‘Abortion, A Love Story?’
Natasha nodded.
‘But it’s about these two girls, sisters in misery.’
‘I know.’
‘They don’t have anything.’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s a bad time.
‘It’s a woeful time.’
‘And it gets worse.’
‘How?’
‘It’s always raining.’
‘True.’
Lucy took a sip of her drink. ‘Who could find all that funny?’
‘Not me.’
‘And the pain and the suffering of the women,’ Lucy said, shaking her head. ‘The violence of what they have endured. That’s what the audience will want.’
‘Yeah,’ Natasha said, ‘and let’s not give it to them.’
Lucy was silent.
‘Comedy is tragedy sped up.’
Lucy tapped two fingers on her can. ‘That’s Ionesco.’
‘I thought it was my dad,’ Natasha said.
‘You know we’re risking our reputations.’
‘We don’t have reputations to risk.’ Natasha leaned forward. ‘Do you trust me, Lucy?’
Lucy took a long, thoughtful gulp. She nodded.
*
The room where they worked was an abandoned classroom at the back of the college, and they spent every available minute in there. The first day Lucy arrived dressed up, wearing a pretty cardigan and shirt. She looked like someone who believed in order.
‘Take that off,’ Natasha instructed. ‘There’s no room for order here.’
They spent all that first day in the room working out the shape and texture of the play. They stretched. They meditated. They rubbed crystals that Lucy had stolen. They played inspiring music. Should they start, elementally, as trees swaying in the breeze? Should they crawl from the dirt? Should they monologue their feelings? Should their characters have good intentions?
‘Let’s not do the obvious thing,’ Natasha said.
After that, they didn’t say anything for a long time. In the evening, they sat together in the computer house and watched the old comedy clips that Natasha’s father had collected – men flying off ladders, through hatch doors, men whose cars wouldn’t start, men whose businesses were failing, men being thwarted at every turn – a black and white stream of men getting energetically angry. The clips, all strung together manically, were the opposite of culture, the opposite of civilised behaviour and reason. These clowns with their bright red faces were the radical opposite of beauty. There was nothing discreet in these clips, everything was loud and frantic. They were somehow good and bad at the same time.
‘Can we get gin and tonics?’ Lucy whispered.
It took Lucy several days to turn the full focus of her attention to the clips but when she did, Natasha couldn’t believe what she could retain. Specific gestures, movements, costumes – there was nothing that escaped her attention. She recited punchlines word for word. Her mind, which couldn’t handle one bit of reality, could hold the imaginative world. To rouse themselves out of their creative stupor, they talked about what they were fighting against – earnestness of any kind, the dry, the humourless. Boredom, Lucy added. Logic. Moral dictation.
‘Why did you write this play in the first place?’
‘I wanted a place that was lawless,’ Lucy said.
‘No laws.’ Natasha made a little note of it in her notebook. Her notebook now had two notes in it and a convoluted sketch of a man falling off a ladder.
Outside the window was a large oak tree and Lucy often looked at its gently moving branches as Natasha had a nervous breakdown. On dry days, as it came into April, and fourth year students planned their graduation into the outside world, where buildings were razed and felled and businessmen were routinely accused of improper dealings, Lucy and Natasha stuck cotton wool in their ears and lay under the tree. Occasionally Professor Carr appeared and looked at them baldly across the green, sickened by their new, unholy alliance.
‘Shoo,’ Lucy shouted and they watched him scamper away.
The pages somehow built up. They stayed late. They worked Sundays. Their giggles could be heard in other rooms in the building. The play slowly jerked to life. Lines were written. Ideas were formed. In the beginning their ambition was huge and they talked about setting it in a house with a chandelier, bringing it down in a massive crash at the end of the first act. The chandelier would represent the college. It would symbolise the end of a regime. But they had no money and they had no chandelier. They had no money at all. They had to be economical. They were using the last few cents in Lucy’s account.
‘The chandelier would have been excessive anyway,’ Lucy said. ‘Ostentatious.’
‘We don’t need a chandelier,’ Natasha said, ‘we’re making a new reality.’
‘It would have been nice though.’
‘Satisfying, for sure.’
‘That smash,’ Lucy smacked her hand on the table. ‘Glass everywhere.’
‘Beautiful.’
Neither of them knew how to sew. Lucy learned by watching videos in the computer house, her fingers moving in and out of the material nimbly. All the clothes came out at strange angles. They were immensely weird in a way neither Lucy or Natasha could explain, all oddly improvised: staples where trouser tucks should be, sellotape everywhere.
‘This works better,’ Natasha decided.
On an evening in their third week, the tree stretching out ominously in the dark, Natasha looked up from the delicate arrangement of safety pins she was working on. She hadn’t seen the inside of a lecture theatre in several months. She no longer knew how the chairs were arranged; she was even losing the slight amount of knowledge she had gained in Professor Carr’s office.
‘I am going to the unemployment building,’ she said.
Lucy looked at her intently. ‘You are,’ she said. ‘You’re going to the unemployment building, you will see the rotting walls, you will count the cracks in the ceiling, you will join the long lines, you will sit in a plastic seat with your number to receive a nonexistent amount of income.’
‘Will it be as bad as we’ve all imagined it to be?’
‘You will cry but, for the sake of appearances, you will hide it in your sleeve. You will close your eyes and pretend to be elsewhere.’
‘But I won’t be elsewhere.’
‘No.’
‘Where will I be?’
‘You will be in the unemployment building.’
‘So be it,’ Natasha said, with great strength, as if facing up to a prophecy.
‘I will be alone here without you.’
Lucy and Natasha had grown so close over the last few weeks, it felt like they had become one fast and vicious animal. Natasha learned all of Lucy’s lines; Lucy learned all of Natasha’s lines. They knew when the other was going to move; they could predict it and they moved together. There was no impulse that was wrong. When it became dark, when the oak tree became slick and shiny with rain, they stayed inside and talked about growing up as unenlightened children; life on country roads, holidays on stony beaches under grey skies, their homes, the prison of their homes. They talked about everything, everything distasteful and rotten and shameful about their lives. They tore the skin off it. They found beauty in it; they put it all in the play. And they would laugh at it. They would reveal it and they would laugh at it.
‘I will come back and see you,’ Natasha said.
‘After this, Natasha, they’re not going to let you in the front gate.’
*
It was their last week and they were outside painting scenery when a boy pulled up beside them on a bicycle. He had sandy hair and a look of supreme disinterest. Natasha could see a single, waxy puppet hand poking out of his schoolbag.
‘Take it back,’ he said to Lucy.
‘No,’ Lucy said, without looking at him, ‘I will never take it back.’
‘Take it back,’ he screamed.
‘No,’ Lucy r
oared.
‘You cunt.’ He jumped up on his bicycle and they watched him wobble away. They watched him for a few minutes as he bumped over the cobblestones. There were several severe bumps.
‘That’s him anyway,’ Natasha said.
‘That’s him.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘I told him he was never good enough for me.’
Natasha watched as he struggled to straighten himself on his bicycle. ‘That’s objectively true,’ she said, ‘you can’t argue with that.’
‘And I said something awful.’
‘What?’
‘Imagine the worst thing you can say to a man like that.’
‘You called him a mediocrity.’
‘Worse.’ Lucy whispered into Natasha’s ear. She spoke for a short time.
Natasha’s face broke out into a huge smile. ‘Let’s put that in the play.’
*
The night before Lucy and Natasha submitted the play to the student theatre, Natasha had a dream that her mother rang her up out of the blue. The phone she answered was not her own. She was in a long hallway with a lot of different rooms. She had no idea which room the call was coming from. When she told her mother she hadn’t had an absolutely brilliant childhood, her mother laughed and said, ‘Your father could have been better, yes.’ When she awoke, she felt sure it was a sign that the play was going to be a tremendous success. That morning, she and Lucy walked to the college together. Lucy wore a pair of huge sunglasses and kept bumping into things and apologising. They had to cross the campus to the theatre. It was the longest walk ever.
‘Let me go up,’ Lucy said, as they stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’m charming.’
‘I can be charming.’
Lucy stood on the bottom step. ‘But I’m more so. Today, I’m more so.’ She walked up.
She re-appeared five minutes later. ‘He said no. It’s over.’
‘How much did he read?’
‘The first page.’
Lucy sighed. She kicked a small pot containing a dying shrub. ‘Maybe it’s enough.’
Natasha took the pages out of her hand. ‘It’s not enough.’
Upstairs, in the low-ceilinged room, sat a boy, thumbing through a novel.
‘You’re right,’ Natasha said. ‘It’s bad.’
He didn’t look up.
‘But I don’t care,’ Natasha continued. ‘Give us one night.’
‘The acting troupe are in there for the next two weeks,’ he said, and continued lazily turning the pages, ‘and then college is over.’
Natasha thought of the starchy graduation robes. The rushed and formal ceremony that she would not be welcome at anyway. Only the boy’s presence kept her from vomiting.
‘One night,’ she said.
‘The acting troupe are in there for the next two weeks. You will have to fight them for it.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Are you willing to do that?’
Natasha took the book out of his hand and cleared herself a space at the edge of his desk. She knocked over several papers and pens. ‘I know you want me to go away,’ she said.
The boy looked scared.
‘But let me tell you about where I grew up.’
A week later the chalkboard at the front of the theatre read:
Abortion, A Love Story: One Night Only.
*
In the hour before the show, Natasha and Lucy sat in the changing room, sharing a cake. They divided the cake into thin slices, which Natasha didn’t touch. A bottle of Lucy’s beloved fizzy drink also remained sweating on the table.
‘I feel like I’m being smothered,’ Natasha said.
‘It’s just nerves,’ Lucy replied.
‘I think somebody has cut off my oxygen supply.’
‘Nerves. You’re nervous.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Don’t let them see it,’ Lucy said, popping a slice of cake into her mouth. Natasha could see the pink icing beneath her tongue. ‘That’s important. Don’t let them see it.’
An hour earlier before they’d unpacked their props and organised themselves, they had exchanged flowers, cards and well wishes. On Natasha’s card, Lucy had written: ‘If we were in a long banquet hall filled with the world’s best and most interesting people, I would only want to sit beside you. Lucy x.’ On Lucy’s card Natasha had written, ‘Best of luck with the play!’ which was the level of emotion she was capable of expressing at the time.
The boy from the theatre walked into the dressing room. He avoided Natasha and directed his gaze towards the palm tree in the corner. ‘This is your five-minute call.’
‘How many people are out there?’ Lucy asked.
‘Ten.’ The boy looked at his clipboard. ‘At last count.’
‘That’s too many,’ Natasha said, ‘we should ask some of them to leave.’
‘She’s nervous,’ Lucy explained.
The boy nodded and indicated for them to follow him. As they walked down the hall, Lucy said, ‘If you mess up out there, just blame it on me. Give me a dirty look or whatever.’
‘I don’t think I’m going to go on,’ Natasha said abruptly as they reached the curtain.
Natasha could see the acting troupe in the first row, their gazes critical, their posture somehow both angry and indifferent. The sight of them disturbed her. The rest of the audience was dark.
‘You have to go on.’
‘I don’t think there’s any need to. I really don’t think there’s any need to.’
‘I’m counting you in. Five, four … ’
Lucy looked at Natasha. She thought of her sitting alone in a cafe in the city. She thought of her in the unemployment building, her legs swinging on a metal seat. She knew she didn’t want to go out there. Just her taking one step onto that stage was a declaration of love.
‘Natasha.’
Natasha’s eyes didn’t move off the stage.
‘I love you,’ Lucy said. The lights hit Natasha’s face. ‘You’re on.’
SHOWTIME
Natasha walks onstage wearing her own clothes. She stands in the middle of the stage. From a megaphone offstage, Lucy calls out, ‘Natasha, welcome to the unemployment building.’
‘Thank you for having me,’ Natasha says.
‘Your number is 32. There is nothing to do except cooperate, do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘Under disabilities, you’ve listed a non-specific disorder.’
‘Yes,’ Natasha says.
‘Under employment history, you’ve listed none.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Under reason you can’t work you’ve written: “I’m tired of acting normal.”’
‘That came to me after a considered assessment.’
‘Natasha, you have to do things our way.’
‘No,’ Natasha says.
‘No?’ Lucy bellows.
‘No.’
‘You won’t do things our way?’
Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha can see Lucy pulling on her costume, the megaphone in her right hand.
‘Not tonight,’ Natasha says. ‘Tonight you’re doing things our way.’
The lights go down.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my great pleasure to introduce Lucy.’
Natasha disappears behind the curtain and pulls Lucy out on a chaise longue on wheels. Lucy is wearing a fluffy, see-through robe over a pink negligee. She is sprawled across the couch and is holding an old-style telephone in her hand. She rests on her left elbow, facing the audience.
‘Oh baby, I know, I know,’ Lucy says into the telephone. ‘Oh I know, it’s awful to be so in love. I will see what I’m doing on Saturday.’
She puts down the phone. It starts ringing again, urgently, a high, shrill sound. Lucy slips on a pair of pom-pom slippers and answers. ‘I will see what I’m doing Saturday,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to be so in love, but you will relax into it, you will get used to it. That’s my advice.’
She puts down the phone and pushes a lock of hair out of her face. ‘My phone never stops ringing,’ she says to the audience. ‘That’s just the way it is.’
The phone rings again. ‘I will see what I’m doing Saturday,’ she says, more briskly this time. She puts the phone down and stares into space. ‘My phone never stops ringing,’ she says, almost despairing.
The phone rings again. ‘I will see what I’m doing Saturday,’ she says, robotically. She places down the receiver. ‘I like the cocktails and the compliments.’
The phone rings again. Each ring is louder, angrier. ‘I will see what I’m doing Saturday,’ she screams and puts down the receiver. ‘I like the cocktails and the compliments, but after a while it all starts to turn my stomach.’ She twirls a piece of her hair in her finger. There is complete silence.
The phone rings again. ‘I will see what I’m doing Saturday,’ Lucy says. She re-adjusts her negligee, squeezes her breasts. She listens more carefully. She switches the phone to her other ear. She nods. She stands up and walks around with the phone in her hand. She giggles.
‘You earn how much a week? Without tax? So what’s your take-home pay? I don’t mean to be brash but a woman has to think about these things,’ Lucy says. ‘I have a right to ask. It’s an issue I get pretty heated about. A woman has to think about her place in society. She has to rise. You sound like an upstanding citizen with prospects.’ Lucy winks at the audience, a big, exaggerated batting of her right eye. ‘So I guess I will come right over.’
Lucy exits with the telephone in her hand, as Natasha drags a carpet onstage. She unrolls it. It is a white woolly material. Natasha wears a dress, a long silver sheath. Before she lies down, she pulls a string and a large screen fills the space behind her.
‘I carry this everywhere with me,’ Natasha explains to the audience, ‘because carpet is still new to me. I grew up in a house that was all hardwood, low-ceilinged, a bungalow on a country road.’ Natasha starts laughing. ‘I was what you call dirt poor.’ She bends over as if this is the funniest thing she has ever heard. ‘I won’t put you through it; just picture death and you’re nearly there. We didn’t even have a VCR so I hadn’t seen many films before I became an actress. Anyway, enough about me.’ She turns her back to the audience and faces the screen. ‘Let’s watch a film.’
Show Them a Good Time Page 10