REBECCA Of course I saw Kim and the kids. I had tea with them. Why did you ask? Did you think I didn’t see them?

DEVLIN No. I didn’t know. It’s just that you said you were going to have tea with them.

REBECCA Well, I did have tea with them! Why shouldn’t I? She’s my sister.

Pause.

REBECCA (cont.) Guess where I went after tea? To the cinema. I saw a film.

DEVLIN Oh? What?

REBECCA A comedy.

DEVLIN Uh-huh? Was it funny? Did you laugh?

REBECCA Other people laughed. Other members of the audience. It was funny.

DEVLIN But you didn’t laugh?

REBECCA Other people did. It was a comedy. There was a girl . . . you know . . . and a man. They were having lunch in a smart New York restaurant. He made her smile.

DEVLIN How?

REBECCA Well . . . he told her jokes.

DEVLIN Oh, I see.

REBECCA And then in the next scene he took her on an expedition to the desert, in a caravan. She’d never lived in a desert before, you see. She had to learn how to do it.

Pause.

DEVLIN Sounds very funny.

REBECCA But there was a man sitting in front of me, to my right. He was absolutely still throughout the whole film. He never moved, he was rigid, like a body with rigor mortis, he never laughed once, he just sat like a corpse. I moved far away from him, I moved as far away from him as I possibly could.

Silence.

DEVLIN Now look, let’s start again. We live here. You don’t live . . . in Dorset . . . or anywhere else. You live here with me. This is our house. You have a very nice sister. She lives close to you. She has two lovely kids. You’re their aunt. You like that.

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) You have a wonderful garden. You love your garden. You created it all by yourself. You have truly green fingers. You also have beautiful fingers.

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) Did you hear what I said? I’ve just paid you a compliment. In fact I’ve just paid you a number of compliments. Let’s start again.

REBECCA I don’t think we can start again. We started . . . a long time ago. We started. We can’t start again. We can end again.

DEVLIN But we’ve never ended.

REBECCA Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again.

DEVLIN Aren’t you misusing the word end? End means end. You can’t end “again.” You can only end once.

REBECCA No. You can end once and then you can end again.

Silence.

REBECCA (cont.) (singing softly) “Ashes to ashes—”

DEVLIN "And dust to dust—”

REBECCA "If the women don’t get you—”

DEVLIN "The liquor must.”

Pause.

DEVLIN (cont.) I always knew you loved me.

REBECCA Why?

DEVLIN Because we like the same tunes.

Silence.

DEVLIN (cont.) Listen.

Pause.