Ravenhill Plays: 1: Shopping and F***ing; Faust is Dead; Handbag; Some Explicit Polaroids (Contemporary Dramatists) (34 page)

Nadia
     Oh shit. Oh . . .

Victor
     She’s taking it seriously.

Tim
     Baby, baby.

Victor
     Please, not serious.

Tim
     Daddy’s got to / deal with this.

Nadia
     Oh, oh, oh. Why is this happening?

Tim
     Shit happens, you know?

Nadia
     This is so shit. I love him, you know.

Tim
     I know / you do, baby, I know.

Victor
     Please not serious.

Enter
Nick
, with his bag.

Nick
     Bye then.

Nadia
     Bye.

Nick
     You gonna say anything else?

Nadia
     Nothing else to say.

Nick
     Well, what do you feel?

Nadia
     Too much. Lots of stuff.

Victor
     Nothing, you feel nothing.

Nick
     Do you love me?

Nadia
     Yes.

Victor
     Weak.

Nick
     And I love you. Tell me about Simon.

Nadia
     No.

Nick
     Just tell me about tonight. He kicked you in the stomach . . .

Nadia
     No.

Nick
     Alright.

Exit
Nick
.

Nadia
     This is starting to be a pattern, you know?

Tim
     Don’t say that. Victor.

Nadia
     I think this is a pattern. People walking out. People abandoning me.

Tim
     Hey, no. There are no patterns, okay? Make-up.

Victor
makes up
Nadia
.

Tim
     Nothing’s a pattern unless you make it a pattern. Patterns are only there for people who see patterns, and people who see patterns repeat patterns. So we don’t look for that. We see each day as a new day and we say ‘Hello new day’. What do we say?

Nadia
     Hello new day.

Tim
     Good girl.

Victor
puts a wig on
Nadia
.

Nadia
     Hello new day. Hello me, hello Tim, hello Victor . . . No I can’t.

Nadia
exits
.

Victor
(
to
Tim
)     You promised happy world.

Helen
’s flat
.

Nick
holds up dry-cleaned suit.

Nick
     I did your suit.

Helen
     Thanks.

Nick
     Your tea’s ready. You hungry?

Helen
     A bit.

Nick
     I thought you would be. Knew you’d be in a hurry. Big day, eh?

Helen
     That’s right. I’ve only got / twenty minutes.

Nick
     Twenty minutes, I know. Your tea’s ready. You hungry?

Helen
     What did you do today?

Nick
     You know. Cleaning. Shopping. Found a belt, keep up those trousers. You’re right. She must’ve been a big girl. Never thought I’d find little things so fulfilling –

Helen
     Nick.

Nick
     You’re right. The old days. Always looking at the bigger picture. Everything part of the struggle, the class war . . . Forgot the little stuff.

Helen
     Nick.

Nick
     Or even – yeah – despised the little stuff. Making a home. Looking after someone. But now you’ve let me back / I want to get that right.

Helen
     I let you back because you agreed to / talk to him.

Nick
     I know, I know.

Helen
     So why didn’t you . . . ?

Nick
     Tomorrow, eh?

Helen
     Fucking hell, Nick.

Nick
     This is what matters, isn’t it? Here. Cooking for you. Making sure you look smart for your interview. Run you a bath?

Helen
     No.

Nick
     Let me run you a bath.

Helen
     I don’t want a bath.

Nick
     Can’t be a sticky prospective member, can you?

Helen
     I don’t want your food. Don’t want your bath.

Nick
     Please let me take care of you.

Helen
     When are you going to talk to him?

Nick
     Soon. Tomorrow. I will.

Helen
     You’ve got to meet him. I’m not having him ruining this for me.

Nick
     He’s not going to do that.

Helen
     No.

Nick
     It was me that / hurt him.

Helen
     He only has to mention this to someone in the Party and I’m not going to make the approved candidates list. I’ll be a ‘troublemaker’.

Nick
     I know.

Helen
     So. Why don’t you . . . ?

Nick
     When I’m ready.

Helen
     No. No. Not when you’re ready. You’re never going to be . . . now. Alright. So I’m petty. What I do is petty. I’ve got a petty idea of being an MP.

Nick
     No / that’s not –

Helen
     But you don’t know what it’s been like. All the time you were away. Well, far as I can see, prison must have been fucking heaven compared to what it’s been like out here.

Nick
     You reckon?

Helen
     Yes I do. Stuff we’ve seen. Communities disappear. Greed and fear everywhere. Start off with a society and end up with individuals fighting it out. Fucking terrible.

Nick
     I know / about that.

Helen
     No. You were safe. My mum. Living up here. Half the time the lift doesn’t work. Which in some ways is a blessing. They stink of piss and there’s needles on the floor. So she takes the stairs. Seventy-five and she’s climbing fifteen flights of stairs. You don’t know who’s there. Muggers. Dealers. You take your life in your hands. Year before she died she was mugged three times. That finished her off.

Nick
     I’m sorry.

Helen
     Everything gone. Not all at once. Not some great explosion. Not one day you can see what’s happening and fight back. But so gradually you don’t see it. Long, dull pain. Every now and then thinking: ‘How did we get from there to here? How did we let this happen? It can’t get any worse.’ But it does. On and on.

Nick
     But now you’re / doing something . . .

Helen
     And you do start to make concessions. Alright – I’ll let that one go. Maybe that was an unrealistic goal. Maybe I’ll have to take that on board. You can’t be fighting all the time. You get so fucking weary of always being angry.

Nick
     Yeah.

Helen
     And now finally there’s a chance to do something. Too late for anything big. Too much lost for any grand gestures. But trying to pick up the pieces. Trying to create a few possibilities for the bits of humanity that are left. I’ve seen those bastards fuck up the country all these years. Now I want to do something about it.

Nick
     Let’s get you off to your interview. Let’s get you selected.

Helen
     No point being interviewed. No point in being selected if it all gets taken away from me because you can’t face up to your past.

Nick
     Time for your tea.

Helen
     When are you going to talk to him?

Nick
     I . . . I can’t do it. Please. Just want to look after you.

Helen
     I don’t need you, Nick. I’ve got nothing in common with you. I’ve cut bits out of myself. Bit by bit, another belief, another dream. I’ve cut them all out. I’m changed. I’ve grown up. I’m scarred.

Nick
     You’re beautiful.

Helen
     Talk to him.

Nick
     I’m not going to do that.

Helen
     Then there’s no point in this. The meal. The suit. The bath. There’s no point.

Nick
     If I can’t take care of you, then I don’t mean anything.

Helen
     Then live with that. You mean nothing, alright? You’re meaningless. Go.

Nick
     Alright then. Yeah. Yeah. And you run around from your meetings, to your committees, to your associations. Fill up your time with all this busy, busy stuff if it makes you feel better. But don’t think it means you’re doing anything, alright?

Helen
     I’m doing, I’m doing . . .

Nick
     You’re doing fuck all. Just rearranging the same old shit backwards and forwards, that’s what you’re doing. And you call it politics. Just as meaningless as the rest of us.

Helen
     I’m doing what I can.

Nick
     Maybe that’s where I got it wrong. Maybe nothing means anything. Maybe that’s what I was running away from. So fuck. I’ll be meaningless. Yeah. I’m going and I’m gonna be totally fucking meaningless, alright?

Hospital.

Tim
     No.

Victor
     Come on, honey . . .

Tim
     No.

Victor
     Honey, please . . .

Tim
     I told you no.

Victor
     Gotta take your pills.

Tim
     Got to?

Victor
     Doctor says you’ve got to.

Tim
     And I say I don’t want to.

Victor
     But why? The pills are keeping you alive.

Tim
     But I’m not going to take the pills.

Victor
     But I want you to. I want you to take them for me.

Tim
     Are you taking this seriously?

Victor
     No, I’m a crazy guy.

Tim
     I’ve told you, you take this seriously, you’re out.

Victor
     I can’t help this . . . I feel . . . I want you to get better. I want you to be with me.

Tim
     That’s not why I downloaded you. I didn’t download you because of that. I downloaded you because you wear little shorts and you gyrate to trash. Because you are trash.

Victor
     I like trash.

Tim
     You like me because I’m trash.

Victor
     This is different. This is caring about you and wanting you to . . . please. Come on. Please. In my country –

Tim
     Which I paid for you to leave.

Victor
     I know.

Tim
     Which you say you’re never going back to.

Victor
     In my country which I’m never going back to.

Tim
     Because they don’t make trash like we make trash.

Victor
     In my country, you would not have this medicine. Sure, if you were boyfriend of mafia-boss then mafia-boss would pay for medicine. But if you were boyfriend of go-go dancer . . .

Tim
     If they had go-go dancers.

Victor
     There are plenty of go-go dancers now. More go-go dancers than factory workers. Nobody ever pays factory workers. So, if you can go-go, you go-go. But if you were boyfriend of go-go dancer then this medicine would cost . . . go-go dancer dances for ten years to pay for one year of this medicine.

Tim
     I’d get through an army of go-gos.

Victor
     So, this medicine is no solution for people in my country. And this is worse. This is much worse. To know there is something that could save them but which they can’t have.

Tim
     I don’t . . . I envy, you know . . .

Enter
Nadia
.

Nadia
     Hello.

Tim
     How did you know I was here?

Nadia
     Well, Victor told me. I came straight over.

Tim
     Why did you do that?

Victor
     I was upset. Nadia called when I was upset and I told Nadia.

Tim
     I didn’t want you to tell anyone.

Victor
     I know that.

Nadia
     I wanted to be here. I wanted to see you.

Tim
     But I don’t want you to see me like this.

Nadia
     It’s alright.

Tim
     I don’t want people to see me ill.

Victor
     Then take your pills.

Tim
     Fuck off. Fuck off.

Victor
     He won’t take his pills.

Nadia
     That’s not right.