Medea Read online

  WOMAN 1

  It’s the children you’ve got to feel sorry for.

  WOMAN 3

  I mean, did she not keep tabs on his phone?

  WOMAN 1

  They’re the ones who really suffer.

  WOMAN 3

  Did she not keep an eye –

  WOMAN 1

  – aren’t they?

  WOMAN 3

  – on the situation?

  WOMAN 5

  She isn’t exactly what you’d call a normal mother.

  WOMAN 1

  They get scarred for life, apparently.

  WOMAN 2

  I mean, I’m not saying it’s not well written.

  WOMAN 3

  Some women just seem to bring it on themselves.

  WOMAN 5 (Whispers, looking over at MEDEA.)

  I mean, I’d be calling Childline if I were them.

  WOMAN 1

  You’ve just got to keep it together for the children.

  WOMAN 2

  I’ve just heard it’s quite –

  WOMAN 1

  Haven’t you?

  WOMAN 5

  She’s not, you know, one of us.

  WOMAN 2

  – angry?

  MEDEA

  I know you. I know what you’re like.

  You think I should keep it to myself.

  I know what you’re like, all warm in your bed of compromise.

  A bad thing has happened to me.

  You’re scared that if I name it, it might happen to you too.

  It’s warm in your beds, warm and dark, and you’re half-asleep.

  You shrink from the cold air – you screw up your eyes against the light.

  Haven’t you heard? Out of suffering comes truth.

  I’ll put it another way for you: pain is reality; it can’t be denied,

  unless you deform yourself hiding it, like you do.

  All that dissembling has made you ugly.

  You learned it at your mothers’ breasts,

  how to powder your faces, how to lie, even to yourselves,

  while truth stalks the dark of your minds like an assassin.

  He’ll find you eventually, hunt you down and show you to yourselves,

  with your bored husbands, your selfish children, your slack bodies

  and minds.

  Yes, all that dissembling takes its toll,

  fawning on men and property like the dogs you are,

  making a living, like any prostitute must.

  I’d rather be dead than unfree.

  I’d rather bare my neck to the assassin truth than run away from

  him any longer.

  Someone turned the lights on – now he can see me, but I can see

  him too.

  Sleep, woman, sleep.

  Lie back in your bed and close your eyes.

  You won’t even feel it when he creeps to your side and slits your throat.

  What’s that you say? What about love?

  Yes, you’re loving souls aren’t you?

  You love the whole world. You love your little hearts out.

  It’s all right, you can hate me.

  Go ahead, feel free.

  It’s so much easier than hating yourselves.

  SCENE 4

  The sitting room. MEDEA is sitting writing at her desk. The CLEANER is dusting and tidying.

  CLEANER

  You want I make the floor?

  Pause.

  You want I make the floor in here?

  Pause.

  I make it next week. It not so dirty.

  I am all the time in the boys’ rooms. Long long time! People say man work, woman drink coffee. I say, what country that? Sound nice, but I never visit.

  Pause.

  It make me very happy to be in those rooms. It remind me of my son’s room back at home. All the same things! The little men, the little cars, everything so small. Your one son like football, no?

  My son the same. Even the – the –

  MEDEA

  The smell.

  CLEANER

  The smell just the same!

  MEDEA

  Where is your son?

  CLEANER

  Oh, he stay in Brazil. He stay with my mother. Maybe I see him in spring. Depends of the money. It costs a lot, a lot to make the flight. I say to him, you prefer see me or get playstation this Christmas?

  MEDEA

  Does he say?

  CLEANER

  What?

  MEDEA

  Does he say which he’d prefer?

  CLEANER

  He say he want both!

  MEDEA

  What about his father?

  CLEANER

  Oh, he not interest. He got new wife, she young and jealous. She don’t want his love wasted on my son. Sometimes he come around, he leave again after five minutes. He say, Marta, what happened, the boy turned into a mariposa! He all the time crying, like a little baby! I say yah, it’s true, he don’t feel so good, his daddy left him.

  MEDEA

  You must be angry.

  CLEANER

  Oh, at first I want to kill him – and kill her twice as bad!

  MEDEA

  How would you do it?

  CLEANER

  What?

  MEDEA

  How would you kill them?

  CLEANER (Laughs.)

  Yah, you right, I think about it! They live in nice apartment where the carpets all white. I imagine taking big knife into their room one night and turn all those white carpets red. I imagine set fire to that apartment so they melt like two big candles. Is nice to imagine! But then I think, is too much risk. Someone see me, the police come, I go to jail. I think, oh no, that even worse than this! My mother, she say to me, make it like poison in the blood, Marta. Make it silent, invisible. Oh, I try to think how, but is no good. Mama say, trouble with you Marta, you not smart enough. You still love that good for nothing. I say to her, is better to love, no? Love is like sunshine, it make everything the same.

  MEDEA

  There must be some way to punish them.

  CLEANER

  When I come here I think, yah, now they don’t laugh at me. I think, now they feel bad. I think it punish them for me to be gone. But instead I get punish. I miss Mama, I miss Jose, I all the time alone. I talk to Mama on the phone – her voice so small! She say, you want revenge, is simple – be happy! But I don’t feel. She say, well at least you can pretend!

  MEDEA

  That’s the hardest thing of all.

  CLEANER

  Woman is good at pretending. That’s all she’s good for.

  My mother say, if you ain’t a good liar, you got no business being a woman!

  Pause.

  If it isn’t for my son I don’t care so much. If it isn’t for Jose, none of this ever happen. Woman always get hurt through the child. She like a kite: she all crazy visible but the wind that blow her invisible. Better not to have the child. Better be a nobody to anybody.

  MEDEA

  In the early days my husband had a bicycle.

  I would sit on the seat and steer

  And he would pedal, to get us home.

  There was a long steep hill we used to go down.

  He’d shout over his shoulder, fasten your seatbelt!

  He’d let off the brakes and down we’d go,

  so fast I was afraid,

  knowing that if he lost control

  I’d be done for.

  Marriage is a game of trust.

  Yes, a game that goes on and on

  until it becomes your life.

  You trust the sun will rise tomorrow –

  you never consider that it won’t.

  Trust is like a pane of glass.

  When it’s clean you hardly know it’s there.

  But smash it and you’re cut to shreds.

  The cold comes in, such cold.

  One day my husband said, have you forgotten?

  This was only a game,
remember?

  I’m just a man and you’re just a woman

  and this was a game we played for a while.

  Wasn’t it?

  SCENE 5

  MEDEA and JASON in the sitting room talking to one another on their phones.

  MEDEA

  You took the kitchen table.

  JASON

  The table belongs to me. I told you –

  MEDEA

  In what sense –

  JASON

  it would be going.

  MEDEA

  does it belong to you?

  JASON

  It was mine –

  MEDEA

  What happened to –

  JASON

  before I even met you.

  MEDEA

  half and half?

  JASON

  Obviously you can’t have –

  MEDEA

  I thought we were all –

  JASON

  half a table.

  MEDEA

  – for equality.

  Pause.

  You didn’t even bother to put the crap on the side. You just put it all on the floor.

  JASON

  Look, it’s perfectly reasonable –

  MEDEA

  The boys came back from school and found a kitchen –

  JASON

  for me to take one or two things.

  MEDEA

  with no table in it and crap all over the floor.

  JASON

  It’s actually important –

  MEDEA

  We agreed you wouldn’t denude the house.

  JASON

  – for them to have some things they recognise –

  MEDEA

  We agreed you wouldn’t denude the house and –

  JASON

  where I am now.

  MEDEA

  suddenly the boys have to eat their fucking dinner –

  JASON

  Oh, for Christ’s sake.

  MEDEA

  – off the floor like a pair of dogs.

  Pause.

  JASON

  We’ve gone over –

  MEDEA

  No, actually, if they were dogs you might –

  JASON

  all this before.

  MEDEA

  – pay them some attention.

  JASON

  You make it absolutely –

  MEDEA

  Take them for the odd –

  JASON

  – impossible.

  MEDEA

  – walk now and then.

  JASON

  Impossible.

  Pause.

  MEDEA

  I don’t know who you are.

  JASON

  I’m exactly who –

  MEDEA

  I’ve spent fifteen years living –

  JASON

  I’ve always been.

  MEDEA

  – with a complete stranger. (Pause.) You’ve taken away my history.

  JASON

  Your idea of –

  MEDEA

  Our whole past –

  JASON

  – history is just –

  MEDEA

  – has become a lie.

  JASON

  – a fantasy.

  MEDEA

  That’s what –

  JASON

  You don’t own –

  MEDEA

  – dictators do, isn’t it?

  JASON

  – the story.

  MEDEA

  They rewrite history so they can get their way.

  JASON

  I’ve got my own –

  MEDEA

  Everything becomes –

  JASON

  – truth.

  MEDEA

  – subjective. Then you can justify anything.

  Pause.

  JASON

  I’ve fallen in love with someone else. That’s all.

  MEDEA

  What kind of love is it that needs the whole world to disappear before it can exist?

  Pause.

  That isn’t love. It’s genocide.

  Pause.

  JASON

  Look, there’s something I need to talk to you about.

  MEDEA

  I’m so tired.

  JASON

  I need to talk to you about –

  MEDEA

  I need someone to just –

  JASON

  – the pearl choker.

  MEDEA

  – knock me out for a while.

  JASON

  My mother’s asked for her pearl choker to be returned.

  MEDEA

  Your mother?

  JASON

  It’s – she wants it back. It belonged to her –

  MEDEA

  Actually it belongs –

  JASON

  – grandmother.

  MEDEA

  – to me.

  JASON

  She feels it should stay in the family.

  MEDEA

  Your mother said that?

  JASON

  She feels it ought to return to the family.

  MEDEA

  Am I not part of the family now?

  JASON

  It’s just that it’s –

  MEDEA

  I’m her grandsons’ mother.

  JASON

  – part of our history.

  MEDEA

  Am I not family?

  JASON

  Look, I can’t speak for her. I said I felt sure you would –

  MEDEA

  She gave it to me.

  JASON

  – understand.

  Pause.

  MEDEA

  Oh, I see what’s happened.

  JASON

  It’s not as if you ever –

  MEDEA

  I get it.

  JASON

  – wear it.

  MEDEA

  You want to give it to her, don’t you?

  Pause.

  Don’t you?

  JASON

  Well, she is going to be –

  MEDEA

  My God, you filthy –

  JASON

  – my wife.

  MEDEA

  – self-serving bastard.

  JASON

  This isn’t easy for me, you know. It’s a hard thing to have –

  MEDEA

  This isn’t even audacity. It’s a disease.

  JASON

  – to ask you.

  MEDEA

  Shamelessness.

  JASON

  Look, things are going to get –

  MEDEA

  Absolute shamelessness.

  JASON

  – pretty nasty if you –

  MEDEA

  Shame on you.

  JASON

  – carry on like this.

  MEDEA

  Shame on you.

  They both slam down the phones.

  SCENE 6

  The sitting room. MEDEA sits at her desk writing. BOY TWO is building a tower with wooden blocks. BOY ONE is sitting aimlessly on the sofa.

  B1

  Can we put the TV on?

  Pause.

  Mum, can we put the TV on?

  MEDEA

  No.

  B1

  But –

  MEDEA

  I don’t want the TV on. I’ve got to work.

  Pause.

  B1

  What are you doing?

  MEDEA

  I’m trying to write something.

  B1

  What are you trying to write?

  MEDEA

  I’m not sure yet.

  B1

  Oh.

  Pause.

  When will it be finished?

  MEDEA

  What?

  B1

  Will it be finished by six o’clock? Top Gear’s on at six o’clock.

  Pause.

  Dad says he’s goi
ng to get us iPhones.

  Pause.

  MEDEA

  Does he?

  B1

  So we can keep in touch.

  Pause.

  He says we can go and get them this weekend.

  Pause.

  It’s so cool. I can’t wait.

  Pause.

  What are all these boxes for?

  MEDEA

  They’re for putting our things in.

  B1

  But how did they get here?

  MEDEA

  A man delivered them.

  B1

  Why did he?

  MEDEA

  Because we need them if we’re going to move to a different house.

  B1

  But I want to stay in this house.

  MEDEA

  I know.

  B1

  I don’t want to live in a different house.

  MEDEA

  I know.

  B1

  I hate moving. I don’t want to move.

  Pause.

  Why can’t we just stay here?

  MEDEA

  Because this house is too big for us.

  B1

  But I don’t want to live in a smaller house. Why can’t Dad come back and live here? Then the house would be the right size again.

  Pause.

  MEDEA

  Because of me. Dad doesn’t want to live with me any more.

  B1

  Why not? Did you annoy him?

  MEDEA

  In a way.

  B1

  You shouldn’t have done that.

  Pause.

  I don’t want to live in a smaller house.

  B2

  Oh, shut up.

  B1

  Can’t we go and stay with Dad? Their house is really big. He says it’s even got a swimming pool.

  B2

  It’s not their house. It’s her house.

  B1

  Dad lives there too.

  B2

  It belongs to her.

  B1

  It’s really cool apparently. It’s much better than ours. It’s got a pool and everything.

  B2

  She wouldn’t let us swim in the pool. We might get the water dirty.

  B1

  Dad says we’ll have our own rooms there soon.

  Pause.

  She’s got this really cute little dog. Mum, have you seen her dog? It’s really cute.

  B2

  I bet the dog’s got its own room.

  B1

  It’s a really cute little dog. I wish we could have a dog.

  Pause.

  Mum, can we get a dog?

  B2

  I hate her dog.

  B1

  Can we?

  B2

  It’s so stupid it can’t even walk.

  B1

  You’re what’s stupid.

  B2

  All she cares about is her stupid dog.

  B1

  Dad says she just has to get used to us.

  B2

  She’ll never get used to you. That’d be like getting used to cancer.

  B1 leaps to his feet and aims a kick at B2’s tower. They freeze like that while MEDEA speaks.

  MEDEA

  How long is a piece of string?

  Fifteen years, in our case.

  Time is like money: spend it and it’s gone.