Bang - Scene 3

Scene 3

Ste re-enters the office as Louise seems ready to leave.

STE: You know, I think I’ve finally got it.

LOUISE: Got what?

STE: Your nickname. Louise Delaney is far too... too...

LOUISE: Too what?

STE: Ordinary.

LOUISE: I am ordinary.

STE: No, you’re not. You’re a professional. Re-enforcements. The big guns.

LOUISE: The last resort.

STE: Precisely, Lulu.

LOUISE: That’s it?

STE: What’s what?

LOUISE: My nickname? You’ve gone with ‘Lulu’ have you?

STE: Lulu? Bit mawkish for my taste but, if you like. Lulu it is.

LOUISE: You’re too kind.

STE: I do what I can.

LOUISE: Shall we start the session or not?

STE: We shall, we shall.

He sits

LOUISE: Thankyou. I’m flattered you even showed up, if I’m honest. I had you down as an absconder.

STE: And miss our sizzling, alchemic banter? What do you take me for? Lulu, you intrigue me. Don’t expect you’ll be walking out of my life any time soon.

LOUISE: I’m glad to hear it.

LOUISE: The night of December 24^th, 2009. Familiar?

Ste shrugs.

You were found in your bedroom, hanging from the ceiling. Do you remember, Stephen?

STE: Vaguely.

LOUISE: You were rushed to hospital and revived, naturally. So why don’t you talk to me about the lead up to that particular decision?

STE: (snapping back to life) Easy. Christmas Eve, yeah? I have a sort of holiday ritual. I watch Die Hard.

LOUISE: Good, wholesome fun.

STE: Exactly. So, I whip out the video and get things set up. We’re half an hour in, Alan Rickman is greasing his way around the Nakatomi building and Brucie is at his cowboy best. When the power cuts! Completely, gone. Nothing. Word is we won’t get it back til well after the 25^th. What the f**k do you do at Christmas without electricity, Christ?

LOUISE: So you hung yourself from a light fixture?

STE: A powerful protest to the compassionless ESB, I thought. Could you imagine the headlines? ‘Unfeeling power giant KILL this Christmas’. Pure gold.

LOUISE: Or self serving idiot crushes family on Christmas Eve.

STE: Doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?

LOUISE: I suppose I don’t have your flare for the theatrical.

STE: I am a natural performer.  I am a natural performer.

LOUISE: Tell me about the hammer.

STE: I thought I told you everything?

LOUISE: On the record this time.

STE: Fine. The fact is that I was... dissatisfied. With what exactly was offered to me you see. One of my epiphanies. I was motorboating a ladyfriend and my whole life flashed before my eyes in a moment of purest clarity: Leaving Cert, University " some dingy IT somewhere, no books, lots of p***y. Desk job. Marriage. Six figure salary, pop out a few gasurs to hound and torment me the rest of my days. Bullshit. I needed a wider plane, you know? I needed to rebel against the confines of the universe we have constructed for ourselves.

LOUISE: Well, that was very profound. But why the hammer?

STE: (shrugs) Seemed like fun.

LOUISE: The paramedic statement said that you mad suffered three repetitive self inflicted blows to the back of your head, narrowly avoiding serious and permanent brain damage. Why would you risk subjecting yourself to that? Life in a hospital bed? A vegetable? What would you be free from then?

STE: Myself, I suppose. But don’t you want to know if it hurt? How I managed to override my own survival instinct?

LOUISE: Anything’s possible. Ste, I’m a trained psycho-therapist. I have a PHD in Clinical Psychology specialising in adolescent trauma. I am as professional as they come. My job here is to listen to you, to maintain an environment in which you can release your emotions so that I can diagnose those emotions objectively. The prescription pad in my drawer does all the work. It can reform you into a fully functioning, self controlled member of society, too numb to feel anything more emotionally exertive than a burp.

STE: Great! What do you want to put me on? Prozac? Uppers? Downers? All three would be great.

LOUISE: I don’t think so. I’ve seen kids with bipolar disorder so uncontrollable that a Concern ad had them diving off buildings. Kids so psychotic that they’re lashing out with bedside lamps in their sleep, screaming for a release, screaming for an escape. Serious nut jobs, Ste. As much as you’d like to be one " you’re nothing but a miserable jizzrag with an attention seeking problem. I could drug you until you can barely move, but you’ll just flash your designer anti-depressants for a few weeks and down the lot with a bottle of JD the next time you get bored. I won’t give you that satisfaction.

STE: You really think you have me figured out.

LOUISE: Do I?

STE: Not even close.

LOUISE: Oh well. We have plenty more sessions to go.