Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

Tom, you really have been bad for Anna, you’ve made her all bitchy.

      ANNA: Dave will marry some girl who’s in love with him. Oh, he’ll fight every inch of the way, of course. Then there’ll be children and he’ll be free to do as he likes. He’ll have a succession of girls, and in between each one he’ll go back and weep on his wife’s shoulder because of his unfortunately weak character. Weak like hell. She’ll forgive him all right. He’ll even use her compliance as an additional attraction for the little girls, just as you do. My wife understands me, he’ll say, with a sloppy look on his face. She knows what I’m like. She’ll always be there to take me back. God almighty, what a man.

      HARRY: Anna, you little bitch.

      ANNA: That’s right. But there’s just one thing, Dave shouldn’t have picked on me. I’m economically independent. I have no urge for security so I don’t have to sell myself out. And I have a child already, so there’s no way of making me helpless, is there, dear weak, helpless Harry?

      HARRY: Mary, you should have told me Anna was in such a bitchy mood and I wouldn’t have come up.

      MARY: But I did tell you, and you said, ‘Well Anna won’t be bitchy with me.’

      [The door bell, downstairs.]

      MARY: I’ll go.

      ANNA: Mary, I’m out.

      MARY: Well don’t blame me for Harry, he insisted. [as she goes out] Pussy, pussy, puss, puss.

      HARRY: I can’t think what Mary would do if Anna did get married.

      TOM [spitefully]: They are rather like an old married couple, aren’t they?

      [ANNA pulls down the window with a crash and turns her back on them.]

      HARRY: But so nice to drop in on for aid and comfort when in trouble. [to ANNA’S back] Anna, I’m in trouble.

      ANNA: Don’t worry, you’ll be in love with someone else in a few weeks.

      HARRY [humorous but serious]: But I won’t. This girl, my poppet, she’s getting married. [as ANNA shrugs] For God’s sake woman, shut the window, it’s freezing. [ANNA shuts it, but remains looking down.] She met some swine at a party – actually he’s very nice. A handsome young swine – he really is nice. She’s marrying him – actually, I advised her to. Anna!

      ANNA: Did you expect her to hang round for the rest of her life in a state of single blessedness because you didn’t want to break up your happy home with Helen? [she turns, sees his face, which is genuinely miserable] Oh all right. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. [She puts her arms around him.]

      HARRY: There’s my Anna. [to TOM] I’m sure you’ve never seen this side of her, but she is a sweet girl, at heart.

      TOM: Well, now you’ve gained your little need of sympathy from Anna, perhaps I may be permitted to say a word or two?

      HARRY: No. You two should just kiss and say goodbye and stop tormenting each other.

      TOM: Anna I know that what goes on in the street is a hundred times more interesting than I am, but …

      HARRY: Of course it is, she’s waiting for Dave.

      ANNA: I’m not waiting for Dave.

      [She comes away from the window. Sits on the bed, her head in her hands.]

      TOM: I want to talk to Anna.

      MARY [from downstairs]: Puss, puss, puss, puss.

      TOM [mocking her]: Puss, puss, puss, puss.

      HARRY: Mary should get married. Anna, you should make Mary get married before it’s too late.

      TOM: Before it’s too late!

      ANNA: Mary could marry if she wanted.

      TOM [derisively]: Then why doesn’t she?

      ANNA: Strange as it might seem to you, she doesn’t want to get married just for the sake of getting married.

      HARRY: Yes, but that’s all very well, Anna. It’s all right for you – you’re such a self-contained little thing. But not for Mary. You should get her married regardless to the first clot who comes along.

      ANNA: I – self-contained!

      TOM: Yes, it’s true – self-contained!

      MARY [from downstairs]: Pussy, pussy, yes come here, puss, puss, puss, puss.

      TOM [to HARRY]: She’s getting worse. [as ANNA stiffens up] Yes, all right, Anna, but it’s true. [to HARRY] She’s man-crazy …

      HARRY: Oh you silly ass.

      TOM: Well she is. She’s crazy for a man, wide open, if you so much as smile at her, she responds. And Anna says she doesn’t want to marry. Who are you fooling, Anna?

      ANNA [sweetly]: Perhaps she prefers to be sex-starved than to marry an idiot. Which is more than can be said about most men.

      HARRY: Now Anna, don’t start, Anna, Tom’s a nice man, but he’s pompous. [to TOM] You’re a pompous ass, admit it, Tom.

      TOM: All I said was, Mary’s man-crazy.

      ANNA [on the warpath]: Do you know how Tom was living before he started with me?

      HARRY: Yes, of course. Anna, don’t make speeches at us!

      TOM: Well, how was I living before I started with you?

      HARRY: Oh, my God.

      ANNA: What is known as a bachelor’s life – Tom’s own nice inimitable version of it. He sat in his nice little flat, and round about ten at night, if he felt woman-crazy enough, he rang up one of three girls, all of whom were in love with him.

      HARRY: Christ knows why.

      ANNA: Imagine it, the telephone call at bedtime – are you free tonight, Elspeth, Penelope, Jessica? One of them came over, a drink or a cup of coffee, a couple of hours of bed, and then a radio-taxi home.

      HARRY: Anna!

      ANNA: Oh from time to time he explained to them that they mustn’t think his kind attentions to them meant anything.

      HARRY: Anna, you’re a bore when you get like this.

      TOM: Yes, you are.

      ANNA: Then don’t call Mary names.

      [MARY comes in.]

      MARY [suspicious]: You were talking about me?

      ANNA: No, about me.

      MARY: Oh I thought it was about me. [to ANNA] There’s a girl wants to see you. She says it’s important. She wouldn’t give her name.

      ANNA [she is thinking]: I see.

      MARY: But she’s an American girl. It’s the wrong time of the year – summer’s for Americans.

      ANNA: An American girl.

      MARY: One of those nice bright neat clean American girls, how they do it, I don’t know, all I know is that you can tell from a hundred yards off they’d rather be seen dead than with their legs or their armpits unshaved, ever so antiseptic, she looked rather sweet really.

      HARRY: Tell her to go away and we’ll all wait for you. Come on, Tom.

      TOM: I’m staying.

      HARRY: Come on, Mary, give me a nice cup of coffee.

      MARY: It’s a long time since you and I had a good gossip.

      [HARRY and MARY go out, arm in arm.]

      TOM: Well, who is she?

      ANNA: I don’t know.

      TOM: