Jack of Hearts

David Williamson

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781925359596
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Williamson has written his charm into a lovable loser who does his best to disprove the theory that nice guys always finish last.

ACT ONE

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EMMA, a trim athletic woman in her late twenties, enters the living room of a modest apartment dressed in a well-cut and fashionable tracksuit and trainers.

EMMA: Jack?

No answer. She looks irritated and raises the level of her voice.

Jack!

JACK, her husband, early thirties, enters the room in daggy casual clothes whose colours clash. He tries to cover the fact he’s anxious with a stream of fake extraversion.

JACK: Hi, babe? How was your day?

EMMA: Good. Did you—?

JACK: Your new fitness class for young mothers. Get any more enrolments?

EMMA: No. Jack, Did you—?

JACK: I got your printer working again. It was a paper jam. I’ll show you how to unblock it if it happens again. It’s pretty simple, you just take the back off and push the orange levers down. I’ll show you.

EMMA: Jack, that’s very kind but—

JACK: And the television is working again. You switched it to HDMI accidentally so I’ll show you how to switch back to the TV setting—

He moves towards her with the remote control but she’s not interested in that.

EMMA: Jack, I got a call from the agent. He said the rent still hasn’t been paid.

JACK: Ah—

EMMA: You said you’d paid it.

JACK: I’d forgotten that I used the Visa to pay the car rego.

EMMA: Jack, we’re on our last warning. It’s nice that you fixed the printer but you’re supposed to be looking for a job. Did you get any interviews?

JACK: Honey. I finally made a decision. A big decision but I think it could prove to be exciting.

EMMA: About what?

JACK: I can’t go back to the law.

EMMA: What do you mean? You can’t go back to the law. You’re a lawyer. I know it’s been stressful, but—

JACK: The big firms put enormous pressure on you. Twenty hours a day. They pit you against all the other young lawyers. Kill or be killed. It’s inhuman.

EMMA: They treated you badly and you were right to resign but—

JACK: I was fired.

EMMA: Fired?

Beat.

JACK: I had a sort of a—breakdown.

EMMA: Breakdown?

JACK: [ashamed] I sort of—

EMMA: Sort of?

JACK: Cried. In my office. For four hours.

EMMA: Jack?

JACK: Then I stormed into the office of one of the senior partners and told him they were heartless, golf-playing, long-lunching, lazy bastards living the good life by sucking the lifeblood out of their juniors.

EMMA looks at him.

I thought if I put my case firmly it might appeal to their innate sense of fairness.

EMMA: Let me guess. It didn’t.

JACK shakes his head.

So what are you going to do now?

JACK: I’ve got some ideas.

EMMA: That will earn us money?

JACK: Maybe not right away.

EMMA: Not right away. Jack, the thing is, ‘right away’ is when our rent needs to be paid.

JACK: If we could make do on your money for the short term—

EMMA: Eat boiled rice? Sublet the apartment and live in the garage?

JACK: You earn quite well.

EMMA: What I earn would make for a reasonable lifestyle in Gunnedah, but not here, where coffee and muffins for two goes over the tap limit on my Visa card.

JACK: Why not Gunnedah for a little while? It’s actually quite pretty.

EMMA: Jack, I’m a personal trainer. I need to live among rich, vain, borderline alcoholics. Mosman is perfect. What are these ideas you have for your future?

JACK: Cartoons.

EMMA: Cartoons?

JACK: I feel this very strong need to be—

EMMA waits.

—creative.

EMMA...