FARQUHAR: The liver.
STYLER: Yes. Things only came to a head when his neighbours started asking questions about the state of his lawn. It’s hard to imagine what took them so long. By the end his garden must have looked like an archaeological dig. Anyway, the neighbours must have asked one question too many because one night he attacked all of them, killing Mrs Barlow at number twenty-nine and mutilating the Bundies at thirty-three. Then he walked into York police station and gave himself up.
FARQUHAR: But not out of remorse?
STYLER: Remorse never came into it. He pleaded guilty. He was found unfit to stand trial and was sent here.
FARQUHAR: All of which is accurate, more or less, but still doesn’t answer my original question.
STYLER: Which was?
FARQUHAR: Why did you choose him? For your book?
But before STYLER can answer, the door opens and PLIMPTON comes back in carrying a tray with a single sandwich, a tea-pot, tea-cup and small jug of milk.
It looks like your dinner’s finally arrived.
STYLER: Thank you.
FARQUHAR: (To PLIMPTON.) What took you so long?
PLIMPTON: There was no one in the kitchen.
FARQUHAR: You didn’t see Cookie?
PLIMPTON: I told you. Cookie’s gone home.
FARQUHAR: Oh yes.
PLIMPTON: I did the best I could. (To STYLER.) I thought you might have gone.
STYLER: No. I’m still here.
PLIMPTON: I can see that. But I thought…
FARQUHAR: Mr Styler decided to stay for dinner.
STYLER: Yes.
FARQUHAR: So you managed to rustle something up on your own?
PLIMPTON: No. Borson did it.
STYLER: Borson?
PLIMPTON: Yes.
STYLER: I thought he was on security.
PLIMPTON: He is. But he came into the kitchen while I was there and when I told him what Dr Farquhar wanted, he insisted on making the sandwich.
FARQUHAR: And what did Borson put in the sandwich?
PLIMPTON: Liver.
A long pause.
STYLER: It’s very kind of you. But I’ll just have the tea.
FARQUHAR: You don’t like liver?
STYLER: Not especially.
FARQUHAR: It must have been left over from lunch. Isn’t that right, Nurse Plimpton?
PLIMPTON: I don’t know. I didn’t have lunch.
FARQUHAR: (Solicitous.) Why not?
PLIMPTON: (With a shudder.) I was in B-wing.
FARQUHAR: And how was Borson?
PLIMPTON: He didn’t say anything. I told him you wanted a sandwich for your guest and that was what he gave me.
FARQUHAR: (To STYLER.) Left-overs. You’ll have to forgive us.
STYLER: I don’t mind left-overs, really I don’t. But I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t go back to my hotel. They’re expecting me for dinner.
PLIMPTON: Did you tell them you were on the way? I mean, did they know you were coming here and that afterwards you’d be returning for the night?
STYLER: Yes.
FARQUHAR: Then we mustn’t disappoint them. ( To PLIMPTON.) You’d better ring them and tell them Mr Styler will be spending the night here with us.
PLIMPTON: But he wants to leave. (To STYLER.) Don’t you, Mr Styler?
STYLER: Well, to be honest, I do feel a bit uncomfortable about spending the night in a place like this. Nothing personal…
PLIMPTON: There you are.
STYLER: I’m booked in overnight. I could come back tomorrow.
FARQUHAR: I’m afraid I can’t see you tomorrow.
STYLER: No?
FARQUHAR: I’m busy tomorrow.
PLIMPTON: No you’re not. All your morning appointments have been cancelled. (To STYLER.) Dr Farquhar could see you tomorrow at nine o’clock.
FARQUHAR: Nurse Plimpton. Don’t you think you’re taking your responsibilities a little far? Anyway, I don’t remember opening my appointments book to you.
PLIMPTON: I’m just trying to be helpful, Dr Farquhar.
FARQUHAR: If you want to be helpful, you could go down to Easterman and see if he’s awake.
PLIMPTON: What?
STYLER: You’re going to let me see him?
FARQUHAR: No. Not necessarily.
PLIMPTON: You don’t want to see him.
FARQUHAR: (Annoyed.) Nurse Plimpton…
PLIMPTON: Please, Mr Styler, listen to me. Easterman is a monster. He’s not mad like the other patients here. He’s evil. He knows what he does and he gets pleasure from it. Even here at Fairfields.
FARQUHAR: (Threatening.) …be careful what you say…
PLIMPTON: You can’t write a book about Easterman. He’s different to all the others. You don’t want to be in the same room as him. You don’t want to be anywhere near him. Because he’ll play with you…like the devil. And then he’ll break you down. He’ll destroy you.
FARQUHAR: Nurse Plimpton, you are pushing me perilously closer towards disciplinary action.
PLIMPTON: (Muttered.) What more can you do to me?
FARQUHAR: You can go now.
PLIMPTON: What?
FARQUHAR: Just go. I’ll call you back if I need you.
A pause.
PLIMPTON: Shall I take the sandwich?
FARQUHAR: Leave the sandwich.
PLIMPTON: But he doesn’t want it.
FARQUHAR: He wants it.
PLIMPTON: He said not.
FARQUHAR: He may change his mind.
A pause. PLIMPTON takes one last despairing look at STYLER, then leaves the room.
Dinner.
STYLER: Actually, I’d quite like a cigarette.
FARQUHAR: Let me pour you some tea. (He pours.) It’s Lapsang Souchong. (Pause.) Milk?
STYLER: No, thank you.
FARQUHAR: Eat. You must be famished.
STYLER: I am hungry, yes.
FARQUHAR: Well there you are, then. STYLER: Right.
FARQUHAR offers the plate. STYLER picks up the sandwich. Thinks for a moment. Dismisses the foolish thought that was going through his head and bites into the sandwich.
FARQUHAR: How is it?
STYLER: (Mouth full.) Good.
FARQUHAR: Not too dry?
STYLER: No.
FARQUHAR: Sometimes, when the meat comes out of the freezer, it can be a little dry.
STYLER: Are you going to let me see Easterman?
FARQUHAR: No.
STYLER: What?
FARQUHAR: You still haven’t persuaded me that there would be any point to it. Oh yes, you’ve done a certain amount of research. But what you’ve told me anyone could have found out in a half an hour in a newspaper library. Why Easterman? That’s what I want to know. Why Easterman as opposed to Sprintz or Chaplin, Morganstone, Netley, Borson or any of the other patients here.
STYLER: Borson?
FARQUHAR: What?
STYLER: You said Borson… You said Borson was a patient here.
FARQUHAR: Yes.
STYLER: But Borson was the name of the man at the gate. He was also in the kitchen.
FARQUHAR: That’s a different Borson. It’s quite a common name.
STYLER: I wouldn’t have said that.
FARQUHAR: There are two Borsons. It’s a coincidence.
STYLER: Another coincidence.
FARQUHAR: Just answer my question, Mr Styler. Tell me what’s so different about Easterman, why he of all people should appeal to you. Believe me when I say that your entire future — the future of your book — depends on your answer.
STYLER: Well. (Pause.) Every serial killer I’ve ever studied has been screwed up as a child. Jeffrey Dahmer was ignored by his parents. So was Ted Bundy. Peter Kürten…
FARQUHAR: (Interrupting.) This is all very familiar.
STYLER: Yes. But that’s why Easterman is different. He had a wonderful childhood. His father, despite what you say, was devoted to him. His mother adored him. Right up to the time when the killings began th
ere isn’t a hint of deviancy in Easterman’s life.
FARQUHAR: Go on.
STYLER: It was Socrates, wasn’t it, who said that nobody ever does wrong willingly…by which he meant that if they really knew what they were doing, they would choose not to do it. Well, Easterman finally proves him wrong.
FARQUHAR: On the face of it…
STYLER: That’s the point of my book. It’s not a whodunnit. It’s a whydunnit. Why did Easterman do what he did? What turned this golden boy into this…revolting beast?
FARQUHAR: Now you sound like your own back-cover blurb. How’s the sandwich?
STYLER: Good.
STYLER takes another bite.
FARQUHAR: So do you have any clues? Any answers to your ‘whydunnit’? Any first thoughts?
STYLER: It’s hard to say, not having met him. But… (Pause.) Given his looks, given his family background, given the lack of any apparent conflict in his life, I wonder if there wasn’t some sort of sexual problem.
FARQUHAR: Do you?
STYLER: Well, it’s just a thought. But he lived with his mother and she was his first victim. His girlfriend, Jane Plimpton, was number two. After that, the great majority of his victims were male. Young men and boys. So — and I know this is a little simplistic but — maybe he was a homosexual. Maybe he was unable to come to terms with his sexuality and that was what started the psychosis, what triggered him off…
FARQUHAR: So he was a mummy’s boy.
STYLER: I didn’t say that.
FARQUHAR: He killed nineteen people because he couldn’t cope with being gay?
STYLER: Where did you get that figure from?
FARQUHAR: I think your theory, Mr Styler, is pathetic.
STYLER: I’ve annoyed you.
FARQUHAR: (Annoyed.) No. I’m not annoyed. But quite frankly I wouldn’t say there was much mileage in a book about someone who tortured and mutilated his way through the entire city of York just because he was too scared to ‘come out’.
STYLER: Let me meet him and maybe I’ll find out for myself.
FARQUHAR: You really think…? You really think that — what was it you asked for — six one-hour sessions with Easterman and you’ll be able to find out more than we have in the constant, intensive therapy of the past thirty years?
STYLER: I didn’t say that.
FARQUHAR: (Getting up.) No, Mr Styler. I think I’ve had enough of this.
STYLER: What?
FARQUHAR: You think you can just walk into my office because you’ve had a best-selling novel optioned by Hollywood as well as two boilers out of your mother’s pot. You think you’re some kind of expert because you’ve got two gaudy paperbacks on the shelves of the True Crime department at your local library.
STYLER: Dr Farquhar…
FARQUHAR: You know, Mr Styler, I recognised you for what you were from the moment you walked into my office. You’re Mr Television. When they need an opinion on Newsnight or Panorama, you’re the expert they wheel in at fifty quid an hour plus a G and T with Jeremy Paxman. Fred West hangs himself. Myra Hindley is turned down for parole. Let’s go over to Mark Styler who’s ready with an instant opinion and a quote from Socrates. Nurse Plimpton was right about you. You’re a fake. I don’t know why I’ve wasted so much time with you.
STYLER: Wait…
FARQUHAR: Go on. Get out of here. Go back to your hotel.
STYLER: Easterman killed my mother.
A pause.
FARQUHAR: What?
STYLER: That’s why I want to write a book about him. That’s why I want to understand him. He murdered my mother.
FARQUHAR: There were never any victims called Styler.
STYLER: She went back to her maiden name after my father died. Victoria Barlow. She was Easterman’s neighbour. He killed her.
A long pause.
I was away when it happened. I was a student. But that day I came home for a visit. The first thing I saw was the smoke. Easterman had set fire to his own house. But first he had gone into hers. I tried to go in. But they stopped me. They held me back…
FARQUHAR: (Gently.) Why didn’t you tell me this before?
STYLER: Because… (Pause.) It was after what he did to my mother that I moved to London. My poor, beautiful, kind mother. The police asked me to identify the body. They tried to hide the worst of it but…the way he’d slashed at her. I couldn’t identify her. I couldn’t recognise her. It was as if some wild animal…
FARQUHAR: And you wanted to meet Easterman. Why? What were you going to do if you found yourself in the same room as him? Did you want to kill him?
STYLER: No. I wanted to understand him. That’s all. I thought, if I wrote about him, I might be able to…
FARQUHAR: What?
STYLER: (Surprising himself. ) …forgive him.
FARQUHAR: Forgive him?
STYLER: Yes.
FARQUHAR: You really think you could do that?
STYLER: Yes.
A pause. FARQUHAR picks up the telephone.
FARQUHAR: (Into the telephone.) Nurse Plimpton. Could you come back please?
STYLER: May I have another cigarette?
FARQUHAR: Help yourself.
STYLER takes out his crumpled ten-cigarette packet and opens it. He takes out a cigarette and lights it.
Is that better?
STYLER: Yes.
A pause. STYLER smokes.
FARQUHAR: If you were to meet Easterman…
STYLER: What?
FARQUHAR: You wouldn’t be afraid of him?
STYLER: Afraid of him?
FARQUHAR: Yes.
STYLER: Should I be? Is he still dangerous?
FARQUHAR: He’s unpredictable.
STYLER: Unpredictable.
FARQUHAR: Which can be very dangerous indeed.
STYLER: Well, you’ll get some security…
FARQUHAR: Not at this time of night. Security will have gone home.
STYLER: What about Borson?
FARQUHAR: He’s on the gate.
STYLER: Maybe I could meet Easterman in his cell.
FARQUHAR: Both of you in his cell?
STYLER: Him in his cell. Me outside.
FARQUHAR: It’s sound-proofed. The walls are two-foot thick.
STYLER: Oh. (Pause.) Could you restrain him?
FARQUHAR: Restrain him?
STYLER: In a strait-jacket or something.
FARQUHAR: (Frustrated.) Mr Styler…
STYLER: What have I said now?
FARQUHAR: I thought I’d explained the philosophy of Fairfields to you. But now I wonder if you listened to a single word I said!
STYLER: I listened.
FARQUHAR: The whole purpose of this institution, the founding principal, was to try to get beyond the terror that has for so many years imprisoned the mentally ill.
STYLER: (Helpless.) But you said he was in a cell…that the walls were two-foot thick.
FARQUHAR: That’s his choice. It is Easterman who is hiding from us.
STYLER: I don’t understand.
FARQUHAR: Well maybe if you put yourself in a strait-jacket you’d begin to. In fact that’s not such a bad idea. Have you even seen a strait-jacket, Mr Styler? Have you ever held one? Have you ever put one on?
STYLER: No. Of course not.
FARQUHAR: Then it’s time you were educated.
STYLER: Wait a minute…
FARQUHAR: Let me show you what I mean.
FARQUHAR goes over to the door through which he made his first appearance and opens it. Now we see that the door has been subject to one of the many changes that have taken place throughout the first act. On the other side there is no longer a corridor but a cupboard with three shelves cluttered with books, papers and medical equipment. FARQUHAR takes out a strait-jacket.
STYLER: What’s going on here?
FARQUHAR: What?
STYLER: That cupboard…
FARQUHAR: What about it?
STYLER: You came in that way.
FARQUHAR: I’m
sorry?
STYLER: You came in that way.
FARQUHAR: You think I came in from a cupboard?
STYLER: No. You came in that way. But it wasn’t a cupboard.
FARQUHAR: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
STYLER: It wasn’t a sodding cupboard.
FARQUHAR closes the door.
FARQUHAR: We were talking about insanity.
STYLER: Yes…
FARQUHAR: Put this on.
STYLER: I’m not sure that I want to.
FARQUHAR: Of course you don’t want to. If you wanted to, there wouldn’t be any point.
STYLER: No…
FARQUHAR: Think of your book.
STYLER: It’s got nothing to do with my book.
FARQUHAR: It’s got everything to do with it.
STYLER: You really think this will help?
FARQUHAR: Put this on or there is no book.
STYLER takes the strait-jacket. He holds it as if it’s an alien object.
STYLER: I don’t know where to start.
FARQUHAR: I’ll help you. Your arms go in here.
FARQUHAR continues as he puts the strait-jacket on STYLER.
There you are. The left first, then the right. That’s it. You are, if you like, embracing the very nature of madness. What do you think it would tell you about yourself, wearing one of these?
STYLER: That you were mad.
FARQUHAR: (Still fitting the jacket.) That you were considered mad — it’s not quite the same thing. The man who put it on you might believe that you were, in his opinion, mad. But it might occur to you, it might cross your mind that it was in fact the reverse that was true. You might believe that it was he who was mad and you who were perfectly sane.
STYLER: I don’t understand the point that you’re trying to make.
FARQUHAR: The point is, that once you’re wearing one of these, it no longer makes any difference. You have abrogated control, or rather, control has been taken away from you. It not only devours you. It defines you. A man wearing a strait-jacket can only be one of two things. An unsuccessful escapologist or a madman. There…
FARQUHAR stands back. STYLER is in the strait-jacket.
How do you feel?
STYLER: Helpless.
FARQUHAR: You are. Tell me that you’re sane.