#michael gow

Remember when you first said you hate school. I despise school. It just gets in the way. That book I was reading on the beach that day, that had nothing to do with school. It was a book by someone I read about in a book about the novel we’re supposed to study. I hate the stuff we’re supposed to read, there’s so much to read that’s better, more interesting, more exciting, I keep reading that. I have to force myself to read these books. Whenever we’re supposed to read Romeo and Juliet that’s when I want to read Jane Austen. When we’re supposed to read Andrew Marvell I want to read Isaac Asimov. Have you read Foundation and Empire? It’s great. Whenever we’re supposed to read Keats I want to read Jude the Obscure. I love reading but I hate school. It’s torture. But I have to do it. If only I was free to just read whatever I wanted, just get lost in books and writers and ideas. But you have to come back to the theme of Romeo and Juliet and character in the modern novel and compare and contrast Andrew Marvell and… and a two headed cow. I don’t even want to do Law. God, what am I saying? I’m doing it for my mother. Everytime she looks in on me with my desk lamp on and all the books stacked around the desk, I can feel her wanting me to be a genius, to get 501 out of 500 and become the world’s greatest lawyer. All I want to do is read a book about something that’s not on the course. I’m a fraud.

    What would be really great would be if they just said read fifty books and see fifty films and go to ten foreign countries and learn ten poems and join a rock group and come back in two years and we’ll give you the Higher School Certificate.

    But we’re stuck with this stuff. Cram it in and forget it two days after the exam. Oh let me out of here. I need some air.

Act 4

DOUGLAS:

Scene 6

ASPRO:

You hate me. That’s it, you hate me. That’s why you drag me around all those offices. They say: ‘No, you’ve come to the wrong place, Park Street, eighteenth floor.’ We walk there. You know that’s difficult for me in my condition. We get there. The girl says: ‘No, you’re in the wrong place. Why did they send you here? Clarence Street, third floor.’ We walk there, all the way, in the boiling heat in the middle of the day. We get there. The girl says: ‘No, this is the Occupational Section. Liverpool Street, ninth floor.’ We walk there. When we get there it’s lunchtime. The girl we have to see isn’t there. By now I can hardly stand up. We have to wait. We have to take this ticket from this stupid machine and wait for our number to come up. We sit and sit and sit and it’s hot and everyone’s smelly and sweaty from walking the same streets all the time. We sit and sit and sit and listen to the Sound of Music ‘Bossa Nova.’ There’s some smart arse wants them to see him first ‘cause he’s really important ‘cause he’s been there before and someone told him he wouldn't have to wait. But you always have to wait when somebody owes you something. We sit there. We sit and sit. All these cripples and fuckwits like that Irishman from Caringbah. I felt sorry for him, but, he couldn’t stop chucking for months. Nothing of him. You’re lucky I didn’t ask him home with us. Then you’d have been sorry. At last the girl comes back from lunch and the numbers start rolling. The girl puts her lippy on behind the counter where everyone can see her, just so we all know how important she is and how we’re all in the palm of her hand. You have to wait and wait and wait. Your number gets closer and closer and it gets hotter and hotter. Then, oh, boy! Someone’s given up in despair so your number’s even closer. Then. At last. It’s your turn. You go over to the counter. She’s bored and hot. Goes ‘tsk-tsk-tsk.’ Rolls her eyes. At the desk behind the counter another girl. Hot. Bored. Rolls her eyes. Sweat in her mo. Rolls her eyes. Some poor sick bugger pours his heart out over the phone. Begging. Pleading for scraps. She’s important too. Works in an office. Has a desk and a phone. Goes home in the train reading Cosmo. Has tea with Mum and Dad. Complains about all the awful people she sees all day. Boyfriend Greg. Works in the Valuer General’s. Comes over. Watch Prisoner. He works his finger up her crack.

    Oh, I know it all. It’s all true. They don’t care what they say in front of me. I’m too sick to worry about. They talk away. I listen. She asks questions. Fills in the form. Rolls her eyes. Puts her hair behind her ear like this. It keeps falling over her face. She keeps putting it behind her ear ‘cause it makes her feel important and busy. She says: ‘Have you lodged a previous claim?’ and I say ‘yes’ and start to explain. She grinds teeth, rolls eyes. Looks at the girl at the desk. Says: ‘Well it’s being attended to’, and I say I can’t wait any more. I’m sick. I’m sick. I’m getting sicker and sicker. [To DONALD].

Act 4 Scene 2

TOM:

Yeah, that’s what I had. An infection. Everyone knew I had some infection. I was sick. I was told the infection was running its course. That I had to fight. I did. One day a doctor came and sat on my bed and had a long talk with me. He told me that before I got completely well again I would get a lot worse, get really, really sick. And no matter how sick I got not to worry because it meant that soon I’d start to get well again. He was full of shit. He couldn’t look me in the face to say it. He stared at the cabinet next to the bed the whole time. And the nurses were really happy whenever they were near me, but when I stared them in the face, in the end they’d look away and bite their lips. When I was able to go home the doctor took me into his office and we had another talk. I had to look after myself. No strain, no dangerous activity. Keep my spirits up. Then he went very quiet, leant over the desk, practically whispering how if I knew a girl it’d be good for me to do it, to try it. ‘It’, he kept calling it. It, it. I put him on the spot. What? Name it. Give it a name. He cleared his throat. ‘Sexual intercourse’. But if I was worried about going all the way I could experiment with mutual masterbation. Know what that is?

    I nearly spat in his face. You shocked?

    So how about it? Help me. I’m going to get sick again. And I won’t get better. Your parents won’t find out.

    Mind don’t know. That I know. They want me to think I’m going to be as right as rain. They mustn’t find out I know. They mustn’t even suspect, the poor bastards. And you won’t fill them in.

    Will you?...

    Now… what do you say?

    [Silence.]

    I’m a real creep, aren’t I?

    [Pause.]

    I could build myself up.

    Yes. I could build myself up. Do a Charles Atlas course. Would that help?

Graham: We could have lunch...

Jane: No.

Graham: I hate seeing you in this office all the time...

.....

Jane: ... And I don't just mean financial debt.

Graham: Maybe you should stop looking at things in terms of "debts," and "loans" and "paying back." If something's offered to you, [beat] accept it.

.....

Graham: He's going to University!

Jane: If he wants to...

Graham: It's been decided.

Jane: It's been assumed.

Graham: Then what the HELL have I been investing money in, then? I wasn't giving it to you so you could THROW IT AWAY!

....

Danni: A new kid, you were investing in a new kid?

Graham: It wasn't like that [beat] Since you started improving at school ... it felt different. I liked being with her, I liked having her around, I liked helping her out when she needed it. And I thought, just this once...just this once, I had it made.

Danni: And I just stuffed it right up.