Play With a Tiger and Other Plays

MARY: Well you are, aren’t you?

ANNA: ‘But Janet, you must understand this doesn’t mean anything, because the woman I really love is Anna.’ He’s not even married to me, but he uses me as Harry uses Helen.

MARY: [not wanting to hear anything against HARRY at this moment] Oh I don’t know. After all, perhaps Helen doesn’t mind. They’ve been married so long.

ANNA: It really is remarkable how all Dave’s young ladies turn up here sooner or later. He talks about me – oh, quite casually, of course, until they go round the bend with frustration and curiosity, and they just have to come up to see what the enemy looks like. Well I can’t be such a bitch as all that, because I didn’t say, ‘My dear Miss Stevens, you’re the fifth to pay me a social call in three years.’

MARY: But you have been engaged to Tom.

ANNA: Yes. All right.

MARY: It’s funny, me and Harry knowing each other for so long and then suddenly …

ANNA: Mary! The mood Harry’s in somebody’s going to get hurt.

MARY: It’s better to get hurt than to live shut up.

ANNA: After losing that little poppet of his to matrimony he’ll be looking for solace.

MARY [offended]: Why don’t you concern yourself with Tom? Or with Dave? Harry’s not your affair. I’m just going out with him. [as she goes out] Nice to have a night out for a change, say what you like.

[The telephone rings. ANNA snatches off the receiver, wraps it in a blanket, throws it on the bed.

ANNA: I’m not talking to you, Dave Miller, you can rot first.

[She goes to the record player, puts on Mahalia Jackson’s ‘I’m on My Way’, goes to the mirror, looks into it. This is a long antagonistic look.]

ANNA [to her reflection]: All right then, I do wear well.

[She goes deliberately to a drawer, takes out a large piece of black cloth, unfolds it, drapes it over the mirror.]

ANNA [to the black cloth]: And a fat lot of good that does me.

[She now switches out the light. The room is tall, shadowy, with two patterns of light from the paraffin heaters reflected on the ceiling. She goes to the window, flings it up.]

ANNA [to the man on the pavement]: You poor fool, why don’t you go upstairs, the worst that can happen is that the door will be shut in your face.

[A knock on the door – a confident knock.]

ANNA: If you come in here, Dave Miller …

[DAVE comes in. He is crew cut, wears a sloppy sweater and jeans. Carries a small duffle bag. ANNA turns her back and looks out of the window. DAVE stops the record player. He puts the telephone receiver back on the rest. Turns on the light.]

DAVE: Why didn’t you answer the telephone?

ANNA: Because I have nothing to say.

DAVE [in a parody of an English upper-middle-class voice]: I see no point at all in discussing it.

ANNA [in the same voice]: I see no point at all in discussing it.

[DAVE stands beside ANNA at the window.]

DAVE [in the easy voice of their intimacy]: I’ve been in the telephone box around the corner ringing you.

ANNA: Did you see my visitor?

DAVE: No.

ANNA: What a pity.

DAVE: I’ve been standing in the telephone box ringing you and watching that poor bastard on the pavement.

ANNA: He’s there every night. He comes on his great black dangerous motor bike. He wears a black leather jacket and big black boots. He looks like an outrider for death in a Cocteau film – and he has the face of a frightened little boy.

DAVE: It’s lurve, it’s lurve, it’s lurve.

ANNA: It’s love.

[Now they stare at each other, antagonists, and neither gives way. DAVE suddenly grins and does a mocking little dance step. He stands grinning at her. ANNA hits him as hard as she can. He staggers. He goes to the other side of the carpet, where he sits cross-legged, his face in his hands.]

DAVE: Jesus, Anna.

ANNA [mocking]: Oh, quite so.

DAVE: You still love me, that’s something.

ANNA: It’s lurve, it’s lurve, it’s lurve.

DAVE: Yes. I had a friend once. He cheated on his wife, he came in and she laid his cheek open with the flat-iron.

ANNA [quoting him]: ‘That I can understand’ – a great country, America.

DAVE [in appeal]: Anna.

ANNA: No.

DAVE: I’ve been so lonely for you.

ANNA: Where have you been the last week?

DAVE [suspicious]: Why the last week?

ANNA: I’m interested.

DAVE: Why the last week? [a pause] Ringing you and getting no reply.

ANNA: Why ringing me?