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from Five One-Act Plays and also Watching the Wound:
A patchwork novel pg.
157 from Sheherazade A MAN of about forty and a young GIRL in a
railway compartment MAN Why
did you leave school? GIRL Because
I was naughty. MAN What
did you do? GIRL I
went up to my uncle's bedroom and threw all his things out of his window into
the garden. When he came back, all his books, his pictures, his shaving
tackle, and the mugs on his dresser which he told me belonged to his parents
were outside in the mud. His father was a miner, it was the only thing left
from his parents. MAN What
did he do then? GIRL Oh
he didn't do anything. He just looked very sad and went down into the garden
very slowly with his head bowed down, picked everything up and brought it
back to his room. It was my aunt who did something. She called the doctor and
told him that they couldn't manage me any more, that I wouldn't go to school,
that my mum lived somewhere else and couldn't take care of me, and what was
she to do? I could hear them because I was listening at the keyhole. Then
they were talking about money, but I'm not sure that was the doctor, maybe
that time was with the solicitor, because he said "So that is the little
inheritor", and then my aunt said "Sssh". She was in charge of
me, you see, she could do anything she liked, and she was a registered nurse
as well, so was my mother, they both worked in hospitals and so she had the
doctor diagnose me and I was sent to a loony bin. MAN A what?
GIRL A
psychiatric hospital. MAN You're
sure it was a bin? Not a place for supervised education for problem children
sort of thing? GIRL No
it was a loony bin near London. I was the only young person in there,
everybody else was older. MAN How
old were you? GIRL Fourteen.
MAN That's
very peculiar. GIRL What
do you mean? MAN You're
sure it wasn't a hospital with a general ward? Not a place for remedial
education? GIRL Of course
I'm sure. They took me there in a straitjacket because I didn't want to leave
home. It was itching me something terrible and I couldn't scratch myself. MAN Did
they take your shoelaces off? Did you have a knife to cut your food with at
mealtimes? GIRL Yes,
that's right. They take away your shoelaces and you're not allowed any
knives. How do you know? MAN What
was the place like? Where was it? GIRL South
London, I think. I don't really know the address, they gave me a lot of pills
and I couldn't stay awake. MAN Too
young. They don't put you in that young. GIRL What
do you mean? MAN Someone
is doing you over. Do you have any money? GIRL No. MAN You
sure? Anybody died in the family lately? GIRL My
father. MAN That's
interesting. Did he leave you anything? GIRL Oh
yes, nothing very much. MAN Who
told you it wasn't very much? GIRL My
aunt and my mother. MAN Did
your mother sign the papers to commit you as well as your aunt? GIRL I
don't know. MAN Who's
your legal guardian? Your mother or your aunt? GIRL I
think it's my aunt. MAN There
you are. Your mother and your aunt now manage the money you inherited,
because you are considered civilly irresponsible. That's probably why they
put you in a funny farm. If you'd gone to special education, they couldn't do
that, the bank account has to be kept in your name and they wouldn't be able
to have a signature on it. GIRL You
can't talk about my mum that way! MAN Your
mum got money? GIRL What
do you mean? MAN How
much money does your mother have? GIRL Not
very much. My father's side of the family had money. My grandfather owned
half of Islington. MAN Your
Dad leave anything to her? GIRL No,
they were divorced a long time ago. MAN Stands
to reason then, doesn't it? "She doesn't need the money, she's just a
child, we'll buy her a few dolls. What's a girl that age need with
money?" You're being taken. GIRL It's
not true! MAN Maybe
it is, maybe it isn't. I don't see any other reason why a fourteen year-old
would be put in a bin. If you've got any brighter ideas, you tell me. GIRL (after a pause) It's
because I was naughty. MAN Who
said so? GIRL My
aunt and my mother, and they should know. Pause. The GIRL is thinking about the bin. GIRL When
they took me there, they took off the straitjacket just outside of a big room
where I could hear lots of people talking. Then they unlocked a big metal
door, told me to go on through and I could hear the key in the door being
locked behind me. I was in a huge room with about a hundred people, all
talking to themselves or shouting and waving or pushing at each other. MAN Scary.
GIRL In
my whole life I've never been so terrified. They were all looking at me too,
I was the only young girl there, all the other women were middle-aged or
really peculiar with their jaws hanging open and drooling. MAN What
did you do? GIRL I
found a woman who looked like my aunt, and went and stood nearby. She made me
come and sit down next to her. She protected me. If anyone came to bother me,
she would send them packing. She was really nice. MAN What
did the shrink say? GIRL Who?
MAN The
case psychiatrist. There's always a shrink who is assigned to your particular
case. GIRL Well,
when I came into his office I could see that he was looking at all sorts of
papers on his desk. I didn't think anything of it at first because I could
see him looking at the papers and studying them with a frown of
concentration. Then when he held one of them up to look at it more closely I
could see that it was one of the drawings I had been making at home. My aunt
had taken all of them and handed them over to the psychiatrist so that he
could look into them and see everything I didn't want to talk about with him.
All the drawings I had been making at home were in front of him on the desk,
but I fooled him. I never made another drawing after that day, nobody will
ever use my drawings against me again, they're locked away forever. Anyway,
all he wanted to do was talk to me about sex. (Looking
straight at him) Just
like you. MAN Watch
it. If you play games with me, you lose. You can either talk or lick my
prick. It's up to you. GIRL Well,
that doesn't sound like such a horrible proposition as all that. MAN (standing up) All
right, get down on your knees. Now. GIRL (standing up as well. Indignant) No I
won't. Look at the floor. Both look down at the floor. The floor of the
compartment is covered in cigarette butts. (self-righteously) Look at those butts. It's filthy. I'll
do whatever you like but I'm not going to kneel on that. You can't expect me
to. He sits back down, and leans back, quite
unsettled. She sits down on the seat next to him, at first hostile, then she
relents and pulls up the arm rest in order to snuggle up to him like a kid. She is now feeling very much at home with
him, and looks out toward the side as she leans back against him. She goes on
talking, her arms around her knees. GIRL So
he had all my drawings on the desk and he kept on looking at the drawings and
telling me that I was drawing willies. And I wasn't, I really wasn't, but he
said I was. So I said all right, if he insisted, I was drawing willies. Who's
been showing you their willy, he said, tell me all about it. Why do you want
to know, you naughty boy, I said. So as to let you out of this place he said.
Well there I had a problem because I had promised not to say anything, but I
couldn't say that to the doctor you see, because he would have just gone on
trying to make me talk and giving me more and more pills so that I didn't
know where I was half the time. So then I had an idea. I'd talk about the
condoms. MAN What
was that? GIRL Well
you see my uncle had a beautiful silk dressing-gown and I loved to sit in his
lap with my skirt up because the silk felt so good against my bare skin. But
one day I felt something in one of the pockets, so I pulled it out and I
thought he'd bought me a balloon, so I took it and tried to blow it up. I
hoped he had bought it for me as a gift just for me like he did with his
daughter, my cousin Malvina, but when he saw me playing with it he flew into
a rage, it was awful. He hardly ever lost his temper, but when he did, it was
terrible. So I felt horrible about it, and I climbed up on his lap and put my
arms around him and I told him I was sorry, I was so sorry, I was crying and
do you know something, he was crying too, I'd never seen him cry before. Then
he stopped crying ... and ... Pause. MAN He
showed you how it was used. The GIRL looks around at the MAN, then tucks
her head into his shoulder, snuggling up to him, completely trusting. The MAN
is so surprised that he doesn't know what to do. He therefore does nothing. GIRL But
I couldn't say that to the doctor, could I, because I'd promised. I promised
I wouldn't say anything, and I never have, because he told me, if I ever said
a word to anyone, even to my mother, they'd send me out of the house. I'd
have to go and stay with another aunt and uncle and I knew they were telling
the truth. I'd have to leave home if I said a word about my uncle and the
condoms and about how it hurt so much, Tanny, Tanny, you're hurting me,
please stop, please… And
then later: Don't stop, I can make you happy with my body, happier than
anyone else can make you, happier than your wife, happier than your daughter,
even if she's the one who gets the toys and the hugs and the kisses, even if
I'm nobody's daughter and never will be, I will flatter your cock and give
pleasure, pleasure equal to none other, such pleasure as you have never known
before, such pleasure that you will beg for mercy, crawl towards me on the
floor on your hands and knees if I tell you to, and do whatever I tell you to
do … Short
pause. When
my aunt found out I went into the bin. Pause. MAN What
treatment did they give you there? GIRL They
didn't give me any treatment in the bin at all, except for the pills. The
pills made me sleepy, so I began to hide them underneath my tongue and then
spit them out again, that way I wasn't sleeping all the time. The male nurse
who used to give them out was a sweetie, he never checked that I had
swallowed them like he did with the others. Actually, I feel bad about him,
because I used to go with him back to his room, he liked me a lot so he'd
have me lie on his bed all naked so that he could look at me. He was really
sweet, he never tried to force himself inside me, but he'd stroke me and
massage me for hours, it was lovely. Anyway, I got him to have me put on the
list of patients with weekend outing privileges. So then I went on a weekend
walk with the woman who had been so nice to me in the ward, protecting me and
everything, she was supposed to be in charge of me, then when she was looking
the other way, I escaped, I ran away. I do hope they didn't get into trouble
because of me. MAN What
did you do then? GIRL I
didn't have any money to take the tube, so I walked and walked. It was a
beautiful day. And then I walked into Green Park, and I sat down on a park
bench there because I was tired, and there was a newspaper on the bench, it
was the Times, it was when they still had the classified ads on the front
page. So I looked at the adverts, found one that seemed possible, about doing
cleaning in return for a room, and I went and phoned up the person. He saw me
that afternoon, and he wanted me to stay that night. MAN And.
GIRL Well
I did, but he was really boring, he wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to find
something else. I mean I couldn't go back to the loony bin, could I? I did
all sorts of jobs. I found one job modelling at an art school, but then I had
to leave because my boss wasn't very nice to me. MAN Same
thing as the first one? GIRL Yes.
You always know. It's the way they laugh when they say they might consider you
for a job. You don't have any qualification, you don't have any references,
you don't even have an address. But you're young and you have a body that men
like, so when they laugh like that you laugh along with them. MAN Ever
take money in return? GIRL In
return for what? MAN In
return for the use of your body. GIRL Does
exchanging my body for English lessons count? MAN English
lessons? GIRL You
see, I've never really learned to spell properly and I really feel ignorant
sometimes, so I wanted to learn how to read and write like everyone else. I
mean you've got to realize that I've hardly been to school at all since I was
thirteen, and my cousin, the daughter of the uncle I was talking about, she
goes to a private school in Hampstead. I suppose that's why I'm so envious of
her really, she has real parents who hug and kiss her and she was sent to
this expensive private school when I was being sent to the bin. After I got
out I realized that I could hardly write my own name and the three brothers
are always laughing at me because I don't know anything, so I asked Malvina
to introduce me to her English teacher, he's the grandson of a famous Russian
writer, and he's a Count. MAN A
what? GIRL A
Count. A real Count. Count Tolstoy. His grandfather was a famous writer
called Tolstoy. Anyway he was really nice to me and said he would teach me
literature and writing for free, and he even invited me to stay in his place.
So I stayed there, and it turned out that he likes young girls. So I go there
and stay with him from time to time, and he gives me English lessons in
return. MAN And
is he a competent teacher? GIRL Look
it wasn't always like that you know, I worked in all sorts of jobs. I even
worked as a personal assistant to the director of a theatre. When there
wasn't anything else to do, he would have me walk around the West End with a
sandwich board advertising the play. They arrested me once for advertising
without a licence, I was really scared, I thought they'd find out about the
loony bin, but one of the girls on the street told me that you could always
give a false name, so that's what I did and they didn't bother to trace me. Slight
pause. When
I didn't have a place to stay, I used to hitch a ride in the evening at a petrol
station near the ring road. I'd sleep all the way to Manchester and then I'd
get another ride from there back to London and I'd get to sleep all the way
back as well. It's brilliant, much better than sleeping rough, and when
they're nice, the drivers will even buy you food at the motorway caff. MAN You
sleep rough a lot? GIRL As
little as I can, it can be dangerous, you know. There are some really rough
people out there. MAN (drily) Do
tell. GIRL What
you have to do is find a place where there's plenty of people and plenty of
light, you don't ever want to go to a dark place where you're alone, so it's
not always so easy. The railway stations are good, but they come and wake you
up and move you on at four in the morning, and I don't want to have the
police checking up on me. She
looks straight at the MAN. That's
why I won't ever be able to report you or anything to the police. They're
still looking for me because I ran away. MAN You
haven't answered my question about fucking for money. GIRL Oh
yes, well that's another story. I used to meet a lot of women who were in the
life at the Lyon's Corner House at Marble Arch. After I came out of the loony
bin, they were the only people I could talk to, the only ones I had anything
in common with, because they knew what was going on in the street, you see,
they really knew, they were the only people who watched out for me, and they
would teach me what to look for. MAN What
did they tell you to look out for? GIRL Prospective
customers. You check out fingernails and shoes. The fingers have to be clean,
the shoes expensive. Slight
pause: thinking back. One
of the girls introduced me to Mrs. Mutwa, she was the most beautiful and
exquisite person I had ever met, like a piece of precious porcelain, everything
about her was small and delicate, she was part oriental and tiny, but very
strong inside. She taught me how to dress, how to be sexy without flaunting
it in a man's face, because men who are shy don't like it to be too obvious.
I used to come and sit with her every day, she was my teacher. I'd spend
hours at her make-up table, she taught me all about how to do up my face and
make the most of my body. Slight
pause. Smiling in reminiscence. She
used to fix all the other girls up with their appointments, and they would
all come around before they went out with their client, and they would come
back afterwards and talk about it, and it seemed to be the most wonderful and
sophisticated life a girl could ever have. So I'd ask Mrs. Mutwa if I could
go with a client as well, like all the other girls, but she'd always say I
had to wait a little longer because I was too young. So I'd sit with her in
the evenings while the girls came back talking about all the wonderful
nightclubs and expensive restaurants they had been to, and I was really
envious. So finally I told Mrs. Mutwa that it was time for me to go with a
client as well, and so all the girls came along and it was like a party,
everybody lending me clothes and bathing me in perfume, it was just like my birthday
parties when I was still a baby, and that's what it was like when they sent
me off to meet my first John. Short
pause. Mrs.
Mutwa had really chosen very carefully for me. He was a Swedish businessman
in London for a few days and he was absolutely gorgeous, I couldn't believe
it, blond and handsome like he had just stepped out of a film. He was sweet
as can be to me, and we had dinner with champagne, and afterwards we back
went back to his hotel and he was just perfect. I was completely bowled over
by him, and I was so happy afterwards, I was floating on air. Pause. Then
he got out of bed and opened his wallet and took out some money and put it on
the night-stand. That's ... when I remembered. Short
pause. You
know, I really loved him, I would have done it for nothing. So I got out of
bed and got dressed and I left. I didn't go back to see Mrs. Mutwa and the
girls, even though they were all waiting for me, I never went back there
again. MAN
looks out window. After a pause. MAN Pretty
talkative, aren't you? Think you're going to weasel your way out of fucking
me, don't you? A
very uneasy silence. You
talk a good fuck. GIRL
says nothing. Do
you do it as well as you talk it? Shall we try? Pause. Perhaps
you've got a headache. Or is this the last headache you'll ever have? MAN
very slowly reaches out and touches her temple. You
didn't get ECT in the bin? GIRL What's
ECT? MAN Electro-Convulsive
Therapy. At least that's what they call it. It has as much to do with therapy
as my left clavicle. GIRL I
heard about it, but it wasn't done near our ward. We only had pills. The
MAN turns away into his own private world. MAN They
bring it in a little black attache case like a businessman's briefcase, then,
instead of opening up, it begins to sprout wires. The doctor and the nurses
attach the wires with jacks to the suitcase and then fix little pads to the
wires. During that time two other nurses have strapped you onto the table
next to the briefcase. They shave you at the temples, then they wet the
temples with a humid cloth, and then they take a piece of rubber and shove it
into your mouth for you to bite on. Then they apply the electrodes to your
temple and turn the electricity on. Pause. At
that point you're completely out, you don't feel a thing. You don't know
what's going on at that point, the problem is of course that neither do they.
I've watched from outside when I was standing in line to go in, and it takes
four people to hold you down on the table, even when you're strapped down
tight. Short
pause. Thinking. The
eyeballs turn up, the teeth snap together, the eyelids are trembling, the
eyes are white and while the body is convulsing they're holding your arms and
your legs so that you don't knock over the equipment. You see, the hospital
Bursar gets very shitty about that sort of expense. If they kill you on the
operating table, no problem, but if they lose an electrode, the doctor won't
be let go of for months. Slight
pause. Anyway
you come out of it. You're like a zombie, you don't feel a thing. You're like
a corpse warmed over, they call it electrosleep, which is a joke. I expect
that when they off somebody in the electric chair, they call it
electro-station or electro-wastage or something. Waste not, want not. Even
the nurses at your side whom you knew when you went in, you can't remember
their names any more. You don't forget their faces but you can't remember
their names. It's the same with everybody else. Your own son comes to visit
you and you've forgotten what his name is. Short
pause. What
they tell you is that it acts on the short-term memory. What they don't tell
you is that it acts on the long-term memory as well. You read a book and
you're three quarters of the way through before you realize you read it
before. I used to be very well-read, now I'm a Philistine. Short
pause. It
turns the clock back. You're like a baby again. You laugh and giggle to see
people holding hands or kissing in the street. Everything that happened to
you gets jumbled, there's no chronology. The only good thing is that they
stop giving you pills, because you can't take alcohol or drugs at the same
time as that. You go and take a crap, and you spend fifteen minutes
fascinated with your own crap in the toilet bowl, just like a little baby.
You read comic books, you eat candy and biscuits. Short
pause. Of
course the idea is to stop you from being rebellious and angry, and it does
work for a while because you're so knocked out. But after about six months it
comes back again, even worse than before, you just want to kill them all, it
pushes all the psychotic stuff ahead, like a cowboy driving stampeding cattle
forward. And then the anger comes back even stronger and you have to go and
get it done all over again. And again. And again. Short
pause. The
last time it happened I organized a strike. I got all the patients to do a
sit-down in the dining room against the ECT. Nobody would go in, they had to
be carried, and there wasn't enough staff to carry every one of them
physically. Then of course they found out that I was the organiser, there's
always someone who'll shop you in return for a favour, so they came and got
me, put on the straps and I fought them right onto the table, but then ....
Pause.
Then he sighs. Anyway
I'm still alive, just. For six months I didn't know what my own name was. Now
I'm better. But the next time I go back, I'm going to kill the doctor, the
one who gave me a couple of extra shocks just for the road. GIRL
is staring at him, appalled. She puts her hand out and touches him
tenderly on the neck. He looks at her, freezes, and then erupts. As he jumps
up, he takes her by the arm and throws her bodily across the compartment. She crashes into the opposite wall. MAN Don't
you fucking well pity me! I'VE HAD ENOUGH, GODAMMIT, ENOUGH! He stops himself short, turns away, holds his
arms around his body as if to straitjacket himself, sits down, rocks to and
fro and looks back out of the window towards audience. The GIRL slowly and deliberately picks
herself off the far wall of the compartment, and then comes back to the side
of the MAN exactly where she was before and sits down. The MAN, defeated, says nothing,
goes on looking outside. A long silence. She rests her head on his shoulder again. He glances round at her again, unsure, but
she smiles and they both go back to looking out the window towards the
audience, front. Long pause. MAN (to himself, facing audience) I
don't .... She looks up at him. I
don't know why I do this. Both of them lower their eyes. GIRL says
nothing. Pause. But
I'll have to go through with it. It's a question of credibility. The girl looks at him, appalled. I'm
glad you understand. He takes the knife out of the pocket of his
mac and holds it with his two clasped hands in his lap in front of his balls.
He seems relaxed and makes no threatening gesture, but her eyes are on that
knife. GIRL (desperately improvising) Did
I did I tell you I saw my aunt again? MAN No. GIRL I
saw her on Monday. We saw each other just by accident, as I was walking down
the Strand. She wanted me to come home with her but I wouldn't, so we went
and had a cup of coffee together. She was really nice to me, she said how
sorry she was at how things had worked out and that Uncle Tanny wanted me
back as well, and that if I came back they would let me do as I pleased, that
I could come and go whenever I wanted. Then
she started to talk about my education. She said I was too young to be on my
own, that she knew someone who ran a really nice school, that I would really
like it, that everybody was really kind and that they would really like to
have me there. They wanted me to come back home again and they wanted me to
go back to school. She said I was too young to stop my schoolwork that I had
to go back to school if I was to fulfill my potential. That's what she said.
She said I had a duty towards myself to fulfill my own potential. Short pause. I
wouldn't tell her where I lived, even though she wanted me to give her the
address, I didn't give her the phone number either because she would have
been able to get the police to trace the address that way and I'm still a
sort of escaped convict. But then she said that she wanted to take me to meet
a friend of hers who ran a school so that I could see it for myself. She said
that I could take a look at it with her and then make my own decision, so I
accepted. We made an appointment to meet at that school and I put on the
nicest clothes I had because I wanted to make a good impression. I had on a
pair of new boots and a couturier pants suit I had been given and also a
white overcoat, that had all been bought by my men friends. I love it when
they buy you clothes, it's like they love you and want you and then you own
them just like you own the clothes. They go away and you never see them for
very long but when they bought it for you, you were the most important thing
in the world to them, you're in their mind and in their body and nobody else
counts for them, only you. Pause. So I
met with my aunt and her friend the headmistress yesterday, and they took me
around the school. It was beautiful, there was a sports ground and a
gymnasium, just as nice a school as the one Malvina goes to, in fact even
better. It's one of the best girl's schools in London. One of my rich uncles
is willing to pay for the school fees, so that there isn't any problem about
my going there, and the headmistress was really kind, I thought this is
wonderful, I can go back to school and take up where I left off. Then the
three of us went into the classroom which was supposed to be the form where I
was going to study, and the headmistress intoduced me to rest of the class. All
the girls were sitting there in their school uniforms, they all had brown
blazers and purple neckties on, and they looked at me like I had just come
from Mars. The little girl who was sitting nearest to me looked up and
touched my coat as if to make sure I was real, and then she said "Are
you a Princess?" I
looked down at her, I looked down at this little child, and I saw that we
were exactly the same age. But there also was something else. I will never be
that age again. She sees boots and a coat and I see the men that bought them
for me. Looking straight into the MAN's eyes. It's
over now. No more play. No more lessons. They don't even know it yet, but I
won't go back to that school or any other. It's too late. Pause.
I'm
ready. |
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