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.