Three Plays Page 6
PIERRE: Daffodils –
CELIA enters with the tray – on which is a cloth, two small, glazed mugs, a bowl of sugar and the coffee. Each object is beautiful, selected with care. She sets the tray down.
CELIA: Please make yourself at home.
PIERRE: At home?
CELIA: Take a seat.
PIERRE: Make myself at home. This is a way of saying please sit?
CELIA: It’s a way of saying please relax.
He sits in an armchair at a right angle to the couch.
CELIA: So you’re Pierre. You were very insistent on the phone.
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: Celia.
She offers her hand. He takes it and holds it.
PIERRE: I know.
CELIA: Pleased to meet you in the flesh.
PIERRE: Pleased to meet you. In the flesh.
CELIA: You look familiar. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
PIERRE: I don’t – perhaps.
She withdraws her hand, flushing slightly.
PIERRE: I have the money.
He tries to give her a few notes.
CELIA: Not now.
PIERRE: I must pay you every time, yes?
CELIA: I prefer it that way.
PIERRE: At the end?
CELIA: Yes.
PIERRE pockets his money.
PIERRE: You think once a week is enough?
CELIA: It’s what we agreed to, isn’t it?
PIERRE: Every Wednesday morning. Ten o’clock. For one hour and a half.
CELIA: Can you afford that?
PIERRE: Why not? You think I look too – what?
CELIA: I didn’t mean anything by it.
PIERRE: I saved up.
CELIA: Well, let’s see how we get along. If you’re quick, perhaps we can meet a couple of times a week. For shorter periods.
PIERRE: I will like it.
CELIA: Would, not will. We’re still being hypothetical.
Silence.
PIERRE: These books. They are impressive.
CELIA: Books are not in themselves impressive.
PIERRE: I mean you. To read these.
Silence.
PIERRE: And you always work from home?
CELIA: I try to. Although I’ve been cutting down on my working hours.
PIERRE: You said this in the phone.
CELIA: I’d decided not to take on anyone new. But you wouldn’t take no for an answer.
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: There are several other places in Paris you could have gone. Why me?
PIERRE: You were recommended by one of the other students at the Sorbonne.
CELIA: I suppose you saw one of my notices. I didn’t know they were still up.
PIERRE: They aren’t.
Silence.
PIERRE: I kept your number with me. As I’m saying – I had to save up.
CELIA: I was a student there too. For a bit.
PIERRE: Why have you left?
CELIA: It’s the past simple, not the past perfect.
PIERRE: Why did you leave?
CELIA: I was doing le cours de lange et civilisation (the course in language and civilisation). The course ended.
Silence.
CELIA: Actually, I dropped out. I didn’t feel comfortable – trying to be a student again. I’d rather read the books by myself. Form my own opinions.
PIERRE: I know what you mean.
Silence.
PIERRE: You live alone?
CELIA: You ask a lot of questions, Pierre.
PIERRE: Sorry.
CELIA: Shall I pour?
PIERRE: What is ‘pour’?
CELIA: Pour the coffee.
PIERRE: Pour the coffee. Yes.
She pours the coffee. PIERRE is watching her every move.
CELIA: There we go.
She passes his coffee. He doesn’t take sugar.
PIERRE: Thank you.
She glances at her watch.
CELIA: I suppose we’d better get on with it. You seem fairly proficient.
PIERRE: I do?
CELIA: Have you taken English courses before?
PIERRE: In Dijon. At ‘Language Works’. After I finished school.
CELIA: So you know the terminology. The passive, the different tenses and conditionals. Modal verbs and subjunctives. And so on?
PIERRE: Some I maybe had forgotten.
CELIA: We’ll need to revise your perfect tenses.
PIERRE: You will see that I learn quickly.
CELIA: Oh, I will, will I?
They regard each other intently – with a strange familiarity.
CELIA: So, Pierre. What are you hoping to get out of this?
PIERRE: I wanted you –
CELIA: Yes?
PIERRE: I thought: you will be the person to help me.
CELIA: Would. With what?
PIERRE: Everything. You would help me to – fit.
CELIA: Into what?
PIERRE: What is there. Around. Ahead.
Silence.
CELIA: I think you overestimate me.
PIERRE: And I want to express.
CELIA: What?
PIERRE: Myself.
CELIA: The verb ‘to express’ is a transitive verb. It takes an object. You have to express some thing. And the thing you cannot express is yourself?
PIERRE: I can’t reveal myself. Through the words. The English words.
CELIA: Do you think any of us can do that?
PIERRE: Some better than the others.
CELIA: Words are better at misleading than revealing, in my experience. But you say you want to express yourself. To something. You have to have an object in mind. What is your object? To whom would you like to express yourself?
PIERRE: You are my object.
CELIA: For now, perhaps.
PIERRE: It’s why I came.
CELIA: To be able to express yourself to an English person? In English?
PIERRE: If you like.
CELIA: Why English?
PIERRE: You mean – why not an African language? Swahili, or something like this?
CELIA: Something like ‘that’. Swahili isn’t here – it’s out there, far away somewhere.
PIERRE: English is the language of the world. If you can speak it, you can live or work anywhere. Swahili? You know there’s no point of ‘that’.
CELIA: How are your listening skills?
PIERRE: I can read and listen. The speaking and the writing are more difficult.
CELIA: Those are the more generative skills. Listening and reading are more passive.
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: Perhaps we should consider the passive itself. It’s a good test of a person’s proficiency. You remember the basic model for the passive?
PIERRE: We use the past participle, I think.
CELIA: It’s the verb ‘to be’ in whatever tense is necessary, plus the past participle.
PIERRE: The verb to be plus the past participle.
CELIA: Could you give me an example?
PIERRE: I was born?
CELIA: Yes. Because you can’t give birth to yourself, can you? You rely on someone else for that. Another?
PIERRE: I am taught by you.
CELIA: That’s right. Although you’re ‘being’ taught by me, aren’t you? It’s happening now. The present continuous passive.
PIERRE: The passive in the present continuous.
CELIA: Let’s start with something about yourself. What are you doing at the moment?
Silence.
PIERRE: I study the History of the Art.
CELIA: Present continuous. I am studying History of Art.
PIERRE: I am studying History of Art at the Sorbonne. And Western Philosophy. I do a course in Aristotle. Epicurius. Montaigne. Spinoza. John Stuart Mill.
CELIA: Has John Stuart Mill helped?
PIERRE: We haven’t arrived at him yet.
CELIA: Reached. Do you paint?
PIERRE: I copy illustr
ations – a l’aquarelle (with watercolours)?
CELIA: With watercolours.
PIERRE: It’s something I arrive to do when I am feeling – pensif (thoughtful/sad).
CELIA: You needn’t arrive. Although I know the French have to, even when they’re already there. Perhaps it’s why they’re almost always late. The being there is not so important.
PIERRE: Was I late?
CELIA: No, Pierre. I was joking. An English joke. About the French.
PIERRE: Ah.
Silence.
CELIA: Humour has never been my strong point.
Silence.
CELIA: Although you were late. By about six minutes.
PIERRE: I was here for half an hour. Before. Waiting.
CELIA: And yet you were still six minutes late?
PIERRE: I went around the bend. For a walk. Then I came back.
Silence.
CELIA: Right. So – copying copies of other things. This is something you ‘arrive to do’ when you’re feeling pensif?
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: Are you often sad?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: Is that why you’re not a ‘proper’ artist? Too much happiness?
PIERRE: No one is filled with too much happiness. But some unhappiness. It is normal, no?
CELIA: A degree of unhappiness is probably normal. I wouldn’t know. Where did you grow up? Paris?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: Well, where did you go to school?
PIERRE: In a village near Beaune. I went to school at a place named Seurre.
CELIA: You grew up in Seurre?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: Are you finding this too boring to speak about? Would you rather talk about something else?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: No?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: Come on, Pierre. Express something. Surprise me. You aren’t here to say ‘no’ to everything.
PIERRE: It’s – difficult.
CELIA: It’s what people expect. We have to learn to make up stories about ourselves. To represent ourselves.
PIERRE: Why?
CELIA: I suppose people want to see if your story fits into theirs.
PIERRE: You want me to make up the story?
CELIA: If you like. The actual facts are not always that important. It’s how we present the facts that matters more. It’s not important that my story is half fantasy. Something I want to be rather than what I am. My imagined parts, you see – they tell you something else. Something that might signify more. My desire. What I want. What I want to move towards. A sense of a future. We want to know that we share a similar sense of a future. The past can become – less significant. Are you following all this?
PIERRE: (Lying.) Yes.
Silence.
PIERRE: I have not thought about how to explain myself. In a story. Even in French.
CELIA: Let’s begin at a beginning then. Tell me where you grew up.
PIERRE: In a small village next to Seurre. Pouilly-sur-Saone. Our house is on the bord (embankment) of the River Saone. This is where I have most of my childhood.
CELIA: Remember – it’s far away. And you’ve already had your childhood.
PIERRE: That was where I had my childhood.
CELIA: Good. Although we usually spend our childhood. Like money. Something precious that’s used up. Carry on.
PIERRE: About Pouilly? There’s little to tell. It’s a small place. Typical of the Bourgogne. One boulangerie (bakery), owned by a woman who hates all people and never smiles. Her husband runs the tabac (tobacconist).
CELIA: Tobacconist.
PIERRE: The husband also hates, but only his wife. Then there’s the post office, with the diamond patterns on the roof. By the church, there’s the monument for all the men who died in the war. The wars.
CELIA: Was it dull?
PIERRE: Not dull. It’s very colourful in the summer. Of course, there’s the River Saone.
CELIA: Tell me about the river.
PIERRE: It’s wide, yes? My bedroom sits in the roof of the house. Dans la mansarde (in the attic).
CELIA: Attic.
PIERRE: When I open my window, I see the tilleul (lime) trees. Huge and soft. The river all below me. When I was younger, I had this yellow kayak that I liked to paddle. In the summer the river is warm, so you can swim.
CELIA: And in the winter?
PIERRE: The water grows high. It ‘pours’ out on the other side. From my bedroom window, it’s like I am living on the side of a long lake, without an end, floating.
CELIA: A country boy. Altogether provençal (of the provinces). Do you have brothers, sisters?
PIERRE: There’s only me.
CELIA: So what was it like – arriving in Paris?
PIERRE: Fine.
CELIA: Don’t you miss your home?
PIERRE: Sometimes. This is when I’m feeling sad.
CELIA: Are you feeling sad now?
PIERRE: No.
CELIA: Then use the present simple.
PIERRE: Sorry.
CELIA: But when you’re feeling sad, you copy things. What do you copy?
PIERRE: I copy pictures of the birds. The birds of Pouilly.
CELIA: Tell me about the birds.
PIERRE: I like to watch them during the day. Les martinpecheurs. The little blue fishing birds.
CELIA: Kingfishers.
PIERRE: Et les rossignols in the evenings. These are the nightingales. These I know the name for. Sometimes there are five or ten or fifteen of the nightingales singing in the same time. When it’s spring, like now, they are singing all in the one time. I imitate them. I make the sound of many birds. Sometimes, they will answer me.
CELIA: They all sing. A general rule. Present simple. What else?
PIERRE: Les guêpiers.
CELIA: Wasps?
PIERRE: Bees. Bee-eaters, I think.
CELIA shrugs.
PIERRE: These birds are bright as jewels. They are all the way from Africa during the summer. They nest in the river cliffs.
CELIA: All the way from Africa?
PIERRE: Yes.
Silence.
CELIA: It sounds a bit too perfect, Pierre. Is that all there is to you? A kayak and some nightingales?
PIERRE: What do you desire me to say?
CELIA: I want you to express yourself. Risk something. Tell me a story you’re a bit embarrassed about. We only learn to speak fully in a language when we’ve found something – electric to express. You can say anything. As I say, it doesn’t even have to be literally true.
Silence.
CELIA: Would you like more coffee?
PIERRE: No, thank you.
Silence.
CELIA: Surely you have a girl you care about?
PIERRE: No.
Silence.
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: Which?
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: A girlfriend?
PIERRE: I do not have a girlfriend at the moment.
CELIA: Really?
PIERRE: I have a girlfriend during two years. Back in Pouilly. Elodie. No girlfriend now.
CELIA: For two years? What you mean is that you had a girlfriend. Elodie. For two years. It was a fixed period of time. But now it’s finished. Yes?
PIERRE: It’s finished. I have a girlfriend for two years.
CELIA: Had a girlfriend. You had her. But the relationship is over. It’s gone.
PIERRE: Yes – gone.
Silence.
PIERRE: I never loved her.
CELIA: I think you did. Otherwise you wouldn’t say it like that.
PIERRE: Now I love someone else.
CELIA: Oh. And who’s that?
PIERRE: She doesn’t know.
CELIA: Is she seeing someone else?
PIERRE: I think she’s alone.
CELIA: Perhaps you should tell her.
PIERRE: I don’t know how to express it.
CELIA: Of course you do. You simply sa
y the words ‘I love you’. The words will go as far as words can go in expressing it. Whatever ‘it’ is.
PIERRE: She doesn’t know me so well.
CELIA: In time, she can get to know you better.
PIERRE: She has only seen me the once.
CELIA: Then you must try to see her ‘the twice’.
PIERRE: I will.
Silence.
CELIA: But how can you know?
PIERRE: Know?
CELIA: How can you be in love with her when you’ve only seen her once?
PIERRE: I’ve seen her many times. It’s that she doesn’t see me.
CELIA: What do you mean?
PIERRE: She lives in the same street as I do. La rue St-Jacques. At the other side of the city. I see her in the supermarket, choosing the cheese. At the bookshop, buying the books. I’ve even walked behind her in the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens).
CELIA: I see.
PIERRE: I’ve discovered many things about her.
CELIA: Like what cheese she chooses?
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: You follow her about?
PIERRE: No, no – or not for long.
CELIA regards him.
CELIA: How do you know that you even like this woman? It’s clearly more about you than her. Alright, you know she buys Comté instead of Emmenthal –
PIERRE: Manchego, actually – the sheep’s milk cheese from Spain.
CELIA: Right. But I’m sure many people buy that.
PIERRE: I also see the way she smiles. She can hold her head to the one side – as if she’s listening to something I can’t hear.
CELIA: She’s just anyone.
PIERRE: No, she isn’t.
CELIA: She’s probably a nutcase.
PIERRE: She’s the one I was waiting for.
CELIA: Have been waiting for. It continues into the present, doesn’t it?
PIERRE: Yes.
Silence.
CELIA: My advice is that you leave her alone. When you project your desires onto other people, you can only disappoint yourself.
Silence.
PIERRE: The coffee. Please. I will have it now. I change my mind.
CELIA: Have changed it. You changed your mind, but we don’t know exactly when.
She takes the coffee through to the kitchen area and switches on the kettle.
PIERRE: You’re right. There is more to me than – the nightingales.
During the following, PIERRE stands – he goes over to the bookshelves where CELIA keeps her notebooks in a row. CELIA is occupied in the kitchen area.
CELIA: Oh yes?
PIERRE: I want to tell you everything.
CELIA: Well, it needn’t be everything.
PIERRE: I know you are wanting to help.