Three Plays by Craig Higginson

Author:Craig Higginson [Higginson, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783197248
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd
Published: 2016-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Part Three

THE CONDITIONAL

CELIA’s apartment. Darkness. The phone is still buzzing. It stops.

Light grows. CELIA is on the couch, posing, while PIERRE sketches her.

The phone beeps.

CELIA: Today we are learning about articulating conditions. If you do this, I do that. They’re called conditionals.

PIERRE glances at her phone.

PIERRE: Why do you never answer your phone?

CELIA: Have you done your homework?

PIERRE: It’s the way you look at it.

CELIA: Have you prepared something?

PIERRE: You think it will bite you?

CELIA: We should probably start with the zero conditional.

PIERRE: Or is there a person who wants to bite?

CELIA: What’s the model for the zero conditional?

PIERRE: Present tense plus present tense?

CELIA: Give me an example.

PIERRE: You never say about yourself. You make me say about myself. But you are always asking the questions.

CELIA: I ask the questions because I am teaching you how to speak English. I already know how to speak it.

PIERRE: So when you can speak English, there’s no longer a need to talk?

CELIA: My job is to pass on what I know until you can speak for yourself. It’s not to tell you about myself.

PIERRE: Then change your job.

CELIA: You should’ve been content with what you had before you came here.

PIERRE: I want what you have.

CELIA: Oh, and what’s that?

PIERRE: The world.

CELIA laughs.

PIERRE: You’re beautiful, clever, rich. Most of all, you’re white. You can go anywhere, always a bit higher than everything else.

CELIA: That’s not a very nice thing to say.

PIERRE: Maybe you don’t see it because for you it’s normal. Or you do see it, but you don’t like it to be said. You don’t know what it is to be made always a bit lower than everything. Always – suspicious.

CELIA: The only person who can free you from that feeling is you. There are bigots everywhere – and they’ll always pick on something, whoever you are.

PIERRE: You could try to help. By letting me in. By telling about yourself. As an equal. A friend.

CELIA: We’re student and teacher. You came here so I could correct your grammar.

PIERRE: That’s not why I came.

CELIA: Okay – you wanted to express yourself. Aren’t you doing that? Aren’t you getting from me exactly what you wanted?

PIERRE: Not exactly.

CELIA: Then what do you want – exactly?

PIERRE: I’ll tell you when you’re – softer.

CELIA: Listen, I’ve never been softer in my life.

Silence.

CELIA: Present tense plus present tense. Try to think of an example.

PIERRE: (Still trying to draw her.) Keep still. You keep moving your head.

CELIA: Can’t you give it a break?

PIERRE: I’m accustomed to drawing birds – not English girls.

CELIA: The zero conditional.

PIERRE: If he gives himself, she will give herself?

CELIA: Is that what you prepared for me? Anyway – you’re wrong. You’ve slipped into the future simple. It should be: if he gives, she gives. But the zero conditional is not very common. Such clear causality is rare.

PIERRE: You’re – losing me.

CELIA: The zero conditional is used for things like scientific experiments. Not everyday life. If you heat water to a hundred degrees, it boils. Humans need a greater deal of uncertainty to express themselves.

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