that’s going to be me one day.

REBECCA: What happened to Alice Reed? Why did you take his name?

ALICE: Very politically incorrect. He wanted me to.

REBECCA: I’m agenda-free, I should say that—

ALICE: As a neuroscientist I can assure you that’s not possible. There’s a tiny little area between the hypothalamus and the hippocampus that is the physiological cerebral space for rampant ideological agendas. Interestingly, post-mortems on journalists indicate their space is larger than other people’s—

REBECCA: Funny.

ALICE: Leaving biology aside, I think we’re all tilted one way or the other in our choices, in our assumptions. From the moment we’re born, we have our parents steering us into inherited convictions—

REBECCA: Well, I didn’t.

ALICE: You must have had unusually ‘hands-off’ parents.

REBECCA: My father died when my mother was pregnant with me. He didn’t get the chance to ideologically sway—

Beat.

ALICE: That’s very sad. I’m sorry to be facetious.

REBECCA: Anyway, I want to know the woman.

ALICE: Why?

REBECCA: Because the truth is always more interesting than fiction. My piece on you will be more vibrant if I… know you better.

ALICE: You’re very engaged, for a student journalist—

REBECCA: To be honest, we need a portfolio of pieces to shop around for jobs—

ALICE: Aha!

REBECCA: But I really am interested in you. And I know quite a lot about you.

ALICE: Really. Such as…

REBECCA: You don’t like chilli. You like real linen bedsheets. Your favourite book is The Great Gatsby.

ALICE: Do you work for the CIA?

REBECCA: I’m diligent and curious and dogged. [Beat.] Anyway, I’m talking to your husband tomorrow.

ALICE: I heard you were harassing him.

REBECCA: [arch] Nothing to hide?

ALICE: Oh, there’s always something to hide. But he’s on my side.

SCENE TWO

Patrick’s university office.

REBECCA and PATRICK, an attractive writer and teacher in his late fifties, are sitting either side of his desk. Two mugs of tea. A plate of expensive biscuits. She’s taking notes.

REBECCA: You don’t trust me—

PATRICK: I wouldn’t take it personally.

REBECCA: But I do.

PATRICK: I don’t trust anyone.

REBECCA: That’s depressing.

PATRICK: Not as depressing as disappointment.

Beat.

REBECCA: [beguilingly] You should have some faith.

He smiles, softens.

Is it wrong of me to want to know the man behind the woman?

PATRICK: I’m actually appallingly, irretrievably dull.

REBECCA: Yes, everyone told me that but I wanted to see for myself.

PATRICK: Very funny.

REBECCA: You’re more consistent than McEwen. You’re smarter than Eugenides. You’re more engaging than Carey. And yet you haven’t got anywhere near the acclaim. Why not?

PATRICK: I’m too nice.

REBECCA: [playing along] Really?

PATRICK: Have you met them? The three musketeers of literary narcissism.

REBECCA: You’re funny!

PATRICK: Secretly the world subscribes to the notion that nice, funny people can’t be geniuses.

REBECCA: You’ve now written five—?

PATRICK: Six—

REBECCA: Well-regarded—

PATRICK: Reasonably well-regarded—

REBECCA: And very fat novels—

PATRICK: Extremely fat novels. That’s the whole fascinating contradiction I inhabit. Fat novels but lean and elegant prose.

REBECCA: Your work has, of course, been praised by many.

PATRICK: And has barely made us a dime.

REBECCA: Do you evaluate success by the money you make?

PATRICK: Definitely. All those artists who say they don’t care about the money and the fame? Well, I only ever wanted the money and the fame.

REBECCA: And the girls.

PATRICK: And the girls. Of course. Although unfortunately most literary groupies look like Susan Boyle.

REBECCA: Well, I thought Elusive was very beguiling. Better than The Frozen Ones.

PATRICK: [incredulous] You read that? I actually mulched my own garden with the remaindered copies.

REBECCA: I loved Elusive.

PATRICK: I wrote it to keep myself interested. And I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep anyone else interested.

REBECCA: Your self-deprecation doesn’t totally convince me.

PATRICK: Well, with writers—their ability to remain undimmed in the face of poverty, criticism and neglect speaks to their sense of self-importance.

REBECCA: [amused] Underneath your well-rehearsed modesty lies a rampant ego?

PATRICK: Oh no. Anyone will tell you that my problem isn’t a lack of talent, it’s the total lack of self-delusion. You can get a very long way in the arts without talent, but without self-delusion, you’re fucked.

She laughs.

There’s something unseemly about analysing your own work. It’s like breaking ranks. Besides which, the whole point about writing is to clothe yourself in disguises. That’s why you write.

REBECCA: You think I’m asking you to undress?

Beat. They smile.

PATRICK: Anyway…. What’s your story? Apart from wanting to be the Woodward and Bernstein of the campus rag?

REBECCA: Nothing much to tell.

PATRICK: Come on! Illustrious academic record—

REBECCA: It’s taken me four years to do my PhD. It hasn’t been smooth sailing—

PATRICK: There must be a surly boyfriend lurking?

REBECCA: No longer. And not just surly. Vegan.

PATRICK: Vegan! Good God! Well, you certainly had grounds to give him the flick.

REBECCA: All that emotional baggage you have to avoid and then you have to avoid gelatine as well.

PATRICK: Young idealistic women. Those 1970s feminist ballbreakers have morphed into these very beguiling young women who very quietly and unostentatiously just don’t take any crap.

REBECCA: My epitaph. Rebecca Ash: she didn’t take any crap.

PATRICK: Parents?

REBECCA: Dead.

PATRICK: Young to be an orphan.

REBECCA: Lends me a useful air of mystery. My father died before I was born.

PATRICK: Drugs?

REBECCA: Cop. Killed on duty.

PATRICK:. That’s terrible. Something like that—

REBECCA: What?

PATRICK: Well—it must alter the destiny of a life. Idealism is often rooted in suffering, isn’t it? At the risk of sounding trite.

REBECCA: What makes you think I’m idealistic?

PATRICK: There’s a twinkle in your eye that’s not simply the twinkle of the twenty-something flirt.

REBECCA: Well-observed. But is it idealism?

PATRICK: Isn’t it?

REBECCA: Well, I’m interested in… justice.

PATRICK: That’s idealism. Isn’t it?

REBECCA: If you say so. You’re the intellectual genius.

PATRICK: Thank you. You can stay.

REBECCA: [smiling] You think I’m going to write about you flatteringly?

PATRICK: I certainly hope so. That’s why I bought you expensive biscuits.

She smiles.

REBECCA: Your new novel comes out the same time as your wife is about to win a significant international humanitarian award. It’s a crass question but I have to ask it: do you compete with her?

PATRICK: Good God! Even Booker winners don’t save lives.

REBECCA: But perhaps—you know—the light shining around her obscured you.

PATRICK: Please write that.

They smile.

REBECCA: What attracted you to her at the start? She was beautiful?

PATRICK: She still is beautiful.

REBECCA: More than beautiful.

PATRICK: She was good.

SCENE THREE

The charming sitting room of Alice and Patrick’s inner-city house. Sophisticated but without pretension. A life lived.

ALICE is sitting. PATRICK is fixing them drinks. Lamplight.

ALICE: Saturday.

PATRICK: [enjoying his own performance] Really? We don’t like the Nichols, we’ve never liked the Nichols. There are lots of things we don’t like about him and they’re not the kind of things we might change our mind about because really, the great thing about being our age is that we don’t need to change our minds very often about anything, the whole point of middle age is being in an apology-free zone. So long as you’re bombastic about it, people will admire you for it. So the chances of changing our minds about the Nichols are virtually nil, especially after they invited us for dinner, then told us we were meeting at a restaurant, then chose an expensive restaurant, then invited friends of theirs who call ‘rocket’ arugula and then made us pay. I thought: Alright, I don’t want to be here but if he’s paying, then, then—then all is not lost. And then he said: Shall we just split it three ways? Never has a phrase been greeted with such profound unhappiness. And that stupid idea of saying what song you’d select for your own funeral was the clincher. There’s no coming back from ‘Bring on the Night’. I mean, Sting, for Christ’s sake. That macrobiotic, yoga-panted phony! Now, you say to me—now we are obliged, with no discernible ‘out’, to have them here. Here. Here. At our house. Our refuge, a refuge whose entire point is to provide a comfortable, reliable place of avoidance, whose entire point is, in fact, to be a sanctuary from the Nichols. To devote to Neil and Caro Nichols several hours that might otherwise be spent snuggled up in bed watching a cement factory transformed with old Coke bottles into a bucolic, sustainable beach house on ‘Grand Designs’, to devote to them several hours that we are never, ever going to get back.

ALICE: That’s right.

PATRICK: And why?

ALICE: Because we’re well-mannered. And because, according to the law of averages, as often as we are sinned against, we sin. Your irony monologue that night at their house was unbearable—

PATRICK: I misread him, obviously—

ALICE: ‘Neil, as you know irony is all in the delivery. The way you said that—“Bring on the Night”— was pure genius.’

PATRICK: Mmm.

ALICE: ‘But Patrick,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t being ironic.’

PATRICK: Bit of a conversation stopper, I agree.

ALICE: You were very embarrassing.

PATRICK: May I remind you of when Antony and Kate came over—‘I do apologise for this vile chablis,’ you said, spitting it out—

ALICE: Alright, alright—

PATRICK: ‘Goat’s pee,’ I think you said. ‘I don’t think it’s from the Loire,’ you added, ‘I think it’s from Cairo! Let me get a bottle we didn’t win at a trivia night.’

ALICE: I told you, I didn’t see them carrying it in.

PATRICK: In every couple, there’s always one you like and one you detest.

ALICE: Except for us, of course.

PATRICK: With us, you get the rare double whammy.

They smile. Beat. Change of mood.

You have to be happy, Alice.

ALICE: Yes, happy. Yes.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Do I need a prize? I wonder, in the end, if the resentment of not being celebrated as one feels one should be, isn’t actually better than worrying about whether you deserve good things to happen to you when they do.

PATRICK: You deserve it.

ALICE: I’m not entirely sure you’re the best judge of me.

PATRICK: How can you say that after twenty-nine years?

ALICE: Don’t you think, sometimes, that we have…

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Made each other?

PATRICK: Made each other?

ALICE: We edit, condense, repackage so that—

PATRICK: So that—?

ALICE: Monogamy and loyalty—the pledge of years—that feels worth it.

Beat.

PATRICK: You think I idealise you?

ALICE: Don’t you?

PATRICK: Not when you’re parking. You don’t idealise me.

ALICE: Definitely not.

PATRICK: Inconceivable?

ALICE: Because I’m unnaturally forensic and analytical and tough and argumentative.

PATRICK: No, you’re not.

ALICE: Fuck you, yes I am!

They laugh.

Don’t set yourself up as an expert on Alice Harper. Because then the future would just be about confirmation.

PATRICK: I love confirmation. It’s my favourite rejoinder to assumption.

ALICE: One thing—after the prize—

PATRICK: Yes. You promised—

ALICE: More time. You and me—

PATRICK: And Joe.

ALICE: And Joe. You know sometimes I feel sorry for Joe. I just think… Parents have each other. Childhood is so lonely. You’re trapped inside a universe that’s yours and yours alone. You just accept it as the norm. And it’s not until years later that you see it for the strange place that it was.

Beat. He looks at her tenderly.

PATRICK: My talented wife.

ALICE: I’m not sure my wifeliness is talented.

PATRICK: Certainly not. You’re a hopeless wife.

They smile—love.

Where is Joe, anyway?

Doorbell. They turn to the door. Totally unexpected.

Lights down.

SCENE FOUR

Lights up. Ten minutes later.

PATRICK and ALICE are joined by WARREN, Joe’s teacher. ALICE and PATRICK are relaxed but somewhat nonplussed.

TEACHER: It is a bit unusual. Mostly we see parents at the school, obviously. Not in such salubrious surrounds!

PATRICK: So—?

WARREN: Well done on the prize by the way, Professor Harper—

ALICE: Alice—

WARREN: The staff room was abuzz, I can tell you!

ALICE: Thank you. [Evenly] What’s the problem, Warren?

Beat.

WARREN: There are situations where it’s better to be one on one.

ALICE: ‘One on one’?

PATRICK: Joe’s—?

ALICE: Should we be—?

WARREN: Bradley wanted very much to handle this himself but he’s hosting a conference. Ordinarily a matter like this would only be handled by the Principal. But after all, I know Joe.

ALICE: Where is Joe?

WARREN: He stayed back to see Nicole.

PATRICK: Nicole?

ALICE: Who’s Nicole?

PATRICK: [alert, dawning all is not right] Nicole Counsellor Nicole?

WARREN: Just a chat at this stage.

Beat.

PATRICK: What’s going on?

WARREN: Okay, okay, well— In addition to being Joe’s housemaster, I’m also standing in as Acting Principal for the week—

PATRICK: This isn’t pot, I hope—

WARREN: No. Although God knows, drugs are everywhere. Every school.

PATRICK: Of course they are.

WARREN: The kids don’t realise what the research shows—

PATRICK: Well, we didn’t either, did we, Warren? We weren’t interested in research. We were interested in getting shit-faced.

WARREN: Well, I—

ALICE: We’re dreading it, of course, the question all parents dread: ‘What did you do when you were my age?’

PATRICK: I was actually snorting coke in beach houses as perhaps you were, Warren.

WARREN: At the risk of sounding like a bore, I always found literature mind-altering enough.

PATRICK: [sotto voce, turning to pour himself another drink] At the slight risk…

WARREN: Congratulations on your last novel, by the way. Brilliant.

PATRICK: [pleased despite himself] Oh, you’ve read it?

WARREN: No. But I heard good things… in the main… Look, in the absence of Mr Revel, I’m hoping I can handle this to everyone’s satisfaction. And then, no doubt, power will go to my head and I’ll be launching a coup!

ALICE: If this is about Joe, shouldn’t Joe be here?

PATRICK: What did he do?

ALICE: His interim report—

WARREN: Certainly a great interim report—awesome.

ALICE: [sensing there’s something serious] What is it? [Beat.] Why are you here?

WARREN: Alright. Okay. Joseph’s talking to a policeman.

Beat.

PATRICK: Joe’s talking to a policeman?

WARREN: Yes. With Nicole present, obviously. We tried to get hold of you. [Beat.] I’ll assume Joe hasn’t told you anything?

Beat.

ALICE: Told us?

WARREN: Last Tuesday morning— [Beat.] Joe graffitied—

ALICE: [disbelieving] Joe graffitied—?

PATRICK: What!

WARREN: Mmm.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Graffitied?

WARREN: Yes.

Beat.

PATRICK: At school?

WARREN: Not at school, no.

PATRICK: No, because—

WARREN: Exactly so, we’d handle that in-house—

ALICE: So? Ah? So?

WARREN: A mosque.

Long beat. Fast:

ALICE: What?

PATRICK: What? Joe what?

ALICE: A mosque?

PATRICK: Joe graffitied a mosque?

ALICE: What mosque? What mosque?!

WARREN: Up near the marble factory—do you know the marble factory? —up towards the old jail, there’s a mosque. You might have seen the —the, ah—the big, gold, ah, bauble things. The—

PATRICK: The minarets—

WARREN: Exactly—

PATRICK: The minarets—

WARREN: Exactly right—

PATRICK: The marble factory—

WARREN: Those big gold minarets stand out like—like, ah—nobody’s business. It’s white.

ALICE: Yes, that mosque—yes—

WARREN: There’s a 7-Eleven on the other corner. Around 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday, Joe and Trevor Evans graffitied the mosque.

ALICE: Who’s Trevor Evans?

WARREN: You don’t know Trevor?

ALICE: No.

PATRICK: Trevor?

WARREN: Trevor Evans. He’s in Joe’s year. He’s our star forward.

Beat.

ALICE: You’re saying Joe, our Joe, graffitied a mosque at one o’clock in the morning?

PATRICK: How do you know it was Joe?

ALICE: It can’t have been Joe.

PATRICK: How do you know it was Joe?

ALICE: It wasn’t Joe.

PATRICK: Joe doesn’t—

ALICE: Joe was at home at one o’clock in the morning—

PATRICK: Joe doesn’t graffiti—

ALICE: A mosque?

PATRICK: Near the marble place?

ALICE: Joe doesn’t graffiti mosques!

Beat.

PATRICK: Look, Warren—look here—something’s going on. We know Joe. We know Joe. We’re not—we’re not weirdoes— We’re not ‘Masters of the Universe’—with one of those video game junkie kids. We’re here. We’re around. We know him. And Joe does not graffiti. Joe is not— He doesn’t even skate. So something’s gone wrong. The information—

WARREN: We have footage.

Beat.

PATRICK & ALICE: [together] What?

WARREN: CCTV.

PATRICK: You have CCTV footage of Joe?

WARREN: The police brought the DVD to the school and we were able to identify the students from the film. Trevor was wearing a school rugby jersey.

Beat.

ALICE: [stupefied] What an idiot!

PATRICK: [incredulous] ‘What a idiot’? The problem is they got caught?

ALICE: No, no, no—

PATRICK: They should have been more careful when they were defacing a mosque?

ALICE: No, of course not—

PATRICK: Jesus, Alice!

WARREN: We understand this is difficult. It’s difficult all round. I’m sure you need a moment to take this in.

PATRICK: Why?

WARREN: Well, because something has clearly gone—

PATRICK: No, but— But— Why?

WARREN: Well, yes. These are the kind of questions we’re all going to have to wrestle with. Obviously Mr Revel is pondering what action to take. Suspension at the least, I would imagine. But we’re very keen to work it out. Because we feel you are a very valuable part of the school family and there is good news.

PATRICK: There’s good news?

WARREN: The good news is, they’re not going to prosecute.

ALICE: What?

WARREN: We’ve spoken to the imam. He’s not going to lay charges.

PATRICK: He’s sixteen.

WARREN: Well, it’s—

ALICE: He’s just a child.

PATRICK: Something’s gone wrong—

ALICE: He’s a kid—

PATRICK: There’s a mistake—

ALICE: It has to be a mistake—

WARREN: A hate crime.

Beat.

ALICE: What?

Beat.

WARREN: It’s a hate crime. Technically. Joe and Trevor could be charged with religiously aggravated alarm, harassment or distress. And, as you no doubt know, there’s a lot of community pressure to act on these things, but ultimately they’re in the hands of the imam. If the imam doesn’t pursue the full brunt of the law, then the police will simply issue a warning. A stern warning.

PATRICK: The police are talking to Joe now?

ALICE: [devastated] A ‘hate crime’?

Beat.

PATRICK: What did he write?

SCENE FIVE

At home. Same evening.

PATRICK, ALICE and JOE, in school uniform.

JOE: No.

PATRICK: No coercion? Not from the police? Not from the school?

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Young people are routinely—

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Kids create a hierarchy.

JOE: What?

PATRICK: A hierarchy. Kids. Sometimes—

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Pressure gets—

JOE: No.

Beat.

PATRICK: No-one at school put pressure on you?

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Well, someone—

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Someone obviously— Ideas don’t come from nowhere. They don’t come from nowhere. And those ideas, ideas expressed—they don’t come from nowhere, from a vacuum. And they certainly don’t come from here. They don’t come from here. [Beat.] From home. From us. [Beat.] What I’m saying is—

JOE: I know what you’re—

PATRICK: Presumably, at school, some individual or group—

JOE: I get what you’re saying—

PATRICK: Trevor Evans—

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Who is this kid?

JOE: What?

PATRICK: Who is Trevor Evans?

JOE: He’s—no-one.

PATRICK: Who is he? What’s his story?

JOE: I don’t know. He’s a kid.

PATRICK: Where’s he from? Has he been here?

JOE: No. He lives near the airport.

PATRICK: Near the airport?

JOE: He scored the winning try against Grammar in the final.

PATRICK: The blonde kid?

JOE: Is he? Yeah.

PATRICK: Did he in any way—?

JOE: No.

PATRICK: It may be very subtle—

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Without you even particularly noticing—

JOE: No.

Beat.

PATRICK: Was it Trevor’s idea?

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Did you tell anyone you were going?

JOE: No.

PATRICK: Okay, alright. Okay. You acted of your own free will?

JOE: As I said to the police.

PATRICK: What?

JOE: As I said to the police.

PATRICK: ‘As I said to the police’?

JOE: As I said to the police. Yes.

PATRICK: The— The— The arrogance, the arrogance… [Beat.] What’s wrong with you? What happened to you? Is this about attention? Do you not get enough attention? Are you angry? Are you angry with us? Did we do something? Did we fail you? You got up in the middle of the night and you left the house, our house, and you walked across town to the mosque and you graffitied it and then you walked home and went to bed.

JOE: I watched TV for a while before I went to bed.

PATRICK: That’s the way you express yourself? That’s the way you make your feelings felt?

Beat.

JOE: Apparently.

Beat.

ALICE: [softly] Apparently? [Softly] Apparently? [Beat. Growing in sound and fury] Do you— Do you realise— Do you have any idea at all— Do you realise how embarrassing this is?

JOE: ‘Embarrassing’?

ALICE: To me.

JOE: Oh, the ‘prize’.

ALICE: Yes, the prize. Yes, the fucking prize. And to your father? Do you have any idea at all of what this is doing to us?

PATRICK: I think we’re all feeling frustration here. I think we’re all feeling pretty much at sea here—

JOE: To you? This is happening to me.

ALICE: You spoilt little boy! You spoilt little—

PATRICK: We need to keep calm. Nothing is going to be achieved—

ALICE: [so angry she can hardly articulate] You feel—what? What? What? Bored? Bored? Lonely? Dull? Ordinary? What? What? What? What?

PATRICK: Nothing is going to be achieved, Alice, by losing our tempers. I think your mother— I think your mother is trying— I mean, Joe— Joe— This isn’t you.

JOE: This isn’t me?

PATRICK: It’s not you.

JOE: Apparently, it is. Apparently it is me.

ALICE: [enraged] Are you baiting us?

PATRICK: We need to stay calm—

ALICE: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

JOE can’t quite hide his terror. He’s never seen her like this.

PATRICK: Alice/

ALICE: /Why?

PATRICK: Well, because there’s no point—

ALICE: NO. WHY?

JOE: I— I don’t know.

ALICE: You don’t know?

JOE: I— I—

ALICE: What?

JOE: [not provocative] I felt like it.

Beat.

ALICE: You felt like it? [Beat.] You felt like it?

PATRICK: [sensing] Alice—

Furious, ALICE jumps up and veers towards JOE. JOE is terrified—ALICE doesn’t hit people. He scrapes back his chair in order to avoid her with equal violence, but she lands her fists on him very hard. PATRICK jumps up to help JOE—bloodied, hurt—who pushes him away. JOE lies on the floor, shaken, nursing his wounds. Long beat.

ALICE: [rage vanished] I am at a loss— I am— I’m at a loss. I’m at a total loss. [Beat.] This is our son.

PATRICK: [shocked] Alice— Alice— Listen. He made a mistake—

ALICE: This is no mistake.

PATRICK: [puzzled] What do you—?

ALICE: There is something wrong. There is something— There is something wrong with him. There is— [Looking at JOE] There is something very, very wrong with you. There is something not right.

Beat. JOE stands and begins to walk out, then stops.

JOE: [shaken] What are you going to… how am I… I mean, what are you going to do? Apart from hit me, I mean.

ALICE: Do?

JOE: As punishment. [Beat.] It’s just I— I’m supposed to pay for the formal this week—

ALICE: You’re supposed to pay for the formal?

JOE: Yes—

ALICE: The school formal?

JOE: I don’t expect to go. But I won’t—

ALICE: What?

JOE: I won’t pay if I’m not going so it would help if I knew.

Beat.

ALICE: [furious] Punishment? Punishment? You think you’re not going to the formal and that’s punishment? Don’t you see, Joe? The punishment is right here. It’s right here. We are your punishment. We are your punishment. And you are ours.

SCENE SIX

At school.

JOE, WARREN.

WARREN: Five ‘Lates’—

JOE: Four because one was—

WARREN: No, I asked Mrs Marchand—

JOE: She was late—

WARREN: Not the point—

JOE: She was late—

WARREN: That does not in any way bear on your lateness.

JOE: That’s hypocrisy—

WARREN: That’s school rules—

JOE: That’s hypocritical—

WARREN: Take it up with the Principal, feel free—

JOE: We have to be punctual but she—

WARREN: She’s the teacher—

JOE: One rule for—

TEACHER: Exactly right—

JOE: She doesn’t like me—

WARREN: That’s not—

JOE: She has it in for me—

WARREN: I don’t think that’s—

JOE: She said I had delusions of my own importance.

Beat.

WARREN: Well, do you?

Beat.

JOE: She doesn’t like me.

WARREN: Have you thought— Have you— Has it occurred—? It’s possible, in the broad realm— Maybe you’re not very likeable?

Beat.

JOE: [a bit shocked] That’s— That’s— That’s—

WARREN: We’re not overly interested in your feelings, Joseph. That’s not our forte. Perfectly happy to admit it. If you want touchy-feely, get a therapist. We’re educators.

JOE: Jesus.

WARREN: We don’t like what you did.

JOE: No, well this confronts your ‘ethical’ code or—

WARREN: No, no, no—

JOE: —school philosophy on ‘diversity’—

WARREN: Oh no, Joe. No. No. No. I mean—of course, this is reprehensible and ethically— Well, this is all very unpleasant but don’t mistake this for some kind of moral judgement. No. No. If we did that we’d be hauling some little brat over the coals every fifteen seconds. No, no, no. No, Joe. You see, these days schools are marketing machines. Do you get that? Leave the moral issues aside for a moment. This is about pragmatism, son. We don’t like the way you make us look.

Beat.

JOE: [confused] That’s your primary concern? Appearance?

WARREN: If you quote me, I’ll deny it. But you’re intelligent and I think you deserve to hear the truth. Appearances are everything. That’s right. Content, meaning, depth, individuality, goodness, decency, faith, work ethic: all play second fiddle to appearance. The world runs on appearance from the United Nations through to shampoo billboards. No-one’s interested in your soul.

JOE: [out of his depth] But that’s— That’s—

WARREN: That’s life, Joe. Or ‘C’est la vie’, as someone said… someone French.

JOE: I don’t want to be here.

WARREN: Neither do I. But you’re a smart kid and smart kids are our rocket fuel.

JOE: So that should make the words count more. I don’t want to be here.

WARREN: Where do you want to be?

JOE: I don’t know.

WARREN: One year and then you’re out—

JOE: One year—

WARREN: Big wide world.

JOE: Don’t want to be there either. I’m anxious.

WARREN: Why wouldn’t you be? Who isn’t? We’re living in Anxiety Central. We’re on the Anxiety Express, mate. First stop nervousness, then up the line past disengagement, withdrawal, feelings of pointlessness, panic attacks and the ultimate destination, High Anxiety. Anxiety is the root of everything. You try hard to tackle an anxiety boldly, honestly, to deal with it, and then it’s gone and then well, fuck me, our mobile phones are carcinogenic and we’re all Vitamin D deficient. Anxiety is the only appropriate response. I’d go so far as to say that if you’re not anxious, you’ve got a problem.

JOE: To be honest, Mr Spring, sometimes I think you’re madder than I am.

WARREN: Don’t talk yourself into becoming something other. The ‘other’ is not that great. Being an outsider is not all it’s cracked up to be. Make a decision to be normal.

JOE: That’s funny.

WARREN: Once you’ve mastered normal, you can nuance it into interesting-normal.

JOE: ‘Interesting-normal’.

WARREN: Too interesting isn’t good.

JOE: Well, I’ll do my utmost to avoid it.

WARREN: In the end most people who are too interesting are just— Just— Well, boring.

JOE: Interesting-normal. That’s the jackpot?

WARREN: There’s going to be a meeting. In a community hall. The rental of which you’re paying for, by the way. You’re going to go home now and work on your speech. And you’re going to apologise. I hope you mean it, Joe, but I don’t care enormously that you mean it, I care enormously that you sound like you mean it. Got it? Got it? Good.

SCENE SEVEN

ALICE, JOE. At home.

ALICE: He persuaded you—

JOE: He didn’t persuade me.

ALICE: Explain to me.

Silence.

Tell me.

Silence.

Help me.

Silence.

Okay. Well, I’ll tell you. Somehow… somehow Trevor— He— He— He—persuaded you that this was— Was—an act of— That somehow this was brave or—or—or—singular— Some act of rebellion against —I don’t know—the frustrations of being—

JOE: [interrupting] I persuaded him.

Beat. ALICE is devastated.

He didn’t take much persuading. But if anyone persuaded…

Beat.

ALICE: I can’t believe that.

JOE: It doesn’t matter what you believe.

ALICE: I won’t let myself believe that!

JOE: That isn’t my problem. [Beat.] Is it really that big a deal?

Beat.

ALICE: Is it really…? Is it really…? [Beat.] You are breaking my heart.

JOE: It’s not that— It wasn’t supposed to be— It’s not that big a deal. It’s not a big deal.

Beat.

ALICE: You’re telling me you really don’t like these people? These people you don’t know?

JOE: They’re lunatics.

ALICE: Joe! Jesus! Joe— How can you—? For God’s sake. These people who fill our heads with—these tabloid editorials, the shock jocks—these are ignorant, racist people. And you allow them, you allow them— You’re just buying into some appalling, generalised—

JOE: I don’t believe all religions and cultures are equally valid. I think it’s alright to have a view that springs from where you are now and who you happen to be. That’s my belief. Are you telling me that my beliefs don’t count?

ALICE is defeated by this.

They don’t fit in. They don’t want to fit in.

ALICE: They don’t have to fit in! They can be who they are.

JOE: Alright, but I don’t like who they are.

Beat.

ALICE: Are you serious?

JOE: I graffitied a mosque.

Beat.

ALICE: I’m just not going to— I’m just not going to allow you— I’m— Joe, this is evil. This is evil. The things you’re saying— This is just— This is the way evil things happen. You’ve made up your mind— You’ve allowed yourself to— You’ve switched something off.

JOE: What have I ‘switched off’?

ALICE: You’ve switched something off in you—

JOE: Maybe I’ve switched you off!

ALICE: [angry] We’ve raised you a certain— We’ve always— In every way— In books, in art, in—in— In the conversations we’ve had around our table— In the people you’ve grown up with— In every way we have—we have— We’ve done everything we could to make you decent, to make you interested, to make you caring, to make you good. What else could we—? What else could we—? What else could we have done? We did everything!

JOE: It’s not that I don’t believe in goodness. I just think there’s bad shit out there and we should stop pretending that understanding is the way forward. These people have got their beliefs hard-wired into their brains. They’re not interested in building bridges with nice white doctors raising nice white sons in a lovely world full of beautiful sentiments. They stone their women. They bury alive homosexuals. They’re patriarchal brainwashed mother-fucking zealots who want to blow us all up.

ALICE: If you look at the extremes of any religion—

JOE: Do you think they like us? Let me break it to you: they—don’t—like—us. They fucking hate you. A woman who thinks for herself, wears what she wants, had a life, answers back. You’re their worst nightmare.

ALICE: Have you actually read anything, Joe? Have you even glanced at the Koran? Do you know what real Islam is? Who are we to tell these people they can’t be here? What rights do we have? We took this land from—

JOE: I didn’t take anything. And no, I don’t feel connected to humanity. There’s me. And my mates. And we’ve got one safe place. One safe place.

ALICE: Listen, you’re a— You’ve always been a— You’re a beautiful boy.

JOE: No, I’m—

ALICE: You’ve always been— You’re our—

JOE: No, I’m not—

ALICE: —beautiful boy. And you’re smart and you’re caring and you’re nice to people.

JOE: You can’t make me be who you want me to be.

ALICE: Joe. Where is your—compassion?

JOE: I feel compassion. But maybe I don’t feel compassion for the same things you do.

SCENE EIGHT

Patrick and Alice’s sitting room.

PATRICK, ALICE, BOB, ANNIE.

ALICE: Perhaps some tea?

ANNIE: Oh, no thanks. I’ll be running to the little girls’ room every two minutes!

PATRICK: Okay, so—

ALICE: So—

Awkward beat.

BOB: Sorry we’re late. Traffic was bad.

ANNIE: It’s like peak hour goes all day. We should have non-peak hour. There’s only one.

BOB: I left work early but—

PATRICK: What work do you do, Bob?

BOB: I’m at the Toyota manufacturing plant.

PATRICK: Toyota!

ALICE: We’re hopeless with cars— We have to call for assistance when we get a flat tyre.

PATRICK: [embarrassed] Not quite that bad—

ALICE: He gets me to call for help and then he hides in the bushes!

PATRICK: I wouldn’t go that far!

ALICE: Remember that time on the way home from Tilly’s wedding— You hid behind the tree when the man came—?

PATRICK: Very funny. She’s exaggerating—

ALICE: No, I’m not!

BOB: I assemble the Aurion.

PATRICK: Good car, Bob?

BOB: Very spacious, an integrated Optitron dash. Two hundred kilowatts of power.

PATRICK: Gee whiz.

BOB: Its lineage is motorsport. We built almost 100,000 vehicles last year, Patrick.

ALICE: How astonishing.

BOB: I could organise a tour for you—not a problem—

ALICE: You live out that way?

BOB: Just north of the plant. Fifteen minutes if I leave at the right time.

ANNIE: Trevor gets the train to school.

BOB: They love public transport at that age. It’s where all the social stuff happens—

ANNIE: Girls!

PATRICK: Don’t know about you, Bob, but my day wasn’t much different.

BOB: You’re right there, Patrick, definitely. Though we didn’t have Facebook—

PATRICK: We had actual faces and actual books!

BOB: The landline was about as high-tech as it got! Remember the first mobile phones?

PATRICK: Huge great things—

BOB: Like holding an encyclopaedia next to your earhole!

ALICE: What about you, Annie? Do you work outside the house?

ANNIE: I used to be a colourist—

ALICE: How lovely! I always wanted to paint—

ANNIE: No, a hair colourist—

ALICE: Oh! Well, that’s marvellous too…

BOB: She won prizes!

ANNIE: Not like your prize, Alice! We saw on the news—

BOB: Congratulations—

ALICE: Thank you—

BOB: [to PATRICK] Prize-winning wives!

ANNIE: I didn’t fix anyone’s brain—Bob. Just their roots.

BOB: What we found with Trevor, well, someone needs to be home.

ALICE: Very wise, Bob—

BOB: Kids need to know the rules. They need limits.

PATRICK: Limits. Absolutely. Absolutely need limits—no question at all about—

ANNIE: [quietly] Trev and Joe are probably not very good for each other.

ALICE: Pardon?

ANNIE: I said: Trev and Joe are probably not very good for each other.

Beat as they all take in this sudden declaration.

Sometimes two people are perfectly good people on their own. You wouldn’t think twice. Put them together and they set something off in each other.

BOB: We’ve thought about it.

ANNIE: It’s like there’s a part of them that’s there but not switched on.

BOB: That’s how we see it.

ANNIE: And then Trev comes along and switches on that part of Joe and Joe—

BOB: He does the same to Trev.

ANNIE: They’re regular boys—

BOB: They’re not unusual—

ANNIE: It’s not that they’re out of the ordinary— They’re good boys, really—

BOB: They’re regular kids— They’re regular boys but—

ANNIE: But they’re no good together.

Beat.

PATRICK: It’s a bit of a mystery to us—

BOB: Us too— Absolutely stumped—

PATRICK: Completely out of character—

BOB: Well, do we know their character?

PATRICK: Do we—?

BOB: Do we know them? At this age. They keep their secrets—

ALICE: Well—

PATRICK: We feel as if—

ALICE: Yes, we do—

PATRICK: We feel as if we know our son—

BOB: They’re out half the night—

PATRICK: We like to think that Joe has sense—

BOB: You might like to think that, Patrick, but what I’m saying is what we like to think and reality may not be the same thing.

ALICE: We feel it’s important to trust kids. We’ve always felt that if you treat them as intelligent, they will usually respond intelligently.

ANNIE: I’m not sure how intelligent Trev is, to be honest. He got the scholarship because of his rugby.

ALICE: [shocked] Well— Well— Usually they do rise to the expectation, we find—

BOB: He’s a good kid, Trevor. Always made us laugh. You could count on it. I remember when he was born, one of my friends said: ‘Welcome to the world of home entertainment’. And it was true. He was a lovely little feller. I used to lie down with him at night and tell him stories. And he’d lie there absolutely still. [Beat.] But that was then. And now— Well— [Toughening up] While he lives in our house, he has to accept someone else calls the shots—

ANNIE: Bob calls the shots—

BOB: I call the shots—

ANNIE: I’ve never really called the shots—

BOB: That’s my job. And it is a job. And while your attitude to Joe is very nice, it’s also—excuse my directness—completely nuts.

PATRICK: Well, hold on a minute— Joe has a curfew—

ALICE: He has to be home by a certain time, obviously—

PATRICK: Generally it’s by 12:30—

ALICE: He’s not roaming the streets all night—

BOB: But where are they?

PATRICK: They go to parties—‘gatherings’ as they call them—

ALICE: But we know—

PATRICK: He has a mobile phone, obviously—

BOB: The thing about a normal phone— The phones like we had— The phones that kept track of us belonged somewhere, didn’t they?

ALICE: That’s true.

BOB: They were in a house. With a family and the family had a name. There was a father. He was Tim or Sandy or Kev. The phone sat in a hallway or a kitchen and when you called it and you asked for your son, he was there, or he wasn’t there, we were there or we weren’t there. Our parents knew where the hell we were. Joe and Trevor can say where they are. They can shout it from the rooftops. But the mobile is out there, places unknown.

PATRICK: I take your point, Bob.

BOB: We didn’t raise Trevor to graffiti mosques.

PATRICK: No, exactly.

ALICE: Of course not.

BOB: I don’t know about you, but that’s not our style—

PATRICK: It’s horrifying—

ALICE: We were completely appalled.

BOB: Houses of worship, I don’t care what faith they are, they’re no-go territory.

PATRICK: Well, it’s vandalism, pure and simple.

BOB: Vandalism pure and simple—

ALICE: It’s more than vandalism—

ANNIE: I was very upset.

ALICE: I was devastated, Annie. You can’t help asking yourself—

ANNIE: Of course you do—

ALICE: What went wrong?

ANNIE: Exactly. What went wrong? That’s what you ask yourself.

BOB: Vandalising a mosque? I said to him. What kind of a lunatic are you?

PATRICK: We had a very similar reaction.

BOB: I don’t like those people as much as the next person, but that’s no reason to deface property. [Beat.] If they want a mosque, they can have a mosque. They’re welcome to their mosques.

ANNIE: We don’t mind them having a mosque.

Beat as PATRICK and ALICE absorb this.

BOB: Do I feel comfortable having a bloody great mosque in the middle of my neighbourhood?

ANNIE: Not comfortable, no—

BOB: But that’s not the point. The point is the mosque is there. It’s their mosque. And they have a right to it.

ANNIE: Of course they do. They’re human.

BOB: I don’t have to like it.

ANNIE: We don’t always get what we want.

BOB: That particular horse has bolted.

ANNIE: It’s bolted.

BOB: Do we wish it hadn’t bolted? You bet we do. But that’s spilt milk.

ANNIE: And no-one wants trouble, do they?

Beat as PATRICK and ALICE absorb this, shocked.

ALICE: Are you sure you won’t have some tea, Annie?

ANNIE: No, thank you very much.

Beat.

BOB: I think we’re pretty relieved to find that we’re on the same page—

ANNIE: When Siobhan and Madison got arrested in a nightclub, we had coffee with Madison’s parents and… well, it was difficult.

BOB: They don’t have a problem with the fact that their fifteen-year-old daughter who frankly dresses like a hooker is drinking vodka with footballers in a nightclub.

ANNIE: You’re lucky you don’t have a girl.

BOB: Trev’s a picnic in comparison. With girls, the problems are bigger.

ANNIE: It’s one thing having a deranged adolescent graffiting mosques. It’s another thing to have a deranged adolescent graffiting mosques, pregnant!

BOB: Not that Siobhan’s pregnant!

ANNIE: When she wants to express her individuality, she gets a tattoo like everyone else.

BOB: Nirvana on her left calf.

ANNIE: As I said to her: ‘I’m not sure Virgin will want a flight attendant with “Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away” above the ankle’.

BOB: Of course, nothing much comes home to roost in an ivory tower, does it? Well, let me break it to you, Pat. Your boy is competing against every little Chinese Einstein whose parents chain them to the computer every night and don’t give them a spring roll until their homework’s up to scratch. We’ve got gangs of African youth roaming our streets who’ve seen their grannies chopped up by machete-wielding animals. We’ve got Arabs slaughtering their daughters for getting up to funny business. I’m not passing judgment. I don’t mind what they do in their neck of the woods. But these are our woods.

PATRICK: Ah, Bob— Listen—

BOB: My feeling is that we take a united course of action while we wait for the school’s formal response.

ANNIE: Trevor’s scholarship will probably be withdrawn, so he’ll be going either way.

BOB: Fuckwit.

ANNIE: Bob’s—

BOB: Lost opportunity.

ALICE: But—

BOB: Grounding them for three months is a good start.

ALICE: Grounding them?

BOB: And no video games, otherwise what’s the point?

ANNIE: No, no video games.

BOB: And possibly no Facebook.

ANNIE: They’ll pay the ultimate price.

Beat.

PATRICK: I was going to suggest a rather different approach, actually. I think they should talk to the community. Apologise to the community.

BOB: The community?

PATRICK: The Muslim community.

ANNIE: Ooh!

PATRICK: I think they need to see the human cost, Annie.

BOB: I can tell you right now that talking to the Muslims isn’t going to work for Trevor. Banning Facebook has a fighting chance.

PATRICK: Don’t you think we need to show a little sensitivity—? I mean—?

BOB: They’re boys, Patrick. Don’t forget that. Getting into trouble is basically a rite of passage. It’s a badge of honour. I’m not excusing it, but—

PATRICK: A badge of honour? A badge of honour? I’m sorry but— I’m sorry but— Do you think, perhaps, that your feelings about the Islamic community might perhaps have something to do with the behaviour of our sons?

Beat.

BOB: [keeping calm] I beg your pardon, Patrick?

PATRICK: Don’t you think that perhaps Trevor has absorbed your antagonism—?

BOB: I’m the one to blame, am I?

PATRICK: Well, being objective, Bob, I think that it’s a distinct possibility that Trevor has taken this action as a way of… well… big-noting himself in your eyes.

ANNIE: Big-noting?

PATRICK: Wanting to impress you.

BOB: That’s your opinion, is it?

PATRICK: I think it’s perfectly possible he’s thought this up as a way of impressing you and he’s got into Joe’s ear and the two of them egged each other on a bit and one thing has lead to another.

BOB: So Trevor thought this up—?

PATRICK: I’m just saying that if he’s heard your—

ANNIE: We think it’s probably more the other way—

ALICE: The other way?

ANNIE: Trev is more of an Indian.

ALICE: Trevor is an Indian?

ANNIE: More of an Indian and less of a chief.

PATRICK: With respect, I don’t think so, Annie.

BOB: With respect, Patrick, I think the paint is the indicator—

PATRICK: The paint?

ALICE: The paint?

BOB: Joe stealing the paint—

ALICE: What?

BOB: Joe stole the paint.

PATRICK: Who said that?

BOB: It’s in the police report. Didn’t you know that?

ANNIE: Didn’t you know that?

BOB: It was Joe who stole the paint.

ANNIE: Joe’s the chief.

Beat as ALICE and PATRICK register this, humiliated.

BOB: With respect, I don’t think that there’s anything to be gained having the boys get up close and personal. Nice idea, but not going to happen. [Growing, steely rage] Our neighbour Ahmed goes to a mosque. He’s a great bloke. He loves his kids. He mows his lawn. Probably likes Powderfinger just like me. Good luck to him. But some things count, some things—like who was here first—count. We have our ways, they’re our ways, they may not be perfect but they’re ours. Some things are worth defending. You want to stay, then act like us. You might not be up to speed on this, Pat. You may not be quite aware because, and good for you, you’ve got your heads down and you’re writing. You’re writing your books— You’re winning your prizes—

PATRICK: Bob… Bob… I did not intend to be patronising, not at all. I just think Trevor knows or feels on a certain level that you have a hostility—

BOB: I’m not hostile—

PATRICK: Alright then, perhaps he got it wrong. But Trevor took one look at his father and mistakenly thought that perhaps this might impress—

BOB: Well, that’s possible. It’s also possible that Joe took one long look at you and thought: Is that what I want?

PATRICK: I beg your pardon?

BOB: Is that what I want? To become the kind of pussy who never acknowledges what actually is. What is. Because they’re living inside Cloud Fucking Cuckoo.

Beat.

PATRICK: ‘Pussy’?

BOB: Maybe Joe took one look at you and thought living that way— Well, it’s dishonest. [Quietly, but with right on his side] Because people like you always say what they’d like to be remembered for, not what they feel.

Towards the end of the following speech, tears fall silently from ANNIE.

ALICE: [still, calm, sad] I think we saw Trevor play in the finals last year. He’s a big strong boy. They suddenly explode, don’t they? It’s as if one minute they’re eating a half a sausage for dinner and the next thing taking them out for dinner sets you back a small fortune. Joe used to get into bed with us every morning and I’d hold him and we’d wake up slowly talking about the day ahead. He was part of us, we were three. Then suddenly they don’t like you to come within two metres of them. There must have been a last day, a last day when he got into bed. Maybe when he was ten or eleven. Those mornings probably dwindled and got rarer and then they stopped without a fanfare. And he never got into bed with us again. But there must have been a last day and we never noticed.

SCENE NINE

Same night. ALICE, PATRICK.

PATRICK: With a father like that, of course the kid’s no good!

ALICE: But Patrick—

PATRICK: Of course he’s a little racist—

ALICE: But Patrick—

PATRICK: There’s no mystery there! Father—son, son—father—

ALICE: But you’re not listening—

PATRICK: Blood counts. We can bang on about personal responsibility, about making choices, but in the end, we’re talking about DNA. Blood counts.

ALICE: But, Patrick, it wasn’t Trevor’s idea.

PATRICK: Oh, it was Trevor’s idea!

ALICE: But Joe stole—

PATRICK: I don’t care what Joe stole!

ALICE: But Joe said—

PATRICK: I don’t pretend to understand his motivation. He’s obviously deeply at fault. There’s definitely something wrong. But if you take one look at Bob you can see at whose feet we may safely lay the blame.

ALICE: PATRICK! WILL YOU LISTEN? WILL YOU LISTEN TO WHAT’S BEING SAID? Have you thought about this? Have you taken this in? Have you even wondered: Maybe Bob’s right—

PATRICK: [confused] Bob’s right?

ALICE: Maybe we need to look at ourselves!

PATRICK: We need to look at ourselves? Listen—

ALICE: No—

PATRICK: Listen—

ALICE: No, you listen! What did we do?

Beat.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: I said: What did we do? Isn’t it fair to ask, Patrick? To ask—

PATRICK: What we did?

ALICE: Did we do something?

PATRICK: This is about Trevor.

ALICE: [very clear, very certain] No, Patrick. This is about Joe.

Beat.

PATRICK: You want some kind of homily about— About—what? About discipline? About indulgence? About rebellion? Making a place for yourself in the world? Making a statement? Is that what you want? You want me to say—

ALICE: I’m asking—

PATRICK: You want me to say—

ALICE: I’m asking—

PATRICK: Guilty? We didn’t eat enough meals around the table at night. You had too many work trips. We gave him too much. He was too much the focus.… That’s what you want? That we find some formula for good parenting and measure ourselves up against it?

ALICE: Why shouldn’t we?

PATRICK: Why shouldn’t we?

ALICE: Why shouldn’t we hold ourselves up against some standard?

PATRICK: Who sets the standard, Alice? Who makes the rules about a good parent?

ALICE: [with deliberate calm] Trevor is Bob’s son.

PATRICK: Exactly. Exactly what I’m saying, Alice!

ALICE: And Joe is our son. [Beat.] Blood counts. [Beat.] Isn’t that what you said? What if we’ve—?

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: What if we’ve—?

PATRICK: WHAT?

ALICE: Done things.

PATRICK: Alice— We’ve all done things. Everyone’s done things!

ALICE: That’s not true.

PATRICK: It’s true enough. And in the end, we— We redeem ourselves. For years we apologise for who we used to be and what we once did. The insults hurled at well-meaning parents, the shoplifted book, the snide asides at the ugly or unbalanced, the absurd commitment to ideologies unhinged, unmeasured, unkind… The quick, cold fucks. We do penance with boring jobs and young children and mortgages: we do it because we’re guilty and we know if we suffer we’ll expunge the debt. That’s life. That’s why life begins at fifty. That’s the point you declare: I’ve made up for who I was. [Beat. Puzzled] We’re good people.

SCENE TEN

JOE is home alone, in a dishevelled school uniform. He has been sitting on the sofa, drinking an illicit beer, listening to his iPod. An issue of Delicious, the food magazine, happens to be lying there. He is standing at the door, which is open. REBECCA is standing there. They study each other a moment before REBECCA speaks.

REBECCA: I’m an idiot! He changed the time. I’m early—

JOE: For—?

REBECCA: Always late or early! Look, I’ll go and come back. That was just dumb. God!

Beat.

JOE: You can wait— If you want.

He opens the door. He gestures to the sofa.

REBECCA: Are you sure?

JOE: Help yourself.

She enters and sits down on a chair. He sits on the sofa as he was. Awkward.

I was about to go out.

Beat.

REBECCA: You don’t look like you’re going out.

JOE: I was contemplating it while staring off into space drinking beer. Listening to Black Flag.

REBECCA: I’d literally rather shoot myself in the head than listen to Black Flag. You know how people say ‘literally’ when they don’t mean literally at all? Well, I do mean literally.

JOE: [indicating his beer] Want one?

Beat.

REBECCA: No thanks.

JOE: What are you here for?

REBECCA: I write for the student rag. Your dad asked me for dinner.

JOE: I’m not staying for dinner.

REBECCA: Clubbing?

JOE: [fessing up] Violin.

REBECCA: I’m doing a piece on your mum—

JOE: The prize and that bullshit.

REBECCA: That globally significant, life-changing bullshit, yeah. I’m quizzing them both—

JOE: About?

REBECCA: Life.

JOE: Yeah? Dad certainly knows a lot about why Lady Gaga is ‘a cynical exploitation of post-feminist irony’, or say why tapas is just ‘a passing culinary fad’. He’s a bit of an amateur stand-up—

REBECCA: I didn’t know he was a comedian—

JOE: Oh, Christ, he’s no comedian. He just stands up.

She smiles.

REBECCA: You must be proud of her, yeah?

JOE: Oh, you don’t want a brain surgeon for a mother. It’s a nightmare.

REBECCA: How’s that?

JOE: She rings home to say she’s working late, I yell: ‘Jesus, woman, what about din-dins? It’s not as if you’re saving lives!’ Then I have to retract it.

She smiles.

Anyway. Don’t put me in your story.

REBECCA: But you’re part of their story. What’s the big deal? We’re all part of each others’ stories.

JOE: You just walked in the door. You’re not part of my story.

REBECCA: How do you know? Where is she, by the way?

JOE: Slow-parking the Prius, probably. She might be an award-winning neuroscientist but she can’t park to save her life.

REBECCA: Prius?

JOE: We have Al Gore to thank for that. She sold the Merc after hearing that sanctimonious twat on the lecture circuit.

REBECCA: Social conscience always comes at a huge cost.

JOE: That’s too huge in my opinion.

They chuckle. A moment of unison.

REBECCA: How is it being the progeny of two big deals?

JOE: Oh, it’s marvellous. My ego has no need to get out of the foetal position.

REBECCA: You seem perfect.

JOE: Yeah, we’re the poster family for poster families.

REBECCA: Read his books?

JOE: Fuck, no. That’s just distasteful.

REBECCA: What about you?

JOE: I’ve made an attempt to resist the subtle psychological and political inculcation of two dedicated bleeding hearts on their one and only.

REBECCA: You almost make apathy charismatic. [Beat.] Girlfriend?

JOE: No. God.

REBECCA: Good-looking boy like you.

Beat. He’s embarrassed, but pleased.

What do you want to do, anyway, after this caper?

JOE: This caper?

REBECCA: This education caper.

JOE: Get rich.

REBECCA: Not into big ideas, then?

JOE: Only if they make me money.

REBECCA: Your parents can’t approve of that.

JOE: It’s not my job to please them. Ask anyone. It’s virtually a prerequisite for progeny.

REBECCA: You’re tough.

JOE: I’m practical.

REBECCA: What’s money going to buy you?

JOE: Happiness.

REBECCA: I thought that was the one thing it couldn’t buy you?

JOE: Someone rich said that. To put off the competition.

They smile.

REBECCA: [casually] Should you be drinking beer?

JOE: Work experience.

REBECCA: Beer tasting?

JOE: Very popular choice for work experience.

REBECCA: Christ. And you could have padded around with Salman Rushdie. Mister Only Child. Mister World’s My Oyster, Apple Of Their Eye—

JOE: Not exactly.

REBECCA: Oh, come on!

JOE: I’m not the perfect child.

REBECCA: The perfect child would reject that title.

Beat.

JOE: I graffitied a mosque.

Beat.

REBECCA: Are you stupid?

JOE: That’s the general consensus.

REBECCA: Not for doing it. For telling me. You don’t know anything about me.

JOE: Oh.

REBECCA: You graffitied a mosque?

JOE: Yeah.

REBECCA: What did you write?

JOE: Does it make any difference?

REBECCA: Probably not… Unless it was ‘Islam Rocks’.

JOE: It wasn’t.

Beat.

REBECCA: Why?

JOE: Not sure.

Beat.

REBECCA: Fair enough.

JOE: That’s it?

REBECCA: Why?

JOE: The other reactions involved more words.

She studies him.

REBECCA: I think you want people to think you’re bad.

JOE: Bullshit, why?

REBECCA: Because goodness is quite a burden.

JOE: I’m not ‘good’.

REBECCA: Well, I can tell you’re not bad.

JOE: How?

REBECCA: Because you were reading Delicious. [Beat.] Your parents must be furious.

JOE: I didn’t create their expectations.

REBECCA: You don’t sound as if you like them.

JOE: ‘Like’ is for people who have a choice.

REBECCA: Interesting.

JOE: Their entire lives are about articulating the moral limitations of privilege, while being the embodiment of privilege.

REBECCA: What’s wrong with ‘privilege’?

JOE: It’s boring. It’s not hungry for anything. It’s unjust. They espouse ‘goodness’. But how hard is it to be good when everything’s been handed to you on a plate?

REBECCA: Well, you should know.

Beat. There’s a frisson between them.

JOE: Who are you, again?

REBECCA: Part of your story.

JOE: Are you?

REBECCA: I am now. [Beat.] You know— You’re interesting.

JOE: How would you know?

REBECCA: Because I’m interesting too.

Lights down momentarily.

SCENE ELEVEN

Half an hour later. REBECCA, PATRICK, ALICE. Drinks, snacks. PATRICK organises dinner.

Elsewhere onstage, in the shadows, is JOE. He is outside the house, perhaps smoking a cigarette or in a park, away but not far.

REBECCA: How social media dismantles traditional romantic narratives.

ALICE: Which means—?

REBECCA: Social media is deconstructing every way that love stories have been told for centuries because most great love stories are about overcoming communication mishaps: the crossed or lost letters, the buggies that pass in the night on country roads…

ALICE: That’s a fascinating subject for a PhD—

REBECCA: Yes, and utterly unsuited to any form of employment.

ALICE: University never used to be about job training. The entire mission for us was to be intellectually curious—

PATRICK: And sexually freewheeling—

ALICE: That too! Shouldn’t youth be a little bit chaotic? Shouldn’t it be a little bit dangerous? If not then, then when?

REBECCA: [to ALICE, casually] At university you were part of The Fury, weren’t you?

Tiniest beat.

ALICE: Good God! Ancient history!

REBECCA: I read about them a while back. Researching radical movements on campuses—

ALICE: [carefully] I was momentarily intrigued by radicalism— That was all a long time ago.

PATRICK: All campuses provided fertile ground for those groups of disaffected private school anarchists.

REBECCA: The Fury was a bit more serious, though.

PATRICK: They were exactly like the Black Panthers. Only middle-class. And white. And after an act of insurrection, they’d all go to a late night Blues Brothers screening.

ALICE: You don’t have to be facetious, Patrick.

PATRICK: You were a nice private school girl on a mission to shock your charming parents and like most children, let them know you were more interesting than they would ever be.

ALICE: That’s true but it was more than that.

PATRICK: I think the men in The Fury were understandably more interested in getting these nubile young hotheads into bed than saving the world. There’s a thesis in there somewhere: that at the heart of all extraordinary radical movements is ordinary lust.

REBECCA: [to PATRICK] You weren’t on a mission to shock your charming parents?

PATRICK: I met Alice a couple of years later when her flirtation with angry young men had morphed into academic rigour… and excellent taste in budding novelists. I was in France for a year, pretending to be Sartre when she and her buddies were rattling the barricades.

ALICE: There had been a huge swing back to conservatism post the sixties and seventies and someone had to say: ‘Stop. Think. Don’t Turn Back.’

REBECCA: Wasn’t it just a kind of romance?

PATRICK: Smart question.

ALICE: There was real feeling there too. We wanted to feel as if the world we were inheriting could be altered for the better— That we could alter it. If young people don’t feel that—

REBECCA: So the energy of the idealism is more important than the content?

ALICE: Youth is naïve and sometimes deluded but don’t we want passion in youth?

REBECCA: Then you didn’t mind too much when your son desecrated a mosque?

Beat.

PATRICK: Fuck.

Beat.

ALICE: Listen, Rebecca—

PATRICK: He told you?

ALICE: I’m going to ask you— Please— Please—

PATRICK: He just volunteered it?

ALICE: He’s a good kid— He’s just— There’s nothing good about what Joe did. That’s not what I mean, at all.

REBECCA: So passion is good, as long as it’s left-wing?

ALICE: I was talking about altering for the better. Not ignorant vulgar acts of impetuous self-aggrandisement.

Beat.

REBECCA: Don’t worry. Joe’s not my story.

Huge relief for PATRICK and ALICE.

ALICE: We felt that a degree of radicalism was a birthright—more than that—a duty. That every generation needed to shake up the establishment. Okay, we were post-Vietnam and pre-Iraq but there is always injustice. What did Samuel Johnson say? ‘An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.’ Some people feel the need to act. The actions don’t always measure up, but aren’t those feelings good? Don’t we want young people to feel deeply?

REBECCA: It’s interesting hearing you defend The Fury—

ALICE: We were watching. You don’t know what kind of a world you’d have now if we hadn’t been watching. Letting them know that the hypocrisies of the establishment were noted—

REBECCA: All that rage… What did it gain?

ALICE: We wanted human beings to think about the world they were tenants of, to banish inherited philosophies and quest for something alive and real and new. Yes, we were deluded about how to do things. Yes, we made mistakes. But at least we cared. We looked outside of ourselves—

REBECCA: Don’t we truly declare our politics through our grasp of ordinary—? Humanity. That’s such a big word but— Well— Empathy, morality, our sense of kindness: our grace?

PATRICK: My God, you’ve really—

REBECCA: [building in confidence and toughness] Real ideology is small. It expresses itself each day in the way we… speak to our neighbour or— Or— Tend to our children. Or how we spend our money… the words we use and—well, our ability to feel for those we don’t know. Those movements like The Fury were just theatre. What good is that fury? In the end? If you don’t lead good lives?

Beat. PATRICK and ALICE absorb her anger.

ALICE: [stupefied] If you don’t lead good lives? [Astonished, confronted] But we— We lead good lives.

PATRICK: You have inherited a much better world—

REBECCA: Have I?

ALICE: Because we fought battles that allowed you to— To make your mark, dream your dreams—

REBECCA: My dreams aren’t the same as yours. I don’t have public dreams. I don’t want to shine.

Beat.

ALICE: [shocked by REBECCA] I did what I did because it was important. Because it meant something. I did not court celebrity—

REBECCA: You’re not interested in being the centre of a story?

ALICE: No. No, I’m not.

REBECCA: And when you drove into the city that day. When you handed the suitcase to Browning…

Long beat.

ALICE: [quietly] Browning?

Beat. Nightmare.

PATRICK: Who’s Browning?

REBECCA directs herself solely to ALICE.

REBECCA: What did you want that day?

PATRICK: What? Who’s Browning?

REBECCA: I’ve always wondered about him. Was he mad? What makes someone do that?

ALICE sits absolutely still.

PATRICK: What is this?

REBECCA: Well, if he was mad he was very fucking eloquent.

She pulls a small journal out of her bag. ALICE eyes it with horror. REBECCA opens it.

ALICE: No. Don’t.

PATRICK: Will somebody please tell me what is going on?

REBECCA: His aunt tracked me down. He died. He left his diary. He named you.

Beat. JOE steps into the room. They’re all aware of his presence. Shocked, he stands quite still.

JOE: Named her?

Beat.

PATRICK: What?

JOE: What is this?

Beat.

ALICE: There is a world, here—

REBECCA: A world you’ve made—

ALICE: Yes. Yes, a world I’ve made.

Beat.

PATRICK: What’s going on?

REBECCA: The consulate bombing.

PATRICK: What?

REBECCA: The Fury?

PATRICK: That was just a rumour— That was— And Alice wasn’t—

ALICE: I didn’t know.

REBECCA: You didn’t know?

ALICE: I didn’t know it was real!

PATRICK: Will someone tell me what’s going on? What’s going on?

ALICE: It was thirty-two years ago!

REBECCA: That’s right. That’s my life.

PATRICK: Alice? [Beat.] Who are you?

ALICE: All those years being wrapped in childhood— Protected and constrained and suddenly you’re out there. Who might I be? Who am I really? We’d inherited a sense that physical actions might be… poems… Norman Morrison—the boy who set himself on fire outside the Pentagon during Vietnam. Kids before us—with nothing remotely special about them—had died for their beliefs. When Jack told us he wanted to form a movement dedicated to radical change called The Fury, we were enchanted and more than that, we were flattered. Nice middle-class kids, most of us, who needed to become something before turning into our parents. [Beat.] I was nineteen. I met some guy I’d never seen before at a garage. He gave me the suitcase. He— He told me it was just to— To frighten them— Just fireworks— I drove into the city. Jack was on the corner. Near the consulate. He crossed the street and took the case from me. [Beat. She collects herself.] Jack climbed the steps, dropped the case and turned back. The cop was calling out to him, moving toward the case. Suddenly there was… There was debris everywhere. Bits of pediment all over the street. It was silent. I had no idea. And there—on the steps—people started running towards—

REBECCA: Go on.

ALICE: I saw blood.

REBECCA: My blood. My father’s blood.

Silence. JOE runs out.

SCENE TWELVE

The same evening. PATRICK, ALICE. At home.

ALICE: Because if I told you, you couldn’t have loved me!

PATRICK: [fierce, with absolute certainty] Yes, I could. Yes, I would. Yes, I do. [Beat.] You were young—

ALICE: No—

PATRICK: Yes! You didn’t know what you were doing. You didn’t know what you were caught up in! Jesus, Alice! We’ve all done stupid things. You were in the grip of something. It was exciting. You were bored with the world you’d emerged out of. That’s all natural! This group exploited kids who were bright and curious and looking for something to be. That was you. That’s not a crime. It’s not a crime to want things to be something. Okay, you misjudged, they misjudged— You weren’t told the truth. You were lied to. You didn’t know. Okay. That’s okay. Really. It was a terrible thing that happened to Rebecca’s father but you didn’t know. [Beat.] Darling… darling… You were a victim too.

Silence.

Alice.

Silence.

Because— Because—when they got you involved that day, they never actually said—they— They never said what was actually— What was— What was in the case.

Silence.

Alice.

Silence.

Did they?

Silence.

[Terrible foreboding] Say it! ‘I was a victim, too!’ ‘I was a victim too.’ Say it! Say it!

Silence. He studies her. The terrible truth.

ALICE: You see? You see now? You see?

PATRICK, through the darkest confusion, understands that now, in an instant, they are doomed.

PATRICK: Alice…

ALICE: Patrick—

PATRICK: I— I—

ALICE: Patrick—

PATRICK: You knew? [Beat.] You— [Speechless] You— You— You knew it was—?

ALICE: I thought— I know how it— But I was completely enthralled— I was— I thought—

PATRICK: [utter horror] He was a kid—

ALICE: I didn’t see him as a kid.

PATRICK: He was just a kid himself—

ALICE: I saw him as a cop.

PATRICK: He was few years older than Joe—

ALICE: Don’t say that! I thought—

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: I— I— I— I thought—

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Patrick!

PATRICK: What?

Beat.

ALICE: I thought it was worth it.

Long silence.

PATRICK: How could you—?

ALICE: [desperate] Because I was young! Because I was bored and angry and lonely! Because Jack Browning was handsome and funny and angry and he flattered me! Because we were all in the grip of some mindless anti-American sentiment that felt authentic and important. Because I hated kids who didn’t believe in anything except getting a job and becoming their parents. Because a degree of coldness is glamorous when you’re young. Why the fuck did I do an inhuman thing? For a million human reasons!

Horror. Silence.

Patrick…

He looks at her. Very slowly, ALICE regroups as PATRICK, devastated, tries to absorb it.

[Urgent, knowing what she’s fighting for] What’s important here— What’s important is— I know it’s not— I know it isn’t— But— But— But— But— No-one knows.

Beat.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Well—

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: No-one knows.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: No-one else knows. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know I knew.

Beat.

PATRICK: [confused] What are you—?

ALICE: I’ve worked so hard.

Beat.

PATRICK: You’ve worked hard?

Beat.

ALICE: If no-one knows…

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: If no-one knows— If… if you can forget it—

PATRICK: Forget it?

ALICE: For the sake of us. For the sake of Joe.

PATRICK: I— I—

ALICE: Just think about it, Patrick! Just think about it— If I take it back— If I— If I take it back—the words that just— If I take them back, if we turn back the clock just a few minutes and we— We— Both of us, we agree to— We agree—

PATRICK: [with utter certainty] But we know.

Beat.

ALICE: [fighting for her life] We’ve been— We’ve always been—perfect.

PATRICK: Perfect?

ALICE: Perfect together. And we can— We can go on being perfect together. You love me. [Beat.] You need me.

PATRICK: Do I?

ALICE: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes! Yes, you do. You do. You do. Patrick, you do. We complement— You’re so many things— You’re— You’re the heart of— But I get things done. I ground us.

PATRICK: You ground us?

ALICE: All these years, while you wrote, I was out there—

PATRICK: ‘Out there’?

ALICE: No-one thinks your writing is more important than I do. But it took you seven years—

PATRICK: Yes, but—

ALICE: Seven years to write the first novel because—

PATRICK: Because everything we did, we did in the service of you.

ALICE: That’s not true!

PATRICK: That’s exactly how it was—

ALICE: You couldn’t write the fucking book!

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: You had no discipline! You had no order! You couldn’t think back then! You were distracted by anything, by everything— You sought out distraction.

PATRICK: That’s—

ALICE: You used me as an excuse. I was a foil for your failure!

PATRICK: [shocked] Is that what you think?

ALICE: That’s why I said it! I had the freedom to pursue my ambitions because I had ambitions—

PATRICK: It might have been me.

ALICE: [impatient] It couldn’t be you.

PATRICK: [angry] Why couldn’t it have been me? Why not? Why the fuck not? I think! I think! I write! I create! I’m someone!

ALICE: Because you dabbled. You were smarter and more talented than me, but what’s the point? To be a great writer, Patrick, you have to—fall.

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: Fall. Headlong. Like me. Like me. Because the fact is— The fact is—that everything interesting happens when we stop being tasteful.

Beat.

PATRICK: I fell headlong into you, didn’t I?

Beat.

ALICE: Any time you had a great idea you pissed it away prevaricating because you didn’t—

PATRICK: What?

ALICE: [teetering] You didn’t—

PATRICK: I didn’t—?

ALICE: [can’t help herself] Stand for anything.

Beat.

PATRICK: [quietly] I didn’t stand for anything?

ALICE: No, alright! No! We are the antidote to each other. That is marriage. I stand for too much. You stand for too little. We balance each other out. Wasn’t that obvious? Haven’t we always known that?

PATRICK: [devastated] Have we? [Beat.] You always said things so well, they couldn’t be argued against even when they were wrong— Or cruel— Or cruel and wrong—

ALICE: But it’s true, Patrick. [Beat.] What have you ever gone out on a limb for?

PATRICK: [broken] You want me to apologise for not being like you? For not—killing a boy?

Beat.

ALICE: I love you. [Beat.] I need you.

Beat. PATRICK walks to the door.

SCENE THIRTEEN

REBECCA and ALICE. A park.

REBECCA: All I have of my father is an image inside my head. A body in space. Facing the sky, the back bent in an arch, his fringe lifted by gravity off the forehead, the eyes open: taking in the clouds, luminous like a painted backdrop. What was he thinking, suspended there, a spring morning, city noise, cranes, taxis? Was he thinking of the child he’d never— Was he thinking of the woman he— Or did think: Here it goes? Here it goes… Sooner than I thought?

ALICE: In my own way— I’ve tried— I’ve tried—

REBECCA: How many lives do you need to save to make up for the one you killed?

ALICE: How many lives do you need to destroy to make up for the one you never knew?

SCENE FOURTEEN

PATRICK and JOE at home. PATRICK has a suitcase beside him.

PATRICK: [beyond pain, as if he’s addressing a little boy] You’ll see me. Of course you will. Just as much.

JOE: But—

PATRICK: You will always and forever more be the most important thing in her life. And mine. That’s the only certainty here.

Beat.

JOE: [like a little boy] But don’t you love her?

PATRICK: Well… [Broken] She made you. So— So— But it’s— It’s— [Hard] It’s over.

JOE: [distraught] What? That’s it? That’s it? That’s it, then? What? You just— You just— Suddenly, you decide— You two just decide— And then— Then everything changes? I’m— You know— I’m— I’m— I mean, I’m here too. [Beat.] Is this what you want?

Beat.

PATRICK: It’s what I have to do.

JOE: I don’t get it. You’re not a saint.

PATRICK: No.

JOE: You’re not a saint.

PATRICK: No.

JOE: She was a kid. Like me. She stuffed up. Didn’t she—?

PATRICK: Yes, but—

JOE: So— She fell in with the wrong lot, whatever— Who cares? Something happened, she was swayed, she was— She was looking for something— Who doesn’t get that?

PATRICK: Yes—

JOE: You’ve forgiven me. [Beat.] It’s the same—

PATRICK: It’s not the same—

JOE: It’s the same! It’s the same thing! It’s the same thing! It’s the same thing!

PATRICK: Joe, it’s not—

JOE: Why are you such a hard cunt? Don’t you remember who you were once? Don’t you remember wondering, trying to figure it out? Before you sat in your tower writing fiction. Before you buried yourself in fiction, don’t you remember reality? Trying things? Making mistakes. Before you knew everything!

PATRICK: Joe!

JOE: You forgave me so—so—so— So forgive her.

Beat. Gruelling for PATRICK.

PATRICK: Joe, a man died.

JOE: Okay, but—

PATRICK: He died.

JOE: But she didn’t know what was in the case—

He looks at his father’s face. The unmistakable truth.

SCENE FIFTEEN

ANNIE and ALICE. Neutral territory.

ANNIE: Bob wouldn’t like it.

ALICE: Well, I won’t tell him.

ANNIE: I appreciate the call.

ALICE: I was very upset, Annie. To hear about Trevor.

ANNIE: He was a scholarship boy.

ALICE: I know. He’s a clever boy—

ANNIE: Not clever. No. But in his own way, he shines. We’ve always said that. Bob and I. Siobhan has her good points but Trevor’s always been the one. The special one.

ALICE: He’s a great forward, I believe.

ANNIE: They say that. They say one of him comes along a generation. That’s what Mr Newfield said, the sports teacher. Could go far with that talent, he said to us. But they’ve taken away the scholarship so that’s that then.

ALICE: I’m terribly sorry.

ANNIE: You have to have an unblemished record. I understand that.

ALICE: But it was Joe’s idea.

ANNIE: Yes, it was Joe’s idea.

ALICE: I’d like to pay for Trevor’s fees, Annie.

ANNIE: Pay for his fees?

ALICE: I can afford it. I’d like to do something useful.

ANNIE: No thank you, Alice.

ALICE: I don’t see why Trevor should have to pay the consequence. And he doesn’t have to if I pay the fees. He can stay there. I’ve already spoken to Mr Revel and he’s prepared to keep him on without the scholarship.

ANNIE: No thanks, Alice.

ALICE: Please don’t let your pride get in Trevor’s way.

ANNIE: Thanks for the advice.

ALICE: Annie, if you think about this— I feel responsible.

ANNIE: Well, be that as it may, not everything’s about you, Alice. You know on the way home from your house last time, Bob said to me: did you see the books? You have a lot of books. I did see the books. A beautiful library, you have. I saw the books and I saw the furniture. Lovely, good quality furniture, probably European, is it? Stylish, isn’t it? Has that certain something, you can tell. And you have the view, of course. Over the garden. Which is so big for the city and a real little getaway, I imagine. There’s the neighbourhood over the fence and the whole street is very nice with the houses and the gardens just like yours. The house with its books feels crowded with— With thoughts: there are things you notice that we never notice. And you can spend hours talking about them—tiny little things that Bob and I never even see! For a while we felt a little bit envious, I think, sitting there, on the freeway, on our way home. I think Bob and I both thought if things had been a bit different, even one small thing, who knows? We might have been your neighbours. We might have been you. By the time we walked in the door of our house, all that envy had just… disappeared. That’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You’ve got so much to want and we don’t want it.

SCENE SIXTEEN

JOE and ALICE. She’s holding a copy of the paper.

Beat.

JOE: [quietly, gradually, slowly] Remember at the shack when you and your friends would stay up all night drinking and arguing? I had no idea what you were all talking about. But there was—in your voices—there was this sense of—things mattering. Something was at stake. [Beat.] It’s not good to belong to people who are too good. There’s no room.

ALICE: There’s no room?

JOE: When we drove back in the school bus from the game against St Michael’s, I saw the mosque. It wasn’t the mosque I wanted to desecrate.

ALICE: We’re not too good.

JOE: No. You’re not.

Beat. They stare at one another. Silent understanding.

ALICE: Why didn’t you tell Rebecca I knew about the bomb, Joe?

JOE: Because if I can’t forgive you, I have to lose you. I mean forgiveness— it’s—

SCENE SEVENTEEN

All characters are onstage. All in their separate spaces, apart from PATRICK, ALICE and JOE.

ALICE: I wanted you to be here.

PATRICK: All these years I’ve done exactly what you want me to do. Why is that?

ALICE: Because I’m worth it.

PATRICK: You might be brutally flawed but you still think you’re better than me. Why is it… why is it always… that better people prostrate themselves before worse? Is it because we nicer people look at you and think: if only I had that freedom? If only I had that one, resolute strand of DNA that puts excitement above… morality?

ALICE: It wasn’t long ago you loved me.

PATRICK: You’re not who you said you were.

ALICE: I’m all of it, Patrick. I am the nineteen-year-old Alice who carried the suitcases, the twenty-one-year-old who stood on the Dean’s car and tap-danced, and the thirty-eight-year-old who felt a baby inside her and wrote you a note saying I’d—

PATRICK: [heartbroken] ‘Swallowed a flotilla of moths.’

ALICE: Your youth doesn’t dismantle or evaporate. It hides there, intact, inside a specimen bell. I was wrong not to tell you. I love you, I love you, I love you, Patrick. I love you—

PATRICK: What do you want?

ALICE: I want to be ‘us’. [Beat.] About a year after we’d started going out, I remember we were walking home through the park and I stopped and I closed my eyes and I said to myself: ‘Please, God, let me be with this man in ten years time’. And at thirty you were still beside me when I opened my eyes each morning. And I made that wish again. And at every marking of time, I grew terrified of the feeling that—without remotely earning it—I had been blessed with astonishing fortune and that at some point, the balance would be rectified. Then Joe was born. And although I am a creature of uncontrollable criticism and judgement… he was beauty, he was life, he was, in a single gaze, everything that was best about us both and I thought: still the balance is not redressed. Because I have you and now I have him and when I held Joe at seven minutes past nine on that February morning and I cried, it wasn’t for happiness. It was for misery. His tiny, perfect face symbolised an injustice of which I was the beneficiary. And somewhere very far beneath the surface the question lay, like the tremblings that precede an earthquake: the question of when the imbalance of love, luck, beauty, prosperity, ordinary happiness…would one day be redressed.

He turns to her and takes a step.

Blackout.

THE END