by David Hare
Jack Now I get it. Now I understand.
Pauline turns, direct.
Pauline Jack, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.
Jack That’s why you’re angry.
Pauline I’m not angry because you married, I’m angry because you don’t seem to want to sign my petition.
Jack No, I don’t.
Pauline Why not?
Jack For all the obvious reasons.
Pauline Which are?
He doesn’t answer.
No, really, I want to hear them.
Jack turns, definitive.
Jack Because we have to be on the side of progress, that’s why.
Pauline I agree.
Jack We have to look forward.
Pauline So?
Jack This isn’t 1945. Sorry, Mum, but it isn’t. It doesn’t make any sense for every hospital to try and do everything. You need specialist places for specialist things. If you examine the statistics – heart attacks, strokes – it’s amazing but you’ll find very few people die because they have an ambulance journey of ten or fifteen minutes. And while they’re in that ambulance, they’re getting skilled attention from paramedics. In today’s Health Service, there are finite resources and they have to be targeted. Forensically. Not everyone can have everything. That’s the future. Fewer’s going to mean better.
Pauline Really?
Jack Yes. And believe it or not, this is where politicians come in. Because the argument is counter-intuitive. That makes it difficult to explain. If you look into it with any kind of rigour, there is actually an overwhelming public interest case for concentrating expertise. But it needs to be made, and made convincingly. Yes, of course the public knows what it wants. Sure. But it doesn’t necessarily have the information to know the best way to get it.
Pauline is nodding, as if taken aback by his confidence.
Pauline OK, let me get this straight. Do I have this right?
Jack You tell me.
Pauline Corby can’t have a hospital?
Jack Not of its own. Not any more. It’s too small a community.
Pauline It always had a hospital –
Jack Sure. Like it always had coal.
Pauline For a hundred years, the country was poor and Corby had a hospital. Now the country is richer than it’s ever been, and Corby can’t have a hospital. And that’s called economics, is it?
Jack What we’re talking about is the people of Corby, and their well-being. That’s the subject here, not plant, Pauline, not buildings, not bricks and mortar. You work in the Service, you know bloody well it’s developing a whole new concept of health. The new approach is going to be holistic and it won’t depend on proximity. It won’t mean wasting money on heating and lighting a Victorian structure in every bloody village and hamlet in England. That’s the old way.
Pauline Really? ‘Holistic’?
Jack Yeah.
Pauline ‘Holistic’? Meaning what? Meaning no actual facilities –
Jack Come on –
Pauline ‘Holistic’ meaning – what? – no actual beds and scanners and machines, just everyone sit in a circle and hum?
Jack Be serious, Pauline.
Pauline You seem to know a lot about this –
Jack Well I do –
Pauline You seem remarkably well briefed.
Jack As it happens I am.
Pauline Because?
Jack Because health is one of my interests.
Pauline You mean as a citizen?
Jack No, Pauline, not as a citizen, as a politician.
Pauline And as a politician you refuse to sign the petition?
Jack I don’t refuse.
Pauline Politicians sign things all the time, nobody notices, why can’t you?
Jack I’ve told you why.
Pauline It’s not calling for armed revolution or setting rabid dogs on the monarchy or killing all the lawyers, it’s just saying some local people would like to keep hold of something they’ve always had.
Jack I know.
Pauline What’s wrong with that?
Jack Nothing’s wrong with that, except I don’t agree with it.
Pauline You imagine your name is so uniquely valuable, do you – the name of Gould, the son of the father – you’re so famous and distinguished that you can’t even sign a piece of paper without going into thirty minutes of mortal agony?
Jack No. Not that. No one’s even heard of me.
Pauline Yet.
Jack Honestly.
Pauline What then?
She waits.
What?
Jack If you really want to know.
He waits, then jumps in.
I’ve had some hand in the policy, OK?
Pauline What does ‘some hand’ mean?
Jack I worked on it.
Pauline You mean it’s you that’s closing Corby Hospital?
Jack No, I don’t mean that, of course not –
Pauline You’re not even an MP.
Jack Not yet.
Pauline You’re not in the government.
Jack Just in chambers, OK? Where some of the senior advocates are friends of the Prime Minister, and they were asked –
Pauline is ahead of him now.
Pauline Oh, I see, now I understand –
Jack My boss was asked if he’d take a look at this document –
Pauline Take a look at it?
Jack Yes. But he was very busy, so he gave it to me –
Pauline Why did he give it to you?
Jack I said. He was busy.
Pauline But you know fuck-all about medicine –
Jack That’s not the point –
Pauline You always did. With respect.
Jack I know a little.
Pauline Apart from having slept with a doctor –
Jack Pauline, please.
Pauline Is that how government health policy is made nowadays? On the basis of who’s knobbed a medical student?
Jack And I wasn’t making policy. I’m an advocate. I marshal arguments. That’s what I do. And I’m bloody good at it.
Pauline I’m sure you are.
Jack The document was badly drafted. Very badly drafted. I drafted it better. That’s all. Leave it at that.
Pauline How many?
Jack What?
Pauline How many hospitals?
Jack You mean how many affected?
Pauline Yes.
Jack What, just A&E, or closing altogether?
Pauline Altogether.
Jack In England?
Pauline Yes.
Jack Ten.
Pauline is staring at him, as if seeing him afresh.
I’d look pretty stupid if I turned around at this point and joined in a mass protest against a paper I’d helped to write.
Pauline says nothing. She sits down and starts assembling shoes, socks, a sweater she had abandoned earlier. She starts to dress. Jack is discomfited. He goes to get another vodka.
Pauline And I don’t believe you.
Jack I’m sorry?
Pauline The reasons you gave me.
Jack Why not?
Pauline Because they’re not true.
Jack Pauline, I may be right about the wisdom of the policy or I may be wrong, but whichever, you must concede my arguments make sense.
Pauline No.
Jack Are you telling me I’m lying?
Pauline It won’t be the first time.
There’s a silence.
Jack Pauline …
Pauline I think your motives are subtly different.
Jack In what way?
Pauline I think you’re going into Parliament next year and you want to go in with a clean sheet. I don’t think you want to do anything which might mark you out as a rebel.
Jack Is that really what you think of me?
Pauline As a matter of fact, it is. You’re playing safe. You don’t want to stand out. You don’t want to put people’s backs up. Isn’t that what this
is about?
Jack No.
Pauline You want to get off on the right foot.
Jack That isn’t fair.
Pauline You’re planning a career, Jack. A career in politics.
Jack Is that such a terrible idea?
Pauline You tell me.
She continues lacing up her shoes. Jack is cracking up, under pressure.
Jack Look at it my way. If I sign this, they’ll think I’m a flake. They’ll think I’m careless. ‘Oh, he doesn’t think what he’s doing. Some woman puts a petition in his hand and he’s too weak to resist?’
Pauline ‘Some woman’, Jack?
Jack I didn’t mean –
Pauline What, the woman you used to love?
Jack Pauline –
Pauline The woman you once said you’d kill yourself for?
Jack looks up, shocked.
And that’s what this is about.
Jack Don’t be ridiculous.
Pauline Isn’t it?
Jack And that was a long time ago. I was depressed!
Pauline I remember. After I left you.
Jack About all sorts of things.
Pauline Sure.
Jack It wasn’t just you.
Pauline No.
Jack It was everything. I was drinking too much.
Pauline But I nursed you out of it.
Jack I’ve changed. I’m a different person.
Pauline Over a very long weekend, ‘some woman’ talked you down.
Jack And I’m grateful. I’ll always be grateful, Pauline. Really. I mean it.
She holds out the petition.
Pauline Funny way of showing it. In fact, I only have one question. Why is the Labour Party always on the wrong side of every argument?
Jack Is it?
Pauline You know it is.
Jack stares in horror.
Jack Hold on, you think I’m refusing to sign just because it’s you?
Pauline That’s what it feels like.
Jack No, actually, the opposite. I’m refusing in spite of the fact it’s you.
Pauline That’s very neatly put. But I don’t believe it.
Jack Why not?
Pauline stops a moment, before quietly going in for the kill.
Pauline What time did I get here?
Jack Four.
Pauline And how long since I’d seen you?
Jack You mean since Newcastle?
Pauline Yes.
Jack Since we were students?
Pauline Yes.
Jack Well, hardly at all.
Pauline Correct.
Jack Once we ran into each other. Almost literally.
Pauline Yeah. You were doing the marathon. When was that? Four years ago. And apart from that?
Jack Very little.
Pauline You’ve avoided me.
Jack I got married, Pauline.
He does not move.
Pauline And today I turn up at your door, as you say, at four. You invite me round. You choose a moment when your wife will be away.
Jack It wasn’t like that.
Pauline Wasn’t it? And I tell you in advance what I’m coming for.
Jack You told me on the phone.
Pauline To save a hospital. And did you say that would be difficult? Beforehand? Did you explain in advance that it would be hard for you to sign such a thing?
Jack says nothing.
Jack, you let me come here. You gave me tea. We talked a little.
Jack We did.
Pauline About old times.
Jack You as much as me.
Pauline You took me to bed.
Jack I didn’t take you.
Pauline OK.
Jack We went together.
Pauline Whatever. Jessica’s been good for you. She’s turned you into what advice columns call a considerate lover.
Jack Thank you.
Pauline But did you think it was considerate – I’m just asking this – was it considerate to make love to me when you knew you wouldn’t sign my petition? Was that considerate?
Jack In retrospect –
Pauline Or was it something else?
Jack waits, fearful.
Jack Like what?
Pauline You loved me, Jack. You always loved me. But I don’t think you really liked me.
There’s a silence, Jack rallying to speak.
I’m trying to make a life. I really am. We have to cope with the feelings we’re given. Some are ugly. Some are not. We know what we should do, but it’s not easy. Is it? And the ugliness was never all one way.
Pauline I know.
Jack Very far from it.
Pauline You’re right.
Jack Your own behaviour. Today?
He waits.
Pauline What are you asking?
Jack Why did you do it?
Pauline Jack …
Jack Why did you want to? Just to prove you could? To prove you still had the power?
Pauline looks him in the eye.
Pauline It’s in both of us. It always was.
Jack Yeah. But the difference is I admit it.
Pauline Meaning what?
Jack You punish me. When we were together you punished me all the time. And we both knew the reason.
Pauline What was the reason?
Jack You were in love with me, and you resented it. You came to Newcastle, you wanted your independence, I was a threat to your independence. Why? Because you loved me. Well?
Pauline says nothing.
You can’t deny it.
Pauline I don’t deny it.
Jack So you then took delight in making me feel ridiculous. You drove me away. You made me ashamed of my ambitions. I must be a shit because I wanted to get on. The Labour Party. The fucking Labour Party.
He smiles and points, knowing he’s right.
Yes.
Pauline moves away, ready to leave.
Pauline I’m going to go.
Jack No, please don’t.
Pauline I think I should.
Seeing her leave, Jack shouts out.
Jack All right, I’ll sign. I’ll sign the fucking thing. What does it matter? Throw my career away, I don’t give a fuck. I can face my feelings, why can’t you?
She turns and goes to the door.
Pauline, please.
Pauline Jack, you’ve helped me make a decision. I’ve been thinking about it. But coming here has made it clear.
Jack waits.
Jack What decision?
Pauline I’ve let Nerena run with it, even though she didn’t want to. It’s time I stepped up. I’m going to head the campaign.
End of Act One.
Act Two
SCENE NINE
2008. Jack, early thirties, alone on a wooden chair, in dark suit and tie, faces unseen Voices. They all have Geordie accents.
Voice 1 Welcome to Newcastle, Mr Gould. I don’t know how well you –
Jack Well, actually, if you remember I was a student here, I know the town pretty well.
Voice 2 How much time do you think you might be spending here?
Voice 3 Are you going to live in the constituency?
Jack I certainly intend to get a –
Voice 2 Because do you know what we call the present member? Have you heard his nickname?
Jack I haven’t.
Voice 2 We call him the East Coast Falafel. Because that’s all we see of him. Sitting in the first-class carriage, East Coast line, eating his garlic and humus falafel –
Jack That sounds pretty unpleasant.
Voice 2 With extra aïoli.
Voice 3 Drinking rosé.
Voice 1 He arrived by parachute. Like yourself –
Jack I don’t think that’s quite –
Voice 3 Falafel in hand.
Laughter.
Voice 2 He was always eating. That’s all he did.
Jack He has a reputation as being –
Voice 2 The point I’m making: the people Labour HQ wan
t us to have aren’t always the people we want.
Jack I’m not claiming to be the local candidate –
Voice 3 You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?
Voice 1 The Labour leadership want you badly –
Jack I don’t think that should count against me.
Voice 3 Shouldn’t count for you either.
Laughter.
Voice 2 You’ve got a cookie-cut air to you, Mr Gould. Like your views are cookie-cut.
Jack I haven’t yet had the chance to give my views.
Voice 2 My guess is they’re going to line up closely with the views of your leader.
Jack There’s been a major financial crisis. The collapse of –
Voice 3 I don’t think anyone in Newcastle needs reminding about that.
Jack And I think the government’s done incredibly well to –
Voice 1 You remember what your father said?
Jack I’m sorry?
Voice 1 Didn’t he predict all this? Didn’t he predict what’s happening?
Jack Remind me.
Voice 1 Sam Gould said the morals of capitalism are the morals of the casino. All day we lie on a sandy beach, sunning ourselves, drinking a beer, and at night we go to the rococo palace and we play against the house. Only the house is bent. The cards are stacked.
There is a silence.
Jack My father did say that, yes.
Voice 1 The casino’s run by crooks. The crooks own the girls who deal the cards, and the girls wear low-cut dresses so you think you can see right down their front. But you can’t. You think you can but you can’t. It’s an illusion.
There is another silence.
Jack My father was a brilliant man.
Voice 1 He was.
Jack If I can be one-tenth the man he was, then I’ll be very happy.
A short silence.
Voice 3 Good. So will we.
SCENE TEN
1996. Hastings. Pauline draws open the big curtains of her mother’s bedroom. It’s a first-floor flat on Warrior Square, so the windows are huge, and morning light pours in on to a scene of abandonment. A tousled bed. Clothes, bottles, objects everywhere. Pauline is eighteen, sun-tanned, in jeans and a T-shirt. Her mother, Blaise, is fifty, dark-haired, hidden under the bedclothes.