[Brushing her hair] How I wanted to study you. To find out. I thought if I did discover everything, then I’d know. You know, of course, that this drunken old man loves you just as much as Francis does. Don’t wait for him, he hasn’t written in a year, he’s free of you. Run away, head for the hills. Nowt more outcastin’.

Silence.

I shouldn’t have let you destroy me.

BETSHEB: [looking at WILLIAM, quietly, almost beyond pain] Stef… ’E dead.

SCENE TWELVE

The ruins of Berlin, evening, 1945. FRANCIS, now a lieutenant, enters carrying a pistol. He is dirty, worn and wearing a heavy army coat. He stops and looks around. PRIVATE CORRIS enters, also rugged up, carrying a rifle. Nearby on the ground are the remains of a huge statue: the head of Frederick the Great, its face riddled with bullet holes.

CORRIS: I’m pretty sure I saw the bugger head this way.

FRANCIS: He’s probably gone through those ruins there.

CORRIS: He wouldn’t get far: there’s the Americans on the other side.

Silence.

Sorry I fucked it up. When I turned me back he was off like a flash.

FRANCIS: [shrugging] It’ll soon be too dark to see anything.

CORRIS: Yeah, the fires are starting up. The homeless. What a fuckin’ mess, eh? They’ll have to rebuild Berlin from scratch. They live like rats in a tip. [Looking at the head] Not much bird shit.

FRANCIS: They deserved it: they started it; they were so bloody proud of their thousand-year Reich.

CORRIS: [examining a hole in the head] Jesus, Doctor, I’ve got a splitting headache. [He laughs.] I once saw Mo at the Tiv; me girlfriend said I was funnier. Who do you reckon it is?

FRANCIS shakes his head.

It’s not Hitler. Some old king, I guess. Wonder where the rest of him is. [Looking around] A leg there… There’s some angels. [Sitting on the head] Have to be careful I don’t get a nose up me bum. You know what I heard yesterday? After they strung up Mussolini and his mistress they pissed and shat on them. Bet you the same people who were saluting him the day before did it. Will we keep going or what?

FRANCIS: No point. Be too dark to see soon. He’ll hide in the ruins somewhere, find some old mate, change his identity… Doesn’t matter.

CORRIS: Maybe the Yanks will get him.

FRANCIS: So what? You saw them with those scientists the other day putting them on the plane. Like they were kings. Going to America to get well-paid jobs and yet they created the planes, the bombs, the rockets—

CORRIS: [interrupting] This fella was no scientist.

FRANCIS: He was Goebbels’ right-hand man. He’ll probably end up like the scientists: get off scot-free, probably find himself running a huge American publicity firm.

CORRIS: Maybe they’ll go to trial.