Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ I want to talk to Anna.

      MARY [from downstairs]: Puss, puss, puss, puss.

      TOM [mocking her]: Puss, puss, puss, puss.

      HARRY: Mary should get married. Anna, you should make Mary get married before it’s too late.

      TOM: Before it’s too late!

      ANNA: Mary could marry if she wanted.

      TOM [derisively]: Then why doesn’t she?

      ANNA: Strange as it might seem to you, she doesn’t want to get married just for the sake of getting married.

      HARRY: Yes, but that’s all very well, Anna. It’s all right for you – you’re such a self-contained little thing. But not for Mary. You should get her married regardless to the first clot who comes along.

      ANNA: I – self-contained!

      TOM: Yes, it’s true – self-contained!

      MARY [from downstairs]: Pussy, pussy, yes come here, puss, puss, puss, puss.

      TOM [to HARRY]: She’s getting worse. [as ANNA stiffens up] Yes, all right, Anna, but it’s true. [to HARRY] She’s man-crazy …

      HARRY: Oh you silly ass.

      TOM: Well she is. She’s crazy for a man, wide open, if you so much as smile at her, she responds. And Anna says she doesn’t want to marry. Who are you fooling, Anna?

      ANNA [sweetly]: Perhaps she prefers to be sex-starved than to marry an idiot. Which is more than can be said about most men.

      HARRY: Now Anna, don’t start, Anna, Tom’s a nice man, but he’s pompous. [to TOM] You’re a pompous ass, admit it, Tom.

      TOM: All I said was, Mary’s man-crazy.

      ANNA [on the warpath]: Do you know how Tom was living before he started with me?

      HARRY: Yes, of course. Anna, don’t make speeches at us!

      TOM: Well, how was I living before I started with you?

      HARRY: Oh, my God.

      ANNA: What is known as a bachelor’s life – Tom’s own nice inimitable version of it. He sat in his nice little flat, and round about ten at night, if he felt woman-crazy enough, he rang up one of three girls, all of whom were in love with him.

      HARRY: Christ knows why.

      ANNA: Imagine it, the telephone call at bedtime – are you free tonight, Elspeth, Penelope, Jessica? One of them came over, a drink or a cup of coffee, a couple of hours of bed, and then a radio-taxi home.

      HARRY: Anna!

      ANNA: Oh from time to time he explained to them that they mustn’t think his kind attentions to them meant anything.

      HARRY: Anna, you’re a bore when you get like this.

      TOM: Yes, you are.

      ANNA: Then don’t call Mary names.

      [MARY comes in.]

      MARY [suspicious]: You were talking about me?

      ANNA: No, about me.

      MARY: Oh I thought it was about me. [to ANNA] There’s a girl wants to see you. She says it’s important. She wouldn’t give her name.

      ANNA [she is thinking]: I see.

      MARY: But she’s an American girl. It’s the wrong time of the year – summer’s for Americans.

      ANNA: An American girl.

      MARY: One of those nice bright neat clean American girls, how they do it, I don’t know, all I know is that you can tell from a hundred yards off they’d rather be seen dead than with their legs or their armpits unshaved, ever so antiseptic, she looked rather sweet really.

      HARRY: Tell her to go away and we’ll all wait for you. Come on, Tom.

      TOM: I’m staying.

      HARRY: Come on, Mary, give me a nice cup of coffee.

      MARY: It’s a long time since you and I had a good gossip.

      [HARRY and MARY go out, arm in arm.]

      TOM: Well, who is she?

      ANNA: I don’t know.

      TOM: I don’t believe you.

      ANNA: You never do.

      [MARY’S voice, and the voice of an American girl, outside on the stairs.]

      [JANET STEVENS comes in. She is a neat attractive girl of about 22. She is desperately anxious and trying to hide it.]

      JANET: Are you Anna Freeman?

      ANNA: Yes. And this is Tom Lattimer.

      JANET: I am Janet Stevens. [she has expected ANNA to know the name] Janet Stevens.

      ANNA: How do you do?

      JANET: Janet Stevens from Philadelphia. [as ANNA still does not react] I hope you will excuse me for calling on you like this.

      ANNA: Not at all.

      [JANET looks at TOM. ANNA looks at TOM. TOM goes to the window, turns his back.]

      JANET [still disbelieving ANNA]: I thought you would know my name.

      ANNA: No.

      TOM: But she has been expecting you all afternoon.

      JANET [at sea]: All afternoon?

      ANNA [angry]: No, it’s not true.

      JANET: I don’t understand, you were expecting me this afternoon?

      ANNA: No. But may I ask, how you know me?

      JANET: Well, we have a friend in common. Dave Miller.

      TOM [turning, furious]: You could have said so, couldn’t you, Anna?

      ANNA: But I didn’t know.

      TOM: You didn’t know. Well I’m going. You’ve behaved disgracefully.

      ANNA: Very likely. However just regard me as an unfortunate lapse from the straight and narrow on your journey to respectability.

      [TOM goes out, slamming the door.]

      ANNA [politely]: That was my – fiancé.

      JANET: Oh, Dave didn’t say you СКАЧАТЬ