by Debra Oswald
LEO: Not very hard. Not very hard. I deserved it. Therese was right to slap me and look, look, look—I’m all right now. So don’t worry about that. Therese, stay and look after me.
THERESE: Leo, I hit you and that’s—I can’t look after you, okay? I have to go.
MARGO: Yes. I’d like you to leave now. [To LEO] I’m going to pack your clothes, okay? Let’s not get any more upset. Let’s do what needs to be done.
MARGO picks up the drawings and takes them upstairs with her. THERESE grabs her bags and heads for the door. LEO rushes to block her path.
LEO: Wait. Wait. I can’t leave here yet. There are paintings in this house. Precious paintings.
THERESE: Margo will take care of them.
LEO: No, no. Not the ones you can see. Ones I’ve hidden. You’ve got to stay and help me find them before they ship me off to a home.
THERESE: I can’t. You should tell Margo—
LEO: You’re leaving because of the cruel things I said.
THERESE: No. I told you—
LEO starts whacking at his own mouth with his hand.
LEO: I’ll take the words back. I wish I could stop them coming out of mouth.
THERESE grabs his hand to stop him hurting himself.
You look after me. I need you.
THERESE: There’ll be proper people to look after you.
LEO: No. You. I want you.
THERESE: I’m no good to you. I’m an awful person, okay Leo? That’s the truth.
LEO: No, you’re not.
THERESE: An awful, ugly person.
LEO: No, no. Wait! I can show you. I can show you—wait, wait.
He grips THERESE’s arm. Then he runs to a hiding spot and pulls out the piece of fibro he drew on in Act One. He hands the drawing to THERESE. She falls silent.
I watched you when you couldn’t see me. I drew you. See? See? It’s you! It’s your beauty.
He watches anxiously as THERESE stares at the drawing.
I can’t draw as well as—My bloody hand shakes. I was going to wait, make it better.
THERESE: This is beautiful.
LEO: It’s you!
He watches her face carefully as she looks at the drawing.
Yes. Yes. Good. You can see.
MARGO comes back downstairs with packed boxes.
MARGO: Your friend—that builder—he’s outside in his truck.
THERESE is so transfixed by the drawing that she doesn’t register this.
LEO: Karl? Karl is out there? [He runs just outside the door, yelling out.] Karl! Karl! Come in!
THERESE sits down, staring at the drawing. MARGO moves around the room, packing items into the boxes.
[Shouting to KARL] Hurry! Help me look for the precious paintings.
KARL appears at the door, tentative. LEO drags him inside.
Talk to Therese. Make her stay and help me.
THERESE: What are you doing back here?
KARL: Well, I never went away. Been sitting outside in my truck all night.
MARGO: So what do you want?
KARL: I’m a friend of Leo and Therese. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.
LEO rushes up to clutch at KARL.
LEO: Make Therese stay and help me.
MARGO: [to THERESE] Leo’s getting distressed again. You’re not helping the situation by being here.
LEO: There are paintings hidden in the house! If the house is demolished, they’ll be destroyed!
MARGO: Will you leave now please?
KARL: Can’t Leo look for the pictures?
MARGO: If there are any hidden paintings, they’ll be found.
KARL: That might be right, but can’t Leo—?
MARGO: [to LEO] Come on, get your things and we’ll go.
MARGO pulls shoes out of the cardboard box.
LEO: No. No.
KARL: He has the right to stay in his house until he’s ready.
MARGO: There’s no-one to look after him and he can’t be left here alone.
THERESE is tentative at first:
THERESE: Well… I could look after him.
LEO: Please.
MARGO: You’ve been sacked, if you remember.
THERESE: I could—I mean, I could stay on anyway if Leo wants me to.
MARGO: What? Someone who’s been physically abusive towards a sick old man. You’re not fit to look after him.
LEO: I’m all right. I want Therese.
MARGO: I could have a medical assessment done that’d get Leo scheduled.
THERESE: Well, you could do that, yeah…
MARGO: I will if I have to.
THERESE: But until then, I guess I’ll stay here… as long as Leo needs to.
LEO: Yes. Yes.
MARGO: There is no way she can stay here.
LEO: It’s still my house. If I say Therese can stay, she can stay.
MARGO: She’s not your carer anymore, Leo. She’s a thief who’s been sacked.
THERESE: I’d just be here as Leo’s friend.
MARGO: If you insist on interfering with proper care, decided by the family, I’ll have to ring the police.
LEO: Police—ha. It’s not trespassing if I invite her.
MARGO: I’m not talking about trespass. I’m talking about malicious damage and assault. [To THERESE] I know you’re on a suspended sentence at the moment. If you don’t leave now, I will press charges. That’ll mean going back to jail, won’t it?
THERESE nods. LEO looks nervously at her.
THERESE: Well, I guess—
MARGO: You better just go.
THERESE: Well, I guess that’s up to you. Me and Leo are going to stay and look for the stuff he thinks is here.
LEO whoops with delight.
LEO: Upstairs! Help me look in the back room upstairs.
LEO runs towards the stairs, wanting THERESE to follow.
THERESE: Yeah… just give me a minute.
KARL: I’ll help you, mate.
KARL follows LEO up the stairs. THERESE carefully carries the drawing of herself and puts it in one of her sportsbags. Then she starts to clean up the debris from the damaged wall.
MARGO: Why are you taking this risk? Do you think I won’t really ring the police?
THERESE: I guess you will. I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go.
MARGO: What’s this big sacrifice for? To help a nasty, selfish old drunk stay in his house for a few days? Why does he deserve it? Don’t you know who that man is?
THERESE: I think I know.
MARGO: He doesn’t deserve your devotion.
THERESE: If all of us only got what we deserved, most of us’d be pretty fucked.
MARGO: There’s got to be some fairness. Someone who’s lived the life he’s lived—why should he get away with it?
THERESE: It’s not up to me to judge him like that. I think maybe you have a right to but—
MARGO: You love his paintings? You think they absolve him of every foul thing he’s done?
THERESE: No. But you can’t count the foul things harder against him because he painted those.
MARGO: I want to see the honest balance sheet on Leo Bailey. That’s what I want to see.
THERESE: He made some beautiful things. Don’t they count on the balance sheet too?
MARGO: When I look at them, I don’t see beautiful. I see the life of all the women he married and the children he spawned—I see the marrow he sucked out of them and spewed out onto the canvas.
THERESE: He’s started to see some of that too and he’s ashamed.
MARGO: He should feel ashamed. He’s got plenty to be ashamed about.
LEO appears on the stairs, unseen by MARGO and THERESE.
That man said so many cruel things to me—when I was eleven years old—I remember the words exactly—‘What scrap of joy have you ever brought anyone? Not your poor bloody mother. Not me.’
THERESE: He never meant half those things. He was drunk or—
MARGO: That makes it worse. Cruel witho
ut even caring. Dumping his ugly moods on a little kid. Saying things he wouldn’t even remember an hour later.
LEO whimpers, unheard by MARGO and THERESE.
I saw him slice into my mother over and over. She put up with it. When he finally turned his back on her—that’s what tore her apart. She lay in bed in the dark for a year before she killed herself.
LEO: Oh, my Phyllis…
MARGO: Leo Bailey is like a sac of poison in my belly. Toxins leak out into my system if I’m not vigilant. Whatever you think of me—
THERESE: If I was you, I’d feel the same way.
Too distressed to speak, MARGO leaves. THERESE hears LEO murmuring on the stairs.
LEO: My Phyllis … my girl…
THERESE: Leo, it’s okay.
LEO: It’s not. It’s not. Don’t tell me lies.
He stumbles down the stairs. KARL follows him down, trying to steady him.
It’s too late.
THERESE: It’s not too late. You can talk to Margo.
LEO: No. It’s too late. I can feel my body crumbling apart from the inside.
He falls. THERESE and KARL go to help him up but LEO stays there, staring at the floor.
The floor. The painting is hidden in the floor.
KARL: Under the floorboards?
LEO: We have to find it.
THERESE: How do we—?
KARL: I’ll get the tools from the truck.
KARL runs outside.
LEO: I remember. That’s where it is. We have to find it. We have to find it now.
THERESE: Calm down. We will.
LEO paces, muttering to himself.
Which part of the floor?
LEO: I’m trying to remember.
He shakes his head, searching, muttering. He yanks at rotten floorboards with all his strength.
Where is it? Try here.
THERESE: Don’t hurt yourself. We’ll help you.
LEO: Oh—maybe under that window.
THERESE works to lift a floorboard. In places the boards are so loose that even LEO can lift them by hand. He becomes more and more frantic.
THERESE: What are we looking for?
LEO: A tube. It’s in a metal tube.
THERESE: Take it easy, Leo. We’ll find it. Don’t get yourself in a state.
LEO: You don’t understand.
THERESE: I understand you want to find a painting and we’ll keep—
LEO: No. No. It’s not ‘a’ painting. It’s the only one I care about.
THERESE: ‘The Laughing Girl’? I thought that was missing.
LEO: They all thought so.
KARL re-enters with tools. He uses a pinch bar to lift up a floorboard.
THERESE: But really you hid it?
LEO: Years ago. We must find it.
THERESE: We will. Calm down.
KARL: [to THERESE] Do you think it’s here? He might just—
THERESE: He might just want it to be here.
LEO: Stop whispering about me. I can hear you.
KARL: Are you sure you hid it in this house?
LEO: Yes. Yes. I completely forgot I hid it. Thought they’d stolen it. But now I remember. Here! Here! Quickly!
KARL yanks up boards where LEO is pointing.
I didn’t want them bickering about it—like scrawny mongrels fighting over a carcass. [He feels around under the floor.] I knew they’d try to steal it and then wait for me to die. Couldn’t let that happen with this one. Ah! There she is.
He pulls out a stainless steel tube.
THERESE: Is that it? Is that the one?
LEO is too weak to yank the top off the tube.
I’ll do it.
LEO: Be careful!
THERESE pulls out a rolled canvas and hands it to LEO. The three of them huddle round as LEO unrolls the canvas. We can’t see the picture itself. LEO’s face lights up. THERESE and KARL are transfixed by it.
THERESE: My God… Oh, Leo, it’s so lovely.
LEO: Isn’t she?
KARL: She’s beautiful. How long ago did you paint it?
LEO: Oh, years. Years and years. Before everything went wrong.
THERESE: Oh, look at her. She’s shining out at us.
KARL: How old is the little girl?
LEO: Six. She was six. Radiant girl.
KARL: You can practically hear her laughing.
THERESE: Yes!
LEO: When she laughed—oh… the most delicious laugh… intoxicating. It filled me up. I loved hearing my girl laugh. Precious girl.
KARL: The girl in the picture—who is she?
LEO: Why wouldn’t she be laughing? Everything was good then.
THERESE: It’s Margo.
LEO: Yes. It’s her.
He starts to cry. He walks away, leaving KARL and THERESE holding the canvas.
I couldn’t hold her in my head long enough. I let myself forget how luminous she was. Went off chasing other things. Stupid vanity, flimsy thrills, some gratification, some itch! Look at the precious things I had. Look what I’ve done. Look what I’ve done.
THERESE: Leo—
LEO: It’s more than I can bear.
LEO is swaying, woozy.
KARL: Has Margo ever seen this painting?
LEO: Oh… I don’t know. Years ago maybe…
THERESE: Why don’t you show the—? No, why don’t you give the painting to Margo?
LEO: If I give it to her, do you think she’ll forgive me? I’ll give her the painting and she’ll forgive me!
THERESE: No, I don’t think… you can’t expect that.
LEO: You’re right…
THERESE: But Leo—
LEO: One painting can’t fix everything.
THERESE: No.
LEO: It’s not enough.
THERESE: It’s not.
LEO moans.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give her the painting.
LEO: Do you think I should do that?
THERESE: Just give it to her.
LEO: Yes. Yes.
KARL notices that LEO is swaying, about to topple over.
KARL: Whoa—watch out, mate.
LEO: I feel dizzy.
THERESE: Go upstairs and have a lie down.
LEO: Roll up the painting carefully.
THERESE carefully rolls up the canvas.
KARL: Let me help you up.
LEO waves him away and starts up the stairs.
LEO: I’m right. Just need a lie down. We’ll give her the painting.
THERESE: Yes.
LEO disappears upstairs. THERESE puts the painting back in the tube. She’s shaky, overcome.
KARL: You right there?
He reaches to steady her. She pulls away.
Why is it so terrible—me being nice to you?
THERESE: Oh… I don’t mean to—
KARL: Makes me feel like a bit of a soft fool.
THERESE: Oh no, don’t. It’s me. I’m not used to the feel of it. It’s strange, like clothes that don’t fit.
KARL: I don’t understand that.
THERESE won’t keep still, throwing herself into straightening up the floorboards. KARL watches her.
THERESE: What are you looking at? Don’t look at me.
KARL: Keep still. Let me look at you.
THERESE: What?
She freezes. KARL comes closer and slowly leans forward. They kiss—cautious but tender.
You don’t want me.
KARL: I do.
THERESE: You don’t. You don’t know what kind of person I am.
KARL: I know what—Oh, I’m not going to argue with you about it. I just—Oh… I’m not good at this.
THERESE: Me neither.
They smile.
KARL: Can I at least look at you?
THERESE stays still and lets him look. Eventually she meets his gaze and smiles. There’s a cry from LEO.
THERESE: Leo? You okay?
LEO: I’m being sick. I’m…
THERESE: I’m coming.
L
EO appears on the stairs, blood all down his shirt.
LEO: There’s blood.
THERESE: Oh, Leo…
She and KARL help him down the rest of the stairs.
Feel like you might be sick again?
LEO: No. No. I feel better now.
THERESE: Good. Sit down here. I’ll clean you up.
They sit LEO in an armchair. THERESE hurries to get a bowl of water and whispers to KARL.
We need an ambulance.
KARL: You’ll be right, Leo. Therese’ll look after you. [To THERESE] They’ll have trouble finding this place. I’ll wait out there, direct them—if you’re okay to—
THERESE: Yeah. Do that. Tell them I think it’s an upper G.I. bleed.
KARL hurries out, dialling triple-o in his mobile. THERESE loosens Leo’s bloody shirt.
Let’s get this mucky thing off you.
She crouches close to him and sponges the blood off his neck and chest.
Is the water too cold?
LEO: No. It feels good.
THERESE: What a mess, eh. Karl’s ringing the ambulance. You’ll be right. It looks like a lot of blood but really—
LEO: No. Don’t lie. I would like to know what’s happening.
THERESE: I’m not a doctor or a nurse.
LEO: You read things, you talked to the doctors about things. Tell me.
THERESE: I think you’re having a big bleed inside.
LEO: In my guts.
THERESE: Yes.
LEO: Feel my belly. [He puts her hands on his belly.] It’s all swollen up.
THERESE: Because it’s filling with blood.
LEO: Ha—but there’s no pain.
THERESE: That’s good.
LEO: But I’m dying. I think so.
THERESE can’t say anything.
You won’t leave me, will you?
THERESE: No, I’ll stay right here.
LEO: I feel woozy—like I’m drunk. But I’m not.
THERESE keeps sponging his face and neck.