Mosquitoes Page 7

  ALICE. Jenny says you won’t see the doctor.

  KAREN. Jenny is for once correct.

  Pause.

  ALICE. Okay. Why not?

  KAREN. Because there can be no question.

  ,

  ALICE. What’s the question?

  KAREN. There can be no question over my, my agency.

  ALICE. No one’s questioning / your

  KAREN. You know this Alice, what makes a scientist? The willingness to abandon bad ideas. To look at the data and, and recognise failures which should not be repeated.

  JENNY. What is she talking about? What data?

  KAREN. I am… forgetting things. The television, I can’t follow it, and there is a loss of… an issue regarding my…

  She wrestles for dignity.

  I am struggling to be continent.

  ALICE. But. That’s not unnatural. For a woman of / your

  KAREN. I tried to make a white sauce, this is a recipe I, every week, forty years, off by heart and I. I had to look it up. A pint of milk, two ounces of butter, ounce-and-a-half of flour, there you see, now I can, it slips out like my name now but when I reached for it… ridiculous.

  ALICE. I forget things. I forget things all the time, / it doesn’t

  KAREN. Yes but I haven’t got the time to faff around. I have to act, while I still have control. Because I watched it happen to Nana Willis, I’m not going in one of those places.

  ALICE. This is, I think we’re a long way from / that

  KAREN. They put you in other women’s clothes. I went in one day, she was wearing a fleece. A woman who wore a hat her whole life, never answered the telephone without lipstick, a fleece, someone else’s tissues in the pocket, it’s not human.

  ALICE. No one’s going to make you wear a fleece, Mum.

  KAREN. Please don’t patronise me. I am not demented, not yet. And if a doctor diagnoses me then I’m in the system and if I’m in the system then they won’t let me do it.

  JENNY. Do what?

  ALICE. She means, assisted, you know, in Zurich, / that is not an

  JENNY. A clinic? Her grandson’s missing, she’s talking about clinics, listen if that’s what you want, I’ll assist you!

  KAREN. Stop showing off.

  JENNY. This is my theory, people don’t really come to Switzerland with the intention of killing themselves, they just come for a normal holiday and get driven to it.

  KAREN. Are you making a joke? Is this funny to you? Is your mother, decaying, amusing?

  JENNY. Why are we even talking about this? Alice tell her.

  ALICE. I do think this is very / extreme

  JENNY. Your timing’s beautiful by the way, really, just, bang-on.

  KAREN. I don’t have time. There is / no time.

  JENNY. Seriously, you are literally the most selfish person / I ever

  KAREN. Beg pardon but it’s not your decision. I love you Jenny, but I will not be your dependent. I will not have you in charge of me.

  KAREN exits. Pause. ALICE looks round at JENNY. They laugh.

  ALICE. You’re not going to go, are you?

  JENNY straightens ALICE’s head again so she can go on styling it.

  JENNY. We missed our flight so

  ALICE. Is it Thursday?

  JENNY. didn’t want to leave you like this. Thought we could stay till next week, / or

  ALICE. Will you?

  JENNY. Yeah. Course.

  ,

  Stay longer, if you want. Just as, like an experiment.

  ALICE. Yeah?

  JENNY. Up to you.

  ALICE. No, that’d be. That could be good.

  JENNY. Just see how we go.

  ALICE. Yeah.

  ,

  Or maybe I could come back to England. Get a, teaching position.

  JENNY. You can’t come back. You might win a Nobel Prize.

  ALICE. I don’t want a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is like going out with the best-looking boy at school. You have a week of fun, everyone thinks you’re much cooler than you actually are, then he moves on to someone else and no one else ever asks you out again because they feel like they can’t live up to your ex-boyfriend.

  JENNY laughs. She has finished ALICE’s hair, it is now plaited into pigtails, like a little girl. ALICE smells her own armpit. Makes a sound of disgust.

  JENNY. I’ll run you a bath.

  ALICE. *What if he calls?

  JENNY. *Do you good, a bath, then I’ll answer it.

  ALICE. No, I’ll get in the shower. Quicker.

  ALICE goes out.

  The sound of the shower running, off. Pause.

  LUKE enters. He has been running. JENNY looks at him.

  JENNY. Alice. Alice!

  ALICE runs in, in bra and pants. They should be the same colour as NATALIE’s in the previous scene. ALICE looks at LUKE, frozen for a moment. She flies towards him, smacks him hard across the face, then instantly embraces him, clasps him to her. Her near-nakedness is uncomfortable for him. She kisses his head, his face.

  LUKE. Alright Mum. Alright just

  She squeezes him too tightly.

  hurting me… Alice…

  She releases him but still keeps contact with his body in some way.

  ALICE. Where have you been?

  LUKE (re: JENNY). Why is she / still here?

  ALICE. why didn’t you call me, you could’ve called / me you could’ve

  LUKE. I thought she was going today, why is she still here?

  ALICE. I thought you were. Where the hell have you been! I’m sorry, I’m so, I can’t, I thought you / were.

  LUKE. Can you put some clothes on?

  ,

  Can you please put some clothes on, standing there with your vagina hanging / out.

  ALICE. No because I want you to tell me what’s going on, / because

  LUKE. I want to leave Geneva. I don’t want to live here any more.

  ,

  ALICE. Right. Okay.

  ,

  Why?

  LUKE. Because I don’t.

  ALICE. Yes but / why

  LUKE. Because I hate it.

  ALICE. Since when?

  LUKE. Since for ever. Since the beginning of time. It’s a shithole.

  JENNY. Can I just –

  LUKE. You don’t talk! Shouldn’t even be here, don’t talk to me / do not fucking talk to me

  ALICE. Okay forget about that, forget about Auntie Jenny, this isn’t about Auntie Jenny, she won’t even be here tomorrow, she’ll be back in England, the point is, we’re not uprooting our whole… for one silly fight? No, this is your education we’re / talking about, yes?

  JENNY lights a cigarette.

  LUKE. You’re not listening to me, can you listen to me, I don’t want to live here any more, put it out. Put it out!

  LUKE looks at JENNY. She puts her fag out.

  ALICE. But there’s no reason. Give me / a reason.

  LUKE. Because I’m telling you. Because I’m actually a person and I’m / telling you

  ALICE. Well no because what do you want me to say? Because our home is here, my work is here, Henri is here, our life is here / and

  LUKE. Not my life

  ALICE. Yes our life

  LUKE. Not my life

  JENNY. Could come and live with me.

  ALICE. What?

  JENNY. For a bit, he could. You could come and… if you wanted because we’ve got the, Amy’s room, haven’t we so.

  ALICE. I don’t think so.

  JENNY. No, you know just to

  ALICE. I mean / that’s a very kind offer but

  JENNY. put it on the table in case.

  ALICE. I don’t think that’s an option for us but that’s kind. That’s very / kind

  JENNY. I’m not on a register you know.

  LUKE. Whoa!

  JENNY. I am allowed to look after children.

  LUKE. *Okay well I’m not a child so.

  ALICE. *I just don’t think it’s ideal, anyway this is the wron
g time to, you’re tired, I’m tired, you must be, are you hungry?

  LUKE. No.

  ALICE. Do you want a cheese toastie?

  LUKE. No.

  ALICE. Do you want an egg in a cup?

  LUKE. I want to go back to England.

  ALICE. You’ve said, why?

  LUKE. Because my entire life is over.

  ,

  My entire life / is

  ALICE. But why?

  LUKE. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh / my God.

  ALICE. You’re not being rational.

  LUKE. Can you hear yourself? Can you actually hear yourself?

  ALICE. What’s happened? Has something / else?

  LUKE. No. Yes. No, I dunno.

  ,

  ohhhh, fucking hell

  ALICE. Please don’t swear at me.

  LUKE. That wasn’t at you. How was that at you?

  ALICE (going out). I have to call the police.

  LUKE. Why?

  ALICE. To tell them you’re not bloody dead! To apologise for using their resources! To try and persuade them not to press charges so that you don’t end up in prison, actually.

  LUKE. As if they would.

  ALICE. They would! They would! You assaulted a boy with a weapon! What happened?

  A long pause.

  He looks at her. Tries to find a way to recount the events of the last scene.

  But to do so is unthinkable.

  He gives up.

  LUKE. They put a razor in my locker.

  ,

  ALICE. Why?

  LUKE. Why d’you think?

  ALICE. I don’t know. I can’t, that’s horrible. A razor? I’m sorry. I’ll tell the headmistress, listen to me, listen, I know you’re, but it’s going to be okay. I’ve already spoken to the boy’s mother / and

  LUKE. Stefan?

  ALICE. Stefan, yes, and the school say, his mother says, if you make a formal apology / then

  LUKE. I’m not doing that.

  ALICE. then they’ll let you off / with a suspension so

  LUKE. Not in a million years am I doing that

  ALICE. You broke his nose! You don’t have to do anything, it’s all arranged, one meeting and this’ll all go away. Okay?

  LUKE. He beat me up. He threw bottles at me.

  ALICE. Well and I feel sorry for him, because there are people who, that’s the only way they know how to deal with the world, but that is not who we are, okay? That is not what I’ve taught you. You have to rise above them, I’ll make you a toastie, you don’t have to eat it

  KAREN enters as LUKE storms out.

  JENNY. Did you mean that?

  ALICE. What? Luke!

  JENNY. About me, about me going home.

  ,

  ALICE. You’ve been so great Jen but. He’s back now. And he just needs a calm, a safe space / just to

  JENNY. I’m calm. / I’m safe.

  ALICE. and you probably want to get back to your own bed / and

  KAREN. Could I say something here?

  ALICE and JENNY. No.

  JENNY. Please Alice. Please don’t make me

  ALICE. Not making you. Not making you, I’m asking you. He doesn’t like you being here. It gets him / worked up

  JENNY. Is it the smoking? Cos I won’t, I can just go / outside if

  ALICE. it’s not the smoking, / it’s

  JENNY. then what about, no, because we could, we could, we could all go.

  ALICE. What?

  JENNY. You could come back with me.

  ALICE. I don’t… I don’t think so.

  JENNY. England’s changed. It’s better now. You can get good coffee.

  ALICE. It’s not really about / the

  JENNY. Is it because of your work?

  ALICE. Because, no, because of lots of things, I have a son, in school, / who

  JENNY. He doesn’t want to live here. He hates it, you heard him, what are you doing?

  KAREN has put her arms around JENNY. JENNY stiffens.

  KAREN. I’m comforting you.

  JENNY. Why?

  KAREN. Because it’s very hard for me, to watch you argue like this, because you won’t win my darling. You’re not her intellectual equal.

  JENNY. *What?

  ALICE. *Mum.

  JENNY wriggles out of her arms.

  KAREN. Of course it’s because of her work. Of course it is, don’t make her justify it. She isn’t a brilliant woman. She’s very clever but she isn’t brilliant. But science is a team sport and she understands her place, Jenny. It should be clear to you that what you’re asking is impossible. I saw it. What they’ve built, it’s magnificent. Really. But someone like you could never hope to understand why. And it’s so painful to watch you try, it breaks my heart.

  Pause.

  ALICE. Yeah. Not sure that’s helpful. I have to call the police.

  ALICE goes out.

  A pause.

  KAREN tries to hug JENNY again, JENNY flinches away from her.

  LUKE marches in with a sleeping bag.

  JENNY. You can have your room. Your gran and I can sleep out here.

  LUKE rubs his cheek where ALICE hit him.

  She thought she was gonna have to watch them drag a lake for you. That’s why she gave you a smack. Cos of that. Cos she loves you.

  LUKE stares at her. Dumps the sleeping bag, goes out again.

  KAREN. Goodness me. Love. Everyone thinks love is the greatest force in the cosmos and it isn’t you know. The greatest force in the cosmos is the Nuclear Strong Force, love’s about twelve things down the list after gravity and superglue – actually it’s not even a force, not really. It’s just something we invented to help us survive chaos and

  As she speaks, the scene changes around her, until we find ourselves in…

  A TIME OF GREAT CHAOS

  …very low light. JENNY and KAREN in sleeping bags. KAREN sitting upright. In a dream state but she is talking to THE BOSON who sits in the chair she occupied in the previous scene. We can see his outline but he is only a dark figure.

  KAREN. and because you know everyone always thinks they’re living at a time of great chaos and there was peace once upon a time if only they could get back to it but chaos came before us, we came from chaos and that’s what we go back to, being burnt, or worms eating our, until every single atom in our body is separate from every single other atom and because that’s what death really is, when the gravity that held you together finally goes for good

  THE BOSON crosses his legs.

  exactly, for example I had three babies, the first one came out in the lavatory when it was five weeks old while I was cooking my first Christmas dinner as a married woman, I hadn’t even known so I flushed it, I flushed him or her away and went on with the bread sauce or whatever, funny you’d think it would take years to get over something like that but it didn’t really and then after Alice was born for nine days I went mad. This wasn’t unpleasant at first, I had a great feeling of enlightenment, I gave away nearly four hundred pounds to various charities and had intense conversations with a picture of Clint Eastwood about the major issues of the day and I could read minds, hm yes I could, and Alice was a mushroom I was tending with milk and flannels. On the eighth day they discovered the infection and took me back to hospital, only I thought they were wheeling me to the crematorium because I was dead and so was Alice and that was, that’s the only time I’ve ever felt close to

  chaos, yes

  JENNY wakes. Sits up, rubs her eyes. Gets up and goes out, scratching her arse.

  a sort of inescapable terror because effect did not follow cause and, because all this about infusing the milk for bread sauce, I don’t think it matters and then the antibiotics started to work and in three days / I was alright again

  JENNY returns with a glass of water. Gets back into bed.

  JENNY. Mum, shut up. Mum, you’re talking in your sleep, lie down.

  THE BOSON exits. He is not visible to

  JENNY. KAREN. There was a m
an here.

  JENNY. You wish. Lie down.

  KAREN lies down.

  KAREN. I do wish actually. I do wish. I’ve always preferred the company of men. They put me in a house full of silly bitches, I wish I was dead. She won’t live to an old age you know.

  JENNY. Who?

  KAREN. Jenny. She won’t live.

  JENNY. Mum it’s me. I’m Jenny. Don’t –

  KAREN. Don’t tell me don’t, I saw it in her, even as a baby. She was all fat and no gristle. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I go first. It’s a hideous thing, to outlive your child.

  Pause.

  JENNY. I think that’s. I think you’re wrong.

  KAREN. Well, you’re a hopeful creature. Hold me.

  KAREN puts her head on JENNY’s lap. JENNY cradles her.

  KAREN drifts into deep sleep.

  JENNY sits in the silence. There is nothing else.

  JENNY sobs silently. Her body convulses violently but she doesn’t make any noise.

  Some time. Her phone starts to ring. She grabs it, silences the tone, answers.

  JENNY. Hi. Why are you

  The person on the other end talks for a long time, she listens.

  Okay. Okay. Okay but. What’s the Nataraja?

  ACT FOUR

  NATARAJA

  Outside CERN. THE BOSON drags on the statue of the Nataraja, depicting Shiva as the cosmic dancer. THE BOSON goes. JENNY enters, searching the dark.

  LUKE. I need you to take me back to England with you. You need to book me a flight, I don’t have a credit card, my passport’s in the big drawer, and you can just tell Alice this is just what’s happening. Okay? You can just tell her.

  JENNY. Yeah, I don’t. I’m not sure I can do that.

  ,

  I mean I think it’s a discussion we’d have to have with / your

  LUKE. No but she doesn’t understand. She just does not get the stupidity I have to live with, I hope someone walks into the cafeteria one day and shoots them all while they’re eating their fucking quiche.

  LUKE breaks down. A deep distress, he sobs and takes deep shuddering breaths.

  JENNY. Yeah well that’s. Understandable but I think this is trespassing so, let’s go and then we can

  She tries to lead him away. But LUKE refuses to move.

  what happened!

  LUKE. I just told you.

  JENNY. No but what actually happened?

  LUKE gathers his courage. Starts to say something. Stops himself. Starts to say something again. Stops himself. A sound of embarrassment. A deep breath.