by David Hare
Blaise Oh, so you’re back, are you?
Pauline Yes.
Blaise Don’t bother to let me know.
Pauline Your phone’s been cut off.
Blaise I didn’t do that.
Pauline Really?
Blaise Someone else did that. They cut the cord.
Pauline I’m not going to ask.
Blaise With a scythe.
Pauline Deliberately?
There’s no answer. Pauline looks round the room, and starts gathering up discarded stuff.
Blaise Back in the groove, are you? Cinderella?
Pauline I’m going to run you a bath.
Blaise I don’t want a bath. I prefer the rank sweat of my enseamèd bed.
Pauline You need a bath.
Blaise How long are you staying?
Pauline I start university in a week.
Blaise And do I have to have a bath every day you’re here?
Pauline Aren’t you late for work?
Blaise has sat up and is looking around, searching for her cigarettes.
Blaise It was a trip, was it?
Pauline You know it was.
Blaise Europe, you said.
Pauline Didn’t you get my postcards?
Blaise Where were you?
Pauline France. Germany. Italy.
Blaise Train? Bus? Car?
Pauline Some of each.
Blaise Stopping long anywhere?
Pauline Longest in Palermo.
Blaise That would be Sicily, would it?
Pauline By the water.
Blaise With a boy?
Pauline Lots of boys.
Blaise Good.
Pauline But no one special.
Blaise Don’t leave it too late.
Pauline I shan’t.
Blaise lights a cigarette.
Blaise You’re so sure, aren’t you? You’re so fucking sure of yourself. Where did you get that from? Not from me. The confidence. Where did you get it? From handling me? From so many nights handling me?
Pauline just goes on tidying up. She has come upon a vodka bottle. She pre-empts her mother’s reaction.
Pauline It’s empty.
Blaise Not quite. Give it over.
Pauline No.
Blaise Just to wake me up.
Pauline There’s not enough to wake you up.
Blaise Paulie, we can have a row if you like, if you want a row –
Pauline I don’t –
Blaise We can start shouting at each other –
Pauline No. I don’t want to do that.
Blaise You know how it ends. You lose.
Pauline You can have the vodka if you also have the eggs and the sausages and the bacon and the toast and coffee.
Blaise Hilarious.
Pauline Why are you not at work? Are you skipping work again?
She hands the bottle over. Blaise drinks the dregs, then shudders back to life. Pauline puts clothes away in drawers.
Blaise Tell you something: there was a time when we used to go to Devon.
Pauline What’s this about?
Blaise I was remembering. Before you were born.
Pauline Ah.
Blaise Just like your trip. Only we had fun.
Pauline I had fun.
Blaise We’d hitch-hike down to Devon because we had no money.
Pauline You were poor?
Blaise No, we weren’t poor. We were broke. It’s different.
Pauline That’s what you always say.
Blaise It’s an attitude, honey.
Pauline smiles to herself.
Maybe we went three years in a row. Maybe in the sixties.
Pauline Dad and you?
Blaise That was the best bit.
Pauline Of your marriage?
Blaise A clifftop in Devon. We judged the time of year. Early. So the water would just be bearable. Because that’s when it would be most bracing.
Pauline looks at her a moment, stopping her train of thought, then continues.
‘Don’t wear a costume,’ Anton would say. ‘I want to see you naked in the water.’ We’d camp on the cliff-edge with like-minded folk.
Pauline Did they have small guitars?
Blaise You hate it, don’t you?
Pauline No.
Blaise The idea that he and I once had a wonderful time? You hate that.
Pauline Not at all.
Blaise You can’t bear it. It messes with your prim little world-view.
Pauline shrugs.
Pauline You know what I think.
Blaise By now.
Pauline You were in an abusive relationship. And all you do is make romance out of it.
Blaise So you claim.
Pauline Well, it’s true.
Blaise You hated your father so much you couldn’t see the poetry in him.
Pauline The poetry? No. I never saw the poetry in Dad.
Blaise He was an interesting man.
Pauline If violence is interesting.
Blaise hates the dismissal.
Blaise It’s so easy being you, isn’t it? It’s so fucking easy.
Pauline No. No, it’s not easy.
Blaise Then why don’t you tell me? For a start, why don’t you tell me about your life? What’s your problem? Three months away and you can’t even say where you’ve been?
She has raised her voice.
Blaise Well?
Pauline I’m scared.
Blaise Scared of me?
Pauline Scared of you spoiling it.
Blaise How?
Pauline Because, if you really want to know, I’ve just had my best time ever and if I tell you about it, you’ll piss on it.
Blaise Me?
Pauline Yes.
Blaise My, you have a poor opinion of your mother.
Pauline Maybe.
Blaise I won’t piss on it.
Pauline looks, for the first time trusting her. She sits on the side of the bed.
Pauline I got up every morning. Maybe I’d take a couple of hours to eat my breakfast, maybe I’d go to the beach.
Blaise Uh-huh.
Pauline Look at the sea. Maybe I’d go to a museum, maybe later a club. Maybe I’d talk to people, maybe I wouldn’t.
Blaise Sounds nice.
Pauline It was more than nice.
Blaise I’m sure.
Pauline Three months, no plans. For the only time in my life, I was free.
Blaise Away from your mother?
Pauline I wouldn’t put it like that.
Blaise But that’s what you mean.
Pauline gets up and starts tidying again.
And I’m not at the school because I’m ill.
Pauline Gin-ill or vodka-ill?
Blaise Ill-ill.
Pauline Am I meant to believe you?
Pauline throws a glance, not taking her seriously)
Blaise The doctor’s a nice guy. Did you ever meet him?
Pauline Which one?
Blaise Not bad-looking in his day.
Pauline Oh really?
Blaise OK, his day was thirty years ago, but still. In Hastings, thirty years is the twinkling of an eye. There’s a remaining trace of fine features, which I like in a man. The chiselled look. He’s kind of sexy –
Pauline Mum, I’d rather not know.
Blaise You know the type? You know what they say? ‘Old straw burns fiercest’?
Pauline Mum, please –
Blaise All right, but when it’s bad news it’s nice to get it from Mount Rushmore.
Pauline What sort of bad news?
Blaise Oh. The kind you’d rather not have.
For the first time, Pauline stops, taking her seriously.
Pauline Tell me.
Blaise What do you care?
Pauline Tell me.
She is fearful. Blaise reaches out and touches her cheek.
Blaise Jesus says don’t get too fond of anything because one day you’re going to lose it.
&n
bsp; Pauline Jesus says that?
Blaise He means on this earth.
Pauline Where does he say it?
Blaise shakes her head, teary.
Blaise In the Bible, of course, where he says everything.
Pauline Sure.
Blaise I’ll tell you something else: the mistake I made at the beginning was to think I could change who I was going to be. I couldn’t.
Pauline Meaning what?
Blaise Nor can you.
Pauline Meaning?
Blaise You’re idling, Paulie. You should get on and do things.
Pauline Should I?
Blaise Stop fighting your own character.
Pauline I’m not fighting it, I’m trying to get out.
She looks at her mother a moment.
Blaise Let me tell you what I’d do if I were you.
Pauline What would you do?
Blaise I’d walk out the door and start again. While you’ve got the chance. Go and do your dutiful studies in Newcastle, never come back.
Pauline Why would I do that?
Blaise Out the door. Forget me. Leave me behind.
Pauline Why?
Blaise Because I’m holding you back.
There is a silence.
Paulie, forget me. I’m holding you back.
Pauline continues tidying up. Then, without warning she picks up an empty bottle and throws it against the wall. It smashes.
Pauline Fuck you. And fuck you again.
Blaise What’s wrong?
Pauline Because you do this. This is what you do. My whole life.
Blaise What do I do?
Pauline You upset me.
Blaise I don’t mean to upset you –
Pauline I’m back ten minutes –
Blaise It’s your choice, it’s not mine –
Pauline Ten minutes and I’m like this.
She shouts, pointing to the next room.
For fifteen years I sat in my bedroom, fifteen years –
Blaise All right –
Pauline Listening to you, listening to you and Dad, shouting every night –
Blaise All right –
Pauline Arguing, fighting, I don’t know what – making love –
Blaise All right –
Pauline I was pulled out of school, remember? More than once. Many times. Taken to the hospital by a teacher because Dad had thrown you down the stairs –
Blaise Once –
Pauline – and I’m pretending, ‘Oh this is OK, this is normal.’ And when I get there, being told not to tell anyone – ‘Don’t tell anyone. It’s between us, it’s a family thing, it’s what families do …’
Blaise That’s right. So?
Pauline And my life is easy, you think? ‘It’s easy being me!’
Blaise It’s your problem, honey, it’s not mine.
Pauline shakes her head, sitting again on the side of the bed.
Pauline And now here we are again, here we go –
Blaise Go where?
Pauline You slip it in, you tell me you’re ill –
Blaise What am I meant to tell you?
Pauline Not just ill, but ill-ill, you say –
Blaise You ask me. I tell you. So I am.
Pauline And I’m meant to walk out, just walk out the door, go to university, become a doctor, prosper, succeed? Live my life, be who I am, fulfil myself, is that the plan?
Blaise I don’t see why not.
Pauline ‘Forget’? You tell me to forget! Your way of holding on to me is to let me go! Your way of possessing me is by ignoring me! Well it works! It works, all right?
There is a silence, even Blaise shaken by her daughter’s attack.
Blaise I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Pauline You don’t understand?
Blaise No.
Pauline You’re the smartest woman I know, and you don’t understand?
Blaise No. Nothing.
Pauline You understand you’ve wasted your life. You’ve thrown it away.
Blaise I loved him, Paulie.
Pauline Sure.
Blaise I loved him. You don’t even know what that means.
Pauline waits. A silence, and then she nods.
Pauline And so – going at this like normal people, let’s imagine, behaving like normal people who live normal lives, suppose you just tell me what’s wrong with you. Like anyone else would. Give me the diagnosis, give me the prognosis, tell me what the handsome doctor said – the handsome doctor who burns like old straw – tell me what he told you when you went to see him. Mum?
Blaise says nothing.
Mum? How bad is the news?
SCENE ELEVEN
2014. At once, a TV interview. As in Scene Three, Pauline, late thirties, is speaking, and her image is projected. As before, the Interviewer is heard, not seen.
Interviewer I’ve read profiles of you, Ms Gibson –
Pauline Profiles?
Interviewer – and in those it’s said that the reason you fought so hard for Corby Hospital was because of your mother’s experiences.
Pauline No, it’s completely untrue, it really is.
Interviewer She was a schoolteacher?
Pauline Yeah.
Interviewer Her death had a powerful effect on you?
Pauline People think they know you, but they don’t.
Interviewer Maybe they’d just like to understand you? They’re interested.
Pauline My mother had a particularly difficult and degrading illness. What can I say? Stomach cancer.
Interviewer Did watching her die leave you with a fear of death?
Pauline No. To be honest, I had it already.
She laughs.
You can’t have a love of life without a fear of death. In my experience, the two go together.
Interviewer But then what did make you fight so hard for Corby Hospital?
Pauline Oh …
Interviewer Why are you so sure it wasn’t because of your mother?
Pauline I dug in.
Interviewer Why?
Pauline I’m stubborn. It’s my character.
Interviewer This was a – what? – five-year campaign?
Pauline I didn’t know that when I started.
She laughs again.
Interviewer How did you feel when you were elected to parliament on a single issue?
Pauline People could see the justice of the cause. They do. When it’s that clear-cut. So much has gone wrong in recent years we all relish the chance to put something right. However small.
Interviewer When did you first believe you might succeed?
Pauline It wasn’t me. It was everyone. I was just a delegate. I was the mouth.
Interviewer And does the whole story leave you with a sense of achievement?
Pauline We saved one hospital. We didn’t save the NHS.
SCENE TWELVE
2018. The House of Commons. Late at night. Meredith is working at a paper- and book-heavy desk in a brown panelled office. A single light is burning. Pauline, forty, appears at the door, casually dressed.
Pauline Oh, I’m sorry, Meredith. It wasn’t you I was looking for.
Meredith Who was it?
Pauline It was Jack.
Meredith does not move.
I didn’t know you’d be here.
Meredith Since earlier this week.
Pauline So he must have ‘defined your role’. When we met, you said –
Meredith Oh yes. He’s given me more to do.
She smiles.
I think he’s at Tosca.
Pauline Really?
Meredith He said.
Pauline I didn’t know Jack liked that sort of thing. Is he with – what’s-’er-name?
Meredith Yeah. Jessica.
Pauline That’s it.
Meredith She says she never sees him, and when she does, they’re always busy with the kids.
Pauline No doubt.
Meredith So she thought they shou
ld have some quality time.
Pauline Together?
Meredith Yes.
Pauline Watching opera?
She stands a moment.
Meredith Come in if you like, you’re very welcome.
Pauline Not if I’m disturbing you.
Meredith It says in the papers you’ve gone into hiding.
Pauline Have I?
Meredith Nobody can find you.
Pauline I’m in Westminster. Here I am. My home’s being stalked by journalists and photographers. I can’t walk down the street.
Meredith But it’s all speculation. You told me you weren’t going to do it.
Pauline Do what?
They both smile.
Meredith What did you want?
Pauline Oh –
Meredith With Jack? Why were you looking for him?
Pauline closes the door.
Pauline It’s a complicated story. I don’t know how much he’s told you –
Meredith Not much.
Pauline We’re not in touch.
Meredith How come?
Pauline He avoids me.
Meredith You work in the same building.
Pauline I’ve been an MP for six years. And I’ve never once been in Jack’s office.
Meredith Your campaign started out, didn’t it, with that woman who wasn’t any good at it –
Pauline Nerena –
Meredith You took over and it all came good.
Pauline It took five years. Nerena’s still a doctor, and what’s more, a far better doctor than I ever was. Or could have been.
She shrugs.
So when a by-election came along, there it was: a perfect opportunity.
Meredith For publicity, you mean?
Pauline I didn’t know. The two most powerful words in the English language: ‘hospital closure’. I was lucky. I hit that happy moment when people were fed up with the main parties and wanted to hurt them.
Meredith It was good timing.
Pauline Yes.
Meredith frowns.
Meredith But you got back again at the general election. Very few independents get back. And by then the hospital was saved.