by David Hare
Paul ‘You obviously didn’t go very often.
Victor ‘No.
Victor gestures to encourage Paul to speak.
You say. You say what you think these meetings are.
Paul ‘A means … one means of people helping one another.
Victor looks at Paul for a moment in a way which makes it clear that Victor thinks him naive.
I suppose we should start by discussing Flotilla.
Victor ‘Go ahead.
Paul ‘Its recent move to the stock market.
Victor ‘A transparent success. What’s your question?
Paul ‘Whether you did it for the money.
Victor ‘Now perhaps you understand my distrust. What do I answer? ‘I did it for the money.’ People will think I’m greedy. ‘I didn’t do it for the money.’ Then they’ll say I’m unworldly. More likely, I’m lying. I’m a hypocrite. Paul, you of all people understand: the modern newspaper interview is a form as rigid and contrived as the eighteenth-century gavotte.
Paul ‘Shall I just put: he refused to answer?
Victor ‘Meaning: he’s a prick.
They both smile.
He consented to an interview, then he wouldn’t answer the questions!
Paul ‘Why ‘of all people’? Why did you say ‘me of all people’?
Victor ‘A poet.
Paul ‘Ah.
Victor ‘I read poetry. I read yours.
‘Love was the search, the wheel, the line,
The open road and the steep incline;
Things speeding by, the final turn in view,
Next: something disastrous, overwhelming, new.’
I hardly believe you would now be paddling in journalism if it weren’t purely for the money.
Paul ‘No.
Victor ‘You’ll drink to that.
Paul ‘Yes. So to speak.
Paul smiles, amused by Victor’s manner.
Victor ‘I liked the idea, I promise you.
Paul ‘Of this interview?
Victor ‘No. Of the meetings. I thought the meetings amusing.
Paul ‘Amusing? Obviously you aren’t alcoholic.
Victor ‘I’m not.
Paul ‘The meetings are a discipline.
Victor ‘Of course. They wouldn’t be addictive if they weren’t.
Paul ‘Oh, I see …
Victor ‘All cults make similar demands.
Paul ‘I think it’s childish, people calling AA a cult. It’s ignorant. I tell you what: I actually believe it’s quite dangerous.
Victor ‘Do you? I’d have thought it’s a classic cult.
Paul ‘Why?
Victor ‘The chairs, the coffee, the soul-searching …
Victor hastens to explain.
Believe me, I’m not denying its usefulness.
Paul ‘You couldn’t.
Victor ‘It is the means by which many people survive. Or they believe it is.
Paul ‘It saved my life. I was found on the M4, dodging the traffic. And naked, in the middle of the night.
Victor ‘Huh.
Paul ‘I don’t need to question the value of AA.
Victor is completely still.
Victor ‘What brought you there? What brought you to the motorway so late at night?
Paul does not answer.
It’s none of my business. You’re right. Presumably you believe that one drink will take you on the road to hell?
Paul ‘I do believe that, yes.
Victor ‘It’s what they teach you.
Paul ‘It’s also what I believe.
Victor ‘It isn’t true, you know.
Paul ‘Isn’t it?
Victor ‘Of course not. The cult makes rules. It demands obedience. The cult has invented the slogan: ‘One Drink, One Drunk.’ But it isn’t actually true. If you had cured your own addiction, in the privacy of your own home, then you could perfectly well drink socially again.
Paul ‘I can’t take that risk.
Victor ‘You won’t take that risk, you mean?
Paul looks a moment.
Paul ‘I think I’m missing something here. I’m here to do an interview. That’s what I’m here for. No doubt you think you’re being clever, you’re being provocative. Wind up the monkeys! It’s dinner-party stuff. ‘Oh my God, you don’t go to that ridiculous AA, do you?’ Only, tell you what, one thing I’ve noticed –
Victor ‘What thing?
Paul ‘Most of the people who attack AA are ten times more fucked up than the people they’re attacking.
Victor smiles, not fazed.
Victor ‘But you must have views. You must have theories …
Paul ‘No. I have no theories. I have one aim in life …
Victor ‘Just one?
Paul ‘My aim is to get to bed sober tonight. That is my aim. And I have found pragmatically that the only means of achieving it is through AA. It’s the only method which works. And you have no fucking right to talk about it.
Paul has raised his voice but Victor does not seem perturbed.
Victor ‘Have you thought … have you considered what it would mean to be cured?
Paul ‘Of course. Naturally. I think of little else.
Victor ‘But that’s my point. If you can’t drink at all – ever – then by definition you’re not cured.
Paul ‘What’s your idea of cured?
Victor ‘‘Thank you. I’ll just have the one. Just the one for me. Thank you.’
Victor smiles, pleased with his own answer.
You should think about it, Paul. Consider. It’s only groups which demand total abstinence. Why? Because their intention is not to stop you drinking. That is only a side aim. Their principal aim is to retain you as a member of the group.
Paul ‘It’s a familiar argument. It’s also nonsense.
Victor ‘Really? I’m interested. Tell me why.
There is a moment’s pause before Paul decides to take the plunge.
Paul ‘Look, if you really want to know: of course I went into AA kicking and screaming. Everyone does. Believe me, I had a thousand reservations …
Victor ‘But presumably you’d bottomed …
Paul ‘Yes.
Victor ‘That’s the phrase they use.
Paul ‘I bottomed.
Victor ‘The M4.
Paul ‘Not just the M4. Not just that one night, believe me.
Victor ‘Other nights?
Paul looks at him a moment.
Paul ‘You wake up in the morning and you’ve fallen down three flights of stairs. But even so. Even then. I was still reluctant. I clung to the thought: I’m not the sort of person who sits in a circle stripping himself bare.
Victor ‘I’m sure. A poet.
Paul ‘Even when I was young, at college, in the student common room, come that dreaded moment, come eleven, come twelve, people have been drinking and they begin to spill. How unhappy they are. You can imagine. I was out of that room like a shot.
Victor ‘Somehow I see you alone with a girl come midnight.
Paul ‘Whatever. I was not in the common room, telling all and sundry my innermost thoughts. However. You go to the meetings because you have to. Because it’s your last chance. Your only chance. If we were alone on this earth, then what would it matter? Oh sure, everyone has the right to destroy their own life. But to destroy the lives of others?
Victor ‘Ah yes. ‘Others.’
Victor has stopped, thoughtful.
Paul ‘You’re right. I was frightened of AA. Yes. Why do you think I was frightened? I was frightened because in my heart I knew it would work.
Victor ‘I see.
Paul ‘Yes.
Victor ‘Because it works?
Paul ‘That’s why. I no sooner walked into the room than I intuited: oh my God, this is going to work.
Paul shakes his head.
‘I’m not the sort of person who does this,’ you say. But what sort of person are you by that stage? What have you become? A worthless drun
k.
Victor ‘Yes. It’s that word ‘worthless’ I have trouble with.
The two men look at each other.
Paul ‘I’ll be honest. I’m broke. Yeah. I’m completely broke. I don’t have a fucking penny in the world. I can’t get a bank account. The editor pays me in cash.
Victor ‘Where do you live?
Paul ‘Camberwell. Stretching the charity of a last remaining friend. You?
Victor ‘Regents Park.
Paul ‘Good. Well that’s something solid for the article.
Paul’s sudden unsteadiness has brought them close. Victor speaks quietly, opening up for the first time.
Victor ‘I was a communist.
Paul ‘Yes.
Victor waits. Paul starts writing.
What are you saying? Is that how your interest in cults came about?
Victor ‘Sort of. Apparently the newspapers have taken to calling me a one-time Marxist. They can’t bring themselves to use the proper word. I’m most insistent. I wasn’t a Marxist. I was a communist. I use the full shocker.
Paul ‘All or nothing, eh?
Victor ‘That sort of thing.
Paul ‘And you mean it was a cult? There were rules?
Victor ‘Conditions of membership, yes. All clubs have membership rules or they aren’t clubs.
Paul ‘England, you were saying …
Victor ‘Yes. A series of clubs. The English love clubs. Not of course for the pleasure of allowing people in …
Paul ‘No.
Victor ‘Oh no! The far headier delight of keeping people out! They love that! English communists, we were a select little band. A snotty little group we were.
Paul ‘It’s a familiar progress, isn’t it, from student politics? Communist to entrepreneur?
Victor ‘I still believe in history. A way of looking at things. For years computers were just whopping great dinner plates spinning in glass-panelled rooms. Then suddenly – whoosh. Of themselves uninteresting. But you spot the moment.
Victor shrugs.
Not that I claim any credit.
Paul ‘You could equally well have been wrong.
Victor ‘Exactly. It was luck. I stumbled across an idea. Analyse the market, make informed predictions based on available financial data. Pretty soon – this was the 1990s – there was scarcely an investor who wasn’t using Flotilla software.
Paul ‘What were you doing before?
Victor ‘Importing virgin olive oil. Stupid, I agree. I mistook changes in life-style for historical shifts. That’s what I mean. I’m as vulnerable to bullshit as everyone else.
Victor smiles, pleased at the thought.
Capitalists make me laugh because they understand nothing. They talk about strategy and markets as if they were in control. They use soothing devices like big cars and hotels and servants. They use luxury as a sort of massage to persuade themselves they’ve acted brilliantly, that their actions have been brilliant …
Paul ‘Whereas in fact?
Victor ‘They’ve worked hard and had a bit of luck.
Paul ‘Don’t you use big cars?
Victor ‘Never. Or only for the children, anyway.
Paul ‘How many children do you have?
Victor pauses, wanting to lay down a principle.
Victor ‘Communism is night class. It’s where you learn. Who is doing what to whom? If you don’t believe that the rich spend their time on this earth effectively fucking over the poor, then I don’t see how you make any sense of what goes on in the world at all.
Paul smiles, risking his neck a little.
Paul ‘But, forgive me, nobody could mistake your wealth.
Victor ‘No?
Paul ‘I don’t think so. To look at you, it’s clear.
Victor ‘Is it? I’m rather insulted.
Paul ‘You make certain assumptions. I’ve noticed you use certain techniques. Which, rightly or wrongly, I associate with the rich. Or at least with the powerful. What I mean is: you’d read my poetry.
Victor ‘Well?
Paul ‘Is it a manner? Is it a game? You read my poetry before the meeting. You put yourself instantly at an advantage. ‘I know who you are. I’ve read This Too Shall Pass.’
Victor ‘Yes. I see. You think that’s specifically a technique of the rich?
Paul ‘And, what’s more, learning a whole verse.
Victor ‘‘Love was the search, the wheel, the line …’
Paul ‘A line maybe, but a whole verse!
Victor ‘Too much?
Paul ‘If the purpose was to unsettle me, then I’m afraid you’ve succeeded. I’ve been uncomfortable ever since you arrived.
Victor ‘Forgive me, but I think you would have been uncomfortable however I approached you.
Paul blushes, off guard. He reaches for his notebook in confusion.
Paul ‘We’d better go on. When did you leave the Party?
Victor ‘1975.
Paul ‘And do you miss it?
Victor ‘Let’s say, it’s like New Zealand. I’m glad it’s there but I have no wish to visit.
Paul ‘Put it another way: do you regret its decline?
Victor looks at him, a little wistful.
Victor ‘It’s the world that’s changed, not me. Or changed more than me.
Paul ‘In what way?
Victor ‘Politicians now boast of being plumbers, not architects. The word ‘ideological’ is never now mentioned.
Paul ‘Except with the word ‘baggage’.
Victor ‘That’s right. Now we solve problems. Everything is a problem, and we solve it. Nothing is decided in advance, because nothing is believed in advance. It’s as simple as that. That’s how we proceed. That’s how we get things done. The containable life.
Victor stares at Paul a moment.
You could say the whole world’s in AA.
Paul is quiet, speaking after a moment.
Paul ‘Can I ask you something else?
Victor ‘Please.
Paul ‘What’s your interest in the meetings?
Victor ‘I had a friend who quit.
Paul ‘Quit alcohol?
Victor ‘No. Quit AA. Much harder. My friend came home one evening …
Paul ‘Came home? To your home, you mean?
Victor ‘My friend came back from a meeting. She had become convinced that the purpose of the cult was to reinforce her feelings of worthlessness, not to try and assuage them. She never went back.
Victor sits back, as if having said the final word.
Paul ‘Surely she knew she would have to confront her illness?
Victor ‘Confront it by all means, but then move on.
Paul ‘Do you think an addict can ever move on?
Victor ‘Ah well.
Paul ‘Truly?
Victor ‘You’re right. This was at the heart of the issue.
Paul ‘It is. It is at the heart.
Victor ‘My friend felt they were replacing her dependency on drugs with a dependency on coffee and confession, on what you would call the dreaded circle of chairs. They were sustaining her – how do I put this? – in a sort of suspended anxiety. They were instilling what would become a permanent fear of the great crash round the corner. She came to feel no crash could be as terrible as the fear of that crash. In order to preserve that fear and to magnify it, they were forbidding her self-respect.
Paul ‘In that case I don’t believe she was alcoholic.
Victor ‘No?
Paul ‘An alcoholic has no self-respect.
Victor looks at Paul. Then he speaks, silvery.
Victor ‘I gave her a gin and tonic. She drank it. And we then played Scrabble all evening.
Victor looks deeply pleased at this, but Paul is not buying it.
Paul ‘I don’t believe she was addictive in the first place.
Victor ‘Believe what you like.
Paul ‘I don’t believe it.
Victor is now looking at him very hard.
Vict
or ‘Paul, it seems to me you have a problem of self-esteem.
Paul ‘How so? In what way, specifically?
Victor ‘You accuse me of mugging up your poetry with the purpose of flattering you. Does it not occur to you – does it really not occur to you? – that you insult yourself with this suggestion more than you insult me?
Paul ‘I don’t understand.
Victor ‘Do I have to spell it out?
He waits, looking at Paul who still doesn’t get it.
Your poetry is the reason I have long wanted to meet you.
Paul ‘Oh. Oh, I see.
Paul is taken aback. He searches for a reply, but Victor is ahead of him.
Victor ‘What did you like to drink?
Paul ‘I’m sorry?
Victor ‘What was your favourite drink?
Paul ‘Mine?
Victor ‘Yes.
Paul ‘A fatal weakness for Manhattans.
Victor ‘I would never have guessed. Fiddling about with cherries, you think that’s time well spent?
Paul ‘And you?
Victor ‘Oh. I like a Martini.
Paul ‘As well spent as fiddling about with olives.
Victor ‘And if I offered you one now …
Paul just looks at him.
That’s it, isn’t it? If you were cured, you would be cured of the desire. And who wants to be cured of desire?
Victor decides suddenly to wind up the meeting.
It’s been a great pleasure to meet you. I have given up reading the newspapers, but my impression is that the modern practice is for the journalist to write the story before the encounter. What I am saying is: write what you like. Your poetry has a flair for the dramatic. I trust that flair. Invent my character, by all means. I shall stand by whatever opinions you ascribe to me. I shall be your invention.
Paul ‘Thank you.
Victor ‘Consider yourself liberated from the facts.
He shakes Paul’s hand.
I’d very much like it if we could meet again.
Paul ‘Yes. I’d like that too.
Victor turns and goes.
You didn’t tell me. How’s your friend doing?
Victor ‘Oh. She’s doing fine.
Victor has gone. Paul turns from the scene and speaks directly towards us. Behind him, the feeling of the stage changes to suggest the new location.
Paul ‘As job interviews go, it was one of the more peculiar. No piece ever appeared. I told the editor that my subject had been a no-show. He said it was typical of the man’s notorious arrogance not even to turn up. Someone was needed to write copy for his website, turning the prose of the internet into something like poetry. I started working for Victor the following week. I was beginning to think I was going to be happy, doodling around, manufacturing sentences. I’d taken to staying on in the evening, long after everyone else, because I felt more secure than at home. Looking back, I think that may have been a mistake.