THE BABY

EXTRACT

POMPEY and MARCELLA come on in dressing-gowns of exotic, possibly Indian, fabric and style.

POMPEY. Rana! Rana! - What's going on out there?

MARCELLA. I don't know. I've been in bed with you for three days, remember?

POMPEY. Rana! Rana!

MARCELLA. Is there any food? I'm starving.

POMPEY. Rana!

RANA comes in.

RANA.Yes, Pompey.

POMPEY. What's going on out there, carnival? I thought I heard them shouting someone's name.

RANA. They're carrying Lepidus home to the suburbs.

POMPEY. Lepidus?

RANA. He made a speech in the Forum. He said Sulla should be scraped off his death-bed, and burnt with his bedding.

POMPEY. Lepidus? That old coffin-dodger. I thought he was confined to his bed.

RANA clears her throat ironically. LEPIDUS wasn't confined to his bed, POMPEY was.

RANA. How's Marcella?

MARCELLA. I've had three days of more or less continuous sex, how do you think I am? Sore. Does he love me, do you think? I can't tell.

RANA. He probably doesn't know himself.

POMPEY. Go and order me some food. Some duck or nuts or something.

RANA. Food - women - he doesn't know what he wants and he wants it now.

POMPEY. Now! Food!

RANA goes.

POMPEY. So it's happening then?

MARCELLA. What is?

POMPEY. Someone's made a move.

MARCELLA. Out there you're talking about.

POMPEY. While I stayed in bed.

MARCELLA. That'll end up in a tangle of limbs too. Would you rather have been out there?

POMPEY. I want power.

MARCELLA. Why did you stay in bed then?

He can't say.

POMPEY. Sex - after a day of it you don't know what bits are you and what bits are the other person. - I wanted THEM to come to ME, that's why.

Slight pause as MARCELLA takes this in

MARCELLA. You're so young sometimes. Well, you're young all the time, it's just sometimes I notice. Sweet though, in a young bastard sort of way. So for three whole shagging days and nights your thoughts have been elsewhere. Have they?