by Lisa Evans
NEVENKA brings on glasses and a bottle of wine.
Has everyone got enough to eat?
NEVENKA: Oh yes.
MILENA: And drink?
NEVENKA: Stop worrying. It’s a great party. Everyone’s here and having a wonderful time. The neighbours, the butcher, the baker, the preacher, the teacher – yes and whose idea was it to ask him, the long streak of piss?
MILENA: My mother in law felt sorry for him since his wife left.
NEVENKA: And that son of his?
MILENA: We thought he might do for you.
NEVENKA: Oh ha de ha.
MILENA: (Handing her a glass and cloth.) Here make yourself useful.
NEVENKA: I’d rather just be decorative if you don’t mind.
MILENA: Where are the children?
NEVENKA: Watching TV and guess who’s got the controls? My namesake. She’s going to need a bra soon.
MILENA: I know. Time goes so quickly. She’ll be grown up before we know it.
NEVENKA: Few years’ time we’ll be slurping soup through our gums.
MILENA: You know what I mean. (Casually.) Goran’s coming later.
NEVENKA: Goran Schmoron. I’d rather shoot myself.
MILENA: He’s very sweet.
NEVENKA: His breath smells of all that blood sausage he eats. And the size of him! Can you imagine lying under that?
MILENA: You could always go on top.
NEVENKA: You mean with my eyes shut and him with a sack over his head?
MILENA: I just want you to be happy – like we are.
NEVENKA: I am happy. I don’t have to be married.
MILENA: I know that. I’m just scared you’ll get bored here and go off abroad or somewhere.
NEVENKA: I’ll always come back.
MILENA: I’d miss you though.
NEVENKA: With all of this?
MILENA nods, near to tears.
Listen! The clock’s striking. It’s here! 1991. Happy New Year Milena!
They hug.
MILENA: Happy new year!
End of Act One.
Act Two
Scene One
Kitty’s Story (5)
KITTY and JEANETTE are putting things in and out of cardboard boxes.
KITTY: The trouble is, there aren’t any things in this house that don’t mean something. Gordon says I could hold several jumble sales and still have plenty for the rag and bone man.
JEANETTE: Dad’s right.
KITTY: When you’ve lived with someone for fourteen and a half years, which is all their entire life, even the walls have memories. I can’t pack all this up and move. I won’t.
JEANETTE: You don’t have to. I’ll do it.
KITTY: You’re a good girl Jeanette. You do try so hard.
JEANETTE: Yeah well.
KITTY catches her breath as she finds a snapshot.
Show.
KITTY: You were always swinging upside down, you two. Especially Susie – and I suppose you copied her. If ever I lost track of her, first place I’d look was up. First it was the banisters, then trees. Like a monkey she was, especially on that rope ladder your dad rigged up over there.
JEANETTE: I remember that.
KITTY: You mean the time you got caught with your foot in the knot and didn’t come home till after dark and me calling. Oh don’t.
JEANETTE: It wasn’t me caught.
KITTY: Yes, it was. You were playing circuses, Susie told me.
JEANETTE: Yeah, she persuaded me to hang upside down with the rope round one ankle and she’d swing me. So I did, fine, then she had a go. Only she was heavier than me and the knot pulled so tight she couldn’t undo it. The more she wriggled the worse it got. Her face was going a horrible colour so I ran and got Dolly’s steps and got her down. She made me promise not to tell.
KITTY: But why?
JEANETTE: I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t like being rescued.
KITTY: Promise me you’ll never play with ropes again.
JEANETTE: Mum, I’m sixteen.
KITTY: Promise!
JEANETTE: I promise. Now can we get on with the sorting?
KITTY: The thought of her tied, struggling.
JEANETTE: Stop it. That’s enough. Here.
JEANETTE picks up the sherry bottle and pours her mother a drink.
Calm down now. We’ll leave this for a while. Come back to it later.
KITTY: I could drink an entire bottle of this stuff and it wouldn’t make any difference to the rat.
JEANETTE: The what?
KITTY: Oh not the greasy tailed ones out the back in the Anderson shelter, no, the one I have inside me, gnawing away inside my pelvis.
JEANETTE: Don’t talk that like that.
KITTY: You know, that place where you get a lurch from joy or fear of the extreme variety. Your dad sent me for tests, thought I’d got an ulcer or worse.
JEANETTE: But you’re all right. Nothing showed up.
KITTY: Of course not. I could have told them it wouldn’t. I know what it is, eating me up. It’s hope. And I’m trying to drown it.
Scene Two
Ali’s Story (6)
ALI: It was to be an eight-hour operation. Flora was looking forward to it. So she said. I asked the doctor what her chances were and when he hesitated I said ‘It’s shit or bust this time, isn’t it?’ And he agreed. She’d die on the table or she’d survive. They wheeled her down. She was smiling and waving. When she was first in the hospital I watched her in the incubator afraid of what she would hatch out to be. At home I leant over her crib afraid my changeling would fly away on her last breath and leave me with guilt and a drawer full of tiny baby clothes I could never ask another child to wear. Now years on, men and women I didn’t know and had to trust were going to slice skin, spread bone and rearrange my daughter’s heart. So we smiled too and waved goodbye and went to the Hospital Chapel which was so devoid of soul I said I can’t do anything good here so we went to the British Museum and wandered around like zombies. I can spot parents of sick children, the BM’s full of them, and Queens Square Park, sitting there, vacant, harassed, yearning. No time passes so slowly. She went into the operation blue and she came out pink. Two doctors both with slanting eye make up and Cleopatra hairdos came with an ultrasound to check Flora out. They put dye in her vein and waited to see if it bounced back off the heart wall or went through. Everyone watched. It bounced off the wall and the Cleopatras said ‘Yes!’ and left. And from this we understood that it had worked.
FLORA: (Looking in a mirror. Disappointed.) But I’m not a real girl.
ALI: Of course you are love.
FLORA shakes her head sadly and leaves.,
Scene Three
Kitty’s Story (6)
KITTY: (Pouring herself a sherry.) Medicinal. I banged on the wall for Dolly, no reply, and then I remembered today’s Bingo which she never misses unless it’s a Dire Emergency. If she’d seen the police at the door she wouldn’t have gone. Nice young man, Mrs Varney’s nephew from the post office. I remember him when he was in short pants ringing doorbells and running off. I thought of that today when I saw his shape through the glass of the front door. There’s someone who’s not going to run away I thought. Solid. In CID he told me, hence no uniform. A detective. Like Dick Barton I said, and he said not really. And my heart began to beat very fast somewhere up round my throat. You’ve found her? But he said no and asked to come in and that’s when he showed me the sandal. It was in a plastic bag, as Evidence. He wouldn’t let me touch it. I didn’t have to. Clark’s – blue leather, little buckle. I had to excuse myself and dash to the privy. Last time I had the runs like that I was starting labour. When I got back he told me it constituted new evidence. They were going to search the woods down to the railway again. Just like they did before. Then it was police, dogs, neighbours with sticks, poking the undergrowth. Careful you’ll hurt her! We need to ask you some questions. Girls of fourteen don’t just leave home for no reason. Not unless something bad’s happened. T
hey didn’t need to tell me that. I knew something bad had happened. My clever beautiful fourteen-year-old daughter had gone into town shopping one day and never returned. I know about bad. But I can’t tell you why. I couldn’t then and I can’t now. She just went – missing. And now. Now there’s no way even I can persuade myself that after three and a half years they are looking in the undergrowth for a live girl.
Scene Four
Milena’s Story (5)
MILENA: It started slowly. Laying off workers at the factory. I was one of them together with my mother and Tajib. No explanation. Just go home. Tajib couldn’t bear it in the flat all day. He stayed out with his friends in bars and cafes. Those who had been sacked were all Muslims. Or Balia as we came increasingly to be called on the television and in the newspapers. History should remind us it always begins with name calling. Kikes, niggers, pakis, balia. Everyone was snappy, tempers short. Prices went up and suddenly finding food became a full time occupation. All these things we took for granted suddenly became things of the past, part of the old order. The children whined to go out and play but I was afraid since out walking I’d seen carved into the tree, not ‘G loves M’ but instead, ‘Death to Muslims’. The trees were talking. Two Muslim families nearby left suddenly in the night. The story was they had gone to visit relatives. However their apartments did not stay empty for long and our new neighbours didn’t smile good morning. One day Princess Frog came to me as I was trying to conjour a meal for seven out of three potatoes and a chicken thigh and asked:
VOICE: (Off.) ‘Mama why are they calling us Balia?’ (Sound of a furious knocking at the door.)
MILENA: Go upstairs with Baba. Go zhabitza moya! I’ll be okay. Go.
Slowly MILENA goes to the door, NEVENKA enters.
You gave me such a fright!
NEVENKA: Sorry. Where are the kids?
MILENA: With their grandmother upstairs.
NEVENKA: D’you have a drink?
MILENA: You’ll be lucky. No wait, there’s half a bottle of the old man’s plum brandy somewhere. He says he’s hiding it for emergencies but I’ve noticed he’s having rather a lot of them at present. It’s early in the day isn’t it? Even for you.
NEVENKA: It’s not for me.
MILENA sits suddenly like a sack.
MILENA: Who?
NEVENKA: Tajib.
Small sound from MILENA.
He’s alive. He’s been taken.
MILENA: Where?
NEVENKA: I don’t know.
MILENA: How d’you know this?
NEVENKA: I saw them.
MILENA: Who?
NEVENKA: They came to the café – soldiers. They knew who they were looking for. Adil, Emir, Tajib.
MILENA: They took all the Muslims.
NEVENKA: I hid in a doorway and saw. Adil tried to run.
MILENA: What happened?
NEVENKA: They caught him and beat him, with a stone. His head made a noise like fruit falling. They threw him in the lorry. The tyres threw up dust and they were gone. They were gone.
MILENA: You did nothing?
NEVENKA: Like what? Get beaten up too?
MILENA: You should have done something.
NEVENKA: I’m sorry.
MILENA: You should have been at work at that time. Why were you the last to see him? Why were you there?
NEVENKA stares at her, then turns and leaves. MILENA buries her face in her hands.
Scene Five
Kitty’s Story (7)
KITTY is on a chair looking out of the window, a piece of scrumpled newspaper in her hand. JEANETTE enters hurriedly, concerned.
JEANETTE: Are you okay?
KITTY: Spring cleaning.
JEANETTE: But it’s not Spring.
KITTY: Nets don’t wait till May to get dirty. With the new twin tub and a good drying day like today they’ll be back up in no time.
JEANETTE: Are you safe up there?
KITTY: Vinegar and newspaper brings them up a treat. Your hands get black with the newsprint mind. They’ve got a van again.
JEANETTE: How long have they been down there?
KITTY: A van just like the one they took Gordon off in four years ago.
JEANETTE: Where’s Dad now?
KITTY: I don’t know.
JEANETTE: But surely you…
KITTY: I think Dolly had you. I don’t remember. I know I went into her room just to look again, you know, for a clue, a note, a photograph, some statement of intent. And there was Susie’s new record player – the one she loved to dance to up in her room – her pride and joy – on the rug with all her records strewn about, not in their sleeves neatly like she always kept them. I started to tidy up when I noticed the arm of the record player was bent back the wrong way, pulled from its socket and twisted round. Ruined.
JEANETTE: Shall I go and look for him? He’ll be upset too.
KITTY: If you want. He came back that night on the bus. He looked old suddenly, his cardigan too big. He slept on the settee, said the street lights kept him awake upstairs. At least I’ll see her coming I said and went back to my chair by the window and the eiderdown round my legs.
JEANETTE: Could you get down from there?
KITTY: I don’t think so. Not just now.
JEANETTE: Is he helping them, the police, with the digging?
KITTY: They wouldn’t let him. They’ve put up screens. You can’t see anything, not even from upstairs.
When I pegged out the curtains I could hear the scrape and chop of the spades digging. Again. It’s one of those false promise late winter days, isn’t it? The ground still hard but the sky blue with racing clouds. A good drying day.
JEANETTE: Do you want me to find out what’s happening down there?
KITTY: I don’t know.
JEANETTE: Please, come down.
KITTY: I can’t. I’m stuck.
JEANETTE: Give me your hand. Let me help you.
KITTY: You can’t. No one can.
JEANETTE turns.
JEANETTE: I’ll find Dad.
JEANETTE leaves.
Scene Six
Ali’s Story (7)
ALI and FLORA enter together, FLORA’s glowering.
ALI: Where’re you going?
FLORA: My room.
ALI: Is something up?
FLORA: I have to go now!
ALI: Okay, okay.
FLORA: (Muttering to herself as she stomps off.) Shit bugger sod it crap, shit bugger sod it crap…
ALI: What did you say?
FLORA: I’m in my room! Bugger fuck damn it mongol…
ALI halts shocked. The muttering gets quieter as FLORA starts to drum the rhythm.
ALI: Let me in.
FLORA: No.
ALI: I just want to help.
FLORA: I’m all right.
As the drumming gets louder, ALI listens, then turns away, leaving FLORA to sort it alone. GWEN enters holding a large carrot which is sporting a condom.
GWEN: Alison I found this in the lounge. What on earth is it?
ALI: At a guess I’d say a carrot wearing a condom.
GWEN: But what’s it doing?
ALI: Having safe sex? Don’t look so worried, it’s Flora’s. They have to practise, just in case.
GWEN: In case what? They get assaulted?
ALI: In case they want to have sex.
GWEN: Oh dear God.
ALI: I know, members of your immediate family doing it’s always revolting isn’t it? I used to think that about you and Dad.
GWEN: Alison! But Flora! Surely she can’t…
ALI: What, fall in love? Why not? Better safe than sorry. She’s not up for it yet but when she is she can’t go on the pill because of her heart and the risk of thrombosis, I can’t even begin to imagine trying to get her fitted with a coil and she’d never cope with a cap. No, when the time comes I’m hoping for a nice Down’s boy with low fertility.
GWEN: What does Jim say?
ALI: He thinks the carrot’s giving he
r false expectations.
GWEN leaves.
All that stuff with my mother was reaction, pure bravado. For Christ’s sake, Flora couldn’t even cross a road alone. How could I trust her emotional life to the hands of a strange man? And believe me, some of them at that centre come pretty strange.
FLORA enters.
FLORA: Mum, I have to practise don’t I?
ALI: Practise what love?
FLORA: Everything.
ALI: It helps you remember.
FLORA: I have to practise kitchen safety don’t I?
ALI: Yes.
FLORA: They tell me at the centre and I have to practise it.
ALI: Right.
FLORA: I put on the kettle and when it boils I make tea and I don’t burn myself.
ALI: You’re very careful.
FLORA: When I do traffic training I’ll go on buses on my own won’t I. I’ll practise.
ALI: Flora’s circular conversations could go on for hours and I had a class to go to.
Is that what’s worrying you?
FLORA: No. I’ll practise and I’ll be okay.
ALI: So what’s the problem Flora?
FLORA: Nothing.
ALI: Come on then, you know you like watching the little ones. They’ll be tearing the hall to pieces if we’re late.
ALI moves to leave, notices FLORA is still standing rooted in place.
What? Flora, what is it?
FLORA: Once upon a time I couldn’t speak could I?
ALI: No you couldn’t.
FLORA: And now I can speak.
ALI: Yes.
FLORA: I can speak because I practised. Isn’t that right Mum?
ALI: Yes Flora.
FLORA: I learn things, then I practise them?
ALI: Oh for Christ’s sake Flora, I have to go to work. What is it you want to say?
FLORA: I don’t like to be shouted at.
ALI: Well tough. Sometimes that happens. Now what?
FLORA: Nothing.
ALI: (Gritting her teeth.) Please Flora, tell me what’s worrying you.
FLORA: (Pointing to the carrot and condom/getting it out of her pocket.) When do I have to go and practise this?
