JAMES: It wasn’t true. I had the true story from Anne. I was to be left out. Why? One’s father’s death is usually supposed to be important.

SARA: Perhaps it’s not very important if you believe in nothing afterwards. Or do you? I ought to know. We were married for five years, but it’s the tea you had for breakfast I remember. You liked it strong. Otherwise you said you couldn’t taste it. Does your landlady make good tea?

JAMES: I suppose so. Sara, what’s wrong with me? Why do they keep me away? I wasn’t much of a husband to you, I know, but I wasn’t bad, was I?

SARA: No. You weren’t bad, James. It was just you weren’t interested. You pretended very well and very kindly. Even in bed you pretended. I used to think there was another woman somewhere. Someone like the tea, strong enough for you to taste. You couldn’t taste me. What do you think about when you are alone?

JAMES: Think about?

SARA: I used to imagine you were thinking of someone else. But when you went away—there was nobody. How bored you must have been with me.

JAMES: No, I wasn’t bored. I knew I made you unhappy. There seemed no point in going on. I wish you had married again, Sara. John’s a born widower, but you …

SARA: I took a lover after you went. He didn’t pretend. And then one night I woke and saw him sleeping beside me, content—and I remembered you with your eyes open, thinking of something else, and I didn’t want him any more. I didn’t love him any more.

JAMES: What’s the good of talking importantly about love? It doesn’t last like a book or a tune. It goes out with the breath, and we can always snuff that out, can’t we? We’re not worth loving.

SARA: Then nothing is.

JAMES: And I love nothing.

SARA (bitterly): You do indeed. In the night you’d wake loving Nothing. You went looking for Nothing everywhere. When you came in at night I could see you had been with Nothing all day. I was jealous of Nothing as though it was a woman; and now you sleep with Nothing every night. Oh hell, give me a cigarette.

JAMES: I don’t smoke. (Pause.) Sara, what’s wrong with me?

SARA: You’re not alive. Sometimes I wanted to make you angry or sorry, to hurt you. But you never felt pain. Why did you marry me? (James makes a gesture.) I believe it was curiosity to see if you could feel. You didn’t feel.

JAMES: I thought if I saw my father now, at the end, he’d tell me. Tell me what’s wrong.

SARA: I thought I knew what it was.

JAMES: Yes?