Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) I hope you get the picture.

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) Now let me say this. A little while ago you made . . . shall we say . . . you made a somewhat oblique reference to your bloke . . . your lover? . . . and babies and mothers, etc. And platforms. I inferred from this that you were talking about some kind of atrocity. Now let me ask you this. What authority do you think you yourself possess which would give you the right to discuss such an atrocity?

REBECCA I have no such authority. Nothing has ever happened to me. Nothing has ever happened to any of my friends. I have never suffered. Nor have my friends.

DEVLIN Good.

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) Shall we talk more intimately? Let’s talk about more intimate things, let’s talk about something more personal, about something within your own immediate experience. I mean, for example, when the hairdresser takes your head in his hands and starts to wash your hair very gently and to massage your scalp, when he does that, when your eyes are closed and he does that, he has your entire trust, doesn’t he? It’s not just your head which is in his hands, is it, it’s your life, it’s your spiritual . . . welfare.

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) So you see what I wanted to know was this . . . when your lover had his hand on your throat, did he remind you of your hairdresser?

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) I’m talking about your lover. The man who tried to murder you.

REBECCA Murder me?

DEVLIN Do you to death.

REBECCA No, no. He didn’t try to murder me. He didn’t want to murder me.

DEVLIN He suffocated you and strangled you. As near as makes no difference. According to your account. Didn’t he?

REBECCA No, no. He felt compassion for me. He adored me.

Pause.

DEVLIN Did he have a name, this chap? Was he a foreigner? And where was I at the time? What do you want me to understand? Were you unfaithful to me? Why didn’t you confide in me? Why didn’t you confess? You would have felt so much better. Honestly. You could have treated me like a priest. You could have put me on my mettle. I’ve always wanted to be put on my mettle. It used to be one of my lifetime ambitions. Now I’ve missed my big chance. Unless all this happened before I met you. In which case you have no obligation to tell me anything. Your past is not my business. I wouldn’t dream of telling you about my past. Not that I had one. When you lead a life of scholarship you can’t be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing. Your mind is on other things, have you got an attentive landlady, can she come up with bacon and eggs after eleven o’clock at night, is the bed warm, does the sun rise in the right direction, is the soup cold? Only once in a blue moon do you wobble the chambermaid’s bottom, on the assumption there is one—chambermaid, not bottom—but of course none of this applies when you have a wife. When you have a wife you let thought, ideas and reflection, take their course. Which means you never let the best man win. Fuck the best man, that’s always been my motto. It’s the man who ducks his head and moves on through no matter what wind or weather who gets there in the end. A man with guts and application.