Mike Bartlett - Wild

WOMAN Do I look like Cindy?

ANDREW No.

WOMAN How am I different?

ANDREW Cindy’s blonde.

WOMAN I’m blonde.

ANDREW No you’re not.

WOMAN Underneath.

ANDREW Okay.

WOMAN This is dyed.

ANDREW No it isn’t.

WOMAN Okay it isn’t. I’m attractive though, an objectively attractive person, It’s not a matter of opinion.

ANDREW No.

WOMAN Yeah.

ANDREW No.

WOMAN A bit.

ANDREW Stop. Just stop. Stop.

Beat .

WOMAN How else?

ANDREW What?

WOMAN How else am I different to Cindy Windy Cindy?

ANDREW Cindy’s funny.

WOMAN Ah. Clever.

ANDREW Yes she is. Exactly.

WOMAN I mean you were clever with your little insult there.

But okay Cindy’s clever what has she got then?

ANDREW She’s –

WOMAN Qualifications. Did she go to Cambridge?

ANDREW Of course not.

WOMAN I did.

ANDREW Well done.

WOMAN Thanks it was really hard.

ANDREW Who are you?

WOMAN University though okay you’re saying she went to university.

ANDREW No after high school she went straight into business.

WOMAN Okay, so when you say clever we’re talking street smarts here, we’re not talking actual proper university, knowing things, useful proper intelligence.

ANDREW Fuck you.

WOMAN She’s not part of the intellectual elite, like me.

ANDREW Jesus –

WOMAN I can quote Latin.

ANDREW I honestly don’t care what you / can do, so maybe just stop talking until you can say something that is genuinely and actually going to offer me something or help me out cos what I don’t need at the moment is more… noise. Okay. You’re still… okay…

WOMAN You think that’s not useful it actually is. Dinner parties in high-level company pretty girl quoting Latin they are eating out of my hand, I’m telling you they should teach that at school, bring it back, they used to teach both those things being pretty and speaking Latin I can see why. Okay. Okay so you don’t fancy me. We’ll leave that for now, but so that you know I don’t fancy you at all, not in a sex way, but I think we’re getting on we are, we are. You and me, this is a thing, this is a relationship you’re going to remember.

ANDREW That’s true.

WOMAN Ita vero.

That’s Latin for ‘yeah’.

Beat .

ANDREW Why are you here?

WOMAN Well far be it for me to remind you Andrew but you released hundred of thousands of highly confidential –

ANDREW I mean here in this room now, you could be doing some other work, there’s a security guard outside to protect me, presumably when he gets here he gets here –

WOMAN – if he gets here –

ANDREW – and there’s nothing I or you can do to hurry that up so why are you keeping me company like this?

WOMAN You want the truth or something that will make you feel good?

ANDREW The truth won’t make me feel good?

WOMAN The truth will not.

ANDREW Okay.

WOMAN The truth will make you feel even shitter than you do right now.

And I can see how inside, you’re upset, and crying and nearly panicking, you’re covering it well, it’s not as bad as I would have imagined, but you might not want me to lay on even more right at this moment.

ANDREW Just tell me why – yes – tell me the truth. Why are you here?

WOMAN You know why, I’m liaising with him about –

ANDREW I mean right now, you’ve got nothing to add, or offer, we’re waiting for him to make contact so why are you still in the room? Saying all this crap, goofing around?

Beat .

WOMAN We’re worried you might kill yourself.

ANDREW I…

Really?

WOMAN Hmm. Yeah.

Beat .

I mean this is a thing that we’ve been noticing and it makes complete sense, the media and governments and corporations are yet to admit it, but these days when someone like you, a whistleblower, or it could equally be someone that’s really fucked up in their job and got the blame, or it could be someone accused falsely or not of a crime, or even the victim of a crime, but any of these people, when the full spotlight of the media the information, the internet is on them with millions, really millions of people talking about them – this is a truly contemporary phenomenon – these people, like you, have the certain knowledge that this moment will define them in the eyes of everyone they meet from now on for the rest of their lives, that it is now actually impossible for this not to be what their entire life is all about. We’ve noticed, and we’re not pretending that this needs science or anything, we’ve noticed that at about the stage of the story you’re at now, they often try to take their own life and sometimes they succeed, we’re talking Dr David Kelly, he’s probably the best example, but there was also that woman in hospital, the nurse who answered the phone to the Australian hoax DJs, who wanted the medical information about Kate and William, you remember, you remember that?

ANDREW No.

WOMAN Oh. Maybe it was just a British… Anyway, point is, millions of people hate you now, and short of drastic facial surgery and some kind of new identity this is what your life is going to be about. You’re twenty-eight and you will never be known for research, or politics, or art, or music, or sport, or charity, or anything else, you will be for ever known solely for what you did three days ago.

ANDREW You’re working me up to it.

WOMAN I’m naming it to make it less likely.

Beat .

ANDREW How would I kill myself in this room?

WOMAN We took away anything obvious but there’s still… well I’m not going to lay them out for you, am I! Huh! Clever… but yeah there’s actually still a few ways, looking at it, that I could think of –

ANDREW I’m fine. I’m not going to do anything.

WOMAN That’s strange. Yes. I can see that, you appear quite calm.

But that’s odd. Most people would freak OUT right now, but you’re not. Why not?

ANDREW I told you I worked it through, obviously not all the details, and yeah, I suppose, I am freaking out to some extent.

WOMAN To some extent. Yeah. A bit. Not a lot though. Not a reasonable human amount.

ANDREW It wouldn’t do any good.

WOMAN Pragmatism.

ANDREW I suppose.

Beat .

WOMAN Were you running away from something?

ANDREW No.

WOMAN Was there a push for you as well as a pull?

ANDREW No, it was – what I saw, I just couldn’t in all conscience –

WOMAN Yeah I’ve seen in the interview I didn’t entirely buy it then either. I mean there’s loads of people like you working there and in all sorts of jobs who think this stuff but none of them are prepared to jack in their entire life . There must be a reason this appealed, you can’t be that selfless.

ANDREW Well… I don’t know what to say. Except your lack of belief in people is really upsetting.

WOMAN No . No. I think people can be good, just not on the scale that you’re talking about with these sort of consequences. Either you didn’t realise the consequences –

ANDREW I did.

WOMAN Yeah I think you did. Or you did, but you thought it was worth it because you’re so fucking altruistic.

ANDREW Right.

WOMAN Hmm. OR – there’s a third option which is that the life you’re now embarking on is, in your judgement, preferable to the one you left behind, and yes – that’s what I think is going on.

ANDREW What, like I killed someone, or –

WOMAN No.

ANDREW You know committed a crime and now I’m running away.

WOMAN No I don’t think it needs to be anything like that.

I just think you might have been incredibly bored.