Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

‘But Janet, you must understand this doesn’t mean anything, because the woman I really love is Anna.’ He’s not even married to me, but he uses me as Harry uses Helen.

      MARY: [not wanting to hear anything against HARRY at this moment] Oh I don’t know. After all, perhaps Helen doesn’t mind. They’ve been married so long.

      ANNA: It really is remarkable how all Dave’s young ladies turn up here sooner or later. He talks about me – oh, quite casually, of course, until they go round the bend with frustration and curiosity, and they just have to come up to see what the enemy looks like. Well I can’t be such a bitch as all that, because I didn’t say, ‘My dear Miss Stevens, you’re the fifth to pay me a social call in three years.’

      MARY: But you have been engaged to Tom.

      ANNA: Yes. All right.

      MARY: It’s funny, me and Harry knowing each other for so long and then suddenly …

      ANNA: Mary! The mood Harry’s in somebody’s going to get hurt.

      MARY: It’s better to get hurt than to live shut up.

      ANNA: After losing that little poppet of his to matrimony he’ll be looking for solace.

      MARY [offended]: Why don’t you concern yourself with Tom? Or with Dave? Harry’s not your affair. I’m just going out with him. [as she goes out] Nice to have a night out for a change, say what you like.

      [The telephone rings. ANNA snatches off the receiver, wraps it in a blanket, throws it on the bed.

      ANNA: I’m not talking to you, Dave Miller, you can rot first.

      [She goes to the record player, puts on Mahalia Jackson’s ‘I’m on My Way’, goes to the mirror, looks into it. This is a long antagonistic look.]

      ANNA [to her reflection]: All right then, I do wear well.

      [She goes deliberately to a drawer, takes out a large piece of black cloth, unfolds it, drapes it over the mirror.]

      ANNA [to the black cloth]: And a fat lot of good that does me.

      [She now switches out the light. The room is tall, shadowy, with two patterns of light from the paraffin heaters reflected on the ceiling. She goes to the window, flings it up.]

      ANNA [to the man on the pavement]: You poor fool, why don’t you go upstairs, the worst that can happen is that the door will be shut in your face.

      [A knock on the door – a confident knock.]

      ANNA: If you come in here, Dave Miller …

      [DAVE comes in. He is crew cut, wears a sloppy sweater and jeans. Carries a small duffle bag. ANNA turns her back and looks out of the window. DAVE stops the record player. He puts the telephone receiver back on the rest. Turns on the light.]

      DAVE: Why didn’t you answer the telephone?

      ANNA: Because I have nothing to say.

      DAVE [in a parody of an English upper-middle-class voice]: I see no point at all in discussing it.

      ANNA [in the same voice]: I see no point at all in discussing it.

      [DAVE stands beside ANNA at the window.]

      DAVE [in the easy voice of their intimacy]: I’ve been in the telephone box around the corner ringing you.

      ANNA: Did you see my visitor?

      DAVE: No.

      ANNA: What a pity.

      DAVE: I’ve been standing in the telephone box ringing you and watching that poor bastard on the pavement.

      ANNA: He’s there every night. He comes on his great black dangerous motor bike. He wears a black leather jacket and big black boots. He looks like an outrider for death in a Cocteau film – and he has the face of a frightened little boy.

      DAVE: It’s lurve, it’s lurve, it’s lurve.

      ANNA: It’s love.

      [Now they stare at each other, antagonists, and neither gives way. DAVE suddenly grins and does a mocking little dance step. He stands grinning at her. ANNA hits him as hard as she can. He staggers. He goes to the other side of the carpet, where he sits cross-legged, his face in his hands.]

      DAVE: Jesus, Anna.

      ANNA [mocking]: Oh, quite so.

      DAVE: You still love me, that’s something.

      ANNA: It’s lurve, it’s lurve, it’s lurve.

      DAVE: Yes. I had a friend once. He cheated on his wife, he came in and she laid his cheek open with the flat-iron.

      ANNA [quoting him]: ‘That I can understand’ – a great country, America.

      DAVE [in appeal]: Anna.

      ANNA: No.

      DAVE: I’ve been so lonely for you.

      ANNA: Where have you been the last week?

      DAVE [suspicious]: Why the last week?

      ANNA: I’m interested.

      DAVE: Why the last week? [a pause] Ringing you and getting no reply.

      ANNA: Why ringing me?

      DAVE: Who else? Anna, I will not be treated like this.

      ANNA: Then, go away.

      DAVE: We’ve been through this before. Can’t we get it over quickly?

      ANNA: No.

      DAVE: Come and sit down. And turn out the lights.

      ANNA: No.

      DAVE: I didn’t know it was as bad as that this time.

      ANNA: How long did you think you could go on – you think you can make havoc as you like, and nothing to pay for it, ever?

      DAVE: Pay? What for? You’ve got it all wrong, as usual.

      ANNA: I’m not discussing it then.

      DAVE: ‘I’m not discussing it.’ Well, I’m saying nothing to you while you’ve got your bloody middle-class English act on, it drives me mad.

      ANNA: Middle-class English. I’m Australian.

      DAVE: You’ve assimilated so well.

      ANNA [in an Australian accent]: I’ll say it like this then – I’ll say it any way you like – I’m not discussing it. I’m discussing nothing with you when you’re in your role of tuppence a dozen street corner Romeo. [in English] It’s the same in any accent.

      DAVE [getting up and doing his blithe dance step]: It’s the same in any accent. [sitting down again] Baby, you’ve got it wrong. [ANNA laughs.] I tell you, you’ve got it wrong, baby. ANNA [in American]: But baby, it doesn’t mean anything, let’s have a little fun together, baby, just you and me – just a little fun, baby … [in Australian] Ah, damn your guts, you stupid, irresponsible little … [in English] Baby, baby, baby – the anonymous baby. Every woman is baby, for fear you’d whisper the wrong name into the wrong ear in the dark.

      DAVE: In the dark with you I use your name, Anna.

      ANNA: You used my name.

      DAVE: Ah, hell, man, well. Anna beat me up and be done with it and get it over. [a pause] OK, I know it. I don’t know what gets into me; OK I’m still a twelve-year-old slum kid standing on a street corner in Chicago, watching the expensive broads go by and wishing I had the dough to buy them all. OK, I know it. You know it. [a pause] OK and I’m an American God help me, and it’s no secret to the world that there’s bad man-woman trouble in America. [a pause] And everywhere