The Retreat from Moscow

by William Nicholson

  JAMIE: It does the job.

  (They take off their coats, using similar movements.)

  EDWARD: Why do people have to have such big houses? One needs so little, really.

  JAMIE: What can I get you? I have a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon open in the fridge.

  (EDWARD shakes his head, smiling.)

  EDWARD: New Zealand sauvignon …

  JAMIE: It’s good.

  EDWARD: I’m sure it is. You have some. I’ll just have a cup of tea.

  JAMIE: Tea it is.

  (He goes to fill the kettle.)

  EDWARD: I belong to the tea-drinking generation. (Looking round) So you come back at the end of the day, and—what? Read the paper?

  JAMIE: Have a bath, usually.

  EDWARD: With the radio on?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  EDWARD: Six o’clock news?

  JAMIE: If I’m lucky.

  EDWARD: There’s something inherently restful about the radio news. I don’t know what it is.

  JAMIE: Other people’s problems.

  EDWARD: Why should that be restful?

  JAMIE: Knowing other people’s lives go wrong too. One doesn’t feel so left out.

  EDWARD: Maybe that’s it. Well, I won’t stay long. Then you can have your bath.

  JAMIE: No hurry.

  (EDWARD takes a letter out of his pocket.)

  EDWARD: Alice wants me to go to the house. To sign the papers.

  JAMIE: Yes. She told me.

  EDWARD: I think it’s a mistake. So does Angela.

  JAMIE: I think she’s pretty set on it.

  EDWARD: If she makes a scene, I shall just leave. I won’t be drawn in, Jamie. There’s no point.

  JAMIE: She says she’ll behave herself

  (EDWARD hands him the letter.)

  EDWARD: I think you should read that.

  (JAMIE reads the letter.)

  What do you think?

  JAMIE: Well … It doesn’t surprise me. It’s how she talks.

  EDWARD: Do you think I should take it seriously?

  (JAMIE gives back the letter as the kettle boils. He makes tea.)

  JAMIE: How do you mean, seriously?

  EDWARD: Well—(reading) “You have committed a murder, but no one believes it. All that I can do now is kill myself, then everyone will see what you have done.”

  JAMIE: I don’t know, Pa. What do you want me to say?

  EDWARD: Do you think she’d do it?

  JAMIE: No. Maybe. I don’t know. Would it change anything if I said yes?

  EDWARD: No. I don’t think it would.

  JAMIE: Well, then.

  EDWARD: Does that sound cruel to you?

  JAMIE: I don’t know. I don’t know. All this is… I’m finding it quite hard, actually.

  (He gives his father the mug of tea. EDWARD sips as he speaks.)

  EDWARD: The plain fact is, Alice has been accustomed to getting her own way with me—which is my fault, I freely admit it—and she can’t accept, just can’t accept, that I’m not still—in her power. This letter is a power play, it’s blackmail, it’s an act of aggression, directed straight at me, and if I give in to it—you must see that I can’t. What kind of life would it be, for her as well as me, if I went back because of this?

  JAMIE: Yes, I do see that. But I see how she is, too. She’s just so … sad.

  EDWARD: Well, there’s that too, of course.

  JAMIE: What would you do, if…

  EDWARD: What could I do? It would be too late.

  (Their eyes meet: sharing the same guilty thought.)

  JAMIE: Yes.

  EDWARD: How was she when you last saw her?

  JAMIE: Very low. It wasn’t easy to leave.

  EDWARD: When was that? Sunday?

  JAMIE: Yes. I’m going down every weekend at present.

  EDWARD: I’m very grateful to you, Jamie. And very sorry this burden has to fall on you.

  JAMIE: So you will come? To sign the papers?

  EDWARD: Yes. I’ll come. But it’ll be the last time. Tell her, if you can. The last time.

  (They both sit, in the armchairs.)

  (Lights go down on EDWARD.)

  (JAMIE picks up a Sunday newspaper and settles down to reading it.)

  (Far off, the sound of a bugler playing “The Last Post.”)

  (ALICE speaks, as if offstage, to an unseen puppy.)

  ALICE: Stay! Stay, Eddie! Good boy.

  (She enters, just back from church. She wears a long loose coat. JAMIE gets up to investigate, and sees the puppy, outside the back door.)

  JAMIE: Hello. Who are you?

  ALICE: He arrived on Wednesday.

  JAMIE: Well, well. You’re a friendly one, aren’t you? What’s your—

  (He turns round, just as ALICE is removing her coat, to reveal that she’s wearing a multicoloured pajama suit.)

  Good God! What are you wearing?

  ALICE: I went up to London, to the Designer Sale. It was only twenty-five pounds. Do you like it?

  JAMIE: Well, yes. But it makes you look like a clown.

  ALICE: That’s alright, then. Clowns are happy people. Don’t you love him? He’s so affectionate. He does me more good than all my tranquilisers.

  JAMIE: What’s his name?

  ALICE: Eddie. He’s not fully house-trained yet, so he has to stay outside until he’s done his duty. Don’t you, my darling?

  JAMIE: He can’t be called Eddie.

  ALICE: Well, he’s called Edward, really.

  JAMIE: Ma, you can’t do this.

  ALICE: Why not? I can do anything I like.

  JAMIE: It’s just—well, it’s such a giveaway.

  ALICE: What does it give away? Look, I’m training him.

  (She points a commanding finger at the offstage puppy.)

  Stay, Edward! Stay!

  JAMIE: Oh, Ma. It’s embarrassing.

  ALICE: I don’t see why. I’m not embarrassed. Why should you be embarrassed?

  (Their eyes track the puppy as it wanders off.)

  JAMIE: He doesn’t even stay when you tell him to.

  ALICE: I’m training him. He’ll learn. You stay out there till you’ve done your duty, Eddie!

  JAMIE: Can’t you call him Fido, or something? No, not Fido.

  ALICE: Everyone says, “Poor Alice, her husband’s left her, now she’ll get a pet.” Fine. Now I’ve got a pet. And as a matter of fact he’s better than Edward in every respect but two. One is, he won’t live as long. And the other I’m not telling you.

  JAMIE: Well, he’s very sweet, whatever he’s called.

  ALICE: He’s a darling.

  JAMIE: So is this meeting supposed to be lunch, or after lunch?

  ALICE: What lunch?

  JAMIE: It’s almost one o’clock. That normally means lunch.

  ALICE: Normality has been suspended.

  JAMIE: Oh. So no lunch.

  ALICE: I expect there’s something in the fridge, if you’re hungry.

  JAMIE: What about you?

  ALICE: I don’t bother with eating any more. It’s cheaper, and it saves an amazing amount of time.

  JAMIE: You have to eat. You don’t want to starve to death.

  ALICE: Yes I do.

  JAMIE: You don’t look as if you’re starving to death.

  ALICE: Yes, well, I keep forgetting. I’m thinking about this or that, and I find I’ve eaten a tin of baked beans without noticing.

  JAMIE: Do you open the can without noticing?

  ALICE: I suppose I must. Did I tell you why I was so late back from church?

  JAMIE: No.

  ALICE: Traffic. You wouldn’t believe the number of cars there are on the roads on a Sunday. And do you know why that is?

  JAMIE: Why?

  ALICE: It’s all the husbands who’ve left their wives. They’re all going back to their families for their Sunday visit.

  (JAMIE laughs.)

  You think I’m joking, but I’m not. Every time a marriage breaks down, you get more cars
on the roads. Half of all marriages now end in divorce, you know. That’s millions and millions of extra car journeys. No wonder there’s global warming.

  JAMIE: So don’t leave your wife, or the world will end.

  ALICE: Exactly.

  JAMIE: I must say, you seem to be coping a bit better.

  ALICE: Do I?

  JAMIE: Have you gone back to the anthology?

  ALICE: Oh, no. I’m not doing that any more.

  JAMIE: That’s a pity. I thought it sounded good.

  ALICE: No, you didn’t. You thought it gave me something to do.

  JAMIE: Well, we all need something to do. No disgrace in that.

  ALICE: You don’t really have any idea, do you?

  JAMIE: Any idea of what?

  ALICE: What it’s like to be a left woman.

  JAMIE: No, I suppose I don’t.

  ALICE: It’s not just the loneliness. It’s being poorer. It’s not being respected by other people. It’s being pitied and avoided. It’s going to church more than you used to. It’s watching TV more than you used to. It’s waking up in the morning and not bothering to dress, because there’s no one to see. It’s making a meal and not eating it, because there’s no one to eat it with. It’s not doing your hair or your face, because there’s no one to look nice for. It’s getting a pet and loving it too much. It’s slowly feeling yourself turn into a batty old crone who talks to herself. And the worst of it is, you don’t die. Like Moscow—the glorious end of the great march—only it’s empty. So you have to turn around, and start the long march home. It’s winter. You’re freezing. Starving. You just want to lie down in the snow and die. And all the time you know you’re not going somewhere, you’re leaving somewhere. You’re on the retreat.

  (She goes to the fridge.)

  That’s how it is for me. How is it for you?

  JAMIE: Much the same as ever, I suppose.

  ALICE: How’s your love life?

  JAMIE: Private.

  ALICE: So you’re still on your own. There’s bread, ham, and half a cucumber. We won’t die today. I wonder why you haven’t found anyone. You look perfectly normal.

  JAMIE: I’d rather you kept out of my private life, really.

  ALICE: Yes, I know. But it involves me too.

  JAMIE: How?

  ALICE: Well, if you’re no good at making people love you, that’s my fault, isn’t it? Or Edward’s fault, for being such a sneaking snivelling excuse for a man.

  JAMIE: I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. He’s still my father. I still love him.

  ALICE: So what? So do I.

  (She puts out food for lunch.)

  It was the Remembrance Day service today. We joined in with the Protties at the parish church. It’s very moving, you know. “At the going down of the sun,” and so forth. “They shall not grow old, as we grow old.” There was a Boy Scout band, with a little bugler playing “The Last Post.” I found myself thinking about the two wars, and the wives and mothers waiting at home, and the telegrams from the War Office that told them their husbands and sons were dead. I thought of how terrible that must have been, and yet somehow easier to bear than losing Edward the way I’ve lost him. And then all at once I saw it. This is our war. This is what makes widows and orphans nowadays. Only, there aren’t any graves, or Remembrance Day services. And we’re not allowed to mourn.

  (She sits down at the table and starts to eat absent-mindedly.)

  So you see, I’m not really coping after all. I keep thinking of “Dover Beach.” “Ah love, let us be true to one another.” Matthew Arnold saw the horror. How the world is so full of hurt and wrong that we just mustn’t add to it. Oh, Jamie, I want so much to go to Edward and say, “You mustn’t do this, it’s wrong, it’s part of the cruelty we have to fight every day, every minute.”

  (As she speaks the lines of Arnolds poem, EDWARD rises from his chair, still in darkness, draws on his overcoat, and picks up his briefcase. He moves round past her, to take up a position from which he can “enter” once more.)

  Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! for the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

  Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain…

  (EDWARD is heard offstage, reacting to the puppy.)

  EDWARD: Who are you? Where have you come from?

  (Lights come up on EDWARD as he enters, visibly ill at ease, briefcase in one hand.)

  (He steps in dog mess.)

  Oh, God!

  (He goes back out to clean the underside of his shoe.)

  Oh, Lord! Where did that come from?

  ALICE: Edward! Good boy!

  EDWARD: What?

  ALICE: Not you. Good boy, Eddie! You’ve done your duty.

  (EDWARD comes in again, now even more nervous.)

  JAMIE: Hello, Pa.

  EDWARD: Hello, Jamie. Thanks for coming.

  JAMIE: No problem.

  ALICE: Hello. I’m here too. Hello, hello, hello.

  EDWARD: How are you, Alice?

  ALICE: Fine. Fine. Fine.

  EDWARD: I didn’t know you’d got a dog.

  ALICE: He’s new. Jamie thinks he’s some kind of substitute for you. I can’t think why.

  (EDWARD joins them at the table, and puts down his briefcase.)

  EDWARD: I still think we should have left it to the solicitor to do this.

  ALICE: Well, I don’t.

  EDWARD: Just to make sure it’s all done properly, I mean.

  ALICE: If you’d left the solicitors to do it, it might have been done legally, but it wouldn’t have been done properly.

  JAMIE: Ma. You promised.

  ALICE: Yes, alright. I’ll behave myself. I’ll be a good girl.

  (EDWARD takes out various papers.)

  EDWARD: This is the deed signing over the house in your sole name. This is the summary of the financial agreement. This is the application for the decree. Everything’s exactly the way I explained it to Jamie. All we have to do is sign.

  ALICE: What happens if I don’t?

  EDWARD: Well, this agreement lapses, I suppose. And we start again. But I have to say, in your interest, that this is a very good settlement. No court would give half as much. You get the entire value of the family home—

  ALICE: Stop it.

  (Silence.)

  I’m sorry. How can you sit there and say I get the entire value of the family home, when the entire value of the family home is precisely what you’ve taken from me?

  EDWARD: I knew this wouldn’t work.

  ALICE: Yes. It will. Look, I’m being businesslike. No more references to sneaking, two-faced marital treachery. So tell me, Edward. This settlement of yours. Do I get more than I would get if you died?

  EDWARD: If I died? Well, no. As things stand, if I died, you’d get the house, our savings, and a full widow’s pension.

  ALICE: And if we get a divorce, I get less?

  EDWARD: Well, yes. I mean, if I’m still alive, I have to have something, don’t I?

  ALICE: So it would be better for me if you were dead.

  EDWARD: Perhaps. But I’m not.

  ALICE: It would be better in every way. If I have to manage without you, I’d rather be a widow. A widow has so much more status than a left woman. I could put flowers on your grave, and remember all the good times we had, and look forward to being with you again in heaven, “reunited,” as they put on the gravestones—

  JAMIE: Ma—

  ALICE: Only as things stand, there’s no grave, and you’ve poisoned all my memories, and when we meet again in the next world, there’ll be bloody Angela clogging the place up.

  (EDWARD half rises.)

  EDWARD: I shouldn’t have agreed to this. Angela was right.

  ALICE: Fuck Angela! There, I said a disgusting word. I apologise. But you make me do these things, Edward, really you do. It’s
the way you walk away. It drives me mad.

  EDWARD: Is there any point in going on with this?

  ALICE: Is there any point? Yes, there’s a point. Look at Jamie. He’s our son. He’s part you and part me. We made him. We joined together, and we made him. Don’t you feel how sacred that is? You know as well as I do that the Church says marriage is a bond that can’t be dissolved. And that’s why. It makes people. You can get lawyers to put whatever you want on paper, but you’re still my husband and Jamie’s father, and you will be till the day you die.

  EDWARD: I know your view—

  ALICE: This isn’t a view. This is how it is.

  EDWARD: For you.

  ALICE: No, not just for me. For everybody. You can’t invent a private reality.

  EDWARD: Nor can you.

  ALICE: Mine isn’t a private reality.

  EDWARD: Well then, nor’s mine.

  ALICE: Yes it is. Isn’t it, Jamie?

  JAMIE: Don’t ask me to take sides.

  ALICE: Don’t ask you to take sides? Between reality and madness? That’s what it is, deciding when you’re married and when you’re not, whenever it happens to suit you. It’s madness and chaos.

  (EDWARD starts to put the papers back in his briefcase.)

  What are you doing?

  EDWARD: Are you going to sign the papers?

  ALICE: I don’t see why I should.

  EDWARD: So I might as well go.

  JAMIE: Ma, you’re making a mistake.

  ALICE: Am I, darling? Tell me what I should do.

  JAMIE: Sign the papers. It’s a very generous settlement.

  ALICE: You still don’t see it, do you? I don’t care about money. I care about love. I love you, Edward, whether I want to or not. We’re bound up together. I never thought in a million years that you’d stop loving me. How could you? You were my husband. Now that I know, I’ll behave differently, if you’ll only help me a little. I don’t need much. Just tell me you do love me, for all my stupidity and blindness, and you’ll see, I’ll be a good wife, and a loving wife, and I’ll make you happy.

  (Silence.)

  EDWARD: What do I have to do or say to get it through to you once and for all that I’ve gone?

  (Lights go down on EDWARD.)

  (JAMIE sits with bowed head.)

  ALICE: So is it all over for me?

  JAMIE: Ma—

  ALICE: Be very careful what you say, Jamie. I have so little left, I hardly know how to crawl from one minute to the next. The future is quite blank. No looking forward. No hope. No expectation of happiness. But that doesn’t matter. Almighty God isn’t interested in our happiness, only in our salvation. Say a prayer with me, Jamie. I’m not saying you have to believe in the teachings of the Church. Or the Bible. It’s just an act of humility, really. It’s saying, “I don’t understand. I get things wrong. But I can be forgiven.” Please, darling. Say my prayer with me. All it’s saying is, “I’m part of something so much bigger than me.” It’s saying, “I don’t control my own life.” It’s such a small prayer, but it makes living bearable.