by Nick Enright
They do not lie awake in the dark…
STEPHANIE mutters along with JOSH.
STEPHANIE: ‘And weep for their sins…’ Fantastic. I’m just going to make a quick… private phone call.
She goes into the kitchen. JOSH pours a glass of whiskey. Someone is heard approaching via the deck. TOM enters. They look at one another in silence.
JOSH: Where’s Jason?
TOM: Gone home to finish The Magic Flute. Where’s Flix?
JOSH: Flicka? Who knows. Out there by some stretch of water, I guess.
TOM: You were at high school together?
JOSH: Yep. And if it hadn’t been for that goddam yearbook—
TOM: I had my doubts before.
JOSH: Yeah?
TOM: When she served me dinner. She’d never try and make one lobster stretch to three. Hadn’t you better be going?
JOSH: Not till I see Flicka.
TOM: I think tonight’s over, mate.
JOSH: Not according to your watch. You’re still on Californa time.
TOM: That can be easily adjusted.
JOSH: You still don’t have your latchkey.
TOM: Hey, what is this? The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?
JOSH: The O.K. Corral. That’s what Flicka used to call our school choir.
TOM: What?
JOSH: The Okay Chorale. But we were better than okay. We sang for all the right causes. The grape pickers, the Chicago Seven fighting fund… we liked a good challenge.
TOM: I can see that.
JOSH: And of course, we liked to sing.
He starts singing lustily.
Shall we gather at the river—
TOM: Jesus!
JOSH: [singing] The beautiful, the beautiful, the river—
TOM: Look, mate—
JOSH: Shall we gather at the river—
TOM: Why don’t you gather yourself into a car and piss off?
JOSH: You’re getting hostile.
TOM: I’m getting things back into historical perspective.
JOSH: Meaning?
TOM: Meaning piss off.
FLICK enters from the deck.
FLICK: What was that singing?
JOSH & TOM: [together] I’ve been looking for you.
They stop and look at one another.
All night.
FLICK: The Okay Chorale.
TOM: We’ve already done that joke. How long has this reunion been planned?
FLICK: Nothing was planned. He rang the restaurant at lunchtime.
TOM: And flew in for dinner?
JOSH: Bad line-call.
FLICK: He was here to give a lecture. We haven’t seen one another in twenty years!
TOM: Yet he knew where to find you.
FLICK: He saw me in a bar…
TOM: What!
FLICK: I mean, on TV in a bar, with Becker and Lendl.
TOM: So, he came for dinner.
JOSH: He? The name is Joshua Makepeace.
TOM: Makepeace? Bit wide of the mark.
FLICK: And he’s flying out tomorrow night.
JOSH: Not necessarily.
FLICK: What? What do you mean?
JOSH: Later.
TOM: Later. There isn’t going to be any later.
JOSH: Okay, here and now. My plans are flexible.
TOM: It must be the jet-lag. I could swear I heard you doing a line for my wife.
JOSH: I’m just talking travel plans.
TOM: All right. Piss off.
JOSH: Hey—
TOM: That’s a travel plan.
JOSH: I could think of others.
TOM: Like what?
JOSH: Like coming back to the hotel with me.
TOM: Tonight? I’m sorry, I have a headache.
JOSH: Is that what you call playing the net? [to FLICK] The guy’s into power, Flicka.
FLICK: The guy? His name is Tom Finn.
JOSH: The hot-shot manager. After he drove you out of the house tonight—
FLICK: He didn’t drive me out, Josh. I went for a walk!
JOSH: And he stayed to lay this power trip on Jason. He can’t let go, Flicka. [To TOM] Can you?
TOM: Let go of Jason? Well, it would be hard for me. Specially after all that’s happened tonight.
JOSH: Are you hearing this?
FLICK: Go easy, Josh.
TOM: Forget the easy. Just go.
JOSH: Don’t get territorial. You couldn’t even remember your anniversary.
TOM: Oh, shit. Sorry. But I made it home.
JOSH: Without his latchkey.
TOM: Now that is a bad line-call. I got here, Flix. And before the clocks went back.
STEPHANIE comes serenely out of the kitchen, still holding the frangipanni.
STEPHANIE: Oh, you’re back, Fliss. We looked everywhere. I’ve just rung Brendan and given him up.
FLICK: At four o’clock in the morning?
STEPHANIE: Josh gave me the courage. And the words. ‘Animals do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.’ Isn’t that beautiful? Paul Whiteman.
TOM: [to FLICK] You organised this dinner-party, you wrap it up. And soon, please.
He goes into the kitchen. STEPHANIE touches JOSH with the frangipanni.
STEPHANIE: He’s wonderful, Fliss. So profound. What a waste. I’m going to sit on my deck and look at the moon on the water.
She wafts the frangipanni by them.
Isn’t this heaven? Something to dream on. Thanks for dinner, Fliss.
She goes off via the deck.
FLICK: You were going home tomorrow.
JOSH: That can change.
FLICK: What about your classes? What about Sacco and Vanzetti?
JOSH: They’ll live. I want to be with you.
FLICK: It doesn’t worry you that my husband’s in the next room?
JOSH: If it doesn’t worry you. But we can always go somewhere.
FLICK: Tonight?
JOSH: Tonight, tomorrow, whenever.
FLICK: Josh, you have a life in California.
JOSH: Sounds like he does, too. Complete with swimming pool and hot-tub.
FLICK: Would you lay off Tom?
JOSH: Why? He doesn’t deserve you.
FLICK: We have a marriage, Josh.
JOSH: Sure. You’re married to him, he’s married to Jason Strutt.
FLICK: Well, I’m sure you can relate to that.
JOSH: You heard him. He can’t let go.
FLICK: That isn’t quite what he said. And he has more to say.
JOSH: About this bimbo with the hot-tub?
FLICK: Maybe. But he did come back early.
JOSH: Without his latchkey.
FLICK: With something to say.
JOSH: And you can’t figure it out what it is? Flicka, I do have a life in California. But it’s very lonely. And tonight you tell me you’re lonely too.
FLICK: True.
JOSH: This place is crazy. You need some personal space.
FLICK: True.
JOSH: And we had something special.
FLICK: True. That was a wonderful year. It was… something special.
JOSH: We could have that again. We could start over.
FLICK: You think so?
JOSH: I know so. We both felt it tonight. We have something.
FLICK: What I have, I don’t know. What you have is a challenge. And you like challenges, Josh. Causes. Always did. Abbie Hoffman. Gene McCarthy. Holly.
JOSH: Holly?
FLICK: Yes. She must have been a challenge. A conquest. Am I right?
JOSH: What are you saying?
FLICK: I’m saying go home, Josh. It’s very late.
JOSH: Not too late.
FLICK: Oh, yes.
JOSH: You’d let him back in? Without his keys?
FLICK: One thing at a time, Josh.
JOSH: Flicka, you can’t just walk out on this!
FLICK: No, I can’t. But you can.
She kis
ses him.
Now go.
JOSH: ‘If I go, I ain’t going alone. I’m taking you with me, Lily.’
FLICK: Oh, Josh.
JOSH: ‘The crocuses will bloom, and soon will come the harvest, and then the time for storing and setting indoors. But you’ll go through all that time like a sleep-walker. For you’ll be with me, wherever. You and this night, and this hush, and this moon.’
FLICK: That play… I thought it was so poetic…
JOSH: Yeah.
FLICK: And it’s a crock of shit, isn’t it?
JOSH: It’s a national classic.
FLICK: Exactly.
JOSH: Goodbye.
He kisses her.
You’re right.
FLICK: About what?
JOSH: Challenge. Conquest. I Was a Teenage Tamburlaine. Am. But tonight… that’s not what I had in mind.
FLICK: You’re sure?
JOSH: Back then, there was no conquest. No contest even.
FLICK: I was such a pushover?
JOSH: I was the pushover. You were a foreign powere. Foreign and surprising and funny. You still are. Thanks for dinner.
FLICK: My pleasure.
He waves and goes out the door. After a moment she goes onto the deck and watches him on the road below. Suddenly she starts to laugh. TOM enters from the kitchen.
TOM: He’s gone?
FLICK: Yes.
TOM: For good?
FLICK: So to speak.
TOM: This is the first time?
FLICK: It would have been. And Heidi?
TOM: Heidi’s done a lot for me.
FLICK: Great.
TOM: She sent me home a day early.
FLICK looks at him, puzzled. He is smiling.
I want to tell you about her.
FLICK: Don’t do this to me, Tom. If you want to leave me, say so. But I can’t bear all this smiling. Tell me. At least we’ll be talking for once.
TOM: We always used to talk. Back then.
FLICK: Back then. I can scarcely remember what you were like, back then. Now, if you’re here, you’re busy, and if you’re not… remember before we were married, you took me to hear that great woman… Sarah Vaughn. And she sang The Nearness of You? And we melted. These days it’s a different song. The not-hereness of you.
TOM: Seemed to be okay by you tonight.
FLICK: For the first time in my life. And I would have kept quiet about it, I wouldn’t have flaunted it like you.
TOM: Like me? Like how?
FLICK: ‘Heidi sent me home a day early.’ Really!
TOM: How do you see her?
FLICK: Like those girls in the yearbook. Big, blonde, nubile…
TOM: Nubile. She’s seventy-eight years old. She has blue hair and fifteen cats. She’s Jason’s clairvoyant.
FLICK: Oh. This is the truth?
TOM: She’s Jason’s clairvoyant.
FLICK: And you couldn’t have told me this before?
TOM: I was easing up to it. I didn’t want you laughing.
FLICK: Why would I laugh? I know Jason has a clairvoyant.
TOM: But she’s mine now as well.
FLICK: Your clairvoyant?
TOM: Don’t laugh at me. She’s infallible.
FLICK: Tom! Throw the I Ching, get your chart done, do any of that stuff, I don’t mind, but don’t tell me anyone’s infallible.
TOM: She forecast Wimbledon.
FLICK: My mother forecast Wimbledon.
TOM: Jason swears by her. I thought she might be able to help sort him out.
FLICK: And?
TOM: She said come home tonight. And be prepared for some big changes.
FLICK: Oh, well! She’s the new Nostradamus.
TOM: We’re going to have a kid.
FLICK: According to Heidi?
TOM: According to me. If that’s what you’d like.
FLICK: Oh, that’s what I’d like. There’s only one problem, Tom. We’ve already got one. So to speak.
TOM: No we haven’t. Jason sacked me. Or I sacked him, I’m not quite sure which.
Dawn begins to break.
FLICK: But you said—
TOM: I said it would be hard to let him go. And it was.
FLICK: What will you do now?
TOM: Start something new. Just like Heidi said.
FLICK: Well, good old Heidi.
TOM: The chance of a child.
FLICK: She slipped you a fertility potion?
TOM: She drove me to the airport. I think we can manage the rest. She said, ‘Cancel that dinner.’ Just like you. She said, ‘Go home before the clocks go back.’
He kisses her. She is distracted.
Was it sad saying goodbye to him?
FLICK: He was part of a good year. And I loved him. And tonight he made me remember what I was like. Yes, it was sad.
TOM: When I came out you were laughing.
FLICK: I watched him from the deck, going down to the road. He looked so forlorn. He walked to his car, stopped, looked up at the moon. Then he turned and sprinted up the steps to Stephanie’s house.
They start to laugh, quietly at first, then helplessly. Music is heard: Sarah Vaughn singing The Nearness of You.
Hey, mister, can you stay a little longer?
TOM: Tonight I’ve got all the time in the world.
FLICK: Isn’t that lucky? So have I.
As the sun comes up, they begin to slowly dance together on the deck.
THE END
Copyright Details
First published in 1990 by
Currency Press Pty Ltd
PO Box 2287
Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
www.currency.com.au
[email protected]
Reprinted 2005, 2008, 2012 (twice), 2014
First digital edition published in 2015 by Currency Press
Copyright © Nick Enright 1990
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