Kyra: ‘Have you still got that big one?’
Tom: ‘Oh no. It’s much bigger now…It’s going to take up most of that wall…’
Tom just decides that he is going to move in, without Kyra’s consent. Kyra doesn’t actually say ‘no’ though, but that is because she knows, from then on that it is all just a fantasy, she is the one in control because she realises how desperate he is for her. Neither of them can cope with Tom’s depression, which comes and goes with monotonous regularity, so if they stayed together, Kyra would be crushed by Tom and it would all end in disaster.
Tom uses his money and clothes to show off how successful he is, but it is all really a barrier to his guilt and insecurities. Tom throws money at everything, he thinks that he can use it to control his life, but when Alice is dying he has no control over it. Instead of realising that and accepting it, he throws ceaseless money at Alice and builds her the extension, the “Skylight”, a token of his guilt, and yet he still continues to blame everything but himself. (pg.46) Tom: ‘I spent a great deal of money…I gave her everything…And then of course being Alice, she began to withdraw. Gardening! Sewing…All those feminine things. The effect? To make me feel worse than if she stood up and fought.’ The “Skylight” was a light he gave to Alice to escape from reality. Tom buys things with money to mend what he has done, but it doesn’t work because he is using money, not himself. Most of the play is spent in darkness, apart from when Kyra and Tom sleep together, and in the morning there is a ‘…white light reflected off the snow…’(pg.55) The natural light means rebirth.
Food, I feel, is one of the strongest visual metaphors. All through the play, from when Tom is at the flat, Kyra is cooking, although Tom does try to stop that by abruptly asking her, (pg.20) Tom: ‘I was going to ask if you’d like proper dinner.’
That is another example of Tom using money as the easy way out. As Kyra cooks the pasta, it is almost as if she is boiling up their relationship, and when the food is done, when she has defeated him, she sleeps with him to release the pain locked in her system, (pg.54) ‘He moves across the room. They take each other in their arms and she holds him tightly, hugging him desperately, and beginning to cry, shaking with grief in his arms. He put his hand through her hair.’
Tom: ‘Kyra, Kyra I’m back.’
‘He runs his hand over and over through her hair. The lights fade to darkness.’
Food is all show, it is formal, controlled and has a strict set of rules. Tom likes food precisely because of the order, he can’t bear anything that isn’t controlled by money, which is why he blames other people when he lets out his feelings, (pg.52) Tom: ‘Edward was as bad…he failed just as badly. In a different way. I came home, six friends of his lying on the floor, drinking Heineken. Drugs. Shit.’
Tom uses food to hide behind, (pg.39)
Kyra:’ Will you grate the cheese?’
Tom:’…I wouldn’t give this greasy lump of crud to my cat…Are you really living like this? Why didn’t you say? For God’s sake, I have this supplier…’
Tom uses this example to show how upset he is that Kyra chose a poorly paid, job above the rich, extravagant life she could have had with him. He doesn’t understand that Kyra actually likes being a teacher, he doesn’t understand her vocation. When Tom says ‘I have this supplier’, it really upsets Kyra, because she hates the way Tom uses money to get round things, and she feels that Tom is pitying her, saying that her life would be better if she had him.
Because our sympathies turn so strongly towards Kyra, we don’t feel as much tension in the last half of the play as we might. I think that the end of the play is when Kyra throws Tom out (pg. 94)
Kyra: ‘Goodbye, then.’
Tom: ‘At least, come to one of the restaurants…it’s almost as nice as eating at home.’
That was Tom’s last attempt to win her over, but still it failed, because he tried to conceal his emotions behind food again. Tom is so easy to see through, and Kyra can see that he seeks reassurance, and oozes unhappiness. That goodbye is so final, so tense, you know they will never meet again and nothing will ever be resolved between them.
Kyra is also a victim to hiding behind food. There are many times when she has told Tom something emotional, pg.32
Kyra: ‘…From that moment on…I’d have done anything, just to stay with you, just to stay in that house.’ Then the stage directions say ‘she goes back to the cooking.’ When Kyra says something hurtful to Tom, she also goes back to the cooking. I don’t really think she cared much about the food anyway, because she abandons it later to sleep with Tom. I think she uses the food to hide behind as a means of subconscious escape, from Tom. Kyra eats the abandoned meal (p.55) ‘The abandoned meal is still on the table, uneaten…then takes the spagetti sauce she made earlier, picks up a piece of bread…dips her bread in the cold sauce and starts to eat.’
We never actually see two people sitting down, eating together, they are always just about to eat (pg.54) with Tom and (pg.100) with Edward. Kyra makes food all the way through the play apart from at the end, when Edward brings her cooked breakfast, which she told him she really missed at the beginning (pg.13)
Kyra: ‘I miss a good breakfast…Scrambled eggs…’
Edward is obviously a very thoughtful person because he actually listens to Kyra, instead of just arguing and talking at her like his father.
At the end (pg.100), Edward brings Kyra the cooked breakfast that she misses.
Tom: ‘I’ve brought you breakfast. You said you missed breakfast more than anything else.’
Kyra: ‘Oh, Edward, I don’t believe it.’
The breakfast is so significant for both Edward and Kyra, because she feels that Edward has done something so selfless, just for her, not for anyone else. Kyra is released with happiness at the sight of the breakfast. When Edward comes at the beginning, what he wanted from Kyra was reassurance, he wanted an answer of how to make up with Tom, but Kyra didn’t give him one. So I think Edward brings the breakfast at the end, to show that he can help her, even if it is just something like breakfast.
The last words of the play (pg.100) are very important,
Kyra: ‘this looks terrific. Come on, Edward, let’s eat.’
Food is what Kyra will miss about Tom; it is the remnants of what they had together. The breakfast closes the play, because it finishes what Tom left behind. When Tom came back, all the memories of the forgotten past are dredged up, and while Kyra makes the food, each memory becomes clearer, and clearer. They argue, passionately, more, and more until everything hurtful has been said, and there is nothing left to do other than say ‘goodbye’, because they both know that nothing could be more different than themselves.
Edward finishes the play, by bringing what Kyra remembered from the days with Tom as a happy time. Tom wanted to stay with Kyra, not just because he loves her, but because he needed someone to comfort him because really, underneath all those outer barriers of clothes and anger, is a very lonely person, screaming with self-pity, anguish and guilt. In losing Kyra, Tom has lost pretty much everything that matters to him.
The breakfast at the end is so meaningful because it shows how Edward is the New Hope, he can change and be a better person than his father. The breakfast reinforces the issue that Edward may not be as rich or as business like as his father, but he will definitely be more loved and respected. David Hare wants the audience to grasp the lifestyle of the characters, but also how they link to the lifestyles of everyday people, how none of us have normal lives and we all have such different understandings and concepts. No one can ever change anyone else; they can only change themselves.
