SOIXANTE HUIT - SOIXANTE NEUF

Alex Crick

SCENE  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

SCENE ONE 

A student room , Lancaster University. May 1968. Lux, 19 and Harry,20 are busy packing holdalls. 

Lux: We must go. 

Harry: Sure. I’m not saying we shouldn’t.

Lux: What are you saying ?

Harry: I’m just making a point.

Lux:  A point ?

Harry: Can’t I make a point ?

Lux:  What is your point ?

Harry:  My point ?

Lux: Yes, what exactly is it..

Harry: You expect me to explain that !

Lux:  You don’t make yourself clear, Harry .

Harry: I make myself perfectly clear. I’m a language man. That’s my thing. Clarity of expression is my thing. You’re always jealous of the way I can explain myself. You think language is a female attribute. Well, my linguistic brain is pretty sharp, even though I’ve got bollocks.

Lux: I hadn’t noticed. What is your point anyway ?

Harry: If you can’t understand my point, Lux, my perfectly clearly expressed point, I see no reason to try to make it clearer.

Lux:  You don’t need to make it clearer. I’m not stupid.

Harry:  Did I say you were stupid ?

Lux:  You implied I was stupid.

Harry: How did I imply it ?

Lux: You said you didn’t need to make your point clearer, as if I needed it to be clearer to understand it.

Harry: You asked me to make it clearer.

Lux: Oh, Harry ! That’s so childish !

Harry:  Childish ?

Lux : Blaming me because you can’t make a point properly.

Harry: I can make a point absolutely clearly. The point is you can’t understand the point I make.

Lux: Well, what is your fucking point , Harry ?

Harry: My fucking point is the CRS are bastards.

Lux: Some fucking point ! Has the world been waiting for that piece of enlightenment !

Harry: I’m not saying it’s world-shattering, Lux. I’m just saying we’re going to Paris and the CRS are bastards.

Lux: Let me tell you something, Harry. They aren’t just bastards, they’re trained bastards.

Harry: Absolutely ! .

Lux:  What ?

Harry: My point precisely.

Lux: Your point ?

Harry: Exactly. Just what I was saying.

Lux: No, Harry. Just what I said .

Harry: Yeah, reitierating what I’d said.

Lux: Reiterating ? There was no reiterating, Harry. I was making a completely different point.

Harry: No, Lux. You were saying just the same as me. The CRS. Bastards. We’re going to Paris and those bastards are going to try to break our heads.

Lux: That’s what you’re saying. It’s not what I’m saying, Harry. It’s not what I’m saying at all.

Harry: Well what’s your point ?

Lux: What’s my point ?

Harry: Yeah, what exactly is the point you’re making because it isn’t clear to me in the slightest.

Lux: Harry, you’re just being obtuse.

Harry: I’m not obtuse, Lux. Many things I may be but obtuse is not one of them.

Lux: I didn’t say you were obtuse, I said you’re being obtuse.

Harry: What’s the difference ?

Lux: What’s the difference ?

Harry: Yeah, what’s the difference between being obtuse and being obtuse.

Lux: That’s just a fucking perverse question, Harry.

Harry: Perverse ?

Lux: Yes !

Harry: What’s perverse about wanting clarity ?

Lux: You’re not clarifying things, Harry, you’re just behaving like a baby.

Harry: No you’re behaving like a baby.

Lux: Are you trying to say you don’t want to go to Paris ?

Harry: That’s amazing !

Lux: Is that what you’re trying to say, because I can go on my own.

Harry: You don’t even speak French, Lux !

Lux: I’m not going sightseeing, Harry.

Harry: All the more reason to need French.

Lux: This is a matter of action.

Harry: So you think you’re going to go to Paris in the middle of a revolution and  you won’t have to talk to anyone ?

Lux: I can communicate.

Harry: And suppose you get arrested ?

Lux: I’ll contact the British consulate.

Harry: And say what ? I came to Paris to join the revolution and the bastards arrested me !

Lux: I still have the protection of my British passport, Harry, whatever I’m going to Paris for.

Harry: Well this is revolution Lux and in revolutions things get overthrown. Things get lost. Things get confused. And my advice is, if you’re going to Paris to make revolution be sure you can speak the lingo.

    A knock. Enter Spin.

Spin: Ready for off ?

Lux: Almost.

Spin: Got a little Molotov cocktail in your luggage, Lux ?

Harry: Do you know what a Molotov cocktail is, Spin ?

Spin: A bomb. Isn’t it ?

Harry: It has to be made in situ.

Lux: The expert.

Spin: I think you’re mad.

Harry: I don’t claim to be an expert.

Spin: My father says they should shoot the rioters.

Lux: They aren’t rioters, Spin.

Spin: They look like rioters to me !

Harry: Riots are the voice of the unheard.

Lux: Harry, it pisses me off the way you’re always dropping pithy little quotes you’ve read in a Sunday supplement.

Harry: How do you know I read it ?

Lux: You couldn’t invent something as succinct , Harry.

Harry: Are you saying I’m verbose ?

Spin: I should think my father knows more about it than you two anyway.

Lux:  Not verbose, just not very succinct. Your father’s a fascist, Spin.

Spin: As a matter of fact, he’s a Conservative.

Harry: Like she said. Isn’t that the same: verbose and not very succinct ? Aren’t they the same thing ?

Lux: All conservatives aren’t fascists, Harry. And no it isn’t. There’s a nuance of difference.

Spin: My father says, only the conservatives can sort out the economy.

Harry: Is that what I said ? That her father’s a fascist ? Isn’t that what you said, as a matter of fact ?

Lux: What I was pointing out, Harry, is that all conservatives aren’t fascists. That’s just a fundamental mistake in thinking.

Harry: No, I was just making the connection. There’s a nuance of difference !

Spin: I don’t know how you can be fagged. All that way for a fight. My father says you can’t beat the police at that game. They’re the best streets fighters in the world.

Harry: We’re going to Paris, Spin, not Basingstoke. In Paris they have two revolutions before breakfast. It’s a national pastime: 1789, 1848, 1870…...

Lux; This is the final conflict. Not a nuance of difference Harry, a very great difference.

Spin: How do you know ?

Lux: Because I’m armed with theory, Spin. Theory in my right hand, praxis in my left. This is a new world we’re making.

Spin: You couldn’t leave me some dope, could you ?

Lux: You know I don’t smoke.

Spin: What I really meant was, you know, the money for some dope. I haven’t had a spliff since Wednesday.

Harry: Why don’t you ask your father ? So verbose and not very clear is a nuance but fascist and conservative is a great deal of difference ?

Spin: I can’t. He sent me a hundred quid last week.

Harry: A hundred quid ? What the hell did you do with it ?

Spin: I don’t know. It just sort of, evaporated.

Harry: Went up in smoke.

Lux: I can’t afford it, Spin. Anyway, you owe me twenty quid. Yes, Harry. A great deal of difference. My parents are conservatives too.

Spin: I know. And I owe thirty to McGee and fifteen to Egger and ten to Brown and….

Lux: Don’t you care about what’s going on in the world !

Spin: No need to get all pre-menstrual !

Lux: I’m not pre-menstrual I’m angry. You should be angry. All you do is sit around smoking dope and dropping acid. You never open a book. This is a university, Spin. You’re supposed to take learning seriously.

Spin: But I’m so bored !

Lux: There’s a revolution going on in Paris and all you can say is you’re bored !

Spin: I’m like Emma Bovary. I’m a bored woman.

Lux: Why don’t you do something for a change ?

Spin: Like what in this place ? God, the north of England. All my friends went to Oxbridge, Durham and Bristol and I end up in Lancaster.

Harry : Durham’s in the north. And your dad isn’t a conservative, he’s a fascist.

Spin: Is it ?

Harry: If you were up there you’d be able to go to the Miners’ Gala. It’s  a great working-class festival.

Spin: Why are you two always talking about the working-class. Fuck the working-class. If they don’t like being working-class why don’t they get jobs with Barclays Bank like my father ?

Harry: All that dope has addled your brain, Spin.

Spin: All what dope ? God, can’t even get stoned round here ! Anyway you’re not working-class either of you so I don’t know why you’re always pissing on about it.

Harry: I may not be working-class but I’m from the working-class.

Spin: Your father’s a fucking property developer !

Harry: But he was born working-class.

Spin: And now he’s got money, so he isn’t working-class. Everybody wants money. It’s human nature.

Lux: That’s so ahistorical, Spin. I resent that, Harry. My father’s right-wing but he’s not a fascist.

Spin: So what ?

Lux: It’s a matter of ideology, not nature.

Spin: What the fuck’s ideology ?

Harry: Everything your dad’s always telling you. So why did he say, in my hearing, that Mussolini is the greatest leader Italy ever had and all they could do was hang him from a lamp-post ?

Spin: I sometimes wonder why I’m friends with you two. You think you’re so fucking intellectual. Well, my father went to Oxford and that’s more intellectual than you two put together.

Harry: And he became a banker.

Spin: What’s wrong with that ? Don’t you have a bank account ?

Harry: The banks should be nationalised.

Spin: My father says nationalisation is a disaster. He says the National Health Service is communist.

Lux: He’s right. My father was just making a comment about the poor political leadership in Italy. That’s all.

Spin: I wish I could meet some interesting people.

Harry: You left them all behind at Bennenden, Spin. You don’t believe that do you, Lux ? The man is an out-and-out fascist.

Spin: They were more interesting than you lot. Charles was a great guitar player.

Lux: We know that, Spin. Have you packed a camera ?

Spin: Few photos for the album, eh ? Here’s me throwing a Molotov at the flics !

Harry: Admit it ?

Lux: What ?

Harry: That your father’s a fascist.

Lux: How can I admit it when it isn’t true ? Where’s the fucking camera, Harry.

Harry: How should I know !

Lux: Well you had it last !

Harry: How can you be so sure ?

Lux: Because I was naked at the time ! Remember, Harry ?

Spin: Oh ! You dirty little bastard !

Harry: She’s my girlfriend, Spin. There’s nothing dirty about it.

Spin: You’re like a dirty old man. You remind me of my old geography teacher. Mr Sanderson. He was a funny, nervous little man who combed his hair across his head to try to hide his baldness. And he walked with this odd, springy step and had this ugly, sniggering, artificial laugh. He used to…

Lux: We don’t want to know, Spin. Just find the camera, Harry.

Harry: I can’t remember where I put it.

Spin: Oh my god ! Suppose someone else picks it up and gets the film developed ! What a scrape !

Harry: Will you stop using those public school expressions ! Fagged ! Scrape ! You sound like you’ve come straight from the pages of Billy Bunter.

Spin: And you sound like you’ve come straight from Coronation St. You can’t even speak properly, Harry.

Lux: Have you ordered a taxi ?

Spin: Driver ! Take me to the Revolution ! Number one Barricade St ! Keep the change, comrade !

Harry: Sometimes you’re almost witty, Spin, which for someone from your background is amazing.

Spin: I can’t believe you’re going to leave me on my own just for some stupid student prank !

Lux: This isn’t an Oxford rag, Spin. This is serious. We can change the world ! No more poverty ! No more war !

Spin: No more dope ! Now that’s serious.

Harry: I thought you were getting the taxi !

Lux: Can’t you get anything right ? Let’s go.

Harry: What about the camera ?

Lux: Fuck the camera !

Harry: Shut the door when you go, Spin. We’ll send you a card.

                                                                        They go.

Spin: Send me some dope ! If I find the camera, I’ll take it to Boots ! The dirty little bugger. Revolution ! Oh fuck, I just can’t be fagged with anything !

                                                                        Blackout.

SCENE TWO

            A cheap hotel room, the Latin Quarter. Victor stretched out on the bed, smoking. Lux seated.

Victor: We emptied a waste paper bin over the head of Paul Ricoeur.

Lux: Really ? Who’s he ?

Victor: Philosophe. Of the wrong kind. Christian and bourgeois. He talks rubbish, we empty rubbish over his head.

Lux: That’s great. This is a great moment, Victor. To be at the centre of history !

Victor: Want to fuck ?

Lux: What ?

Victor: Before your boyfriend gets back. Free love is part of the revolution.

Lux: He might be back any minute.

Victor: Lock the door.

Lux: Okay.

                                                She locks the door and starts to take off her clothes. Footsteps, knocking.

Harry (off): Open the fucking door !

Lux: Just a minute.

Victor: Tant pis !

Harry( off): For fuck’s sake !

                                                Lux opens the door. Harry rushes in carrying baguettes and wine.

Harry: What’s the door locked for ?

Victor: This is a revolution. We have to be careful.

Lux: So, you got the stuff.

Harry: Do you have to smoke  those things? God, the stench in here ! I know what it is Victor, but how do you dry it ?

Victor: What does he say ?

                                                                        Harry pushes the window wide open.

Lux: Don’t be so bourgeois, Harry. He’s free to smoke if he likes.

Harry: And where’s my freedom to breathe fresh air ?

Lux: That’s so petty.

Harry: Who’s paying for this room ?

Lux: Must you introduce money ?

Harry: Don’t be so bourgeois, Lux

Lux: You’re so pathetic, Harry.

Harry: Well, you won’t want any of my pathetic wine, then will you ?

Victor: Oh, les enfants !

Lux; There’s a fucking revolution going on out there and you quibble about a few francs and cling to your plonk like a baby to its rattle.

Harry: As a matter of fact, there isn’t a revolution going on out there. There’s nothing going on.

Victor: Wait till tonight.

Harry: Tonight I’m staying here.

Lux: You coward !

Harry: Who ran away and left me on my own ?

Victor: C’est comme ca. You can’t plan a revolution.

Harry: You ran away from the revolution !

Lux: What’s the point of getting arrested ?

Harry: You wouldn’t have got arrested, Lux. Those guys weren’t trying to arrest me, they were trying to smash my skull.

Lux: You’re always talking about people smashing your skull.

Victor: He’s right. CRS. Salauds. You have to run fast when they come after you.

Lux: Anyway, you escaped.

Harry: No thanks to you two comrades !

Victor: You can’t fight a war without losing some soldiers, you know ?

Harry: Okay. You get out there tonight soldier and let those bastards have it, because I’m staying here to get nicely smashed on some very bourgeois Bordeaux.

Lux: There’s no need to be so melodramatic, Harry. I mean, you’re just showing off your neurosis as if it’s a status symbol.

Harry: My neurosis ! That’s a good one.

Lux: Don’t try to deny it, Harry. I’ve met your parents.

Harry: Lux, your mother !

Lux: Don’t start.

Harry: Start ?

Lux: Whenever you talk about my mother you get insulting.

Harry: You evoke my neurosis and I’m insulting !

Lux: I’m not insulting you, Harry, I’m just pointing out what you’re doing. I’m just giving an objective explanation of what’s going on here.

Victor: Revolution gets everyone emotional. Save your anger for the CRS.

Lux: I’m not angry, Victor.

Victor: Well, you’re a little bit hors de toi.

Lux: No, I’m in control. I’m always in control. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed that about me, Victor.

Harry: I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it too.

Lux: What’s that supposed to mean ?

Victor: Okay. You’re in control. Let’s talk politics. We’re trying to change the world. This is not the time for bickering in a hotel room like bored children in les grandes vacances.

Lux: He’s bickering, Victor. I’m just putting clear and objective arguments.

Harry: You’re accusing me of being neurotic.

Lux: I’m not accusing you, Harry. I’m pointing it out.

Harry: And that’s objective !

Lux: Your neurosis is a fact, Harry.

Harry: So is your frigidity, Lux.

Lux: I have orgasms, Harry. I just have them when you’re not around.

Harry: Well if you have orgasms, you keep them pretty secret !

Victor: What is this to do with the revolution ?

Lux: We need a sexual revolution too, Victor. A woman must be in control of her own body.

Harry: What about a man ?

Lux: You clearly have no control over your body, Harry.

Harry: Well, you’re not by any means the first, Lux.

Lux: Oh, god !

Harry: Oh god what ?

Lux: Not that old line ! My other women have never complained. Do me a favour, Harry, that’s the cheapest evasion a man can mount of his inability to satisfy a woman.

Harry: There are many satisfied woman who will testify on my behalf.

Lux: I really can’t believe this, Harry.

Harry: What can’t you believe, Lux ?

Lux: That you can be just so fucking immature !                         

SCENE THREE

                        A street. Night. Sounds of clashes, jeering, cheering, sirens, breaking glass. Chants of Nous sommes tous un groupuscule. An injured student lies on the pavement , his head bloodied.

Lux: We’ve got to get him out of here.

Victor: No time ! Run !

Lux: We can’t leave him !

Victor: The CRS will call an ambulance. It’s their duty. They don’t want dead students on the street. Come on !

Lux: For god’s sake, Victor ! Let’s carry him. Get his shoulders.

Victor: Okay. But if we meet the CRS we drop him and run.

Lux: Okay, okay ! Which way ?

Victor: Oh, putain ! This way. We’ll leave him in Bruno’s café. He’ll look after him.

Lux: He needs more than a patron de café, Victor ! He’s fucking unconscious. Look at his head !

Victor: La vache ! He’s heavy.

Lux: Let’s take him to a hospital.

Victor: How ?

Lux: A taxi.

Victor: Mais tu es folle ! Taxi drivers are throwing paves at the CRS.

Lux: An ambulance.

Victor: Oh, mais merde ! He’ll be okay. He got a bump on the head. He bleeds a bit. He’ll be okay in the morning.

Lux: I’m scared !

Victor: One thing to be scared of, the CRS. We see them, we go. You stick around, your head looks like his.

Lux: Where is the nearest hospital ?

Victor: Too far. We can’t get there.

                                                            A siren sounds, growing louder.

Victor: CRS ! Allons-en !

                                                            He lets go of the student whose crashes painfully to the ground.

Lux: Victor !

Victor Quoi !

Lux: You let him go !

Victor: Drop his feet !

Lux: We can’t leave him !

Victor: You stay.

                                                            He runs off. She hesitates.

Lux: Victor !

                                                            She looks at the student. The siren gets ever louder. She lets go of his feet and runs off. The siren gets very loud then diminishes. Lux edges gingerly back on stage.

Lux: Victor ! Victor ! It’s all clear. They’ve gone. Victor !

                                                            Victor comes equally gingerly back on stage.

Victor : Fais vite ! Let’s get out of here. They’ll be back.

Lux: You take his feet.

Victor: But he’s too heavy for you.

Lux: (Struggling to lift him) I’ll lift him, Victor. I’m not leaving him to you. You drop him a second time he might hit his head. You could kill him.

Victor: Is he still alive ?

                                                            She drops him and recoils.

Lux: You think he’s dead !

Victor: Maybe now ! You dropped him, that’s very dangerous.

Lux: For god’s sake Victor ! Make sure he’s alive.

                                                            The sound of marching feet and beating truncheons growing louder.

Victor: Les salauds ! Come on !

Lux: Supposing he’s dead ?

Victor: The CRS won’t be interested . They like to hurt people. Let’s go !

Lux: Let’s take him with us !

                                                            The marching and beating get louder.

Victor: Adieu ! Bonne chance !

                                                            He runs off. Lux looks down at the student. She grabs his feet and tries to drag him off. He doesn’t move. She lifts his shoulders from the ground and tries to drag him. He doesn’t move. The marching gets suddenly much louder. She drops the student and runs off.

Blackout

SCENE FOUR

                        The hotel room. Harry is on the bed with a bottle of wine. A radio on his bedside table is playing Georges Brassens: Je Suis Un Voyou.

                        A`knock.

Harry: (Turns off the radio) Who’s that ?

Spin: C’est moi !

Harry: Who the fuck’s moi ?

Spin: It’s me, Harry. Let me in.

Harry: Who’s me ?

Spin: For fuck’s sake ! ME ! Don’t you recognize my voice, Harry ?

Harry: Spin ?

Spin: Genius !

Harry: What the fuck are you doing here ?

Spin: Waiting for you to let me in !

Harry: What are you doing in Paris ? There’s a fucking revolution going on !

Spin: You’re telling me ! I was nearly arrested. I had to smile, feign stupidity and flash my passport.

Harry: Flash your what ?

Spin: My fucking passport ! Now open the door, Harry.

Harry: Lux isn’t here.

Spin: So ?

Harry: She’s on the barricades.

Spin: You don’t expect me to wait for her to get back do you ?

Harry: It’s her room.

Spin: Don’t you sleep in it ?

Harry: Sort of.

Spin: Oh, let me in you cunt !

Harry opens the door. Spin enters dressed in combats a Che Guevara t-shirt under her jacket, dragging a huge suitcase.

Harry: What the fuck are you wearing, Spin ?

Spin: I didn’t want to look out of place. Do you like my t-shirt ?

Harry: That’s Che Guevara. What would your father say about him ?

Spin: Handsome isn’t he ?

Harry: He was a communist.

Spin: He probably just did it to impress the girls.

Harry: He shot people who let him down, Spin. He was a revolutionary. He thought you had to kill the enemies of the revolution.

Spin: My father says communists are no better than Hitler.

Harry: Would you wear a t-shirt with a picture of Hitler on the front ?

Spin: Oh god no ! Ugly little man.  I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my tits.

Harry: What’s in the suitcase, copies of The State and Revolution ?

Spin: I’ve just brought a couple of dresses in case I get the chance to go anywhere nice.

Harry: Are you staying for a year ?

Spin: Why did you book into such a crumby hotel ?

Harry: It’s cheap, and in any case the streets are full of Marxists, Trots, Maoists, anarchists, revolutionaries of all shapes and sizes. It’s not healthy to been seen coming out a fancy hotels or wearing anything bourgeois for that matter.

Spin: Anything what ?

Harry: Middle-class.

Spin: Oh, that’s just silly. My father says the middle-classes are the only people with real values.

Harry: That’s very similar to what the Maoists say.

Spin: Is it ? Well, at least some of them have common sense.

Harry: No…..forget it.

Spin: That’s so rude, Harry. You’re always saying “forget it” to me as if I’m too stupid to understand anything.

Harry: I can’t believe you’d come here, Spin !

Spin: I can’t believe you’d come ! Leaving me alone. You’re horrible to me. Why are you always horrible to me, Harry?

Harry: Don’t start that public school stuff, Spin.

Spin: You see ! You’re always horrible. I can’t stand it, Harry.

Harry: Oh God, don’t start crying, Spin.

Spin: I can’t help it. I’m exhausted. I came all the way here to be with my friends and you don’t make me welcome. You’re a bastard, Harry.

Harry: Okay, I’m a bastard. But we came here to overthrow capitalism, Spin. We’re not on holiday. We’re revolutionaries.

Spin: Some revolutionary, pissed on plonk in a smelly hotel ! Why aren’t you on the streets ?

Harry: Me and the revolution have had a lovers’ tiff.

Spin: I knew you wouldn’t like it.

Harry: It’s not a question of liking it, it’s matter of principle.

Spin: What’s the difference ?

Harry: You can like or dislike Brussels sprouts but it isn’t matter of principle. It’s not that I don’t like the revolution, it’s that I’ve been let down.

Spin: You need someone you can rely on, Harry. I’ve come all the way from Lancaster to see you. It took me an age and I had a terrible scrape at Waterloo with a chap who…

Harry: Don’t say “scrape”.

Spin: Why do you have to be so horrid !

Harry: It grates on my nerves, Spin. It sounds so fucking snooty.

Spin: I can’t help my background. You can’t help yours. Things about you get on my tits too.

Harry: For example ?

Spin: The way you say “fuck” instead of “fack”. It’s so vulgar. I mean, if you were to ask me to “fuck” I might say no, just because of the way you say it.

Harry: Well, I’m not going to ask so don’t let it worry you.

Spin: I’m not short of people who want to fuck me, Harry.

Harry: What woman is, Spin ?

Spin: You say such horrid things !

Harry: It’s not horrid, it’s true ! It’s  what blokes are like.

Spin: Well, I think it’s horrid. The point is, I’m attractive to men. Not all women are`attractive to men, Harry. The problem is I’m not as attractive as I’d like to be to the men I’d like to be attractive to.

Harry: Want some wine ? There’s a mouthful left.

Spin: Have you got a glass ?

Harry: No, this is true bohemianism. Straight from the bottle.

Spin: True what ?

Harry: It’s the life artists live, or used to , in Paris. You know, scraping by, living on your wits, putting art before ambition for money and status, a community of imagination. That kind of thing.

Spin: My father says art is a waste of public money.

Harry: Bohemians don’t take public money, Spin. They’re outsiders. Like me. People who don’t belong anywhere.

Spin: You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. It’s pathetic.

Harry: It’s objectively true.

Spin: Oh god, don’t say that. You sound like Lux.  Always on about what’s objectively this and objectively that. What’s so fucking good about being objective anyway.

Harry: Don’t you have any desire to understand the world, Spin ?

Spin: Oh, I can’t be fagged ! It’s so fucking difficult ! I’d rather enjoy myself. I’d rather live in the world ! God, I feel as if I just can’t get my life going. I’m just stuck on a train going nowhere. That’s objectively true !

Harry: No, Spin, it’s entirely subjective. It’s just the way you feel about things.

Spin: Are you saying the way I feel doesn’t matter ?

Harry: Of course it matters, but you’re feelings can lead you astray. Your feelings can be false.

Spin: How do you know what’s real and false about my feelings ?

Harry: Because it’s easy to see when people are being phoney ! You can see that yourself, can’t you ?

Spin: Fuck you, Harry ! I’m off ! I’ll go and stay in a proper fucking hotel and get my father to pay.

Harry: No,no! Stay, stay !

Spin: So you think I’m a phoney ?

Harry: No ! Not just you. Everybody. We’re all phonies.

Spin: You don’t make any sense to me, Harry. All your objective stuff and you just don’t make any sense at all. You’d think  someone who knew how to be objective about everything would at least make sense.

Harry: We live in a phoney culture, Spin. It’s what we are. It’s what goes on in our heads. It’s all, I don’t know, phoney, false.

Spin: I think that’s subjective. It’s just the way you feel about things. I don’t even have the faintest idea what you mean by everyone being phoney. What do you expect people to be like ?

Harry: This conversation is a waste of time, Spin.

Spin: That’s so horrid ! You always say that, Harry. You always say there’s no point talking to me about serious things. You treat me like an idiot.

Harry: No I don’t. But it’s question of level. You know, why do people talk about the weather ? Remember Bert’s lecture ? Phatic communion. That stuff. People don’t talk about serious things when all they’re really after is social warmth. They talk about anything. It’s the talking that’s important. Just someone to chat to and it’s not what’s in the words that matters. See what I mean ? But serious stuff. That needs a different arena. You start chatting to your friends about serious stuff and pretty soon you won’t have any friends.

Spin: Sometimes I think I don’t ! And why do you always call prof Lawrence, Bert ?

Harry: D.H.  His name was David Herbert. He hated David. He liked to be called Bert.

Spin: And why does everyone call you Harry when your name’s Frank ?

Harry:  Frank Roberts. Hence Harry Roberts. The train robber.

Spin: Don’t you mind being nicknamed after a train robber ?

Harry: It was a joke. As soon as Harry Roberts hit the headlines all my mates at school started calling me Harry. It stuck. It was a joke. Friendly. Now everyone calls me Harry.

Spin: And everyone calls me Spin, thanks to you !

Harry: It’s a joke ! You have to see the friendliness behind it.

Spin: I wouldn’t accept it from anyone but you. Even if you are horrid.

Harry: It was just a way of being friendly and funny. For god’s sake, some people take life so fucking seriously. The world’s so screwed up the best thing to do is laugh at it.

Spin: Well, why did you come here then ? Trying to make revolution ! What’s funny about that ?

Harry: Oh, it’s the funniest thing under the sun if you do it right ! It’s pulling the rug from under the feet of the pompous, the arrogant, the pretentious, the poncey rich, the poseurs, the twats down in St Tropez with their million dollar yachts who think they’re fucking gods and goddesses and mince around expecting everyone to ogle them, and then all the fucking half-wit sycophants who do ogle them ! It’s about the subversive power of democracy, Spin. You know what democracy means ? It means no-one is good enough to have power over anyone else. But like everything , it gets corrupted. Time-serving politicians with egos the size of jumbo-jets get hold of democracy and it means vote for me then piss off back to work, do as you’re told and watch your television. That’s what I’m here for. To say the streets and everything in them, every factory, every school, every office, every hospital, every café, every shop: they’re ours.

Spin: Someone has to be in charge, Harry. If no-one’s in charge, there’ll just be chaos.

Harry: Take a look around, Spin. The world’s in chaos. That’s ‘cause we’ve got people in charge. 

Spin: My father says strong government is the answer.

Harry: Don’t you think it’s time to stop quoting your father, Spin?

Spin: You’re being horrid again. You’re always undermining me. You never miss an opportunity. I can’t open my mouth without worrying that you’re going to make some clever comment to make me feel small.

Harry: I’m just trying to say. At your age. You know, your father, he isn’t the fount of all wisdom. We outgrow our parents. It’s a good idea to start thinking things through for yourself. No, it’s essential to start thinking things through for yourself.

Spin: Oh, I can’t be fagged. It’s so hard. And so confusing. How am I supposed to make sense of it all ? Even the great minds just disagree with one another.

Harry: On our behalf.

Spin: Not on my behalf. They just give me a headache.

Harry: Well, there’s paracetemol. There’s an invention of great minds for you. Without them, you couldn’t even get rid of your headache.  Those great minds struggling to find a bit of truth. They give us some clues to follow. We all have a responsibility to try to make sense of things.

Spin: Well, my father went Oxford and he knows what he’s talking about so why shouldn’t I just listen to him. It’s a lot easier than sorting it out for myself. And anyway, I agree with him.

Harry: Sure. He approves of your dope smoking, I suppose ?

Spin: God, he’d have a fit !

Harry: There’s something to work on. Something you disagree about.

Spin: Anyway, I bet you agree with your parents about lots of things.

Harry: Yeah, but I don’t quote them all the time ! I don’t begin every third sentence with “My father says….”

Spin: You’re so horrid ! Why can’t you just be nice to me, Harry. I’m knackered. Why did I come here ? I just want to go to sleep and wake up and find everything different.

Harry: Take the bed. Lux will have to share. I’ll crash out on the floor.

Spin: Why can’t Lux crash out on the floor ?

Harry: Too draughty. You know how fussy she is. It’s her upper middle-class background. It’s made her precious.

Spin: Like me, I suppose.

Harry: We all struggle against circumstance. Is the world as you’d have chosen it ? You were just born into this crazy time. Here we are, trying to make something of our lives in circumstances we didn’t make. It’s the same for all of us.

Spin: No, the world isn’t as I’d have chosen it. I’d be lots richer and I would never have gone to the north and I’d find a man who wouldn’t be horrid to me all the time.

Harry: See what I mean ? That’s your manifesto. You’re just like me, Spin. You’re fighting to remake the world to fit your inner needs.

Spin: God, I’m so fagged out, Harry.

                                                            She starts to take off her clothes. Rapid steps on the stairs, off. A frantic hammering on the door.

Victor: Vite ! Vite ! Open the door !

                                                            Harry opens and Victor and Lux fall in. She has her hands to her face which is covered in blood.

Spin: Oh my God !

Harry: Shit !

Victor: CRS. Les salauds !

Spin: Shouldn’t we get her to a hospital ?

Francis: Mais non ! Too dangerous. We had to fight with CRS.

Harry: What the hell hit her in the face ?

Victor: Rubber bullet. Not straight from the gun. A ricochet. Her nose is bleeding. It looks worse than it is.

                                                            Harry has assembled towels. He brings water from the en suite and begins to try to clean her up.

Harry: You’re going to be okay, Lux. You’re a real class warrior now ! Scars to prove it.

Spin: You’re crazy !

                                                            Lux groans half articulately.

Harry: What ?

                                                            Lux groans again.

Harry: I can’t make it out.

Spin: She says you’re a silly cunt, Harry.

Harry: That’s enough, Spin.

Spin: Look at her face ! Suppose her nose is broken ! You may have ruined her looks.

Harry: I didn’t smash her face, Spin. The State did.

Spin: You always talk such crap, Harry. A policeman did. And whose fault is it ? If you hadn’t brought her here….

                                                            Lux shakes her head and tries to speak.

Harry: Me ! Do you think she followed me ? I couldn’t have stopped her. Supposing she’d come on her own. Where would she be now ?

Victor: She’s among comrades here.

Harry: Oh yeah, where are they all ?

Spin: She needs friends not comrades.

Harry: She needs both. We all need both. Shit Victor, why didn’t you look after her out there ? Why didn’t you protect her for fuck’s sake ?

Victor: Protect her ? She can take care of herself, no ?

Harry: No ! Not in Paris in the middle of a revolution. She’s just a middle-class kid from Surbiton. She’s about as street-wise as a hedgehog.

                                                                        Lux violently pushes him away. He falls over. Blackout.

SCENE FIVE

                        A table in the Deux Magots. Harry and Lux sit opposite one another. Her nose is heavily bandaged.

Harry: I tell you it’s him !

Lux: Don’t rubberneck !

Harry: He hasn’t noticed. He’s writing. It is her with him.

Lux: You can’t tell from the back.

Harry: Well, it looks like her and who else would he be with ?

Lux: How do I know ?

Harry: They’re committed to one another. Like a bourgeois married couple. Only without the licence. Free choice. He’s not a big bugger is he ?

Lux: He isn’t a rugby player, Harry. You don’t have to be a heavyweight to write philosophy.

Harry: An intellectual heavyweight, Lux ! Don’t you think it’s amazing ? It’s like sitting in Le Procope with Voltaire or Diderot. He used to go there to get away from his missus you know.

Lux: Where did she go to get away from him ?

Harry: She was a nag, Lux ! She was married to one of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century and she nagged him to death.

Lux: I’m not surprised if she was just married to a mind.

Harry: You wouldn’t want to be married to someone mindless would you ?

Lux: What you mean by mind Harry is that he was an intellectual. That doesn’t mean he was a good husband.

Harry: A good husband ? What kind of bourgeois crap is that ?

Lux: You know what I mean .

Harry: Be precise, Lux. You can’t afford to be sloppy in your theory. We’re in the midst of a revolution remember. We’re putting theory into practice. We can’t overthrow the reign of the bourgeoisie and talk about being a fucking good husband, for god’s sake !

Lux: If he was married he should have been a good husband.

Harry: He was a revolutionary in his time, Lux, like us. They threw him in prison for his writings. Don’t you think it’s a bit pusifuckingllanimous to talk about being a good husband? What do you think he should have done, taken a job in a bank ?

Lux: That’s so ahistorical, Harry.

Harry: What’s more ahistorical than talking about being a good husband.

Lux: You’re just perverting my point, Harry.

Harry: What is your point ?

Lux: It’s perfectly simple, if you take the trouble to try to understand. And what, anyway, is your point ?

Harry: Lux, that’s Jean-Paul fucking Sartre over there. We’re in the same room as one of the greatest minds of our time. It’s partly thanks to him  De Gaulle has fucked off out of the country. The workers are taking over their factories. Imagination in power ! Think where it might lead, Lux. Here we are, two English students from the boring suburbs sitting in the Deux Magots in a great city risen to revolt and a few yards away Sartre is scribbling in a notebook. Have you got the camera ?

Lux: Shit Harry, you can’t take a picture ?

Harry: Why not ?

Lux: You don’t work for fucking Paris Match ! He’s a private individual. He’s sitting in a café. Leave him in peace.

Harry: He’s a private individual but he’s also a public figure, Lux. His picture’s in the newspapers all the time !

Lux: Harry, you’re so irresponsible !

Harry: I’m a literary man, Lux ! It’s something you don’t have the same feeling about.

Lux: You’re a literary man !

Harry: You know it, Lux.

Lux: I know you’re full of bullshit, Harry. I’m the one with the smashed up face. I’m the one whose made the sacrifice for the revolution. All you want is a snapshot of Sartre for your album. Don’t you think that’s a bit trivial in the circumstances ?

Harry: That’s not all I want, Lux. That’s your typical overgeneralisation. I wouldn’t mind a picture and for you that becomes all I want. You see how that let’s you see yourself in a good light ?

Lux: Don’t give me the kindergarten psychoanalysis, Harry. I read Freud before you.

Harry: You read some Freud, Lux.

Lux: In any case, de Beauvoir is a better writer.

Harry: Oh, come on !

Lux: Come on what ?

Harry: She’s a good writer, but better than Sartre ?

Lux: Have you read Memoirs d’une Jeune Fille Rangee ?

Harry: I’ve looked at it.

Lux: What’s that supposed to mean ?

Harry: I’ve dipped into it.

Lux: Oh, and I suppose you’ve dipped into L’etre et le Neant too .

Harry: That’s a seminal text.

Lux: Ha !

Harry: What’s wrong with that ?

Lux: How do you know it’s a seminal text ?

Harry: That’s such a stupid thing to say, Lux.

Lux: De Beauvoir is a better writer. Sartre is taken more seriously because he’s a man. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she writes his books for him.

Harry: That’s not feminism, you know, it’s just ignorance.

Lux: And didn’t Frieda do a lot of the donkey work for good old D.H. ?

Harry: He was bound to spark ideas off her wasn’t he? They were married. But she wasn’t a writer.

Lux: How do you know, Harry ?

Harry: Just look at Lawrence’s style.

Lux: Yeah, well just look at my face and forget taking photos of Jean-Paul Sartre to show your grandkids.

Harry: Oh, are we starting a family ?

Lux: There are other wombs in the world, Harry.

Harry: You know, I’d like to make you pregnant.

Lux: What would Jean-Paul make of that ?

Harry: It’s a revolutionary act. It flies in the face of bourgeois caution and parsimony. We should have six kids, blow all that two point four stuff out of the water.

Lux: You want six kids, you’d better get yourself a sex change.

Harry: Biology is biology.

Lux: Don’t give me that anatomy is destiny rubbish.

Harry: Who said anything about destiny ?

Lux: And why isn’t Jean-Paul at home changing nappies ?

Harry: He’s sixty-three.

Lux: A granddad ! How many grandchildren does he have ? Eighteen ?

Harry: I don’t suppose he’s lived the kind of life where having kids would have fitted in.

Lux: Or maybe he’s too cautious or parsimonious.

Harry: He’s a revolutionary, Lux.

Lux: So am I, but I’ve got a broken nose.

Harry: Didn’t I tell you the CRS` are bastards !

Lux: I didn’t need telling, Harry. I needed some intelligent support !

Harry : I wasn’t even there !

Lux: Precisely !

Harry: You don’t expect me to offer you protection do you ? Wouldn’t that be a bit sexist ?

Lux: I’m not saying protection.

Harry: Well what are you saying ?

Lux: That’s typical of you, Harry.

Harry: What is ?

Lux: That fucking pedantry.

Harry: What’s pedantic about asking you what you mean ?

Lux: You always get hung up on semantics. It’s always what do you mean by this and what do you mean by that. Anyone’d think you didn’t understand English.

Harry: Or maybe I understand English too well. Maybe it’s because I’m so sensitive to language that I’m always asking for precision.

Lux: You’re about as sensitive as a lamppost, Harry.

Harry: Very good. Nice simile.

Lux: Don’t patronise me. The point is, this is about solidarity. And where were you ? Sitting in the hotel room getting pissed and sulking.

Harry: I wasn’t sulking, Lux. I was acting on principle.

Lux: What principle is that, precisely ? That when you don’t get your own way you go off and suck your thumb in  a corner? That  principle  makes every two-year old a moral genius.

Harry: I can’t believe this !

Lux: Don’t you think we should be going ?

Harry: Why ?

Lux: We’ve finished our coffee.

Harry: This is the Deux Magots, Lux. Coffee’s not the point.

Lux: Well, what is the point ?

Harry: Can’t you rise to the occasion ?

Lux: I might ask you the same thing.

Harry: I never have any trouble in that department.

Lux: True. Always eager as a puppy-dog.

Harry: I’m glad you admit it.

Lux: Admit ? God, it’s endurance that’s the problem not eagerness.

Harry: So you say.

Lux: Well I should know shouldn’t I ?

Harry: Should you ?

Lux: Now you’re scraping the barrel, Harry.

Harry: Female physiology is difficult, Lux.

Lux: Oh god !

Harry: That’s natural selection for you.

Lux: Don’t give me that reactionary Darwinist crap !

Harry: It’s not reactionary and it’s not crap. You know  Marx wanted to dedicate volume one of Capital to Darwin ?

Lux: You know Darwin said no ? You know why ? Because he was a reactionary.

Harry: He was of his time, but think what he did ! Wasn’t that a triumph for materialism ?

Lux: Not when it lets men blame women for their sexual inadequacies.

Harry: There’s nothing inadequate about me.

Lux: There speaks the male of the species.

Harry: They’re going !

Lux: Stop staring. You’re just making a fool of yourself.

Harry: We are part of history, Lux. We’re making history here !

Lux: Yeah, and history has broken my fucking nose !

Blackout.

SCENE SIX

                        The hotel room. Victor is on the bed smoking a spliff. Spin is on the floor.

Spin: They went out to eat or have a coffee or something. God I’m famished. I’ll have to go to a café.

Victor: T’en fais pas. I’ll go out and buy a few things. Bread, cheese, ham, tomatoes. We’ll have a little feast.

Spin: Get some more dope while you’re at it. It’s the only thing keeping me sane in this situation.

Victor: What situation ?

Spin: Being here. The revolution. My friends who think they’re going to change the world, though why it needs changing I’ve no idea.

Victor: It has to change. It’s a law of the universe. Nothing stands still.

Spin: Well, let it change of its own accord instead of fighting in the streets with riot police. Have you finished with that spliff ?

Victor: Fighting in the streets with riot police is the way the world changes of its own accord. Everything is inevitable before it happens.

Spin: Is it inevitable  you’re going to keep dragging on that ?

Victor: Here.

Spin: It doesn’t make any sense. If it’s inevitable, why do you need to do anything.

Victor: Because it’s the doing something that’s inevitable.

Spin: I suppose it was inevitable Lux should get her nose smashed in by a rubber bullet.

Victor: Absolutely.

Spin: You’re like Harry. You talk bullshit.

Victor: You like him though.

Spin: He’s horrid to me.

Victor: But you still like him.

Spin: What’s that to do with you ?

Victor: Have you fucked with him ?

Spin: God ! You can’t ask me that ?

Victor: Why not ? This is a revolution. Everything can be put in question.

Spin: That’s just d impertinent. I don’t like the way you talk at all. You’ve no manners. Frankly, you’re horrid. Sometimes.

Victor: But you smoke my dope.

Spin: I thought you were a socialist. Aren’t you supposed to believe in sharing everything ?

Victor: Anarchist.

Spin: Oh god ! What’s the difference ?

Victor: If you go out putting posters up at night, you have two things to fear: the police and the communists. The police will beat you, arrest you, kick you around in the back of a camion blinde and let you go. The communists will smash your skull and throw you in the Seine.

Spin: They should recruit them for the CRS !

Victor: The CRS is like the Communist Party. They  control people and they control by fear and brutality. Only the anarchists want to give people their freedom.

Spin: Listening to you could turn me into a communist.

Victor: Yes, communists are very conservative.

Spin: My father says communists want to take  over  the world.

Victor: So do conservatives. Everyone who controls the power of the State wants to take over the world. It’s the logic of State power.

Spin: This is exceptionally good dope. Where d’you get it ?

Victor: From a poor Algerian who sweeps the floors in the metro.

Spin: He should sell more dope and give up the job.

Victor: Life is not so easy for most people. And hardest for those at the bottom. He gives up his job he becomes a non-person. He loses everything. He works for small money and sells dope on the quiet. It’s a good way to beat the system.

Spin: What system ? My father says all the stress is at the top. It’s just as well there are people like my father prepared to take responsibility or the working-classes would still be living in caves.

Victor: What does he do, your father ?

Spin: He’s a banker.

Victor: And what does he do ?

Spin: Oh, he’s very high up. He makes lots of big decisions.

Victor: What is a big decision ?

Spin: You’re just trying to catch me out. You’re being horrid. I don’t understand why people are always being horrid to me. It’s not as if I’m not a nice person. Anyway, my father runs things. He’s an executive.

Victor: That’s just a word that hides the laziness and uselessness of the overpaid.

Spin: Fuck off ! My father works very hard. What do you do ?

Victor: I work very hard avoiding working for people like your father. I read. I think. I invent graffiti. I write it on walls. I work very hard  trying to undermine capitalism.

Spin: And you say my father’s lazy. You’re just a layabout.

Victor: Have you seen the graffiti metro boulot dodo ?

Spin: As a matter of fact I have. I saw it in the metro. I suppose you expected me to say no didn’t you ?

Victor: As a matter of fact, I did.

Spin: You’re just like Harry. You think you’re so fucking clever and I’m a dizzy, empty-headed fool. Well I can read you know. I can read fucking graffiti just like anyone else.

Victor: Don’t you think it’s clever ?

Spin: Not particularly. Don’t tell me it’s by Jean-Paul Sartre or someone and full of hidden meaning. I’m sick of all that stuff. Why do meanings always have to be hidden and what’s the use of  a meaning no-one can see anyway ? I think it’s all a big fraud to make people look clever. I mean, what the hell has Jean-Paul Sartre ever done ?

Victor: He writes. That’s his raison d’etre. It’s important work.

Spin: Well it’s not as important as being a banker, in my opinion.

Victor: Bankers are here, there, all over the place. Put on a suit, wear a tie, learn the jargon, you’re a banker. Sartre is unique. Like Aristotle, Descartes, Voltaire, Flaubert. It’s the uniqueness that matters. We all must try to find our own uniqueness.

Spin: I bet he’s rich.

Victor: Maybe, but he didn’t try to be. It just happened to him.

Spin: I wish it would just happen to me. I wish I could marry some gorgeous man with money coming out of his ears and go and live on the Cote d’Azur have a big d yacht and do nothing but smoke dope for the rest of my life.

Victor: Wouldn’t you rather marry Harry ?

Spin: He’s spoken for. At the moment.

Victor: It must be very frustrating knowing he’s fucking her all the time.

Spin: I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck. Actually. I don’t even think about it. Anyway, she doesn’t have orgasms. She told me. So serve him fucking right.

Victor: Maybe he likes it anyway.

Spin: I don’t give a shit as a matter of fact. I’d rather have a nice bit of Afghan Black.

Victor: We could fuck if you like.

Spin: I beg your pardon !

Victor: What’s the matter ?

Spin: You’re the matter. It’s sick. You can’t speak to me like that.

Victor: Why not ? I’m honest.

Spin: Is that what you call it ?

Victor: The revolution sets us free. We can say what we think.

Spin: I don’t want to know what you think !

Victor: You want me to get some more dope ?

Spin: Yes. That’s a nice idea.

Victor: Well, I’ll get the dope you do me a favour. That’s fair.

Spin: That’s not fair it’s fucking prostitution !

Victor: That’s a bourgeois idea. Once capitalism has passed, people will be freer in their attitudes to their bodies.

Spin:  Forget any free attitudes towards my body ! I’m not an anarchist.

Victor: No, you’re a very middle-class English girl.

Spin: What’s class got to do with it ?

Victor: Class has to do with everything. Class has made your mind.

Spin: And what’s made yours ? Reading Jean-Paul fucking Sartre and god knows who. Well, if all that philosophy makes you act like a shit my father’s right.

Victor: I only asked. I asked politely.

Spin: Your idea of good manners and mine aren’t the same.

                        Footsteps. Knocking.

Victor: Come in !

                        Enter Sophie.

Sophie: Victor, what are you doing here ? You’re supposed to be working for the revolution !

Victor: I am working. I’m thinking.

Spin: Yeah, and you should know what he’s thinking ?

Sophie: Who’s this ?

Victor: An English revolutionary.

Spin: I’m Spin. Mandy actually, but everyone calls me Spin because I’m dizzy. At least that’s what Harry says. He is an English revolutionary. I’m just here for the spliffs.

Sophie: This is very irresponsible of you, Victor.

Victor: Sophie, in revolutionary times everyone contributes selon son gout.

Sophie: Et ton gout c’est quoi ? Cette salope d’Anglaise ?

Spin: I  do understand French, if you don’t mind, putain !

Sophie: Ta gueule !

Spin: Et ta soeur ?

Victor: I’m  just having   a rest, Sophie. Revolutions can take a long time. Think of 1789. We must reflect on what we are doing. No need to come here and start a fight with our English comrades.

Spin: I’m not a fucking comrade, I’m a conservative !

Sophie: You’re just trying to fuck her, aren’t you Victor ?

Victor: Mais non !

Spin: Mais oui !

Sophie: Is this the way you show solidarity with the working-class, fucking with an English conservative while we risk our lives fighting the CRS ?

Victor: Are you fighting with the CRS now ?

Sophie: We’re planning tonight’s campaign, Victor. We’re talking to the young workers. We’re distributing leaflets. We’re writing grafitti.

Victor: Voila !

Sophie: What do you mean, voila !

Victor: Voila !

Sophie: What are you talking about, Victor ?

Spin: Voila !

Sophie: Why do you have to interfere ?

Spin: Voila ! Voila ! Voila !

Sophie: Mais elle est completement malade !

Spin: I’m not as mad as you, mademoiselle ! You think hurling cobblestones at policemen is going to change the world. Haven’t you noticed they’ve got water cannon and prisons ? Do you think they’re frightened of a few students ? I think it’s all silly. It’s just impossibly fucking silly and I wish I wasn’t here. The only thing worth doing is getting stoned.

Victor: Tonight I’ll be in the streets. For the moment, I’m reposing. You can’t turn revolution into a kind of work, Sophie. Then how will we change anything ? The old attitudes. The same conneries. The old dead time of the factory and the office. We have to change our own minds, Sophie. We change the objective conditions of life so that our minds can be different.

Spin: Oh god, not objective again ! I object to objective. I want wallow in subjectivity. Let the objective go fuck itself. What’s that supposed to mean anyway, the objective conditions of life ?

Sophie: So you’ve found yourself an intellectual to fuck, Victor.

Spin: He isn’t going to fuck me and that’s objective. And anyway, what’s so good about being an intellectual ? It’s all you go on about, you revolutionaries. Jean-Paul fucking Sartre and Karl Marx and Rosa shitty Luxemburg. Do you think the whole world should be full of intellectuals ? Shit, what a mess we’d be in then,like my father says. All you do is argue with one another over details no-one else cares about. And then you end up throwing stones at riot police ! Is that intellectual ! It’s just vandalism in my opinion.

Victor: You have a very English mind. You think revolution is vandalism. You think revolution is a crime ! It’s very charming but it’s no good. Capitalists are not friendly. They use workers to get rich and they don’t care. They don’t care about anything but their money. How can you expect such people to be democratic ? They only give enough freedom to keep themselves rich. The freedom that will bring equality, they don’t allow. So we have to take it and it can only be taken on the streets, in the factories.

Spin: Who wants equality ? I don’t want to live in a country where everyone is the same.

Sophie: Victor, are you going to leave this silly girl to her dope and come and do some real work ?

Victor: Sophie, I’m having a little pause dejeuner. Why don’t you do the same ?

Sophie: Do you think I’m stupid,Victor ? You know what he likes, soixante-neuf. That’s what he wants you to do with him.

Victor: She’s a nice English girl. She doesn’t want soixante-neuf with an intellectual French revolutionary in a hotel in the Quartier Latin.

Sophie: I’m talking about what you want, Victor. You think you can just fuck me and then disappear ?

Victor: I haven’t disappeared ! Here I am ! Was it hard to find me ? No !

Sophie: You exploit me sexually, Victor ! You’re a sexual capitalist !

Spin: You should start a revolution ! Throw a few cobblestones at him, that’ll change his ways.

Victor: I exploit you ?

Sophie: You come to fuck with this stupid English girl ? Why ? She’s probably never done soixante-neuf in her life.

Spin: Do you think I’m a fucking virgin or something ?

Sophie: I don’t care what you are. Why don’t you go back to Hampstead Common or wherever you come from ?

Spin: Hampstead Common ! Ha ! And you say I’m stupid.

Victor: I didn’t come to fuck with her. I’ve never met her before. I came to see Lux and Harry. She was here. I’m just being friendly. I’m making her welcome in Paris.

Sophie: She isn’t welcome here. We’re trying to overthrow people like her.

Spin: I’m not for overthrowing. You make me sound like something you spread on a sofa.

Victor: You’re attitude to revolution is bourgeois, Sophie !

Sophie: My attitude to revolution is serious, Victor ! La revolution sera totale ou ne sera pas.

Spin: If you two are anything to go by, it’ll be the latter.

Victor: You treat it like work ! You want to control everything, just like a capitalist. You don’t choose revolution, you’re a compulsive revolutionary. It’s your neurosis and if you couldn’t make revolution you’d do something else to be in control.

Sophie: You talk shit, Victor, to make an excuse for yourself because you’re trying to fuck an English counter-revolutionary.

Spin: Why are you always sticking labels on me ? God, you people have to put everything in a neat pigeon-hole. I’m not a counter-revolutionary. I don’t give a shit for silly revolution and I think you’ll all be sorry when the tables turn. You’ll find someone in power who makes Stalin look liberal, and serve you right.

Victor: You think I want to go to bed with every woman I meet !

Sophie: Every woman who’ll let you. Every woman who’s stupid enough.

Spin: Speak for yourself.

Sophie: You’re just an opportunist, Victor. You know how reactionary that is ?

Victor: You confuse opportunism and openness, Sophie. You want to be a revolutionary but you think like a middle-class Catholic because that’s how your mind was formed.

Sophie: And how was your mind formed? Lycee Louis le Grand is hardly a breeding ground for socialists.

Victor: The difference is that I know how my mind was formed. I’m not trying to be something I’m not.

Sophie: You are a complete charlatan, Victor. There is nothing real about you. You’re no kind of revolutionary. You’re a cheap seducteur and you don’t even have good taste in women. Any more.

                                    Footsteps. Enter Harry.

Harry: Guess who we saw in the Deux Magots ?

Spin: Karl Marx.

Victor: Where’s Lux ?

Sophie: Another one !

Harry: Another one what ?

Spin: Middle-class English revolutionary he wants to screw.

Harry: Who wants to screw ?

Spin: Your revolutionary friend here. He asked me to go to bed with him. Sixty-nine is his favourite.

Harry: Did you do it in front of her !

Spin: I didn’t do it at all !

Sophie: Who are you ?

Spin: Harry Roberts, the famous English train robber.

Sophie: So you spend your time with criminals, Victor ?

Harry: I’m not a criminal. It’s a joke. A typically English joke. But listen. We saw Sartre ! As large as life. De Beauvoir was with him. Isn’t that amazing ?  If only I’d had the camera !

Spin: Is he handsome ?

Harry: No, he’s an ugly little man.

Spin: Why would you want a photo of an ugly little man ?

Harry: He’s famous, Spin ! Imagine you’d seen Flaubert in café, wouldn’t you have wanted a photo ?

Spin: What did Flaubert look like ?

Victor: Where’s Lux anyway ?

Harry: She’s gone to buy some clothes in Galeries Lafayette. To cheer herself up. She’s feeling bad because of her broken nose. She thinks her looks are ruined.

Spin: She’s no need to worry about that.

Sophie: She needs new clothes for the revolution ? Victor, these English people are idiots.

Harry: Excuse me ! You’re a guest in our hotel room.

Sophie: You’re a guest in our city. You may have noticed things are not quite normal.

Harry: We came to join the revolution. We’re socialists.

Spin: I’m a conservative !

Harry: Myself and Lux. We came to do our bit to change the world.

Sophie: And what have you done ?

Harry: My girlfriend has a broken nose. She was hit by a plastic bullet on the Boulevard St Germain.  

Sophie: Too bad. But it’s no great contribution. The CRS are salauds. They break your nose. So ? It was a waste of time to come here just to get her nose broken. She could have gone to an English football match.

Victor: Oh mais ! There’s no need to insult our English friends.

Sophie: They aren’t my friends, Victor. My friends are working for the revolution. They don’t go the Deux Magots to take pictures of Sartre.

Harry: I didn’t go to take a picture of Sartre. I went because it’s a radical intellectual lieu. I went for the atmosphere or to experience something you just can’t experience in England. Oh, I’ve seen Francis Bacon drinking in the Coach and Horses, but it’s not the same as here. And Sartre just happened to be there. And that moment comes and goes. What’s wrong with a souvenir ? It’s human. What are the paintings at Lascaux but an attempt to freeze experience ? To have something to refer to when the moment’s gone ? Something for posterity ? What’s wrong with that ?

Sophie: Taking pictures of celebrities isn’t art, that’s what’s wrong with it. It’s just pretension. It makes me sick.

Spin: Here, here ! Pictures of ugly old communists. You could at least photograph somebody handsome.

Harry: You’re obsessed with appearances, Spin.

Spin: Of course I am. Appearances matter. Don’t try to tell me you’re not impressed by beautiful women, Harry.

Harry: Impressed is the wrong word.

Spin: Aroused any better ?

Harry: That’s what this revolution is for, to do away with a society of appearances !

Spin: Are you going to make everybody blind ?

Sophie: You aren’t going to do anything ! You are all fainéants. You’re little schoolchildren playing truant from the revolution because its lessons are too difficult.

Victor: I’m going to buy a few things to eat.

Spin: I’ll come with you. You can introduce me to your Algerian metro friend.

Sophie: A few things to eat ? This is no time for a picnic, Victor !

Victor: Food first, morals after. Remember Sophie ?

                                                                        Exit Victor followed by Spin.

Sophie: Mais c’est degueulasse ! She is a stupid girl. A stupid, stupid girl. What have you English people come here for ? To play at making revolution. It’s not a game. We are trying to change the direction of history. You English don’t understand revolution. When something goes wrong, you fix it  in a sort of way, and then  pretend it wasn’t wrong at all. We French celebrate our great moments of transformation.

Harry: Yeah, and your mate has certainly transformed this hotel room. Who does he think’s going to tidy up after him, the fairies ?

Sophie: How can you think of such trivial things  at such a time ?

Harry: The devil is always in the detail, as we English like to say. It’s the little things that matter. I think we should have a revolution for courtesy. Politeness is the basis of justice ! There’s a bold declaration for you.  Call it Roberts’ Law. It’s just damn bad manners of capitalists to treat their employees shabbily. It’s bloody bad manners to be rich when others are scrimping by. No-one with a sense of shame could do it. What makes you feel ashamed ?

Sophie: What makes you think I have something to be ashamed of ?

Harry:  Everyone has something to be ashamed of. Have you ever wondered why we have a sense of shame ? The answer should be obvious but the more you stare at the question the harder it gets. Do you believe in god ?

Sophie: Merde ! I’m a Marxist.

Harry: So you do believe in god. Sorry ! But we must have evolved with a sense of shame for some reason. You know what I think it is ? I think shame is a mirror but it shows us only one side of our image. The ugly side. The vicious. The callous. The selfish. The cheap. That’s what shame’s for. To make us turn away from the image of our ugliness and find what’s beautiful in us.

Sophie: You’re not impressing me with your attempts to appear intellectual.

Harry: What makes you imagine I’m trying to impress you ?

Sophie: Oh, you’re that kind of boy. You come to Paris to show off, to pretend to be a revolutionary. You like to sit in the Deux Magots as if you’re a bohemian intellectual. You want to take a picture of Sartre. And all to impress the girls.

Harry: You don’t know much about English girls. Most of them have never heard of Jean-Paul Sartre, and the English are genetically predisposed to hate philosophy.   They prefer to box ideas in. They extend the franchise to prevent revolt and then say: “ There we are, that’s democracy old chap. Let the plebs vote, so long as they’re voting for their betters.” But democracy as an idea ! That’s dangerous.

Sophie: But your university girls with a picture of Che Guevara on their wall, they are the ones you want to seduce.

Harry: I don’t know any girls with pictures of Che Guevara on their walls, not even Lux. She has a picture of Rosa Luxemburg, hence the nickname. Most of them have Paul Newman or Status Quo. They prefer the warm bath of sex symbols and entertainment to the bracing waters of serious ideas and struggle for social change.

Sophie: So perhaps you came to Paris hoping to seduce French girls. The excitement of the revolution. Old ideas are breaking down. You can take advantage and, what is it you say, “get your end in” ?

Harry: Away. Get your end away. No. I came here with Lux. I came to fight for social change. I believed Paris could show the world again how to get beyond old forms. Like 1789. I wanted to be part of that because England’s in the grip of the middle-classes and they’re as   hopeless as a failed soufflé. Once they were energetic and radical. They looked down their noses at the working-class but they were driving things forward. They built towns and cities. They sat in non-conformist pews and they stuck two fingers up at the aristocratic, Anglican snobs. Then they retreated to the suburbs and the golf course and public life imploded like a dead star.

Sophie: But you don’t want to be part of it any more. Quel dommage ! Progress is not so easy as you thought.

Harry: Sure ! Yes. I’ll be out tonight with the best. I’ll be chanting CRS  SS ! I’ll link arms and march in solidarity.. It’s just that it’s not what I expected.

Sophie: Did you think we’d have a guillotine in front of Notre Dame ? Did you expect to see De Gaulle mounting the scaffold ? Perhaps our revolution isn’t melodramatic and bloodthirsty enough for you ?

Harry: I’m too squeamish for all that stuff. In any case, I’m a pacifist. It’s just there’s something not right. Something in the atmosphere.

Sophie: Oh, you wanted a carnival ! A party ! You’re disappointed because it’s serious. The CRS have real batons and real tear gas and they are real State thugs and the students and the young workers really want to fight. What a shame ! Paris in revolution is not a fun fair !

Harry: The opposite, as a matter of fact. It’s not serious enough. I don’t know, there’s some kind of cheating going on . Like shirt pulling in football. It ruins everything. What’s the point of playing a game with strict rules and then breaking the rules ? It’s a game because of the rules. If you break them, you break the spell. It’s the same kind of feeling here. A kind of irresponsibility towards the noble desire to ratchet up the level of fairness and justice in society. Something seems to be pulling downwards. The point is, I really am a socialist !

Sophie: Don’t think that makes you special ! We all are. Or anarchists. Or anarcho-syndicalists. Or Maoists. Or anarcho-maoists. Or communists. Or Situationists. We’re all fighting for the big change but we are like children over the details.

Harry: No, so many people here aren’t socialists at all. You know what I think ? I think when this all dies down most of them will go back to their homes, their universities and start worrying about how to build their careers. They’ll become professors and newspaper editors and lawyers and politicians and bankers and they’ll earn big money and live in all the fancy places and forty years from now they’ll tell stories of the barricades over canapés and Bollinger on a Saturday evening to entertain their friends. And their children will be spoilt rotten and think it’s their right to have a BMW and three holidays a year. It suddenly struck me that this isn’t going to last. We aren’t going to make it. Like the anarchists saying, ask for something they can’t take away from you. Free public transport for all in Paris. That at least would be a gain. But I’ve just suddenly been overcome with the bleak feeling we won’t win a thing. Too many people are too comfortable and those who aren’t are too disaffected, or defeated or cowardly or just plain stupid to rise up. I thought it would be much more disciplined than this. There just isn’t enough momentum. We’re pissing in the wind. They’re going to defeat us by selling the masses a commercialised fantasy. Marx was right. It’s the extension of the domain of the struggle. You know what I think ? I think the struggle is going to be about identity and none of the old ways of fighting will be any good. You can go on strike for more money or shorter hours, but how do you fight a consumerist identity you don’t even recognize? My country was once the workshop of the world but it’ll become the hairdressing salon of the world. There won’t be any miners to lead a working-class avant-garde. We’ll have to start again and build a new radicalism but in much more confusing conditions.

Sophie: You English have no sense of revolution. That’s why you came to Paris.  A romantic idea. We French know that every revolution brings a counter-revolution. Cut off the heads of the aristocrats and before you know it there’s a restoration. You have to keep going. You have to take to the streets over and over. After this, things will never be the same in France. 68 will be the number that makes the capitalists nervous. That’s what we’ll win.

Harry: It doesn’t seem much, does it ? And anyway, when capitalists get nervous they just build bigger weapons or train more riot police.

Sophie: Typical English defeatism !

Harry: Typical French arrogance !

Sophie: Anyway, why not make the best of things ? What do you say ? Chin out ?

Harry: Chin up.

Sophie: Voila ! The revolution may let you down but there are other things to enjoy. Perhaps you can go back to England feeling like you’ve won. You know, there’s something I like about you’re silly pessimism.

Harry: I’m not a pessimist, I’m just realistic.

Sophie: Of course. Be realistic, demand the impossible. But why not enjoy what’s in front of you at the same time ?

Harry: Victor and Spin may be back any minute.

Sophie: Well, we’ll lock the door. Voila ! If they knock, we’ll keep quiet and they’ll think we’ve gone out.

Harry: Why would you be interested in an English defeatist ?

Sophie: Oh, we are much more passionate than you. French women admire a man who knows how to love. I have a feeling you would be a good lover. Soixante-huit, soixante-neuf.

Harry: I’m here with my girl-friend.

Sophie: And you think she hasn’t noticed Victor ? He’s handsome as a god isn’t he ?

Harry: Is he ?

Sophie: You haven’t noticed ? He has the kind of face that makes women, what do you say, folle d’amour.

Harry: Just his face ?

Sophie: A face like that is enough. You walk the streets of Paris or any big city, you see thousands and thousands of men, ugly, ordinary, boring, obscene and then out of the crowd comes Victor’s face. You know what that does to a woman’s brain ? Il est adorable ! It’s terrible but it’s true. Your girl-friend is in love with him.

Harry: You haven’t seen them together.

Sophie: I don’t need to. I’ve seen the way women fall for Victor. He’s one of those men who doesn’t have to do anything to attract attention. He simply walks into a room. That’s why he’s so relaxed. And your girl-friend has come to Paris for the revolution. What better than a beautiful revolutionary ? Victor knows exactly what he’s doing. Have you noticed how he moves ? Have you seen the sleepiness in him ?  Do you think she can resist that ? It wouldn’t surprise me if at this very moment…..

Harry: Lux is shopping, Victor is with Spin. I suppose she’s fallen for him too.

Sophie: Oh, she will, when she wakes up. She’s not really a woman is she ? But even a little girl like her will find herself looking into his eyes and wondering what’s happening to her. Victor will seduce her if he’s nothing better to do. Your Lux is more of a challenge. She’s with you. Is she very beautiful ?

Harry: She’s too preoccupied with the revolution to get into bed with Victor.

Sophie: I thought she’d gone shopping ?

Harry: Just to lift her spirits. She’s suffered a blow to her dignity. Her face has been smashed in. Anyone would want to comfort themselves after that.

Sophie: And shopping is so much easier than changing the world. That’s what the capitalists know. They’ll turn the world into one big centre commercial. They’ll give us all cheap credit and make us fanatics of the department stores. We’ll go shopping for our identity and we’ll be the saddest spectacle in the universe. That’s the revolution your girl-friend is helping bring about. The real one means giving up too much.

Harry: You make it sound like Lent. What are you giving up ? Chocolate biscuits or pain au chocolat ?

Sophie: I’d give up everything to see capitalism swept away. Sometimes I think I’d even give my life. Like you, I really am a socialist. Wouldn’t you rather die for a cause than live without one ? What kind of life is it ? Metro boulot dodo. We don’t live, we are lived. We’ve made a monster. Our society is a Frankenstein and it controls us. We go to work. We make money. We worry if we have enough. And what is enough ? We never have enough. Even the richest people want to make more. They need another yatch or another private jet. No-one can have enough when money is a proof of your worth because your worth is something you can’t prove. Don’t you agree ? Aren’t we, what do you say, soulmates ?

Harry: Yes, soul mates. And you’re right. Our society is a mess so our minds are a mess. How the hell did we get here ?

Sophie: Soulmates. Or bedfellows.

Harry: Shoulder to shoulder on the barricades is where we belong. That way we might stop the capitalists from turning us all into compulsive shoppers.

Sophie: Such hard work, revolution. We need some relief. Maybe Victor is right. Maybe I treat revolution like  work. I just need to take off my clothes and relax. Your bed looks so comfortable.

                        She gets under the sheets so they cover her completely and  holds them up like a tent as she undresses.

Sophie: That’s better ! Don’t you love to be without clothes ?

Harry: When I’m in the bath.

Sophie: Come under the sheets with me. Please. What have you got to lose ?

Harry: A lot if Lux found out.

Sophie: Who’s going to tell her ?

Harry: These things have a way of making themselves known. Anyway, I’m no good at dissembling. My nature is too straightforward. I’d give myself away.

Sophie (Popping her head out): Are you going to insult me !

Harry: It’s not an insult.

Sophie: Don’t you find me attractive ?

Harry: Of course. You’re a very beautiful girl.

Sophie: I’m a very beautiful woman.

Harry: Woman. Fine. But I’m spoken for.

Sophie: Are you an old married man ? Anyway, I thought you were a revolutionary. Don’t you know our attitudes to sex are like everything else? They’re cultural. Why can’t we sweep away the old ways ? I’m offering you my body, my tenderness without any demands. Isn’t it cruel of you to turn me down ?

Harry: I’m not turning you down. I mean, in different circumstances….

Sophie: Oh, mais non ! Let’s make our own circumstances. What are we doing in the streets ? Aren’t we trying to make new circumstances for ourselves because new circumstances mean a new humanity ? Well, have a little pity for me. I’m naked. I’m waiting. If you don’t make love to me I’ll be so humiliated.

Harry: But I didn’t ask you to take your clothes off !

Sophie: It was the way you looked at me.

Harry: What ?

Sophie: A woman has an instinct for these things. You gave yourself away by the look in your eyes. I know you’re unhappy because your girlfriend has fallen in love with a handsome French icon of the revolution…

Harry: We don’t know that !

Sophie: I know it.

Harry: Neither of us knows that. Lux is a very friendly and generous girl…

Sophie: So am I. I’m offering you my body. Just like she offers hers to Victor.

Harry: You don’t know that !

Sophie: Men are always in denial when they find a woman has been unfaithful. A man thinks it’s his privilege to betray a woman. It’s in his genes, all that rubbish. Men know nothing about women. We love sex much more than you do. We love the simple pleasure of it. It’s true. That’s why we try to hide it behind sentimentality. As for men, they think sex is a big, important matter. They can’t accept the physical pleasure for what it is. That’s why they try to pretend to be so unsentimental about it. Your girlfriend has just met a man who has made her feel sexier than any man she’s ever known. She can’t believe it. She knows she’ll have an orgasm in five minutes if she goes to bed with him. What’s going to stop her ?

Harry: Me !

Sophie: You’re very sweet.

Harry: Don’t patronise me.

Sophie: Don’t keep me waiting.

Harry: Put your clothes on. Let’s go and have a coffee. We can talk things over.

Sophie: I don’t want to talk. How can you expect me to put my clothes on ? I’ve decided to act. It’s just like the revolution. We can’t turn back. If we left the streets now we would look stupid. Do you want to make me look stupid ?

Harry: This is impossible !

Sophie: You mean you can’t ….

Harry: Of course I can. I mean morally. I’m committed to Lux. She’s my future.

Sophie: And I’m your present. We’re in the middle of a revolution. No-one knows how things will work out but it’s exciting. Life usually goes on without any chance of change. One day after another. Year after year. People live out their whole lives and nothing essential changes. One generation after another and things change so slowly no-one notices. No-one feels they’ve helped change to happen. It’s happened in spite of them. People feel their lives have happened in spite of them. Then once in a while there comes a chance to be part of real change, to feel you’re making change happen. Everything is melting. For a brief moment, a moment which must be rare in the modern world, it’s as if the world was new. As if we were the first people on the planet. The whole future belongs to us and what we do will decide it. This is a moment when you can feel you’re escaping the weight of history. A moment of unbelievable freedom. Just take that freedom. For a brief hour. Just take it for what it is before the weight of history falls on your shoulders once again. Take that freedom and make me blissfully happy for one hour in my life.

Harry: You really believe it would make you happy ?

Sophie: I know it would.

Harry:  But it’s just physical sensation. Once it’s over it’s over. And what do we do with ourselves ? I hardly know you. We’ve no past. No future. There’s nothing shared beyond this brief …….thing. What makes you happy has to have more continuity about it than that doesn’t it ?

Sophie: How do you know this won’t be the beginning of something that will last ? What do we do, wait and wait before we find out how it feels to make love to one another ?

Harry: I’m committed to Lux.

Sophie: Then you are a stupid, stupid boy ! She isn’t committed to you.

Harry: You don’t know her.

Sophie: But I know Victor and I know his instinct for women. He wouldn’t have made friends with you if he hadn’t known your girlfriend was falling for him. That’s how he works. He doesn’t waste his time. He knows how a woman feels because so many women have been in love with him. If he meets one who won’t be seduced, he runs away. The moment he meets a woman he starts to ask himself whether she will go to bed with him. He’s a cynic. He’s a capitalist of the bedroom. All that matters to him is quantity. He accumulates women like a capitalist accumulates money. And just as a capitalist counts his worth in property, so Victor counts his worth in sexual conquest. Unfortunately, women are stupid enough to fall for him just like the workers are stupid enough to make the capitalists rich. I tell you, he knows he can seduce your girlfriend or he wouldn’t be here. He has the power. The power of his beauty has corrupted his soul. Just like the power of money corrupts the souls of the rich.

Harry: So you want me to go to bed with you as an act of revenge on Lux ! Wouldn’t that corrupt my soul ?

Sophie: Mais non, mais non, mais non ! Don’t misunderstand me. Not for revenge. For sweetness. Oh, make love to me. Make me feel like a woman. Forget Victor and Lux. Revolution is a new beginning. Brief but powerful. That’s all I ask. Give me that brief powerful moment that can let me start again. Create a revolution in my woman’s heart. It’s so much more difficult than overthrowing capitalism. Do it if you have the least feeling for me. Make me feel alive !

Harry: You’re putting me in an impossible situation !

Sophie: History has put us in an impossible situation. What can we do ? We’re always making choices in contexts other people have left to us. We are the  inheritors of the stupidity of generations. Do you think you can find some pure context in which to act ? It doesn’t exist. We act in the mess we find ourselves part of, whether we like it or not.

Harry: Sure, but we can still act to make things better or worse. There’s no excuse in blaming the past. What’s done is done. All the tragedies of the past will have to stay there. But there is a tomorrow and I can make tomorrow better or at least no worse. If I can’t improve, then let me do no harm.

Sophie: That’s right. Do no harm. What harm will it do to satisfy my woman’s longing ? But to leave me here, naked, exposed. Ah, the humiliation. Would you inflict that humiliation on a young woman ? How would I rise from it ? How would I pull myself back up to dignity ?

Harry: But I haven’t put you in a humiliating situation !

Sophie: Of course you have !

Harry: How !

Sophie: By letting me know you wanted me. Look what you’ve awakened in me ? And you’re a handsome man,do you know that ? I’m a vulnerable woman and when a woman’s vulnerable it’s wrong to exploit her.

Harry: Don’t you think you’re being unfair ?

Sophie: Why shouldn’t I be ? Sometimes we have to be unfair to get what we want but when what we want’s the right thing, what else can we do ?

Harry: If you have to be unfair to get what you want, it isn’t the right thing.

Sophie: There you go again, thinking there’s a pure context in which we can act. What if I’m a little bit unfair in pursuit of a greater fairness ? It’s unfair that Victor is so handsome. Nature is unfair. It gives him the looks which mean he can go to bed with a different woman every day. Think of all the shy, ugly men in the world. What’s fair about that ? He breaks my heart every time he meets another woman’s eyes in a café, in the street. Two seconds, and already she’s in bed with him. Isn’t it fair that I have a little love ? You’re so sweet. And your girlfriend is betraying you because she’s met an exceptionally handsome man who believes in revolution. Be fair to yourself. Be fair to me. Come on.

                                    He stands looking at her. She lies down, her knees bent under the sheet.

Blackout.

SCENE SEVEN

                        The hotel room. Harry alone on the bed reading L’Etre et le Neant. Enter Lux, breathless, with shopping bags.

Lux: Phew ! What a trek ! Where’s Spin ?

Harry: She went out with Victor. Didn’t they find you ?

Lux: Find me ? Did they go looking for me ?

Harry: I assumed they would.

Lux: Why ?

Harry: I told them you’d gone to Galeries Lafayette. I guessed they’d want to track you down.

Lux: You make me sound like some kind of prey.

Harry: All women are prey to Victor.

Lux: Want to see what I’ve bought ?

Harry: Revolutionary fatigues ?

Lux: I got them in the sale. Isn’t this lovely ?

Harry: You’re going to look perfect on the barricades !

Lux: But  the sequins ! I love sparkly things. Do you want to see it on ?

Harry: Maybe you should wait till Victor gets back. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

Lux: What are you being such a shit about, Harry ?

Harry: A shit ?

Lux: What the fuck’s the matter !

Harry: Nothing’s the matter !

Lux: What’s the two-year-old act for, Harry ? God ! Can’t you make an effort ? I’ve bought myself some nice things. Is it too much to be pleasant about them ?

Harry: I thought we came here to overthrow capitalism.

Lux: You can’t be overthrowing capitalism twenty-four hours a day.

Harry: I thought that’s what revolution was about ? I didn’t think it stopped for a fucking tea-break at eleven or paused while the ladies go to the fashion sales.

Lux: I’m not a lady, Harry, I’m a woman.

Harry: No, you’re a lady, Lux. A middle-class lady who likes to go round the sales and buy sparkly tops. I don’t think that’s quite what Marx had in mind when he envisaged the rising of the working-class. That’s why we’ve made a big mistake coming to Paris, Lux. This isn’t a revolution, it’s a bunch of middle-class kids indulging themselves. It’s a carnival of egocentricism, the political equivalent of a shopping spree. They aren’t serious about change. They’d run a mile from what equality really means. But they can show off their radical pretensions by throwing a few paves at policemen, knowing full well  the police will win,and they can go back to mummy and daddy’s apartment on the Avenue de la Grande Armee.

Lux: Why are you such a cynic, Harry.

Harry: Because I see the world as it is, Lux.

Lux: Who do you think built the barricades ? Who ripped up all those cobbles ? Middle-class students don’t have the muscle or the skill. The young workers did that. They’re going on strike. They’re going to occupy their factories and kick the capitalists out on their arses. Then they’ll control what they make and….

Harry: Things like that sparkly top.

Lux: Why not, Harry ?

Harry: Because while you’re buying your sparkly top, Lux, people are going hungry. That’s how capitalism works. It makes even people like you, who think they’re fucking radicals, put their own fripperies before justice. Do you know how hard a thing justice is, Lux ? It means  if the starving need food, we’ll do without sparkly tops and cars and holidays and colour fucking televisions and the next fucking Beatles L.P. Do you see any sign of that ? What I see is a consumerist nightmare. What I see is a future in which the poor of the world will perish for want of a bowl of rice or a bit of clean water while people like us run two fucking cars and worry if we can’t change them every three years.

Lux: Not if this revolution succeeds, Harry ! Then we’ll have a new world in which everything is shared equally. People are greedy because the system makes them greedy, change the system, change the people. You’ve been telling me that for ages. How many times have I heard you explain it ? How many times have I heard you carefully spell out to some arse-licking Tory that medieval conditions produce medieval minds. People would die to defend the Divine Right of Kings, but no-one believes in it now. Isn’t that what you always say, Harry ? Context is what makes us what we are because we’re material creatures and our minds make reality from the reality we make. Well, this is a new reality being made, Harry. Just like 1789. This is the future being born and we are the midwives.

Harry: This is a messy fucking abortion, Lux. The new world isn’t being born, it’s being destroyed.

Lux: You never miss the chance for a clever-clever comment do you, Harry ?

Harry: It’s not clever-clever. I can explain it.

Lux: Yeah, if I’ve got three hours to spare and can stay awake.

Harry: It takes courage to face down your own immediate advantage, Lux.

Lux: What the fuck’s that supposed to mean !

Harry: 1789 wasn’t like this.

Lux: Well, thank you A.J.P. Taylor ! And there’s me thinking 1789 was a student uprising and the streets full of riot police !

Harry: You know what Marx said ? “If the slogan of 1789 was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, that of 1848 was Cavalry, Artillery, Infantry.” And you say I’m a cynic.

Lux: Maybe Marx was a cynic too.

Harry: But he was right wasn’t he? Danton and Robespierre weren’t fighting for justice for others, they were fighting for their own advantage. This time we’re asking people to put their own advantage after the well-being of others. They won’t do it.

Lux: They’re doing it, Harry. Night after night out there we are doing it !

Harry: You think people know what they’re doing ? Human beings are just fucking clever monkeys. That’s all we are. We’ve got these huge fucking brains full of hundreds of millions of neurons and that’s why we can send rockets into space or do differential calculus. But you know what we can’t do,Lux ? We can’t understand ourselves. You don’t even know why you’ve bought that sparkly top. As a matter of fact, you’ve got no fucking idea.

Lux: As a matter of fact I have. I bought it because I like it. Wow ! How’s that Dr Freud ?

Harry: Balls to Freud. We can’t see into our own minds. Just glimpses.  We evolved to survive, not write psychological text-books.

Lux: Well, why don’t you start learning how to survive instead of spouting theory like a philosophy professor on speed ?

Harry: You and me have come to Paris to ask clever monkeys with money to give it away so the poor can be fed, so the breaking hearts of the excluded and neglected can be eased. They won’t do it, Lux, because they want to buy sparkly tops and flash cars and drugs and champagne. We’re doomed.

Lux: Does that make you feel better ? There you are. The last degree of cycnicism. Does that make you feel superior ?

Harry: I’m just trying to tell you how I see things.

Lux: And maybe I don’t like your picture.

Harry: Maybe you don’t. Because the poor will fight back. They’ve  no choice. But they’ll fight dirty.

Lux: Good for them. The rich have always known how to fight dirty.

Harry: We’re doomed.

Lux: Speak for yourself, Harry.

Harry: You know what your children will say when you tell them you came to Paris in ’68 to overthrow capitalism ? They’ll say: “What’s capitalism ?”