by Rachel Cusk
Pause.
She’s that kind of woman.
MEDEA
The kind that expects to be paid for.
Pause.
JASON
Look, I haven’t told you this –
MEDEA
Are you some sort of expert now?
JASON
– but…what’s that?
MEDEA
I’m asking if you’re some sort of expert now.
JASON
In what?
MEDEA
In varieties of woman.
JASON
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Look, this isn’t public knowledge yet, but I may be about to get –
MEDEA
Get what?
JASON
– a role. A big one. It’s still being nailed down but – the thing is, you and the boys won’t need to worry. About money.
This changes everything. But right now I’ve got to be seen to be – it’s a delicate situation. I’ve got to be seen to be autonomous.
MEDEA
Just seen to be.
JASON
It’s a delicate situation. Her father –
MEDEA
While in fact your own –
JASON
– wants absolute –
MEDEA
– children are being screwed –
JASON
– discretion as far as the –
MEDEA
– to create that illusion.
JASON
– personal connection goes.
Pause.
MEDEA
Funny kind of autonomy that is.
JASON
Look, the house needs to be sold. Frankly it’ll be sold whether you agree or not. The judge has made that absolutely clear. I’m entitled to –
MEDEA
You’re entitled to live –
JASON
– fifty per cent of –
MEDEA
– like the rat you are –
JASON
– our joint assets.
MEDEA
– in some sewer with your lady rat.
Pause.
JASON
Look, all that will happen is that this goes back to the court. It’ll be horrible for the children –
MEDEA
Oh, them again.
JASON
– and it’ll cost –
MEDEA
You’re really getting the hang of –
JASON
– a bloody fortune. You can put it on your fucking credit card!
MEDEA
– this children thing.
Pause.
Aren’t you? Aren’t you?
Phone goes dead.
You can’t leave me: I’m part of what you are.
You’d only be leaving yourself,
like that man who cut his own arm off to be free.
It’ll hurt, my friend, and I’m not sure you’re brave enough.
I can unmake you the same way I made you.
I write the story, remember?
She throws down her phone.
B1
Who were you talking to? Were you talking to Dad?
MEDEA
Just a friend.
B1
But were you talking to Dad?
MEDEA
I was talking to a friend.
B1
Why were you shouting?
MEDEA
It was just a game, that’s all. We were pretending.
B2
I’ve taken your queen.
B1
What?
B2
It wasn’t very difficult.
B1
You could have told me you were going to do that.
B2
She was just sitting there on her own. You didn’t even bother to defend her.
B1
But you could have warned me!
B2
What would be the point of that? It’s a game.
B1 lunges forward and overturns chess board.
MEDEA
Pause.
The more I speak, the less I am heard.
In love there is no need for speech,
but tear it and the words come out like stuffing,
two people spewing out language
until it seems that’s all we’re made of.
The words come out and I shrink.
I feel smaller than my own children.
My body has become innocent of them.
I used to protect them: now it’s they who protect me.
Because they think I’m real.
I have to be, for their sake.
When I look at them I see – what?
Two lives in reverse.
Two abortions.
What are they without him?
He changed his mind but they’re still here, occupying space.
They are – trash.
Pause. Throws manuscript in the bin beside her desk.
She takes the manuscript out of the bin.
Let the river flow uphill for a change. Let order become disorder.
Call it a magic trick –
I’ll make something happen using only words.
SCENE 10
The sitting room. The pile of boxes is now enormous.
AEGEUS
You’ve changed.
MEDEA
Have I?
AEGEUS
‘Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer.’ That’s Celan, incidentally. He’s so good on the dark patches.
Pause.
No kids?
MEDEA
They go to school.
AEGEUS
Oh of course. I forgot people still do that. Is this moving in, or moving out?
MEDEA
Out.
AEGEUS
But moving up at least, I hope.
MEDEA shakes her head slowly.
MEDEA
He got a court order. We have to go.
AEGEUS
What’s wrong with your lawyer? You’re the mother, for heaven’s sake.
MEDEA
I think I’m the wrong kind.
Pause.
He says he needs the money.
AEGEUS
From what I hear, his needs are about to be assuaged. This will be quite a career move, you know, if he can pull it off. It’s huge, actually – it puts him in a whole different league.
MEDEA puts her head in her hands. AEGEUS tries to comfort her.
I know, it doesn’t seem right. Can’t you let him go? Can’t you just – despise him for it?
MEDEA shakes her head.
Maybe you thought too highly of him. Maybe he just can’t help himself.
MEDEA
Oh, he can.
AEGEUS
When I think back to the old days – I mean, I make no secret of the fact that I’ve sold out, but the two of you always had so much integrity. Everything you did was – art. I admit it, I’m surprised. You were the last people – really, the last people – I expected this to happen to. And to happen in such a sordid way – I know it must sound naive, but I honestly saw you as soulmates. You were such a – such a match. I remember, years ago, watching you play each other at chess and thinking, Christ, can this really be possible, that these two people get to have sex with each other too? To have, you know, all of it? You were the example I gave to all my doubting friends. You even made having kids look interesting.
Pause.
On the flight over I was sitting right across the aisle from this woman and her baby. You know Jorge wants to do this whole surrogacy thing? So now I’m looking at babies, you know, the way you suddenly start looking at cars when you’re thinking of buying one. Though to be honest I’m not really a believer yet. I’ve been in sort of a silent tailspin over this kids thing. It’s like, my God, Invasion of the Body Snatchers – the whole world’s been taken over by aliens, and only me and Jorge are left. And then suddenly
I look at Jorge ogling babies and I realise he’s been taken over by aliens too, and now there’s only me! Anyhow, this baby on the flight was like a little owl, all silent and staring. And the mother was positively iconic. She was the madonna – she had this amazing bone structure, and her eyes were this translucent, almost empty blue, and she was so sort of devotional and set apart. She kept getting up to tend to the baby, very calm and unhurried, and every time she bent over it the back of her shirt would ride up a tiny bit and you’d see this little bit of skin through the gap. I kept looking at this pale, tender strip of skin that was constantly being exposed. It was the most beautiful thing. And then on the other side of me was this sweaty middle-aged bond trader type, chugging Johnnie Walker non-stop all the way from JFK to Heathrow and reading Golfing Monthly from cover to cover. Twice.
Pause.
Manhood is such a – dead end. It’s better to be you, despite everything. It’s women who own the truth. And you’ve still got the kids – the kids are your talisman. He’ll respect that at least.
MEDEA
At the court hearing, he was so guilt-stricken about turning them out of their own home that even the judge felt sorry for him.
It was the performance of his career.
Pause.
They tried to make me sign a privacy clause.
AEGEUS
And did you?
MEDEA
Of course not. I said they might as well execute me.
Pause.
AEGEUS
I wish I had your courage. You know I’m meant to be writing this – well, this little novel.
MEDEA
You’ve always wanted that.
AEGEUS
I can’t say it to Jorge obviously, but this is my actual baby. This is the thing I want for my own. I have done for years. But the truth is, I can’t write it. My office is so full of notes and diagrams and chapter plans it looks like CIA headquarters. Even my secretary knows the plot inside out. But I can’t write a line. I sit down to start and I feel so…naked.
Pause.
I had a meeting with the publishers this morning.
MEDEA
What did they say?
AEGEUS
Well they said, you know – where is it? They’ve arranged the public appearances, the festivals, they’ve even started massaging the reviewers – they said, frankly, it doesn’t even have to be all that good, with a name like yours it’ll sell all by itself. And I said look guys, don’t uncork the champagne just yet, and they said why not, and I’ll be honest with you, I – well I lied and told them they’d have it by the end of the month. Someone in my position, lying like a schoolboy who hasn’t done his homework – it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad. But it’s the child of my heart. I find I can’t let it go. I’ve even thought of –
MEDEA
Of what?
AEGEUS
I know it sounds ridiculous, but – of paying someone else to write it. God, listen to me! Male vanity obviously comes in all shapes and sizes.
Pause.
The problem is, the sort of person I’d choose would have far too much integrity to do it.
Pause.
MEDEA
I will.
AEGEUS
What’s that?
MEDEA
I’ll write it.
Pause.
AEGEUS
My God, are you serious?
MEDEA
Yes.
AEGEUS
It would have to be absolutely –
MEDEA
Confidential, I know. But if you give me your notes I can do it.
AEGEUS
I have no doubt at all you can do it. You’re – well, you’re an artist. Believe me, it’s my fantasy come true.
MEDEA
I’d want something in return, though.
Pause.
AEGEUS
Well obviously, we’d talk about the money –
MEDEA
I don’t want money.
Pause.
I want you to look at a script.
AEGEUS
Who’s the writer?
MEDEA
Me. I want you to get it made.
AEGEUS (Laughs.)
If only it were that simple!
MEDEA
It can be when it needs to be.
AEGEUS
Yes, but –
MEDEA
I want you to make my script.
AEGEUS
– the kinds of things I do are just – well, they’re trash really –
MEDEA
Your novel in exchange for my script.
AEGEUS
– just very popular shows. And like I said, you’re an artist.
MEDEA
This is different.
AEGEUS
In what way?
MEDEA
In the right way. For you.
AEGEUS
Well, I’d have to be –
MEDEA
I want you to promise.
AEGEUS
– the judge of that, of course.
MEDEA
I want you to promise.
Pause.
AEGEUS
I need to be – careful. (Laughs awkwardly.) Look, I’m not condoning what he’s done, far from it. But I’d be crossing into enemy territory here. I wouldn’t like to be persona non grata in those well-connected quarters.
MEDEA
You won’t be.
AEGEUS
I’m really not sure –
MEDEA
I need it.
AEGEUS
– this is wise.
MEDEA
I need it. (Pause.) Or I don’t know what I’ll do.
AEGEUS
I’d be taking –
MEDEA
You’ll get your book.
AEGEUS
– a risk.
MEDEA
You’ll get –
AEGEUS
I mean, this is how people –
MEDEA
– your book.
AEGEUS
– destroy themselves, through –
MEDEA
In one –
AEGEUS
– vanity.
MEDEA
month.
Pause.
But you have to promise.
Pause.
Promise.
Pause.
Promise.
AEGEUS
I – okay – I promise.
MEDEA (Offering him paper and a pen.)
Write it.
AEGEUS
There’s really no need –
MEDEA
I want it in writing.
AEGEUS visibly struggles but takes the pen and writes. He gets up slowly and as he leaves the room grows gradually darker, as if night is falling.
MEDEA sits in the semi-darkness.
Then she rises, opens a cupboard and takes out a bottle of whisky and a bottle of pills. She opens the pill bottle and pours out a big handful and crams them in her mouth, the takes a long swig of whisky, then spits it all out and throws the whisky bottle against the wall.
SCENE 11
The sitting room has gone. Instead there is a barren landscape with one or two large boulders in it, and MEDEA’s desk. MEDEA sits typing at the desk. She stops typing and looks up.
MEDEA
What have you come here for?
Why are you watching me?
Go on, have a good look – help yourselves, feel free!
Pause.
I asked him, when our children were born, if I had changed.
He admitted I was different, slacker, he said,
looser, and I thanked him for his honesty.
He said, sometimes I feel you might swallow me whole.
He said, things aren’t the same, are they,
now that the children are here.
It’s like we’re sitting in the audience
of our own
life, he said.
These days I clench my cunt and smile,
imagining her young skin, her taut waist,
her long hair like a soft waterfall.
It’s almost as if I want her myself.
It’s almost as if I created her,
drew her with the fine, fine nib of jealousy.
Is it them I want to obliterate, or me?
The pain only exists because I exist to feel it.
But I would rather be something than nothing.
Pain is strong, but something else is stronger.
I feel it, your unhonoured truth,
like a boulder on my back.
It gives you a thrill to watch me suffer.
The less I pretend the more of a kick you get.
I enact what you disown about yourselves.
I take the punishment you’ve avoided.
(She sits back down at her desk and resumes her typing.)
That’s why you watch me.
That’s why you’re here.
Lights out. Almost immediately, lights on again. JASON is now sitting on one of the boulders. MEDEA remains typing at her desk.
JASON
The children –
MEDEA (Still typing, not looking up.)
Have you actually ever –
JASON
– are worried about you.
MEDEA
– considered the children?
JASON
They say you’re behaving strangely.
Pause.
MEDEA
Did they write to you?
JASON
Excuse me?
MEDEA
Did they write to you, or did they let you know that by telepathy?
JASON
It’s a shame there’s had to be –
MEDEA
What now?
JASON
– such unpleasantness. (Pause.) Your anger –
MEDEA
Oh, my anger.
JASON
– has made it virtually impossible –
MEDEA
That’s the problem, is it?
JASON
– to go about things –
MEDEA
It’s me, is it?
JASON
– in a civilised way.
Pause.
You don’t realise –
MEDEA
What don’t I –
JASON
– how extraordinary your –
MEDEA
– realise?
JASON
– anger is. Other people –
MEDEA
Oh, other people, we –
JASON
– wouldn’t put up –
MEDEA
– like them don’t we, they always take –
JASON
– with it.
MEDEA
– your side.
JASON
I’ve protected you from their judgement. Now I think maybe I shouldn’t have.
Pause.
MEDEA
What people?
JASON
What?
MEDEA