KARL. You don’t think Anya took an overdose, deliberately, Doctor?
DOCTOR. (slowly) I shouldn’t have said so.
LESTER. (rising and moving LC) She did talk about it, you know. I mean, when she got depressed.
LISA moves to the desk.
DOCTOR. Yes, yes, nearly all chronic invalids talk about suicide. They seldom commit it.
LESTER. (after a pause; embarrassed) I say, I do hope I’m not butting in, coming here. (He moves C) I expect you want to be alone. I shouldn’t . . .
KARL. No, no, my dear boy, it was kind of you.
LESTER. I just thought perhaps there was something I could do. (He turns up stage in embarrassment and falls over the chair L of the table, then moves to R of KARL) I’d do anything—(He looks devoutly at KARL) if only I could do something to help.
KARL. Your sympathy helps. Anya was very fond of you, Lester.
MRS. ROPER enters up C. She wears a rusty black costume and hat. She carries a tray of coffee for four and a plate of sandwiches. LESTER goes to the desk.
MRS. ROPER. (in a suitably muted voice) I’ve made some coffee and some little sandwiches. (She puts the tray on the table RC. To KARL) I thought, sir, as you’d need something to keep your strength up.
LISA crosses to the tray and pours the coffee.
KARL. Thank you, Mrs. Roper.
MRS. ROPER. (with conscious virtue) I hurried back from the inquest as fast as I could, sir—(She moves C) so as to have things ready when you come.
KARL. (realizing MRS. ROPER’s rather unusual costume of rusty black with a hat) Did you go to the inquest, then?
MRS. ROPER. ’Course I did. I felt I had an interest, like. Poor, dear lady. (She leans across the sofa to the DOCTOR) Low in her spirits, wasn’t she? I thought I’d go as a sign of respect, if nothing more. I can’t say as it’s been very nice, though, having the police here asking questions.
During this scene with MRS. ROPER, the others all avoid looking at her directly in the hope that she will stop talking and leave, but she persists in trying to start a conversation first with one and then the other.
DOCTOR. (rising) These routine enquiries have to be made, Mrs. Roper. (He takes a cup of coffee to KARL, then goes above MRS. ROPER to the tray.)
MRS. ROPER. Of course, sir.
DOCTOR. Whenever a certificate cannot be given, there has to be a coroner’s enquiry.
MRS. ROPER. Oh, yes, sir, I’m sure it’s very right and proper, but it’s not very nice. That’s what I say.
The DOCTOR takes a cup of coffee for himself, then sits on the sofa.
MRS. ROPER. It’s not what I’ve been accustomed to. My husband, he wouldn’t like it at all if I were to be mixed up in anything of that sort.
LISA. I don’t see that you are mixed up in it in any way, Mrs. Roper.
MRS. ROPER. (moving eagerly towards LISA) Well, they asked me questions, didn’t they, as to whether she was low in her spirits and whether she’d ever talked about anything of the kind. (She moves to R of KARL. Rather significantly) Oh, quite a lot of questions they asked me.
KARL. Well, that is all over now, Mrs. Roper. I don’t think you need worry any further.
MRS. ROPER. (rather squashed) No, sir, thank you, sir.
MRS. ROPER exits up C, closing the doors behind her.
DOCTOR. All ghouls, you know, these women. Nothing they like better than illnesses, deaths, and funerals. An inquest, I expect, is an added joy.
LISA. Lester—coffee?
LESTER. Thanks so much. (He crosses to the chair R of the table RC, sits, helps himself to coffee, then becomes engrossed in a book)
LISA crosses to the desk.
KARL. It must have been some kind of accident, it must.
DOCTOR. I don’t know. (He sips his coffee) Not quite the same as your coffee, Lisa, my dear.
LISA. (crossing below the armchair and sofa and standing down R) I expect it’s been boiling hard for half an hour.
KARL. It was kindly meant.
LISA. (turning to the door down R; over her shoulder) I wonder.
LISA exits down R, leaving the door open. The DOCTOR rises, takes the plate of sandwiches from the tray and crosses to KARL.
DOCTOR. Have a sandwich?
KARL. No, thank you.
DOCTOR. (moving to the table RC and putting the sandwiches in front of LESTER) Finish them up, my boy. Always hungry at your age.
LESTER, by now deep in the book, does not look up but automatically helps himself to a sandwich.
LESTER. Well, thanks. I don’t mind if I do.
LISA. (off; calling) Karl.
KARL. (rising and putting his cup on the work-table) Excuse me a moment. (He calls and crosses to the door down R) Yes, I am coming.
KARL exits down R, closing the door behind him.
LESTER. He’s terribly cut-up, isn’t he, Doctor?
DOCTOR. (taking out his pipe) Yes.
LESTER. It seems odd in a way, at least I don’t mean odd, because, I suppose—what I mean is, it’s so difficult to understand what other people feel like.
DOCTOR. (moving down C and lighting his pipe) Just what are you trying to say, my boy?
LESTER. Well, what I mean is, poor Mrs. Hendryk being an invalid and all that, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that he’d get a bit impatient with her or feel himself tied.
The DOCTOR puts the matchstick in the ashtray on the table RC, then sits on the sofa at the left end.
And you’d think that really, underneath, he’d be glad to be free. Not a bit. He loved her. He really loved her.
DOCTOR. Love isn’t just glamour, desire, sex appeal—all the things you young people are so sure it is. That’s nature’s start of the whole business. It’s the showy flower, if you like. But love’s the root. Underground, out of sight, nothing much to look at, but it’s where the life is.
LESTER. I suppose so, yes. But passion doesn’t last, sir, does it?
DOCTOR. (despairingly) God give me strength. You young people know nothing about these things. You read in the papers of divorces, of love tangles with a sex angle to everything. Study the columns of deaths sometimes for a change. Plenty of records there of Emily this and John that dying in their seventy-fourth year, beloved wife of So-and-so, beloved husband of someone else. Unassuming records of lives spent together, sustained by the root I’ve just talked about which still puts out its leaves and its flowers. Not showy flowers, but still flowers.
LESTER. I suppose you’re right. I’ve never thought about it. (He rises, moves and sits R of the DOCTOR on the sofa) I’ve always thought that getting married is taking a bit of a chance, unless, of course, you meet a girl who . . .
DOCTOR. Yes, yes, that’s the recognized pattern. You meet a girl—or you’ve already met a girl—who’s different.
LESTER. (earnestly) But really, sir, she is different.
DOCTOR. (good-humouredly) I see. Well, good luck to you, young fellow.
KARL enters down R. He carries a small pendant. The DOCTOR rises. KARL crosses to C, looking at the pendant.
KARL. Will you give this to your daughter, Doctor? It was Anya’s and I know she would like Margaret to have it. (He turns and hands the pendant to the DOCTOR)
DOCTOR. (moved) Thank you, Karl. I know Margaret will appreciate the gift. (He puts the pendant in his wallet then moves towards the doors up C) Well, I must be off. Can’t keep my surgery patients waiting.
LESTER. (rising and moving up RC; to KARL) I’ll go, too, if you’re sure there’s nothing I can do for you, sir.
KARL. As a matter of fact there is.
LESTER looks delighted.
Lisa has been making up some parcels of clothes and things like that—she is sending them to the East London Mission. If you would help her to carry them to the post office . . .
LESTER. Of course I will.
LESTER exits down R.
DOCTOR. Good-bye, Karl.
The DOCTOR exits up C. LESTER enters down R. He carries a large box wrapped i
n brown paper, which he takes to the desk and fastens with sellotape. LISA enters down R. She carries a brown paper parcel and a small drawer containing papers, letters, etc., and a small trinket box.
LISA. (moving below the sofa) If you would look through these, Karl. (She puts the drawer on the sofa) Sit down here and go through these, quietly and alone. It has to be done and the sooner the better.
KARL. How wise you are, Lisa. One puts these things off and dreads them—dreads the hurt. As you say, it’s better to do it and finish.
LISA. I shan’t be long. Come along, Lester.
LISA and LESTER exit up C, closing the doors behind them. KARL collects the wastepaper basket from the desk, sits on the sofa, puts the drawer on his knee and starts to go through the letters.
KARL. (reading a letter) So long ago, so long ago.
The front door bell rings.
Oh, go away whoever you are.
MRS. ROPER. (off) Would you come inside, please.
MRS. ROPER enters up C from R and stands to one side.
It’s Miss Rollander, sir.
HELEN enters up C from R and moves down C. KARL rises and puts the drawer on the table RC. MRS. ROPER exits up C to L, leaving the door open.
HELEN. I do hope I’m not being a nuisance. I went to the inquest, you see, and afterwards I thought I must come on here and speak to you. But if you’d rather I went away . . .
KARL. No, no, it was kind of you.
MRS. ROPER enters up C from L, putting on her coat.
MRS. ROPER. I’ll just pop out and get another quarter of tea before he closes. We’re right out again.
KARL. (fingering the letters in the drawer; far away) Yes, of course, Mrs. Roper.
MRS. ROPER. Oh, I see what you’re doing, sir. And a sad business it always is. My sister now, she’s a widder. Kep’ all her husband’s letters, she did, what he wrote her from the Middle East. And she’ll take them out and cry over them, like as not.
HELEN, rather impatient about MRS. ROPER’s chatter, moves above the armchair.
The heart doesn’t forget, sir, that’s what I say. The heart doesn’t forget.
KARL. (crossing below the sofa to R of it) As you say, Mrs. Roper.
MRS. ROPER. Must have been a terrible shock to you, sir, wasn’t it? Or did you expect it?
KARL. No, I did not expect it.
MRS. ROPER. Can’t imagine how she came to do such a thing. (She stares, fascinated, at the place where ANYA’s chair used to be) It don’t seem right, sir, not right at all.
KARL. (sadly exasperated) Did you say you were going to get some tea, Mrs. Roper?
MRS. ROPER. (still staring at the wheelchair’s place) That’s right, sir, and I must hurry, sir—(She backs slowly up C) because that grocer there, he shuts at half past twelve.
MRS. ROPER exits up C, closing the door behind her.
HELEN. (moving C) I was so sorry to hear . . .
KARL. (moving down R) Thank you.
HELEN. Of course she’d been ill a long time, hadn’t she? She must have got terribly depressed.
KARL. Did she say anything to you before you left her that day?
HELEN. (nervously moving above the armchair and round to L of it) No, I—I don’t think so. Nothing particular.
KARL. (moving below the sofa) But she was depressed—in low spirits?
HELEN. (rather grasping at a straw) Yes. (She moves below the armchair) Yes, she was.
KARL. (a shade accusingly) You went away and left her—alone—before Lisa returned.
HELEN. (sitting in the armchair; quickly) I’m sorry about that. I’m afraid it didn’t occur to me.
KARL moves up C.
I mean she said she was perfectly all right and she urged me not to stay, and—well as a matter of fact, I—I thought she really wanted me to go—and so I did. Of course, now . . .
KARL. (moving down R) No, no. I understand. I can see that if my poor Anya had this in her mind she might have urged you to go.
HELEN. And in a way, really, it’s the best thing that could have happened, isn’t it?
KARL. (moving towards her; angrily) What do you mean—the best thing that could have happened? (He moves up C)
HELEN. (rising) For you, I mean. And for her, too. She wanted to get out of it all, well, now she has. So everything is all right, isn’t it? (She moves up LC, between the armchair and the desk)
KARL. (moving up RC) It’s difficult for me to believe that she did want to get out of it all.
HELEN. She said so—after all, she couldn’t have been happy, could she?
KARL. (thoughtfully) Sometimes she was very happy.
HELEN. (circling the armchair) She couldn’t have been, knowing she was a burden on you.
KARL. (moving below the sofa; beginning to lose his temper) She was never a burden to me.
HELEN. Oh, why must you be so hypocritical about it all? I know you were kind to her and good to her, but let’s face facts, to be tied to a querulous invalid is a drag on any man. Now, you’re free. You can go ahead. You can do anything—anything. Aren’t you ambitious?
KARL. I don’t think so.
HELEN. But you are, of course you are. I’ve heard people talk about you, I’ve heard people say that that book of yours was the most brilliant of the century.
KARL. (sitting on the sofa at the left end) Fine words, indeed.
HELEN. And they were people who knew. You’ve had offers, too, to go to the United States, to all sorts of places. Haven’t you? You turned them down because of your wife whom you couldn’t leave and who couldn’t travel. (She kneels at the left end of the sofa) You’ve been tied so long, you hardly know what it is to feel free. Wake up, Karl, wake up. Be yourself. You did the best you could for Anya. Well, now it’s over. You can start to enjoy yourself, to live life as it really ought to be lived.
KARL. Is this a sermon you’re preaching me, Helen?
HELEN. It’s only the present and the future that matter.
KARL. The present and the future are made up of the past.
HELEN. (rising and moving LC) You’re free. Why should we go on pretending we don’t love each other?
KARL. (rising and crossing to the armchair; firmly and almost harshly) I don’t love you, Helen, you must get that into your head. I don’t love you. You’re living in a fantasy of your own making.
HELEN. I’m not.
KARL. You are. I hate to be brutal, but I’ve got to tell you now I’ve no feelings for you of the kind you imagine. (He sits in the armchair)
HELEN. You must have. You must have. (She moves down RC) After what I’ve done for you. Some people wouldn’t have had the courage, but I had. I loved you so much that I couldn’t bear to see you tied to a useless querulous woman. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? I killed her. Now, do you understand? I killed her.
KARL. (utterly stupefied) You killed . . . I don’t know what you’re saying.
HELEN. (moving down R of KARL) I killed your wife. I’m not ashamed of it. People who are sick and worn out and useless should be removed so as to leave room for the ones who matter.
KARL. (rising and backing away down L) You killed Anya?
HELEN. She asked for her medicine. I gave it to her. I gave her the whole bottleful.
KARL. (backing further away from her up L; aghast) You—you . . .
HELEN. (moving C) Don’t worry. Nobody will ever know. I thought of everything. (She speaks rather like a confident, pleased child) I wiped off all the fingerprints—(She moves level with KARL) and put her own fingers first round the glass and then round the bottle. So that’s all right, you see. (She moves to R of him) I never really meant to tell you, but I just suddenly felt that I couldn’t bear there to be any secrets between us. (She puts her hands on KARL)
KARL. (pushing her away) You killed Anya.
HELEN. If you once got used to the idea . . .
KARL. You—killed—Anya. (Every time he repeats the words, his consciousness of her act grows greater and his
tone more menacing. He seizes her suddenly by the shoulders and shakes her like a rat, then forces her above the left end of the sofa) You miserable immature child—what have you done? Prating so glibly of your courage and your resource. You killed my wife—my Anya. Do you realize what you’ve done? Talking about things you don’t understand, without conscience, without pity. I could take you by the neck and strangle you here and now. (He seizes her by the throat and starts to strangle her)
HELEN is forced backwards over the back of the sofa. KARL eventually flings her away and she falls face downwards over the left arm of the sofa, gasping for breath.
Get out of here. Get out before I do to you what you did to Anya.
HELEN is still gasping for breath and sobbing. KARL staggers to the desk chair and leans on the back, near collapse.
HELEN. (broken and desperate) Karl.
KARL. Get out. (He shouts) Get out, I say.
HELEN, still sobbing, rises, staggers to the armchair, collects her handbag and gloves, and as in a trance, exits up C to R. KARL sinks on to the desk chair and buries his head in his hands. There is a pause, then the front door is heard closing. LISA enters the hall from R.
LISA. (calling) I’m back, Karl.
LISA exits to her bedroom. KARL rises, crosses slowly to the sofa and almost collapses on to it.
KARL. My poor Anya.
There is a pause. LISA enters from her bedroom and comes into the room. She is tying an apron on as she enters, and goes to look out the window.
LISA. (casually) I met Helen on the stairs. She looked very strange. Went past me as though she didn’t see me. (She finishes her apron, turns and sees KARL) Karl, what has happened? (She crosses to him)
KARL. (quite simply) She killed Anya.
LISA. (startled) What!
KARL. She killed Anya. Anya asked for her medicine and that miserable child gave her an overdose deliberately.
LISA. But Anya’s fingerprints were on the glass.
KARL. Helen put them there after she was dead.
LISA. (a calm, matter-of-fact mind dealing with the situation) I see—she thought of everything.
KARL. I knew. I always knew that Anya wouldn’t have killed herself.
LISA. She’s in love with you, of course.