by David Hare
Isobel I haven’t got shoes. Still you can’t have everything.
She goes back to the main door. The gun is pointing at her back. She opens the door and just as she closes it behind her, Irwin fires five times at the door. It is deafeningly loud. The door splinters. There is noise from the other side.
Katherine No! No!
Irwin turns towards us, the gun now lowered. He looks beaten. There is a silence. Katherine moves towards the door and opens it. Isobel lies dead on the floor at the other side. Katherine looks a moment, then kneels down beside her. Irwin slumps on to a chair. Katherine puts her hand gently on Isobel’s chest to feel for life.
Irwin It’s over. Thank God.
There is a silence. Then the light begins to grow strongly from behind. The sound of high summer. Birds singing. Strong shafts of sunlight hitting the tall windows of Robert’s living room and, in front of them, all his furniture as we left it at the end of the previous act, covered in white shrouds, and spaced about with packing cases. Katherine’s flat moves away, and the next scene begins.
SCENE EIGHT
Robert’s living room. Marion is moving slowly round the room, removing the shrouds from each piece of furniture, uncovering them, one by one. She is in a black dress. The ritual of removing the covers takes time. Tom comes in, wearing a black suit. He is carrying a chair.
Marion Over there.
He goes and puts it down. Marion goes on taking off covers.
Tom There?
Marion Yes, that’s right. Good. The carpet.
Tom Yes. I’ll unroll it. (He moves towards the rolled-up carpet, pausing as he does to readjust the position of another chair.) This here?
Marion Yes, that’s good.
Another chair moved.
Tom And this?
Marion Yes, that’s perfect.
Another.
Tom This?
Marion stands a moment, the sheets in her hand, surveying the room.
Marion It’s as I remember it.
Rhonda comes in, in a short black skirt and jumper.
Rhonda There’s a call from the Ministry.
Marion I don’t want to speak to them.
Rhonda Fine.
Marion goes across and hands her the sheets. Rhonda goes out with them. Tom is on his knees now, unrolling an old weathered carpet of many colours.
Marion We played over there. Under the piano. Isobel had a kind of magic world.
Tom nods. Then Marion thinks, looking back towards the open door.
You must understand, Tom. I can’t come to the church.
He looks up, stopping in his work, also to think. Katherine comes in, dressed as she was for her husband’s funeral. She is carrying a large vase of flowers.
Katherine Flowers. Here we are.
Tom That’s wonderful.
Marion Put them there.
She points to a table. Katherine sets them down. Marion is thoughtful.
Yes, they’re fine.
Katherine Thank you.
Marion Good. (She looks round a moment.) When you were here, what else did you have?
Katherine Oh, ornaments. I think. (She gestures vaguely.) Lamps and things. Well, everywhere.
Marion goes to a packing case and takes out vases and ornaments which she sets on side tables.
Robert loved things. It made me jealous. He’d pick up a book. Or a photograph. His whole mood would change. Right away. Things consoled him. He was lucky.
Marion Yes.
Katherine It’s a gift.
Rhonda reappears at the door.
Rhonda The people out there are waiting.
Marion is still surveying the room, adjusting objects, moving furniture. Tom has laid the carpet and is now standing.
They all want to walk in one group through the village. She does seem to have been amazingly popular.
There is a pause.
It’s like everyone valued her.
Tom Yes.
Marion Except us.
At once Tom makes a move towards her, alarmed.
Tom Marion …
Marion It’s all right. We’ll be with them in a moment. Katherine, come here.
Katherine walks across to her. Marion kisses her on the cheek.
Just wait and we’ll be along.
Rhonda and Katherine go in silence. Tom and Marion are left alone.
It’s all obscure. It frightens me. What people want. Tom. It’s frightened me, ever since I was a child. My memory of childhood is of watching and always pretending. I don’t have the right equipment. I can’t interpret what people feel.
Tom moves and stands behind her, wanting to console her.
I’ve stood at the side. Just watching. It’s made me angry. I’ve been angry all my life. Because people’s passions seem so out of control. (She shakes her head slightly.) You either say, ‘Right, OK, I don’t understand anything, I’ll take some simple point of view, just in the hope of getting things done. Just achieve something, by pretending things are simpler than they are.’ Or else you say, ‘I will try to understand everything.’ (She smiles.) Then I think you go mad.
Tom It’s not that bad. The Lord Jesus … (At once he stops.)
Marion Yes, Tom? The Lord Jesus what?
Tom I don’t know. I’ve slightly lost touch with the Lord Jesus.
He looks at her, then smiles. She smiles too. Then she gestures round the whole room. It is perfectly restored into an English sitting room – furniture, carpets, curtains, ornaments.
Yes. Well done. It’s lovely.
There’s a pause.
A perfect imitation of life.
Marion smiles and moves towards him. They embrace. He kisses her, with more and more passion. He undoes the buttons on the front of her dress and puts his hand inside, on her breasts. Then he runs his hand down the front of her body. She puts her head right back.
Oh God, you feel wonderful.
Marion Yes, so do you.
They kiss again. Then he takes a couple of steps back, smiling, slightly adjusting his tie.
Tom, I love you.
Tom I’ll be back soon.
He pauses, and laughs a small laugh. Then turns and goes out. Marion is left alone. She sits on the sofa at the centre.
Marion Isobel. We’re just beginning. Isobel, where are you? (She waits a moment.) Isobel, why don’t you come home?
About the Author
David Hare was born in Sussex in 1947. He is the author of twenty-eight plays for the stage, sixteen of which have been seen at the National Theatre. These plays include Plenty, The Secret Rapture, Skylight, Amy’s View, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, Gethsemane and The Power of Yes. In 1993 three plays about the Church, the Law and the Labour Party – Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence of War – were presented in repertory in the Olivier Theatre. His many screenplays for cinema and television include Licking Hitler, Damage, The Hours and The Reader.
By the Same Author
PLAYS ONE
(Slag, Teeth ’n’ Smiles, Knuckle, Licking Hitler, Plenty)
PLAYS TWO
(Fanshen, A Map of the World, Saigon, The Bay at Nice, The Secret Rapture)
PLAYS THREE
(Skylight, Amy’s View, The Judas Kiss, My Zinc Bed)
THE GREAT EXHIBITION
RACING DEMON
MURMURING JUDGES
THE ABSENCE OF WAR
VIA DOLOROSA
THE BREATH OF LIFE
THE PERMANENT WAY
STUFF HAPPENS
THE VERTICAL HOUR
GETHSEMANE
BERLIN/WALL
THE POWER OF YES
SOUTH DOWNS
adaptations
THE RULES OF THE GAME by Pirandello
THE LIFE OF GALILEO by Brecht
MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN by Brecht
IVANOV by Chekhov
THE BLUE ROOM from Reigen by Schnitzler
PLATONOV by Chekhov
THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA by Lo
rca
ENEMIES by Gorky
screenplays for television
LICKING HITLER
DREAMS OF LEAVING
SAIGON: YEAR OF THE CAT
HEADING HOME
screenplays
DAVID HARE COLLECTED SCREENPLAYS
(Wetherby, Paris by Night, Strapless, Heading Home, Dreams of Leaving)
PLENTY, THE SECRET RAPTURE, THE HOURS,
THE READER, PAGE EIGHT
opera libretto
THE KNIFE
prose
ACTING UP
ASKING AROUND: BACKGROUND TO THE DAVID HARE TRILOGY
WRITING LEFT-HANDED
OBEDIENCE, STRUGGLE AND REVOLT
Copyright
This collection first published in 1997
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
Fanshen © David Hare, 1976
Saigon © David Hare, 1983
A Map of the World © David Hare, 1982, 1983, 1986
The Bay at Nice © David Hare, 1986
The Secret Rapture © David Hare, 1988, 1989, 1994
This collection © David Hare, 1997
The right of David Hare to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever including performance rights must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Casarotto Ramsay and Associates Ltd, 4th Floor, Waverley House, 7–12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–30070–9
