by David Hare
Wilde You must forgive me, but I have heard you.
Bosie Heard me?
Wilde Yes.
Bosie What do you mean, you have heard me?
Wilde I have sat here. I have been listening. All night I have been listening. I have heard you moving overhead.
Bosie I see.
Wilde Every step, every movement you have made. I have heard your intent. I thought: a winter trip. Can it be? A return to Capri? But I reasoned that the season had ended. Even Europe’s damned souls … even we do not go to Capri in December.
Bosie shifts uneasily.
Bosie Oscar, it is just … for you, yes, to be in Naples, to write every day … there is a project here for you which is virtuous, which makes sense. But for me there is nothing. Truly.
Wilde waits, saying nothing.
And I have a family to return to.
Wilde I see.
Sensing the quiet of Wilde’s response, Bosie begins to gain in confidence.
Bosie My mother has written.
Wilde Yes. I had noticed that as well. I should request gainful employment as a concierge. I miss nothing. You have read the letter?
Bosie nods.
When did you read it?
Bosie Oh, at the café …
Wilde Ah …
Bosie With Galileo. That is when I decided to come back.
Wilde You were pleased with its contents, plainly?
Bosie She has offered me money.
Wilde Ah, good. Well then …
Bosie She has offered me an allowance. She is willing to forgive.
Bosie looks down, moved.
You must understand. For me, this is important.
Wilde Of course …
Bosie There are times – yes – when I have despaired even of my mother’s love. I have not been certain she would love me again. But now she is prepared to overlook the past.
He pauses before the crucial information.
She is offering me three hundred pounds a year.
The two men look at one another.
Wilde Ah well …
Bosie Yes …
Wilde Three hundred is something. No one can deny it. But tell me: this money, does it come with conditions?
Bosie Oscar …
Wilde What makes me ask this? Do I have gifts of the paranormal? Are there conditions attached?
Bosie looks at him, not answering.
After all, not one minute ago you promised to stay with me.
Bosie I did.
Wilde So, then. I have sat here. I have listened. I have heard you upstairs. Are you the only man on earth who packs his bags to stay where he is?
Wilde has given these words sudden bite. In reply, Bosie becomes formal, as if summarising a legal position.
Bosie You have heard me. Oscar, you have heard my intention. I have said I will not leave you without your consent. That is what I said. I await your consent.
Wilde says nothing. Bosie shakes his head slightly, as if injured by his silence.
I have wanted nothing but your happiness. I have wanted only to make you happy. But in this as in everything our relationship has been a failure.
Bosie is frowning, at an apparent impasse.
So what will you do? Will you live … will you go on living here alone?
Wilde I plan to live with you.
Bosie Oscar, I have said. It cannot be. I cannot live with you.
Wilde is smiling, infuriatingly calm.
Wilde Last night Robbie was sent here by my blackmailing wife. I refused to disown you. In return she has cut me off.
Bosie No!
Wilde Yes. Now I have nothing. It amuses me. I admit I am amused. How often have I said the words, ‘I cannot live without you’? Up till now, I have spoken them from the heart. Now I speak them from the pocketbook. Look in my eyes, Bosie.
Wilde looks up into Bosie’s eyes.
‘I cannot live without you.’
There is something so ridiculous in this that both men smile.
Bosie It is funny …
Wilde Yes.
Bosie In some way it is funny.
He moves away, nodding.
As it happens, I may be able to help you.
Wilde How?
Bosie You dislike my family, you think them inconsiderate. But you do not realise: they have long accepted some blame. They know that in bringing your prosecution you acted in some sense on my behalf.
Wilde In some sense?
Bosie Indeed. My family has known … the Queensberrys have known that they do have obligations towards you. There is a debt of honour. My mother says in her letter that she wishes to make that debt concrete.
Wilde Concrete?
Bosie In her letter she says this.
Both men are now tense, Wilde poker-faced, knowing the end is near.
Wilde Ah well.
Bosie Yes …
Wilde To the heart of things.
Bosie Yes.
Wilde Just how much concrete is she offering?
Bosie is ready, precise.
Bosie She will pay you two hundred.
Wilde Two?
Bosie In two instalments.
Wilde When?
Bosie The first at once.
Wilde A hundred at once?
Bosie Yes.
Wilde The second?
Bosie Within a month.
Wilde Two? Is that all?
Bosie No.
He pauses slightly.
Three hundred more as soon as she has it.
Wilde Five? Five in all? Five hundred?
Bosie nods. Wilde is impassive.
Bosie She attaches one condition. To your money, as to my own.
Wilde Of course. The whole world wants that condition. Here we are, hurting no one. And yet.
The light is growing behind Wilde. He tries to stir. His limbs are stiff.
I have sat here too long. I need to move. Help me.
Bosie goes over and takes both Wilde’s hands. Agonisingly, he pulls Wilde’s bent figure to his feet. Wilde pulls himself upright. He looks around and then takes a few shaky, wheezing steps.
Thus it is. It is done.
Bosie You agree?
Wilde How can I not agree? More conventionally it is you who should receive the pieces of silver, but in this case it is me.
Wilde waves a hand.
You are free. You have always been free. Go.
Wilde goes out. Bosie looks at the room for the last time. Wilde comes back surprisingly soon, and surprisingly quickly, carrying a glass of water.
No speeches, please, Bosie. No reproaches. I have a horror of sentimentality. The lump in my throat is not from the release of my emotions but from the tightening of the noose.
He looks casually at Bosie.
When is your train?
Bosie Soon.
Wilde The first train?
Bosie Yes. It leaves very soon.
Wilde And the first hundred? When will I see that?
He has moved to another chair from which he can watch the dawn. The speed of his acceptance has made Bosie uncomfortable.
Bosie Oscar, I was never born to be a rebel …
Wilde No.
Bosie I met you purely by accident. And yet I often consider how because of that accident I have become an outcast.
Wilde Indeed.
Bosie To me this is a paradox. All I have ever wanted is reconciliation with my family. This way I have it. In my mother’s offer I see some way back.
Wilde Good. In your layer of society, ties of blood always triumph over ties of sentiment. I will be happy to be the agent of the Queensberry family reunion. Plainly if the Queensberrys are reunited, then my passage of suffering has not been in vain.
Bosie can hardly miss his tone.
Bosie Oscar, I would not wish you bitter.
Wilde No? Not bitter, then. How would you wish me?
Bosie I am fond of you. At the end, I would wish you at peace.
Wilde smiles, amused by this remark.
Wilde At peace? Oh, surely. Do not fear for me. I have understood my actions, as you have not yet understood your own.
Bosie What do you mean?
Wilde The governing principle of my life has been love. But of yours, it has been power.
Bosie looks at him, horrified.
It is the family failing. I am sorry for you, Bosie. A love of power confers a whole bouquet of rewards, but peace is not among them.
Bosie is silent.
You called me back, you led me to Naples, not as an expression of your feelings, but in a demonstration of your will.
Bosie That is not true.
Wilde Do not distress yourself. I promise you, I shall be at my peace long before you are.
He says this oddly. Bosie is disturbed.
Bosie What are you saying?
Wilde You have taken from me the thing you most envied.
Bosie What is it?
Wilde What you have wanted all along.
Wilde puts his glass down, and goes back to his old seat. He picks up his notebook. and holds its blank pages up in the air. Bosie looks across at the empty book above Wilde’s head.
There is nothing. The pages are empty. What do I write? Shopping lists for things I have no money to buy. You have achieved your aim. You have achieved my silence.
Bosie is outraged at the accusation.
Bosie How can you say that? How can you say such a thing? I respect your talent. I revere it. I am a poet myself!
Wilde smiles to himself but Bosie moves round the room in genuine shock.
What, you would leave me thus? With this accusation? You would accuse me – what? – of wanting to silence the greatest dramatist of the modern stage?
Wilde Are you the excuse for my silence? Or the cause of it? Whichever, that is the effect. That is the result. To lose my life will be as nothing. But to lose my art …
He is overwhelmed, the reality of Bosie’s departure finally seeming to be real to him.
Come towards me. Walk. Take some steps. Our business is not complete.
Bosie moves slowly towards him.
I have known you six years. I will know you no longer. Come closer.
They are now unnaturally close, just short of touching.
You will never be free until you ask my forgiveness. Kiss me.
And Bosie leans in for the Judas kiss. It is quite short, and when it is over Wilde smiles almost contentedly, a rite enacted. He puts a hand kindly on Bosie’s arm.
And now I imagine you must go on your way.
Bosie turns and goes out. The sun is coming up, beginning to give warmth to the room. Wilde turns out the lamps, then drinks the remains of his water. On the stairs Bosie reappears, carrying his luggage. He puts it down by the door.
In prison I had the chance to read the Christ story. Over and over. It seemed to me the greatest story I ever read. But it has one flaw. Christ is betrayed by Judas, who is almost a stranger. Judas is a man he doesn’t know well. It would be artistically truer if he were betrayed by John. Because John is the man he loves most.
This has been said without bitterness or accusation. And Bosie does not seem offended, just at the end of a chapter. He nods slightly.
Bosie Well, I should be going then.
Wilde Yes.
Bosie It’s time I was leaving. If there are any letters, will you send them on?
Wilde I shall.
Bosie So.
There is a moment’s pause.
Goodbye then, Oscar.
Wilde Goodbye.
Bosie goes out. Wilde opens the balcony doors to catch the warmth of the morning sun. The music plays. Wilde turns to us, his voice filling the theatre.
All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death, and three times I have been tried. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the House of Detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole …
Wilde goes back to his chair where he picks up his book and starts to read. The sun rises, brilliant now over the sea.
End of Act Two.
MY ZINC BED
For Nicole
my love
My Zinc Bed was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 14 September 2000. The cast was as follows:
Paul Peplow Steven Mackintosh
Victor Quinn Tom Wilkinson
Elsa Quinn Julia Ormond
Director David Hare
Designer Vicki Mortimer
Lighting Designer Rick Fisher
A Rainmark Films production of the play, produced in association with Robert Fox Ltd and presented by HBO Films, was transmitted by BBC-2 Television on 25 August 2008. The cast was as follows:
Paul Peplow Paddy Considine
Victor Quinn Jonathan Pryce
Elsa Quinn Uma Thurman
Director Anthony Page
Production Designer Luciana Arrighi
Costume Designer Jane Robinson
Director of Photography Brian Tufano
Film Editors Peter Boyle, John Scott
Music by Simon Boswell
Characters
Paul Peplow
Elsa Quinn
Victor Quinn
There is no Shakespeare; there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically
there is no God; we are the words;
we are the music; we are the thing itself.
Virginia Woolf
ONE
The stage is a black void. Paul Peplow stands before us, alone. He’s an attractive man, in his early thirties, thin, saturnine, tousled, as if he has just woken up. He wears an untidy linen suit and a tie, and his manner is self-deprecating.
Paul Joseph Conrad says that inside every heart there burns a desire to set down once and for all a true record of what has happened. For myself, nothing that has happened, nothing that can happen, compares with the passage of a single summer, from May to September, the trickiest summer of my life, the cyber-summer when I first met Victor Quinn.
TWO
Victor Quinn has appeared along a corridor of light and is advancing towards Paul, already talking. He is in his early fifties, anonymous, thickly built. His background is hard to place, for he has lost his native northern accent. He wears an expensive suit, but no tie.
Victor ‘Many are the stories with interesting beginnings, but harder to find are the stories which end well.’
He stops short of Paul, not yet shaking his hand.
Paul ‘I’m sorry?
Victor ‘Surely you can’t have forgotten.
Paul ‘Oh I see.
Victor ‘Your own words.
Paul ‘Yes.
Victor ‘Though maybe you write so many you lose track.
He smiles and shakes Paul’s hand.
Victor ‘Quinn.
Paul ‘Paul Peplow.
Victor ‘Of course.
Victor gestures towards a chair, leaving Paul free to sit or stand as he chooses.
‘End well’ in which sense? A story which ends well, meaning ‘well’, meaning happily for its subject, or ‘well’, meaning in a way which satisfies the reader? Or did you intend both? Is the ambiguity deliberate?
Paul ‘Both, I think. It was just a book review.
Paul waits, not willing to show his discomfiture.
Victor ‘Drink?
Paul ‘No thank you.
Victor ‘Of course. Wrong of me to ask.
Victor flashes a smile at him.
Well. As yo
u know, I don’t often agree to be interviewed.
Paul ‘It’s kind of you.
Victor ‘Not at all.
Paul ‘Why are you normally so reclusive?
Victor ‘Have we started?
Paul has got out a notebook.
Ah. The book’s coming out.
Paul ‘Please.
Victor ‘How can you call me a recluse? I live in the centre of London.
Paul ‘But you don’t give interviews.
Victor ‘I’m not an exhibitionist, no. I’m a simple man. My question is always ‘To what end?’ To what end would I tell people, say, my favourite restaurant? My favourite tailor? That the world should beat a path to the restaurant? That I should have to wait longer for my suit?
Paul ‘Do you have a tailor?
Victor ‘No. I buy off-the-peg.
Paul makes a note.
If you’d like something to eat.
Paul ‘No thank you. And how did you know I would refuse a drink?
Victor ‘Ah.
Victor smiles, pleased with this question.
I believe you belong to what cooks on television call the vulnerable groups. ‘Remember: don’t put brandy in this pudding, it endangers the vulnerable groups.’ You don’t need to say more. I know about these things. ‘Hello, my name is Victor. I’m an alcoholic.’ You see. I’ve followed the course myself.
Paul ‘It’s not really a course.
Victor ‘No. A course implies an end …
Paul ‘Yes.
Victor ‘And in this case there is no end.
He looks at Paul thoughtfully.
I’ve studied the meetings. At the time I was trying to understand the techniques.
Paul ‘What techniques exactly?
Victor ‘Well, Paul, we can talk about anything you like. But for this particular subject, you first have to concede the accuracy of my intelligence.
Paul hesitates a moment.
Paul ‘I go to the meetings, yes.
Victor ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.
Paul ‘I have no idea how you know. To be honest, I’m surprised you’ve heard of me at all.
Victor ‘England is a series of clubs. No club more celebrated, no club more socially advantageous than yours. Under the guise of admitting their fallibility, people meet in fact to advance their own cause.
