Three Plays Page 9
CELIA: There. Those are my feet.
PIERRE: Can I touch them?
CELIA: If you like.
He touches her feet.
CELIA: You must have done this before.
PIERRE: Touched your feet?
CELIA: Been a bit of a stalker. Did you follow that other girlfriend about?
PIERRE: Elodie?
CELIA: The one you pretended not to love.
PIERRE: Yes.
CELIA: Tell me more about her.
PIERRE: But it’s your turn to tell a bad thing.
CELIA: This time you go first.
PIERRE: Only if I can touch your feet.
CELIA: If I allow you to touch my feet, you will tell me. Which conditional is that?
PIERRE: The first!
CELIA: You’re a clever boy.
Silence.
PIERRE: I am climbing a ladder and seeing a whole new world.
CELIA: Stick to the topic. You were telling me about Elodie.
PIERRE: Okay. It’s late at night. And she’s with Etienne. There’s a streetlamp, lighting the tree they stand under. All around is darkness. And they kiss.
CELIA: And she was your girlfriend at the time – this Elodie?
PIERRE: Oh yes!
CELIA: Go on.
PIERRE: I only watch. I never confront. I follow them all the way back to where Elodie lives. They enter the house and go up to her room, which looks down on the street. I wait there until the light goes out.
CELIA: And were you friendly with this boy she was with?
PIERRE: Etienne was my closest friend!
Silence.
PIERRE: When I saw them together, something inside me broke.
CELIA: Poor Pierre. And you’ve had no other girlfriend since?
PIERRE: Only a prostitute once in Paris.
CELIA: I really don’t want to know about that!
Silence.
PIERRE: I hate Paris.
CELIA: So do I.
PIERRE: It’s supposed to be so romantic, but all I see is – dirt. When you have no money, you feel like dirt. But you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re rich!
CELIA: Not exactly. But I suppose I can get by with odd jobs – odd jobs like you.
PIERRE: Thanks!
CELIA: There’s a family trust. From my mother’s side. I sometimes think it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.
PIERRE: That’s because you’re rich.
Silence.
PIERRE: Why did you come to live in Paris?
CELIA: To get away, I suppose.
PIERRE: From what?
CELIA: England. London. My family.
PIERRE: Why?
CELIA: I needed a fresh start.
PIERRE: Your mother. She’s still going all the time to Africa?
CELIA: No – it’s India now. The mysterious East!
PIERRE: And your brother?
CELIA: Oliver?
PIERRE: I thought you were close.
CELIA: A bit too close for comfort.
PIERRE: What is that?
CELIA: Do we need to go into it?
PIERRE: It’s your turn to speak.
CELIA: Well, I had to get away from him because – he’s sick.
PIERRE: Sick?
CELIA: He has – inappropriate thoughts. What the doctor calls intrusive thoughts.
PIERRE: Why intrusive?
CELIA: The idea is that the thoughts come from somewhere else. The outside. They’re not his.
PIERRE: Who else’s can they be?
CELIA: He wants to disown them. But they keep on intruding. They come when they’re least wanted. For reasons of their own.
PIERRE: What does he think exactly?
CELIA: He thinks about doing things.
PIERRE: To who?
CELIA: To whom. He’s the subject. I’m the object.
PIERRE: You’re the object?
CELIA: Yes.
PIERRE: But what kind of things does he think about?
CELIA: For God’s sake! You want me to spell it out?
PIERRE: Yes!
CELIA: He desires me. Alright? He wants to do things to me. At least – that’s what the thoughts are. The intruding thoughts. He can’t control them, but that’s what they represent.
Silence.
CELIA: He’s also a good boy. A good person. Not some freak.
PIERRE: Right.
CELIA: He’s been destroyed by it. In ruins. It’s not what he would have chosen for himself.
PIERRE: It? You mean you.
CELIA: It simply happened. There’s nothing he or anyone else can do about it. But the more he worries about it, the more it happens.
PIERRE: I see.
CELIA: So I had to get away. For his own good – and mine. To give us all some peace.
Silence.
PIERRE: Why are you telling me this?
CELIA: Sometimes when I’m with you, it’s as if I’m with him. I mean – you couldn’t be more different. And I like you – in a totally separate way. But being with you makes me imagine I’m repeating something. Making the same – mistake.
PIERRE: I am not Oliver.
CELIA: And I am not Elodie.
Silence.
PIERRE: You think there can be a chance for us?
CELIA: Could.
PIERRE: Why do you look so afraid?
CELIA: I’m afraid of committing some – deep sin. I don’t want to be like my mother.
PIERRE: Lying with a man who looks like one of your voodoo dolls?
CELIA: Just – lying.
PIERRE: Yes, with me.
CELIA: With you. To you. They’re simply prepositions.
PIERRE: I love you.
CELIA: I don’t know what that means.
PIERRE: I loved you from the moment I saw you at the Sorbonne.
The phone starts to ring.
CELIA: That’ll be my mother. She’ll want to know if I’m coming to the wedding.
PIERRE: The wedding?
CELIA: Oliver’s wedding.
Silence.
CELIA: He doesn’t love her. It’s another ploy. To make me feel shit.
PIERRE: Don’t answer it.
The phone is still buzzing.
CELIA: Thanks for tracking me down.
PIERRE: The girl in the yellow dress!
CELIA: Yes!
They laugh. PIERRE kisses her. She doesn’t resist.
Fade to black.
Part Four
LIES AND TRUTH
CELIA’s apartment.
CELIA: So sometimes we say. Sometimes we speak. Sometimes we tell. Sometimes we talk. But these verbs are not interchangeable. What do we do with a lie and the truth?
PIERRE: I don’t know what you want.
CELIA: Do we say a lie, speak a lie, tell a lie? Which?
PIERRE: I think we tell a lie.
CELIA: And the truth?
PIERRE: We tell the truth.
CELIA: Usually. We try to. And your mind?
PIERRE: You tell your mind.
CELIA: You speak your mind.
PIERRE: Speak your mind.
CELIA: And you talk nonsense and you say what you think. Got that?
PIERRE: You talk nonsense and you say what you think.
CELIA: Let’s talk about lying first. There are a number of modal verbs and expressions we could consider. You can live a lie and tell a pack of lies. You can even lie through your teeth. Are you familiar with these?
PIERRE: I think so.
CELIA: To lie through your teeth isn’t separable. The object can’t come between the verb and the particle. But some modal verbs are always separable. You have to lie your way out of a situation. Here, the modal verb to ‘lie out’ is broken in half by the phrase ‘your way’.
PIERRE: Is ‘your way’ the object?
CELIA: It’s hard to explain. You simply have to learn modal verbs as units of meaning.
PIERRE: You’re leaving me behind.
CELIA: For example, there’s also the modal verb to ‘make out’. You can make out with someone, which is to kiss them, or something – I don’t exactly know as it’s American. But the verb ‘to make’ and the particle ‘out’ do not have anything to do with kissing in themselves. ‘Make’ and ‘out’ have two entirely separate meanings from the expression to ‘make out’. And the verb to ‘make out’ is inseparable in this case.
PIERRE: You’re going too fast.
CELIA: ‘Make out’ can also become separable. But its meaning will change. You can say ‘he will make an honest woman out of me’. Here, ‘an honest woman’ is the object, which comes in the middle of the modal verb – and the verb and particle ‘make’ and ‘out’ have entirely new meanings. As I say, you must learn these as units. In isolation. Don’t try to analyse them. For logic. There is no logic. There’s only learning it. Accepting it as something that already – exists.
Silence.
PIERRE: Are you alright?
CELIA: Absolutely. I’m fine. Sorry. I’ll pause.
Silence.
PIERRE: Honesty is the best policy. That’s another expression, no?
Silence.
PIERRE: Are we never going to talk about it?
CELIA: What’s there to talk about? If there was something to talk about, surely you would have phoned? I waited all week. Silence. Then you arrive here today as if nothing’s happened.
PIERRE: Every Wednesday morning. Ten o’clock.
CELIA: What was it? You got what you wanted – and then I no longer mattered?
PIERRE: Of course you mattered.
CELIA: I thought we had a relationship.
PIERRE: We did.
CELIA: You said you loved me.
PIERRE: I did.
Silence.
CELIA: I do hope you’re using your tenses deliberately.
Silence.
CELIA: Do you know how insane I went? All week, waiting for you to phone. Every time I went out, I even hoped you were following me again. I stopped at street corners so the imaginary you could catch up.
PIERRE: I don’t know why you’re blaming me for this.
CELIA: Sorry. Who else should I be blaming? The pope?
PIERRE: I thought you didn’t want me.
CELIA: How could you possibly have thought that? I gave myself to you, didn’t I? Completely!
PIERRE: It wasn’t like that.
CELIA: But we made love! We lay over here – on the floor – and I let you do whatever you wanted. Was that nothing?
PIERRE: I thought it would be – everything.
CELIA: And then it wasn’t. You thought I was something else. Something special. Floating a bit above everything. I never asked to be put on some pedestal.
PIERRE: Didn’t you?
CELIA: You began despising me the moment I started to like you. You thought: her standards are too low; I can do better than this.
PIERRE: That isn’t how it was.
CELIA: You think people are something to climb up. Like ladders! But when will it be enough? At what point will you be able to say – yes, this is me! I’m comfortable inside my own skin!
PIERRE: I wanted to – reflect.
CELIA: What was there to ‘reflect’ on?
PIERRE: It all seemed so violent. Then afterwards, when you were sick, and told me to get out – what was I supposed to do? I imagined I’d become disgusting to you. But now, when you talk about it, you turn it all around – as if it’s my fault.
CELIA: That isn’t how it was. We found something together – we reached something, didn’t we? I shared myself with you – utterly – as I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I considered it a real accomplishment!
PIERRE: And afterwards you were sick in the toilet.
CELIA: Well, I don’t understand that myself.
PIERRE: And you told me to get out.
CELIA: I asked you – I didn’t tell. I said I needed a bit of time alone. I only meant for you to go around the block. For a walk. But you never came back. Or called to see if I was alright.
Silence.
CELIA: The fact is, you were disappointed, Pierre. I wasn’t what you’d hoped I’d be.
PIERRE: That isn’t true.
CELIA: Do you think a woman doesn’t know every single thought that goes through a man’s head?
Silence.
PIERRE: Maybe I was disappointed. Flat. Like I’d been used up. Playing a part I didn’t comprehend. It wasn’t me you wanted. It was something else. An idea of someone else.
CELIA: Didn’t I shout out your name? Remember how I sobbed in your arms!
PIERRE: I didn’t like that. What was there to cry about?
CELIA: God – it was as if a whole lifetime of shame and misery and isolation was being lifted. I’d never been so liberated – and so full of hope!
PIERRE: I’m sorry I didn’t experience it like that. I felt – trapped. Trapped in the old way, playing a part I never chose for myself.
CELIA: Right.
Silence.
PIERRE: I’m sorry, Celia.
CELIA: For what?
PIERRE: For all the disappointment.
CELIA: That’s far too vast a subject for you to grapple with.
PIERRE: There’s no need to insult me.
CELIA: You call that an insult? That’s not an insult! That’s a little song in the park. You coward. You liar. You insinuating, spineless little boy – stealing biscuits from the biscuit tin and then hiding away. Those are insults.
PIERRE: Why must you speak to me like this?
CELIA: You follow me around, go through my stuff, nose about – like some dog. Then when you get at me at last, and have satisfied yourself, you piss on me and slink off.
PIERRE: I’m not a dog.
CELIA: Aren’t you? We make love – and then you leave, without a word. For what? Some other bit of tail to sniff? What’s next for you, Pierre? Mandarin? Do you have a pretty little Chinese pug all lined up?
PIERRE: Who are you – to talk to me about love!
CELIA: Why can’t I?
PIERRE: You lie there like I’m raping you. All the time shaking. Biting your lips. As if you’re waiting for it to be over. Sobbing. Clinging to me – like I’m some dead rock. Trying not to be sick!
CELIA: Oh, stop it!
PIERRE: Then you shout ‘come all over me’, like it’s something disgusting you want to do to yourself. ‘Come on my breasts, come all over my mouth!’ You cry out like a little girl – all the time using this stupid child’s voice.
CELIA: Please stop!
PIERRE: You make me the little boy, stealing biscuits from the tin. But the child – that is you!
CELIA: Please!
PIERRE: You make me like rubbish. A criminal. Rapist! A savage!
CELIA: Well you are a savage, to speak to me like this!
PIERRE: But you are a nothing. Using me to make yourself look good. Without me, you don’t even exist!
CELIA: Who taught you to speak to a woman like this?
PIERRE: Oh, be polite! Be polite! What’s that about? You think I must be treated like an animal, insulted and spat at and kicked, and still I must have manners at the end of it? What do you expect? You people are all the same!
CELIA: What people is that?
PIERRE: White people!
CELIA: You’re the racist – not me!
PIERRE: Black people can’t be racists. We’re the victims remember. We’re the objects of racism.
CELIA: And will continue to be the objects as long as you get off on being the victims! You think we aren’t all fucked up? We can all find our reasons to be fucked up.
PIERRE: Tell me – what did he do to you?
CELIA: Who?
PIERRE: You know exactly what I’m talking about!
CELIA: Get out!
PIERRE: Did you have sex? Did he fuck you? Did he come all over your face?
CELIA: Get out of my house!
PIERRE: He must have. How else can yo
u explain yourself?
CELIA: Stop it!
PIERRE: Your brother is the rapist. But you make me into him. You keep him innocent. ‘A good person,’ you say. And you make me in the wrong. It’s easy, isn’t it? He’s like you.
CELIA: He’s nothing like me!
PIERRE: But me – I’m from somewhere else. It’s easier to make me the animal and make him the good one. You want to fuck your brother, but that’s too dark – so you choose to fuck me. You’re like your mother! When you finish with us, what do you do? We must get out – get out of your houses!
CELIA: My brother is dead!
PIERRE: What?
CELIA: He’s dead!
PIERRE: How dead? You said he was getting married!
CELIA: It was his funeral I was talking about – not his wedding.
PIERRE: What madness is this?
CELIA: He killed himself. Last month.
PIERRE: I don’t believe you.
CELIA: He cut his wrists.
PIERRE: What?
CELIA: With a silver spoon!
PIERRE: You’re playing your games with me.
CELIA: Am I? Perhaps I’m starting to express myself. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To see me for what I am. Well, I’m a liar and a thief. Alright? A murderer and a bitch. Are you satisfied?
PIERRE: No, I’m not satisfied. With you I’ll never be satisfied. It’s better if I go out and never come back. I don’t even know why I come!
CELIA: Came! You came!
Silence.
CELIA: You know what? The thing you hate is not that you didn’t enjoy it – it’s that you did. You enjoyed pretending to rape me. You were as liberated by being an animal as I was. That’s why you ran away. You were afraid of what you’d become.
PIERRE: Of what you wanted me to become.
CELIA: Yes – it was me. I showed you who you really are.
PIERRE: Well, it should be ‘It was I’ – not ‘me’. You were the subject. I was the object.
Silence.
PIERRE: I think I’ve got as much out of these lessons as I need.
He takes out some money.
PIERRE: What’s the expression? For services rendered?
He throws the money at her and walks out.
CELIA: Pierre!
Blackout.
Part Five
DEGREES OF UNCERTAINTY
It is six weeks later. The apartment is empty. It is no longer as neat as it was before. The front door is ajar. The daffodils are dead in their vase.
CELIA enters with a box. She is wearing the yellow dress. She looks pale and exhausted, her hair in disarray. She starts to pack some books in the box.