The Retreat from Moscow

by William Nicholson

  ALICE: Did I tell you I’d gone back to my anthology?

  JAMIE: No.

  (She picks up a file to show him.)

  ALICE: In fact, I’ve finished it. It’s all done, and I have all the pages in a file, loose, but in the correct order.

  JAMIE: That’s wonderful.

  ALICE: Darling, putting pages in order requires very little skill.

  JAMIE: I’m just glad you’ve actually finished it.

  ALICE: So this is my plan. I take my anthology, and inside it, between Lost Love and The Long March Home, which is the last section, I place a kitchen knife.

  (She draws a knife out of the file, shows it to him, and puts it back.)

  JAMIE: For heaven’s sake!

  ALICE: I go to the love nest. I ring the front door bell. Edward opens the door. I march into the living room. Edward follows me, bleating and stammering. That other woman—I don’t have a clear picture of her, I’m not sure where she is, but she’s not there. She’s gone out. I say to Edward, “I want you to come home.” He says he can’t. Never won’t, always can’t. I show him the file. “Look,” I say, “my anthology, it’s finished.” He bleats and stammers some more. “I want you to have it,” I say. “Since you’ve taken everything else I ever loved.” I hold it out to him.

  (She holds the file out.)

  He doesn’t take it. He—I don’t know what he does. It doesn’t really matter. Then I take out the knife—

  (She takes out the knife, very quickly, making JAMIE jump.)

  That frightens him. I say, “Since you won’t come home, I’m going to kill myself.” Then holding the knife very firmly, I slash my left wrist—

  (She half makes the gesture, causing JAMIE to leap forward in alarm.)

  JAMIE: Don’t!

  ALICE: Severing the artery, and spurting blood all over the room. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

  (She waves her arm around as if it’s a hosepipe run out of control.)

  JAMIE: For God’s sake!

  ALICE: Edward’s not at all competent when things get messy. By the time he’s stopped flapping about, I’ll have bled to death. Then he’ll be sorry. And she’ll come home and find blood all over her fitted carpet.

  JAMIE: Please put that knife away.

  ALICE: Yes, I should. I sharpened it for half an hour the other day. It’s like a razor.

  (She puts the knife back into the file.)

  JAMIE: You really scare me, waving that thing around.

  ALICE: Do I? You know something really interesting I’ve learned? When you feel powerless, you become strongly attracted to violence. It’s a shortcut to power. Obvious really, but I’d never quite seen it before.

  JAMIE: You could have an accident, you know. Playing with that thing.

  ALICE: An accident? Edward had an accident. His accident was he accidentally became close to someone else, while he was married to me. An odd sort of accident, that. Mine will be better. More colourful.

  JAMIE: If you’re saying all this to frighten me, then I’m frightened, okay? You have my attention. What is it you want?

  ALICE: Oh, you know, this and that. We’ve been over it so many times, don’t you think?

  JAMIE: Can I see your anthology? I’d love to read it.

  (ALICE clutches the file tight, as if to stop him taking it from her.)

  ALICE: I’m not gaga yet, Jamie.

  JAMIE: I didn’t say you were.

  ALICE: You can see my anthology later.

  JAMIE: What are you going to call it?

  ALICE: I’m thinking of calling it I Have Been Here Before. That’s rather the point, you see. Others have been through these things before us. I don’t know why that should be comforting, but it is. It’s the first line of a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Do you know it?

  JAMIE: No.

  ALICE: Do you want to hear it?

  JAMIE: Yes. I’d like that.

  (As she speaks the poem, her attention turns away from JAMIE, and she moves slowly towards the shadowed figure of EDWARD.)

  ALICE: I have been here before,

  But when or how I cannot tell:

  I know the grass beyond the door,

  The sweet keen smell,

  The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

  You have been mine before,—

  How long ago I may not know:

  But just when at that swallow’s soar

  Your neck turned so,

  Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.

  Has this been thus before?

  And shall not thus time’s eddying flight

  Still with our lives our love restore

  In death’s despite,

  And day and night yield one delight once more?

  (Lights fade on JAMIE.)

  (Lights come up on EDWARD. He’s gazing at ALICE as she moves towards him.)

  (She comes to a stop before him, with the file in her hands, looking at him.)

  EDWARD: Yes. I realise now that you’re here that I’ve been expecting you.

  ALICE: Well. Here I am.

  (She looks round.)

  In this truly repellent room. Edward, how can you bear to live here?

  EDWARD: It does the job.

  ALICE: But the wallpaper! Doesn’t it make you ill?

  EDWARD: I can’t say I notice it.

  (ALICE moves about the room, appalled.)

  ALICE: Magazine rack. Breakfast bar. Picture window. All so very—what was your word?—sunny. Is your life sunny now, Edward?

  EDWARD: Don’t do this, Alice.

  ALICE: Jamie tells me you’re moving. To Durham.

  EDWARD: Yes.

  ALICE: So this may be our last meeting.

  EDWARD: It may.

  ALICE: My last chance to—(letting it hang there)—to give you this.

  (The file. But she doesn’t hold it out to him.)

  EDWARD: What is it?

  ALICE: My anthology. I’ve finished it. I thought you might like to have it.

  EDWARD: Why me?

  ALICE: You used to like my poems.

  EDWARD: Yes. I did.

  ALICE: Or was that just another of your lies?

  EDWARD: No. I can even remember the odd line.

  ALICE: Can you? Give me the odd line.

  (EDWARD searches his memory.)

  EDWARD: And now in age I bud again,

  After so many deaths I live and write;

  I once more smell the dew and rain,

  And—and—

  (That’s as far as he can get. ALICE finishes it for him.)

  ALICE: And relish versing: O my only light,

  It cannot be

  That I am he

  On whom thy tempests fell all night.

  EDWARD: I don’t have your memory, of course. But bits have stuck.

  ALICE: I had no idea.

  (She moves to one of the chairs, and sits down.)

  ALICE: I’m sorry I was rude about the house. It’s your home now. I don’t think I’ll ever have a home again. Not till I die.

  EDWARD: Then at least you get to choose the wallpaper.

  ALICE: Was that a joke?

  EDWARD: Not much of one.

  ALICE: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a joke before. You must be happy.

  EDWARD: I think I am.

  ALICE: And I’ve become the past, haven’t I? Your life with me just—a wrong turning.

  EDWARD: I did think that. For a while. But it’s not true. We were together thirty years. Whoever I am now is partly you. And always will be.

  ALICE: You’re there now. You never used to be there. How strange it all is.

  (She holds out the file. He takes it and sits down in the other chair. He opens the file.)

  EDWARD: There’s a knife here.

  ALICE: Oh, yes. I forgot.

  (She holds out her hand once more, this time for the knife. He reaches it across to her. She holds it up and turns it this way and that, so that it catches the light.)

 
I had an idea I might kill myself.

  EDWARD: Alice—

  (She puts the knife down.)

  ALICE: But I suppose I’ll go on.

  (EDWARD looks back at the anthology. He starts turning the pages. He speaks softly, not looking up at her, reading one of the poems.)

  EDWARD: The fields are full of summer still

  And breathe again upon the air

  From brown dry side of hedge and hill

  More sweetness than the sense can bear.

  So some old couple—

  (He stops, unable to go on. ALICE, of course, knows it by heart.)

  ALICE: So some old couple, who in youth

  With love were filled and over full,

  And loved with strength and loved with truth,

  In heavy age are beautiful.

  (Lights go down on ALICE and EDWARD.)

  (Lights come up on JAMIE. He goes to the shadowed figure of ALICE.)

  JAMIE: I had hoped to be able to help you, but in the end all I can do is honour you. My mother, first among women. My own true god. My warmth and my comfort, my safety, my pride. You are the one I want to please. You are the one I want to applaud me. All other women are made in your image, but not being you, are imperfect, undesirable. You are gallant, and strong, and sure. You can carry me in your arms. In your warm unfailing arms. You carry me. How can the child bear your unhappiness?

  (He turns to EDWARD.)

  My father, first among men. The man I want to be. The man I know I will become. When you kiss me, your face scratches me softly, a promise of power that will never hurt me. I believe in your justice, and your goodness. Still today I feel it to be true, untouched by all the evidence of my later life: women love, and men are good. Women love, badly, and men are good, but don’t love.

  (He moves around them, speaking now to them both.)

  When we walked on the Downs, you strode ahead of me, side by side, over the bouncing land, and I ran after you. You grow older now, but you’re still ahead of me, as you’ll always be. For ever further down the road. My beloved explorers. As you suffer, so I shall suffer. As you endure, so I shall endure. Forgive me for worshipping you. Forgive me for needing you to be strong for ever. Forgive me for being your child.

  (Lights fade on JAMIE, and all is dark once more.)

  APPENDIX: POEMS QUOTED IN THE PLAY

  THE IMPULSE

  by Robert Frost

  It was too lonely for her there,

  And too wild,

  And since there were but two of them,

  And no child,

  And work was little in the house,

  She was free,

  And followed where he furrowed field,

  Or felled tree.

  She rested on a log and tossed

  The fresh chips,

  With a song only to herself

  On her lips.

  And once she went to break a bough

  Of black alder.

  She strayed so far she scarcely heard

  When he called her—

  And didn’t answer—didn’t speak—

  Or return.

  She stood, and then she ran and hid

  In the fern.

  He never found her, though he looked

  Everywhere,

  And he asked at her mother’s house

  Was she there.

  Sudden and swift and light as that

  The ties gave,

  And he learned of finalities

  Besides the grave.

  T W O I N T H E C A M P A G N A

  by Robert Browning

  I wonder do you feel to-day

  As I have felt since, hand in hand,

  We sat down on the grass, to stray

  In spirit better through the land,

  This morn of Rome and May?

  For me, I touched a thought, I know,

  Has tantalized me many times,

  (Like turns of thread the spiders throw

  Mocking across our path) for rhymes

  To catch at and let go.

  Help me to hold it! First it left

  The yellowing fennel, run to seed

  There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,

  Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed

  Took up the floating weft,

  Where one small orange cup amassed

  Five beetles,—blind and green they grope

  Among the honey-meal: and last,

  Everywhere on the grassy slope

  I traced it. Hold it fast!

  The champaign with its endless fleece

  Of feathery grasses everywhere!

  Silence and passion, joy and peace,

  An everlasting wash of air—

  Rome’s ghost since her decease.

  Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

  Such miracles performed in play

  Such primal naked forms of flowers,

  Such letting nature have her way

  While heaven looks from its towers!

  How say you? Let us, O my dove,

  Let us be unashamed of soul,

  As earth lies bare to heaven above!

  How is it under our control

  To love or not to love?

  I would that you were all to me,

  You that are just so much, no more.

  Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

  Where does the fault lie? What the core

  O’ the wound, since wound must be?

  I would I could adopt your will,

  See with your eyes, and set my heart

  Beating by yours, and drink my fill

  At your soul’s springs,—your part my part

  In life, for good and ill.

  No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

  Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

  Catch your soul’s warmth,—I pluck the rose

  And love it more than tongue can speak—

  Then the good minute goes.

  Already how am I so far

  Out of that minute? Must I go

  Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

  Onward, whenever light winds blow,

  Fixed by no friendly star?

  Just when I seemed about to learn!

  Where is the thread now? Off again!

  The old trick! Only I discern—

  Infinite passion, and the pain

  Of finite hearts that yearn.

  T H E C O L L A R

  by George Herbert

  I struck the board, and cried, ‘No more!

  I will abroad.

  What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

  My lines and life are free; free as the road,

  Loose as the wind, as large as store.

  Shall I be still in suit?

  Have I no harvest but a thorn

  To let me blood, and not restore

  What I have lost with cordial fruit?

  Sure there was wine

  Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn

  Before my tears did drown it.

  Is the year only lost to me?

  Have I no bays to crown it?

  No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?

  All wasted?

  Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,

  And thou hast hands.

  Recover all thy sigh-blown age

  On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

  Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,

  Thy rope of sands,

  Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

  Good cable, to enforce and draw,

  And be thy law,

  While thou didst wink and would not see.

  Away; take heed:

  I will abroad.

  Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears.

  He that forbears

  To suit and serve his need,

  Deserves his load.’

  But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

  At every word,
r />   Methoughts I heard one calling, ‘Child!’

  And I replied, ‘My Lord’.

  T H E C O N F I R M A T I O N

  by Edwin Muir

  Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.

  I in my mind had waited for this long,

  Seeing the false and searching for the true,

  Then found you as a traveller finds a place

  Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong

  Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,

  What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,

  A well of water in a country dry,

  Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye

  That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart,

  Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,

  The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,

  The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea,

  Not beautiful or rare in every part,

  But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

  O Z Y M A N D I A S

  by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  I met a traveller from an antique land

  Who said: ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

  The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

  M A D E L E I N E I N C H U R C H

  by Charlotte Mew

  How old was Mary out of whom you cast

  So many devils? Was she young or perhaps for years

  She had sat staring, with dry eyes, at this and that man going past

  Till suddenly she saw you on the steps of Simon’s house

  And stood and looked at you through tears.

  I think she must have known by those

  The thing, for what it was that had come to her.

  For some of us there is a passion, I suppose

  So far from earthly cares and earthly fears