Mack What’s wrong with you?

(Sophie stands on a chair and stares at Mack – she begins to sing ‘Ain’t Got No/I Got Life’
by Nina Simone quietly into the silence of the room)
Stop it. (Sophie continues to sing). Stop it. (Beat).

Sophie Do you; have you ever actually felt any – guilt? Because it’s come as a bit of a
surprise that um, that – you, one, I don’t, can’t actually feel it. Like I can’t get my body to
do it, on its own, it’s not something I can generate somehow, like, I – I find myself having
to actually summon it, trying to encourage myself, to summon it and even then I can’t do
it, really, I can’t feel it. I thought it might be shock at first and then – grief or but I think I
might not feel it. I can’t. I don’t. All I can feel is total joy, total – peace. I look at you and I
sometimes actually make myself think of him, I force him into my head and I don’t feel
guilty. What does that mean? What kind of person does that make me? (Pause.)Hm?
Sometimes I think it’s because – what we have is love, meant to be. (Laughs.)That we love
each other, yes, Mack, that is what I sometimes think. Is that ridiculous? And sometimes I
even think that that love is so important that it is bigger, or equal to – what he did. That
they are just two feelings, one is love and the other is despair and both just have an
action. And that those actions are different but that somehow they are equal – does that
make me a monster? I sat at his funeral looking at his parents and Benny but all I could
think of, all I could feel – was you. But then I look at you and I wonder if it’s actually there.
I wonder if I added up the amount of minutes, hours, fucking days I have spent thinking
about you, the amount of fucking longing I have done – if I added that up and weighed it
against anything you have ever actually said… and – (Pause.)But then you do the smallest
thing you make me a cup of tea when I don’t ask, or you touch my hand really lightly in a
room full of people and I think no, Sophie, don’t laugh – don’t laugh because it’s real and
it’s so much more real because it’s unsaid and unspoken and un – un – un – it’s so much
more real because I can’t touch it, because we can’t say it and I can’t see it, it’s so much
more real because I don’t know if it’s there. (Pause. Mack doesn’t say anything)
Please say something. (Pause.) Please. Please tell me if…

(Mack stares at her standing on the chair)

Mack What you doing?

Sophie Wondered what it looked like from up here.

Mack And?

Sophie Smaller.

(Mack nods. Mack helps her down – it’s gallant.)

Mack You want /

Sophie (laughing softly)Tea? No.

(Pause. Sophie stares at Mack).

Mack What?

Sophie Nothing.

Mack What you looking at? (Sophie shrugs.) It’s like I’m a fucking hero. Like you’re expecting
me to fucking levitate or something. (Sophie looks away, hurt.) No one ever looks at me like
that.

Sophie Like it?

Mack Feels like you’re asking for something, for something I don’t have. (Pause.)You got so
much – of this… even when you’re being a fucking mentalist – you got like… grace –
somehow.

Sophie No I /

Mack I’m just a person. Pretty shit one at that.

Sophie No you’re not.

Mack It can’t be fucking dawn for ever, Sophs.

Sophie I know. But it could be /

Mack What?

Sophie We could go away.

Mack There’s not a fucking country we can fly to where he’s still alive – where we can talk
him through it, where it hasn’t happened how it has.

Sophie I know.

Mack Do you? Do you really?

Sophie Yes.

Mack We can’t fly back to that fucking evening and just / (Mack stops himself – he looks
at her in the twilight).You are the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever fucking seen.
Beat.

Sophie Will you do your seagull impression?

Mack What?

Sophie Will you? Please.

Mack No.

Sophie Please.

Mack Fuck off.

Sophie Quietly. (Mack does his seagull impression. He stops and looks at her. She smiles.)
I don’t think you’re a god. You’re not even a very good seagull.

Mack Thanks.

(Beat – they smile.)

Sophie Come with me. Just see.

Mack Then what?

Sophie Don’t know.

Mack Come back, tell Benny – make even more fucking mess.

Sophie Maybe it will be worth it.

Mack I can’t… when I, when I – look at you – it’s like, in my head, you’re always crying.

Sophie I’ll stop. Eventually.

Mack Ever since – it’s amazing how something like that – um – how it, sorry. It – it starts
ripping the walls down – you know? It’s like that morning – since then everything just
emptied – like words are lies before they’ve even got out your mouth.
(Sophie kisses Mack tenderly. She holds his face).

Sophie My plane leaves in two hours.

Mack Where you going?

Sophie Italy.
Mack Oh, bonjour.

Sophie That’s France.

Mack Oh yeah. (Pause). I can’t.

Sophie Please.

Mack No.
Sophie I don’t want it to start hurting, yet.

Mack I’m sorry.

Sophie Okay.

(Sophie grits her teeth and leaves. Mack watches her go).