Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

LATTIMER: Who is on the point of taking a job as business manager of a woman’s magazine. About thirty-five, a middle-class Englishman.

      

      HARRY PAINE: Fifty-ish. A journalist.

      

      JANET STEVENS: In her early twenties, the daughter of an insurance agent – American.

       Act One

      The action of this play takes place in ANNA FREEMAN’S room on the first floor of MARY JACKSON’S house, on a street in London with heavy traffic. ANNA has lived here for some years. There is another room, behind this one, used by her son, now at school; but ANNA sleeps and lives in this room. It is very large and looks formal because it is underfurnished. There are double doors at left-back. When they are open the landing can be seen, and part of the stairway leading up. The house was originally built for rich people and still shows signs of it. The landing and stairs are spacious and carpeted in dark red; the banisters are elegant and painted white. The upper part of the doors are of glass, and therefore the doorway has a dark red curtain, usually drawn back. The room is painted white, walls and ceilings. There is a low wide divan, covered in rough black material, in the right back corner; a window, with dark red curtains, in the right wall; a large, round, ornate mirror, on the left wall; a low shelf of books under the window. The floor is painted black and has in the centre of it a round crimson carpet. There are two stiff-looking chairs on either side of the mirror, of dark wood, and seated in dark red. The life of the room is concentrated around the divan. A low table by its head has a telephone, and is loaded with books and papers, and a small reading light. At the foot of the divan is another low table, with a typewriter, at which ANNA works by kneeling, or squatting, on the divan. This table has another reading light, and a record player. Around the divan is a surf of books, magazines, newspapers, records, cushions. There is a built-in cupboard, hardly noticeable until opened, in the right wall. Two paraffin heaters, of the cheap black cylindrical kind, are both lit. It is winter. The year is 1958. At the opening of the play the time is about nine in the evening, at its close it is four in the morning.

      [ANNA is standing at the window, which is open at the top, her back to the room. She is wearing slacks and a sweater: these are pretty, even fashionable; the reason for the trousers is that it is hard to play Act II in a skirt.]

      [TOM is standing behind ANNA, waiting, extremely exasperated. This scene between them has been going on for some time. They are both tense, irritated, miserable.]

      [TOM’S sarcasm and pomposity are his way of protecting himself from his hurt at how he has been treated.]

      [ANNA’S apparent casualness is how she wards off a hysteria that is only just under control. She is guilty about TOM, unhappy about DAVE – and this tension in her underlies everything she says or does until that moment towards the end of Act One when DAVE, because of his moral ascendancy over her, forces her to relax and smile.]

      [A moment’s silence. Then a scream and a roar of traffic, which sounds as if it is almost in the room. TOM loses patience, goes past ANNA to window, slams it shut, loudly.]

      TOM: Now say: ‘I could repeat every word you’ve said.’

      ANNA [in quotes]: I’ve scarcely seen you during the last two weeks. You always have some excuse. Mary answers the telephone and says you are out. I was under the impression we were going to be married. If I’m wrong please correct me. I simply cannot account for the change in your attitude … how’s that?

      [TOM looks at her, gives her a small sardonic bow, goes past her to a chair which is set so he is facing half away from her. He sits in it in a pose which he has clearly been occupying previously – for ANNA looks at him, equally sardonic. Since the chair is hard and upright, not designed for comfort, he is almost lying in a straight line from his crossed ankles to his chin, which is upturned because he is looking with weary patience at the ceiling. His fingertips are held lightly together.]

      [ANNA, having registered the fact that his pose is designed to annoy, goes back to the window and stands looking down.]

      ANNA: That man is still down there. Do you know, he comes every night and just stands there, hour after hour after hour. And it’s so cold.

      TOM: Yes, it is … Anna, I was under the impression that my attraction for you, such as it is, of course, was that I’m rather more reliable, more responsible? than the usual run of your friends?

      ANNA: Do you realize that man hasn’t so much as moved a muscle since he arrived at six? There he stands, gazing up at that window. And the top half of that house is a brothel. He must have seen one of the girls in the street and fallen in love. Imagine it, I’ve been living here all these years and I never knew that house was a brothel. There are four Lesbians living together, and that poor sap’s in love with one of them. Well, isn’t it frightening?

      TOM: When you walked into my flat that evening – if I may remind you of it – you said you were in search of a nice solid shoulder to weep on. You said you couldn’t stand another minute of living like this. Well?

      ANNA: I asked the policeman at the corner. Why yes, miss, he said, all fatherly and protective, they’ve been there for years and years. But don’t you worry your pretty little head about a thing, we have our eyes on them all the time.

      TOM: I suppose what all this amounts to is that your fascinating American is around again.

      ANNA: I told you, no. I haven’t seen Dave for weeks. Perhaps I should go down and tell that poor moonstruck idiot – look, you poor sap, all you’ve got to do is to go upstairs with fifty shillings in your hand and your goddess is yours?

      TOM: And while you’re about it, you could take him off for a nice cup of tea, listen to his troubles and tell him yours.

      ANNA: Yes I could. Why not?

      TOM: You’re going to go on like this I suppose until the next time. Dave or some similarly fascinating character plays you up and you decide that good old Tom will do for a month or so?

      ANNA: Tom, it’s nine-fifteen. You’re expected at the Jeffries at nine-thirty.

      TOM: I did accept for you too.

      ANNA: Yes you did, and you didn’t even ask me first.

      TOM: I see.

      ANNA: No, you don’t see. Tom, until two weeks ago you said you couldn’t stand either of the Jeffries, you said, quote, they were boring, phoney and stupid. But now he’s going to be your boss it’s different?

      TOM: No, they’re still boring, phoney and stupid, but he is going to be my boss.

      ANNA: You said if you took Jeffries’ job, you’d be in the rat-race, stuck in the rut, and bound hand and foot to the grindstone.

      TOM: I finally took that job because we were going to be married – so I thought.

      ANNA: But now we’re not going to be married you’ll turn down the job? [as he does not reply] I thought not. So don’t use me to justify yourself.

      TOM: You really do rub things in, Anna. All right then. For a number of years I’ve been seeing myself as a sort of a rolling stone, a fascinating free-lance, a man of infinite possibilities. It turns out that I’m just another good middle-class citizen after all – I’m comfort-loving, conventionally unconventional, I’m not even the Don Juan I thought I was. It turns out that I’m everything I dislike most. I owe this salutary discovery to you, Anna. Thank you very much.

      ANNA: Oh, not at all.

      TOM [he now gets up from the chair, and faces her, attacking hard]: Oh my God, you stupid little romantic. Yes, that’s what you are, and a prig into the bargain. Very pleased with yourself because you won’t soil your hands. Writing a little review here,