yesterday continued (day 15)

Continuing the scene from yesterday....

Monsieur: Steve.

Steve (crossing to him): Oui Monsieur?

Monsieur: What has happened?

Steve: Gil, Monsieur, I am afraid he is … suicidal. He came in clamoring for rum, then gulped it down and left and left 50 Euro to cover it. It must have been all the money he had.

Monsieur: But why do you think suicide?

Steve: We all thought he'd been painting non-stop for the last two days, but apparently he's been in his studio but doing nothing—that's why he wanted rum, he said. (Monsieur nods) Do you think I should call the police? (Monsieur flinches)

Monsieur: Non . . . eh bien. Do you think it necessary? (Marie arrives)

Steve: Oh, good, did you get my message?

Marie: What? No, I've had my phone off I was at the doctors. (she is pulling out her phone and checking messages)

Steve: The doctors, but Gil was here. (She is getting the “you have messages” message and hits “1”)

Marie: Not for him, for me. What was the message? (Steve starts to speak and she waves him off and listens, we watch her reaction). How long ago? Have you done anything?

Steve: Fifteen minutes at most. No, we were just trying to decide what if anything....

Marie: I'll go back and check his place

Steve: Why don't you go to yours—isn't that where he'd go next? I can check his place (he looks at Monsieur for permission, who nods).

Marie: Ok. I'll call you from my place.

(Lights fade out come back up, Marie and Steve at a table)

Steve: Do you want to report this to the police?

Marie: To the police? You want to make him a criminal?

Steve: No, I want to find him. Being missing isn't a crime.

Marie: Suicide is. They aren't going to take us seriously unless we make it sound serious.

Steve: Surely, they'd understand with the cancer....

Marie: Steve, the French may not put much faith in God, the majority may not even believe, but we are a Catholic country and suicides still get buried in unhallowed ground.

Steve: He's not dead, he's missing.

Marie: For the wrong reasons. If they find him for these reasons, he'll be in a hospital—for his mind not his cancer.

Steve: Oh, come on.

Marie: It gets better, I wouldn't be able to see him as I'm not his wife, just his whore.

Steve: What? You're his girlfriend, surely even Catholic France permits girlfriends.

Marie: I'm pregnant Steve.

Steve: (pauses, smiles) Congratulations.

Marie: Thanks. (shakes her head) Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck (glances up) Pardon Monsieur. (Monsieur waves it off).