by David Hare
Toby I sent her flowers. Red roses. I sent her these roses, day after day. After a month of this, she finally agreed to meet me. In a coffee shop. She was quite charming. Quiet, you know. But she said, ‘I’m not a thing, don’t you see? You can’t buy me. Whatever you give me, I can’t ever be bought.’ I remember, even then, I was just laughing. I said, ‘My God, do you not understand?’
He has become expansive, his old energy back as he tells this story, as well as a genuine indignation about his motives.
You see, by that time, I’d already started. I had a couple of restaurants, nothing too grand. But I’d already worked out – I’m not an idiot – you either run money or else it runs you. If you keep your money … if you’re frightened to spend it, you become its prisoner. OK, sure, when you’re making it, be as mean as you like. But when you spend it, just give. Give. Show your contempt for it. I said to her, there in that café, ‘I give for the pleasure of giving. Just for the pleasure itself.’
Kyra But Alice understood that.
Toby No. She never accepted it. I promise you. Right to the end. She always thought if I was giving, then somehow I must want something back.
Kyra is beginning to understand now, instinctively knowing where he’s heading.
Kyra You told me you built her that room to be ill in.
Toby That’s what I’m saying. Exactly. That’s what I mean. I gave it to her because … oh shit … I preferred it that she should be happy. What’s wrong with that? I wanted her to die in a place that she liked.
He goes across the room and takes the whisky bottle. He pours himself a scotch, which he does not yet drink.
While she was dying, every night I brought her these flowers. The very same flowers – red roses – that I’d given when we first met. Then one day she was lying, her head on the pillow, I thought asleep. She suddenly said, ‘No. No more flowers.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ She said, ‘It isn’t the same.’ She said, ‘The flowers were when you loved me. You and I were really in love.’ She said, ‘Now I don’t want them.’
For a moment there are tears in his eyes, his grief almost overwhelming him.
She was one week from dying. Kyra, that’s fucking hard.
Kyra Yes.
Toby I’d tried to explain to her … many times I’d tried to talk about you. But she’d cut me off. She’d made up her mind. She had her opinion. And believe me, she wasn’t willing to change. She knew exactly what she was doing. The one thing she had was her moral authority. A wrong had been done. That was it. The last thing she wanted was to change her view of things, and certainly not by listening to mine.
He turns and looks at Kyra.
She used her death as a way of punishing me.
Kyra Tom …
Toby No, really. Really! You think I’m exaggerating. She treated me as if I were still some sort of schoolboy: you betrayed me; that’s it. Now in my opinion that’s not bloody fair.
Kyra Tom!
He moves away, bitter, his drink now in his hand, not looking at Kyra.
Toby What I’m saying: it wasn’t one-sided. It wasn’t simply that I was a shit. You have to deal with this – part of the problem was Alice. Right to the end, she couldn’t forgive. And even now I feel out on a limb.
Kyra I see that.
Toby I get home from the restaurants – that’s if I bother to go in at all – at ten-thirty I think that I’m tired, but then two hours later I’m sitting up, stock still in bed. I go for a walk on the Common. Sometimes. I go out around three. Just looking around, and thinking. Always the same thought. I find myself thinking: something must come of all this.
He knocks back his scotch in one, a wildness now starting to appear in him.
I try to go out. I try to enjoy myself. I think: oh tonight, I’ll go out, I’ll get drunk. But my foot’s on the floor, I’m pumping, I’m flooring that fucking pedal, and nothing’s moving. I’m getting no fucking pleasure at all.
Sensing where he is heading, she is nervous. But he is gaining in strength, as if the worst of this confession is over.
It’s like, you know, like earlier you were saying, how all the time you felt you’d been loyal to her. You’d also been loyal to something inside yourself. I suppose I feel: what happens now? Do we just leave it? Just leave it completely? And if we did, isn’t that like admitting our guilt?
Kyra Tom …
Toby No, look, isn’t that like saying we did behave shabbily? And, oh, it was just an affair! And then when she found out, it was over? Doesn’t that seem to you wrong?
Kyra looks at him, then frowns, moving away a little. She is decisive, trying to be as serious as he was.
Kyra Tom, you know there’s something which you do have to deal with. There is this whole world I’m now in. It’s a world with quite different values. The people, the thinking is different … it’s not at all like the world which you know.
Tom looks at her, saying nothing.
I mean, if we ever … if we … what I’m saying … if we can work out a way of keeping in touch … then you have to know that I have made certain decisions. And these are decisions you have to respect.
Toby Why, I mean, yes.
Kyra Good.
Toby Surely. I’m not a complete idiot.
Kyra No.
Toby You’re saying you’ve made an informed and serious choice.
A note of mischief is beginning to be detectable. Kyra looks at him suspiciously.
You’ve chosen to live in near-Arctic conditions somewhere off the North Circular. No, really. Why should I have any problem with that?
He is beginning to get into his swing, exaggeratedly gesturing round the room now as he pours himself more scotch.
I promise. I’m deeply impressed with it. I assure you, it gives me no problem at all. Put a bucket in the corner to shit in, and you can take hostages and tell them this is Beirut!
There is suddenly some savagery in his voice, but Kyra has decided to stay calm and not be bullied.
Kyra Tom, I have to tell you, this place is really quite reasonable.
Toby Oh really?
Kyra As it happens, I get it at a very cheap rent.
Toby I should hope!
Kyra It’s you, Tom. The fact is, you’ve lost all sense of reality. This place isn’t special. It’s not specially horrible. For God’s sake, this is how everyone lives!
Toby Oh please, please let’s be serious …
Kyra I mean it.
Toby Kyra, honestly …
Kyra No, this is interesting, this is the heart of it. It wasn’t until I left your restaurants … those carpaccio- and ricotta-stuffed restaurants of yours … it wasn’t till I deserted that Chelsea milieu …
Toby Which in my memory you liked pretty well …
She stops, not at all put off by his interruption.
Kyra I do like it, yes, that isn’t something I’d ever deny … but it wasn’t until I got out of your limousines … until I left that warm bubble of good taste and money in which you exist …
Toby Thank you.
Kyra It was only then I remembered most people live in a way which is altogether different.
Toby Well, of course.
Kyra And you have no right to look down on that life!
Toby You’re right.
Kyra Thank you.
Toby Of course. That’s right.
Kyra waits, knowing this will not be all.
However. In one thing you’re different. I do have to say to you, Kyra, in one thing you’re different from everyone else in this part of town.
Kyra How is that?
Toby You’re the only person who has fought so hard to get into it, when everyone else is desperate to get out!
Kyra All right, very funny. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve loved this.
Toby Loved what?
Kyra Whenever I say anything serious, there’s nothing you like more than winding me up.
Toby Yes, I’m afraid that is true. But it’s hard to
resist winding people up when they’ve little metal keys sticking out of their backs.
Kyra And what does that mean?
But Tom is already moving across the room to pour himself a whisky, feeling himself on top in the argument.
Toby OK, you’re right. I know nothing about anything. As you would say, I’m pampered. I admit it. Frank drives me round. But even I know that East Ham is on one side of London, and this place we’re now in is somewhere quite else!
Kyra So? That is just chance.
Toby Oh really?
Kyra That’s just how it happened. A friend found this flat! Adele was desperate. She was in the most desperate straits.
Tom just gives her a blank, sardonic stare.
All right, I admit it wasn’t exactly convenient …
Toby It was sort of a sacrifice, is that the word? You work in one dreadful place. But of course for you, that’s not nearly enough. You must punish yourself further by living in another dreadful place. And spend the whole day commuting between them!
Kyra Oh, for God’s sake, that’s not what I do.
Toby And, what’s more, listening to the people on the journey, mopping up their every remark. As if they were Socrates, as if they were Einstein, just because they happen to travel by bus.
Kyra goes out to the kitchen to get the tea. But it doesn’t stop him.
Remember? I come from bog-ordinary people, me. No solicitors hanging on my family tree! If you start out ordinary, I promise you, one thing you’re spared, this sentimental illusion that ordinary people can teach you anything at all.
Kyra has been going to fill the teapot with hot water, but she is so provoked by him that she now comes out of the kitchen area, nodding vigorously.
Kyra I tell you, it’s this, it’s this that’s so interesting. How you’re threatened …
Toby Me, threatened?
Kyra Of course.
Toby By what?
Kyra I remember. As soon as any quite normal person is praised – a waiter, a chambermaid, someone who’s doing a quite lowly job – you become like a dog on a leash. You can’t wait for them to do something stupid, and great! You’ve found your moment to bite.
Toby That isn’t true.
Kyra Oh, isn’t it?
But now it is her turn to feel confident.
I remember once saying I thought that Frank did his best to hide it, but underneath he was really quite bright. You said, ‘Oh come on, let’s face it, Kyra, there’s a reason he’s a driver …’
Toby Well, what am I meant to say? You want me to lie? It’s only the truth!
Kyra You don’t talk to him. You don’t even talk to him.
Toby Frank? I talk to Frank. He tells me how Tottenham are doing, he tells me who Cindy Crawford is sleeping with now …
Kyra Oh, really!
Toby I mean, please. I’m not saying that Frank was born stupid. Believe me, I wouldn’t say that. But if you turned him upside down, his brains would come out on the floor.
Kyra Why do you think I’m working where I am? I’m sick of this denial of everyone’s potential. Whole groups of people just written off!
But Tom is moving away, drinking, now thoroughly enjoying himself.
Toby Oh I see, right, you’ve been reborn. Now I understand you …
Kyra Tom …
Toby You see good in everyone now! How comforting! Of course. But if I could be reborn as anyone, I’m not sure Julie Andrews would be my first choice.
Now it is Tom’s turn to go through some sort of barrier, suddenly losing patience, at last wanting to put an end to things.
I mean, Kyra, please! As you’d say: let’s be serious! You must know what’s happening. Jesus Christ, just look at this place! I mean, it is screaming its message. For instance, I tell you, look at that heater! Sitting there fulfilling some crucial psychological role in your life. There are shops, I mean, you know, shops, proper shops that exist in the street. These shops sell heaters. They are not expensive. But of course they are not what you’re looking for. Because these heaters actually heat!
Tom shakes his head, moving across the room to get more scotch, reaching the real centre of his complaint.
You accuse me of being a monster. You say that I’m guilty. You tell me that I’m fucking up the life of my horrible son. But the difference is, at least I admit it. At least this evening I took that on board. But you! Jesus! It’s like talking to a Moonie. I’ve not set off like some fucking missionary to conduct some experiment in finding out just how tough I can make my own way of life.
Kyra You think that’s what I’m doing? You really think that’s what this is?
But Tom is already behaving as if it were all too ridiculous for words.
Toby I mean, I’ve been listening, I’ve been listening to this stuff you’ve been telling me – the bus! The school! Even the kind of place that you choose to live – and, I’m thinking, my God, my dear old friend Kyra’s joined some obscure religious order. The Kensal Rise chapter! She’s performing an act of contrition.
He suddenly laughs, the next thought striking him.
You say to me, Lord goodness, everything’s psychological. I can’t be happy because I’ve not come to terms with things that I’ve done. But you – you’re like Page One. A textbook Freudian study! Your whole fucking life is an act of denial! It’s so bloody clear. You know what it’s called? Throwing Teddy in the corner! You’re running so fast you don’t even know you’re in flight.
Kyra Running?
Toby Yes. Of course. Yes, it’s obvious.
Kyra I suppose you couldn’t tell me. I’m running from what?
Toby Do I need to say?
His look, half modest, half arrogant, infuriates her as much as his answer, and she turns away exasperated.
Kyra Oh honestly, this really … I mean, that is contemptible! Why do men always think it’s all about them?
Toby Because in this case it is!
But Kyra never even reaches the kitchen before turning on him again.
Kyra I’ll say this for you. You always understood procedure. You’ve always known the order in which things should be done. You fuck me first. Then you criticise my life-style …
Toby Now Kyra …
Kyra Doing it the other way round, of course, would be a terrible tactical mistake.
Toby All right, fair enough.
Kyra I mean, if you’d started by calling me weak and perverse, if you’d told me straight off I was fleeing from you … But the great restaurateur knows the order. You don’t serve the pudding before the fucking soup!
She has said this with such venom that she now turns and goes to get their tea.
Toby I refrained from commenting only because it’s so bloody obvious. I didn’t actually think it needed to be said. You have a first-class degree, for Christ’s sake.
Kyra Oh, really!
Toby You came out top of your year.
Kyra puts his tea down and stands by the table drinking her own.
I can’t see anything more tragic, more stupid than you sitting here and throwing your talents away.
Kyra Am I throwing them away? I don’t think so.
Toby Kyra, you’re teaching kids at the bottom of the heap!
Kyra Well, exactly! I would say I was using my talents. It’s just I’m using them in a way of which you don’t approve.
She has put down her tea and now goes into the darkened bedroom, leaving the door open.
Toby (carrying on as if she were still there) God, you claim I’m dismissive of people, you think I don’t give them a chance. But any of those people who work for me … when they saw what you were doing with the gifts that God gave you … they would be so bloody furious.
Kyra (off) Would they?
Toby Of course! They wouldn’t understand you, any more than I do. They would simply say you were shallow and spoilt. You know you could be teaching at any university. They’d take you today! Anywhere you liked! But oh no! Of course not, for Kyra nowhere is
good enough. Except of course somewhere that’s no good at all …
He stands, satisfied by his own irony, now becoming a generalised bad temper.
Of course it’s only this country, only here in this country, it’s thought to be a crime to get on. Anything rather than achieve!
Kyra What you call ‘achieve’!
She has appeared again in the bedroom doorway. She has dressed and put her jeans back on. He looks at her.
Toby Sitting in North London, just spinning your wheels. Out of stubbornness. Sheer goddamned female stubbornness.
Kyra ‘Female’? That’s a very odd choice of word.
He knows that he has betrayed a source of his anger and she at once has an ascendancy in the argument with him. She picks the books up off the floor and begins regretfully.
You see, I’m afraid I think this is typical. It’s something that’s happened … it’s only happened of late. That people should need to ask why I’m helping these children. I’m helping them because they need to be helped.
Tom turns away unconvinced by the simplicity of the answer, but she is already moving back to the table with the books, her anger beginning to rise.
Everyone makes merry, discussing motive. Of course she does this. She works in the East End. She only does it because she’s unhappy. She does it because of a lack in herself. She doesn’t have a man. If she had a man, she wouldn’t need to do it. Do you think she’s a dyke? She must be fucked up, she must be an Amazon, she must be a weirdo to choose to work where she does … Well, I say, what the hell does it matter why I’m doing it? Why anyone goes out and helps? The reason is hardly of primary importance. If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
She is now suddenly so passionate, so forceful, that Tom is silenced.
I’m tired of these sophistries. I’m tired of these right-wing fuckers. They wouldn’t lift a finger themselves. They work contentedly in offices and banks. Yet now they sit pontificating in parliament, in papers, impugning our motives, questioning our judgements. And why? Because they themselves need to feel better by putting down everyone whose work is so much harder than theirs. (She stands, nodding.) You only have to say the words ‘social worker’ … ‘probation officer’ … ‘counsellor’ … for everyone in this country to sneer. Do you know what social workers do? Every day? They try and clear out society’s drains. They clear out the rubbish. They do what no one else is doing, what no one else is willing to do. And for that, oh Christ, do we thank them? No, we take our own rotten consciences, wipe them all over the social worker’s face, and say, ‘If –’ FUCK! – ‘if I did the job, then of course if I did it … oh no, excuse me, I wouldn’t do it like that …’