by David Hare
Kyra has picked up his plastic bag and is holding it out to him.
Kyra Edward, I enjoyed seeing you. Really. I mean it.
Edward Right. Then I’m off.
Kyra You’ve got all your stuff?
Edward Yes. Yes, thank you.
He still seems rooted to the spot, even with his bag in his hand. She reaches forward and kisses him on the cheek.
I expect I’ll see you again.
Kyra Yes, well, I hope so.
Edward You didn’t mind?
Kyra Edward, I’ve said so.
He has run out of ways to prolong his departure. So impulsively he blurts out his last instruction.
Edward Kyra, I wish you would bloody well help.
And he turns and leaves as fast as he can. Kyra is slightly shaken for a moment, then she goes to the open door and closes it. She thinks a moment, then she goes out to the bathroom. After a second, the Ascot flares again, and there is the sound of a running bath. The lights fade.
SCENE TWO
The lights come up again. In the kitchen the ingredients of the spaghetti sauce have been laid out – onions, garlic and chilli, none of them yet chopped. On the table the schoolbooks have been laid out for an evening’s reading. After a moment there is a ringing at the door. Then a second ringing and the sound of Kyra getting out of the bath.
Kyra (off) Shit!
As she comes into the room, wrapped in a large towel and dripping wet, the ringing becomes more insistent.
Shit! Who is it?
She goes into the kitchen and looks down from the only window which gives on to the street. She responds instinctively, without thinking.
Jesus Christ! Shit! Go away.
The bell rings again. At once she opens the window and calls down.
Hold on a minute and I’ll throw down a key.
She takes a key which hangs on a hook in the kitchen and throws it out of the window. She waits a moment to check it’s been caught, then closes the window. She is panicking slightly. She goes into her bedroom, having collected jeans and a couple of sweaters. She goes across to the main door and opens it, then runs quickly back into the bathroom and closes the door.
After a moment, Tom Sergeant appears in the doorway. He is near fifty, a big man, still with a lot of grey hair. He wears beautiful casual clothes under a coat. He has an air of slightly tired distinction. He stands a moment, looking round the room, but very quickly Kyra reappears in her jeans and sweater, her hair wet and a towel still in her hand.
Kyra I wanted to say I’m not guilty.
Toby Not guilty? What do you mean?
Kyra You arrived like a fucking stormtrooper.
Toby Thank you.
Kyra Have you parked your tanks in the street?
Toby I was only ringing the bell.
She passes him to close the door, her tone dry.
Kyra You always were excessively manly.
Toby I brought you some whisky.
Kyra Thanks. Put it down over there.
Toby OK.
Kyra Beside the beer.
Tom frowns, seeing there is already a carrier bag full of beer on the table. Kyra passes back across the room, drying her hair.
Did somebody tell you? That if you called I’d be in?
Toby No. I was just guessing.
Kyra Oh really? Just passing?
Toby I wouldn’t say that. I mean, does anyone …
Kyra Pass through this area? No. You’ve got a good point there. You mean this visit’s deliberate?
Toby Yes. Sort of.
There is a moment’s silence.
So.
Kyra Will you take off your coat?
Toby I won’t. Just at this moment. Perhaps it’s me. But it seems a bit parky.
Kyra It is.
Toby Well … I thought it was time. That’s what I’m doing here. Time you and I saw each other again.
Kyra heads towards the kitchen. Tom starts wandering round the little flat.
Oh, I see you’re making your supper. I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have phoned. I think I was scared you might hang up on me. I mean, I’ve had no idea. I mean, what you’ve been thinking. I suppose I thought perhaps you hated me.
Kyra Yes. If you’d rung, then you’d have found out.
Tom nods slightly, recognising and loving the old acerbity in her.
Toby It’s not been easy. One way and another. It’s been a hard time for me.
Kyra I heard about Alice.
Toby Did you? How?
Kyra I just heard.
Toby Yes. She died a year ago. It seems much longer. I mean, in a way it was fine. I’d already ‘discounted’ it. It’s a term we use in business. Meaning …
Kyra I know what it means. You’ve already prepared yourself. So when it happens it isn’t so awful.
Toby That’s right. Yes. You’re shocked?
Kyra Not at all. Should I be?
Toby No. Well, that’s how it was.
He starts to move round the room correcting his apparent callousness.
And also Alice was so incredible. I can hardly tell you. I mean, she was so brave. Propped up in bed, wearing yellow. She spent the day watching birds, through this large square of light above her. The skylight over her bed. She was truly … truly fantastic.
Kyra Whisky?
She is standing with the bottle poised over the glass. He catches her tone which seems unimpressed by his eulogy.
Toby Yes.
Kyra pours in silence. He looks at the CDs on the table.
Kyra, I must say you always surprise me. I’d never have thought you’d have taken up rap.
Kyra Oh. No, well, I haven’t. In fact only recently.
Toby You know that Edward’s into this stuff?
Kyra Oh really?
Toby Who are your favourites?
Kyra Oh. You know. It varies.
Toby I suppose you picked it up from your kids.
Kyra Sure.
Toby You’re still at that same place?
Kyra Yeah.
Toby How is it?
Kyra At the moment? It’s doing fine. I mean, we had a not-bad head teacher, truly she really wasn’t too bad, but then – it always happens – things started wearing her down.
She has got a bottle of red wine and has begun to open it.
People started stealing her car. It was sort of a challenge or something. We think it must have been some of the kids. Then they broke into her flat. She lost her stereo. Also they got hold of her cat. She came back one night. The cat had been baked in the oven. She began to feel it was time to move on. She got a better job, you know, down in Dulwich.
Toby Dulwich is nicer.
Kyra Yes, I think she probably felt that as well.
She looks at him witheringly, but he is imperturbable now.
Toby And what about you?
Kyra Me?
Toby Don’t you get tired of it?
Kyra I talk to the police occasionally. They say it’s a problem. Assaults on the police are growing all the time. Then they say, on the other hand, there’s one thing they can’t help noticing. It’s the same coppers who get beaten up time and again.
Tom smiles, relaxed now with his whisky, as she goes to get herself a wine glass.
Toby So what does that mean?
Kyra Some people are victims. I walk in perfect peace to and from school. I’m not a mark, that’s the difference.
Toby And what do you put that down to?
Instead of answering, Kyra suddenly looks him straight in the eye and raises her voice.
Kyra I wish you’d take off your fucking coat.
Her directness suddenly speaks of a whole past between them. Tom replies quietly.
Toby Well, I would. Of course. If you’d get central heating. Then of course I’d take off my coat. But since you’ve made a style choice to live in Outer Siberia, I think for the moment I’ll keep my coat on.
They are like old friends now as she pours herself a
glass of wine.
If you want central heating, look, it’s no problem. I’ve got this really good bloke.
Kyra From Yellow Pages?
Toby I’m sorry?
Kyra No, nothing.
Toby If you like, he’d come round. It wouldn’t take long. This bloke does all of my restaurants. I’m pretty sure I can spare him next week. Unless of course you say, no thank you. I mean, no doubt you’d prefer to be cold.
Kyra No, I’d prefer to be warm.
Toby Well then.
Kyra Warm, but not indebted. If it’s all right, I’m going to cook.
Toby Oh really? I was going to ask if you’d like proper dinner.
Kyra Meaning mine isn’t proper? Spaghetti!
Toby Oh Lord, so touchy! No, I meant, would you like to go out?
Kyra looks at him as if the question were absurd.
I’m just asking if you’d like to go out.
Kyra What for?
Toby An evening.
Kyra Tom, don’t you think I’ve got enough memories? Why should I want any more?
She goes back to the cooking.
So tell me, how is the business?
Toby (refusing to be downhearted) Business? Business has generally recovered. Yes, I’d even say it was thriving. Of course I’m not my own boss any more. In theory. Like everyone, I now have a chairman. The chairman of course has a bloody great board. That’s the price I paid for going public. I report to this sort of management guru.
Kyra (grimacing as she comes out opening a tin of tomatoes) My God!
Toby I know, but, like all really top-class management gurus, he only comes in for four hours a week. He wanders in. Makes a few gnomic statements. Mutters the words ‘core competence’. Or whatever trendy management mantra happens to be in fashion this week. Then he wanders out. For that the banks just love him. They adore him. Why? Because he once was a banker himself. So for this insider’s sinecure he is paid more or less twice what I am paid as full-time chief executive. The person who created the company. The person who knows the business of hotels and restaurants. But that is the way that things are now done … (He swirls the scotch in his glass.)
Kyra What’s he like?
Toby He’s one of those people who’s been told he’s good with people. That means he smiles all the time and is terribly interested. He keeps saying, ‘No, tell me, what do you think?’
Kyra In other words …
Toby Yes, he’s completely insufferable.
Kyra is beginning to enjoy him now.
It was how I was always told you could get women into bed. By doing something called ‘listening to their problems’. It’s a contemptible tactic.
Kyra You wouldn’t do it?
Toby No. Of course not. You know me, Kyra. I wouldn’t stoop to it. Either they want you or else they don’t. Listening’s halfway to begging.
Kyra smiles as she goes to get a chopping board, with which she comes back.
But this bloke … he does it all the time in the business. ‘How interesting. Really? Is that what you think?’ Then he does what he’d planned in the first place. It’s called consultation. Buttering you up and then ignoring you.
Kyra (setting down the board) I can imagine.
Toby Oh yes, that’s how things go nowadays …
Kyra Is there no way you can get rid of him?
Toby No. It’s the price I paid for floating the company. It made me millions, I can hardly complain. I offered you shares, remember? I never knew why you refused.
Kyra flashes a look at him to suggest he knows perfectly well why she refused.
When we went public they jumped thirty-fold. You could have had the house in the West Indies. Like me.
Kyra Oh, really?
Toby Well, maybe not quite. But at least you could have moved up in the world.
Kyra ignores this, choosing to go on chopping the onions.
Banks and lawyers! That’s all I see. So perhaps you did well. Perhaps it wasn’t so stupid. Coming here.
Kyra It wasn’t stupid.
Toby No.
She has spoken with such quiet firmness that he looks up. Then he moves away, implicitly accepting what she’s just said, but happy to resume his stories.
Me, I’m with shits and shafters all day. I went in to one guy, the other day, I said to this fellow – he’s lending me money at eleven per cent – I said: ‘You want it? Well you can have it. You want the shirt off my back? I will hand you my shirt. Here it is! And still, as God is my witness, you will not stop me, you will not stop me from trying to build a business out there.’
He stands now, re-creating the moment.
I said, ‘I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a doer. I actually go out, I make things happen. I give people jobs which did not previously exist. And you … you sit here with your little piles of money. Doing fuck all.’
Kyra How did he take it?
Toby Oh, no problem! The odd thing was, he agreed.
He is in his stride, the raconteur happy with his favourite audience.
He said, ‘Yes of course, you’re right, that’s right. It’s true. You take the risks and I never do. I hate risk!’ he said. ‘But also,’ he said, ‘has it occurred to you that this may be the reason finally why it’s you who always has to come grovelling to me?’
Kyra He didn’t say ‘grovelling’?
Toby (suddenly exasperated) Kyra, there’s nothing more irritating …
Kyra All right, I’m sorry …
Toby No, Alice … Alice would do this. I would say, I’m telling a story. For God’s sake I’m telling a story. If I say it, it’s true.
Kyra I know.
Toby ‘Oh, I don’t believe it,’ Alice would say …
He is more emphatic than ever, as if mystified why anyone would doubt him.
I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t what happened. I wouldn’t say it!
Kyra I know.
Toby That’s what he said to me!
Kyra He used the word ‘grovelling’?
Toby Those exact words! ‘And that is why you come grovelling to me …’
Kyra laughs again, now Tom is back on track, his humour restored.
Kyra Well I must say … who was he?
Toby Some fucking graduate in business studies. Twenty-five. Thirty. Knows nothing. The Rolex! The fucking lemon-yellow Gaultier tie!
Kyra Goodness, the banks have got trendy.
Toby They’re beyond trendy. The banks are running the world. You think – oh fuck! – you think, I’ll run a business, I’ll build a business. You remember, Kyra, we started out, my God it was great! Actually counting the money, you counted it with me …
Kyra Of course.
Toby Actually handling the money each morning, after you’d joined us, totting it up each Saturday night …
Kyra I remember.
Toby Then – oh Christ! – there’s this fatal moment. Expansion!
Kyra Sure.
Toby And then you borrow. And then you’re no longer in business, you’re no longer in what I’d call business, because it’s nothing to do with the customer. It’s you and the bank. And it’s war! (He stops, incisive.) There was a moment, I tell you, in the middle eighties …
Kyra Oh yeah …
Toby Yeah, just for a moment, I tell you, there was a time. I think, through that little window – what was it? Four years? Five years? Just through that little opening in history you could feel the current. For once you could feel the current running your way. You walked into a bank, you went in there, you had an idea. In. Money. Thank you. Out. Bang! They gave you the money! It was like for a moment we all had a vision, it was a kind of a heavenly vision, the idea of how damn fast and fun it could be … (He turns, whisky in hand.) And then of course everything slipped back to normal. The old ‘Are you sure that’s what you really want to do?’ The ‘Wouldn’t it be easier if we all did nothing at all?’ They always have new ways of punishing initiative. Whatever you do, they think up new ways.
/> Kyra looks up a moment, but Tom is already going on to tell her more.
You know, you read all this stuff in the papers – this stuff about banks – you read it, you know what I mean …
Kyra No. I’m afraid I’ve stopped reading the papers.
Toby What are you saying? Not altogether?
Tom is taken aback, but Kyra is going on, amused at her own story.
Kyra It’s funny, I remember my father. Dad used to say, ‘I don’t watch the news. I don’t approve of it.’ I used to say, ‘Dad, it’s the news. It’s the news, for God’s sake. How can you not approve of it?’ But I must say, now … perhaps I’m my father’s daughter … I tend to think that he had a point. I don’t have a television either.
Toby But that is just crazy. You’re …
Kyra What?
Toby Well, you’re missing what’s happening. You’re missing reality.
Kyra Oh, do you think?
Even Tom is only half serious, knowing his argument doesn’t sound too good. And Kyra is completely unfazed.
I just noticed the papers were full of … sort of unlikeable people. People I couldn’t relate to. People who weren’t like the decent people, the regular people I meet every day at the school. So I thought, I start reading this stuff and half an hour later, I wind up angry. So perhaps it’s better I give it up.
Toby So what do you read?
Kyra On the bus I read classic novels. Computer manuals. It’s like that game. Name a politician you actually admire. So what is the point of sitting there raging at all the insanity?
Toby That’s not the point.
Kyra It’s the same with new films. I just won’t go to them. Old films I like.
Toby Ah. Those you like because they’re romantic.
Kyra You can hardly deny it. They have something we don’t.
Suddenly her words hang in the air between them. Almost to cover the embarrassment, she resumes.
And Edward?
Toby What?
Kyra How is Edward?
Tom looks at her blankly as if not knowing who she’s talking about.
Kyra Edward. Edward, your son?
Toby Oh, bloody Edward, that’s who you mean. He’s fine. I mean, he’s living. He’s alive. I mean, he gives the external signs. He eats. He tries to spend all my money. What can you say except he’s eighteen?
Before Kyra can react, Tom is off again, on a half-serious complaint.