Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

Maybe.

      DAVE [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 she does not move, he turns out the light. The room as before: two patterned circles of light on the ceiling from the paraffin lamps.]

      ANNA: Dave, it’s no point starting all over again.

      DAVE: But baby, you and I will always be together, one way or another.

      ANNA: You’re crazy.

      DAVE: In a good cause. [he sits cross-legged on the edge of the carpet and waits] Come and sit. [ANNA slowly sits, opposite him. He smiles at her. She slowly smiles back. As she smiles, the walls fade out. They are two small people in the city, the big, ugly, baleful city all around them, over-shadowing them.]

      DAVE: There baby, that’s better.

      ANNA: OK.

      DAVE: I don’t care what you do – you can crack up if you like, or you can turn Lesbian. You can take to drink. You can even get married. But I won’t have you shutting yourself up.

      [A lorry roars. A long wolf-whistle. Shrill female voices from the street.]

      ANNA: Those girls opposite quarrel. I hate it. Last night they were rolling in the street