Three Plays Page 10
The phone rings.
CELIA: Allô? (Hello?)
Silence.
CELIA: Oh, hi Mum.
Silence.
CELIA: Yes, I’ll be there.
The doorbell rings. CELIA doesn’t move to open it. PIERRE pushes the door open and enters. He has a new, summery look about him.
CELIA: I have to go. I’m in the middle of a lesson.
Silence.
CELIA: A boy.
Silence. CELIA: He isn’t at all attractive.
Silence.
CELIA: You too.
She hangs up.
PIERRE: Hello.
CELIA continues packing.
PIERRE: What’s happening?
CELIA: I didn’t think you’d come.
PIERRE: Are you leaving?
CELIA: Yes.
PIERRE: Paris?
CELIA: Call it Paris if you like.
PIERRE: I see.
Silence.
PIERRE: Are you still angry with me?
CELIA: Call it angry if you like.
PIERRE: I’ve been feeling bad. About the way we left it. I’m glad you summoned me back. You call it ‘unfinished business’, not so?
CELIA: I don’t think I have the words for it.
CELIA continues packing.
CELIA: You haven’t even noticed.
PIERRE: What?
CELIA: I’m wearing the dress. Your yellow dress.
PIERRE: No, you –
He realises she is.
PIERRE: It looks different.
Silence.
CELIA: Perhaps I should have ironed it.
PIERRE: No. It’s you who looks different.
CELIA: Thanks!
Silence.
PIERRE: You’re still beautiful.
CELIA continues packing her books.
PIERRE: So what did you want? To say goodbye? To shout at me?
Silence.
PIERRE comes towards her, insinuating.
PIERRE: Or is it for something else? I’ve been missing you.
CELIA: The present perfect continuous. Good.
PIERRE: I went away. Back to Pouilly. I saw my old friend Etienne. The one who kissed Elodie under the tree. I thought I’d hit him – but all we did is stand by the river and share a cigarette. He tells me Elodie has married a middle-aged Belgian. He sells bicycle pumps. I must say – the gods are quick!
CELIA: I’m glad you’ve put all that behind you.
PIERRE: I can’t tell you how much your lessons helped.
CELIA: Your English has certainly improved.
PIERRE: It’s not only that. You gave me something. Call it my own tree to stand under. With my own girl.
CELIA: I see. You’ve met someone new. Does she speak Mandarin?
PIERRE: I haven’t met anyone yet. But I am ready. Thanks to you.
CELIA: I’d have thought I would’ve put you off relationships.
PIERRE: No. (He tries to joke.) Only relationships with you!
Silence.
CELIA: You know, it was a cowardly thing to do. To change your number like that. But then you were always a bit – what’s the word?
PIERRE: Elusive?
CELIA: Underhand.
Silence.
CELIA: Did it occur to you how I got your number?
PIERRE: I suppose you phoned the Sorbonne.
CELIA: The Post Office.
PIERRE: In Paris?
CELIA: In Pouilly-sur-Saone.
Silence.
CELIA: I spoke to a Madame de la Fontaine, I think it was. She hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.
PIERRE: Why did you do that?
CELIA: She was insistent that there were no white families in Pouilly who had adopted a Congolese refugee. But when I described you, it all fell into place. She said she knew you well. She trotted out your parents’ number right away.
PIERRE: She had no right!
CELIA: We had an interesting conversation. Your father and I. Would you like to know what he said?
PIERRE: Not really.
CELIA: I always knew something wasn’t right. About your story. You simply didn’t strike me as a refugee. As someone whose parents and siblings had been murdered, and thrown on a mountain of bodies to be burned. I could see you hadn’t suffered. Not properly.
PIERRE: What do you know about what a person suffers?
CELIA: I told your father I was a journalist, wanting to write about refugees who had been adopted by French families. I said I believed he had an adopted son called Pierre.
PIERRE: I can’t believe what I’m hearing!
CELIA: He told me that I’d made a mistake. You were his child. Or should I say ‘are’?
Silence.
CELIA: He sounded more than a little miffed when I asked if he was white.
PIERRE: Fuck you!
CELIA: He went on to confirm that you were born in France. And had never been adopted. You grew up in Pouilly. In a house by the river. The air thick with nightingales.
Silence.
CELIA: Why did you lie, Pierre? Did you want to make me feel sorry for you?
PIERRE: You have no business doing this!
CELIA: Or were you getting off yet again on being the victim? Cashing in on the suffering of others. What for – to look more appealing? Like a puppy in a shop window!
PIERRE: Who do you think you are?
CELIA: Making up stories like that! Tagging me along!
PIERRE: You told me to make something up. You said it doesn’t have to literally be true. So that’s what I did. Alright?
CELIA: From the start, all you wanted from me was sex!
PIERRE: I wanted so much more from you than that. And anyway – it wasn’t a lie.
CELIA: What?
PIERRE: It was the truth!
Silence.
PIERRE: And it wasn’t.
CELIA: It’s little wonder you’ve never known how to express yourself – explain yourself. You’re a mess!
PIERRE: It wasn’t me from the Congo, alright? It was my parents.
Silence.
PIERRE: My father’s from Lake Kivu, between Rwanda and the Congo. He moved to France when the country became Zaire. When the trouble started, he never went back. My mother – her people were from Butembo. She’s the refugee. Those things that happened in the Congo. They would have happened to us, if my father hadn’t left. That’s the third conditional, isn’t it?
CELIA: I – have no idea.
PIERRE: Maman (Mother) says I’m the lucky one. She watched her mother being raped and dumped in the river. Her father’s genitals they threw in the yard for the dogs to eat.
Silence.
PIERRE: So you see, I was lying and I was not lying.
CELIA: I do see that.
Silence.
PIERRE: She also says, if something bad happens to one person, it happens to all of us. It’s not the axe hitting the tree that reaches us, it’s the echo.
Silence.
CELIA: I can’t say I’ve ever felt that connection. When an axe hits a tree in the middle of a forest, do you feel it? You simply hear about it, don’t you?
PIERRE: In Africa, you feel it. Maybe it’s different here in Europe.
Silence.
PIERRE: You see, the trees have memory. Their roots take in the blood of the dead and carry it towards the light. They contain the memory of everything that has passed. When you hit one of the old trees with an axe, you are hitting yourself.
Silence.
CELIA: You really know how to take the wind out of a girl’s sails, don’t you?
PIERRE: I’m sorry I lied. I suppose I was trying to make myself more – exotic. I thought that’s what you expected from me. Desired me to be. I wanted you to notice me – and be moved. To believe there was more to me than the nightingales.
CELIA: Oh, I do.
Silence.
PIERRE: Tell me your brother isn’t dead.
CELIA: He isn’t dead.
PIERRE
: And is that the truth?
CELIA: He’s very much alive. Living in Primrose Hill. Around the bend from my mother. And he’s suddenly in love, apparently. Deliriously. To a redhead called Sophie.
PIERRE: When’s the wedding?
CELIA: Next week. That’s one of the reasons I’m leaving. I’ve finally agreed to go along. My mother tells me they’re hiring a tent and having ‘a bash’ at Kenwood House.
PIERRE: So he’s getting – better?
CELIA: Oh, there’s nothing wrong with Olly. In fact, he’s more than usually pleased with himself. Apparently this Sophie has enormous breasts.
PIERRE: But what about his thoughts?
CELIA: Which thoughts?
PIERRE: The intrusive ones. The ones that come from the outside.
CELIA: Oh those. Those are my thoughts. They come from me. From my inside.
PIERRE: From you?
CELIA: I’m the one who’s sick.
Silence.
CELIA: I suppose you think me very strange.
PIERRE: It’s one of the things I like about you.
CELIA: Nothing lasts for long, I always tell myself. We’re sieves, unable to hold onto a mood, an emotion, even a conviction, for long. Everything that’s poured into us dribbles out again. We’re simply a place where things pass through, things we don’t choose and whose final destination is unknown.
Silence.
PIERRE: When I saw you at the Sorbonne, you looked so perfect. I watched the way you greeted everyone. They all seemed to like you. The English girl passing through, leaving everything glowing slightly.
CELIA laughs bitterly.
PIERRE: I wondered what it would take to get your attention.
CELIA: You were enough to get my attention. As you were. From the moment you walked in with those stars in your hair.
They smile.
PIERRE: Did you tell my father about my lie?
CELIA: I said I must have made a mistake.
PIERRE: Thank you.
CELIA: I liked him. When we spoke.
PIERRE: You did?
CELIA: He wanted me to understand that he had achieved something – you.
Silence.
PIERRE: I don’t want to leave you like this.
CELIA: You’re leaving me. I’m like this.
CELIA picks up a pile of books and takes them to PIERRE.
CELIA: Here. Some of my favourite books. For you to take. As a gift. To keep up with the English.
She hands them over.
PIERRE: Novels?
He looks through the titles.
PIERRE: I prefer self-improvement books. Biographies. And histories. I can never find the time for stories that are made up. What’s the point of that?
CELIA: Maybe we need to play around with the facts a little in order to make them bearable. It’s why we dream. When we stop dreaming, we go insane.
PIERRE is still looking through the books.
PIERRE: So these are the ones you stole?
CELIA: Perhaps they’re the ones I stole for you.
He laughs.
CELIA: You won’t read them, will you?
PIERRE: I might.
CELIA: A thousand years of literacy – look where it’s got us!
PIERRE stands.
CELIA: I wasn’t very good at it, was I?
PIERRE: The sex?
CELIA: The teaching.
PIERRE: No, you weren’t.
Silence.
PIERRE: You were too complicated about it.
CELIA: The teaching?
PIERRE: The sex.
They laugh.
PIERRE: The future tenses. We never got to them. You think there’s time for one more lesson before I go?
CELIA: We may, we might. We can, we could. We should, we shall. We would, we will. These are all subjunctives. You can plot them on a graph. Each expresses a degree of uncertainty.
They regard each other.
CELIA: Or certainty.
Blackout.
The End.
THE IMAGINED LAND
Production History
The Imagined Land was first produced by the National Arts Festival, the Auto and General Theatre on the Square (Johannesburg) and the South African State Theatre (Pretoria). It premiered at the NAF Festival on Friday, 3 July 2015, before transferring for a run at the Auto and General Theatre on the Square and the South African State Theatre.
Cast
EDWARD
Nat Ramabulana
EMILY
Janna Ramos-Violante
BRONWYN
Fiona Ramsay
Production Team
Director
Malcolm Purkey
Set and Lighting
Denis Hutchinson
Costumes & Props
Jo Glanville
Producer
Daphne Kuhn
Characters
BRONWYN
EMILY
EDWARD
Present day.
Johannesburg, South Africa.
Part One
BRONWYN’s sitting room. Late afternoon. EDWARD is sitting in a chair with a notebook on his knee. There are ferns, comfortable leather armchairs, framed watercolours of birds and landscapes, a worn Persian rug, fresh roses, an old wooden chest – but most of all many books, mainly novels. EDWARD makes notes about his surroundings, looking slightly smug. He is in his early forties and is originally from Zimbabwe. He wears faded cream corduroys, a pale blue shirt, a herringbone tweed jacket and leather boots.
EMILY enters. She’s an attractive woman in her early forties with a flustered intellectual air.
EMILY: She says she’ll be down in a moment.
EDWARD: Thanks.
They look at each other, smile.
EDWARD: I thought you’d be in New York.
EMILY: Are you unpleasantly surprised?
EDWARD: Far from it. It’s lovely to see you again.
EMILY: Is it?
She clasps her hands nervously.
EMILY: What brings you to my mother’s house?
EDWARD: Oh – research.
EMILY: So you aren’t here to ask for my hand in marriage?
EDWARD: (Smiling.) Who knows?
EMILY: It was a memorable night, but we’re far too old for that.
EDWARD: Yes, far too old.
They smile.
EDWARD: And what brings you to your mother’s house?
EMILY: She’s been unwell. And as the students are off –
EDWARD: I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s nothing serious.
EMILY: Nothing the doctors can’t fix.
Silence.
EDWARD: Were you intending to call me?
EMILY: I only landed this morning.
EDWARD: That isn’t an answer.
EMILY: Isn’t it?
Silence.
EMILY: I hadn’t made up my mind.
EDWARD: But you are pleased to see me, I hope?
EMILY: I think I am.
He smiles at her.
EMILY: Yes.
Silence.
EMILY: Can I offer you something to drink?
EDWARD: Some water, perhaps?
EMILY smiles back at him and leaves the room.
Silence.
EDWARD makes more notes.
BRONWYN enters and stands at the door, watching him. She is around seventy, her dyed auburn hair growing grey at the roots. But she is still a commanding presence.
BRONWYN: You are writing?
EDWARD: (Standing up.) Sorry – yes!
BRONWYN: A poem, perhaps?
EDWARD: Oh – thoughts.
BRONWYN: Thoughts? That sounds dangerous.
EDWARD: (Amused.) It does?
BRONWYN: I’ve always preferred – imagined lands.
Silence.
EDWARD: These are more emotions I’m trying to – formulate.
BRONWYN: That’s different. That’s more like a poem.
Silence.
E
DWARD: (Shaking her hand.) It’s good to meet you, Mrs Blackburne.
BRONWYN: Has Emily offered you something to drink?
EDWARD: She’s getting me some water. Thanks.
BRONWYN: Water? Is that all you want of us? You could have turned on a tap. Please – take a seat. And put away that notebook. It makes me feel hunted.
They sit.
EDWARD: Mrs Blackburne, I want to thank you for agreeing to seeing me.
BRONWYN: Emily tells me the two of you have already met.
EDWARD: At a conference last year at King’s College. Yes. I asked her a question about your work.
BRONWYN: Did she answer it?
EMILY enters with a glass of water. She places it next to EDWARD.
EMILY: I hope you’ll excuse me. I’d like to unpack.
EDWARD: Of course.
EDWARD watches her leave the room. BRONWYN observes his interest in her.
BRONWYN: Did you get to know each other well?
EDWARD: We only met once. And it was some months ago.
BRONWYN: Was that all it took?
EDWARD: Sorry?
Silence.
BRONWYN: I should probably apologise in advance. I’m not feeling quite myself at the moment.
EDWARD: Yes, Emily mentioned you have been unwell.
BRONWYN: I have a tumour inside my head. Tomorrow they’re going to take it out.
Silence.
BRONWYN: The surgeon looks like that actor – that one with the lazy eye.
EDWARD: Forest Whitaker?
BRONWYN: I forget the name.
Silence.
EDWARD: I’m sure he’s very good at his job.
BRONWYN: Few people are, in my experience. But you have to trust them anyway. Not only the brain surgeon but the man who changes your car tyre. Our lives are far more precarious than we like to imagine, Mr – ?
EDWARD: Dr Smith.
BRONWYN: That’s right. And what brings you here today, Dr Smith?
EDWARD: Your books.
BRONWYN: Not your books?
EDWARD: I haven’t actually written any books.
BRONWYN: But it’s why you’re here, isn’t it? For the books you intend to write?
He shrugs.
BRONWYN: In your email you said you were born in Zimbabwe.
EDWARD: We are compatriots.
BRONWYN: I was actually born in East London. The tenth child in a Catholic family. My father was in the merchant navy. As I was born, a German U-boat bombed my father’s ship and killed everyone on board. My mother didn’t know what to do, so I was handed over to the nuns. I was about to be adopted by a tobacco farmer in southern Rhodesia, but the nuns didn’t want to hand me over to a family that wasn’t Catholic. They even hid me away me for a bit.