page 114

Charlotte Simmonds

Burnt Coffee

Katrina is standing stage left, on her own. Single bed stage right. Jason lying on it, Raghed sitting on it. Light snaps on above it.

Jason:

I'm awake. I've consumed tryptophan-rich goods. I've not had caffeine. I've exercised for an hour. I've had one wine. Room temperature is between 18 and 20 degrees. I've not partaken in high stimulation activities before bed. I've not eaten a heavy meal. I'm awake. Why am I awake? Fuck.

Raghed:

You've not eaten at all. [light snaps off]

Katrina:

In the winter of 2005 I was treating Jason for insomnia. I was full of advice in those days and the things I learnt spilled forth from my brains like bile from the stomach of an alcoholic.

Jason:

[light snaps on above bed] I'm awake. Consider sex for relaxation. Have you considered sex for relaxation? I'm a lonely single man! I'm not in a position to be considering sex for relaxation. [pause] Raghed!

Raghed:

Piss off. [light snaps off]

Katrina:

Jason's capacity for recall was amazing. It was something I had discussed much with my colleagues at the time. He would regurgitate everything he heard word for word to his wife, even months later, who complained to me heavily at every encounter.

Jason:

[light snaps on] I'm awake. Nicotine is a stimulant. Don't smoke before bed. Nicotine is a stimulant. If you wake up in the night, don't get up for a smoke. Don't smoke, don't smoke.

page 115 Raghed:

Fuck it, I'm going for a smoke. [light snaps off]

Katrina:

Word for word to his wife. Sometimes to me. It is very disconcerting to hear your own words coming back at you like that. No one likes to be forced to reconsider their own carelessness.

Jason:

[light snaps on] I'm awake. If you wake up in the night, don't exercise or indulge in stimulating activities. Read a boring book or listen to soothing instrumental music. Raghed, I'm awake.

Raghed:

I know.

Jason:

Let's go for a walk.

Raghed:

Alright. [light snaps off]

Katrina:

I was fascinated by him. He was my most intelligent and compelling patient. Capacity for recall has nothing to do with recovery. Usually when people can't sleep they become more forgetful. They repeat things. However, his retention of information, unusual though it was, wasn't helping him a bit. He wouldn't practise anything he was taught. Noise control would be called to the bedsit at 4am on a Tuesday. There would be two of them at home. Just two. No parties.

Jason:

[light snaps on] I'm awake. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm awake. Raghed, can we go to a party?

Raghed:

Okay. [light snaps off]

Katrina:

I sent him inpatient to a sleep clinic but he only lasted a week.

Jason:

In the Spring of 2005 I was discharged from the clinic due to my unwillingness to cooperate. I couldn't help it. Routines bore me. The first day I was back was the hardest. Even the trees were laughing at me and I had no control over their onslaught of vicious sarcasm. The keys on my iBook were greasy. Forty fish and chip dinners had clearly been using my belongings while I was away. The rage that enveloped me page 116was overwhelming and I did not, at first, know what to do with it.

Katrina:

He took to beating the cat. Jason was the same as ever, perpetuating his anger, his sleeplessness, his need for sex, his position in some kind of 'scene' either real or perceived. Growing older.

Raghed:

I missed you.

Jason:

I missed your bed.

Katrina:

I had also counselled his wife, the product of an unsettled abusive drug-addicted family, both unwilling and unable to adjust to society. I now believe her to be the main element of dysfunction in Jason's life. Secretly she looked down on his life with the kind of scorn and contempt only a 'superior' intellect faced with the money-grubbing intelligence of the right wing can maintain.

Raghed:

Capitalism jumps into bed with me at every chance it gets and the space between my legs opens up without a single thought. So hot! So hot! So hot! He is not even a very good lay. O Self-Loathing, you were the only one I ever cared about.

Katrina:

She took to swallowing dishwater. Knowing so much about her husband I could never completely be at ease with her, even in a professional context. The stench of familiarity hung between us, preventing vainer discourse.

Raghed:

Mental health consumers are people too!

Katrina:

O Poor Excuse for Intellectualism, you were so self-righteous in those days. She would wonder vaguely if she was pregnant. My inane chatter filled the spaces in between, the spaces between her dried up incapacity and this therapy notion and that. The ridiculous phrases I feel required to apply. I felt at times both an epileptic and an incontinent, reduced to garbled nonsense, all control lost, liquid faeces streaming down my analogical pants like a person on muscle relaxants. page 117Repeating myself does not make me believe in it any harder, try as I might. Was it wrong of me to counsel them both? Did it pave the way for what happened later and the feelings that were generated? Every cause eventually becomes an effect.

Jason:

When I can't sleep we go to parties, and I make an arsehole of myself. No one ever likes me and I never like them. First party since getting back from the clinic. Our therapist was there. She was drunk. That's very bad for business.

Katrina:

I knew he was coming to the party. That's why I went. Is that unprofessional? Of course it's unprofessional. But this is the twenty-first century and some of us can no longer tell right from wrong.

Is this rumour even true?

Raghed:

What rumour?

Katrina:

What's this I hear about you?

Raghed:

What about me?

Katrina:

You're pregnant.

Raghed:

I might be.

Katrina:

I know all about you. Everyone does.

Jason:

I lit a cigarette and Katrina asked me for one and I laughed in her face and said no.

Katrina:

Why not?

Jason:

You don't smoke.

Katrina:

I do so! I smoke all the time!

Jason:

If you smoked, you'd buy your own cigarettes. I hate these parties, you know. 'So how was Bulgaria?' they ask. I didn't go to Bulgaria. I went to Brussels.

Katrina:

Where's that?

Jason:

Belgium.

Katrina:

Same place, isn't it?

page 118 Jason:

Hand me another vodka. Don't tell me one of your penis stories. Don't start with the earnest indignance about America, you pathetic excuse for a political interest. Don't start with the neologisms. Indignance is not a word.

Raghed:

We thought she was too drunk but we said nothing. We thought she was an idiot and Jason said something.

Jason:

[to Katrina] You're a stupid fucking bitch.

Katrina:

Of course no one likes you.

Raghed:

After the fourth party, we went home.

Jason:

[light snaps on] I'm awake. I can't sleep with the light off. Leave it on! Leave it the fuck alone! I'm awake. [lights stays on]

The second day back was the easiest. I finally found the dictionary and discovered how to pronounce 'Quetzalcoatl', a word which has pestered me for years. I looked up pictures of him. I realised I am terrified of Quetzalcoatl and that he has been plaguing my nightmares ever since without me even being aware of it.

Katrina:

Ever since what? Ever since those things that they will not speak about, not even to me. Talking does not solve every problem, it seems, and most things do not improve upon closer inspection.

Jason:

Oh so Angry. It was the whitetails that had taken over my home while I was away that bothered me the most. Hiding between my blankets, rummaging around at night, biting my ankles and leaving me with great swollen bee-stung feet. Vacuuming, vacuuming, washing the bed linen, picking up piles of clothes off the floor, clearing out the house spiders upon which they feed. I was angry, agitated, frightened of going to bed at night, every morning a new bite, perhaps two, appearing. Are whitetails, subconsciously, the cause of my insomnia? I refuse to believe that insomnia is anything but all in my mind. I hold fast to my claims that doctors have page 119been feeding me placebos for years. No, whitetails do not, as so many have told me, cause necrotising arachnidism. Apart from the rare cases of true loxoscelism, does necrotic arachnidism even exist? Another urban legend to be filed with the snuff movies, ritual cannibalism, unicorns, sleep debt? I am no biologist. Don't even get me started.

Raghed:

I'll get you started.

Katrina:

He took to lying awake at nights with a dexterity that made him suspect he'd done it before. Not that I cared. I knew they had outrageous sex at all hours of the day and night. What is advice like mine worth when their animal sounds of barking dogs wake up the neighbours at two in the morning, then again at six, then again at four in the afternoon? I didn't care if they liked me or not.

Jason:

I never sleep anyway. You're just jealous.

Raghed:

I also did not think such outrageous television-style sex existed till I heard it from my own mouth.

Katrina:

[boringly] Uhhhhnh! Uhhhnh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Right there! Right there! Ohhhhhhh…

Raghed:

So hot! So hot! So hot! I do not even think we are a very good lay.

Jason:

I'm awake. I'm bored. The revolution has ended due to lack of interest.

Katrina:

O Complacency, you were the darling of the middle class.

Jason:

O Well.

Katrina:

He sank deeper and deeper into dysfunction. He took to punching his stomach till he vomited. Like every minority group, she took to cleaning it up.

Jason:

She is Iranian. Leave her alone. Or hadn't you noticed?

Katrina:

She is only on my books to prove I have nothing against immigrants, but secretly I am jealous of her good looks and page 120the way her headscarves drive all the men wild. I wanted an Afghani client but the ones in this zone were all taken. I notice now that most of my friends are gay. Who will be left to discuss the virtues of diversity with me in ten years time? My friends will all be gay immigrants and I will have nothing left to prove.

Raghed:

High-heeled shoes throw the entire weight of the wearer forward, making it far more difficult to sustain upright balance. They force the women wearing them to use a lot of extra muscular effort to keep themselves from falling forward. Much of this extra effort is concentrated in the lower back, producing an exaggerated arch, which can easily lead to back pain.

Katrina:

I sent her a Danish translation of some Urdu poetry for Diwali. A little note saying, 'To further your appreciation of Eurocentric culture. I know how much you value heterogeneity.'

The following day I received a text message that read, 'we wil asm 18 yr ass'. I'm not kidding. That book cost me twenty-eight dollars. At least someone knows where hegemony sleeps at night. O Nationalism, you were a bright and shining thing and I did not know what I was missing.

Raghed:

To have high-heeled shoes and back pain. It was all I ever wanted from life.

Jason:

To have two girl babies and a decent sleep at night. You are all I ever wanted from life.

Raghed:

Is that true?

Jason:

I really couldn't tell you.

In 2005 I was a party animal, hunting and eating up. I did not sleep for sixteen days. I have since had cause to rue my experiences. I flounder in a pool of embarrassment, shame for having not been to Palestine instead. Call yourself a backpacker? No, I do not. I call myself Shithead mostly and page 121no longer pick up the phone when it rings. You wouldn't sleep either if your wife was this hot.

Katrina:

In 2005 I made the conclusion that Raghed was the sole cause of Jason's problems. It was an unprofessional conclusion to come to and not one I should have considered but I made it all the same. I felt he needed something more in his life. Something to help him sleep at night. I decided to steal him from her.

Masturbation is clearly an issue for you. You don't indulge in it enough.

Jason:

Well, I did last night. I had every intention of masturbating four times. I didn't make it. I got in a good two and a half, but by that time my balls were sore so I couldn't finish it.

Katrina:

I understand. I know how you feel. I'd suck you, but I'm on a diet.

Jason:

[politely] A sugarless diet?

Katrina:

Saltless.

Jason:

The party we went to. That's not the whole story.

Raghed:

Don't tell them.

Jason:

There was more to it than that.

Raghed:

Why are you telling them?

Jason:

It's important that you know.

Raghed:

It's not important. No one needs to hear.

Jason:

It's rock and roll, baby. Katrina was talking to us. She was drunk. I wasn't embarrassed.

Raghed:

I was embarrassed.

Jason:

Nor was I surprised. She's a good looking lady at times.

Raghed:

Shut up!

Jason:

But the filth that came out of her mouth!

page 122 Raghed:

Filthier than me.

Jason:

No one is filthier than you. That's not even possible.

Katrina:

Your wife is the sole cause of your problems. Ditch the bitch.

Jason:

You're a stupid fucking whore.

Katrina:

No wonder no one likes you.

Jason:

She fell on my face like a heat rash. I smacked her in the face.

Katrina:

No, you punched me in the neck. I loved you then, at that moment. I was drunk, I know, but I loved you and when you punched me in the neck I loved you even more. I loved so much I punched you back and I don't care if your throat hurts, if you are coughing up blood for three days solid. I don't care if I have caused you some deep internal injury. I loved you and you knew it and you deserve every fucking thing you get.

Raghed:

We were kicked out of the party. That's how we left.

Jason:

It was the first time I'd ever hit a lady, and I'm not going to justify it but I will say this: I loved my wife. No one should be allowed to get away with a stunt like that.

Katrina:

He took to envisioning his jail terms.

Raghed:

I had discovered that weekend I was pregnant with twins. Yes, truly this time. It's not surprising. I had done everything I could. I put needle holes in the condoms. I told him I was on the pill. I got him drunk every weekend. I planned for two girl babies. I planned to give him all he ever wanted from life. I didn't tell him. We went to the party. He hit his therapist. We were kicked out. There came a confession of love. I waited. I don't want him to miss out on better opportunities because of me. I didn't think I should tell him. I thought perhaps he'd like the chance to return her affections. I left them to it.

page 123 Jason:

Your insomnia treatments leave a bitter taste in my mouth!

Katrina:

I know. It's called dysgeusia. A taste of bitterness that doesn't really exist.

Jason:

Dysgeusia, you are the taste of home. You are the taste of a warm hug. You are the taste of obsession. You are the taste of a love gone sick and wrong, reduced to banging on my window at three in the morning, asking would I like to go for a walk? No, you fuckhead, I would not like to go for a walk, it is three in the morning and although not yet asleep, I am happily in bed. You are this taste, everything unhealthy and reeking. I will never let you go. [Jason and Katrina kiss]

Katrina:

Has your love gone sick and wrong?

Jason:

O Wakefulness, fuck you. Fuck you to hell.

What's this I hear about you? Katrina tells me you're pregnant. Is this rumour true?

Raghed:

What rumour?

Jason:

I know all about you.

Raghed:

Of course you do! You're my husband!

Jason:

Everybody does.

Raghed:

What is this, jealousy? I'm the one who should be jealous.

Jason:

I'm suspicious.

Raghed:

No kidding.

Jason:

You sleep on the couch at nights.

Raghed:

Your bed is too soft for a pregnant high-heeled backache such as my own, and besides, it is full of whitetails and barking dogs. Yes, Jason, I am pregnant. I know who you're seeing and I promise you I will not carry these children to full term.

Jason:

Miscarriage may be common but it's a very lonely experience.

page 124 Raghed:

Says you! I am desperate for a common yet lonely experience. I don't care! I'm not lonely! I have a hundred friends on Facebook!

Jason:

I'm here.

Raghed:

You're not here! You're at parties, smacking up women. You're going for walks, refusing to sleep. You never look at me. You look at everyone else in the world.

Jason:

I love you.

Raghed:

No, you don't.

Jason:

You're right. I don't.

Raghed:

Every morning I wake up and say to my stomach, 'Die, baby, die.' Every time I sit over the toilet I say, 'Out, baby, out.' Every time I go to bed I say, 'No one loves you. Go home.' [Raghed starts crying]

And now you look at me in disgust and leave the room. [Jason looks at her in disgust and walks into Katrina's arms]

He had hurt me so much. I tried to be open-minded about things. I have tried to hold true to my confused post-modern left-wing ideals. I don't know what's going on anymore. I don't understand the story line. All I'd ever wanted was for him to love me back.

Jason:

Let's get things straight here. I was suspicious first. I was suspicious before Katrina ever jumped me. Long before we went to that party. It was when I came back from the sleep clinic you see, after my week away. It was not merely that the keys on my computer were greasy. There were pubic hairs between them. Who was she fucking on top of my laptop while I was away? Who was she fucking next to it? Beside it? Whose balls was she shaving over its white, white keys? Was any of this true? Was she really?

Katrina:

Yes, she was really.

Raghed:

Of course not

page 125 Katrina:

Yes, she was really!

Raghed:

Of course not!

Katrina:

Yes, she was really, really hot.

Raghed:

The next time he fucked me he did so out of despair and avoided looking me in the eye. I mentioned and did not mention my impending pregnancy. I tried to talk about it. As usual, he ended up talking about politics.

Jason:

Firstly, I would like to say that I'm sorry for what I said about Stalin. It turns out Stalin was a Communist after all, he was just a very, very bad one.

Raghed:

I'm not having your baby.

Jason:

It appears that Communism is much like Christianity, in that you don't have to actually adhere to any of its tenets to be a part of it, you just have to say you are.

Raghed:

I'm having your miscarriage.

Jason:

What can I say? Everything I know I learned from Wikipedia.

Raghed:

You want me to have your baby? Sure, I will have your baby. Oh, you didn't know you wanted one? I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you.

Jason:

Where does Bolshevism fit in to all of this?

Raghed:

I will call your baby The Dangers of High Heels.

Jason:

I still haven't deciphered the exact specifics of Trotskyism. Does this make me stupid?

Raghed:

Dear Jason, what do you want me to do with your baby?

Jason:

I wish you were a better Marxist.

Raghed:

If I receive no word from you I shall assume you agree that I should sell it on TradeMe.

Jason:

What baby?

Raghed:

Also, I just did some amazing coke

page 126 Jason:

I don't know what to say to that.

Raghed:

I am in a very good mood.

Jason:

Does your mother know about this?

Raghed:

Whose mother?

Jason:

Does your mother know about us?

Raghed:

Who's us? Possibly? Half my childhood was spent watching her coked out of her mind. I didn't actually think you were listening.

Jason:

I don't believe your life. You know what, I just don't believe it.

Raghed:

I am Iranian. Leave me alone. Or hadn't you noticed?

Katrina:

I'm not jealous. He only sleeps with her because she's the closest thing he'll ever get to underage without actually going to jail for it. Jail has long been one of his fantasies, although it doesn't help him sleep at night.

Jason:

I only sleep with you because you're tiny and you look like a child. I only sleep with you because I already know you're a slut and there's no effort involved. There's none. There's just none.

Katrina:

Half of what Jason believed about his wife were lies that I myself had spread. Having counselled them both, I knew more about them than they knew about each other. I knew the buttons to push. I knew the rumours that would send them crumbling. I already told you he remembers everything.

Raghed:

I have a rare form of dwarfism.

Jason:

She's twice as small.

Raghed:

Some of my organs are too big for my body.

Jason:

They're twice as big.

Raghed:

My heart, for instance.

Jason:

She loves me twice as much

page 127 Raghed:

I can't run so fast.

Katrina:

High heels were designed to slow women down, making it harder for them to escape. Likewise with rare forms of dwarfism and abnormal hearts.

Jason:

And she's twice as tight.

Raghed:

There is nothing symbolic about me.

Katrina:

She is spending money on coke. Can she afford coke?

Jason:

She can't afford coke.

Katrina:

Can you afford coke?

Jason:

It was free. She got some from a friend.

Raghed:

I've never done coke. I'm not like my parents.

Katrina:

She shouldn't be allowed coke. She is undergoing counselling for severe trauma.

Jason:

It's not my problem. Is it?

Katrina:

I won't say much but I will say this. Your marriage is in danger.

Jason:

In danger from what?

Katrina:

Do you want to save your marriage?

Jason:

I didn't realise it needed help.

Katrina:

Keep a closer eye on your wife.

Jason:

I won't sleep because I don't know where she'll go if I do! Who is she with? Who is she with? Why do you now deny it, Raghed? You told me you were on coke. I heard you.

Raghed:

No, I just said that to get attention. And sympathy. I want your pity.

Katrina:

You're not even Iranian, are you? Raghed: No, I am Jordanian, but you wouldn't know the difference.

Katrina:

I know everything about them. How did they meet? He page 128fucked her on the back of a bus. He fucked her on the back of a bus. What about the people, I said? What about the people on the bus? Didn't anyone notice? Didn't anyone see? 'No,' he said. 'We were at the back.'

Raghed:

He turned against me. He cast me off like so many tonnes of jetsam. There was nothing in his eyes but revulsion and the lust for someone else. I thought I was dying.

Jason:

You always think that.

Raghed:

I'm okay now. I found solace.

Katrina:

And every time I take the bus, I think, 'People have had sex here. People have had sex. People have ridden this bus.'

Jason:

I never take the bus.

Who are you seeing?

Raghed:

You.

Jason:

You're seeing someone, aren't you, who are you seeing?

Raghed:

You.

Jason:

Is he a good man?

Raghed:

Yes.

Jason:

Is he better than me?

Raghed:

Yes.

Jason:

Does he shave his balls?

Raghed:

He's a hard-out Christian.

Jason:

Hard-out Christian? What does that mean? What does that mean? Does it mean he fucks you and calls it making love? Does it mean he punches you in the throat and then apologises? Does he fuck you for charity and for the sake of the poor?

Raghed:

He doesn't give it to me from behind.

Jason:

Does he fuck you on the bus?

page 129 Raghed:

He doesn't give it to me from behind.

Jason:

Does he forgive you? Is he filled with grace?

Raghed:

He's a hard-out Christian. He is Hard. Out.

Jason:

Does he read you Kierkegaard?

Raghed:

And after we have sex, I sing. I sing in the mornings and I sing in the evenings and Katrina says to me, 'You're kidding yourself, you know. You're kidding yourself. Sex does not make people happy.' What, it makes me happy. So what if it does? You have left me. I have moved on. I can spin you as many lies as you spun me. I can tell you I'm happy and in love. I can tell you I no longer care or am hurt. I can tell you revenge is no longer uppermost in my thoughts, but I will never again tell you the truth.

Jason:

You cut me to the quick.

Raghed:

You plainly misinterpreted my love.

Jason:

I did not misinterpret it. I ignored it. That's all. I ignored it. That's all. [starts smoking]

I'm awake. Do not try to fall asleep. This only makes the problem worse. Instead, turn on the light. [light snaps off]

Raghed:

I've given up a lot of anxiety and worry and all that, which is good, but I still miss my counselling sessions. It's been a good time but I'm ready to shift it now.

Jason:

You always say that.

Katrina:

You always say that.

Raghed:

I wear red heels now because it gets me into bed. I'm not a feminist. I never said I was. I like to get laid. So what if I do? They look at me and say, 'You're tiny. You look like a kid. You're tiny. I want to fuck you.'

Katrina:

So what if they do?

Raghed:

They look at me when I wear heels. They look at me. They want to have me. That makes me happy.

page 130

My heart is too big for my body. I can't run so fast. You could easily catch me. Do you find me attractive? I can't run very far. Do I look sexy right now? Do my breasts look available?

Jason:

I want to come on your face.

Katrina:

So what if you do? I met her at the bus stop. I picked her up. Her hair was sticky. 'You,' I said, 'what's wrong with you. Your hair is wet.' I touched it. Her hair was sticky. I had smelt this smell before.

Raghed:

I blew him one on the bus. It was the back of the bus. No one saw. It was a long trip. I fell asleep at the back of the bus on his arm. I woke up to him stroking my arse. My hand was in his crotch. 'Travel erection,' he said, and smiled. 'Travel erection,' he said, and showed me. I didn't even know him. He was a total stranger.

Jason:

That's maturity. You don't want to play games in a relationship, so you're not going to. You're going to blow him one on the bus and forget about it. No games. That's not hardness. That's maturity.

Katrina:

I picked her up at the bus stop. Her hair was sticky. She stank. But so what? This is not a porno. 'Write a play about my life,' she said. 'I want you to write a play about my life.'

'Fuck off,' I said. 'No one will ever believe it.'

'My life is hilarious,' she said. 'My uncle raped me and when I told my mother, she threw a telephone at me.'

'You're kidding yourself,' I said. 'Your life is boring. No one wants to hear about that.'

Raghed:

I'm not allowed to run. So I wear high heels. They seem to slow me down.

Jason:

And when I come back from the clinic, every time it's the same thing. I hate my house, I hate this country, I hate your accents. I wish I'd never come, I wish I'd never gone.

Katrina:

I'm going to a party this weekend. Do you want to come? It's a party, a party, it's going to be outrageous.

page 131 Jason:

Who's going? I don't want to come.

Katrina:

I'm going to be there. You want to come. You can see me drunk. I'm a lousy drunk. I will get riotously drunk and confess my love for you. It'll be better than sex, better than masturbation.

Jason:

My balls hurt. I don't want to come.

Katrina:

Tiny Iranian girls in head scarves and high heels.

Raghed:

So hot, so hot, so hot! I am the very best lay.

Katrina:

He took to a legal form of paedophilia! He was so fucked up he only screwed dwarfs. But no longer! Now he's with me. He has a real life and real dreams. He gets a real sleep at night.

Jason:

No, I don't.

Raghed:

I am a rather tall dwarf. For my age.

Jason:

Are you going to grow any more?

Raghed:

I don't think so.

Jason:

I don't want you to grow any more. Please don't grow any more.

Raghed:

I won't.

Jason:

Do you watch television with him naked? Do you have sex with your head scarf on? When you kiss him, does he put his tongue in your mouth?

Raghed:

When he has sex with me, he doesn't kiss me. 'I only kiss the people I love,' he says. 'Sex, that's just sex, you can have sex with anyone. But kissing, that's very intimate. You can only kiss someone you really, really love.' He is a better man than you.

Jason:

I'm with someone new now. She doesn't help me sleep. I'm with someone new and I lie awake at night imagining the two of them kissing. I lie awake at night and feel deceived. No one is deceiving me. I take four Zopiclone. There is a page 132bitter taste in my mouth. They call it dysgeusia and I count the whitetailed spiders on the floor and go to sleep.

Katrina:

You never sleep.

Jason:

[light snaps on] I'm awake. Don't take your problems to bed. I don't. I don't take my problems to bed. I feel much better these days. When I don't think about my children, I sleep just fine.

Raghed:

I want him to be back with me and sick again. When he was ill he was intelligent. When he was ill, everyone looked at us. I wore high heels and took my head scarf off and turned nearly every head in town. I wore high heels and put my head scarf on and turned even more. Do you find my height attractive? I want to be attractive. So hot, so hot, So Hot! Insomnia is a pretty bad lay.

Jason:

My girlfriend, the therapist, says stop it.

Katrina:

Stop it. Stop thinking about them. She was abnormal. She killed you. You're with me now. You can sleep. I'll hold you. Go to sleep.

Jason:

Am I still a father if my child does not get born? Is she still a mother? What happens to the family when the children die? Does it still exist? I can't shut my thoughts down. I take four Zopiclone a night now and I've never slept better.

Katrina:

What are you doing, taking four Zopiclone a night? Are you mad?

Jason:

Yes. I can't sleep. What do you suggest? Yes. You're giving me placebos. What does it matter if I take one or two or four? What are you talking about?

Katrina:

You're not helping. Have a milo. Go back to bed. Kiss me. Get some rest.

Jason:

My face is sore. I can't kiss you. I can't sleep. What are you talking about?

I'm awake.

page 133

Raghed comes knocking on my window. She moved out two Raghed comes knocking on my window. She moved out two weeks ago. Katrina moved in. It's three in the morning. I get up and answer the door. 'Hello,' she says. 'Would you like to go for a walk?'

'No,' I say. 'What are you talking about? It is three in the morning. I am in bed.'

She is bare foot. This is the first time I have seen her without heels.

'I thought you might like to go for a walk,' she says.

'No,' I say. 'I might not. What's that smell?' I say. 'Can you smell something?'

'No,' she says, 'I smell nothing.'

What are you doing?

Raghed:

Trying to get you back.

Jason:

It's three in the morning.

Raghed:

I know.

Jason:

Are you psychotic?

Raghed:

No. For once in my life I am looking you in the face.

Jason:

What's that smell? I thought you quit smoking.

Raghed:

I didn't quit smoking. You quit smoking. I never started smoking. You don't know the first thing about me.

Jason:

Katrina made me quit. It's more than you ever did.

Raghed:

Then Katrina's smoking.

Jason:

Katrina's not smoking.

Raghed:

No, but she's dying from smoke inhalation.

Jason:

It's not cigarettes, is it?

Raghed:

No, it's not.

Jason:

Is it the toaster, Raghed? Are you making toast in my kitchen?

page 134 Raghed:

Is it stupid, Jason? Are you playing very dumb? You know what that smell is.

Jason:

I missed you, Raghed. I missed your head games.

Raghed:

Are you psychotic?

Jason:

No, I'm not. I don't miss you. What am I talking about? She does me with your head scarf on. She changes records for me naked. She sits next to me on the back of the bus. She is my total stranger.

Raghed:

I got you out of the house, didn't I? I saved your life. Tell me the truth, Jason.

Jason:

The truth? No, let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the slightly more pressing matter of smoke coming under my bedroom door right now. Why don't you tell me what you think of arson, Raghed? Do you realise it's illegal?

Raghed:

It's all about wreaking a physical effect far greater than your own strength.

Jason:

And if somebody's harmed?

Raghed:

A deus ex machina will save me.

Jason:

A deus ex machina has not saved your children.

Raghed:

How did you know about that?

Jason:

You think I never listen, but I do.

Raghed:

I threw myself down some steps. Did I tell you that already?

Jason:

Did you light a fire in my house, Raghed?

Raghed:

Yes.

Jason:

What for?

Raghed:

So you'd notice me.

Jason:

Is Katrina trapped?

Raghed:

I hope so.

page 135 Jason:

And you think this will bring me back?

Raghed:

Nothing can bring you back.

Jason:

That's right. You want the truth? This is the truth: I notice you every single day! There's not a song that doesn't remind me of you. There's not a thing that Katrina does that I don't compare with you. There's not a party she takes me to that equals one of yours. There's not a night of deep sleep I don't wish was a night awake in your arms and yet, you have ascertained correctly. Nothing can bring me back.

Raghed:

Why did you leave me?

Jason:

Because not even a child is hope for us. Because we have no future. Because you left me first, in your heart and in your mind. Because I can't bear the thought of you with him. Because you gave me poison that brought both life and death. Because not even the happiness I felt with you could detract from the destruction you wrought against me. Because I was tired and wanted rest.

Raghed:

We can try again. I'll let you sleep.

Jason:

Bad enough having you move out and our highly irregular therapist move in. Bad enough everyone trying to make me sleep. Bad enough that no sleeping pills work for me, ever. Bad enough that you come knocking on my window at three in the morning asking do I want to go for a walk. Bad enough that I don't know who I love, if anyone, that I don't know what I want, if anything. Bad enough that you set my house on fire, but you killed my children? The only thing that could have made me sleep, Raghed! The only thought that ever wore me out.

Raghed:

I feel as ragged as a bone.

Should I have told him? I don't know. Was it even true? Is a willful miscarriage possible? Am I a plausible scenario?

Jason:

My children are dead. My wife has a morbid obsession. My house is on fire and my mistress is choking to death. No, page 136I don't want this story. Give me something different. I'm awake.

Katrina:

He has a sleeping disorder Raghed. Or hadn't you noticed?

Raghed:

How did you get out?

Katrina:

Through sheer willpower, determination and a blinding hatred for you that overrides all else.

Jason:

All I want from life is her.

Raghed:

No, you want me!

Jason:

The story's changed, Raghed. Raghed, what the hell are you doing here? My baby-killing wife. The one love of my life. [snorts derisively]

Raghed:

I love you, I don't love you. I want you, go away. I don't love you, but I really want to fuck you. You're so hot, so hot, so hot! No! You are not even a very good lay. [Raghed starts crying]

Katrina:

And you, now that you're well, do I really like you any better? You can't shut up about her. Do you think you miss her, Jason? No, you miss the drama her life exudes. You insomniacs are all the same. I have treated hundreds of you. Bunch of attention-seeking nohopers. All out to be the next Robert Schumann, the next Virginia Woolf, the next Vincent Van Gogh. Like I care. 'Sall the same to me. You live, you die, you don't get famous. You're the same as anyone else.

Jason:

Oh, Katrina, did you say something you meant for once in your life? Did you say something you didn't learn at university? Is that the real you? Who the hell are you anyway?

Katrina:

I'm everything a wife should be and everything your wife was not.

Jason:

You're jealous. You're jealous of our social impairment. You've spent your entire working life surrounded by the incapable, the defective, the maladjusted. Abnormalities now seem normal to you and you find yourself wondering what's page 137wrong. You tell yourself you only want to help, to cure, to rectify and find satisfaction in a job well done, but you knew from the beginning that we were beyond help. Look at us all now. My children are gone. The house is in ashes. Nothing salvageable is left of these relationships. You will never work again. You have cursed yourself and damned us all.

Katrina:

Furthermore, you will die alone.

Jason:

Is that true?

Raghed:

Jason, we all die alone.

Jason:

I'm awake. Fuck. I'll tell you why I'm awake! I've an addiction to sleeping pills and I've not picked up my script and it's a Friday and I'm going to be awake the whole bloody weekend. Fuck!

Katrina:

Here at the end of our capacities and that's what you worry about.

Jason:

I never went to Brussels. I went to my death. Don't tell me there's nothing left. I want you to kiss me.

Katrina:

I don't want to kiss you.

Jason:

I want you to kiss me!

Katrina:

I don't want to kiss you.

Jason:

Just one kiss, not even one kiss? After all we've done for each other, don't I even get one kiss for that? After all we've been through?

Katrina:

I have to go. I'm late.

Jason:

After everything we've said to each other? It's 3.30am! What are you late for?

Katrina:

You're late for your medication.

Jason:

Yeah, you need it!

Katrina:

No, you need it.

Raghed:

I'll kiss you.

page 138 Jason:

Your kisses are dirty.

Katrina:

In the summer of 2005, my relationship with Jason ended, mostly, I will say, due to my jealousy. I was jealous of his sleeplessness, and of this common trauma they shared. They were leaving me out of their lives. I have regrets, who wouldn't have regrets? After what I did to him. I tried to ruin his life. I can admit it. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of people do it. But I loved him and that's what I regret. They don't believe me. No one ever does. You wanted him slaughtered, they say. You took away his life, the fire in his eyes. You pushed him, pushed him, pushed him. Over the edge, over the limit. You destroyed our friend. You never loved anyone in your life. You're not hot, they say. We hate you.

Raghed:

You're not hot. We hate you. I'm not pregnant. I just said that to get attention.

Katrina:

You're not even Iranian, are you?

Raghed:

I am fucking Jordanian!

Katrina:

She only wears that head scarf to get attention. [Raghed takes off her head scarf and high heels] I am disillusioned with this life. [Katrina starts pulling pill bottles out of Jason's pockets and throwing them away]

Jason:

I can't live with this anymore. It's not about sex. It's not about politics. It's about the simple things. The profane. Every day the coffee she makes me is burnt.

Katrina:

It's quarter past two. Why are you drinking coffee?

Jason:

Every day the coffee is burnt. [Jason pours his coffee over the stage. Raghed begins sweeping away the ashes]