CATHY shoots VICTORIA.
CATHY
You’re dead Vicky.
VICTORIA
Aaaargh.
CATHY
Fall over.
VICTORIA
I’m not falling over, the ground’s wet.
CATHY
You’re dead.
VICTORIA
Yes, I’m dead.
CATHY
The Dead Hand Gang fall over. They said I had to fall over in the mud or I can’t play. That duck’s a mandarin.
MARTIN
Which one? Look, Tommy?
CATHY
That’s a diver. It’s got a yellow eye and it dives. That’s a goose. Tommy doesn’t know it’s a goose, he thinks it’s a duck. The babies get eaten by weasels. Kiou kiou.
CATHY goes.
MARTIN
So I lost my erection last night, not because I’m not prepared to talk, it’s just that taking in technical information is a different part of the brain and also I don’t like to feel that you do it better to yourself. I have read the Hite Report. I do know that women have to learn to get their pleasure despite our clumsy attempts at expressing undying devotion and ecstasy, and that what we spent our adolescence thinking was an animal urge we had to suppress is in fact a fine art we have to acquire. I’m not like whatever percentage of American men have become impotent as a direct result of women’s liberation, which I am totally in favour of, more I sometimes think than you are yourself. Nor am I one of your villains who sticks it in, bangs away, and falls asleep. My one aim is to give you pleasure. My one aim is to give you rolling orgasms like I do other women. So why the hell don’t you have them? My analysis for what it’s worth is that despite all my efforts you still feel dominated by me. I in fact think it’s very sad that you don’t feel able to take that job. It makes me feel very guilty. I don’t want you to do it just because I encourage you to do it. But don’t you think you’d feel better if you did take the job? You’re the one who’s talked about freedom. You’re the one who’s experimenting with bisexuality, and I don’t stop you, I think women have something to give each other.
You seem to need the mutual support. You find me too overwhelming. So follow it through, go away, leave me and Tommy alone for a bit, we can manage perfectly well without you. I’m not putting any pressure on you but I don’t think you’re being a whole person. God knows I do everything I can to make you stand on your own two feet. Just be yourself. You don’t seem to realise how insulting it is to me that you can’t get yourself together.
MARTIN and VICTORIA go.
BETTY
You must be very lonely yourself with no husband. You don’t miss him?
LIN
Not really, no.
BETTY
Maybe you like being on your own.
LIN
I’m seeing quite a lot of Vicky. I don’t live alone. I live with Cathy.
BETTY
I would have been frightened when I was your age. I thought, the poor children, their mother all alone.
LIN
I’ve a lot of friends.
BETTY
I find when I’m making tea I put out two cups. It’s strange not having a man in the house. You don’t know who to do things for.
LIN
Yourself.
BETTY
Oh, that’s very selfish.
LIN
Have you any women friends?
BETTY
I’ve never been so short of men’s company that I’ve had to bother with women.
LIN
Don’t you like women?
BETTY
They don’t have such interesting conversations as men. There has never been a woman composer of genius. They don’t have a sense of humour. They spoil things for themselves with their emotions. I can’t say I do like women very much, no.
LIN
But you’re a woman.
BETTY
There’s nothing says you have to like yourself.
LIN
Do you like me?
BETTY
There’s no need to take it personally, Lin.
MARTIN and VICTORIA come back.
MARTIN
Do you know if you put cocaine on your prick you can keep up it all night? The only thing is of course it goes numb so you don’t feel anything. But you would, that’s the main thing. I just want to make you happy.
BETTY
Vicky, I’d like to go home.
VICTORIA
Yes, Mummy, of course.
BETTY
I’m sorry, dear.
VICTORIA
I think Tommy would like to stay out a bit longer.
LIN
Hello, Martin. We do keep out of each other’s way.
MARTIN
I think that’s the best thing to do.
BETTY
Perhaps you’d walk home with me, Martin. I do feel safer with a man. The park is so large the grass seems to tilt.
MARTIN
Yes, I’d like to go home and do some work. I’m writing a novel about women from the women’s point of view.
MARTIN and BETTY go. LIN and VICTORIA are alone. They embrace.
VICTORIA
Why the hell can’t he just be a wife and come with me? Why does Martin make me tie myself in knots? No wonder we can’t just have a simple fuck. No, not Martin, why do I make myself tie myself in knots. It’s got to stop, Lin. I’m not like that with you. Would you love me if I went to Manchester?
LIN
Yes.
VICTORIA
Would you love me if I went on a climbing expedition in the Andes mountains?
LIN
Yes.
VICTORIA
Would you love me if my teeth fell out?
LIN
Yes.
VICTORIA
Would you love me if I loved ten other people?
LIN
And me?
VICTORIA
Yes.
LIN
Yes.
VICTORIA
And I feel apologetic for not being quite so subordinate as I was. I am more intelligent than him. I am brilliant.
LIN
Leave him Vic. Come and live with me.
VICTORIA
Don’t be silly.
LIN
Silly, Christ, don’t then. I’m not asking because I need to live with someone. I’d enjoy it, that’s all, we’d both enjoy it. Fuck you. Cathy, for fuck’s sake – stop throwing stones at the ducks. The man’s going to get you.
VICTORIA
What man? Do you need a man to frighten your child with?
LIN
My mother said it.
VICTORIA
You’re so inconsistent, Lin.
LIN
I’ve changed who I sleep with, I can’t change everything.
VICTORIA
Like when I had to stop you getting a job in a boutique and collaborating with sexist consumerism.
LIN
I should have got that job, Cathy would have liked it. Why shouldn’t I have some decent clothes? I’m sick of dressing like a boy, why can’t I look sexy, wouldn’t you love me?
VICTORIA
Lin, you’ve no analysis.
LIN
No but I’m good at kissing aren’t I? I give Cathy guns, my mum didn’t give me guns. I dress her in jeans, she wants to wear dresses. I don’t know. I can’t work it out. I don’t want to. You read too many books, you get at me all the time, you’re worse to me than Martin is to you, you piss me off, my brother’s been killed. I’m sorry to win the argument that way but there it is.
VICTORIA
What do you mean win the argument?
LIN
I mean be nice to me.
VICTORIA
In Belfast?
LIN
I heard this morning. Don’t don’t start. I’ve hardly seen him for two years. I rung my father. You’d think I shot him myself. He doe
sn’t want me to go to the funeral.
CATHY approaches.
VICTORIA
What will you do?
LIN
Go of course.
CATHY
What is it? Who’s killed? What?
LIN
It’s Bill. Your uncle. In the army. Bill that gave you the blue teddy.
CATHY
Can I have his gun?
LIN
It’s time we went home. Time you went to bed.
CATHY
No it’s not.
LIN
We go home and you have tea and you have a bath and you go to bed.
CATHY
Fuck off.
LIN
Cathy, shut up.
VICTORIA
It’s only half past five, why don’t we –
LIN
I’ll tell you why she has to go to bed –
VICTORIA
She can come home with me.
LIN
Because I want her out the fucking way.
VICTORIA
She can come home with me.
CATHY
I’m not going to bed.
LIN
I want her home with me not home with you, I want her in bed, I want today over.
CATHY
I’m not going to bed.
LIN hits CATHY, CATHY cries.
LIN
And shut up or I’ll give you something to cry for.
CATHY
I’m not going to bed.
VICTORIA
Cathy –
LIN
You keep out of it.
VICTORIA
Lin for God’s sake.
They are all shouting. CATHY runs off. LIN and VICTORIA are silent. Then they laugh and embrace.
LIN
Where’s Tommy?
VICTORIA
What? Didn’t he go with Martin?
LIN
Did he?
VICTORIA
God oh God.
LIN
Cathy! Cathy!
VICTORIA
I haven’t thought about him. How could I not think about him? Tommy!
LIN
Cathy! Come on, quick, I want some help.
VICTORIA
Tommy! Tommy!
CATHY comes back.
LIN
Where’s Tommy? Have you seen him? Did he go with Martin? Do you know where he is?
CATHY
I showed him the goose. We went in the bushes.
LIN
Then what?
CATHY
I came back on the swing.
VICTORIA
And Tommy? Where was Tommy?
CATHY
He fed the ducks.
LIN
No that was before.
CATHY
He did a pee in the bushes. I helped him with his trousers.
VICTORIA
And after that?
CATHY
He fed the ducks.
VICTORIA
No no.
CATHY
He liked the ducks. I expect he fell in.
LIN
Did you see him fall in?
VICTORIA
Tommy! Tommy!
LIN
What’s the last time you saw him?
CATHY
He did a pee.
VICTORIA
Mummy said he would fall in. Oh God, Tommy!
LIN
We’ll go round the pond. We’ll go opposite ways round the pond.
ALL (shout)
Tommy!
VICTORIA and LIN go off opposite sides. CATHY climbs the bench.
CATHY
Georgie Best superstar
Walks like a woman and wears a bra.
There he is! I see him! Mum! Vicky! There he is!
He’s in the bushes.
LIN comes back.
LIN
Come on Cathy love, let’s go home.
CATHY
Vicky’s got him.
LIN
Come on.
CATHY
Is she cross?
LIN
No. Come on.
CATHY
I found him.
LIN
Yes. Come on.
CATHY gets off the bench. CATHY and LIN hug.
CATHY
I’m watching telly.
LIN
OK.
CATHY
After the news.
LIN
OK.
CATHY
I’m not going to bed.
LIN
Yes you are.
CATHY
I’m not going to bed now.
LIN
Not now but early.
CATHY
How early?
LIN
Not late.
CATHY
How not late?
LIN
Early.
CATHY
How early?
LIN
Not late.
They go off together. GERRY comes on. He waits. EDWARD comes.
EDWARD
I’ve got some fish for dinner. I thought I’d make a cheese sauce.
GERRY
I won’t be in.
EDWARD
Where are you going?
GERRY
For a start I’m going to a sauna. Then I’ll see.
EDWARD
All right. What time will you be back? We’ll eat then.
GERRY
You’re getting like a wife.
EDWARD
I don’t mind that.
GERRY
Why don’t I do the cooking some time?
EDWARD
You can if you like. You’re just not as good at it that’s all. Do it tonight.
GERRY
I won’t be in tonight.
EDWARD
Do it tomorrow. If we can’t eat it we can always go to a restaurant.
GERRY
Stop it.
EDWARD
Stop what?
GERRY
Just be yourself.
EDWARD
I don’t know what you mean. Everyone’s always tried to stop me being feminine and now you are too.
GERRY
You’re putting it on.
EDWARD
I like doing the cooking. I like being fucked. You do like me like this really.
GERRY
I’m bored, Eddy.
EDWARD
Go to the sauna.
GERRY
And you’ll stay home and wait up for me.
EDWARD
No, I’ll go to bed and read a book.
GERRY
Or knit. You could knit me a pair of socks.
EDWARD
I might knit. I like knitting.
GERRY
I don’t mind if you knit. I don’t want to be married.
EDWARD
I do.
GERRY
Well I’m divorcing you.
EDWARD
I wouldn’t want to keep a man who wants his freedom.
GERRY
Eddy, do stop playing the injured wife, it’s not funny.
EDWARD
I’m not playing. It’s true.
GERRY
I’m not the husband so you can’t be the wife.
EDWARD
I’ll always be here, Gerry, if you want to come back. I know you men like to go off by yourselves. I don’t think I could love deeply more than once. But I don’t think I can face life on my own so don’t leave it too long or it may be too late.
GERRY
What are you trying to turn me into?
EDWARD
A monster, darling, which is what you are.
GERRY
I’ll collect my stuff from the flat in the morning.
GERRY goes. EDWARD sits on the bench. It gets darker. VICTORIA comes.
VICTORIA
Tommy dro
pped a toy car somewhere, you haven’t seen it? It’s red. He says it’s his best one. Oh the hell with it. Martin’s reading him a story. There, isn’t it quiet?
Cloud Nine Page 8
