Plays 5
Page 8
but we know people do just that sort of thing quite a lot so maybe there is a hell of arms chopped off and piles of bodies with bags on their heads and hanging upside down ah why shouldn’t I be one of the people who deserve that
if deserving comes into it it might be random
because I’m the rich camel who can’t get through compared to oh I know there’s mega how reassuring yachts but no I was comfortable comfortable in my life chicken and a warm bed
and how much good did I very little because I was always loving someone or organising something or looking at trees or having a quiet sit-down with the paper and I’m sorry I’m sorry
or is it purgatory do they have that still where it’s burned out of you not for ever yes I can feel it getting hotter the blast of it on my
ridiculous I don’t believe it of course never did that’s not happening there’s plenty of other something completely
yes here comes aah his head’s what a wild dog fox jackal that’s it not a mask he’s
and that one’s a bird ibis long curved sharp I’m sorry I’m sorry
and here are the scales there’s a feather in one pan so I take out my heart and put it in the other and surely it can’t be light as a feather and if it weighs the pan down I get thrown to that lion hippo crocodile and will I pass out as I feel its hot breath sometimes people go into a swoon of shock when an animal has them in its mouth National Geographic probably and then I would really be dead and gone I suppose
which ancient religion is this anyway Egypt
surely I must be in for something more Nordic
Thor with a thunderbolt
valhalla or is that just for war heroes yes there they are sitting round the table drunk and roaring not my idea of fun
and for illness or old age here’s a blue black giantess come to take me somewhere bleaker maybe a cold beach with a wind I once went swimming I’d rather a warm Greek white stones can I have that and is that Charon in the boat I can get in wobble sit down and over the dark river we go
I’ve always been scared of guard dogs so I hope Cerberus
and do I have to gibber with those bloodless dead did Odysseus go to see them yes I can see him coming now and here we are all stretching out our hands to him
but he won’t do anything for me living so long after his time and surely he’s fictional anyway so how can he help me get out of this hanging about and hanging about for ever when I could be doing something like going back and
walk haunt turn the room cold hear them talking and long for someone to see me here I’m here my love can’t you see me hundreds of years still floating through walls I’m here I’m here no I’m not a ghost story
going back and having another life my own life over again like that movie and do it better of course because most of the time I hardly noticed it going by and I used to look back and think how careless I was when I was young I never noticed and by then I was middle-aged and later I’d look back and think then I never noticed
and another go would be welcome
but nobody suggests they do that in real life real death not another go as yourself another go as somebody else or of course something else
and have I lived the sort of life that would get me one step up to be a happier better person one true love maybe I deserve to paint or
no not be in power hate to be a president king general imagine how terrible that might be a punishment of course a step down
or I might have to sleep in the street yes I’m walking miles with a heavy sick child I’m so depressed I can’t put on my socks
but I might not be human a bird a bird everyone wants to fly oh a kestrel can I be a kestrel yes I can see every blade of grass and a mouse drop on the mouse but I might be the mouse
I might be a rabid street dog foaming a cow up the ramp to the slaughter
I’d rather be an endangered species some beautiful far far anywhere oh
I might be an insect one of billions I am already one of billions but trillions
a locust eating and eating do they feel joy do they just eat or maybe a flea blood and the amazing jump
oh I don’t want to be the caterpillar the wasp lays an egg in and it hatches and consumes from inside
but surely that’s not a belief I’ve ever I’ve never
and I wouldn’t be me this one I’ve been doesn’t remember others it’s extinction of me even if I’m part of some cosmic whatsit drop gone back to the ocean no
and of course all the bits of my body are on their way now breaking down into smaller and smaller rather disgusting at first but into the daisies
or did they have me cremated how odd I don’t know in which case it’s all gone up in smoke leaving just those gritty ashes that might be partly someone else’s I’m not sure how particular they are at the crem when they sweep it out
but anyway all the chemicals atoms neutrons from stars on their way because the energy’s still all there
but not my energy like ‘oh I’m so tired today I’ve got no energy’ now I’ve really got no energy it’s somewhere else like before I was born
all those atoms are somewhere else
and you’re just a thing that happens like an elephant or a daffodil
and there you all are for a short time
that’s how it’s put together for a short time
and oddly you are actually are one of those
and it goes on and on and you’re used to it and then suddenly
3. GETTING THERE
A very old or ill person and a carer.
The old/ill person is in nightclothes and is helped by the carer to get dressed, slowly and with difficulty because of pain and restricted movement.
Then to get undressed and back into nightclothes.
Then to get dressed.
Then to get undressed and back into nightclothes.
Then to get dressed…
for as long as the scene lasts.
End.
ESCAPED ALONE
Escaped Alone was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, London, on 21 January 2016. The cast was as follows:
MRS JARRETT
Linda Bassett
SALLY
Deborah Findlay
LENA
Kika Markham
VI
June Watson
Director
James Macdonald
Designer
Miriam Buether
Lighting Designer
Peter Mumford
Sound Designer Christopher Shutt
‘I only am escaped alone to tell thee.’
Book of Job. Moby Dick.
Characters
SALLY
VI
LENA
MRS JARRETT
They are all at least seventy.
Place
Sally’s backyard.
Several unmatching chairs. Maybe one’s a kitchen chair.
Time
Summer afternoon.
A number of afternoons but the action is continuous.
1.
MRS J
I’m walking down the street and there’s a door in the fence open and inside are three women I’ve seen before.
VI
Don’t look now but there’s someone watching us.
LENA
Is it that woman?
SALLY
Is that you, Mrs Jarrett?
MRS J
So I go in.
SALLY
Rosie locked out in the rain
VI
forgot her key
SALLY
climbed over
LENA
lucky to have neighbours who
SALLY
such a high wall
VI
this is Rosie her granddaughter
MRS J
I’ve a son, Frank
VI
I’ve a son
MRS J
suffers from insomnia
VI
doesn’t come very often. But Thomas
LENA
that’s her nephew
SALLY
he’d knock up the shelves in no time
VI
a big table
SALLY
grain of the wood
VI
a table like that would last a lifetime
SALLY
an heirloom
LENA
except we all eat off our laps
MRS J
nothing like a table
LENA
I like a table
VI
all have each other’s keys because there’s no way round and anyway I couldn’t climb
MRS J
unless you lose them
VI
no I hang them all on a nail
SALLY
in a teapot
VI
teapot?
SALLY
Elsie puts them in and takes them out
LENA
down the floorboards
VI
only use bags in mugs
SALLY
holds your finger and then takes one step and down she goes.
LENA
Barney never out of his phone
VI
I’d have been the same
LENA
looking pale
VI
whole worlds in your pocket
LENA
little bit worried about Kevin and Mary, never hear an endearment
SALLY
but nobody ever knows
MRS J
you’d be surprised what goes on
LENA
twenty years in June
VI
we had to wear hats
SALLY
a pink one and I didn’t
VI
so you gave it to Angela
SALLY
I’d forgotten Angela
LENA
shadows under her eyes
VI
ended up with a green one and it didn’t suit you
LENA
I could never say a word of course.
VI
And Maisie, never so happy
LENA
that’s her niece
SALLY
quantum
VI
I can’t really follow
SALLY
I can’t even add up
LENA
they don’t add up any more
VI
particles and waves I can manage but after that
SALLY
always good at sums as a child, she’d say two big numbers
VI
and while we were carrying things in our head
LENA
I needed a pencil
SALLY
she’d say the answer and it was always right
MRS J
I could always make change quick with the shillings and pence
VI
we’d be the ones got it wrong
LENA
easier now it’s decimal
SALLY
always right.
LENA
And Vera
MRS J Four hundred thousand tons of rock paid for by senior executives split off the hillside to smash through the roofs, each fragment onto the designated child’s head. Villages were buried and new communities of survivors underground developed skills of feeding off the dead where possible and communicating with taps and groans. Instant celebrities rose on ropes to the light of flashes. Time passed. Rats were eaten by those who still had digestive systems, and mushrooms were traded for urine. Babies were born and quickly became blind. Some groups lost their sexuality while others developed a new morality of constant fucking with any proximate body. A young woman crawling from one society to the other became wedged, only her head reaching her new companions. Stories of those above ground were told and retold till there were myths of the husband who cooked feasts, the wife who swam the ocean, the gay lover who could fly, the child who read minds, the talking dog. Prayers were said to them and various sects developed with tolerance and bitter hatred. Songs were sung until dry throats caused the end of speech. Torrential rain leaked through cracks and flooded the tunnels enabling screams at last before drownings. Survivors were now solitary and went insane at different rates.
2.
SALLY
corner shop
LENA
don’t like the
VI
mini Tesco
LENA
bit far
MRS J
used to be the fish and chip shop
VI
that other one’s gone
SALLY
the old grocer
VI
I’d do a shop for seventeen shillings
LENA
so what’s that in
MRS J
fifteen’s seventyfive p
VI
but we earned nothing too
SALLY
so who does the shopping if you can’t go out?
LENA
I do go
VI
is Kevin a help?
SALLY
I could always
VI
but it’s good for you to go yourself
SALLY
good to get out
LENA
I do get out
SALLY
you’re here
LENA
it’s not easy
SALLY
antique shop now but in between it was that café
VI
it was never a café
SALLY
the Blue something, an animal
MRS J
I been there
SALLY
Hedgehog, something unlikely
VI
I don’t think so
SALLY
maybe it was when
LENA
oh
SALLY
that would be it of course
VI
I did miss a few things when I was away
MRS J
away was you?
LENA
just a little while
VI
six years
SALLY
that’s what it was then, Blue Antelope
VI
antique shops now but down the other end
SALLY
yes three shops boarded up
VI
that’s the nail parlour and the old dentist
SALLY
did you ever go?
VI
he was terrible
SALLY
he was such a bad
VI
‘this might just trouble you a little’
SALLY
oh my god
VI
half an hour to get there but so much better
LENA
I should go to the dentist
SALLY
a checkup
LENA
it must be five years
MRS J
you don’t want toothache
LENA
it’s just one more thing you have to do, one thing after another, I can’t seem to
SALLY
I could always go with you
LENA
if I go
SALLY
or do some shopping
VI
it’s good she gets out herself
LENA
I do get out
SALLY
and the chicken nuggets closed down
VI
that was the ironmongers
SALLY
no in between it was the health shop
LENA
a hammer and a spade
VI
there must be quite a few things I missed
SALLY
not really, it all goes by, I can’t remember those years specially
VI
>
remember what was happening where I was of course
SALLY
yes of course
VI
though it gets to be a blur because it’s all a bit the same
SALLY
it must have been
VI
unless there was an excitement like a fight
MRS J
fights was there?
VI
or love affairs
LENA
I do get out it’s just difficult
MRS J
First the baths overflowed as water was deliberately wasted in a campaign to punish the thirsty. Swimming pools engulfed the leisure centres and coffee ran down the table legs. Rivers flowed back towards their tributaries and up the streams to what had been trickles in moss. Ponies climbed to high ground and huddled with the tourists. Yawls, ketches, kayaks, canoes, schooners, planks, dinghies, lifebelts and upturned umbrellas, swimming instructors and lilos, rubber ducks and pumice stone floated on the stock market. Waves engulfed ferris wheels and drowned bodies were piled up to block doors. Then the walls of water came from the sea. Villages vanished and cities relocated to their rooftops. Sometimes children fell down the sewage chutes but others caught seagulls with kites. Some died of thirst, some of drinking the water. When the flood receded thousands stayed on the roofs fed by helicopter while heroes and bonded workers shovelled the muck into buckets that were stored in the flood museums.