Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ [switching to black aggression]: God, how I hate your smug female guts. All of you – there’s never anything free – everything to be paid for. Every time, an account rendered. Every time, when you’re swinging free there’s a moment when the check lies on the table – pay up, pay up, baby.

      ANNA: Have you come here to get on to one of your anti-woman kicks?

      DAVE: Well I’m not being any woman’s pet, and that’s what you all want. [leaping up and doing his mocking dance step] I’ve kept out of all the traps so far, and I’m going to keep out.

      ANNA: So you’ve kept out of all the traps.

      DAVE: That’s right. And I’m not going to stand for you either – mother of the world, the great womb, the eternal conscience. I like women, but I’m going to like them my way and not according to the rules laid down by the incorporated mothers of the universe.

      ANNA: Stop it, stop it, stop boasting.

      DAVE: But Anna, you’re as bad. There’s always a moment when you become a sort of flaming sword of retribution.

      ANNA: At which moment – have you asked yourself? You and I are so close we know everything about each other – and then suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, you start telling me lies like – lies out of a corner-boy’s jest book. I can’t stand it.

      DAVE [shouting at her]: Lies – I never tell you lies.

      ANNA: Oh hell, Dave.

      DAVE: Well you’re not going to be my conscience. I will not let you be my conscience.

      ANNA: Amen and hear hear. But why do you make me your conscience?

      DAVE [deflating]: I don’t know. [with grim humour] I’m an American. I’m in thrall to the great mother.

      ANNA: Well I’m not an American.

      DAVE [shouting]: No, but you’re a woman, and at bottom you’re the same as the whole lousy lot of…

      ANNA: Get out of here then. Get out.

      DAVE [he sits cross-legged, on the edge of the carpet, his head in his hands]: Jesus.

      ANNA: You’re feeling guilty so you beat me up. I won’t let you.

      DAVE: Come here.

      [ANNA goes to him, kneels opposite him, lays her two hands on his diaphragm.]

      Yes, like that. [he suddenly relaxes, head back, eyes closed] Anna, when I’m away from you I’m cut off from something – I don’t know what it is. When you put your hands on me, I begin to breathe.

      ANNA: Oh. [She lets her hands drop and stands up.]

      DAVE: Where are you going?

      [ANNA goes back to the window. A silence. A wolf-whistle from the street. Another.]

      ANNA: He’s broken his silence. He’s calling her. Deep calls to deep.

      [Another whistle. ANNA winces.]

      DAVE: You’ve missed me?

      ANNA: All the time.

      DAVE: What have you been doing?

      ANNA: Working a little.

      DAVE: What else?

      ANNA: I said I’d marry Tom, then I said I wouldn’t.

      DAVE [dismissing it]: I should think not.

      ANNA [furious]: O-h-h-h.

      DAVE: Seriously, what?

      ANNA: I’ve been coping with Mary – her son’s marrying.

      DAVE [heartily]: Good for him. Well, it’s about time.

      ANNA: Oh quite so.

      DAVE [mimicking her]: Oh quite so.

      ANNA [dead angry]: I’ve also spent hours of every day with Helen, Harry’s ever-loving wife.

      DAVE: Harry’s my favourite person in London.

      ANNA: And you are his. Strange, isn’t it?

      DAVE: We understand each other.

      ANNA: And Helen and I understand each other.

      DAVE [hastily]: Now, Anna.

      ANNA: Helen’s cracking up. Do you know what Harry did? He came to her, because he knew this girl of his was thinking of getting married, and he said: Helen, you know I love you, but I can’t live without her. He suggested they should all live together in the same house – he, Helen and his girl. Regularizing things, he called it.

      DAVE [deliberately provocative]: Yeah? Sounds very attractive to me.

      ANNA: Yes, I thought it might. Helen said to him – who’s going to share your bed? Harry said, well, obviously they couldn’t all sleep in the same bed, but…

      DAVE: Anna, stop it.

      ANNA: Helen said it was just possible that the children might be upset by the arrangement.

      DAVE: I was waiting for that – the trump card – you can’t do that, it might upset the kiddies. Well not for me, I’m out.

      ANNA [laughing]: Oh are you?

      DAVE: Yes. [ANNA laughs.] Have you finished?

      ANNA: No. Harry and Helen. Helen said she was going to leave him. Harry said: ‘But darling, you’re too old to get another man now and …’

      DAVE [mocking]: Women always have to pay – and may it long remain that way.

      ANNA: Admittedly there’s one advantage to men like you and Harry. You are honest.

      DAVE: Anna, listen, whenever I cheat on you it takes you about two weeks to settle into a good temper again. Couldn’t we just speed it up and get it over with?

      ANNA: Get it over with. [she laughs]

      DAVE: The laugh is new. What’s so funny?

      [A wolf-whistle from the street. Then a sound like a wolf howling. ANNA slams the window up.]

      DAVE: Open that window.

      ANNA: No, I can’t stand it.

      DAVE: Anna, I will not have you shutting yourself up. I won’t have you spitting out venom and getting all bitter and vengeful. Open that window.

      [ANNA opens it. Stands by it, passive.]

      Come and sit down. And turn the lights out.

      [As СКАЧАТЬ