Work Text:
1993
Not long after Hannah’s dance with Gus, and Bernard’s and Chloe’s being discovered in the hermitage by Lady Croom. BERNARD is missing all of his ‘period’ dress except for the cravat, which is artfully loosened to disheveled, not-quite-Byronic effect. He is leaning on his car — small, red, a little sporty — and having a cigarette. When he sees HANNAH approach, he digs out the pack and offers it to her.
HANNAH: No thanks, I don’t — oh, what the hell.
BERNARD: Attagirl.
(HANNAH shoots him a look, considers whether to take offense, then gives it up as a bad job.)
HANNAH: (Sighs.) You might take Val, I suppose.
BERNARD: To London? What—? Oh, for my lecture?
HANNAH: (In a creditable imitation of Bernard’s delivery of the same line,) No, no, bugger that. Sex.
BERNARD: What? No, I—
HANNAH: That’s fine, I don’t mind either way. I only thought it was worth mentioning. I would, only he might fall in love. He seems the type.
BERNARD: And you’d wish that mess on me?
HANNAH: It isn’t really my bag, love isn’t — but it might do you good. God knows it couldn’t make you any worse. And you’re a Byron type, too — you should be falling in and out of love faster than you can spit.
(Bernard is visibly miffed by this assessment.)
BERNARD: What a charming vulgarity. And I’ll have you know I got a handful of respectably clichéd heartbreaks out of the way as an undergrad. I’m full up these days.
HANNAH: Did you, now? Whenever did you find the time? Late at night in the lecture hall—?
BERNARD: And anyway, it would look a bit gauche, wouldn’t it?
HANNAH: (Snorts) Jumping from one sibling to the next, you mean? It would hardly bother Byron.
BERNARD: And, you see, I’m a little cross with him just now.
HANNAH: Val—?
BERNARD: No, Byron.
HANNAH: Well, setting Byron aside for a moment—
BERNARD: Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. Hey, and what are you doing out here? I thought you’d be pleased to be fully back in possession of your little fiefdom.
HANNAH: (Looking a little hunted,) Oh, you know, just wanted a little air.
(BERNARD laughs.)
BERNARD: Oh, I see. Too much pigeons and sex and literature atmosphere up there, and you thought maybe you’d fob Archimedes-by-way-of-Eton off on me in an attempt to clear the air.
HANNAH: Of course not. Val’s lovely, I just don’t like to be distracted. And it occurred to me that you might be well-matched. As for the thing with Chloe, well — (HANNAH claps a hand to the brickwork of the house behind her.) I’m sure these walls have seen worse.
(Bernard turns, and takes a long last look up at the impressive facade of the house.)
BERNARD: I’m sure you’re right, but I think I’ve just about worn out my welcome here. (Turning to Hannah with a charm he hasn’t bothered to turn on her in several scenes at least,) Miss Jarvis, it’s been a pleasure.
Fade to black.
1994
A mixer for an academic conference. Lots of milling around, networking, flattery, semi-subtle one-upmanship. In one corner, VALENTINE is leaned against a wall, scribbling in a notebook. BERNARD walks up and leans against the wall next to him.
BERNARD: Calculating the number of egos we can fit under one roof before the whole place goes up in flames?
VALENTINE: (Absently, without looking up,) You can’t plan for spontaneous combustion, that’s why it’s called ‘spontaneous.’
BERNARD: …nonsense.
(Valentine looks up.)
VALENTINE: Quite right. It’s very calculable, if you have the right information. Very badly named.
BERNARD: It’s Bernard, by the way. I don’t know if you remember me.
VALENTINE: It rings a bell, actually. You’re the one who flirted with my mother, seduced my sister, shouted something about penicillin, and left in a huff, yes?
BERNARD: I don’t think it was quite so dramatic as all that.
VALENTINE: I never said it was dramatic, I only gave a summary. The highlights, if you will.
BERNARD: And I’m not sure about your chronology, either.
VALENTINE: What are you doing here, Bernard?
BERNARD: Oh, well, I was in the neighborhood—
VALENTINE: This is a maths conference.
BERNARD: (Innocent,) Is it? (And then, giving up,) I ran into Hannah the other week.
VALENTINE: Lovely girl. Woman. Shit.
BERNARD: She’s very pleased with herself these days.
VALENTINE: Do people often tell you that talking to you makes them talk like you? It’s very annoying.
BERNARD: And she said you’d published the — something. Algorithm. The one you found that weekend. So I thought I’d come to see.
VALENTINE: The Coverly set. My little dead ancestor’s work.
BERNARD: I have to admit, I didn’t understand much of it. But there’s a poetry in it, isn’t there?
VALENTINE: I’ve always thought so.
BERNARD: In what’s essentially a collaboration with the past, with the grave.
VALENTINE: Yes, I… how’s Hannah?
BERNARD: Nosy. Hey, (Faintly suggestive,) do you want to get out of here?
VALENTINE: …You told me you weren’t queer.
BERNARD: You’d just told me that your father didn’t reply to type-written letters, you see.
VALENTINE laughs, then looks around the room, searching for anything that’s keeping him there. He comes up blank.
VALENTINE: Well. That’s alright then. Sure, I suppose. Have you got a room?
Fade to black.
1995
Bernard’s flat, morning. The bed is tousled and unmade, but empty. From off-stage, Valentine walks on, doing up the buttons of his shirt.
VALENTINE: The largest road-building project since the Romans, they say, but they don’t like when you point out how it worked out for them. And they say scientists have no sense of history.
(BERNARD is standing at the stove, stirring something in a skillet. This is clearly not the first morning they’ve spent together.)
BERNARD: Who says that?
VALENTINE: Have I got my thems tangled?
BERNARD: A bit. Come here.
(VALENTINE goes to stand before Bernard, who does up his tie for him.)
BERNARD: And why are you going, again? I never took you for a bleeding heart
VALENTINE: It’s population studies. Or, anyway, that’s why they got in touch with me. Populations and the study of how they’re going to plummet, if they haven’t got any habitat. Which is true enough, though I don’t know that you need a statistician to prove it.
(VALENTINE lingers by the stove a moment, maybe stealing a bite from the skillet with his fingers.)
BERNARD: So that’s why you were invited, but why are you going?
(BERNARD chases VALENTINE’S fingers away with a wooden spoon, then fills a plate and hands it to him.)
VALENTINE: Thanks. To see what it’s all about, I suppose. And I was invited. I think there’s this idea that the name might help, you know, if they can get me on-board.
(Through the next exchange they eat standing, plates in hand, quickly and efficiently, eating around rapid-fire conversation before depositing the plates in the sink when finished.)
BERNARD: Help with what?
VALENTINE: It’s silly, anyway. Titles are all anachronism these days.
BERNARD: Help if someone name-drops you in the press, you mean?
VALENTINE: Well, yes. Not much value in a name if no one’s saying it, is there?
BERNARD: And you want them to?
VALENTINE: Though of course it would be nice if it was useful because I was such a well-regarded expert in the field. Can’t have everything, I suppose.
BERNARD: Val. Your father thinks men who drive Japanese cars are effeminate.
VALENTINE: That’s not all he thinks of them. There’s rather a lot of cover in that kind of broad disapproval, though, you see.
BERNARD: Only he’s the one paying the rent on your flat, isn’t he? And I can’t imagine what he has to say about radical environmentalists.
VALENTINE: Oh, nothing good. He doesn’t support the roads project either, though — doesn’t want to make it any easier for plebs from the cities to drive out and day-trip at the river, spoiling his fishing.
BERNARD: Too conservative for the Conservative agenda. I might have guessed.
VALENTINE: (Theatrically glancing around the room,) And I suppose if he cuts me off I’d just have to move in here.
(VALENTINE reaches out and brushes a crumb from BERNARD’S collar. BERNARD is gobsmacked by the suggestion.)
BERNARD: You’d—
VALENTINE: Not that there’s so much room for me, with all the books, but I travel fairly light. I’d make do.
BERNARD: (Blustering,) I must say, I’m not sure how well — you know, old dog, new— and anyway, you like your flat.
(VALENTINE laughs.)
VALENTINE: Don’t strain yourself.
BERNARD: Don’t take that tone with me, you little—
(VALENTINE cuts him off by swooping forward to kiss his cheek.)
VALENTINE: I’m only joking, Bernard. I do like my flat. I’m driving up to the camp tomorrow, but I’ll see you at the week-end.
BERNARD: Val—
VALENTINE: Just for the weekend. Not moving in.
(BERNARD reaches out with one hand, catches VALENTINE by the collar, reels him in.)
BERNARD: It’s not as if I—
(VALENTINE leans the rest of the way in, steals a kiss.)
VALENTINE: Relax, Bernard. I’ll see you.
Fade to black.
1996
I.
BERNARD and VALENTINE sit at a table in Bernard’s flat. It’s quite late, and most of the flat is dark, the small space that they’re in illuminated by a table lamp. There are dishes on the table — a plate and silverware in front of Valentine, empty wine glasses, the dregs of a red wine just barely visible, an empty bottle on the table, in front of both of them. VALENTINE looks tired, recently showered but unshaven, in clothes that don’t quite fit him right — BERNARD’S.
VALENTINE: It was awful — they came out of nowhere, before the sun was even up, ripping everyone out of bed and out of the way to clear-cut.
BERNARD: Surely it didn’t come as a surprise.
VALENTINE: No. Well. But there’s knowing something’s coming, and then there’s — how is it even possible to be ready for something like that?
BERNARD: So that’s it, then?
(VALENTINE reaches for the wine bottle, divides the last trickle of wine between the two glasses, then lifts his own and drains it.)
VALENTINE: What? No, of course not. We’re setting up camp at another site, I’m getting a lift there from in town tomorrow.
BERNARD: Tomorrow?
VALENTINE: It was last week, you know. The raid, the demolition.
BERNARD: I saw, in the papers.
(VALENTINE stands, turns, speaks next while facing away from BERNARD.)
VALENTINE: I was in Oxford yesterday, getting everything settled. I just thought I’d drop in a moment, before heading back—
BERNARD: It’s important to you.
VALENTINE: I should think it’s important to everyone. Or should be.
BERNARD: A choice of ‘care, or face planetary destruction,’ you mean?
VALENTINE: Well, yes. No need to say it like it’s ridiculous.
BERNARD: I’m not. A world “seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— / A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay,” right?
VALENTINE: Yes, exactly. Hey, that’s rather good. Is that—?
BERNARD: Byron. So when is it coming, then? The big, planetary ‘fuck you’?
VALENTINE: Well. Depends on if we mend our ways, a bit, rather.
BERNARD: So any day then, hey?
VALENTINE: I appreciate your optimism. You may well be safely dead before we see the worst of it, anyway.
BERNARD: Lovely. And you?
VALENTINE: Oh you caught that, eh, old man? Yes, I may live long enough to see the beginning of whether the earth ends in ice or fire. See? I can do poetry, too.
(VALENTINE paces throughout this speech, restless, but by the end he has veered back into BERNARD’S space.)
BERNARD: (As he speaks, Bernard reaches out to rest his hands on Valentine’s hips and draw him closer.) Hmm? Oh, Frost. American. Hardly worth mentioning. Come here, you.
(VALENTINE comes closer, closer — maybe there is an awkward maneuver as he leans over BERNARD’S chair, trying not to overbalance, arm braced along its back.)
VALENTINE: Are you going to seduce me with more Byron?
BERNARD: (Reaching up,) If you like. “Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea / And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d.”
(They kiss.)
BERNARD: “They slept on the abyss without a surge— / The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave.”
VALENTINE: I don’t know why everyone’s always saying that poetry is so romantic.
(BERNARD stands, crowding VALENTINE.)
VALENTINE: Romantic with a capital ‘R,’ my darling philistine. So you’re going back to your dirty hippies tomorrow?
(They kiss again.)
VALENTINE: To the new camp, you mean? I’m at least as over-educated as you are, anyway. But yes. Are you sure you won’t come with?
BERNARD: At risk of reminding you too often of the difference in our ages, I’m too old to be sleeping in trees. I’ll see you at the week-end?
VALENTINE: I suppose we had better make tonight count, then. (Another kiss.) I know it’s not going to succeed, Bernard.
(BERNARD pulls back.)
VALENTINE: Oh, have I surprised you?
BERNARD: Well, a bit.
VALENTINE: Because I’m young and naive?
BERNARD: Because you’re protesting with them.
VALENTINE: Well. They’re right, you know. It won’t help us any, but they’re right. And better to have said something true and failed to change anything with it than not to have said anything at all.
BERNARD: Is that so?
VALENTINE: That’s the theory, anyway.
Fade to black.
1996
II.
BERNARD and HANNAH in a pub. She is dressed for a reading — smart in a way we never saw her in the depths of her research into the Croom papers. BERNARD looks much as he did during that time, however, except for the glass of neat liquor in one hand and the disheveled look to his hair, like he’s been tousling it with nerves. They are sitting at the bar, in a mostly-empty room — the light suggests that it is mid-day, and aside from a few barflies and the man behind the counter, they have the place to themselves. HANNAH is reading aloud from a newspaper.
HANNAH: “‘…clinging to the past, but the truth is that if we want this country to have a future, we need to start thinking seriously about conservation. Our natural resources took thousands of years to develop, and they can be wiped out in an afternoon,’ said Coverly, who is a postgrad in statistics and population studies at Oxford.”
BERNARD: It’s mad — he’s mad, you know?
HANNAH: Some might say ‘passionate.’
BERNARD: Sod that. That’s not passionate, hell, I’m passionate. He’s just bloody mad.
HANNAH: He sounded fairly lucid to me.
BERNARD: He fell out of a tree and broke his arm. Christ, I need a drink.
(BERNARD downs the remains of the drink in his hand, then stares disconsolately into the empty glass.)
HANNAH: Well. He’s young and strong, he’ll bounce back.
(BERNARD flags down the barman, gesturing for a refill.)
BERNARD: You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?
HANNAH: Of course not, never! Oh, well, a bit.
BERNARD: You don’t say.
HANNAH: Well. I am sorry Val’s broken his arm. But it is a bit funny.
BERNARD: What? The hubris of youth against the march of progress?
HANNAH: No. No that bit’s just sad. No, what’s funny is — you, in love.
BERNARD: What?
HANNAH: Well, I told you, didn’t I? Right back at the beginning. I said it might do you good, love might. All that Byron and no actual emotion makes Bernard a dull boy. Or an insufferable one, more to the point.
BERNARD: You’re awfully pleased with yourself for someone who just jumped to conclusions like—
HANNAH: And look at you now! Following the news and fretting.
BERNARD: Like a—
HANNAH: Worrying about trees, and the postgrads fastening themselves to them with bicycle locks.
BERNARD: Like a— is that what they do?
HANNAH: Yes. Like a what, Bernard?
BERNARD: Like a — someone who jumps to conclusions!
HANNAH: So — like you with a handful of letters and a book from Byron’s library, you mean.
BERNARD: Smugness doesn’t become you, darling.
HANNAH: Don’t call me—
BERNARD: Darling, yes, I know. It’s nothing personal, you pedant.
HANNAH: It’s the principle. Or anyway, it’s only the principle now that I know you won’t be making a move on me.
BERNARD: I might. Why didn’t it work out with us the first time, Hannah darling? We could have had a jolly good run of it, and without any of the mess.
HANNAH: The love, you mean.
BERNARD: I don’t.
HANNAH: It didn’t work out the first time for us because I don’t like you very much, Bernard.
BERNARD: You know that’s not true. And it doesn’t seem to be much of a barrier with Val, either.
HANNAH: Valentine likes you more than enough. But that’s what I mean, Bernard — that’s what love is, for you. You don't want someone whose sweet voice is to thee like music on the waters, do you?
BERNARD: Don't be ridiculous.
HANNAH: Right, that's what I thought.
BERNARD: But that's what I mean, you know, if we’ve got to go around meaning things today. I've no business thinking I'm in love. Or not thinking it, which may be more to the point.
HANNAH: The other reason you and I didn’t work out is that I don’t really do that kind of thing, Bernard — it’s just not in my nature. But I don’t think that’s true for you.
BERNARD: And how are you so sure you know what I want? Write two best-sellers and suddenly you're infallible?
HANNAH: Call me a student of the human condition. You told me once that it takes a romantic to make a heroine of Caroline Lamb, but I think that’s the only kind of romance I feel — the century-removed kind. Caro and I — we knew each other, outside of time. Me and my hermit, too, and whoever I’m going to find to fall for and write a book about next.
BERNARD: Oh, I know how that one goes—
HANNAH: You don’t, though — Byron isn’t your time-displaced lover, is he? You want to be him, you are him inside your mind, that’s why you’re always rushing to publish and getting into scrapes.
BERNARD: I’m not always—
HANNAH: I’ve done my research on you, by now. But it’s true that you’ve never quite succeeded in being him, too, isn’t it? That’s why you’re a don and not a poet. And that’s why instead of finding some nubile grad student to seduce, you’re going to drive up to a tinker’s camp in a water meadow tonight to make sure Val’s being looked after, or at least not climbing any more trees with his arm still broken.
BERNARD: Tosh. Do you think that he would?
HANNAH: Or maybe you aren’t, I don’t know.
BERNARD: Rot. Rubbish. Do you think the camp is easy to find?
HANNAH: The whole point of it is to draw publicity, Bernard. I’m sure they want you to be able to find it.
BERNARD: And those country roads will play hell on my shocks.
HANNAH: Oh, don’t start pretending like you’re someone who cares about his car.
BERNARD: You’re right, Byron certainly wouldn’t.
HANNAH: Care about his car? You’re right, he’d drive the whole thing into a ditch. Byron. Christ's sake, don't take him as your model for love.
BERNARD: Why, because of all the sleeping around?
HANNAH: What? No, because of the — "I know not if I could have borne / to see thy beauties fade." You want to talk about what love isn't, that's Exhibit A. Gather ye rosebuds now, because once you’ve got a single wrinkle, Lord B is skipping town.
BERNARD: (Trying to wave down the bartender,) What? Herrick was a hack, Hannah — Can we get the check?
HANNAH: Going somewhere, Bernard?
BERNARD: If I leave now, I should avoid most of the drive in the dark — oi! You’re not fooling anyone, mate, there’s no one else in this pub.
HANNAH: I’ll get it, Bernard, you go.
BERNARD: I — would you?
HANNAH: Go, Bernard.
(BERNARD goes. After a beat, the BARTENDER makes his way down to stand in front of HANNAH.)
BARTENDER: Stuck you with the bill, has he, love?
HANNAH: Yes, well. We can’t all rush off in a whirlwind of passion, can we? Somebody’s got to stick around to pay what’s due.
Fade to black.
1997
A party in a loft somewhere — unfinished and industrial in a way which could be a deathtrap or somewhere very expensive — it isn’t immediately clear which. VALENTINE is in a corner, out of the action, scribbling in a notebook in a manner reminiscent of the mixer at the conference in a previous scene. After a beat, HANNAH makes her way out of the milling crowd to VALENTINE’S corner.
VALENTINE: (Without looking up,) Just a moment, and then I’ll—oh. Hannah.
HANNAH: Surprised to see me?
VALENTINE: Well, yes, a bit. It’s been — how long—?
HANNAH: Bernard invited me. Something about needing a safe haven from all of the undergrads and patchouli. Shouldn’t he be used to undergrads by now? I know he isn’t an enthusiastic teacher, but surely he must be used to being in the same room with them.
VALENTINE: Well, it’s different when he gets to lecture. You remember. Here, people can just walk away if he goes on too long. Less institutional respect for the academy than he’s used to.
HANNAH: I see. Yes. It’s a bit of a surprise to me that he’s here at all, I must say.
VALENTINE: Yes. Yes, me too, a bit. He’s been somewhat—well. If he asked you here, maybe he told you, do you know he and I—
(Valentine gestures vaguely with his pen.)
HANNAH: Oh, that. Yes, for ages.
VALENTINE: So I don’t get to shock you with it?
HANNAH: Afraid not. Or at least, I wasn’t surprised at first. Although I’ll say I wouldn’t have laid a bet on it lasting this long.
VALENTINE: No. No, nor would I, really.
HANNAH: Not exactly someone to bring home to your mother.
VALENTINE: God, no. Although—
HANNAH: You’re thinking about it?
VALENTINE. Well. He has already met her. And ridden her bicycle. And I went to dinner with he and Chlo last year and it wasn’t even awful. And you know how they left things.
HANNAH: I suppose all wounds heal with time.
VALENTINE: She wasn’t as wounded as all that. Or — she didn’t tell me that she was.
HANNAH: I still hear from Hermione, sometimes. Your mother writes beautiful letters, it’s a dying skill. She worries about you, you know.
VALENTINE: Well I don’t think telling her about Bernard would actually help with—
HANNAH: She’s worried about you falling out of trees and getting your heart broken.
VALENTINE: As I said, I don’t think telling her about—
HANNAH: Heartbroken about the trees. Although tonight seems to prove that she needn’t have worried so much as all that. Val, are you happy?
VALENTINE: I — yes, I think so.
HANNAH: You do? That’s good, because I—
(Enter BERNARD.)
BERNARD: I say, you’re monopolizing my date.
VALENTINE: (Turning towards him,) You know I don’t know which of us you’re talking to.
BERNARD: You, obviously, darling. (Breezily kissing both of their cheeks in turn, like he’s making his way through a receiving line,) I’m your date and Hannah is mine, that’s how invitations work.
VALENTINE: (Laughing,) Oh, well, don’t let me get in the way of propriety, then.
BERNARD: You know I never do.
HANNAH: Well, I’m glad to see you’ve both worked things out. Do say goodnight to me before you go. I’m off for a drink.
(HANNAH leaves, and BERNARD takes her place against the wall.)
BERNARD: Well. I must say, I was expecting something a little celebratory.
VALENTINE: There was dancing, earlier.
BERNARD: Really? I must have missed it.
VALENTINE: Well, there was.
BERNARD: I’m only saying, aren’t you all meant to have won, here? All I’m hearing is plans for the next action.
VALENTINE: Well, it isn’t a success for long, is it? They’ve called off the project now, but not before so much is already lost, and there’s nothing to stop them from trying again.
BERNARD: You see, this is the trouble with you lot, this is why I didn’t think you ought to get caught up in all of this. Where, I ask you, is the zest for life? There’s passion, certainly, but with so little pleasure in it.
VALENTINE: We are, though. Pleased.
BERNARD: (A little viciously,) Well as long as you’re pleased.
VALENTINE: I am. We are. What do you want, Bernard?
BERNARD: “There yet are two things in my destiny— / world to roam through, and a home with thee.”
VALENTINE: (Sighs,) Please, just this once, spare me the Byron?
BERNARD: (Just for a breath, horribly sincere,) He’s the best of me, I'm afraid — the best I have to offer you.
VALENTINE: Is he? Is he — Bernard. Just this once, just this one time, can you tell me something more than Byron?
BERNARD: More than—? There’s a new biographer sniffing around, you know.
VALENTINE: Bernard, how would I know that?
BERNARD: Full support of the publisher, too — the dozy bitch.
VALENTINE: I don’t mean to be self-involved here, but—
BERNARD: And there are whispers that she wants to talk about the rumors. The queer ones.
VALENTINE: Everyone knows Byron was bent, Bernard.
BERNARD: Not that there isn’t already a certain — the lines about a home together. Those were about his half-sister, you know.
VALENTINE: Something you want to tell me about — you don’t have brothers or sister, do you, Bernard?
BERNARD: Don’t be ridiculous. But she can hardly think she’ll uncover anything juicier than that, can she?
VALENTINE: The last I remember, you were pretty eager to uncover all of Byron’s secrets. Why is it so wrong when someone else wants to?
BERNARD: So I’m a hypocrite! And ambitious! An ambitious hypocrite! But I’ve put in the time.
VALENTINE: She doesn’t know him like you do?
BERNARD: Well — maybe! Val. I mean it though.
VALENTINE: “A home with—”?
BERNARD: This is a victory, whether it’s the end of the struggle or not.
VALENTINE: It isn’t.
BERNARD: Of course. Nothing’s ever the end, until the final one comes knocking. What I mean is — it’s never going to be. There’s always—
VALENTINE: Gather ye rosebuds?
BERNARD: Herrick is a hack. If I don’t get to have my Byron, there’s no quoting from you, either.
VALENTINE: Sure, alright.
BERNARD: But yes, I suppose. Gather ye fucking rosebuds, Valentine.
VALENTINE: Bernard—
BERNARD: You’re twenty-seven years old and you published in a journal last year and your bones are all in one piece again, and your bloody protest group halted a national infrastructure project. You don’t need to screw any virgins about it, but you should at least get yourself a drink.
VALENTINE: Virgins?
BERNARD: What did you think the rosebuds were?
VALENTINE: What did you mean, “A home with thee?”
BERNARD: (A little nastily,) I thought I wasn’t allowed the Byron.
VALENTINE: Well it isn’t like I can stop you, is it?
BERNARD: I meant — Valentine. You’re twenty-seven years old. You really ought to go out and find some virgins.
(VALENTINE turns to BERNARD.)
VALENTINE: Is that what Byron would do?
BERNARD: Undoubtedly.
VALENTINE: How lucky I’m not him, then. Do you want me to?
(Bernard visibly wavers before answering.)
BERNARD: No, not especially.
(A moment on a knife’s edge.)
VALENTINE: Good. I don’t want to, either. Hey, do you want to get out of here?
BERNARD: For what?
VALENTINE: For what? For what, he asks. Hey, did you see which way Hannah went? She wanted us to say goodbye on our way out.
BERNARD: No, I—
VALENTINE: For gathering some fucking virgins, Bernard.
Fade to black.
END.