by Ted Allan
SARAH
My daughter is burning and needs water! No one is giving her water!
ROBERT
(Shouting) Take it! It’s just a sleeping pill. Nothing else!
(She looks frightened, takes the pill and swallows it with some water)
Now lie down and rest.
(She lies down and begins mumbling to herself)
SARAH
(O.S.) Keeps a telephone in his bedroom…and I have to listen…with a telephone talking to all his women.
(As she mutters Robert hurries back to the living room and dials his phone there)
ROBERT
Dr Williams, please…Robert Waller…
SARAH
Lying here listening…telephone in his room… such laughing going on…
ROBERT
John?…I’m sorry to do this to you…My sister’s really flipped…Those pills you gave me for her aren’t strong enough…No…But its not just a manic state…She’s hallucinating now…Imagining her daughter is burning…Could you please come now, John and give her an injection?…Something strong that will knock her out…I’ve got to get some sleep…Yes, she’ll have to…But she’s petrified of hospitals ever since that experience she had when she was sixteen…Please, if you could…I’ve heard of that one…It’s a very good one. Please try to get her in there. How long do you think it will take? As long as that?…No, I don’t want her taken to any hospital. I want her in that one…Whatever it costs…I’ll just have to wait till you can get her in…All right, as quickly as you can…I held back calling you as long as I could…It’s rather difficult for me…Thank you, John…Bye…
(He replaces the receiver,
Sarah has risen from her bed and walked into the living room to hear the last part of the conversation. He senses she is there. He turns around slowly)
SARAH
Still taking me to hospitals?
ROBERT
This is a very good one.
SARAH
Then why don’t you go?
ROBERT
I’m not ill.
SARAH
Oh yes you are! I don’t like your friends. They speak English too Englishy. He made me spill my tea, that Donald chap. I spilled my tea in front of him.
ROBERT
So what?
SARAH
I always spill my tea. Funny. I spill everything.
ROBERT
No, you don’t. You don’t spill everything. Why don’t you try to sleep now? You must be very tired.
SARAH
It’s rather difficult for you, is it?
ROBERT
Yes. It is.
SARAH
Difficult, is it? Poor brother. Poor Robert. Poor man. Has a mentally ill sister around his neck. Shit, it is rather difficult for him.
ROBERT
You haven’t eaten. Would you like me to make something?
SARAH
I hate those who are successful. What is the matter with me?
ROBERT
On a bad day I also hate those who are successful.
SARAH
I need to figure out why I hate people. I hate people.
ROBERT
On a bad day I also hate people.
SARAH
I like flowers, fruits, birds, but not people. I hate you. I am being honest with my hostility.
ROBERT
(Impatiently dry) I appreciate that. What makes you think I have to sit here and tolerate it?
SARAH
Because I have been badly hurt.
ROBERT
Everybody has been badly hurt. Why do you always expect special treatment?
SARAH
I expect special treatment from you.
ROBERT
Why me?
SARAH
Because you are my brother.
ROBERT
That is not a good enough reason and you know it.
SARAH
I have a better reason and you know it.
ROBERT
I cannot stand your raving. Could you shut up for a little while?
SARAH
You’ll have to, won’t you?
ROBERT
Don’t push me. You’ll push me too far. Don’t. I’m warning you.
SARAH
What will you do? What can be done to me that hasn’t been done…unless you’re thinking of killing me! And you wouldn’t do that. The scandal of it would be too much for you.
ROBERT
You’re vicious when you get like this. You know what you’re doing. Every minute of the time.
SARAH
That’s show business.
(She looks at her fingers)
Study your fingers. Truth might emerge from it.
(Mimics her mother’s Irish accent)
I can go to a bridge game. She’s studyin’. She’s studyin’.
(Her own voice)
How would you like to come home every day from school and no mother there? I don’t understand some mothers.
(He has begun to write in a large notebook)
ROBERT
Why are you making me suffer because your mother neglected you, that same mother neglected me as well. There’s not a mother alive who isn’t guilty of neglecting her child at one time or another.
SARAH
But I got special treatment because I was a girl! Not one picture of me in the whole house. One of mummy, one of daddy, and one of Robert, but not one of me. I never could stand mother. Writing it all down. Going to give a lecture?
ROBERT
I’m writing everything you’re saying. It’s the only way I’ll preserve my sanity.
SARAH
Nothing anybody does is any good. What humans? Everybody. They don’t like insane people. They can hate, compete, and kill. They call that sane.
(He stops writing)
ROBERT
Now you’re making a speech.
SARAH
Yah! You elect me, my fellow maniacs, and I’ll pass a law outlawing insanity! I’ll take it, kids, but some day I’ll be back and you won’t like it. I don’t mind travelling. Come on. Send me around the world.
ROBERT
If I could, believe me, I would.
SARAH
I will come back and regain the custody of my child. My child has a right to live with whom she wants. I’m the lumpen proletariat. There’s got to be a place for me somewhere. I’ll find a planet. Who’s going to have a lobotomy? I just asked you a question.
ROBERT
What was the question?
SARAH
(Mimicking) What was the question?
ROBERT
I called John Williams to come and give you a sedative.
SARAH
You gave me a sedative, didn’t you? Didn’t you give me a sleeping pill?
ROBERT
Yes. But you need something stronger. He’ll give you an injection.
SARAH
Going to put me out and then take me to a hospital, is that it?
(Waits a moment)
ROBERT
No. That’s not it. He’s just going to give you something to calm you down.
SARAH
I don’t want to be calmed down. Am I hurting anybody? Calmed down. Idiots. I asked you who’s going to have a lobotomy.
ROBERT
I don’t know. How did that come up?
SARAH
My family! It’s incredible. You have no family. If you don’t call on them you have a chance to walk out a free person. What a life.
ROBERT
How come you get so lucid suddenly?
SARAH
(Mimics) How come you get so lucid suddenly? Because I’m a mental case and they get lucid sometimes. Okay? (Contemptuous) Big brain. Big brother brain. The genius. Lectures at Universities. About love! Hah! About love and feelings! Hah!
ROBERT
Hah!
SARAH
All of a sudden brother Bobby comes to say goodby
e. If he knew what I went through. I feel I should call my mother. She tells everybody she worries about me. I can’t understand her, so get rid of her. (Mimics her mother) So what am I supposed to do now? Take care of her. Try to take care of her. She’s lazy. She never helps me with the dishes. (Her own voice) I heard that song, fucking lousy dishes. I hate this society, so I have to conform. Lock them up in the mental hospitals and give them shock! The only time my family will move is when I’m in a crisis. The atom is the smallest thing and now it’s getting to be the biggest. So I’ll laugh!
(She starts to laugh – a nervous release of terror. He gets up and goes to stare out of the window. She approaches him – her laughing fit over)
ROBERT
I won’t be able to make it. You’re too goddamned nutty. I’m getting too exhausted and too depressed. I have my problems too damn it. I thought I would never get into a funk again. I’ve been working well. I could let myself go as you do…rave and cry and laugh and wallow in self-pity…I could go nuts too!
(He screams, dances, rolls his eyes, sticks out his tongue)
How’s that?
SARAH
I give you four out of ten – for trying.
ROBERT
How’s this then?
(He crawls on all fours, howls like a dog)
SARAH
You’re improving. Five out of ten.
(He jumps up, and starts to dance…)
ROBERT
I’m a nut! I’m a nut! I’m a goddamned nut!
(They sing and dance)
SARAH
Now! You’re getting some place!
(They dance separately but she comes to him and they do a crazy abandoned dance together…For a moment he has forgotten himself and has really flipped out. She watches him fascinated and excited…They are in tune now.
It frightens him. He breaks away. He stops exhausted)
ROBERT
So what did I prove?
SARAH
If that’s all there was to being nuts, it would be a ball.
ROBERT
What the hell do you want from me!
SARAH
The truth. It was just here wasn’t it? Pshhh. Truth just dropped in and stayed a moment.
ROBERT
There’s your truth and my truth, your life and my life. I am not responsible for your life!
SARAH
No?
ROBERT
No!
SARAH
Then why do you stay here with me? Why are you tolerating it? Why don’t you call the police and get me out of here? Why don’t you leave?
ROBERT
Because you can’t be left alone!
SARAH
What do you think I’ll do left alone? Rip your furniture to pieces, set fire to the house?
ROBERT
Who the hell knows what you’ll do? You’ll think up something that’s never been thought of before.
SARAH
If you’re staying, shut up. If you feel you have to stay, stay, and take it like a man! Were you ever man enough to take anything?
ROBERT
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, you raving maniac!
SARAH
Guilty! I find this man guilty. How do you plead?
ROBERT
Guilty. Guilty!
SARAH
I sentence you to remain alive!
(He sits and holds his head in his hands. She touches his head)
You haven’t done only destruction. You’ve helped me too. You’re the only I know who helped me.
ROBERT
Then why are you going on like this…getting at me like this.
SARAH
I find you disgusting! Look at you…the way your face looks…poor itsy misused Bobby! His mentally ill sister’s making him feel bad.
ROBERT
Rave on, I won’t let it touch me.
SARAH
Guilty! Guilty, condemned to life!
(He takes the notebook and holds the pencil ready)
ROBERT
Shoot. I’ll make it. Where were you?
SARAH
Then I come out of the asylum. Robert Waller’s got a Rhodes Scholarship and has gone to Oxford. All the excitement and success. Maybe he’ll fail his exams and I’ll laugh.
(She gets quieter, remembering)
When you were sick with that mastoid. I was twelve. Then I got to be sixteen. Who ye seein’? Where ye goin’? Before she couldn’t care less. I’m goin’ to have a lady for a daughter. Can’t go to the park. Okay, you got your lady. To me my life is a drama. To you it’s a comedy. Brian would have married me but you spoiled it.
ROBERT
Brian never earned a penny in his life. His only reason for suggesting marriage to you was to be kept – by me.
SARAH
I’m such an ungrateful stinker: the more you help me the more I hate. It’s hard to be grateful. That’s what happens when people commit suicide. What’s so horrible about death? Life is a bright light. Death is black. The more you live the brighter life is. The less the blacker. And that was why he wanted to marry me – so you could keep him?
ROBERT
You heard, eh?
SARAH
I hear everything.
ROBERT
Yes. I know.
SARAH
I hear flowers and grass and chairs and walls.
ROBERT
I believe you.
SARAH
It’s not because I’m mentally ill that I can hear. I can hear when I’m well. I don’t mean hallucinations.
ROBERT
I know what you mean…You realize you were hallucinating before.
SARAH
Yes. It’s frightening. Why did you have to hit me?
ROBERT
I got frantic.
SARAH
I thought I was getting messages from Debbie. Are you sure she’s all right?
ROBERT
I am positive! I telephoned and spoke to her! She’s all right!
SARAH
And you didn’t let me speak to her?
ROBERT
You were not in a very pleasant state.
SARAH
When did you call her?
ROBERT
At three this morning. You started imagining you were getting messages from her at three this morning.
SARAH
And she’s all right?
ROBERT
She is fine. You were getting somebody else’s messages.
SARAH
(Tries to smile) Is that what it was?
ROBERT
Why don’t you hire a tent and tell fortunes or something?
SARAH
I can’t tell fortunes. I just get messages. I really thought she was burning, the poor darling. On fire. Wow.
ROBERT
You seem better.
SARAH
Will you stop issuing regular bulletins on my condition.
ROBERT
Are you sure you’re not putting on an act?
SARAH
Yes. It’s an act. I feign madness. Like Hamlet. But my father hasn’t asked me to avenge him. So what am I so disturbed about? As if I don’t know.
ROBERT
You do know?
SARAH
I know everything. I told you. I know what you’re thinking this second.
ROBERT
What am I thinking?
SARAH
Why doesn’t she die? Why doesn’t she kill herself? Why doesn’t she get out of my life?
ROBERT
You’re incredible.
SARAH
But you really loved me. You know that.
ROBERT
Yes, I do love you.
SARAH
I don’t mean like a brother. You love me and you can’t face it.
ROBERT
You’ve always tried to make me believe that.
SARAH
There must be a reason I feel that.
>
ROBERT
It’s your fantasy, not mine.
SARAH
Debbie was ill, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?
ROBERT
