by Nina Raine
GIRL. Who?
ANNA. The old lady Natasha. And she’d fall in the night and I’d wake up because she’d be shouting for help. And I’d have to go down and try to pick her up… and she was really heavy…
The GIRL sits back down, interested.
GIRL. Heavier than me?
ANNA. Much heavier. And one day she fell and they took her into hospital and I visited her there and all she would eat was apple puree and then not even that any more and then… She died. With her chin resting on her hand, like this. Poor Natasha.
Beat.
She didn’t have any children.
GIRL. Why?
ANNA. I think… because of… what happened to her relatives in the war. She thought she didn’t want to.
Pause. The GIRL lies on her back, still, looks up at the ceiling.
GIRL. What happens next?
ANNA. I don’t know.
Beat.
GIRL. What would happen if you smacked the sun?
Scene Five
38
ANNA and TOM sit in a café. TOM is breezy and cheerful.
TOM. It’s lovely to see you. You look really well.
ANNA. Thanks.
TOM. How’s the casting! I want to hear all about it!
ANNA. Oh it’s a nightmare. As always. We’re going to have to think out of the box. Go a bit older, or… And the doubling is really tricky… do I get the mother to be played by the same actress, or what… I really don’t think we’re going to be cast in time… it’s terrifying…
TOM laughs, pours her some tea.
TOM. You’re looking great.
ANNA. Thanks… I’m staying with Beth at the moment, her kids wake up so early… It’s brilliant, Nutella and peanut butter every day for breakfast…
Beat. TOM puts his hand on her hand.
TOM. It is so great to see you.
ANNA. Yeah…
Pause.
So, your mum must be relieved.
Beat.
That the IVF didn’t work.
Beat.
TOM. Well. I told them both they would just have to get on with it if it did work.
ANNA. The day you left, she wrote me an email begging me not to put in the embryos. For your sake, for the unborn child’s sake, and for my sake. I thought that was fabulous – for my sake.
TOM puts his head in his hands.
TOM. I can’t believe she did that. I was so angry. She’s a fucking bitch…
Beat.
It’s actually made me really question things… my family…
I’ve never really challenged them before.
ANNA. Yup.
TOM gets a little tearful.
TOM. You’ve, when you’ve, behaved so well… and then she, she does that…
Beat.
ANNA. Well.
She’s your mother.
Pause.
So, I thought we should meet, now, you know, a bit of time’s passed…
TOM. Yeah, I’m really glad you called, it’s great to see you.
ANNA.…Now that you’ve had time to think how you feel, I wanted to see how you’re feeling… now.
TOM. Yeah.
Beat.
ANNA. So how – I’ve just been trying to give you space.
TOM. Yeah.
Beat.
ANNA. How are you?
TOM. Yeah, well, it’s good actually. Henry and I are going to be moving in together –
ANNA. Oh, right.
TOM. – the flats Dad bought us are ready, so yeah, we’re going to be living in one together and we’re renting out the one below to help pay the mortgage.
ANNA. Right. That’s nice.
TOM. It has been really nice actually, living with Hen again, getting to know him again. It’s been really nice. I’ve been writing loads…
ANNA. Mhmm, mhm. Right. Great.
TOM. I don’t really like the way Mum’s done up the flats, but you know, you can’t really stop her…
ANNA. No. You can’t.
Beat.
Well, I wanted to see you because I need to know what you’re thinking.
About what happened. And, you know.
Now.
TOM. Right.
Beat.
I don’t think I’ve made a mistake.
Beat.
ANNA. Okay.
Beat.
TOM. Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot, of course, and obviously I miss you, Annie, I miss so many things… being able to tell you stuff as soon it happens, like that grim camping trip with Robin –
ANNA. Well, you did ring me when it –
TOM. Or you know I’ve been reading Noël Coward and of course it’s you I want to talk to about it straight away, about how brilliant he is, and every time I see a shit play, and I miss all our in-jokes,
– but I don’t think I’ve made a mistake.
ANNA. Right.
Pause.
The thing is, Tom, what worries me is that I think you’re very very good at burying things… you went to boarding school and I think you’re capable of forcing yourself to live life on a very superficial level where you don’t allow yourself to feel all the painful shit for months and months and months. But it doesn’t mean it goes away. It will come out. And I think you’ll get a massive shock when it does.
TOM. Mm. But… I don’t think I’ve made a mistake.
Beat.
I don’t think I should have a baby with you.
Beat.
ANNA. Okay, I have a feeling that what’s going to happen to you is you’ll go back to living a very conventional life and everyone will tell you that you did the right thing because it’s not conventional for a twenty-six-year-old man to have a baby with a thirty-eight-year-old woman. There aren’t any examples around to tell you it’s okay. All you see is your twenty-year-old friends and your parents and your parents are very conventional and you’re pressurised by your parents and their expectations –
TOM. I’m not.
Beat.
My parents would support me in whatever I wanted to do if
I was sure I wanted to do it.
But I’m not sure.
Beat.
I was feeling a huge pressure. I felt really under pressure.
I feel better now.
I don’t want responsibilities like that. At this point. I want to be freer. I know that now.
Beat. During ANNA’s next speech TOM becomes tearful.
ANNA. You sort of… yeah, you’re sort of… it’s like… Tom,
Sorry, I…
It’s like, I worry I did the wrong thing, letting you go and have ‘space’, because you’re already different, you sound… fake. Sort of stiff and formal and wooden. It’s like you’ve been telling yourself a story until you believe it and you’ve built up this protective, fake, shell around yourself –
TOM. I think I’ve made the right decision.
ANNA. And this story you’re telling yourself, I worry any time you start doubting your decision, you’ll just tell it to yourself again and there won’t be anyone to tell you that your story is a lie, you’re lying to yourself. And you’ll carry on the rest of your life with this lie, and that will be it.
Beat.
TOM. I don’t think I’m lying to myself.
ANNA. We were trying for two years.
TOM. I know but I don’t think I was being honest with myself.
ANNA. You weren’t being honest with yourself, now you aren’t lying to yourself – Which is which?
I don’t think you know who you are.
Beat.
I actually worry about you because I’ll have to go out there, I can’t mess about, I’ll be thirty-nine in a month, I’ll have to do it with someone else and that could happen very very soon and how will you feel?
I think you’ll feel shit.
Beat.
TOM. I don’t know.
Pause.
ANNA. What about if I just asked you for your sperm? Would that be be
tter for you?
Pause.
TOM. No.
I don’t want to do that.
Beat.
ANNA. Okay, well, what if I asked someone else for their sperm and had a baby with them, and then we got back together?
TOM looks very uncomfortable. Pause.
TOM. I…
I hadn’t really thought about that.
…I suppose I could think about it…
Beat. With flat certainty.
I don’t think I would want to do that.
ANNA.…What do you want?
What are you feeling?
TOM. I feel… stupid.
I feel silly for not having realised sooner.
ANNA. Realised what?
TOM. How I felt.
Pause.
ANNA. You know, Tom, I haven’t said so many things to you, I’ve been trying so hard not to pressure you. Thirty-six to thirty-nine are quite crucial years –
TOM (carefully). I don’t think it’s my fault you chose to go out with me for those years. I don’t think it’s my fault you were thirty-six when I met you.
ANNA. For fuck’s sake, Tom, you sound like a fucking barrister! If I’d got pregnant at the beginning – but you had time to start questioning your feelings like picking and picking a hole in a sweater and did you feel enough for me but frankly it’s an impossible test, the only person we carry on feeling intensely about forever is ourselves!
TOM. When we got together, it was you that rang me up. You always knew what you wanted. I feel like I never made the choice.
ANNA. How do you think it felt near the end, having sex and then you pulling out every time you wanted to come, sticking your cock in my mouth instead? Have you any idea how hurtful that was?
And when you kept going on about whether it would be more cruel to leave me now, or ten years later with a kid?
I tell you what’s cruel. To do what you’re doing now. To leave me with nothing.
TOM is crying again.
I went out with you because I thought you were such a special person. I still think that what we had was special and real.
And would last forever. You obviously don’t feel that’s true. We’ll just have to see which of us turns out to be wrong.
Pause.
TOM. I don’t think I’ve made a mistake.
Beat.
ANNA. Okay, well, I don’t think I can have any more contact with you.
Beat.
TOM.…Right.
ANNA. No more phone calls, no more emails. Because I don’t think you really know what it is to lose me.
Beat. TOM is visibly surprised and shaken. His voice falters.
TOM.…Well, if that’s what you want, then…
I have to respect that.
Pause. He starts to get up. Uncertainly –
Okay.
I suppose, I’ll, if I made a mistake, then.
I’ll be in touch.
He leaves.
Scene Six
39
The middle of the night. ANNA is standing in her pyjamas, hair messy, no make-up, in tears. JOSEPH stands watching her, in his pyjama bottoms, looking frightened. ANNA finally manages to speak through her sobs.
ANNA. I’m frightened…
JOSEPH. It’ll be okay…
ANNA sobs a bit more.
ANNA. Joe…
JOSEPH. What’s wrong…
ANNA. Joe… I don’t know if I believe in God any more…
JOSEPH. Right… great…
He looks at his watch, rubs his eyes.
Wow it’s really late… have you been to sleep?
She tries to breathe.
ANNA.…No, couldn’t sleep, just been lying there, and then I just… I had this horrible…
JOSEPH. Okay…
ANNA. I don’t even want to say it…
JOSEPH. It’s okay, tell me…
I am, I’m awake now…
She gulps.
ANNA. I don’t know how to describe it…
Joe, I’ve always comforted myself with the thought that there’s a reason that stuff happens, that it’s all part of some plan, it’s just a necessary part of… Do you know what I mean?
JOSEPH. Yep, yep… uh-huh…
ANNA. That there’s some kind of point to it all… you know?
He nods.
…So all the crap men I went out with, they were part of the story leading up to me meeting Tom… it all made sense… But I was lying there in the dark thinking, and I suddenly got really scared, because I know, I know, that if I’d only got pregnant with Tom, it would all have been okay.
Beat.
JOSEPH. Well… yeah…
ANNA. I’m not talking bollocks. Am I?
Beat.
JOSEPH. No… You’re not… I think you’re right… I think he would have been okay.
ANNA. Even Dad said, when he left me in the middle of IVF, stay calm, wait and see if you’re pregnant… If you’re pregnant Tom will come round –
JOSEPH. Yeah.
ANNA. – But I didn’t get pregnant… my fucking body let me down…
JOSEPH. He could still come back…
ANNA. Joe… I don’t think he’s going to come back…
She starts crying again.
And this time, I can’t see why… I can’t find a reason… I mean why the IVF needed to fail… Tom has left me… I’m thirty-nine… I’m childless… I’m going to die without children – only bad has come out of this…
And I thought. That’s because there is no grand plan. There’s no one watching the story. It’s all just random. The universe is huge and pointless and random…
JOSEPH. Okay… well…
ANNA. And pitiless… And Joe, that scares me… I can’t see a way out…!!
JOSEPH. Okay look… shhh… shh…
ANNA. No, suddenly nothing makes sense… Am I doing the wrong thing? Cutting contact with Tom? Am I making a mistake? There’s no reason for anything any more – there’s no God –
JOSEPH. I don’t think you’re making a mistake – I don’t think you’re making a mistake.
ANNA. But how do you know?
JOSEPH. Okay, okay, shhh. Let’s not worry about the universe or God for the moment, let’s –
When you kept contact with him he got his shit together and said thanks very much but he didn’t want to have a baby with you, it didn’t work. You’ve tried it with the door open, now try it with the door closed.
Beat.
By not having contact with him you’re saving yourself all those daily small jealousies and miseries – it was driving you nuts, when he called, when he didn’t call, with his stupid Sloaney life, whenever he felt like offloading or talking about some fucking Ken Tynan letter he’d been reading or – I’m not having this actually, he’s a fucking cunt!
ANNA (obliviously, lost). The thought is so large… so dark… I don’t know what to do with it… if this doesn’t make sense… then nothing makes sense… there’s no point in anything…
JOSEPH. Okay, you’re still thinking about the universe. If he was too weak to go through IVF then you have to think he’s not the right person for you. You –
ANNA. But that’s it, that’s what I’ve been doing, imposing a coherent narrative on it, I don’t think there is one. What if he is right for me, but the wrong thing happened. And in another world where the IVF worked we would have been fine.
Then what’s happened is – there’s nothing to redeem it – it’s just… a disaster…
She cries.
JOSEPH. Pips… Pippy…
He hugs her.
I’m going to get you a glass of milk. And a banana.
He goes out. ANNA, alone, sits on the bed. Puts her face in her hands, briefly cries. Stops. Dries her eyes. Stares into space. JOE comes back in with a glass of milk, gives it to her.
ANNA. Why do I keep fucking up with men? Why does this keep happening?
JOSEPH. You’ve had a lot of bad luck.
ANNA. Maybe it’s not bad luck. I’ve chosen them all.
Maybe I’ve chosen my bad luck.
JOSEPH. Some of them chose you.
ANNA. And I let them.
Beat.
I really regret having gone out with Julian. There’s nothing redeeming about that time.
JOSEPH. ‘Jugsy.’
ANNA. Yeah, ‘Jugsy’. What a waste of my twenties.
JOSEPH. It’s not your fault he was a cunt.
ANNA. But I knew he was, deep down.
JOSEPH. No you didn’t. It’s not like you’ve got like a metal detector at the airport… that goes beep beep beep bastard… you have to go out with people a bit to find out if they’re a cunt.
ANNA. Maybe I’ve just got a narrative in my head that things will never work out with anyone and so they don’t, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s my fault –
JOSEPH. Okay hang on, you just said you were scared because there was no narrative, now you’re inventing yourself a negative one –
ANNA. I’m just trying find a reason! Even if it’s me! I’m scared and I don’t understand why this keeps happening – it’s like Groundhog Day.
Beat.
Maybe I should do therapy.
Beat.
Beth sees a Lacanian therapist. Who talks about her inner child.
JOSEPH. Well, it’s fucking dark.
Up your own arse.
ANNA laughs weakly.
We will look on a website. You can meet and ask people.
You can make a list. You will be okay.
Beat.
And about God… if he does exist, Pips… I don’t think he’s the plot.
I think that he’s the lighting.
ANNA.…I’m just worried… I have no – I don’t know what happens next.
Beat.
I have to decide what’s going to happen to me.
They look at each other.
Scene Seven
39 + 1
ANNA and LACHLAN sit together in a café. LACHLAN is Irish. Initially ANNA is extremely bright and cheerful. LACHLAN is also very warm.
ANNA. So, my God! When did we last…
LACHLAN. It was that reading… wasn’t it? Yeah, must have been…
ANNA. Five years ago? God!
LACHLAN.…Yeah… Wow…! I really really liked that script you know, I thought it was amazing… I thought he was a great writer…
ANNA. Yeah well… That’s life…
LACHLAN. But it was such a good day, you got such a good feeling in the room going, Anna…
ANNA. Oh thanks, thanks… But what have you been doing?