Once in Royal David's City

by Michael Gow

GIRL: ‘This guy is looking my boyfriend all over. He is disgusting.’

  GERMAN: Yes, I am very good-looking guy so of course he want to look me all over. I am okay with this. It is cool. Everything here is cool. I like it here very much. The weather is so beautiful and people can wear almost nothing and I am thinking I will stay here for the surfing and not go back to the university in Heidelberg which you don’t know yet and you will be very unhappy and go back to Berlin to live with your boring friends.

  WILL: Thank you. But the point is, the reason I present this is that it leads me, yet again, against my will, once more, back to our main topic. The thought, in fact a memory, takes place in Berlin. Twenty-eight years ago. Winter. Checkpoint Charlie. [To GUARD] Guten Tag.

  GUARD: Ihrer Reisepass. Australien? So weit.

  WILL: Sehr.

  GUARD: Warum besuchen Sie die DDR?

  WILL: Theater.

  GUARD: Was?

  WILL: Theater. Ich bin Student. Theaterwissenschaft.

  GUARD: Weiss nix davon.

  WILL: Bertolt Brecht? Berliner Ensemble?

  GUARD: Weiss nix.

  WILL: You must have heard of him. He’s one of the world’s greatest playwrights and directors and I’m going to see The Life of Galileo at the Berliner Ensemble, this is such a big day for me, I can’t believe you haven’t, but their friend is here, they go to meet her. They’re wheeling the stairs away from the plane. Where is she? Everyone else is already off. The building is full of people and Christmas presents and backpacks. Have I missed her, thinking about Brecht and Berlin, drooling over the German? She hasn’t come. At the last minute she’s decided not to come. Phone conversation staged without using phones.

  MOLLY: I got such a surprise. There she was, at the door. She’d driven four hours, didn’t even make sure I was home. Just got in the car and drove. I was thrilled to see her. Of course I was. Hardly saw her at your dad’s funeral. She came in, all she wanted was a cup of tea, as she came through the door, ‘Molly, put the kettle on’, an old joke that goes so far back. Made the tea, asked her what she was doing for Christmas. She told me about the house at the beach and I said ‘terrific’, but then she said she just wanted to stay home and rest. I said, I told her, ‘You go. The world of good. Bill loved the beach. The best thing you could do.’ But she drank half her tea, got up and back out to the car.

  WILL: All that way?

  MOLLY: She just wanted to get home again. And she did look tired. But you make sure she gets to the beach for Christmas. The best thing, just the two of you, after everything you’ve been through.

  WILL: If she wants to rest, maybe she should.

  MOLLY: No. Get her out of that house. It’s a perfect way to spend this first Christmas. You make sure she gets there. You make her promise.

  WILL: But she hasn’t come. Then, out there, still walking from the plane…

  JEANNIE almost drags a green ‘Save the Environment’ shopping bag across the tarmac.

  The sunlight is bouncing off the tarmac and making her skin a strange colour.

  She makes it to a chair.

  You made it. You’re here. I’ll get your bag and we can go.

  JEANNIE: Let me sit. I’m tired. Tired all the time.

  WILL: Rest. That’s what you need. And you’ll get plenty of that now you’re here.

  JEANNIE: This morning. I was in the shower. Getting ready. I had to go to the toilet. I couldn’t hold back. I went there, in the shower. There was blood.

  WILL: You’ve been through so much, no wonder you’re run-down. You’ve probably come down with some infection, that’s all. You had a check-up, the doctor didn’t find anything.

  JEANNIE: And I think I hurt my back when I had that check-up. Climbing up to have the X-ray. Pulled a muscle. This pain in my back won’t go away.

  WILL: Look, you can see Mount Warning.

  JEANNIE: Are we here?

  WILL: We’re at the house.

  JEANNIE: Did we drive?

  WILL: Yes.

  JEANNIE: In your car?

  WILL: Nick and Sonia’s car, they’ve lent it to me. With the house. You remember them?

  JEANNIE: I don’t remember driving here.

  WILL: We saw hang-gliders. Here. Here’s your tea. Drink that, then you’ll feel better.

  JEANNIE: I did some gardening. Days ago, I don’t remember. Just to fill in time. It took forever. I got so tired, had to sit down every five minutes. Could hardly be bothered in the end. Kept going, pulled out weeds. Watered everything. That garden your father and I loved. I went inside and made some toast, just to have something to eat, even though the thought of food makes me sick. I was taking the bread out of the toaster and I saw my hand. My wedding ring was gone. It must have slipped off when I was digging. I went back and looked and looked, dug in that garden for hours. All those things your father and I planted. I couldn’t find it. Gone. Look. [She holds out her hands.] No wedding ring. Fifty years, never off my finger, and it’s gone. I feel sick. I can’t even enjoy a cup of tea.

  WILL: It’s good you’ve come. You won’t know yourself after a week here. Rest. Do whatever you want. If that means never leaving this verandah, that’s what we’ll do. And you’ll see how much better you feel.

  SONG: ‘Sleigh Ride’.

  And this. Obviously. Is a hospital.

  A hospital ward.

  JEANNIE’s in bed asleep. GAIL standing at the foot of the bed. WILL comes in, a brief moment’s silence, neither knows what to say.

  I was told I could come whenever I wanted. Should I wait outside?

  GAIL: [leaving] No, come in, I’ll get out of your way.

  WILL: How is she?

  GAIL: About the same.

  WILL: Do they have the results?

  GAIL: Not that I know of.

  WILL: Still?

  She hesitates at the door.

  GAIL: No.

  WILL: But the sooner we know, the sooner we can start the treatment. And the sooner I can take her home again.

  GAIL: As soon as they have them they’ll let you know, I’m sure.

  WILL: I mean I already know what it is.

  gail: You know?

  will: When she was first admitted, yesterday, in casualty, I heard the two doctors talking. There were two women there, my mother and this other woman. My mother has some kind of infection they were saying, which is what I thought. Her age. She’s got this, my mother has this infection because she’s old. Old people get them all the time, infections. They make them feel weak and sick, which is exactly how my mother’s been. The other woman, one doctor said the only question is whether it’s primary or secondary, which means, well you know what that means, but my mother has some kind of infection. We all know that already.

  She’s come back into the room.

  Would it be on her chart? What does it say?

  GAIL: I’m not a nurse, not actually a nurse.

  WILL: But you work here, you know your way around medical notes—

  JEANNIE moans, stirs a little.

  What’s the matter?

  GAIL: It’s… I’d say it’s the anaesthetic from the tests. We’re a bit groggy, aren’t we, Mary?

  Pause. JEANNIE is still again, silent.

  WILL: I’m not surprised this has happened, she’s so run-down. My father died six weeks ago.

  GAIL: Yes. I’m sorry.

  WILL: You knew that?

  GAIL: She mentioned it.

  WILL: When?

  GAIL: [after the smallest hesitation] I was looking in, at some stage.

  WILL: The last part was very hard. For her as well as him. But now they’ve done tests, they must know what it is so they should just get started with this infection. Is it in her bloodstream do you think? Or something in the urinary system? That kind of infection? She says she’s had this backache that won’t go away. That sounds like kidneys, don’t you think?

  GAIL: Doctor will talk to you.

  WILL: If it’s antibiotics, she’s not allergic. Is that dow
n there in the, on the notes, on the page?

  GAIL: They’ll know.

  WILL: You’d like to think so.

  Pause.

  GAIL: It’s a difficult time. You just want her better.

  WILL: I want her out of here. I want her to have this Christmas to recover, do whatever she wants. She deserves that, after the last few months. Last few years. So as soon as she gets started, the sooner she’ll be back with me at the house.

  GAIL: Talk to doctor.

  WILL: Will he come specially, or on his rounds?

  GAIL: As soon as he can, you’ll have to wait.

  WILL: My father had a tube through his side, because of cancer, to drain his bladder. Sometimes it’d get completely blocked with clots and back up. He’d be in agony. She’d have to wait for the ambulance. She’d have to wait for him to be admitted. Wait to take him home again. For the last six months he was in hospital full-time. She had to wait for the doctor to tell her something, anything, sit by the bed for hours and hours. Days would pass, no one would come. She had to wait hours to see a doctor when she first got here. It’s Christmas, all the doctors are on holidays. She had to wait for an X-ray, wait for them to get the results. She had to wait to be admitted, wait for tests. She has to wait for more results. Here she is, still waiting.

  GAIL: It’s busy, Christmas, people, like you said, on leave.

  WILL: Then how will things get moving?

  GAIL: They will.

  WILL: Is he in the building? I could go to him to talk.

  GAIL: I wish I could say.

  WILL: Yes I know how hard you all work here, and yes I’ve read the hospital’s mission statement in the lobby and I know you really do care. And I know the health system is in chaos and you do the absolute best, nurses and everyone are, they do an incredible job, yes. But time’s passing, it’s Christmas Eve. I want things to start for her, the Christmas things, the holiday things. I want to see this doctor.

  GAIL: He’ll be around when he can.

  WILL: Sure. Wait.

  Pause.

  GAIL: She’s very proud of you.

  WILL: Has she talked about me?

  GAIL: Just a few things, but I can tell, I can just tell.

  WILL: What did she say?

  GAIL: Bits and pieces.

  WILL: When?

  GAIL: Late at night.

  WILL: On your rounds?

  GAIL nods.

  The nurses said she’d be out of it until later today at least, so I didn’t stay. But she woke up?

  GAIL: She’d get restless.

  WILL: What did she tell you?

  GAIL: She said something about Christmas, a proper Christmas with a bottle of beer? I didn’t understand.

  WILL: Beer and Christmas cake, left out for Santa. Everyone did that. Anything else?

  GAIL: Shoeboxes.

  WILL: Shoeboxes?

  Pause.

  GAIL: You can tell me what they were, if you like.

  WILL: When I was a kid, twelve? I’d cut a hole in one end of a shoebox. To look through. And then slots on the top and sides. I’d cover the slots with different coloured cellophane paper. Then I’d put all kinds of things inside the box; pictures I’d cut out, objects I’d found, toys. You’d look into the box and see these things, lit by different coloured cellophane. Like on a stage. Sometimes I’d even put in the shapes of seats, so that when you looked in it was like you were in the back row.

  Pause.

  What else?

  GAIL: Something about the beach. Will on the beach, she got very restless about that.

  WILL: I got lost on Bondi beach once. I think it must have been terrifying, have a kid go missing in a crowd like that. Maybe she beat herself about it. She certainly kept an eye on me after that. Sometimes she was like a one-woman police state. But it wasn’t so bad. I did get lost, and a lifesaver did find me. I remember thinking how, well, impressive he looked. He took me back to their room. There were all these other lifesavers in there. They all ruffled my hair and made jokes. One of them gave me a Paddle Pop. I sat there amongst all those long legs and brown shoulders, sunburnt noses and chests and was so happy. And then she came and found me and I cried because I had to leave that cement room. I still remember that, not bad for your earliest memory. So this stuff just came out?

  GAIL: They drift in and out when they’re like this, things float up. You get some rest. She’ll probably sleep through now. You’re going to need your strength.

  WILL: What for?

  GAIL: Christmas tomorrow, isn’t it, Mary, Christmas tomorrow? I’ll drop in again. If that’s alright?

  WILL: Yes, ah?

  GAIL: Gail.

  WILL: Please. Yes.

  GAIL: You know what you should do, if you stay, while you’re here? Talk.

  WILL: Talk?

  GAIL: Yes.

  WILL: Who to?

  GAIL: Your mother.

  WILL: Talk?

  GAIL: Yes.

  WILL: And say what?

  GAIL: Whatever comes to mind. Doesn’t really matter what you say, it’s just the sound of your voice, lets them know you’re here.

  WILL: She’s unconscious.

  GAIL: Oh, they can hear you.

  She goes.

  He sits by the bed, watches her.

  Silence.

  He clears his throat. Takes a breath to speak, doesn’t.

  Pause.

  Clears his throat.

  WILL: You’ll be out of here soon. [He grimaces with the lameness of it.] We just have to wait for the doctor.

  Pause. He listens.

  That music. ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. I’d say the album is called ‘A Bossa Nova Christmas’. If they start ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ or that other one, ‘Giddy Up Giddy Up Giddy Up Let’s Go’, I’ll complain, I will, I promise. No one should have to listen to that.

  Pause. He gets up, walks around the room, looks out the window. Looks back at the bed, comes back and sits.

  ‘Whatever comes to mind.’ [He thinks, leaps in.] This teacher wants me to talk to some private school kids about Bertolt Brecht. Remember him? When I was studying German theatre? In my German phase? After my French phase. Before my Polish phase. He invented, he was supposed to have invented, the Alienation Effect. Which is a bad translation, but anyway. I banged on to you about how Brecht wanted the audience to be at a critical distance from what happens on stage, to see human beings’ actions clearly so we’d understand the social and political reasons for human behaviour blah blah. And you said, that’s what old Julius Sumner Miller always said, on the TV. ‘Why. Is it so?’ And you were right, that’s the whole theory in a nutshell. You always loved talking about what I was studying, trying to understand it.

  Pause.

  I met you for lunch once, in town. At the next table there was a couple, remember? Not speaking, staring at the table. She suddenly stood up and said very slowly and loudly, ‘Fuck. You. Derek’, and grabbed her bag and went crashing out and he didn’t know what to do, just sat there, everyone else trying to ignore what had happened. And you leant across the table and said, ‘Now that’s the Alienation Effect’.

  Pause.

  You wanted me to be a teacher. Not a life wasted in the theatre. Permanently poor. You did your best to stop me. We had some pretty dramatic scenes. I’d have been a hopeless teacher. But. I keep thinking about what I could say to these kids. Last year’s lot studied Theatre of the Absurd. But did they really understand what bad faith means? Did they take responsibility for their actions in a meaningless universe? Did they experience the failure of language? Or is making something teachable the best way to neutralise it? Make everything a teachable subject—political theatre, absurdist theatre, Theatre of Cruelty, politics, poetry, music, love—break it all down into neat packages of theme, key dates, major names, their best-known works, so there’s no chance any of it might actually affect anyone. Reduce everything to a score they can use to become the lawyers and accountants and magnates who keep the whole
machine going. I know I’d be useless as a teacher. But. There’s this headmaster with very interesting political views. And I feel like I want to rescue these kids.

  Pause.

  Does any of this register, down there, wherever you are?

  He sighs, sits there looking at her.

  WALLY appears at the door.

  WALLY: Ah! You’re here.

  WILL: Hullo?

  WALLY: How is she tonight, brother?

  WILL: She’s asleep.

  WALLY: Getting some rest?

  WILL: You’re not the doctor are you?

  WALLY: No.

  WILL: ‘Brother’ was the giveaway. So…?

  WALLY: I’m here to visit your mother. Will?

  WILL: Yes, but who are you?

  WALLY: Everyone calls me Wally.

  WILL: But why are you here?

  WALLY: I bring the true message of the Gospel.

  WILL: My mother isn’t religious. She’s not interested.

  WALLY: Isn’t she?

  WILL: No.

  WALLY: You sure about that?

  WILL: She’s always said: religion is old men in stupid hats telling other people what to do.

  Pause. WALLY isn’t taking the hint.

  My father was Church of England, she was Catholic. When they got married both sides told them they’d be damned to hell. Might help explain her attitude. But you’re not Catholic or Anglican, are you? You’re not even Baptist.

  WALLY: No I’m not.

  WILL: Adventist?

  WALLY: No.

  WILL: JW?

  WALLY: Not Jehovah’s Witness, no.

  WILL: Assembly of God?

  WALLY: No.

  WILL: What, Christadelphian? They’re all here, hiding in the back blocks. They’ve all got their besser brick meeting halls. There’s even a group waiting for the mothership to take them to their special planet. You one of them?

  WALLY: I’m not part of any group, any church you could put a name to.

  WILL: A one-man cult! Living alone in a shed in a paddock somewhere. Or an old caravan. With videos proving Noah’s Ark was real. Waiting for The Rapture, or the Kingdom of God with Jesus as world president? Getting high on all those words, the Tribulation, the End Times, Armageddon, the seventh seal and the fifth trumpet and the fourth bowl and the third horseman, proving the EU is the whore of Babylon, our Medicare cards have the sign of the Beast on them—