A retired couple sit looking out to sea. Early evening. Late summer. She may be dying. He’s worried he’s losing his memory. But they love each other.

Extract:

Silence. They look at the sea.

PETER                         What we call love is impossible to define. It has a different meaning for each of us. To define it would be to reduce it to something confined, constrained, limited. No-one would recognize it. Whereas in fact it’s everywhere, everyone’s part of it, it covers everything. Suzanne has spent her life in laboratories. If there’s a hypothesis she wants concrete, tangible proof, QED. When she speaks of love she thinks mainly of its physical aspects. She finds it difficult to admit the rest of it. Which of course confronts her with her own contradictions and she can’t stand that. But otherwise why would she be here with me? After all this time. With all my flaws and faults… She’s never said as much but she sees our relationship as a sort of making do. Hardly ideal but oh well, we make do. She finds it too reasonable. Lacking the essential madness of love. But of course the madness is there, just not where she’s looking for it.

Pause

What was your friend’s name again?

SUZANNE                  What friend?

PETER                         The one who told us to come here. Who had that little house just outside the village. With the bee-hives.

Pause

SUZANNE                  Roland.

PETER                         Roland. What became of him?

SUZANNE                  You know full well what became of him.

PETER                         No I don’t. I may have known in the past. But I don’t now.

SUZANNE                  He sold up. Years ago.

PETER                         Yes, I know that. We fell out and he left. I remember that alright. Rolando furioso. What I meant was: what became of him after that?

SUZANNE                  Oh, I don’t know.

PETER                         Have you never heard from him?

SUZANNE                  I don’t think so. Why are you suddenly so interested in Roland?

PETER                         Well, it’s thanks to him we’re here really. Don’t you know what became of him?

SUZANNE                  No.

PETER                         You two were very close at the time. Have you completely lost touch?

SUZANNE                  Stop it, Peter.

Pause

PETER                         And the other one, the funny fellow with the chimpanzee imitation.

Pause

Every time he met up with you, he did his chimp imitation.

SUZANNE                  Gorilla.

PETER                         What was his name?

SUZANNE                  Sebastian.

PETER                         Sebastian. What happened to him?

SUZANNE                  He died.

PETER                         Ah.

Silence. They look at the sea.