Mary and Martha Page #6

Not as handsome as I said,

but he's not bad, right?

Hello, Martha.

Let me get you some tea.

No, I'll get it.

Oh, thanks, thanks.

But not iced tea.

The English hate that stuff.

Actually,

I'm rather a bush tea person now myself.

Well, aren't you fancy?

Listen, babe, I hope

you haven't come here

under false pretenses.

This whole campaigning thing,

I don't think it was

gonna get anywhere.

It's just part of the craziness of grief,

you know?

I'm sure that's not true.

And Peter, he just sees

me as breaking our hearts

all over again, day after day.

Oh. Well...

I'm sure he must be right then.

So tell me, why did

you leave in the end?

Oh, it got complicated.

Ben's replacement arrived.

Nice German boy, and I thought,

you know, probably

my work was done.

How did it feel leaving?

Oh, it was good.

On the last night,

I had a lovely dinner,

and the kids gave me

a sort of, um...

We love you, Martha!

I don't know what

you'd call it.

Collage?

Had a lovely picture

of Ben on it,

and each of them had

done a little drawing

of themselves with

their names underneath,

and at the bottom, it said,

"We are all

your children."

It's lovely.

Mmm.

All my children.

The problem is, darling,

I'm not really ready

to stop being a mother,

But what can a mother

without a child

actually do, huh?

It's a long shot,

but we have to try.

What's he like?

Conservative, uncommunicative,

and emotionally stunted,

and he put his work

before his family

and never really

succeeded at either.

Oh, good.

Just my type.

Mary.

This is Martha.

Martha.

And what does Peter think of

all this political stuff?

Well, he thinks

I'm stupid and crazy

and destroying our lives.

What about you, Martha?

Oh, goodness.

Well... well, I think Mary

is absolutely wonderful

and can achieve anything

she sets out to do,

and naturally,

I support her 100%.

Right. Well, you may

not be surprised to hear

that I'm rather more on

Peter's side of the fence.

To try to shift the needle of

government policy is very difficult.

You're gonna be frustrated,

and you're gonna

be demoralized,

and quite frankly,

you'd be better off at home.

Look, I know all this, Dad.

I just hoped that maybe

you could help me find

a way to make a difference.

I'm not asking you

to agree with me.

I'm just asking

you for a favor.

My concern is it may not

be a favor at all.

You're clearly in such pain.

Hmm. And now you

take notice of that.

Look,

I don't think I should have come here.

I think this was always

gonna be a big mistake.

I'm sorry, Martha,

but let's go.

Uh, thanks for

the cookies, Dad.

I can't deny it's

an interesting area.

Interesting?

Yeah, I've been

looking into it.

Did you know that...

if you take every

single person killed

in a terrorist act

around the world

in the last 20 years

and you add to that

all the lives lost in the

Middle East since 1967,

the Six Day War,

and you add to that every

single American life

lost in Vietnam, in Korea,

and in every single American

engagement since then...

Iraq, Afghanistan...

if you take all those lives

and you multiply it by two,

that's the number of

children that die of malaria

every single year.

So are you saying

you'll help me?

Yes, I will.

OK. Um, well,

there's

an appropriations committee...

October 7.

I know.

It's where they fix

the money to be spent.

They beef it up,

or they trim it down.

Did you want to...

did you want to speak at it?

Well, I was hoping to just go.

Of course,

if it's possible for me to speak...

I think you possibly could.

I'd have to call

in all my favors.

You'd have to work very hard,

and you would have to work out

exactly what it is you want to say,

but of course I suppose it's

time I started working for you

and not for them.

91% of malaria deaths

are in Africa.

There are 247 million...

So I'd have a few notes,

and we can just

put it in one piece

and then make it more, um...

Right.

Concise.

Am I going too fast?

No, you're all right.

OK.

OK.

My word, Mary.

You're gonna be

absolutely marvelous!

If I fall down dead of fear,

will you take over?

You must be joking.

You're not gonna hear

so much as a peep out of me,

but I'm so proud of you,

I could explode.

Oh, no, no. Don't.

Don't. Don't explode.

This room cost

a fortune to decorate.

OK. Test me.

Speak up, look them in the eye,

stick to the script.

Yes, Dad.

WOMAN:
Now we have had

submissions from experts

from Malaria No More,

from UNICEF,

from USAID.

We now have a submission

from Mrs. Mary Morgan

from South Hall,

Eastern Virginia.

Mrs. Morgan. Please.

Thank... thank you.

Um, I don't want to take

up too much of your time.

Um, so before I start,

I'll just say that

there's only a couple

of things I want to say,

and the first is

congratulations.

Thank you.

We do believe when

it comes to malaria

America leads the world.

But as a country,

we still spend more

on the cure for baldness

than the cure for malaria.

[LAUGHTER]

So my second point

and the purpose

of my submission is to

ask for more, please.

Right now.

Of course, Mrs. Morgan,

and if we lived

in an ideal world,

there'd be all the money

in the world for malaria,

but a friend of mine

used to say,

"Politics is a pie.

It's just a question

of how you slice it."

What we do here in this

committee is look soberly

and seriously

with experts in the field

at how and if we can

increase that slice

or if, in the very hard

times for everyone,

it has to be a slightly

smaller portion.

Pardon me, but are you saying that

I'm not an expert in the field?

Mrs. Morgan, we're all aware of your

personal involvement in this area

and all admire your courage

in coming here today.

Well, since I'm not

an expert in the field,

perhaps you would

prefer that I focus

on my personal involvement.

Let me tell you how it feels

to have a personal involvement

with malaria.

I miss my son every second

of every day.

I miss him

with every bite of food

and every

familiar object I hold.

And I think of that

movie, you know,

"Back to the Future,"

where that bastard McFly

can just go back in time

because that's my greatest wish,

that I could

just go back just once

and change that one thing.

I would give anything to

change that one thing,

and my point, Madam Chair,

my point is that how

I feel is how the parent

of every single child lost

to malaria feels.

Every mother, every father.

That is no ordinary

slice of pie.

I had the responsibility

of one child,

and I failed.

You have the opportunity

to take responsibility

for millions of children.

Don't fail them, too.

Now, uh, I have

something prepared.

Just... just

a minute, please.

I'm Martha O'Connell.

Yes?

I'm sort of Mary's second.

I wonder if I might show

you a couple of snaps?

If that's what

Mrs. Morgan wants.

Yes. Of course.

Thank you.

Where shall I put...

This is my son Ben.

Malaria.

And this is Mary's son George,

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