They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina

by Sarah Wooley

  CLAY He did?

  EILEEN Yes

  But you were too young too

  You didn’t have the patience.

  CLAY I really

  I don’t remember

  EILEEN No, of course you don’t

  It was just once, just one time.

  Sorry, you were saying, you and your friend

  CLAY Me and this girl, well we had a canoe

  EILEEN (Laughs.) A canoe?

  CLAY We used to row out into the middle of the lake and attach these little red pellets onto a hook and line

  We didn’t catch much, just guppies

  And the lake had leeches

  EILEEN Ugh!

  CLAY Yeah

  Slimey little bastards

  Freaked her out

  and mosquitoes too

  Man they’d eat you alive

  You’d be all bitten up by noon.

  But I loved it

  I felt…free

  Stopped me thinkin’ too much

  EILEEN Wish I could have seen you

  Playing out in the open, you and your friend

  It sounds like

  You did have…moments

  When you were happy?

  You were able, sometimes, to enjoy yourself?

  CLAY I guess

  Pause.

  EILEEN Did you never try to to

  leave him to

  run away?

  CLAY Once.

  I was ten

  I made it down to the highway but ended up getting lost

  The trees cast long shadows in the dark

  It was cold the snow had only just thawed

  I was scared.

  He found me…

  I never tried again.

  Silence. Clay moves away from Eileen, his eyes fall on the buffet for the press.

  I didn’t expect all this

  I didn’t think

  All this fuss and

  I didn’t think they’d send a TV crew.

  EILEEN It’s a big story

  CLAY Yes but

  one newspaper I thought that’s all just one

  EILEEN But this is wonderful news Patrick

  The world is waiting.

  If you’d followed our story after all these years wouldn’t you want to know how it ended?

  And they’ve been very good

  They don’t usually do it like this

  Usually, you have to go to them but this is special that’s what they said

  They want pictures of you back at home, safe with us, where you belong

  Beat.

  We should go through what we plan to say, get our story straight.

  CLAY You make it sound like we’re lying.

  Beat.

  EILEEN It might be an idea to write things down

  Get things clear, that’s all.

  Pause.

  When it happened when he

  You did tell him about us?

  The man I mean the

  You must have known we were looking for you

  CLAY He said you didn’t want me

  He said your parents don’t love you no more

  I’m your father now

  This is your new name

  I was five

  I believed him

  EILEEN But people at the school they must

  You would have had an accent

  You would have stood out

  CLAY I was no different from the other kids

  EILEEN No but you were you

  CLAY You say that

  but people they don’t look

  They’ve got their own lives their own kids to raise their own worries.

  What does it matter to them what goes on behind the trailer door

  People believe what they’re told

  Pause.

  EILEEN You said he gave you a new name

  What did he call you?

  CLAY Clay.

  Short for Clayton

  I’m used to it now

  At first I wasn’t so keen.

  Beat.

  Donna, she wants to change my son’s name

  He’s got a new father too

  She wants to call him after this guy’s fucking dad or something

  EILEEN Can she do that?

  CLAY Can do what she likes

  Unless I get custody.

  Pause.

  I think when you change someone’s name their old self disappears

  You’re reinvented, repackaged

  Your past belongs to someone else

  EILEEN When I got married and changed my name

  I didn’t feel like me anymore.

  Pause.

  CLAY What’s Ray gonna say when he gets back?

  Finds half the world’s press in his front room while he’s been waiting for the fuel guy to come?

  EILEEN We’ll talk to him

  CLAY The last time I talked to him he threw me out

  If the reporters think he doesn’t believe then

  EILEEN Don’t worry

  I’ll talk to him.

  Pause.

  Clay.

  Short for Clayton.

  SCENE FIVE

  Same place an hour later.

  RAY Like one of those people those

  grubby people

  Trisha people

  Whores

  Criminals

  Obese men with fifteen tattoos and fifteen kids

  That’s what we’ll be

  EILEEN Shush!

  He’s only upstairs he’ll hear

  RAY Someone to point at

  to whisper

  Is that what he wants?

  EILEEN Shush!

  I asked them here not him

  It was my idea

  RAY I won’t be able to go out!

  EILEEN You don’t go out

  RAY Walk down the street

  Go to the post office buy cigarettes

  EILEEN You don’t smoke

  RAY I won’t be able to post a letter

  Potter in the garden

  Open the front door for a parcel

  EILEEN What parcel?

  RAY The whole world will think we’re idiots

  Sad old people who’ll believe anything

  They’ll think I’ve got early Alzheimer’s

  They’ll look at us and sigh

  I’ll have to suffer strangers’ pity

  EILEEN We’ll work out what we’re going to say

  Work it out

  It’ll be fine

  RAY Once they’ve got you on tape that’s it you know

  It’s not like the old days where they’d use it again

  Go over with something more important

  Every blink

  every nod

  every silence not filled they’ll grab it.

  cut and edit

  replay forever.

  EILEEN He’s got a son.

  RAY Who has?

  EILEEN Patrick

  RAY He’s not

  don’t keep calling him that!

  EILEEN He’s my grandson Ray

  I won’t let you stop me from seeing him

  RAY Seeing who?

  Who?

  He’s not

  If he’s got some kid it’s nothing to do with us

  EILEEN I want him here

  I want him to go to school in the village

  He’s only four / but he can start next term in the juniors

  RAY What?!

  This child?

  Is it here?

  EILEEN No and his name is Bailey

  Isn’t that a nice?

  He’s in America now with his mother

  But we’ll go to court / get him back

  RAY For Christ’s sake court?!

  What are you talking about?

  EILEEN Keep your voice down he’ll hear!

  RAY I don’t care!

  I go out for half an hour

  half an hour to check on the on the

  Beat.

 
Why didn’t we have another one, eh?

  It wasn’t too late was it?

  A girl maybe

  A little girl who was into dolls and dressing up

  I could have taken her to playgroup and when she got home we could have baked cakes

  And as she got older she’d have known how far to go with me

  how far to push

  cause me and her we would have understood each other

  fathers’ daughters that’s what they do

  Pause.

  Why did you turn away from me Eileen?

  EILEEN You know why

  RAY No, no it wasn’t that.

  You say that put the blame the

  but that came later

  You’d hung me out

  let me dry up

  years before that.

  Beat.

  I was a catch me, once

  EILEEN (Scoffs.)

  RAY No no hang on you said that.

  Used those very words yourself I remember

  EILEEN No

  RAY Yes.

  You said it to that friend of yours in the office what was her name?

  Dark rimmed glasses and flicked up hair

  Pause.

  EILEEN Violet

  RAY Yes, Violet.

  ‘I’ve got a good one me’ – that’s what you said

  ‘He’s lovely looking, good at his work and he wants…me’

  EILEEN I was a kid

  RAY You were twenty-nine.

  You said, ‘I’m lucky,’ that’s what you told her.

  Pause.

  You loved him more than me.

  EILEEN No I didn’t

  RAY After he was born I became invisible

  What did I do Eileen?

  Why did I disgust you?

  Pause.

  EILEEN Remember

  It was Patrick’s birthday

  I bought a cake

  A cake with yellow icing

  We had friends round.

  Maureen and Alasdair Clarke, Bill and

  Of course this was all before…before all that

  Patrick was waiting for me to take a photograph

  When all of a sudden, he put both his hands in the air and brought his fists down

  hard, on top of the surface of the cake.

  Of course the cake exploded there was sponge everywhere.

  He smeared some over his face

  Some went in his hair

  It was even in his eyes, clinging to his lashes.

  We hadn’t had a chance to cut it

  Let alone light the candles

  It was ruined.

  And he turned to me, Patrick and

  giggled

  waiting for me to laugh back I suppose, maybe take a photograph, record the

  moment.

  Him, with his cakey cream hands.

  But then you shouted.

  Broke in with your big man’s gruff

  and you grabbed him by his little wrists and dragged him to the sink

  You forced his hand under the cold tap, he was crying big sobs as he was straining to reach the water

  and you kept jerking his hand upwards til he was stretched out

  like a monkey hanging off a tree.

  Pause.

  You didn’t deserve another child

  And you still disgust me

  Silence.

  RAY He said he remembered that birthday, the American

  But the icing on the cake was blue not yellow

  EILEEN Maybe it was blue

  Maybe I got that wrong

  RAY No

  It was definitely yellow.

  Clay enters.

  CLAY I’ve been making notes

  Like you told me

  I’ve written quite a lot

  EILEEN Can I read it?

  Or if you want to…

  CLAY Out loud?

  EILEEN Yes why not

  Out loud is good

  Ray moves to go.

  You need to listen to this

  RAY It’ll only be bunch of lies, a work of fiction

  CLAY Is this how he’s going to be when they get here?

  EILEEN It’s important we go over this Ray

  RAY I’m going

  CLAY But if he’s

  Mom you said

  RAY What did you call her?

  CLAY Mom I called her Mom

  RAY Is this a joke?

  EILEEN If you go Ray

  You go for good.

  RAY considers this, realises she is serious and reluctantly sits.

  (To Clay.) Ok

  Go on please

  We’re ready

  Clay reads the following. He reads in a rather stilted self-conscious way, like a child.

  CLAY I believe that I am Patrick Moreton

  I believe that I was born on December the Eighth, 1979

  I was born in England and although I lived in the city at first I was raised in the country.

  I am my parents’ only child.

  In June of 1985 I went on vacation to Disney World, Orlando

  It was a dream vacation for me as I was looking forward to meeting Mickey Mouse and all his / friends

  RAY Mickey Mouse?

  EILEEN (Warningly.) Ray

  Pause.

  CLAY It was my first vacation abroad.

  There may have been other vacations in England but I don’t remember

  Is that…?

  EILEEN Keep going

  CLAY On the morning of June the Seventh, my mother, Eileen Moreton, went to the store

  I wanted to go with her but she wouldn’t let me

  RAY You going to let him say that?

  EILEEN Yes

  RAY Makes you look bad

  EILEEN No it doesn’t

  RAY Yes it does

  Makes it look like you abandoned him

  EILEEN I didn’t abandon him

  RAY But that’s what it looks like

  EILEEN (To Clay.) Did it feel like I abandoned you?

  CLAY Don’t think so

  RAY Well that’s what it sounded like

  EILEEN Plenty of mothers leave their kids behind when they go out

  Especially if they’re behaving badly

  I didn’t want a scene

  and I didn’t leave him on his own

  I left him with you remember

  RAY So we can agree that he was behaving badly

  EILEEN What?

  RAY Patrick, he was behaving badly?

  EILEEN Reasonably badly, on that particular day yes

  RAY Reasonably badly?

  EILEEN As badly as kids do when

  RAY What?

  EILEEN When they’re tired or

  RAY Tired?

  At eleven o’clock in the morning?

  EILEEN Yes.

  CLAY Shall I [continue]

  EILEEN Yes

  RAY Hang on

  Suppose, you’d taken him with you

  what would have happened?

  EILEEN Happened?

  RAY Yes

  If Patrick had gone with you, to the shop, what would have happened?

  EILEEN I don’t know

  I didn’t take him did I

  RAY But what would he have done if you had taken him?

  EILEEN Done?

  RAY Yes done

  What would he have done?

  EILEEN I don’t know what he would have done

  RAY I think you do

  I think you have an idea

  EILEEN No

  Look, I didn’t take him so I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I had taken him

  It’s all…hypothetical.

  RAY What was he like when you usually took him out?

  EILEEN Fine he was fine

  I didn’t tend to take him shopping you know that

  RAY And why was that?

  EILEEN Patrick didn’t like shopping

  (To Clay.) Did you

  Who does?

  You don’t.
>
  I don’t.

  (To Clay.) Go on please

  CLAY After my mother left

  I stayed with my father, Ray Moreton

  He was washing up at the sink

  I went to play outside

  RAY Where did you get that from?

  CLAY Pardon?

  RAY This detail this

  I was washing up

  Who told you that?

  Did you get it from the newspaper?

  CLAY No

  EILEEN Ray stop it.

  RAY Because it was in the paper

  That bit about me washing up

  I remember

  I’ve still got the clipping

  EILEEN Ignore him

  RAY I’m just saying

  none of this so far is very original is it?

  It’s all known it’s all

  EILEEN (Talking over Ray to Clay.) Thank you

  Pause.

  CLAY I went outside

  My father could see me from where he was standing at the sink

  I was playing a game

  I was enjoying playing the game

  RAY What was the game?

  CLAY What?

  EILEEN He won’t remember that

  RAY He ought to

  What was the game?

  CLAY I can’t remember

  RAY Thought not

  EILEEN Ray!

  CLAY But I’m sure if

  EILEEN You don’t have to remember everything

  Don’t feel you have to

  RAY I think he has to

  EILEEN Why?

  It’s a game!

  A game he played when he was five

  How is that important?

  What’s important is

  RAY I think it is important

  I think we should be interested in the details

  EILEEN Minor details

  RAY Yes ok minor details but it all counts

  All adds up to

  CLAY Tag

  I played tag

  RAY Tag what’s tag what’s

  CLAY You know, where you chase someone and then tap them on the shoulder and

  EILEEN You mean catch?

  CLAY Catch no

  Catch has a ball this is

  you run and whoever gets back to base first – kind of like hide and seek

  EILEEN You mean tick.

  I think you mean tick

  CLAY Someone stands at a base like a base could be a / tree

  EILEEN I think that’s tick

  You played tick

  See you remembered.

  He did remember the game

  RAY That’s not a game for one

  EILEEN What?

  RAY That game, whatever its name, it requires two or more to play it

  EILEEN Oh

  (To Clay.) sorry, maybe I confused you

  CLAY No

  I’m not confused

  We’re talking about the same game

  Tag or tick whatever

  that was the game I played

  RAY But it can’t have been you idiot

  EILEEN Don’t call him an idiot!

  RAY But you can’t play that game on your own that’s

  CLAY I wasn’t on my own

  Beat.

  EILEEN You weren’t alone?