Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ No, they’re still boring, phoney and stupid, but he is going to be my boss.

      ANNA: You said if you took Jeffries’ job, you’d be in the rat-race, stuck in the rut, and bound hand and foot to the grindstone.

      TOM: I finally took that job because we were going to be married – so I thought.

      ANNA: But now we’re not going to be married you’ll turn down the job? [as he does not reply] I thought not. So don’t use me to justify yourself.

      TOM: You really do rub things in, Anna. All right then. For a number of years I’ve been seeing myself as a sort of a rolling stone, a fascinating free-lance, a man of infinite possibilities. It turns out that I’m just another good middle-class citizen after all – I’m comfort-loving, conventionally unconventional, I’m not even the Don Juan I thought I was. It turns out that I’m everything I dislike most. I owe this salutary discovery to you, Anna. Thank you very much.

      ANNA: Oh, not at all.

      TOM [he now gets up from the chair, and faces her, attacking hard]: Oh my God, you stupid little romantic. Yes, that’s what you are, and a prig into the bargain. Very pleased with yourself because you won’t soil your hands. Writing a little review here, a little article there, an odd poem or two, a reflection on the aspect of a sidelight on the back-wash of some bloody movement or other – reading tuppenny-halfpenny novels for publishers’ Mr Bloody Black’s new book is or is not an advance on his last. Well, Anna, is it really worth it?

      ANNA: Yes it is. I’m free to live as I like. You won’t be, ever again.

      TOM: And worrying all the time how you’re going to find the money for what your kid wants. Do you think he’s going to thank you for living like this?

      ANNA: That’s right. Always stick the knife in, as hard as you can, into a person’s weakest spot.

      TOM: An art you are not exactly a stranger to? You live here, hand to mouth, never knowing what’s going to happen next, surrounding yourself with bums and neurotics and failures. As far as you’re concerned anyone who has succeeded at anything at all is corrupt. [She says nothing.] Nothing to say, Anna? That’s not like you.

      ANNA: I was thinking, not for the first time, unfortunately, how sad it is that the exquisite understanding and intimacy of the bed doesn’t last into the cold light of day.

      TOM: So that’s all we had in common. Thank you Anna, you’ve now defined me.

      ANNA: All right, all right, all right. I’m sorry. What else can I say – I’m sorry.

      [There is a knock on the door.]

      ANNA: Come in.

      TOM: Oh my God, Mary.

      MARY [outside the door]: Pussy, pussy, pussy.

      [A knock on the door.]

      ANNA: Come in.

      TOM: She’s getting very deaf, isn’t she?

      ANNA: She doesn’t know it. [as the door opens] For the Lord’s sake don’t say … [she imitates him] … I was under the impression we had said come in, if I’m wrong please correct me.

      TOM: Just because you’ve decided to give me the boot, there’s no need to knock me down and start jumping on me.

      [MARY comes in, backwards, shutting the door to keep the cat out.]

      MARY: No pussy, you stay there. Anna doesn’t really like you, although she pretends she does. [to ANNA] That cat is more like a dog, really, he comes when I call. And he waits for me outside a door. [peeping around the edge of the door] No, puss, wait. I won’t be a minute. [to ANNA] I don’t know why I bothered to christen that cat Methuselah, it never gets called anything but puss. [sprightly with an exaggerated sigh] Really, I’m getting quite an old maid, fussing over a cat … If you can call a widow with a grown up son an old maid, but who’d have believed I’d have come to fussing over a cat. [seeing TOM] Oh, I didn’t know you were here.

      TOM: Didn’t you see me? I said hullo.

      MARY: Sometimes I think I’m getting a bit deaf. Well, what a surprise. You’re quite a stranger, aren’t you?

      TOM: Hardly a stranger, I should have said.

      MARY: Dropped in for old times’ sake [TOM is annoyed. MARY says to ANNA] I thought we might go out to the pub. I’m sick of sitting and brooding. [as ANNA does not respond – quick and defensive] Oh I see, you and Tom are going out, two’s company and three’s none.

      ANNA: Tom’s going to the Jeffries.

      MARY [derisive]: Not the Jeffries – you must be hard up for somewhere to go.

      ANNA: And I think I’ll stay and work.

      TOM: Anna is too good for the Jeffries.

      MARY: Who isn’t?

      [ANNA has gone back to the window, is looking down into the street.]

      TOM [angrily]: Perhaps you’d like to come with me, since Anna won’t.

      MARY [half aggressive, half coy]: You and me going out together – that’d be a change. Oh, I see, you’re joking. [genuinely] Besides, they really are so awful.

      TOM: Better than going to the pub with Methuselah, perhaps?

      MARY: [with spirit]: No, I prefer Methuselah. You don’t want to bore yourself at the Jeffries. Stay and have some coffee with us.

      ANNA [her back still turned]: It’s the Royal Command.

      MARY: Oh. You mean you’ve taken that job after all? I told Anna you would, months ago. There, Anna, I told you he would. Anna said when it actually came to the point, you’d never bring yourself to do it.

      TOM: I like the idea of you and Anna laying bets as to whether the forces of good or evil would claim my soul.

      MARY: Well, I mean, that’s what it amounts to, doesn’t it? But I always said Anna was wrong about you. Didn’t I, Anna? Anna always does this. [awkwardly] I mean, it’s not the first time, I mean to say. And I’ve always been right. Ah, well, as Anna says, don’t you, Anna, if a man marries, he marries a woman, but if a woman marries, she marries a way of life.

      TOM: Strange, but as it happens I too have been the lucky recipient of that little aphorism.

      MARY: Well, you were bound to be, weren’t you? [she sees TOM is furious and stops] Harry telephoned you, Anna.

      ANNA: What for?

      MARY: Well, I suppose now you’re free he thinks he’ll have another try.

      TOM: May I ask – how did he know Anna was free? After all, I didn’t.

      MARY: Oh, don’t be silly. I mean, you and Anna might not have known, but it was quite obvious to everyone else … well, I met Harry in the street СКАЧАТЬ