by Rachel Cusk
WOMAN 1
It’s the children you’ve got to feel sorry for.
WOMAN 3
I mean, did she not keep tabs on his phone?
WOMAN 1
They’re the ones who really suffer.
WOMAN 3
Did she not keep an eye –
WOMAN 1
– aren’t they?
WOMAN 3
– on the situation?
WOMAN 5
She isn’t exactly what you’d call a normal mother.
WOMAN 1
They get scarred for life, apparently.
WOMAN 2
I mean, I’m not saying it’s not well written.
WOMAN 3
Some women just seem to bring it on themselves.
WOMAN 5 (Whispers, looking over at MEDEA.)
I mean, I’d be calling Childline if I were them.
WOMAN 1
You’ve just got to keep it together for the children.
WOMAN 2
I’ve just heard it’s quite –
WOMAN 1
Haven’t you?
WOMAN 5
She’s not, you know, one of us.
WOMAN 2
– angry?
MEDEA
I know you. I know what you’re like.
You think I should keep it to myself.
I know what you’re like, all warm in your bed of compromise.
A bad thing has happened to me.
You’re scared that if I name it, it might happen to you too.
It’s warm in your beds, warm and dark, and you’re half-asleep.
You shrink from the cold air – you screw up your eyes against the light.
Haven’t you heard? Out of suffering comes truth.
I’ll put it another way for you: pain is reality; it can’t be denied,
unless you deform yourself hiding it, like you do.
All that dissembling has made you ugly.
You learned it at your mothers’ breasts,
how to powder your faces, how to lie, even to yourselves,
while truth stalks the dark of your minds like an assassin.
He’ll find you eventually, hunt you down and show you to yourselves,
with your bored husbands, your selfish children, your slack bodies
and minds.
Yes, all that dissembling takes its toll,
fawning on men and property like the dogs you are,
making a living, like any prostitute must.
I’d rather be dead than unfree.
I’d rather bare my neck to the assassin truth than run away from
him any longer.
Someone turned the lights on – now he can see me, but I can see
him too.
Sleep, woman, sleep.
Lie back in your bed and close your eyes.
You won’t even feel it when he creeps to your side and slits your throat.
What’s that you say? What about love?
Yes, you’re loving souls aren’t you?
You love the whole world. You love your little hearts out.
It’s all right, you can hate me.
Go ahead, feel free.
It’s so much easier than hating yourselves.
SCENE 4
The sitting room. MEDEA is sitting writing at her desk. The CLEANER is dusting and tidying.
CLEANER
You want I make the floor?
Pause.
You want I make the floor in here?
Pause.
I make it next week. It not so dirty.
I am all the time in the boys’ rooms. Long long time! People say man work, woman drink coffee. I say, what country that? Sound nice, but I never visit.
Pause.
It make me very happy to be in those rooms. It remind me of my son’s room back at home. All the same things! The little men, the little cars, everything so small. Your one son like football, no?
My son the same. Even the – the –
MEDEA
The smell.
CLEANER
The smell just the same!
MEDEA
Where is your son?
CLEANER
Oh, he stay in Brazil. He stay with my mother. Maybe I see him in spring. Depends of the money. It costs a lot, a lot to make the flight. I say to him, you prefer see me or get playstation this Christmas?
MEDEA
Does he say?
CLEANER
What?
MEDEA
Does he say which he’d prefer?
CLEANER
He say he want both!
MEDEA
What about his father?
CLEANER
Oh, he not interest. He got new wife, she young and jealous. She don’t want his love wasted on my son. Sometimes he come around, he leave again after five minutes. He say, Marta, what happened, the boy turned into a mariposa! He all the time crying, like a little baby! I say yah, it’s true, he don’t feel so good, his daddy left him.
MEDEA
You must be angry.
CLEANER
Oh, at first I want to kill him – and kill her twice as bad!
MEDEA
How would you do it?
CLEANER
What?
MEDEA
How would you kill them?
CLEANER (Laughs.)
Yah, you right, I think about it! They live in nice apartment where the carpets all white. I imagine taking big knife into their room one night and turn all those white carpets red. I imagine set fire to that apartment so they melt like two big candles. Is nice to imagine! But then I think, is too much risk. Someone see me, the police come, I go to jail. I think, oh no, that even worse than this! My mother, she say to me, make it like poison in the blood, Marta. Make it silent, invisible. Oh, I try to think how, but is no good. Mama say, trouble with you Marta, you not smart enough. You still love that good for nothing. I say to her, is better to love, no? Love is like sunshine, it make everything the same.
MEDEA
There must be some way to punish them.
CLEANER
When I come here I think, yah, now they don’t laugh at me. I think, now they feel bad. I think it punish them for me to be gone. But instead I get punish. I miss Mama, I miss Jose, I all the time alone. I talk to Mama on the phone – her voice so small! She say, you want revenge, is simple – be happy! But I don’t feel. She say, well at least you can pretend!
MEDEA
That’s the hardest thing of all.
CLEANER
Woman is good at pretending. That’s all she’s good for.
My mother say, if you ain’t a good liar, you got no business being a woman!
Pause.
If it isn’t for my son I don’t care so much. If it isn’t for Jose, none of this ever happen. Woman always get hurt through the child. She like a kite: she all crazy visible but the wind that blow her invisible. Better not to have the child. Better be a nobody to anybody.
MEDEA
In the early days my husband had a bicycle.
I would sit on the seat and steer
And he would pedal, to get us home.
There was a long steep hill we used to go down.
He’d shout over his shoulder, fasten your seatbelt!
He’d let off the brakes and down we’d go,
so fast I was afraid,
knowing that if he lost control
I’d be done for.
Marriage is a game of trust.
Yes, a game that goes on and on
until it becomes your life.
You trust the sun will rise tomorrow –
you never consider that it won’t.
Trust is like a pane of glass.
When it’s clean you hardly know it’s there.
But smash it and you’re cut to shreds.
The cold comes in, such cold.
One day my husband said, have you forgotten?
This was only a game,
remember?
I’m just a man and you’re just a woman
and this was a game we played for a while.
Wasn’t it?
SCENE 5
MEDEA and JASON in the sitting room talking to one another on their phones.
MEDEA
You took the kitchen table.
JASON
The table belongs to me. I told you –
MEDEA
In what sense –
JASON
it would be going.
MEDEA
does it belong to you?
JASON
It was mine –
MEDEA
What happened to –
JASON
before I even met you.
MEDEA
half and half?
JASON
Obviously you can’t have –
MEDEA
I thought we were all –
JASON
half a table.
MEDEA
– for equality.
Pause.
You didn’t even bother to put the crap on the side. You just put it all on the floor.
JASON
Look, it’s perfectly reasonable –
MEDEA
The boys came back from school and found a kitchen –
JASON
for me to take one or two things.
MEDEA
with no table in it and crap all over the floor.
JASON
It’s actually important –
MEDEA
We agreed you wouldn’t denude the house.
JASON
– for them to have some things they recognise –
MEDEA
We agreed you wouldn’t denude the house and –
JASON
where I am now.
MEDEA
suddenly the boys have to eat their fucking dinner –
JASON
Oh, for Christ’s sake.
MEDEA
– off the floor like a pair of dogs.
Pause.
JASON
We’ve gone over –
MEDEA
No, actually, if they were dogs you might –
JASON
all this before.
MEDEA
– pay them some attention.
JASON
You make it absolutely –
MEDEA
Take them for the odd –
JASON
– impossible.
MEDEA
– walk now and then.
JASON
Impossible.
Pause.
MEDEA
I don’t know who you are.
JASON
I’m exactly who –
MEDEA
I’ve spent fifteen years living –
JASON
I’ve always been.
MEDEA
– with a complete stranger. (Pause.) You’ve taken away my history.
JASON
Your idea of –
MEDEA
Our whole past –
JASON
– history is just –
MEDEA
– has become a lie.
JASON
– a fantasy.
MEDEA
That’s what –
JASON
You don’t own –
MEDEA
– dictators do, isn’t it?
JASON
– the story.
MEDEA
They rewrite history so they can get their way.
JASON
I’ve got my own –
MEDEA
Everything becomes –
JASON
– truth.
MEDEA
– subjective. Then you can justify anything.
Pause.
JASON
I’ve fallen in love with someone else. That’s all.
MEDEA
What kind of love is it that needs the whole world to disappear before it can exist?
Pause.
That isn’t love. It’s genocide.
Pause.
JASON
Look, there’s something I need to talk to you about.
MEDEA
I’m so tired.
JASON
I need to talk to you about –
MEDEA
I need someone to just –
JASON
– the pearl choker.
MEDEA
– knock me out for a while.
JASON
My mother’s asked for her pearl choker to be returned.
MEDEA
Your mother?
JASON
It’s – she wants it back. It belonged to her –
MEDEA
Actually it belongs –
JASON
– grandmother.
MEDEA
– to me.
JASON
She feels it should stay in the family.
MEDEA
Your mother said that?
JASON
She feels it ought to return to the family.
MEDEA
Am I not part of the family now?
JASON
It’s just that it’s –
MEDEA
I’m her grandsons’ mother.
JASON
– part of our history.
MEDEA
Am I not family?
JASON
Look, I can’t speak for her. I said I felt sure you would –
MEDEA
She gave it to me.
JASON
– understand.
Pause.
MEDEA
Oh, I see what’s happened.
JASON
It’s not as if you ever –
MEDEA
I get it.
JASON
– wear it.
MEDEA
You want to give it to her, don’t you?
Pause.
Don’t you?
JASON
Well, she is going to be –
MEDEA
My God, you filthy –
JASON
– my wife.
MEDEA
– self-serving bastard.
JASON
This isn’t easy for me, you know. It’s a hard thing to have –
MEDEA
This isn’t even audacity. It’s a disease.
JASON
– to ask you.
MEDEA
Shamelessness.
JASON
Look, things are going to get –
MEDEA
Absolute shamelessness.
JASON
– pretty nasty if you –
MEDEA
Shame on you.
JASON
– carry on like this.
MEDEA
Shame on you.
They both slam down the phones.
SCENE 6
The sitting room. MEDEA sits at her desk writing. BOY TWO is building a tower with wooden blocks. BOY ONE is sitting aimlessly on the sofa.
B1
Can we put the TV on?
Pause.
Mum, can we put the TV on?
MEDEA
No.
B1
But –
MEDEA
I don’t want the TV on. I’ve got to work.
Pause.
B1
What are you doing?
MEDEA
I’m trying to write something.
B1
What are you trying to write?
MEDEA
I’m not sure yet.
B1
Oh.
Pause.
When will it be finished?
MEDEA
What?
B1
Will it be finished by six o’clock? Top Gear’s on at six o’clock.
Pause.
Dad says he’s goi
ng to get us iPhones.
Pause.
MEDEA
Does he?
B1
So we can keep in touch.
Pause.
He says we can go and get them this weekend.
Pause.
It’s so cool. I can’t wait.
Pause.
What are all these boxes for?
MEDEA
They’re for putting our things in.
B1
But how did they get here?
MEDEA
A man delivered them.
B1
Why did he?
MEDEA
Because we need them if we’re going to move to a different house.
B1
But I want to stay in this house.
MEDEA
I know.
B1
I don’t want to live in a different house.
MEDEA
I know.
B1
I hate moving. I don’t want to move.
Pause.
Why can’t we just stay here?
MEDEA
Because this house is too big for us.
B1
But I don’t want to live in a smaller house. Why can’t Dad come back and live here? Then the house would be the right size again.
Pause.
MEDEA
Because of me. Dad doesn’t want to live with me any more.
B1
Why not? Did you annoy him?
MEDEA
In a way.
B1
You shouldn’t have done that.
Pause.
I don’t want to live in a smaller house.
B2
Oh, shut up.
B1
Can’t we go and stay with Dad? Their house is really big. He says it’s even got a swimming pool.
B2
It’s not their house. It’s her house.
B1
Dad lives there too.
B2
It belongs to her.
B1
It’s really cool apparently. It’s much better than ours. It’s got a pool and everything.
B2
She wouldn’t let us swim in the pool. We might get the water dirty.
B1
Dad says we’ll have our own rooms there soon.
Pause.
She’s got this really cute little dog. Mum, have you seen her dog? It’s really cute.
B2
I bet the dog’s got its own room.
B1
It’s a really cute little dog. I wish we could have a dog.
Pause.
Mum, can we get a dog?
B2
I hate her dog.
B1
Can we?
B2
It’s so stupid it can’t even walk.
B1
You’re what’s stupid.
B2
All she cares about is her stupid dog.
B1
Dad says she just has to get used to us.
B2
She’ll never get used to you. That’d be like getting used to cancer.
B1 leaps to his feet and aims a kick at B2’s tower. They freeze like that while MEDEA speaks.
MEDEA
How long is a piece of string?
Fifteen years, in our case.
Time is like money: spend it and it’s gone.