The Retreat from Moscow

by William Nicholson

  JAMIE: You believe enough for both of us. You don’t need me to believe too.

  ALICE: I know. But as a favour to me. It’s only words.

  JAMIE: What do you want me to say?

  ALICE: Lord, have mercy on us.

  JAMIE: Lord, have mercy on us.

  ALICE: Thank you.

  (JAMIE rises, and walks away.)

  (Lights go down on ALICE and JAMIE.)

  (Lights come up on EDWARD.)

  EDWARD: Was I too cruel? I have to make her accept what’s happened, for her own good. It’s not like me to be cruel. I was brought up to think of others. My father would say, “You’re not the only pebble on the beach.” I grew up knowing it without ever thinking about it. I was a pebble, like the millions of other pebbles. What claim has a pebble on the attention of the world? When I think about it now, I want to say, “Am I less of a pebble than all the others? Do I deserve less? Are their needs to come before mine?” But all this is very recent. I handle these feelings clumsily. I don’t mean to be cruel. Alice said to me, again and again, “Tell me what you want.” She never understood. I was brought up not to want things. Not for myself. So after a while you—forget…

  (Now lights begin to come up once more on JAMIE.)

  Did I ever tell you, my first ambition was to be an archaeologist? When I was a boy I read about Howard Carter finding the tomb of Tutankhamen. I was so excited I lay awake all night. It wasn’t the treasure that thrilled me. It was the pure act of discovery. To push through that last crumbling tunnel wall, to feel the rush of stale air on your face, to hold up a lamp in the darkness and see—wonders! That was how I came to love the past. I try to remember that, when I’m teaching. How it all started with a sense of wonder. (Pause) I never meant to be cruel.

  JAMIE: It’s alright. I know. It’s just that I don’t know how to help her.

  EDWARD: Yes. I’m sorry.

  JAMIE: I find it harder every time. Going home.

  EDWARD: Perhaps you should tell her.

  JAMIE: How can I tell her? I’m all she’s got.

  EDWARD: Yes, I do see that.

  JAMIE: Last weekend I found her sitting in the same chair in the same position as when I’d left her. It was like she hadn’t moved for a week. Like her life stops until I come home again. But I have a life too.

  EDWARD: Of course you do. You have to think of yourself too. She must understand that.

  JAMIE: How can I think of myself when she’s falling apart?

  (Pause.)

  EDWARD: Perhaps there’s some way you could ask her to help you.

  JAMIE: Me? I’m alright.

  EDWARD: Just to get her out of herself

  JAMIE: Oh. Yes. I see.

  EDWARD: Anyway. Just a thought.

  (Lights go down on EDWARD. JAMIE sits, hunched in his own thoughts.)

  (Lights come up on ALICE. She watches him in silence for a moment.)

  ALICE: Are you alright, darling?

  JAMIE: Yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?

  ALICE: Don’t sound so surprised. You’re allowed to have things go wrong too.

  JAMIE: Nothing’s going wrong. It’s just that things are getting a bit hectic at work these days.

  ALICE: Ah.

  JAMIE: It gives me a few problems.

  ALICE: Yes, I see. So you may not be able to come down for a while.

  JAMIE: Well, maybe not quite so often. Once a month, maybe. Do you mind?

  ALICE: No, darling. I’ll manage.

  JAMIE: I’m trying to be the good son. But I’m not as good at it as I thought.

  (She kisses him.)

  ALICE: You are. More than I deserve. I know I must be very wearing.

  JAMIE: Well, to be honest—the way things are at present—I can’t take it for too long at a time.

  ALICE: I can’t take it for too long at a time either.

  (A shared look of amused sympathy, JAMIE feels relieved.)

  JAMIE: Actually, there are one or two things going wrong for me, in a minor sort of way.

  ALICE: Is it work? Or the other thing?

  JAMIE: The other thing.

  ALICE: Why?

  JAMIE: It’s what you said. It seems I’m not very good at making people love me.

  ALICE: How could anyone not love you?

  JAMIE: I think I’m a bit unforthcoming.

  ALICE: Like Edward.

  JAMIE: Probably.

  ALICE: You must get over it, darling. You must forthcome.

  JAMIE: It doesn’t seem to be easy.

  ALICE: But you do want to?

  JAMIE: Oh, I want all the usual things. Only, it doesn’t happen. There was someone. But then she decided it wasn’t working out for her. I’m not quite sure why. It seems I’m the problem.

  ALICE: Like me.

  JAMIE: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about myself.

  ALICE: It makes a change.

  JAMIE: Why are you looking at me like that?

  ALICE: I’m trying to think how I can help you.

  JAMIE: Oh, I’ll be alright.

  ALICE: I want to say to you, “Pray about it.” But I suppose you won’t. Would you mind if I prayed for you?

  JAMIE: No.

  ALICE: If it works, will you start believing again?

  JAMIE: If it doesn’t, will you stop?

  ALICE: I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Which I do. If I could only stop believing, then I could get out. Which I long to do, night and day.

  JAMIE: Get out?

  ALICE: Lie down in the snow and fall asleep. No more waking. The waking hurts so much. That moment, coming out of a confusion of dreams, when you say, “Maybe it’s not true after all. Maybe he’s lying there, beside me.” And the dreams fade away, and you turn your head on the pillow, and there’s no one there. So you see, every night when I go to bed I pray to Almighty God, “Take me tonight. Don’t leave me to morning, to wake alone.”

  JAMIE: I know I should say, “Come and live with me.” But I can’t.

  ALICE: It’s alright, darling. I don’t want to.

  JAMIE: I think I’m just too frightened.

  ALICE: Of my unhappiness.

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: It frightens me, too.

  JAMIE: But you wouldn’t, would you? Lie down in the snow.

  ALICE: I can’t make any promises.

  JAMIE: No, but you wouldn’t. You’ve lasted this far.

  ALICE: This far, and now where? When Edward was here—that was my last shot. You heard him.

  JAMIE: Just tell me you wouldn’t do anything stupid.

  ALICE: I’ve been doing stupid things all my life.

  JAMIE: But not that.

  ALICE: Why not? I’m sunk. I’m done for. I want to get out. What is there to wait around for? Do you think it’s going to get any better?

  JAMIE: People get used to things.

  ALICE: Maybe. But what for? Just tell me that.

  JAMIE: I can’t.

  ALICE: So there it is, you see.

  (Silence.)

  JAMIE: If you did—what would you do?

  ALICE: I don’t know. It doesn’t much matter to me.

  JAMIE: It does to me. I’m the one who’d have to clear up afterwards.

  ALICE: Yes, I suppose so. I’ll try not to make a mess.

  JAMIE: I shouldn’t have said that. That’s not what matters at all.

  ALICE: It’s alright, darling.

  JAMIE: No, I want to say something different. I want to show you I do understand. After all, suppose it was cancer, and you were in unbearable pain, and dying, only too slowly. I’d say “End it now,” wouldn’t I? Out of my love for you. So if your life hurts you so much you want to end it, I won’t stop you. Out of my love for you. Only, tell me. Don’t let it be a surprise. Give me time to say good-bye.

  ALICE: My darling boy. How you’ve grown up. You must have known some sad dark times to say that to me.

  JAMIE: I have. I do.

  ALICE: I’ll tell you before I do anyth
ing. I promise.

  JAMIE: And there’s something else I want to say. I can’t ask you to live for me. We each have to carry our own burden. But you’re like the explorer. You’re further down the road. You’ve gone on ahead. So if after a while you don’t go on any more, I’ll know the road is too hard, for too long. I’ll know that in the end the unhappiness wins. But if you do go on, and bear it, terrible as it is, then I’ll know that however bad it gets, I can last it out. Because you did, before me.

  (Lights go down on ALICE.)

  (Lights come up on EDWARD.)

  EDWARD: When you read the diaries written by the men on the retreat, there’s one question that comes up again and again. Is it my duty to save my comrade’s life, even at the risk of losing my own? Or am I permitted, am I entitled, to do what is necessary for my own survival?

  (JAMIE turns, almost reluctantly, to listen to him.)

  It’s called survivor guilt. Not really a rational emotion at all. We’re not talking about killing others so that you can live. We’re talking about a situation where either everyone dies, or by abandoning the weak, the strong survive. I know it seems brutal. But what’s the point of everyone ending up dead?

  JAMIE: It doesn’t seem brutal, so much as convenient.

  EDWARD: Maybe it is. Alice has started sending me packages, you know. Full of newspaper cuttings about suicides and murders, with notes that say, “Now you’re part of all this.” She sends them to the school, and doesn’t put “Personal” on the outside, so the school secretary opens them. I wish she wouldn’t do that. This is our own private business, after all.

  JAMIE: She doesn’t feel that. She feels this is part of something much bigger. Like a war. And she’s one of the casualties.

  EDWARD: And I’m the enemy.

  JAMIE: No, you’re the traitor. The friend who turned out to be an enemy.

  EDWARD: The traitor! I’ve always thought of myself as a good person. Almost too good for my own good, if you see what I mean. And now Alice has cornered all the suffering, and suddenly I’m the bad one. All those years of Alice going for me, and not listening, not wanting to know, laughing at my habits, rubbishing my tastes—I don’t know anything about wine, why did she make me take her out to smart restaurants and order wine, and then get cross with me because I didn’t know how to? I mean, what was the point of that? And the crossword. You know I love to do the crossword. I don’t know why, I’ve no doubt it’s very boring of me, but I find it settles me. Why did she have to sneer at it, and go on at me as soon as I’d sat down with it, and make me do jobs that could perfectly easily wait half an hour? Why couldn’t she say, “He’s had a hard day in school, he loves his crossword, let him do it in peace?”

  JAMIE: She thought it was one of your ways of avoiding her.

  EDWARD: Well, I expect it was. But why did I want to avoid her? Because I always felt criticised by her. That’s true, you know. Right from the very beginning, I was always afraid that I was saying or doing the wrong thing. Most of all saying. I don’t always put things very well, and when I see that look on her face that says, “Well? Get on with it. I’m listening,” my thoughts get muddled up, and I can hear myself talking nonsense. So I just stop. And she says, “Can’t you even talk now?” I hate that. I really hate it. You’d have hated it, Jamie. You would.

  JAMIE: I would. I did.

  EDWARD: So. There you are.

  (Pause.)

  The way it was before, I felt everything I did was wrong—but I was innocent. Now, I feel that what I’m doing is right—but I feel guilty.

  JAMIE: Because you survived.

  EDWARD: Yes.

  (Pause.)

  I’ve decided to take early retirement. I’m unlikely to get another position at my age. Durham, we thought.

  JAMIE: Durham! Why do you have to go so far away?

  EDWARD: It’s where Angela comes from. She has family up there. She can sell her house. We should be alright.

  JAMIE: Yes, I expect you will be.

  EDWARD: Really, I should have left years ago.

  JAMIE: Why didn’t you?

  EDWARD: You don’t let yourself think things. It never really seemed an option.

  JAMIE: Why not? You knew you weren’t happy. Even I knew you weren’t happy.

  EDWARD: And Alice. She wasn’t happy. She knew we weren’t right for each other.

  JAMIE: No. She didn’t. Right up to the day you left she thought you adored her.

  EDWARD: How could she think that?

  JAMIE: Because you went on being nice, and making cups of tea, and acting like you were happy. Because you never got angry when she went for you. Because you never told her what you wanted, or what it felt like to be you. You just went on pretending—and pretending—and one day—you left. If I were to blame you for anything, it would be that.

  EDWARD: I know.

  (Pause.)

  JAMIE: So—it’s going alright? With Angela?

  EDWARD: Yes. Yes. It’s good.

  JAMIE: Does she let you do the crossword?

  EDWARD: Oh, yes. I get home at the end of the day, and we have a cup of tea, and I settle down with the crossword. If I’m stuck on a clue, I try it out on her. Quite often she gets it, right away. If she doesn’t get it right away, I’d say she tends not to get it ever. Whereas I work more methodically, by elimination, and I usually get there in the end.

  JAMIE: The pure act of discovery.

  EDWARD: Does it all sound to you like a ridiculous existence?

  JAMIE: No. No more so than any of the rest of us.

  (Lights go down on EDWARD.)

  (Lights come up on ALICE.)

  ALICE: I’ve joined a new group, called the Lighthouse Keepers. I’m on a rota. Every few days I go to the office and answer the phones. It’s a help-line, and it’s for people who think they’ve got AIDS, or want to know about AIDS, or want information about treatment. There’s always two other people on the phones with me, and a supervisor, and when the phones aren’t ringing, we chat to each other. And you know what I’ve discovered? Homosexuals are the kindest people.

  JAMIE: What did you think they were like?

  ALICE: I’ve never really thought anything about them at all. I’ve not been prejudiced against them, of course. But I had no idea they were so nice. They’re terribly sweet to me. It makes me want to be a homosexual, only I’m not sure how one goes about it.

  JAMIE: What on earth do you know about AIDS?

  ALICE: Nothing at all, darling. There’s a fact sheet for all that.

  JAMIE: So what do you say to the people who phone up?

  ALICE: Well, we talk about this and that. They tell me about their boyfriends, you know. And nearly every time it turns out they’ve been left, just like me. So we talk about what it’s like, and how men are all selfish pigs, and how is one to cope. I recite lines from poems to them—

  JAMIE: Poems?

  ALICE: I tell them about God—

  JAMIE: Poems and God?

  ALICE: Both together, sometimes. Like those marvellous lines of Rilke’s—

  A sensation of falling is not unique or new.

  My failing falling hand

  Has got the falling sickness even Caesar

  Could not withstand.

  Yet underneath I know another hand

  A falling universe cannot fall through.

  JAMIE: What do the others on the help-line make of all this?

  ALICE: They were a bit flummoxed to start with, but we got talking, and oh, Jamie, they’re so loving. I think I’ve found out why. It’s not that homosexuals are really any better than the rest of us, in themselves, but the prejudice against them, and now this terrifying disease, makes them aware of suffering, it puts them on the side of people in pain. I can’t tell you how sweet they are to me.

  JAMIE: Do any of them actually have AIDS?

  ALICE: Oh, yes. Several of them are HIV Positive. That’s what you say. You don’t say they’ve got AIDS. Oh, and I’ve told them all about you, and th
ey all agree you’re probably gay.

  JAMIE: Well, I’m not, as it happens.

  ALICE: Why not? Are you prejudiced?

  JAMIE: No. Not at all.

  ALICE: You could be refusing to admit your true nature.

  JAMIE: Do you want me to be gay?

  ALICE: It would rather lessen the chances of grandchildren. Did you see Edward?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: What was it all about?

  JAMIE: He wants to move. To Durham.

  ALICE: So he doesn’t have to meet me in Tesco?

  JAMIE: Pretty much.

  ALICE: He’s such a coward.

  (She hears the sound of a dog yapping offstage.)

  Did I tell you? I’ve taught Eddie a trick.

  (She goes to the back door to look for the puppy in the garden.)

  Eddie! Stop running round in circles for one minute. Eddie! Show Uncle Jamie your trick. Sit! Watch this, Jamie. Die, Edward! Die!

  (JAMIE watches, shaking his head.)

  There. Isn’t he clever?

  JAMIE: Yes.

  ALICE: Wouldn’t it be something if I could do that with the real Edward?

  JAMIE: Make him die?

  ALICE: Well, roll about on the floor a bit.

  (She watches fondly as the dog reverts to racing about the garden.)

  JAMIE: Oh, well. I suppose it’s an improvement on the way you were talking a few weeks ago.

  ALICE: What was I saying a few weeks ago?

  JAMIE: About lying down in the snow.

  ALICE: Oh, that. Yes, I’ve moved on from that. I have a much better plan.

  JAMIE: I’m relieved to hear it.

  ALICE: The thing about unhappiness is, after a while it stops being interesting. So you have to do something different.

  Now I shall have to get on with it sooner than I’d expected. I’m not driving all the way to Durham.

  JAMIE: What exactly is this much better plan?