by Rachel Cusk
He’d say I chose to spend it, of course.
That’s equality for you: a world without the need for honour.
Every man for himself!
My husband wants half of everything;
half a piece of string.
But half of something is sometimes nothing.
What’s half a picture, or half a car?
I said to him, how shall we divide the children?
Shall you do it, or shall I?
We’ll need a big knife,
and lots of mops for the blood.
And how shall we divide our history?
It’s hard to do it fairly –
shall you do it or shall I?
We were young when we married,
and mad with ambition:
other people’s marriages seemed like endings,
but ours was an opening, a setting sail.
We made love, war, conversation,
we made warmth, food, a home.
We made children, our children.
Who owns the story, the teller or the told?
I said, don’t ask who owns it – it can’t be separated.
The magic works through us together, I said.
But he was curious.
He wanted to know what he was.
Except that no one really wants to know that, do they?
B1 unfreezes and kicks down B2’s tower.
I used to have someone I could talk to.
I miss him.
I can’t bear it.
It hurts.
SCENE 7
MEDEA sits at her desk writing. A man wearing a business suit and a crown enters.
CREON
They told me I’d find you here. (Pause.) I said no, she’s a writer, she’s bound to be out observing things, you know, jotting stuff down, making notes on the species. But apparently not.
Pause.
Perhaps you’re the other kind. The kind that just makes it all up.
MEDEA (Typing.)
You mean a liar.
CREON
Is that what you’d call it? I had a more pleasant word in mind. What was it again?
MEDEA (Typing.)
Imagination.
CREON
Imagination, yes. Terrific stuff for keeping people quiet. I use it all the time.
MEDEA
What do you want?
CREON
In the sense of refreshments? Nothing at all. The body is a beggar – the less you give it, the less it pesters you. I don’t suppose you’re on top of the physical side of things yourself. Divorce is very ageing, you know. Women tend to lose weight – they get all excited by that, but it’s far too late. They’re mistaking death for youth.
Pause. He goes around looking in the cupboards.
Yes, imagination. I sense you despise it, but in fact you should use yours a little more. It’s full of sex, you know – in the abstract, obviously, but for a woman your age it’s fun, not to mention available. (Leafs through a pile of papers.) And it would certainly pay all these bills of yours. (Whistles.) I’m getting a strong impression of red. The colour of blood and panic. The colour of stop.
MEDEA (Typing.)
I can’t stop.
CREON (Holding up some unopened envelopes.)
May I? (He begins to tear them open.) You can always stop.
Want to know where most people go wrong? They take things too personally. They think the deities are sitting around discussing them; they think there’s some kind of plan they’re central to. Do you see where I’m going? In fact life is simple: annihilate or be annihilated.
Pause while he reads a letter.
Incidentally, you’re about to lose your license.
MEDEA
My license?
CREON
Your driver’s license. Yes, you can stop all right. Your time is up – all the signs are here. The trouble with women is they can’t accept that after a certain age they have no function. They want to conserve. They want gratitude. They want to sit on their laurels, receiving payback.
He sits on the edge of her desk.
There’s no such thing as justice. There’s only survival. The question is, how much do you want to survive?
MEDEA
On those terms, not at all.
CREON
See this? (He pulls up his shirt to reveal a scar.). When I was a boy my father made me cut hay from dawn to dusk with a scythe. I resented it. One day I was so bone tired that I didn’t put the blade away when I was done. I thought, to hell with it, I’ll do it tomorrow. Then later I had to come back outside on some other business. It was dark, and I walked straight into it. Cut myself in two from top to bottom. Carelessness…
MEDEA (Stops writing and turns to look at him.)
Why did you tell me that?
CREON
Call it a – heads up. You strike me as the type who’d prefer to jump, before she’s pushed. Besides, you’re bothering my little girl: she wants you out of her dreams. At her age, those dreams should be sweet.
Pause.
I’ll be honest, a woman like you scares me. All self-destructive people scare me. There’s no basis for negotiation. If I don’t hear the note of compromise I’m uneasy. I want to put you away. Just in case someone trips over you one of these days.
MEDEA turns away from him and continues writing. He sits on the edge of her desk and looks over her shoulder at what she’s writing.
You think you’re safe, but you’re not. People don’t like the sound you make. You tell them the opposite of what they want to hear. I was talking to your agent –
MEDEA (Turns sharply.)
My agent?
CREON
– the other day and he had to admit he agreed. Nice enough fellow, by the way, if a little spineless. He said, the trouble is she has no – what did he call it? – no –
MEDEA
What?
CREON
– no tact. I met him, incidentally, on business. I discovered I had a little publishing house in my portfolio that I’d entirely forgotten about. You’ve a contract there, but I’m afraid we can’t honour it.
MEDEA
You have to.
CREON
There’s no contract that can’t be broken. Take marriage – two people making binding promises while in a state of temporary insanity. Oh, it didn’t work out? Golly, that’s surprising! (Guffaws.)
He reaches his fingers towards her face then withdraws them.
Have you seen your face? It’s so…severe. You should be careful. You’ll wind up with all those little lines women get around their mouths. Ugh! My ex-wife has a mouth like a monkey’s rectum. She was angry too. Anger is so ugly in a woman.
He picks up the wine bottle and sniffs it.
No, a woman shouldn’t be sour. When they get to a certain age, they start to harden around you like concrete. Thing is, a man begins life imprisoned in a woman’s body. Believe me, he’ll never lose the urge to be free.
He puts the bottle down.
It’s safest to love children, is my advice. My daughter now, she’s as soft and fresh as milk. That purity will always belong to me.
MEDEA
I had a father once.
CREON
Did he want you?
MEDEA
My mother wouldn’t let him.
CREON
Oh, that’s perverse. A girl needs her father’s desire, else she can’t become a woman. But he was a yes-man, am I right? A sexual prawn. He chose her over you. He denied you, to keep the peace.
MEDEA
He didn’t know any better.
CREON
Don’t make excuses. He didn’t want you, so you thought you had to be like him instead. (Pause.) You know, after I was born, my mother had them take it out, the…apparatus. You might consider that yourself. Get that poison out of your system for good – you’d be neutralised, calmer, less tormented.
MEDEA
I don’t want to be
neutralised.
CREON
Why not? At your age it’s so obviously a case of sour grapes. You have quite a reputation, you know.
MEDEA
For what?
CREON
For ‘telling it like it is’. (He makes exaggerated quote marks with his fingers.) That’s all right as far as it goes. There’s a place for honesty, just like there’s a place for a dog by the fire. But a dog’s no good if you haven’t tamed it. It might look tame, but if there’s one speck of wildness left in its heart then one day it might turn around and bite your hand off. You have to break it, break it right through its core and then rebuild it to look like what it was. You follow me?
MEDEA
Not really.
CREON
Oh. They told me you were intelligent.
MEDEA laughs.
You know, you look completely different when you smile. It lifts your face, especially in the cheeks. You could actually be a very attractive woman.
MEDEA
Well that’s what really matters.
CREON
There’s the sourness again. The problem with you is you don’t know how to love.
MEDEA
I’m sick of love.
CREON
You might find the world behaved differently if you loved. An unloving woman is a freak.
Pause.
You know, I think people might have got the wrong idea about you. It’s not for everyone, admittedly, but talking to you is like taking a cold bath – chilling but stimulating. Brr! I wouldn’t want to do it every day.
MEDEA
You don’t have to.
CREON
You’ll find your usual outlets won’t accept you – I had my people put the word out. It’s my little girl, you see – I can’t resist her.
MEDEA
I’m no threat to her.
CREON
The engagement will be all over the press in a couple of days. She’d rather you were hors de combat. You’re not exactly known for your reticence.
Pause.
I love her – excessively. Your husband has taken her from me. I allowed it – I’m her father, after all. She belongs to me, but I can never have her. I think about them together. I imagine her on top, riding him. I had to allow it so that I could imagine it.
He begins to wander away, off the stage.
He tired of you, but a girl never tires of her father. One day she’ll come back to me.
He leaves. Answerphone message.
JASON
It’s me. Look, I’m – ah – not going to be able to pick up the boys after all. I’ve got a – there’s a meeting I just can’t miss and – ah – well, I’m sure they’ll be very happy to be with you. Also I’ve been talking to the mediator again and he’s really, you know, keen for you to accept this privacy clause. And before you get angry again, let me just say that no one’s, you know, trying to silence you. It’s actually perfectly reasonable when you think about it. And I have to say, the mediator is absolutely on my side about this one. The thing is, other people are involved now and my – she doesn’t – they don’t choose to be exposed in that way. That kind of exposure could be very, very damaging for the family and it’s – it’s a worry for them. I mean, I’ve told them, you know, there’s absolutely no chance of that happening – I mean, it’s not like you’re, you know, a big name, is it? I mean, you don’t have that kind of power. But they don’t want to take the risk. So I’ve got to protect their – ah – our position. I’d be stupid not to. Ah – anyway, I have to go. You’ve got forty-eight hours to return the forms, all right? Call me if there’s anything you don’t understand.
MEDEA
Action: a thing that takes longer to say than to do.
Reaction: the other way around.
The women talk and talk and talk.
It buys them a few scraps from the male table.
Go on, help yourselves, feel free!
Talk your little heads off, write your little hearts out.
Bring another wheelbarrow-load for the bonfire.
Just so long as it doesn’t change anything.
I want to smash a wall to see the hole my fist punched through it.
I want to throw something and watch it break.
I want to have an effect.
(Shouts.) It’s not fair!
SCENE 8
NURSE and TUTOR are sitting on the sofa. NURSE has her handbag in her lap. BOY 1 and BOY 2 are playing on the floor.
NURSE
I saw Charlotte Smith in town today. She was at school with you – do you remember? Charlotte Jones, I should call her now. She married that consultant up at the hospital. Three boys – lovely family. They were all just off skiing for half-term – she was buying a few last minute bits and pieces. She asked after you. Said she’d once seen a play of yours; she couldn’t remember the title. She’s rushed off her feet with those three boys, so I don’t expect she has much time for going to the theatre. What was the word she used? Uncompromising. She said your writing was uncompromising. Or was it uncomfortable?
Pause.
Anyway, she said you must be very…clever. She gave up work, of course, when the children were born. She said it was amazing you found the time. They’re off skiing, in any case.
B1
We go skiing.
NURSE
You used to go skiing.
B1
We go skiing every year.
NURSE
I don’t think you’re going this year.
B1
My dad says he might take us. He says he probably will.
NURSE
Well, let’s see whether he does, shall we, before we start talking about it.
Pause.
TUTOR
I paid the speeding fine.
MEDEA
What?
TUTOR
On your car.
NURSE
It must cost you a fortune to run that car.
TUTOR
It was just sitting around so I paid it.
NURSE
Do you really think you need a car now?
Pause.
I mean, it’s not as if you’re going anywhere.
The CLEANER appears and begins mopping the floor.
CLEANER
For woman is no such thing as fair. Man come to my house yesterday, he tell me I got to leave this place. I say, say who? He say, say the judge. I say, what I ever done to him? He say, it ain’t what you do, it what you are. I say, what I am? I just my husband’ leftovers.
The CLEANER gets out the hoover.
You want I do this now or some other time?
She starts to hoover noisily.
I say, if he know what I am, maybe he can tell me some time. Married people like those Siamese twins. You can’t separate. The doctor try to cut them in half and look what happen – always one die. I know, I was the one died. Same time my other half alive and well and driving to the beach with some girl with big papayas.
I say my mother once, mama, remember how you used to undo all the wool in my old sweater then knit me new sweater from the same piece – can’t you do that for my life too? She say those are bad thoughts. She say, what, you want me to undo your son?
She say, trouble with you Marta, you think words is worth something. But words ain’t worth a thing. Words is just women’s money, that’s all. Only thing it buys you is scraps from the man’s table.
SCENE 9
The sitting room. JASON and MEDEA talk to one another on their phones.
JASON
What have you done?
MEDEA
What?
JASON
You’ve fucking –
MEDEA
Nothing.
JASON
stalled the whole –
MEDEA
I haven’t done –
JASON
fucking process!
MEDEA
– anything!
> Pause.
JASON
I’ve just had the estate agent on the phone. He says –
MEDEA
I’m not ready.
JASON
– you’ve taken the fucking house –
MEDEA
I’m not ready to leave.
JASON
– off the market.
MEDEA
We need to stay here. It’s our home.
JASON
Look, if you’re talking about the boys –
MEDEA
Who else would I be –
JASON
– then you’re wrong.
MEDEA
– talking about?
JASON
I’ve spoken to them. They agreed –
MEDEA
What kind of conversation –
JASON
– it made sense.
MEDEA
– was that exactly?
Pause.
Did you ask them –
JASON
We talked about it –
MEDEA
– if they wanted some Smarties –
JASON
– the other day.
MEDEA
– and then wait for them to nod their heads?
JASON
They were surprisingly –
MEDEA
Look boys, you said yes, you can’t –
JASON
– positive about the idea.
MEDEA
– take it back now!
Pause.
Is that how you did it?
JASON
You know what kids are like. They’re –
MEDEA
Do I?
JASON
– excited by anything –
MEDEA
Is that what –
JASON
– new.
MEDEA
– people say? Oh her, yes, she knows what kids are like, they’re just mini consumers aren’t they, and if they’re upset you just shove some fucking –
JASON
Oh, not –
MEDEA
Smarties in their mouths.
JASON
– this again.
Pause.
Look, to be perfectly honest, I need the money.
MEDEA
Do you?
JASON
Yes.
MEDEA
I thought she was –
JASON
She doesn’t understand –
MEDEA
– some kind of –
JASON
– about money. She expects –
MEDEA
– princess in a castle.
JASON
– to be paid for.
