by Ted Allan
She’d been ill, yes.
SARAH
So I was right…wrong about her burning. But she had a high temperature.
ROBERT
She’d had a bad throat infection. She had it ten days ago. She was fine when I spoke to her. You got a rather delayed message.
SARAH
But I knew she was ill. I knew she was calling me. I knew she was burning up.
ROBERT
You thought she was on fire. Boy, when you do this you really sound like a kook. You hadn’t heard from her. You thought she was ill. You started having hallucinations. You thought she was burning, on fire. It turns out she had a throat infection ten days ago! You didn’t start getting your messages until this morning. Does it take ten days for the messages to cross the Atlantic?
SARAH
(Smiling) Maybe they got stopped for a while in Newfoundland. She’s really all right now.
ROBERT
Yes!
I’m going to prepare an omelet. If you care to eat it, fine. If not, also fine.
(He goes into the kitchen.
Sarah takes one of Robert’s notebooks and a pencil and begins to make notes as she speaks)
SARAH
It makes me depressed when I’m with people who don’t like me.
ROBERT
It doesn’t send me into heaven either.
SARAH
I’m new in this city. I have no friends. What do you want me to do? You’re my brother.
ROBERT
You’re joking. Is that who I am? Are you sure I’m not your mother?
SARAH
(After a pause) Are you trying to confuse me?
(He laughs)
ROBERT
You can be quite funny when you want to.
SARAH
When I get into a high like this I have to spend money. I’ll need at least five pounds a day. When I’m in a high I must spend money!
ROBERT
(Drily) Could you make it a fifty pence a day high? I can’t afford more.
(She giggles)
SARAH
I’ll make it a pound a day high.
(She chuckles again. He shakes his head. She gets angry)
All right. I’ll settle for the fifty pence. I don’t need your money. I’ll go on the street and charge a pound a throw.
ROBERT
(Disgusted) You make me ill.
SARAH
Why not?
(She starts laughing, delighted at the thought of it)
Embarrass big brother Bobby having a whore for a sister?
ROBERT
A little. Yes. Think you could?
SARAH
Might – for a lot of money.
ROBERT
How much?
SARAH
(Deadpan) Three pounds. At least that.
ROBERT
You’re a laugh a minute.
SARAH
You’re a joy too, aren’t you? Sarah reacts on you? I have to conform to your life? I want to go out in the evening, but he’s working making money! They’re all working making money. You’ve been more than a daddy to me, dear old daddy! Lower middle class crap is what he was, daddy, dear old alcoholic idiot, daddy, and mother was stuck on him! We’re dealing with murderers and informers!
ROBERT
You’ll have to stop that! You’ll have to stop it! Your voice is going into my brain! You’ll have to stop it!
SARAH
Don’t listen!
ROBERT
You’ll have to stop it. I can’t take it.
SARAH
Why don’t you come with me and see how it feels?
ROBERT
I don’t want to come with you.
SARAH
Come with me. Come with me. Come with me. Take a ride around the world. Come, big brother, come with little sister. Come with me.
ROBERT
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Where’s that goddamned doctor! Yes, I wish you would die! Yes! Yes! You destroy me!
SARAH
I destroy you?
ROBERT
I can’t take any more.
SARAH
I wonder why. Somebody destroyed somebody, brother! Do you know what happens when you have a hospital record? When the record shows you’ve had shock treatment? They always give you shock treatment after that! Did you know that?!
ROBERT
No. I didn’t.
SARAH
They gave me shock treatment when I was sixteen years old! They were sadists! It’s a form of coercion! The ones that give it hate people who are different from them.
ROBERT
That’s nonsense.
SARAH
How would you know it’s nonsense!? Did you ever get shock treatment?
ROBERT
I never needed it.
SARAH
You think anybody needs it?! I’ll never have it again! I can’t stand it! Promise me you’ll never let them give me shock again!
ROBERT
I promise you.
SARAH
Is it within your power to promise me?
ROBERT
It is. Yes. The nearest relative or guardian must give permission.
SARAH
It was you who gave permission the first time?
ROBERT
It was mother.
SARAH
She must have asked you if it was all right.
ROBERT
Mother gave the permission.
SARAH
But she asked you if she should, didn’t she?
ROBERT
Yes.
SARAH
And you told her to sign the paper, didn’t you?
ROBERT
It seemed the only thing to do.
SARAH
Did you try to find out what it meant, if I wanted it, if it would be good for me?
ROBERT
(Quietly) The doctor said it would be good for you.
SARAH
Did you investigate that doctor? Did you try to find out if he had any intelligence, if he was an honest man, if he wasn’t some sick, sadistic bastard who’d gone into psychiatry in the first place because it gave him an opportunity to torture people? Did you?
ROBERT
No. I didn’t.
SARAH
If anybody had ever suggested shock treatment for you, I’d have made bloody sure about that man, before I signed the papers!
ROBERT
You say that now. I was nineteen years old. I didn’t know anything about it.
SARAH
If you didn’t know anything about it, why did you tell mother it was all right to sign the papers?
ROBERT
We didn’t know. We were told. We believed it was best for you.
SARAH
You didn’t give a goddamn for me! Mother wanted me out of the way! I was embarrassing you! I was taking attention away from you. I was using dirty words and shocking the neighbours so you put me into an insane asylum!
ROBERT
You were raving…you were shouting on the streets …you were going into department stores and ordering clothes for thousands of dollars…you were inviting men on the street to sleep with you…you were dancing, singing, making a spectacle of yourself…and you were frightening everybody with your hostility.
SARAH
So give her shock treatment! Coerce her! Lock her up! Treat her like you wouldn’t treat an animal! Make her a hospital case.
ROBERT
(Quietly) We didn’t know what to do.
SARAH
But you know what to do now.
ROBERT
We know a little more now.
SARAH
And you agree I don’t need shock treatments.
ROBERT
I agree you shouldn’t have them if you feel that way about them.
SARAH
And you’ll never give permission no matter what they tell you, how it’s supposed to help me? N
ever?
ROBERT
Never. But it did help you.
SARAH
Promise me!
ROBERT
I promise.
SARAH
You’ve made other promises and told other lies.
ROBERT
(Tense) It would be good if you didn’t keep throwing it up to me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was young. I was panicked. And mother gave me the responsibility…Dad behaved as if nothing was happening. Mother was trying to protect him…I didn’t know how to handle it. The doctor told me you had to be hospitalized. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was doing what was best for you.
SARAH
I was joking. No. I was sincere. Mother always wanted to help me in her own way. She had a heart of gold. That’s what makes it so hard to understand. That’s why its easier to go back when they’re old. It’s hard to recollect what they looked like in childhood. The distasteful recollection. If you love people they will be nice to you no matter what you wear. If people like you they’ll still like you. I never could paint your picture. Sentimental rot. I hate that word rot.
(She sips her milk and rests)
When I met Joe McCullum it was funny. I made a portrait of his wife. She wanted it. I hated to part with it. Then I did a painting of Joe. I think I was in love with him. You can’t say anything. Everything is censored.
(The doorbell rings)
Who’s that?
ROBERT
Probably John Williams.
SARAH
Please tell him to go. I don’t need any heavy sedation now. I’ve calmed down. Please.
ROBERT
Let him just take a look at you.
SARAH
You’re going to force me to go to a hospital! No! My God, I’ll kill myself!
ROBERT
No! He’s just come to give you a sedative – a strong one. You need it. I need it.
(The doorbell rings again)
SARAH
I know your treachery!
(Sarah hurries to the desk, gets a large scissors and holds it)
Please don’t do this to me again! Please! I don’t want to see a doctor now!
ROBERT
Why not? You let him see you at two this morning? Why not now?
SARAH
I have changed since two this morning. You have changed. He has changed. If you let him in I swear I’ll kill myself. Don’t send me to a hospital!
(Robert goes. We hear voices O.S. Robert returns. She replaces the scissors)
ROBERT
I sent him away.
SARAH
He came to take me to a hospital.
ROBERT
No. He gave me some stronger pills for you. But I’ve asked him to get you into a very good hospital where you’ll be well treated. There are some good ones as well as bad ones.
SARAH
He’s gone to get policemen to force me into a hospital.
ROBERT
No. I’m telling you the truth.
SARAH
You said that before.
ROBERT
I’ll never lie to you again. You have to believe that. Please take one of these now. We’ll both get some sleep.
SARAH
And I’ll wake up in a concentration camp.
ROBERT
No, I swear it. No.
SARAH
I can never believe anybody again. You know that. You, of all people, know that.
(She starts to pace the floor)
ROBERT
I shouldn’t have told him to go. He would have given you an injection.
SARAH
If you’re telling me the truth, then sit down. If you’re so sleepy, you go to sleep!
ROBERT
You can’t be left alone. God knows what you’ll do. I saw you with those scissors.
SARAH
You’ve lied to me about John Williams, haven’t you? He’s gone to get a policeman!
ROBERT
No. You’re raving. Let’s change the mood, so we can communicate. I wrote about this in my book. The inability to communicate because of mood differences. Listen. It can be interesting. The mechanism of pseudo-sex…
SARAH
When I was in the hospital a minister came and asked if he could help me. I asked if he believed in life after death. He said yes. I said show me.
ROBERT
That’s very funny.
SARAH
You’re not the only one who can be funny. And when was that lately? I haven’t laughed at anything you’ve said in five thousand years!
ROBERT
Life was nothing until I met mother.
SARAH
Did you make that up all by yourself?
ROBERT
And it wasn’t very much after that either.
SARAH
A small giggle. Is your book a book of jokes?
ROBERT
Some of it yes. Pseudo sexual postures in animals seem natural. In humans they get ridiculous. In crowded conditions animals and humans go batty.
SARAH
Yeah. Well, you’re crowding me!
ROBERT
Pseudo sex is a mechanism to stop aggression. When it breaks down fighting and killing break out.
SARAH
Debbie tried to teach me how to eat.
ROBERT
Tell you what. Let’s pick out one of your distracted thoughts and try to analyze it. That way we might…
SARAH
Close your mouth when you eat, she said.
ROBERT
Orientals eat with their mouths open. It’s all a question of cultural conditioning.
SARAH
Why are there so many hostile words for the mentally ill?
ROBERT
Let’s discuss that then. People are afraid they’ll get infected and they behave out of fear and ignorance. They…
SARAH
I ended up praying in the hospital, not in front of the minister. I prayed to our Father in Heaven…
ROBERT
(Over) Let’s discuss what you were saying about the hostile words for the mentally ill.
SARAH
…to forgive our trespasses as we forgave them. So I’m a Mary Magdalene. I don’t have to be the Virgin Mary.
ROBERT
(Over) Sarah! Let’s discuss what you were saying!
SARAH
(Whispers) Please forgive me my sins. It does help to have sort of a father. Imagine working in a Catholic University and telling everybody I’m an atheist.
(He’s begun writing again, realizing he could not make her concentrate)
I think I’m a genius and you don’t. (Icy voice of hostility) I may not always be constructive. I’m as perfect as I am capable of being.
ROBERT
I think I like it when you’re hostile…It makes it easier to dislike you.
SARAH
Anything to make it easier for you. How was it with Susan last night…Nice?
(He doesn’t answer)
Anthropologist, eh? Must pick up a lot of tricks in darkest Africa. Or is darkest Latin America or darkest Asia where she gets her kicks? Do anthropologists do it better than us ordinary mortals?
ROBERT
Oh shut up.
SARAH
You don’t like jokes about sex do you? You write about sex. You talk about sex. You even give advice about sex. But underneath it all you’re a puritan. You’re the kind of man who tells his children everything there is to know about sex except the most important thing – that it’s fun. Right?
ROBERT
Wrong. I’ve told Albie it’s fun.
SARAH
You’re a liar.
ROBERT
Well…I plan to tell him.
(She laughs)
SARAH
Fool the idiots out there. But you can’t fool me, Mr Successful Man. Do you enjoy it with Susan?
ROBERT
That’s not your business.<
br />
SARAH
Does she undress with the lights off? Do you do it with the lights on or off?
ROBERT
That is not your business.
SARAH
Little research I’m doing for the Readers Digest. How long can you stay in there without coming, professor?
