MAN: The end of the road? No way! It’s now that it begins, you see. It’s to your credit that I’ve come this far at all.

WOMAN: Come where? Where do you actually think you’ve come to?

MAN: To my liberation! At last I can start to do something. Sort things out, as you well know. Put things right!

WOMAN: And how are you going to do that?

MAN: In lots of ways. I’m writing a script for a TV series, for one thing. That could be great. There’s a possibility for symmetry in all of it. Balance.

WOMAN (looks at the clock in a far from discreet manner): I think …

MAN: It’s twenty minutes since I arrived … Honestly.

WOMAN: You can manage on your own now.

MAN: No. Now is when this starts to become important.

(PAUSE)

WOMAN: I’m really finding it difficult to see where you want to go with this. Can you try to explain?

MAN (rather overwrought): YOU’RE the one who explained to me that Mum and Dad’s reaction was normal. Dad grew silent, and Mum blubbered. They separated a year later. Fairly commonplace, according to you. Normal. I stayed with my father, something that was NOT usual at that time, in fact. He pulled up all the roots I had and moved away. New place, new people. Mum re-married, I ended up with two half-siblings, and Dad grew increasingly silent. Mum’s new guy didn’t like me. At their place I was superfluous. At Dad’s I was alone. My brother was gone. Everything was off balance.

(LENGTHY PAUSE)

WOMAN: Yes, as I’ve told you many times before, your parents’ reactions are …

MAN (angry): Off balance. Do you hear?

WOMAN: Yes, I hear. Your parents’ reactions to the death were pretty normal. The subsequent developments too. Of course this would have felt chaotic to a small child. Chaotic and therefore threatening. That’s absolutely normal, it’s just …

MAN: … I’m the one who’s abnormal, then. Eh?

WOMAN: No. As we’ve discussed so many times before, there’s nothing normal or abnormal in a human reaction to …

MAN: You used exactly that word a minute ago. Normal. About my parents. But not about me.

WOMAN (with a loud sigh): You were seven years old.

MAN (quietly): Yes, I was seven. And the only one who paid a price for what happened. A fucking high price. An unfairly high price for a seven-year-old. It’s time to take something back.

WOMAN: By writing a manuscript?

MAN: That too. And other things. I’ve got a few plans.

The MAN stands up abruptly. Remains standing, scrutinizing the woman for several seconds. The WOMAN obviously feels ill at ease.

MAN (cont.): You’re right. Let’s draw a line under things here. For this time. See you next Thursday, same time.