(Lights up on ALAN and ROBIN in their undergarments, huddled around their own Delilah.)
ROBIN: Did you get that?
(ALAN nods and returns the handset to its case.)
ALAN: I told you they were wearisome gits.
ROBIN: How do you feel about a holiday in France?
ALAN: Oh no you don't, Robin.
ROBIN: Are you here to help me or aren't you? I need out.
ALAN: You go, then.
ROBIN: You know perfectly well why I can't do that... If I go, I put everyone else at risk.
ALAN: Pattern recognition.
ROBIN: Exactly. Maclean's been exposed and Burgess is guilty by association. If I defect as well...
ALAN: With three cases, it becomes possible to establish a pattern.
ROBIN: You're Churchill's little cabana boy, remember? It puts you above reproach and, besides, you're coming back. You're outside of the pattern. I haven't even seen you for six years and now you waltz back into my life and I'm suddenly sleeping with you for Christ's sake! ...Just get to Lavrenty Beria and tell him I need out... Please?
(ALAN caresses ROBIN's face.)
ALAN: You hate me.
ROBIN: I don't hate you.
ALAN: You don't love me.
ROBIN: Oh stop it! What is it that you want from me?
ALAN: Stay here with me.
ROBIN: You know I can't do that, Alan.
ALAN: Why not?
ROBIN: ...Look, I'll think about it, okay?
ALAN: You'll think about it.
ROBIN: Don't make this any harder than it already is.
ALAN: ...I'm sorry...
ROBIN: Are you sorry about last night...? Look, I said I'll think about it. Just go to France, will you?
(ALAN dons a trench coat and fedora and picks up the Delilah.)
ALAN: Don't wait up...
(ROBIN exits. SPIES appear in the shadows. ALAN lumbers toward the door.)
TAPE: Scared witless and supposedly on holidays, I inched my way towards Room 325 of the Hôtel du Robiens. All the world seemed asleep and it dawned on me that only lovers, spies, and madmen were awake at such an hour. It was getting hard to keep track of which one I had become...
(Lights down.)
YOU ARE READING
The Turing Tape - a one-act play
Historical Fiction"The Turing Tape", a one-act play, is a madcap conspiracy theory about the life and times of Alan Mathison Turing, a brilliant cryptanalyst, computer visionary, and homosexual within the British intelligence community of the 1940s and 50s. The play'...
