by Michael Gow
WALLY: You know a lot about things you don’t believe in.
WILL: I was an anxious teenager. I was into a lot of things. Then I grew up. But look, we don’t want you here, peddling whatever crap version of whatever book you’re twisting—
WALLY: Not peddling anything, brother, I’m here for free.
WILL: You know what I mean.
WALLY: I promised to come back and spend time with her. I gave my word.
WILL: What will it take? Go. Away.
WALLY: There’s more to say.
WILL: Go.
Pause.
WALLY: That’s not your mum’s real name, is it? What it says up there? Not Mary. Her name’s Jeannie. Am I right?
WILL finally nods.
She went to school at the nuns. She was in a room full of Marys. She didn’t like that so she used her middle name. Geraldine. But her little sister couldn’t say it properly, all she could get out was Jeannie. And that’s what she’s always been. Never Mary. Am I right, brother, do I have it right?
WILL: Yes.
WALLY: And I know this because she told me herself. When we talked.
WILL: When does all this talking happen? When I’m here, nothing, when I’m not it’s like Eugene O’Neill.
WALLY: Has she told you she’s been going to church? Probably didn’t tell you, seeing your views on the subject. Confession too. And this is why I need to see her.
WILL: She’s semi-conscious. She’s probably remembering something from 60 years ago, more. Anyway, she’ll be out of here tomorrow, the day after, so—
WALLY: Tomorrow?
WILL: As soon as they get the treatment started.
WALLY: That’s what they told you?
WILL: Haven’t told me anything yet, but that’s, that’s what they’re aiming for.
WALLY: For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. His own words.
WILL: Yes that’s very touching, very worthy.
WALLY: And there’s more we need to talk about.
WILL: No. You’ve reached your limit.
WALLY: But she understands me, that’s why she likes talking to me, needs to talk to me.
WILL: She doesn’t have much choice, you have a captive audience. And okay, she’s told you something, something from the past. I’m sure she feels sorry for you and was very nice to you and that’s it. Now go away. And stay away.
WALLY: A few minutes more, a reading—a couple of words. No. Before I go, let me pray with her. Please. You can join me. Let’s just bow our heads and offer a few words. And she’ll feel that, she’ll know that we’ve prayed for her. Come on, Will, a quick prayer and I’ll go.
WILL: If that’s what it takes, then you’ll go?
WALLY: Hear our prayer… come on, just bow that head, brother… hear our prayer. We pray for you, our sister Jeannie, in the name of Jesus, as you fight this battle. We pray for you as we pray for all our brothers and sisters in the blessed name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Pause.
Amen.
Pause. WILL folds his arms.
Well, you don’t have to say it, as long as it’s in your heart.
WILL: Go.
WALLY: She will have felt that, and she’ll know you want her to feel the gift of Jesus’ love—
WILL’s at the door, holding it open.
WALLY takes a last look at JEANNIE, then goes to the door.
Bless you, brother.
WALLY goes.
WILL: Why do they let them in here? Don’t worry, if he comes back I’ll complain, I will. The place is probably crawling with them, nuns and priests and people with bad haircuts and cheap pamphlets, creeping up and down the corridors.
Silence. He watches her for a moment.
It won’t be long. I’ll have you out of here. I will.
He puts the TV on again, surfs through channels with the sound almost off.
What would he think of TV, the great German playwright? Lucky he died before TV took over the world. He would have hated the sentimental slop pouring out of this tube, turning us all into passive consumers, where even suffering is entertainment.
A DOCTOR comes in. WILL fumbles with the remote.
DOCTOR: Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
WILL: Come in, no, please.
DOCTOR: Sorry.
WILL: No.
DOCTOR: You are son?
WILL: Will Drummond.
DOCTOR: Andrei. So. Not such good place for Christmas. In here.
WILL: No, not really.
DOCTOR: Christmas? Wrong time for Christmas. In my country later, on six January. And most important time? Midnight, before the Christmas. To church. Candles, the singing. Then home with family. Gifts, food. Here, church? No. And gifts in morning. Then eat, eat, eat. Drinking, more drinking.
WILL: Yes, that’s how it happens here, yes, so, now.
DOCTOR: Yes, sorry. Okay. I have first results of tests for your mother.
WILL: Good.
DOCTOR: I draw this diagram to make clear.
WILL: Okay.
He draws.
DOCTOR: I’m not so good, not good drawing, but you understand. Here is stomach.
WILL: Yes.
DOCTOR: Here is pancreas.
WILL: Yes.
DOCTOR: Liver.
WILL: Yep.
DOCTOR: Pancreas is joined to stomach here, at top of small colon. Here, bile ducts from liver.
WILL: Okay.
DOCTOR: There is mass here, where pancreas join colon. We thought this from symptoms but now we are sure. The mass is pretty big. Blocking colon, so nothing leave her stomach, so she feel sick. It block bile ducts so impurities cannot leave normally, but through skin, so she is little bit yellow. It also has reach kidney here, so blood in urine. The mass put pressure on nerves here, so she probably have pain in back. So.
Pause.
WILL: Mass.
DOCTOR: Yes.
WILL: So? She?
DOCTOR: Okay. Your mother has cancer of pancreas. Has she lost weight? Much weight loss, this is sign.
WILL: She looks a bit, frail, but she’s been through quite a bit, it might just be stress.
DOCTOR: No.
WILL: Her wedding ring fell off, would that—?
DOCTOR: Aha! Yes.
Pause.
WILL: What next?
DOCTOR: Okay. Pancreas here, between aorta and spinal column. Drawing not good—
WILL: The drawing is—
DOCTOR: Sorry—
WILL: I see what—
DOCTOR: Can you see what—
WILL: I get it.
DOCTOR: So condition is very hard to find until very advanced and then we have symptoms. This is how it is with your mother.
Pause.
WILL: What will you do?
DOCTOR: When she awake, we can assess, make decision.
WILL: So now?
DOCTOR: You wait. You rest. She will sleep the night I think.
He offers WILL his hand. WILL takes it. They shake.
Tomorrow.
SONG: ‘White Christmas’.
WILL: Two screens, one book.
Screen one, a television. Screen two, a laptop. The book was found among Nick and Sonia’s old university books, couldn’t part with them so they left them here as holiday reading.
On the TV, it’s Christmas. On the laptop, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering web page on pancreatic cancer.
TV. ‘Carols by Candlelight’, hosted by… I don’t know who that is. No idea. I would guess some idiot off breakfast TV. He’s introduced a girl, a singer, no idea who she is either. The band starts and, ah no, she’s going to sing it, she’s actually going to sing it. ‘Come, they told me pa rum pum pum pum, a new born king t
o see pa rum pum pum pum’. ‘The Little Drummer Boy’.
‘A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Communism.’ Sitting on the shelf with Europe Since Napoleon and The Age of Extremes and The Second Sex and A Room of One’s Own sitting there like it was patiently waiting for me to find it; Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto. ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.’
Laptop. So, here, the disease is described as being a quote silent killer unquote, due to the depth of the pancreas inside the body, which means early detection is very difficult. Dr Zhivago has already told us this.
Risk factors: Smoking slash tobacco use. Jeannie Drummond never had a cigarette in her life. Hated them. Age. People over fifty-five. Tick. Race and ethnicity. African American people more likely to develop this cancer than white, Hispanic or Asian American. It’s an American website so… Excess weight. She was thin as a rail her whole life. But really, as far as causes; no-one has a clue.
Let’s read on. ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.’ But now, apparently, according to this headmaster, that war is over.
TV. She’s near the end, thank God, really belting it out. ‘Theeeeeeeen, I played for him, Pah ruppa pum puuuuuuuuuum, me and my druuuuuuuuuuuum.’ A terrible sound pouring out through the lip gloss. Appalling.
Enough. Follow the link to: Symptoms. Sudden severe, weight loss—losing her wedding ring, we now know why—back pain, yes. Depression. Yes, I guess that’s the right word. Jaundice due to the bile ducts being blocked, like the doctor said—this would explain the strange colour of her skin in certain lights—loss of appetite. Yes. Nausea. Yes. All the boxes ticked. For what that’s worth.
At ‘Carols by Candlelight’ the singing has moved on to ‘Jingle Bells’. Stars of Australian musical theatre giving their all. There are cutaway shots of kids in the audience with candles, sitting in the parents’ laps, singing along. They have no idea what they’re actually singing, but like all children simply enjoy singing, even if it’s ‘Jigga Booze, Jigga Booze, Jigga Bored Away’. What else?
He changes channels.
No. No. No. No. Once you could be sure there’d be an epic. King of Kings, The Robe, Greatest Story Ever Told. And someone by the fire reading ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus’. Not anymore. But. Here, on the ABC, a choir in an ancient English church; is it Winchester? There’s a shot of a nativity scene up the front, plaster Holy Family and animals. No, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. They’re singing their ancient English hearts out. ‘In Dulci Jubilo’ right now, the vowels perfectly formed.
Music.
[Sung] In dulci jubilo
Let us our homage show;
Our heart’ joy reclineth
In praesepio,
And like a bright star shineth
Matris in gremio;
Alpha es et O,
Alpha es et O.
Perfect little English boys, little Jeremies each and every one, all products of the English imperial ruling class. Even the token Asian and Indian and black. Smug little bastards. They might be living in the smoking ruins of the British Empire, they’re still convinced, they still know, they’re at the centre of civilisation and culture and sending their benevolent message out into the world. You’d like to grab one by the scruff of his neck and rub his face in the hay, in the cow shit on the stable floor and while he was gagging for breath, bent over the baby Jesus, you could exact revenge in the name of all the dispossessed and downtrodden. Your Latin wouldn’t help you then, Jeremy.
Let’s see what else is on what used to be called the idiot box. Aha. Now, here on this channel they’re showing It’s A Wonderful Life. 1946? Just after the war anyway. Frank Capra. A revolutionary film disguised as a sentimental comedy. A common man who stands up to the forces of international Capital. This film contains some of the greatest acting ever seen. Jimmy Stewart. Effortless, relaxed, witty, restrained. Just what Brecht wanted. At the end of this film, the community defeats an evil banker. And everyone—whites, Jews, Italians, Blacks—all sing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. And it’s not about whitegoods shopping and overeating and getting pissed for them, it’s about salvation and the words could not be clearer and they know exactly what they’re singing and you can’t help but find tears in the corners of your eyes because it’s so laughably naïve and true all at once. They save the town. And themselves. In an ocean of ugliness, one reason for television to exist.
He watches, turns it down.
Here the treatments are laid out: radiation, chemotherapy. And there’s an operation. The Whipple Procedure. Whipple. Named after Alan Whipple MD who refined the procedure in the 1930s. This is major surgery but now a well-known procedure and its success rates are rising. This is it. This is the answer. This is what we’ve been looking for, waiting for. They’ve probably already scheduled it. No wonder they’re so casual. She won’t be there beyond tomorrow, end of the week at the most. An operation, recovery, short time there, then home. They like to get them home and back into their lives as soon as possible. It’s the new face of medicine, like talking to them even though they’re unconscious. At last, we have an answer.
So. The works of Karl Marx have no meaning. Is this true? What else did Marx say? ‘The modern bourgeois society has not done away with class antagonisms.’
CHORUS: It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
WILL: Is this not true?
CHORUS: Modern bourgeois society is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
WILL: Is not this also true?
CHORUS: The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of its world-market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. All established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed.
WILL: Sounds like the truth to me.
CHORUS: Capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.
WILL: The workers’ blood.
CHORUS: Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations.
WILL: Is that not worth striving for?
SONG: ‘The Internationale’.
CHORUS: [sung] Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution! The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains!
They have a world to win!
Working men of all counties unite!
WILL: But listen, listen.
One of the Jeremies in the choir is singing solo. Unaccompanied.
SONG: ‘Once in Royal David’s City’
SINGER: [sung] Once in Royal David’s city
Stood a lowly cattle shed.
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for His bed.
Mary was that mother mild
Jesus Christ her little child.
WILL: The rest of the choir will join in.
[Sung] He came down to earth from Heaven
There.
[Sung] Who is God and Lord of all,
And his shelter was a stable,
And his cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.
Shots of the perpendicular Gothic nave and ceiling, the Rubens painting, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, and the singing makes us believe, because it is so beautiful, that even the English can be redeemed, the ruling class can be redeemed, brutality and greed forgi
ven and peace spread over the earth, goodwill showered on all men and all will be right with everything. They’re singing about a baby born in a cattle shed. About the meek and lowly. About children receiving grace. These kids in the choir are touched by something from higher up or further out or deeper down and all you can do is reject your ugly lust for revenge, admire them and respect them as precious messengers of something great. There is hope for something better. Not nicer, not more comfortable. Something better.
[Sung] Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in Heaven,
Set at God’s right hand on high;
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.
Back in the hospital ward WILL’s got a small Christmas tree made from a branch of a gum tree and a couple of wrapped presents in a bag. JEANNIE’s still asleep. He stands there, looking a bit lost. But he rallies.
I’m here.
Pause.
Merry Christmas.
Pause. He kisses her
I brought a tree. It’ll have to do until you get out of here and back to the house. And presents.
He sets up the tree with the presents under it.
They’ve put your real name up. Did you know that? That must make you feel better. There. Merry Christmas. Want me to open a present for you? Okay. [He does.] They’re organising the treatment. There’s an operation. The doctor will be here soon to tell us when they’ll start. They’ll swing into action. Fix this right up. You’ll be out of here in no time. [The present is opened.] It’s a calendar. From Paris. A big museum in Paris. It used to be a railway station, but now it’s a museum. In Australia it would be a casino, but there, it’s a museum. Impressionist women. Ladies with umbrellas, you love them. July, look at her, you’ll frame her I bet. And September. I’ll open one for me, yes? [He does.] It’s the frying pan. Copper frying pan, it’s, yes, great. Perfect. It’ll get a lot of use. Why don’t I open this one for you? I’ll take it out. [He unwraps the present.] At least they stopped that Christmas carol tape. [He reveals a Royal Doulton figurine.] Another one for the collection. She’s called ‘Lydia’. I’ll stand her here so you can see her. Merry Christmas.
Silence. Nothing else to say or do for a moment.
And there’s one more present. I spent a lot of time last night, lying awake, thinking about this. [He takes out his phone, dials.] I decided to talk to these kids. I can’t get the idea out of my head, I keep hearing this headmaster’s voice: ‘There are no more classes’. So I’ll do it. Teach. I will do my best to liberate these kids from the tyranny of this second-rate history teacher. I waited till this morning so you can hear the momentous event actually take place. Voice mail. Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Sarah? Your phone is off, it’s Christmas and you’re doing Christmas things. Of course. It’s Will. Will Drummond. Look. I’ll give it a go. I’ll do a session with your kids. See if I can make any sense. A challenge. That’s if you’re still interested. Epic Theatre. The Alienation Effect. Anyway we’ll talk after the holidays. So. Merry Christmas. [He hangs up.] I’ll get them to video it, you can watch me teach.