by Debra Oswald
That feels good. Mmm… feels like my body is fading away. That’s not so bad then, is it? Not so frightening.
THERESE: No.
LEO: Therese?
THERESE: I’m here.
LEO: Make sure you give the painting to her.
THERESE: I will.
LEO: You bring me a lot of joy, you know.
THERESE: Mmm.
LEO: Say you know.
THERESE: I know.
LEO: Ohh… feels like I’m sinking…
THERESE: I got you.
LEO fades into unconsciousness. THERESE holds him and keeps sponging his face. The sound of an ambulance siren.
SCENE THREE
Daytime. MARGO is in the house, packing things into cardboard boxes and a packing crate.
THERESE enters.
THERESE: Oh. Hello. Couple of things I needed to come back for. I’ll be out of here in a sec.
MARGO: Fine. The funeral will probably be the middle of next week.
THERESE: Okay.
MARGO sits.
MARGO: I always thought I’d feel released when he died. But I don’t.
THERESE sits down nearby.
I have a pretty accurate picture of how the pathology of this family works in my life. Doesn’t fix it. Insight is overrated in my opinion.
THERESE fetches the metal tube with the painting in it.
THERESE: We found this yesterday.
MARGO: Under the floorboards, I assume.
THERESE: It’s ‘The Laughing Girl’. Leo hid it.
MARGO: Ah.
THERESE: He really wanted me to give it to you.
MARGO: Sure. It’ll go in with all the other—
THERESE: No. No, he wanted to give it to you personally.
MARGO: Oh.
THERESE hands MARGO the tube.
THERESE: Did you know it’s you in the painting? The little girl?
MARGO: Oh… I suppose I did… I’m not sure.
THERESE: Well, it is you and Leo was—The thing is, he talked about you—when you were little. How lovely you were and how much—Luminous, he said. Precious girl. And he talked about how he wrecked everything—I’m not explaining this properly. He said—
MARGO: Don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it.
THERESE: Oh, but you should because—
MARGO: Why should I listen to his last big speech to you? He didn’t say any of that to me. One painting doesn’t make up for anything. So typical of Leo: to think some artistic gesture could do the job—easy—instead of proper human decency.
THERESE: I can understand why you think that and that’s—that’s fair enough.
MARGO puts the tube on top of a packing crate.
MARGO: It goes in the estate with the rest.
THERESE: Well, he really wanted you to have it.
MARGO nods.
I might see you at the funeral.
THERESE finds her sportsbag and checks that Leo’s drawing of her on the fibro is inside. She takes a moment to look at it, to enjoy it. Then she carefully packs the drawing in the bag and exits.
MARGO continues packing stuff into the cardboard box for a moment and then puts it down. She picks the metal tube out of the packing crate.
She takes out the canvas and slowly unrolls it. She looks at the painting, transfixed by it.
THE END