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They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina

Page 2

by Sarah Wooley


  manage very well

  And this place

  It’s hard to find

  It’s a trek

  Remote

  At night it’s dark

  People don’t like that

  Driving home in the black it’s not everyone’s cup of tea

  CLAY But I found you.

  RAY Yes

  I don’t know how

  I shall be ringing the newspaper in the morning

  I’ll lodge a complaint

  CLAY There are places

  Up in the mountains up

  Behind the cedar trees and the scrub oaks

  No electricity

  Just a lantern for light

  The places I’ve lived

  Used to terrify me when I was a kid

  Pause.

  RAY I’m going to count to ten.

  I’m going to count to ten then I want you to go

  CLAY Remember the day?

  RAY One

  CLAY You were wearing khaki shorts

  RAY Two

  CLAY You had a red face from sitting in the sun too long

  RAY Three

  CLAY Mom had gone to the store

  RAY Four

  CLAY You stayed behind

  RAY Five

  CLAY She left me with you

  RAY Six

  CLAY You said you’d look after

  RAY Seven

  CLAY I went outside

  RAY Eight

  CLAY You told me to go outside

  RAY Nine

  CLAY You were at the window and

  RAY Get out get out get out get out!

  SCENE TWO

  The same room. Later.

  EILEEN Your hands

  CLAY The same hands

  EILEEN Yes

  And your eyes they’re

  CLAY Green

  EILEEN Like mine

  CLAY Just like.

  EILEEN Oh

  Your hair too

  You haven’t changed

  CLAY You have

  You look like a different person

  EILEEN I’m older

  CLAY Yes

  EILEEN A bit fatter

  CLAY No

  EILEEN And my hair

  It’s grey

  It used to be black

  CLAY That’s right, I remember

  EILEEN I’ve got a slight stoop

  Look

  The doctor says I’ve weak bones

  My bones are crumbling like a cliff too close to the sea

  I get pains in my fingers

  See

  My hands are like claws

  Hope I haven’t passed that on to you

  CLAY I don’t think so

  EILEEN I’d have recognised you anywhere

  After all these years

  If I’d seen you in the street or

  walked past you in a shop I’d have shouted

  I’d have screamed

  I’d have torn my throat out for screaming

  I wouldn’t have let you go.

  Just look at you.

  Come here

  You’re handsome

  Good looking

  CLAY Am I?

  EILEEN Yes

  And you’re strong you’re

  Like a man

  CLAY Well I am a man yes

  EILEEN But no ordinary man.

  Not any old member of the general public you look like

  an actor

  CLAY An actor?

  EILEEN Yes

  Not some guy in the background or some fool in a soap no

  You look like

  a superstar!

  CLAY What?

  No!

  EILEEN You could be in films

  CLAY Really?

  EILEEN You could walk the red carpet

  CLAY Come on

  EILEEN Be in magazines

  You’d sell thousands of copies

  CLAY (Laughs.)

  EILEEN Or

  What about an athlete?

  CLAY Athlete?

  EILEEN Yes

  Win a gold medal

  CLAY At the Olympics?

  EILEEN Yes

  You could be a runner or a tennis player

  If someone told me you were a famous tennis player I’d believe them

  CLAY Would you?

  EILEEN Yes

  Or you could jump hurdles or…swim

  You could be a champion at swimming or

  I know

  a boxer.

  CLAY Boxer?

  You’re kidding

  EILEEN You’d glow in the ring

  CLAY No way, I’d be scared

  terrified

  too frightened I’d get hurt.

  EILEEN I feel proud

  CLAY Do you?

  EILEEN The way you’ve turned out

  I’m impressed

  It’s not what I imagined.

  Beat.

  CLAY What did you imagine?

  EILEEN A child.

  Beat.

  Never a man.

  CLAY You thought I was dead?

  EILEEN Sometimes

  Sometimes that’s what I wanted

  It would have been easier

  Until today the

  not knowing

  it was like living in mist.

  I used to have dreams.

  You were swimming in a river

  Your face was green

  You had seaweed in your fingers and

  fish swimming in your hair

  Or sometimes you’d be in the earth

  All warm and brown

  An animal would come along

  A bear or a dog I don’t know which and he’d snuffle the ground til he’d find you

  Dig you up

  Not dead

  But not alive either.

  CLAY That’s awful

  EILEEN It didn’t feel awful

  Waking up

  Reminding myself

  Remembering what had happened

  That was horrible

  CLAY I used to dream that I could walk through walls

  EILEEN Did you?

  CLAY I’d disappear into stone

  I’d stay there til it was safe to come out

  Sometimes the walls would eat me up

  I had those dreams til I was fourteen

  After that they stopped

  Pause.

  EILEEN We tried to look for you

  You know that don’t you?

  CLAY Yes

  EILEEN We had posters made

  Went on TV

  But things over there they were different.

  The people

  The money

  The sound of them

  It was so fast.

  They talked fast, moved fast

  Not like here.

  Police said it happened all the time.

  In the next state five little girls in two years

  What was so special about us?

  What was so special about you?

  I said he’s my son that makes him special

  They said could you get a cuter photo.

  CLAY I’ve seen that picture

  Who took it?

  EILEEN A friend of ours, Bill

  CLAY It looks nothing like me

  EILEEN I liked it

  You look…thoughtful

  Truth is it was the only one I had

  It was the photo I used to keep in my purse

  CLAY They didn’t do a very good job

  EILEEN The police?

  CLAY Yes

  EILEEN No

  But then there were no systems, no special people to call

  Not like now

  Now they dredge the lake

  Dust up fingerprints

  Alert the helicopters

  But they took statements

  looked for witnesses

  In the end only two people came forward

  Do you know this?

  CLAY No

  EILEEN One w
as a teenager

  Little girl really

  One was eighty-three

  Mentioned the same van

  Blue

  it was.

  So they put out calls

  Pulled people over

  They were obsessed with that van, the police

  They were on a mission:

  Find the blue van with the number plate that no one could remember.

  But a week later the teenager changed her mind

  Well she was only young

  Said the van might not have been blue

  That on second thoughts, it might have been white or black

  In fact

  it might not have been a van at all

  And in all that time I don’t remember getting dressed, waking up or going to sleep

  I lost two stone

  I got old

  Pause.

  Then the money ran out

  CLAY How long?

  EILEEN Did we stay?

  CLAY Yes

  EILEEN Three months

  We had no choice

  We had to go back

  We knew no one.

  You do understand?

  Clay nods.

  Ray had to work

  We had to

  go on

  And there was nothing you see

  Not a hint or

  We were only supposed to be there two weeks

  CLAY A vacation

  EILEEN That’s right

  Our first abroad

  With you

  We were having a lovely time

  Do you remember?

  CLAY Bits of it

  EILEEN Two weeks in Disney World

  It was my idea.

  The flat rock camping ground.

  CLAY Right in the middle of the woods

  EILEEN Yes

  CLAY I remember that

  There were people next door but that was it

  I remember there was a little lake and a shop

  EILEEN That’s right

  Looked beautiful in the brochures

  Wood cabins and

  CLAY Pine trees

  EILEEN Yes yes

  Smelt like Christmas in June.

  Pause.

  I was gone ten minutes

  Fifteen tops

  CLAY I know

  EILEEN That stupid shop

  One shop for the whole campsite

  for all those woods

  I’d only gone for a few bits

  nothing special it could have waited

  Just food and a couple of toilet rolls

  And it wasn’t as though I’d left you alone

  was it?

  CLAY No

  EILEEN It must have happened in a minute

  CLAY Yes

  EILEEN He closes his eyes or

  turns the page in the newspaper

  Thirty seconds of washing up

  or a trip to the loo.

  As soon as I realised

  soon as we knew

  I went crazy

  running about

  I didn’t know where

  No plan

  Up into the woods

  Down to the river bank

  We ran into people’s cabins

  Barging into people’s rooms

  I was screaming your name

  I was screaming Patrick! Patrick!

  I remember standing in the middle of the woods with my arms in the air

  screaming

  Patrick! Patrick!

  Pause.

  Could you hear me?

  CLAY No

  Pause.

  I was miles away.

  Pause.

  EILEEN The person who took you?

  Did they

  Did they treat you well?

  CLAY They’re dead

  EILEEN But

  Did they look after?

  Treat you as their own?

  CLAY Yes

  Pause.

  They treated me as their own.

  EILEEN We always hoped

  Was she

  someone who didn’t have children?

  That’s what the police

  Someone who’d lost a child or

  Is that why?

  CLAY No

  Pause.

  No.

  SCENE THREE

  The same place, later.

  RAY Look

  Look!

  Take a good look

  See

  See this picture this

  EILEEN Put it away

  RAY This boy

  This boy is blond

  See

  See!

  His hair

  His hair is so white you can see his scalp

  See the skin underneath the

  Don’t turn away

  Look

  Look!

  He is dark

  Dark hair

  Dark skin

  But this boy this one our one

  He’s fair

  White

  His skin’s so white it’s almost blue!

  EILEEN Some babies are born fair

  Their hair gets darker as they get older

  RAY No

  Not this one

  No

  EILEEN Yes

  RAY No!

  EILEEN My brother was born blond

  When he was three his hair turned black

  You look at old photographs you wouldn’t think it was the same child

  RAY But Patrick was five

  Five when it happened

  So any chance of going dark

  That would have passed

  EILEEN No

  RAY Yes!

  EILEEN No!

  RAY Ok.

  Ok ok

  So now

  Now

  I want you to look at this

  Look

  Look!

  Ray physically forces her to look. He has a copy of a missing poster. The child in the poster is the same blond child in the photograph but he’s aged up. He looks about twelve.

  Had you forgotten?

  You must have seen this a hundred times and yet

  She snatches it from him.

  EILEEN Where did you get that?

  RAY Where it’s always been

  See.

  Nothing

  Nothing like

  EILEEN Put it away

  He takes the poster back.

  RAY Hair

  Still blond

  Skin

  Still white

  EILEEN So?

  RAY So?

  EILEEN That’s an artist’s impression

  Someone’s taken licence that doesn’t mean

  RAY But you always thought this was very good

  this picture, this man’s idea of

  We were pleased with this because look

  shape of the nose

  Long

  like mine

  Lips

  a bit thin

  yours.

  And look at this child

  his build

  Here he’s supposed to be what?

  Twelve? Thirteen?

  But he’s small for his age our son he’s

  puny

  tiny

  like my father

  Would grow maybe what?

  Five-four, five-five, six at a push?

  The sort of boy who’d who’d

  be a jockey or

  EILEEN A jockey?

  RAY Yes

  Maybe or

  I don’t know

  But he’s a lightweight, featherweight

  a wiry kind of guy a

  Sammy Davies Junior

  EILEEN Sammy Davies Junior was black

  He had one glass eye!

  RAY The American is six foot

  He’s got shoulders

  Muscle

  Arms like boulders

  He’s got concrete bricks growing up inside his skin

  He’s never Sammy Davies Junior.

  He’s…Brando in
The Wild One or

  Gregory Peck

  EILEEN He’s my son!

  RAY So where has he been all these years Eileen?

  Where did he live?

  Who looked after him?

  EILEEN He didn’t say

  RAY (Mimicking her.) Didn’t say?

  EILEEN No

  RAY Did you ask him?

  EILEEN I didn’t want to upset him

  RAY No no mustn’t upset him.

  A stranger comes here unannounced, to our home, says he’s our son and you don’t ask where he’s been for twenty years!

  EILEEN I couldn’t

  I told you he was upset

  RAY He’s upset?!

  EILEEN I think

  What happened that day that

  I think we got it wrong

  RAY Wrong?

  EILEEN Yes

  It wasn’t

  some girl who’d lost a baby

  any of that

  RAY Of course it was

  EILEEN No.

  I said to him, I said was it someone who didn’t have children?

  Some desperate woman or

  he said no

  RAY then what did he say?

  EILEEN Nothing

  He was upset

  I told you

  RAY But what about the witnesses?

  EILEEN They must have been mistaken

  RAY No!

  They weren’t mistaken

  That’s what they saw

  EILEEN One of those witnesses was eighty-three years old Ray

  RAY So so?

  She always seemed very sharp to me very

  So, what is he suggesting this stranger this

  EILEEN A man

  I suppose

  RAY A man?

  EILEEN Yes some

  Oh I don’t want to think about it

  RAY There was no man

  EILEEN Says who?

  RAY Everyone

  No one has ever mentioned a man

  EILEEN All these years we’ve created a picture of what happened but it’s not based on anything known

  Just bits of scraps of things

  Well what if none of it was true?

  Maybe, what happened was much worse than we wanted to imagine.

  RAY But that girl she said she saw a woman

  and the police said that was the most likely

  always said that didn’t they?

  They did checks

  EILEEN Of people who were known to them

  That’s all

  I’ve heard about this happening, read about it

  Poor mothers of missing daughters hoping their kid will one day come through the door say, ‘Hello mum I’m fine,’ when in reality they’re lying in a back garden somewhere waiting to be dug up.

  RAY Jesus

  EILEEN And when the police come and tell them the truth the mothers they never say,

  ‘Well that’s no surprise. I’d been expecting that,’

  cause you don’t think the worst you hope for the best.

  Otherwise it’d kill you.

  Pause.

  RAY He tried to tell me you worked in the pub

  EILEEN What pub?

  RAY In Nettlebury

  The George

  He tried to tell me that

  EILEEN What did he say?

  RAY That you used to go out in the dark

  Come home late

  Bring back crisps or something

  EILEEN He said that?

  RAY Yes

 

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