by Sam Steiner
BERNADETTE. That’s unfair. / You’re being really unfair now.
OLIVER. You used to think songs didn’t have words in them?
BERNADETTE. Yeah.
OLIVER. That’s stupid.
BERNADETTE. I was little.
OLIVER. So what… What did you think they sang?
Pause.
BERNADETTE. Vowel sounds. Like kind of improvised vowel sounds in tune with the, I dunno, the rhythm. Like:
She sings a vowel-sound melody.
OLIVER. But you could… you knew / words.
BERNADETTE. Oh yeah I knew about words. That there were words. And I was speaking them by then, I was speaking. I just didn’t know they were in…
OLIVER. Songs.
Pause.
Right.
BERNADETTE. You okay?
OLIVER. Yeah.
BERNADETTE. You’re a bit serious today.
OLIVER. Sorry.
BERNADETTE. I’m sorry for interrupting you.
OLIVER. Sorry if I’ve been a bit serious.
BERNADETTE. Where did you see fat Julie?
OLIVER. What?
BERNADETTE. Julie. Where did you see her?
OLIVER. Oh. The supermarket. She was buying falafel.
*
BERNADETTE. Thirty-six.
OLIVER. Six.
Long pause.
I’m sorry.
BERNADETTE. Tough day?
Pause.
OLIVER. Tough day.
BERNADETTE. Mine fine. Settled the Wilson case.
Pause.
OLIVER. I’m glad.
BERNADETTE. Zero?
OLIVER nods.
Joint custody. David gets weekends. Good they compromised.
Pause.
OLIVER nods.
*
OLIVER. So?
BERNADETTE. I really love it.
OLIVER. You do?
BERNADETTE. I do.
OLIVER. You like the flutes? And the little…
He hums a fanfare.
BERNADETTE. I do. I really love it.
OLIVER. Okay.
BERNADETTE. I’ve gotta go over some stuff.
OLIVER. When does the trial start?
BERNADETTE. Tomorrow.
OLIVER. First big trial.
BERNADETTE. First big trial.
OLIVER. I hate words like really.
BERNADETTE. What?
OLIVER. I really love it. You said: I really love it.
BERNADETTE. Okay…
OLIVER. Qualifiers.
BERNADETTE. Qualifiers?
OLIVER. I really love it. If you say: I love it, that’s like wow what a nice compliment, she loves what I do. I really love it is like saying: Please believe that I like this thing. Believe it, believe it. Right, now let’s just talk about my problems.
BERNADETTE. Whoa. That is really not. That is / not
OLIVER. The only time anyone has ever meant the word ‘really’ is when Eva Cassidy sings it in ‘Over the Rainbow’.
BERNADETTE. Oliver.
OLIVER. She goes: Reeeeeaaally.
BERNADETTE. Oliver.
OLIVER. Reeeeeeeaaallly.
BERNADETTE. You’re insecure.
OLIVER. No, I’m not.
BERNADETTE. You’re insecure about being insecure.
Pause.
OLIVER. No, I’m not.
BERNADETTE. I love your stuff. Okay?
OLIVER. Yeah.
BERNADETTE. Okay?
OLIVER. Yeah. With this stuff… I am just a bit…
BERNADETTE. Yeah. Listen, I’ve gotta go look over some stuff.
Pause.
OLIVER. I never thought I’d go out with a lawyer.
BERNADETTE. Well I always thought I’d be one so…
OLIVER. I know.
BERNADETTE. Sorry I can’t live to your standards.
OLIVER. That is really not what I’m saying.
Pause.
That’s not what I said.
Pause.
BERNADETTE. Can we talk about this later?
OLIVER. Sure.
Silence.
*
OLIVER. Look, I need to get this done. Let’s just talk about this later okay?
*
BERNADETTE. Listen, I’ve got a presentation tomorrow. Can we talk about this later?
*
OLIVER. Just stop, just stop. I think it’d be better if we talked about this a bit… when we’ve cooled off.
*
BERNADETTE. I’ve got to go, I’m late. We’ll just talk about it later.
*
OLIVER. I think it’s really important we talk about this and I’m glad you brought it up.
*
BERNADETTE. I really do want to talk about it though.
*
OLIVER. Yeah.
*
BERNADETTE. Yeah.
*
All dialogue is shouted unless specified otherwise.
BERNADETTE. Just let me drive the car, Oliver. Don’t fucking tell me how. No, no I am a better driver than you are. I am better than you are at driving. He wasn’t anywhere fucking near me. Oh you’re scared, scared. You’re always fucking scared. You do this ‘Oh I’m scared for us, it was heartbreaking for me, I was deeply hurt’ bullshit. I am concentrating on the road.
OLIVER. Jesus Christ. I’m letting you drive the… Bernadette, you’re checking your phone on the motorway… I’m not saying that I’m not saying that I’m not. I was scared. You were inches away from… Yes, I was scared, you almost ploughed into a… When do I do that? You are cold, Bernadette. You’re cold. Jesus, concentrate on the…
A sudden intake of breath.
BERNADETTE (mumbled). He was… he came out of nowhere.
Long pause.
Stop it.
OLIVER. I wasn’t saying anything.
BERNADETTE. Sometimes you don’t have to say things.
OLIVER. Yeah, sometimes.
*
OLIVER. Twelve.
BERNADETTE. Eighteen.
Silence.
OLIVER. This good.
BERNADETTE. Put extra cayenne in beans.
OLIVER. Thanks.
Pause.
Hair nice.
BERNADETTE sighs.
BERNADETTE. Thanks.
*
OLIVER. We are happy aren’t we?
BERNADETTE. Yes.
OLIVER. You’re happy?
BERNADETTE. Yes.
OLIVER. And I’m happy.
BERNADETTE. Yes.
OLIVER. Good.
BERNADETTE. When you’re happy, you’re still not happy all the time are you?
OLIVER. No. That’d be weird.
BERNADETTE. It’d be creepy.
OLIVER. It’d be downright creepy.
BERNADETTE. Yeah. You need light and / shade.
OLIVER. Light and shade. Yeah. Otherwise you’d get sweaty and / overheat.
BERNADETTE. We only argue because we know each other so well.
OLIVER. I’m really glad we’re on the same page about this.
BERNADETTE. Me too.
Pause.
Why did you and Julie / break up?
OLIVER. Because it was just time.
BERNADETTE. Why was / it time?
OLIVER. There were a whole host of reasons.
Pause.
BERNADETTE. Oliver. I’m sorry that I make more money than you.
*
OLIVER. Well, you know what it is? It’s censorship.
BERNADETTE. It’s not / censorship.
OLIVER. Of course / it is.
BERNADETTE. It’s not censorship. You can say anything you like just… concisely.
OLIVER. That’s bullshit, Bernadette.
BERNADETTE. It’s not bullshit, Oliver. I’m not saying it’s a good law. / It’s not. I’m just saying it’s not censorship.
OLIVER. You’re pussyfooting, Bernadette. Fence-sitting. There are things you can’t say in one hundred and
forty words.
BERNADETTE. I know that.
OLIVER. Like wedding speeches, or presentations or epic poetry. Songs. A lot of songs have / more than one hundred and forty words in.
BERNADETTE. I’m with you. I agree with you. This was a thing before. Why are you so riled up all of a sudden?
OLIVER. The polls are showing a / serious turn towards
BERNADETTE. The polls have been the same for weeks. Ever since they got in. Before / even.
OLIVER. Hip hop is as good as dead.
BERNADETTE. They’re talking about a daily limit. All the errm, you know, the hip-hop rappers, they could do half a song and then come in and do the second half the next day.
OLIVER. It’ll cost too much. Studio time is fucking expensive. The big names will be fine but the young ones…
BERNADETTE. Well maybe they’ll waive it in special circumstances.
OLIVER. What? Like your divorce trials.
BERNADETTE. No.
OLIVER. You know what it does? It alienates the working class.
BERNADETTE. Does it?
OLIVER. It’s elitist.
BERNADETTE. How? Everyone gets the same / number of…
OLIVER. Yes everyone gets the same number of words but it’s the working classes that need them most. The powerful stay powerful because nobody’s got enough words to challenge them, nepotism multiplies exponentially and becomes basically the only way of getting jobs because well, who’s got enough words for interviews? Social mobility doesn’t exist in this. Class mobility is… it’s polarised. It’s all polarised. Protest is banned. They’re cutting the working class off like a bad bit of meat. Like how does anyone rise up in this? How do you say ‘Hello you, everyone, hello, I’m here and I’m fucking good,’ you know. I’m good. Nobody can tell each other they’re good any more. But if you’ve got money you’re fine because you wear it don’t you? You wear it in your clothes and in the way you walk and in the buildings that you go in and out of. But the working class – Jesus! – the working class can’t get their foot through the door. You know I thought you’d be angry about this, Bernadette.
BERNADETTE. Why’s that, Oliver? Because I’m one of them?
OLIVER. Everyone should be angry about this.
BERNADETTE. Don’t patronise me.
OLIVER. They’re banning democracy.
BERNADETTE. They’re not banning anything.
OLIVER. They’re limiting it.
BERNADETTE. Words are the weapons of the middle class. Not the working class. I read that.
OLIVER. There is no more middle class. It polarises everything. People who need words to prove themselves and people who don’t.
BERNADETTE. Apparently it’s been really good in Norway.
OLIVER. For what?
BERNADETTE. I don’t know, Oliver, for the way people talk to each other?
OLIVER. What because they don’t any more?
BERNADETTE. Maybe.
OLIVER. I wasn’t patronising you.
BERNADETTE. Okay.
OLIVER. I didn’t mean to.
BERNADETTE. Okay.
OLIVER. I just think that you, you know, come from a certain background and they, right now, need some sticking up for but it’s me / that’s really trying to do…
BERNADETTE. What, that’s gracing us working-class people with his support?
OLIVER. No.
BERNADETTE. You’re not a better person than me.
OLIVER. I know that.
BERNADETTE. I’m a lawyer.
Pause.
OLIVER. Yeah, and there are lots of people who haven’t been as lucky.
BERNADETTE. I’m not lucky.
OLIVER. Alright, who haven’t worked as hard as you have maybe but I don’t think they deserve to be cut out by a law that limits how much they can say.
BERNADETTE. How much everyone can say.
OLIVER. Yes, how much everyone can say. But it takes more words if you don’t have money, Bernadette.
BERNADETTE. I am not my background.
OLIVER. I know that.
BERNADETTE. No, I’m not my background.
OLIVER (robotically). Yes, and you’re not a lawyer and you’re not my girlfriend. You’re little bits of / all of those things.
BERNADETTE. Yes and I’m not Bernadette summed up in one word or…
OLIVER. You’re / little bits of…
BERNADETTE. I’m little bits of all of those things and yes, more and I’m not something that is finished. Soon, now even, I’m going to be little bits of other things as well and you’re going to have to be okay with that.
OLIVER. I know that, Bernadette. I didn’t mean…
BERNADETTE. It’s a bad law. I don’t think it’s going to pass.
OLIVER. How are you going to explain all of those little things in one hundred and forty words?
BERNADETTE. Maybe I’m not going to explain it.
OLIVER. Then nobody’s gonna know who you are.
BERNADETTE. Well… I don’t… Oliver, I was agreeing with you. It’s a bad law. It’s a bad law. I don’t think it’s going to pass.
OLIVER. Good.
BERNADETTE. Hey.
OLIVER. I’m going on the march tomorrow.
BERNADETTE. I thought we were going to the aquarium.
*
BERNADETTE. Twenty-six.
OLIVER. 123,205,750.
Pause.
BERNADETTE. You’ve improved.
OLIVER. Words humans use in lifetime.
BERNADETTE. A lot.
OLIVER. Used to.
BERNADETTE. Now?
OLIVER. 4,011,350.
BERNADETTE. Still a lot.
OLIVER. If talking from birth.
BERNADETTE. Unlikely.
OLIVER. 119,195,400 gone.
BERNADETTE. Memorised?
OLIVER. Per person. Per lifetime. Extinct.
BERNADETTE. Melodramatic.
OLIVER. Sad. Really sad.
Pause.
BERNADETTE. Qualifiers. They can go first.
*
OLIVER. I’m busy on Friday.
Pause.
BERNADETTE. You’re busy Friday.
OLIVER. I’m busy Friday.
BERNADETTE. Why are you busy Friday?
OLIVER. Okay right well, listen. They want us quiet. Hushed. That’s the point, that’s the point of the law, right? So I thought noise. Noise.
BERNADETTE. Noise?
OLIVER. Noise. Doesn’t matter what we’re saying. Doesn’t matter how. We don’t even need to be saying anything. Word-wise. Just needs to be loud. And it’s actually happening on Friday. It was just this thing that I thought of and now it’s… Thousands of people screaming through London. We’re bringing horns, gongs, trumpets. A couple of guys are bringing a timpani set on a wheely-platform. They’re gonna take turns pushing the platform and playing the drums.
BERNADETTE. But aren’t you proving them right?
OLIVER. Who?
BERNADETTE. Them. Capital T-H them.
OLIVER. How?
BERNADETTE. Walking through London shouting your heads off.
OLIVER. Of course not, we’re being free and using, you know, the human rights that we have.
BERNADETTE. Oh right. Yes. Of course.
OLIVER. You’ll be able to hear us from space. Space.
BERNADETTE. But there’s nobody in space.
OLIVER. Bernadette. You will be able to hear our protest march from space. I mean that is… sick. That’s a fucking cool protest march if you can hear it from… Democracy is all about…
BERNADETTE. What is democracy about, Oliver?
Pause.
OLIVER. Democracy is about voices being heard. On Friday our voices are going to be heard through Westminster, across the channel, across the whole freaking world and, yes, into space. And, Bernadette, it was kind of all my idea.
BERNADETTE. Isn’t there no sound in space?
Pause.
OLIVER. I don’t think th
at’s right.
*
OLIVER. Forty-six
BERNADETTE. Nine.
OLIVER. Okay. Right. I need to just tell you this now… at the noise…
BERNADETTE. No, don’t.
OLIVER. No, I do.
BERNADETTE. Oliver, don’t. Got nothing to give back.
*
BERNADETTE. Coverage was great.
OLIVER. Yeah.
BERNADETTE. Really. The coverage was everywhere.
OLIVER. Not too bad, yeah.
BERNADETTE. You looked handsome on TV.
OLIVER. Thanks. Jealous?
BERNADETTE. What? No. Of course not.
Pause.
Are you happy with it?
OLIVER. With what?
BERNADETTE. The protest.
OLIVER. Well it’s not really about me being happy with it.
BERNADETTE. Isn’t it?
Pause.
OLIVER. Bernadette.
BERNADETTE. Mmmm.
OLIVER. I need to… I’m really…
BERNADETTE. What?
OLIVER. I don’t really know how to say…
BERNADETTE. Oliver.
OLIVER. I’m really sorry.
BERNADETTE. Reeeeeaaaally?
OLIVER (steely). Bernadette.
Silence.
BERNADETTE. What?
OLIVER. Today erm…
Pause.
BERNADETTE. What?
OLIVER. Please don’t hate me. I think that would be probably more than I could, you know… take I guess.
BERNADETTE. What did you do?
OLIVER. I mean I know you do sometimes. Hate me. But it’s always… fleeting. It’s always short bursts of hate and even when I think it’s going to be longer than that it isn’t. But even those sometimes feel like deserts.
BERNADETTE. Oliver. What did you do?
Pause.
OLIVER. Julie was at the march. She… I tried to… I didn’t try that hard.
Silence.
BERNADETTE nods and turns away.
We threw a brick through a window.
BERNADETTE. What?
OLIVER. Yeah. We threw a brick through a window.
BERNADETTE. You threw a brick through a window?
OLIVER. Yep. Of an HMV.
BERNADETTE. You threw a brick through the window of an HMV.
OLIVER. We did. I mean we threw a brick each. We didn’t throw one together. I don’t even know how you’d go about that. Probably wouldn’t be a very good throw if we’d done that. In terms of power or accuracy.
BERNADETTE. That was the thing.
OLIVER. What? Yep. That was the thing.
BERNADETTE. Oh.
OLIVER. Yep. We didn’t get caught or anything but I knew you’d be annoyed.
BERNADETTE. Yeah, I am… Oliver. I’m really…
