Stories

by Nina Raine

RUPERT.…The thing is my own upbringing was quite chaotic, but I feel really confident that I myself can be a great dad. I’ve also had a lot of contact with children through the books I’ve written…

  JENNY. So you’re both creative!

  ANNA. Yes…!

  JENNY. Oh super… So, Rupert, have you talked with Anna about how you would divide time with the child?

  RUPERT. Oh yes! We’ve discussed it a lot. Me and Pete, our flat’s quite near Anna’s so that makes things easier already –

  ANNA is nodding.

  ANNA. Obviously it’s hard when everything is still so hypothetical –

  RUPERT. – but Pete and me imagined that the child would be living with Anna until at least two years old…

  JENNY (nodding). And have you met Anna’s family yet?

  Anna’s brother Joe, he lives with her?

  RUPERT. Oh yes I’ve met Anna’s whole family…

  JENNY. Really!

  ANNA.…Yes…

  RUPERT. In Bristol…

  ANNA. My other brother Zachary was visiting from New York, he’d just broken up with his boyfriend so it felt like a good opportunity.

  JENNY. And how did you feel around Anna’s family, Rupert?

  RUPERT. Extremely comfortable, very warm and welcoming. Quite original and quite eccentric, but I liked that, myself. Quite Chekhovian in a way… And Anna’s mum said this amazing thing to me, she took me aside and she said how pleased they were that I was doing this, that I was doing this wonderful thing…

  ANNA (smiling). Yes…

  JENNY. So, Pete, as Rupert’s partner, how do you feel about all this?

  PETE. Yeah.

  RUPERT. Pete knows I’ve wanted kids forever. Pete’s younger than myself but he gets it.

  PETE. Yeah.

  RUPERT. Okay, it took him a little while to get his head around it, this has all happened relatively fast, but he’s totally on-board now –

  PETE. Yeah I am.

  RUPERT. – strangely enough I’d actually sort of broken down a few months ago –

  PETE. Yeah –

  RUPERT. – told him that having a child was something I couldn’t give up on, and he said okay –

  PETE. I did.

  JENNY. Rupert, you mentioned on the form that you have suffered from OCD.

  Beat.

  RUPERT. Very mild, very very mild. In the past, yes, but very mild. I was anxious basically. Under a lot of stress. Years ago.

  Pause. JENNY looks at her notes, nodding. Looks up.

  JENNY.…How do you feel about being an older dad? Are you at all anxious about that?

  RUPERT. Erm… I suppose it’s only natural yes because it’s so unknown, but I think the anxiousness is a version of excitement. So… I’d say I’m excited really. That’s how I’d put it. Excited about being an older dad.

  PETE. Yeah.

  RUPERT. I mean yes, I suppose I have days, nights actually, moments in the night when I’ve worried about the fact that I’ll be an older dad. But I’m okay with it.

  PETE. Yeah.

  RUPERT.…Obviously it’s a weird situation. But every time I’ve felt anxious, Anna and I have talked and I’ve felt better.

  ANNA. The thing about Rupert is he is a genuinely kind person and for me that’s the most important thing.

  RUPERT. You’re kind too, Anna.

  ANNA. Thank you…

  Pause. JENNY looks at her notes again.

  JENNY. Anna, before when I saw you, you were considering using a sperm donor.

  ANNA. Yes.

  JENNY. And you didn’t seem quite ready to do that, I thought.

  ANNA. Yes…

  JENNY. You had a lot of questions.

  ANNA. Yes…

  JENNY. You were still grieving your previous relationship, I thought.

  ANNA.…That’s probably true.

  JENNY. How are you feeling now?

  ANNA. Very different. The great thing about Rupert is that the child will know who their father is from the start. So I feel very good about it.

  RUPERT. We feel very confident.

  She smiles.

  JENNY. Good luck.

  Scene Fifteen

  39 + 9

  ANNA and RUPERT are outside somewhere, holding small tubs of ice cream.

  RUPERT is distressed.

  RUPERT. Honestly this is the first time I’ve been able to talk about it without crying, it’s been that bad…

  His eyes fill with tears.

  Oh God…

  It’s just become untenable, I mean… the anxiety… untenable…

  …I’m just filled with this terror…

  ANNA puts down her ice cream, wearily.

  ANNA. Right… I mean if it helps, Rupert, I feel scared too –

  RUPERT (obliviously). Feeling I had to prove myself, with the counsellor, meeting your family… and I think it was that moment, that moment when your mother said that thing to me, about what a wonderful thing I was doing, at that moment I felt this immense terror… and I sort of knew then…

  ANNA. Oh…

  RUPERT.…And then Pete said this thing … if you’re this worried are you sure you should be doing it and then I had a huge row with Pete and accused him of being unsupportive…

  ANNA. Ah…

  RUPERT. And I just realised I had to stop this. I had to stop. Before I lost it completely.

  PETE comes on holding a little rucksack.

  PETE. There wasn’t any water. Shall I… go again?

  RUPERT. Yes, yes.

  PETE. You’re okay?

  RUPERT. Yes. I’m fine. It’s fine. Go and look at the sculptures.

  PETE (kindly). Anna. Are you okay?

  ANNA. I’m fine, Pete, don’t worry.

  PETE gives her a hug.

  RUPERT. Pete, we’re fine.

  PETE. I’ll go and look at the sculptures.

  He goes.

  RUPERT. So I went to see that counsellor again –

  ANNA. Seriously?! I hated that fucking counsellor –

  RUPERT. Well, that’s the thing, you always hated her, I thought she was nice.

  And she said to me if I’m feeling like this I absolutely shouldn’t go through with it.

  Beat.

  ANNA. Okay.

  Beat.

  Well, if that’s the way you feel.

  Pause.

  RUPERT. I feel so bad.

  Beat.

  (Gently.) Rosemary told me a bit about, how you’ve been let down before…

  ANNA shifts uneasily.

  And I feel this terrible sadness myself at not doing it… but I can’t. The thing is – I feel so bad for you. I really, really like you. But I can’t do something just because I feel bad for you. This is my life.

  ANNA. Okay.

  Beat.

  I’m sorry, Rupert, I, I hear all of this and you’ll have to forgive me, I don’t have the energy left for much reaction.

  RUPERT. I feel so bad… I met your family and everything… Prosecco…

  ANNA tries to pull herself together

  ANNA (dully). Well… don’t worry. They won’t hate you. They’re not like that. In fact my dad would probably understand how you felt, he felt very ambivalent when my mum got pregnant with –

  RUPERT explodes, shouting at her.

  RUPERT. But Anna, your father is married to your mother! He’s married to her!

  Our situation is totally different, Anna!!

  ANNA (shocked). For fuck’s sake, Rupert…!

  Beat.

  Jesus Christ, I’m trying to make an effort here, I’m actually trying to make you feel better –

  Her voice starts to shake.

  I don’t think you realise how hard – I’m having to try – not to – not to –

  She can’t speak. RUPERT’s tone changes abruptly to pity.

  RUPERT.…Oh God, just look at us… we’re just two people, just standing here who can’t really help one another, two people just causing one another pain…

  ANN
A (erupting). What the fuck?? What pain have I caused you? All I have done is listen to you talk for forty minutes and tried to be as understanding as I can! I’ve had enough of this. You have wasted my time. I don’t want to waste a minute longer.

  I have to go.

  I have to make phone calls.

  I have to make lists.

  I have to find someone who will help me.

  She leaves.

  Scene Sixteen

  39 + 10

  ANNA sits with her MOTHER at a laptop.

  ANNA. Okay, Mum.

  I’ve reached a point where… I think I have to do this.

  And I want you to help me choose.

  MOTHER. Okay.

  Pause.

  I think that it’s good, Pippy.

  ANNA. Do you?

  MOTHER. Yes, it is. I think the sperm-donor thing is amazing. We never had that option. When I think how close I came to never having you…

  ANNA. Yeah…

  MOTHER. Dad was adamant he didn’t want children. What if the coil had done its job? What if you hadn’t happened?

  ANNA.…Well, I did.

  MOTHER. But if I hadn’t had you, he would never have seen the point, and then we wouldn’t have gone on to have Zach, Joe…

  DAD comes in eating a lump of cheese.

  DAD. Somebody stop me eating this cheese…

  ANNA. I thought you were fasting today.

  DAD. I am.

  MOTHER.…I could have ended up childless. The point is, you don’t, actually, have to do it with a man, Anna, you don’t have to make a man agree to have children, thank God.

  DAD. Men don’t have to agree for it to happen! (To ANNA.) You’re the living proof! I’m eating this cheese. I didn’t agree for it to happen.

  MOTHER. I think this sperm-donor thing is a wonderful development. O brave new world.

  ANNA. Yeah well. If you look below the line on the Telegraph website. ‘Selfish women’ blah blah blah. ‘Pleasing themselves’ blahblahblah. I mean do they think that men have nothing to do with having to do it this way?

  DAD. It is a perfectly reasonable position not to want children! Look, I’m all in favour of it – now – but that doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t make sense to do it. I mean think of the act of childbirth, for God’s sake… (To MOTHER.) Remember when you gave birth to Anna?

  MOTHER (lighting up). Oh yes… I didn’t know what I was doing at all, but there was this wonderful midwife –

  DAD. What are you talking about? She wasn’t wonderful, she was awful!

  MOTHER (genuinely flummoxed). Really? The way I remember it, we arrived, and it was all going rather slowly, and then the midwife did a sweep to get things moving –

  DAD. Because she was an old-school torturer! Women don’t stand a chance, you’re cannon-fodder. Why the hell did she give you an episiotomy?

  MOTHER (uncertainly). Well, I don’t remember, exactly –

  DAD. Because you were zonked out on Pethedine, you remember nothing! She did it because they like doing it, it seems to me, they’ve been doing it since the thirteenth century –

  ANNA. Why do you keep interrupting her?!

  DAD. Because she can’t remember what it was like! (To MOTHER.) I remember everything, they had to work the scissors round your head, Anna, the midwife’s knuckles went white –

  MOTHER. Really…? I just remember her talking about her holidays…

  DAD. Yeah, I had to tell her to shut up, like a fucking cabbie, if you’re giving birth you have to concentrate!

  ANNA. Of course, you’d know all about it.

  DAD. I do.

  MOTHER. All I remember, Anna, is that you finally came out, and I was so happy… but then I worried because your eyes were shut for so long…

  ANNA. How long?

  MOTHER. About a week. A miracle, there you were, conceived in spite of the coil…

  DAD. You came out holding it in your hand…

  MOTHER. Your generation, well, it’s fucking difficult for you lot. Blokes can get sex without marriage… sex without children…

  DAD. Not true. No one is more henpecked than a man being given a blowjob.

  ANNA. Yeah, and even when they’re gay, they freak out like they’re straight… bloody Rupert…

  MOTHER. Oh, Rupert…

  ANNA. Well. At least it meant I didn’t have to read his graphic novels.

  DAD (to MOTHER). You know what Zach said about that lunch when Rupert came to meet us? He said he was looking at him thinking – (Triumphantly.) ‘At last. It’s Anna, not me, who has to bring home her gay boyfriend.’ (Laughs.) And every time Rupert said something gay, he’d wince inside and think, ‘Ooch! That was a bit camp!’ And then he’d think, ‘Not my problem!’

  MOTHER. That reminds me, I’d better transfer Zach some money…

  ANNA. Muum… he earns more than the rest of us put together… your relationship with Zach is very codependent, do you realise?

  MOTHER. ‘Codependent?’ You mean I need to give him more money?

  ANNA and DAD. No!!

  DAD. – Jesus!

  ANNA. Codependent means… he depends on you giving him money and you depend on him to… feel motherly.

  MOTHER (happily). Oh, we’re definitely codependent in that case.

  DAD. It’s not a good thing.

  ANNA is tapping on her laptop.

  ANNA. So I’ve narrowed it down to two donors…

  DAD. What, you’re still on this?? I already told you which one, months ago!!

  ANNA. I know, but I want to see which one Mum chooses.

  DAD. Why? She’s got terrible judgement. What’s wrong with the one I chose? I liked him. I invested in him. He had a grin just like Joe.

  ANNA. Well, obviously a popular choice.

  MOTHER. His spunk sold out while she was dicking around with Rupert.

  ANNA has pulled up a page.

  ANNA. Okay. Here’s the first. Some Italian –

  DAD. Mozzarella.

  ANNA. – and some Mexican blood.

  DAD. Tacos.

  ANNA. Quite handsome. Not a bad intelligence score.

  Beat.

  MOTHER. Okay.

  Now show me the other.

  ANNA taps.

  ANNA. Sweet face, medium intelligence, some Cajun blood.

  DAD. Mmm. I’m salivating.

  Beat.

  MOTHER (decisively). No.

  I like the other one better.

  I don’t like this one’s face.

  Beat.

  ANNA (admiringly).…Wow, Mum! I had no idea you could be so ruthless!

  DAD. Fuck are you talking about? The woman is lethal.

  ANNA. No, seriously!

  If only you’d been like that about some of my boyfriends… Okay… there we go then… 349087, it’s your lucky day… (Tapping at the laptop.) I’ll put in an order…

  DAD (about to leave, he turns back). Which reminds me. We need to do an Ocado. And something, I’m not sure if it’s raspberries, has leaked in the freezer, it looks like someone’s been whaling, it’s all blood and ice in there. (On his way out, throwing his voice.) We need ginger beer. The diet one. It’s just as nice.

  He goes out. ANNA taps at the laptop. Half to herself.

  ANNA. It’s weird… when you think of all these children that could have come into being with all those different men I asked… but didn’t… all those lives that were never started…

  Pause.

  MOTHER. Have you spoken to Tom at all?

  ANNA. There’s no point. He’s made up his mind.

  MOTHER. But the thing is, Pippy.

  Beat.

  Did you ever really let rip? Really let him know how you feel, let him know what a terrible thing he’s done to you?

  ANNA. Erm…

  Beat.

  …Well, once, sort of, but actually I felt that letting rip was only pushing him away and at that point I was trying to do anything I could to… get him back. So I stopped.

  MO
THER. But he hasn’t changed his mind, so at this stage, what have you got to lose?

  ANNA. Fucking hell… my equilibrium… my pride…

  MOTHER. Oh, pride, Pippy really… amour-propre, what’s the point, really?

  ANNA. Dad thinks talking to him again is absolutely pointless.

  MOTHER. But I think Tom has to know. What you feel. Why don’t you try telling him?

  Beat.

  ANNA. When have you ever told Dad what you feel? About all the shit he’s done?

  Pause.

  MOTHER.…Well. He doesn’t want to hear.

  ANNA. Well then.

  Beat.

  MOTHER. Pippy – what Tom’s done – I don’t think he doesn’t love you. I think he is just scared. Scared of his fucking horrible mother who is a bitch.

  ANNA.…I had a terrible dream where I said to his mum, ‘You are a fucking cunt.’

  MOTHER. What did she say?

  ANNA. We were in a foyer. Someone was trying to introduce us and I said, ‘I know who you are. You are a fucking cunt.’

  MOTHER. Well, she is a fucking cunt.

  ANNA (sighing). No, she’s his mum. She was protecting him. You want to protect your kid. She just happened to be protecting him from me.

  MOTHER. No, I honestly do think it’s all her fault! She is a very powerful woman who dominates all her children and Tom would have been fine –

  ANNA (sharply). So what are you saying about where I am now? If Tom and me would have been fine, if only it hadn’t been for his mum? What the hell does that say about where I am now?

  Beat.

  MOTHER (carefully). Okay. If you’re asking me.

  ANNA. Yes, I am asking you.

  Beat.

  MOTHER (slowly). I think what has happened… is a tragedy.

  ANNA (flaring up). Mum!! I can’t think of it as a tragedy! I can’t go around thinking, ‘My life is a tragedy.’ ‘I’m tragic.’ Don’t you understand? Fucking hell… I’m trying to be positive here… I thought you said it was good I’m doing it with a sperm donor…

  She starts crying. MOTHER is distressed.

  MOTHER. Oh, Pippy, I’m sorry… I just do, I do think it’s a tragedy, I feel terribly sorry for you, I just think life has been extremely unfair and difficult for you… Oh, Pippy… come and sit on my lap…

  ANNA rather unwillingly sits on her lap and her MOTHER rocks her backwards and forwards as she cries.

  There, there… it’ll be okay…

  ANNA (angrily). How can it be okay if it’s a tragedy??

  MOTHER. Shhh… shhhhhh…