Ravenhill Plays: 1: Shopping and F***ing; Faust is Dead; Handbag; Some Explicit Polaroids (Contemporary Dramatists) by Mark Ravenhill Page B

part of me do you find the most attractive?
    And he replies: the eyes.
    It is the eyes he finds the most attractive part of this woman.
    Pete      Okay.
    Alain      So, the next morning he leaves. He works. But all the time he is thinking about this beautiful woman, about making love with this beautiful woman, yes?
    Pete      Yes. He’s thinking about her.
    Alain      The following day, he is woken by the front doorbell. The doorbell is ringing, so he jumps out of bed. It might be her. Maybe she can’t bear to be apart from him.
    Pete      Maybe she feels the same way too.
    Alain      Exactly.
    But it isn’t her. It’s the mailman. Who has a parcel for him.
    So he signs for the parcel and he takes the parcel into the kitchen and he realises that the parcel . . . smells.
    Pete      Of her?
    Alain      Yes.
    Pete      The parcel has the woman’s smell.
    Alain      His hands are trembling with excitement, as he pulls away the packaging – he wants the moment to last, but also he wants to discover the contents.
    And as the packaging falls away, a box is revealed. A cardboard box. (
indicates
) so big . . .
    Pete      Like a shoebox?
    Alain      The sort of box in which you might buy shoes. The sort of cardboard box that has a lid on it.
    The lid is on. He waits for a moment, delaying the moment of pleasure and then he lifts up the lid.
    And inside the box are two human eyes.
    Pete      So, she’d . . . Right.
    She’d cut out her eyes.
    Alain      Exactly. She had cut out her eyes.
    Which leaves us with a question. This example gives rise to an important question.
    Who was the seducer and who was the seduced?
    Pete      The woman with no eyes and the guy with two eyeballs in a box.
    One’s the seducer, one’s been seduced.
    Alain      Precisely.
    Pete      And which one is which?
    Well, that’s an interesting question.
    Alain      You think so?
    Pete      Yeah. I think that’s a very interesting question.
    You think a lot about that kind of stuff?
    Alain      Oh yes.
    Pete      That is cool.
    I think about that kind of stuff.
    You wanna tell me a little about yourself?
    Tell me about the guy who thinks about all that.
    Alain
moves to kiss
Pete .
    Pete      No.
    It’s okay.
    It’s not like I have a prejudice or, or a problem, you know . . . with the whole guys thing. It’s just like it’s not totally me, okay. Sure, if you were gonna sign Stevie, but otherwise . . .
    Alain      I understand.
    Alain
moves to leave
.
    Pete      . . . How did she find the mailbox?
    Alain      I’m sorry?
    Pete      That’s my question.
    She’s there in her apartment, she’s taken out her eyes, say a pair of nail scissors something like that. So okay, she’s laid everything out in front of her. The shoebox, the paper, the Scotch tape. And I guess she’s like written the address on before she’s become . . . visually impaired. So, it’s all within easy reach.
    But that still begs the question:
    How did she find the mailbox.
    Alain      That is not relevant.
    It is an example, a model. The details are not relevant.
    Pete      The mailbox is a detail, right?
    Alain      Yes. Just so. The mailbox is a detail.
    Pause
.
    Pete      I don’t want you to go, okay?
    I want you to stay here.
    You stay here but I’d feel better if you didn’t do the kissing thing, okay?
    I prefer it this way.
    And see, if you wanna bring anyone else back, I can do watching, I can do recording. I just don’t do doing, okay?
    Deal?
    Alain      She was blind. The woman was blind.
    Pete      Well, sure. She’d cut out her eyes.
    Alain      But you said ‘visually impaired’. She was blind.
    Pete      Okay, yes. She was blind.
    Alain      Yes. I stay. It’s a deal.
Seven
     
    Chorus      It’s happening just like they said. Whole city’s blowing right apart.
    Some guy