The Retreat from Moscow

by William Nicholson

  EDWARD: Yes. They were good years.

  ALICE: You mustn’t take it all. You mustn’t. You’ll kill me.

  EDWARD: I haven’t forgotten India. When Jamie was little, they were good years.

  (Lights come up on JAMIE.)

  ALICE: Come here, darling.

  (JAMIE goes to her, and she takes him in her arms and rocks him as if he’s a child.)

  Daddy says he wants to leave us.

  (She looks up at EDWARD.)

  Alright. You win. I’ll do anything you say. You can have everything the way you want it. I won’t go for you ever again. Just don’t leave us.

  EDWARD: You know it won’t work.

  ALICE: Yes, it will. I’ll make it work.

  EDWARD: Alice—

  ALICE: It’s all been my fault, Edward, I see that now, so now I want a chance to put things right. That’s fair, isn’t it? You owe me at least that. So just sit down and finish your breakfast.

  EDWARD: I have finished.

  (But he sits down. Lights go down on EDWARD.)

  ALICE: Will he really leave? He won’t, will he? Tell me he’s just saying it to frighten me.

  JAMIE: I think he’ll leave.

  ALICE: No! Tell me something else. It’s no good, I can’t take it. You have to tell me something else.

  JAMIE: I’m sorry.

  ALICE: What use is that to me?

  JAMIE: I don’t know what to say.

  ALICE: Say it won’t happen. Say there’s something I can do to stop him leaving.

  JAMIE: I don’t know what to say.

  ALICE: What’s going to happen to me when I’m old?

  (JAMIE turns away.)

  What is it? Are you crying?

  JAMIE: Sorry. I’ll be alright in a minute.

  ALICE: There, darling, there. Don’t cry. Oh my darling, tell me what I’m to do and I’ll do it for you. Please don’t cry, my baby, my beloved, my beautiful boy. I’ll pray for you and you pray for me, even if you don’t believe the words you’re saying, and the Lord will have mercy on us.

  (Lights go down on them.)

  (Lights come up on EDWARD. He rises and steps forward, JAMIE also moves forward, to join him in the light. ALICE remains in darkness.)

  EDWARD: How is she?

  JAMIE: Not good. I should have come down during the week. But this is a really busy time.

  EDWARD: Angela thinks it’s best that I stay away.

  JAMIE: Have you phoned or anything?

  EDWARD: No.

  JAMIE: Right.

  EDWARD: I’ve been thinking about the money side of things. I’ve decided I’m going to give her the house.

  JAMIE: Oh, so she won’t have to sell.

  EDWARD: Angela’s got her own house.

  JAMIE: Right.

  EDWARD: I think that’s right, don’t you?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  EDWARD: Does she know you’re meeting me?

  JAMIE: Yes. She’s given me a message for you.

  EDWARD: She wants me to come back.

  JAMIE: Yes.

  EDWARD: She’s written to me at the school. Every day.

  JAMIE: Every day? Five letters?

  EDWARD: Well, four so far.

  JAMIE: I’m to say you owe it to her to give her a chance. You did this out of the blue, without giving her warning or consulting her, and—well, there it is. I’m sure you know.

  EDWARD: Out of the blue? What blue?

  JAMIE: She wants you to go back, for a trial period, and if it doesn’t work, then okay.

  EDWARD: I can’t. I’ve gone. I’m not coming back. She’s got to understand that. I’ll do everything I can to help, but I’m not coming back.

  JAMIE: Right.

  EDWARD: I’m sorry. I know that must sound hard. But it’s a matter of survival. She’ll never understand. She never did. I don’t know who she thinks I am, but it’s not me. Me is who I am with Angela. If I were to go back to Alice, it wouldn’t be me going back.

  JAMIE: Right.

  EDWARD: Can you try to tell her that?

  JAMIE: I don’t think so.

  EDWARD: Maybe it’s not important. I just hate the way she says I’m taking the easy way out. Is wanting to come back to life taking the easy way out?

  JAMIE: Right.

  EDWARD: Sorry. It’s hard enough for you as it is.

  JAMIE: The thing is, I honestly don’t know how she’s going to get through this.

  EDWARD: Both Angela and I think the less contact I have with her, the sooner she’ll move on. No contact, in fact. Not directly. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything I can to help.

  JAMIE: She’s going to need time. She can’t take it when you say it’s all been decided. Without her.

  EDWARD: I’ll say anything she wants. I’ll say black’s white, if it makes any difference. But that part of my life is over. I’m not looking back.

  JAMIE: That’s the part I don’t really understand.

  EDWARD: What?

  JAMIE: You seemed to care for her so much. And now … not.

  (EDWARD looks away.)

  EDWARD: Yes. It’s not easy to explain.

  (Silence.)

  JAMIE: I’d better go back to her.

  EDWARD: Right.

  JAMIE: I’ll be in touch.

  EDWARD: Oh, I should have said. We’ve changed the phone number.

  (He takes out a pen and notebook and writes down a new number.)

  JAMIE: Does she call you?

  EDWARD: She’s called three times. Early morning every time.

  JAMIE: What does she say?

  EDWARD: Nothing.

  JAMIE: Nothing? How do you know it’s her?

  EDWARD: I recognise the sound of her breathing.

  JAMIE: You recognise—

  (He looks down. It’s too much.)

  EDWARD: The new number. You won’t—

  JAMIE: No.

  EDWARD: What if she asks you?

  JAMIE: I’ll say you won’t give it out. I’m to leave messages at the school.

  EDWARD: Fine.

  JAMIE: I’d better get back.

  (A slight movement between them that might be the beginning of an embrace, or just a wave. The gestures die.)

  (Lights go down on EDWARD.)

  (JAMIE moves back into the room, as lights come up on ALICE. She’s been waiting to hear the outcome of Jamie’s meeting with Edward.)

  Do you want a cup of tea?

  ALICE: Well?

  (JAMIE heads for the sink and proceeds to make tea.)

  JAMIE: I saw him.

  ALICE: With her?

  JAMIE: No. Just him.

  ALICE: You can, you know. If you want.

  JAMIE: I don’t want.

  ALICE: Did you tell him what I said?

  JAMIE: Yes. He says he can’t come back.

  ALICE: Won’t.

  JAMIE: He says it’s a matter of survival.

  ALICE: What rot. That’s his bloody retreat from Moscow. That’s his big excuse. We’re all going to die, but he can be one of the survivors if he doesn’t have to drag me along too. It’s his rotten stinking cowardly way of making out it’s alright to dump me in the snow. But let me tell you, if we really were on the retreat from Moscow, he’d be the one who wouldn’t make it, not me.

  JAMIE: What’s this?

  (He’s found a scrap of paper in the cupboard.)

  ALICE: What does it look like?

  JAMIE: (Reading) “I love you.” What’s it doing in the cupboard?

  ALICE: And in the knife drawer. And by the phone message pad. And in the pocket of his gardening coat. And lots of places.

  JAMIE: What for?

  ALICE: Oh, I don’t know. I suppose because while I was writing them, and hiding them in all the places where he might find them if he came back, it made me feel it could really happen. That he really would come back. And then when he found my notes, well—then he couldn’t go away again.

  (JAMIE turns back to his tea making. It’s hard for him.)<
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  So he told you he won’t.

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: And what did you say to that?

  JAMIE: What could I say?

  ALICE: You could say, “You bastard. You murderer. You homewrecker.”

  JAMIE: Well, I didn’t.

  ALICE: Why not? Do you think he’s entitled to do what he’s doing?

  JAMIE: That’s not for me to judge.

  ALICE: Why not? If you saw a man beating a woman to death in the street, would you walk on by, saying, “That’s not for me to judge?”

  JAMIE: That’s not how it is.

  ALICE: This is a murder, Jamie. Just because there’s no blood, don’t think it’s not a murder. He’s murdering a marriage. Marriages don’t bleed. But it’s still murder.

  JAMIE: I don’t think it helps to talk like that.

  ALICE: Oh? Well, tell me how to talk so it does help.

  JAMIE: Marriages break down. It happens all the time. Nobody wants it to happen, but it does, and we have to live with it.

  ALICE: It happens all the time, and we have to live with it? What sort of talk is that? Children are starving to death all the time, but it’s not alright.

  JAMIE: But we live with it.

  ALICE: Not if it was my child. Not if it was you. If it was you starving to death, I’d let myself die first, to save you. Do you doubt that?

  JAMIE: No.

  ALICE: Well, this is my marriage. I’ll do anything to save it.

  JAMIE: I know that. But it’s not my marriage.

  (Silence.)

  ALICE: You’re like him. You just walk away.

  JAMIE: I’m here, aren’t I?

  ALICE: But you want to walk away. You do, don’t you?

  (Silence.)

  Go. I don’t want you.

  JAMIE: I can’t.

  ALICE: Why not? In case something happens to me, and you feel guilty?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: Nothing’s going to happen to me. That’s what I can’t bear. When you’re alone, things stop happening.

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: I suppose you know about that.

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: How do you bear it?

  JAMIE: Keep busy. Hope something will change sometime soon. Make the most of the little pleasures.

  ALICE: What little pleasures?

  JAMIE: Good food. Good books. Going to sleep with the radio on.

  ALICE: Doesn’t it keep you awake?

  JAMIE: No. It sends you to sleep. Like being a child curled up on the sofa, while the grown-ups go on talking around you.

  ALICE: Oh, darling. Is that what you want to be? The child curled up on the sofa?

  JAMIE: Part of me.

  ALICE: Were you happy when you were little? Did we give you a happy childhood? We did, didn’t we?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: He says it was a wrong turning in his life. But he can’t go back like that. All those years really happened. How can he pretend they didn’t?

  JAMIE: I think that’s just how he is. He lives in the present moment.

  ALICE: I can’t imagine that. I live in all the moments at once. My girlhood. School. The early days of our marriage. Yesterday. Now. They’re all jostling about inside me, each one as vivid as the others. I dream about him, you know. I’ve dreamed about him every single night since he left. Quite friendly dreams, really. Then I wake.

  (She bows her head in pain.)

  JAMIE: I’m still here.

  ALICE: No, you’re not. You’re in your flat. With your little pleasures.

  JAMIE: You know what I mean. I’ll always—you know.

  ALICE: You’ll always love me?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: But even you can’t say it. Already you start to be afraid. Better not say too much. No point in making promises you can’t keep.

  JAMIE: It’s not a promise. It’s just there. I’ll always love you.

  ALICE: Thank you for saying that, darling. But you have your own life to lead. Even I know that. I just have to manage as best as I can.

  JAMIE: He told me he’s decided you can have the house.

  ALICE: Oh, has he? I suppose he thinks that makes everything alright.

  JAMIE: I think he really does want to do what he can.

  ALICE: So he told you I could have the house?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: Well, he hasn’t told me.

  JAMIE: He wanted me to tell you.

  ALICE: I don’t care what he wanted. If he wants to make arrangements that affect me, he can come and talk to me himself. I won’t have him using you as a messenger boy.

  (She goes to the phone and dials a number.)

  I can’t stand the way he does it all without consulting me. That’s odd. The line’s making a funny noise.

  JAMIE: He’s changed the number.

  ALICE: Changed the number?

  JAMIE: He told me.

  ALICE: So he’s got a new number?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: Have you got it?

  JAMIE: No.

  ALICE: Don’t be silly, Jamie. Of course you have. I always could tell when you were lying.

  JAMIE: I can’t give it to you.

  ALICE: Why not?

  JAMIE: He asked me not to give it to you.

  ALICE: Well, I ask you to give it to me.

  JAMIE: I don’t think it would help.

  ALICE: That’s not for you to judge, as you’re so fond of saying. I’m grown-up. I’m not a criminal or a lunatic. I wish to be able to contact my husband.

  JAMIE: I’ll dial the number, and then you talk to him.

  ALICE: It’s starting already. I didn’t know it would come so soon.

  JAMIE: What?

  ALICE: The pitying. The knowing looks. There she goes, she’s one of them, you can’t rely on them, they’re desperate, they’ll do anything—

  JAMIE: Stop it.

  ALICE: I think you’d better go.

  JAMIE: Ma, please—

  ALICE: Now. This minute. Before I do something embarrassing. Go on. Leave. It’s what you want. You can’t help. So why don’t you just go?

  JAMIE: I can’t just leave you.

  ALICE: Why not? You’re no use to me. You’ve taken his side. You’ve left me already, just like he has. Well, if I’m to be alone, I’d rather be alone, and not have you dangling about pitying me, and patronising me. Go on! Leave! I don’t have a husband any more, so I can’t have a son, can I? It takes two to make a child, and there aren’t two of us any more, so you don’t exist!

  JAMIE: Please don’t do this—

  ALICE: Do what? I’ve not done anything. I’ve not left him, he’s left me. Go and tell him not to do this.

  JAMIE: It won’t change anything.

  ALICE: You don’t know that. Have you tried? You go on seeing him. That means you let him think he has your approval.

  JAMIE: Ma, he’s in love.

  (A terrible elongated cry of agony bursts from ALICE.)

  ALICE: No-o-o! No-o-o! Don’t tell me that! Do you want to kill me? Oh God, oh God. What’s going to happen to me when I’m old?

  (Lights go down on ALICE.)

  (Very slowly lights come up on EDWARD, as he speaks. At the same time, during the course of Edward’s speech, the lights are fading on JAMIE, even as he listens to his father, carrying him away to a place from which he cannot respond.)

  EDWARD: Thirty-four years ago, I was standing on a platform at Charing Cross station, waiting to get on a train to Maidstone. I saw a man come walking down the platform who I thought was my father. I raised one arm and called, “Father!”—and with my arm still in the air, remembered that my father had died four months earlier. The man, a complete stranger, walked on by. The train came in. I got into a carriage. Another person got in, just we two in the carriage. The train left Charing Cross. The other person was a young woman. She was looking at me as if she was sorry for me. I realised there were tears on my cheeks. “What is it?” she said. “Oh, nothing
,” I said. “I mistook a man for my father, who’s dead.” And she said, “You must want to see him again very much.” Now you should understand, this was true, but I hadn’t known it. My father was a reserved man. I don’t remember him ever embracing me. Somehow when this young woman, this stranger, said these words to me, I knew that all my life I’d wanted his embrace, and now it would never come. I began to weep. Continued weeping, I should say. And the young woman recited some lines from a poem I’d never heard, and have never forgotten since.

  It is the only truth: it is the dream in us

  That neither life nor death nor any other thing can take away:

  But if she had not touched Him in the doorway of her dream

  Could she have cared so much?

  She was a sinner, we are but what we are:

  The spirit afterwards, but first, the touch.

  It’s by Charlotte Mew, about Mary Magdalene, touching Jesus. How did that young woman in the train know what I was feeling? I was astounded. I felt as if I had stepped through a doorway into another world, where the inhabitants could read my heart. It was your mother, of course. It was Alice. And I was on the wrong train. It was the fast train, it never stopped at my station. We were almost at Dover before I realised it.

  So you see, I made a mistake about Alice, right at the beginning, and she made a mistake about me. We thought we were like each other, and we weren’t. I didn’t know it. I did my best to be who she wanted me to be. And I suppose the real me went into hiding, like a—what do they call them? Terrorists who live ordinary lives for years and years, until the phone rings, and the order comes, Set off your bomb. Sleepers, they call them. Yes, I was a sleeper in my own marriage. All it took was Angela’s hand on my arm. Her touch. I wept, like I wept on the train. Not for something I would never have. No, this time for gratitude. For the return of life. It was me she touched. Me. Me. No demands. No expectations. Just love.

  How can I tell any of this to you, my son? My only child. Alice’s child. How can I say to you that all those years ago, I got on the wrong train?

  (Lights out on EDWARD, and the stage is dark once more.)

  ACT TWO

  JAMIE enters, wearing a warm outdoor coat.

  JAMIE: Come on in.

  (EDWARD enters after him, also dressed for winter outdoors, and carrying a briefcase. He looks round.)

  EDWARD: I’ve always liked your flat. Does it still suit you?