STEPH: It wasn’t… He stuck it in and went at me like mad but I wasn’t feeling much. It was small like. It was uncomfortable I suppose, but it wasn’t…it was just grand.
ROXANNA: Well don’t let him and his tiny mickey put you off! Go after your man Trevor now. They’re all mad for it I bet.
STEPH: Not sure like. Your man Alan made a bit of a hoo ha when we were leavin’ the pub. High fivin’ the lads an’ all, saying that he was taking me home to doggy the hole off me.
ROXANNA: Urgh. Pig. And did he?
STEPH: No he didn’t. Just wanted to kiss and cuddle mostly.
ROXANNA: Fuckin’ eejit!
STEPH: I can still taste his breath; all beer and smokes.
ROXANNA: Still – one down.
STEPH: Totally.
ROXANNA: (Calling.) Aaron…Jason… Fuck off home. It’s freezing out.
Pause.
I said, go home.
STEPH: Should we have got them the chips?
ROXANNA: Size o’ them.
STEPH: Ah, they’re gorgeous but.
ROXANNA: Money went on Breezer’s inanyway.
STEPH: We walk over?
ROXANNA: Do I look like their bleedin’ mother?
Pause.
STEPH: This over Fitzy then?
ROXANNA: Fuck Fitzy. Fuck Paula. Fuck fuckin’ everyone. They can all fuck off. Tryin’ to run me bleedin’ life.
STEPH: Masters, or rather mistresses of our own destiny is what Breslin says.
ROXANNA: Fuck Breslin. Fuckin’ ride him already and give us all a bit of peace.
STEPH: Your man Alan didn’t text me or anything. I don’t want him to, but he said he would.
ROXANNA: He sounds like a dope. If he texts, text back and ask him if he knows where to get the mornin’ after pill. Make him sweat.
Pause.
STEPH: He has a girlfriend.
ROXANNA: So?
STEPH: Yeah, I suppose.
ROXANNA: You’re hardly lookin’ to marry him.
STEPH: Bury him more like – Yoke.
Pause.
ROXANNA: Fitzy’s brother had a one year old, did you know that?
STEPH: –
ROXANNA: A little baby girl. One year old. And he was able to bail out on her. Just like that.
Pause.
Thing is; she’ll always have that now – that little baby. Her whole life she’ll carry that with her.
SCENE EIGHT
PAULA rummages for some clean clothes. She holds dirty T-shirts in her hand. DAN stands awkwardly.
DAN: Can I do anything?
PAULA ignores him. She darts into another room. We hear her talking to the boys.
PAULA: Put that on ya. Now. (Pause.) Well you’s shouldn’t have walked home on your own. (Pause.) Well you should’ve told her no. Anything could’ve happened to yiz. Yiz have me up the walls.
PAULA re-enters. She stops to take a breath. She might cry.
DAN: They’re home now…
Pause.
PAULA: What?
DAN: It’s okay.
DAN holds PAULA into him like he might kiss her if she let him. It only lasts a second before she pulls away.
PAULA: I could murder Roxanna; leaving them roam the streets on their own.
DAN: There’s a good reason I bet.
Pause.
I’ll touch on. I’m in the way.
PAULA: Yeah.
DAN moves to exit.
Or hang on. I dunno. (Frustrated.) Fuckin’ hell…
DAN considers and sits down maybe.
DAN: Go easy on yourself. They’re home.
PAULA: There’s days when I won’t even let them outside you know. Days when I hold them up in here…the three of us…it’s cruel in its own way…but it’s the only way to know they’re safe sometimes.
DAN: That’s no way to live either.
PAULA: Sometimes it is. There’s no rules.
DAN: You must miss your fella?
PAULA: The owner of the coat?
DAN: The extra set of hands.
PAULA: He wasn’t any use to us.
DAN: Times like this.
PAULA: He wouldn’t work or do anything. In the end he said he was depressed, but I think he picked that up off the telly. We’re all something…but we get on with it.
DAN: The father of your kids…that has to count for something.
PAULA: He wasn’t a father. He was half a man.
DAN: Still…
PAULA: Remembered for Christmases and birthdays for all the wrong reasons…
I’d me tree set up this one Christmas, and I’d got all these handmade decorations at the market. Your wan must have stroked them out of Arnott’s, they were that nice…all snow globes and angels. None of that stringy glittery shite anywhere.
The boys helped me dress it.
Aaron would have been four or five and Jason…sure he was still in nappies…
And I remember askin’ Git if he wanted to help…get into the Christmas spirit, or whatever.
‘Fuck off and leave me alone,’ he says, ‘Do I look like Santa’s little helper?’
He thought he was funny…fuckin’ eejit.
He was a bit of a smoker, Git. He never touched any other drugs, but he was a fucker for the hash. Never in front of the kids…I’d’a had his life…but he was a smoker, yeah.
Christmas Eve, I’d managed to get the kids down early. They’d had their bath and they looked gorgeous in their matching pyjama’s that (Points at the door) Antoinette got them – she was next door at the time – and I remember looking at them asleep and thinking, ‘That’s me. That there is what I’ve achieved.’
I wrapped all the presents.
About eleven I’d everything done.
git was stoned on the couch.
I opened a can for meself. I never drink beer. Only at Christmas. I love the first sip…that’s when you know all the madness is over and you can start to enjoy it then.
I’d only had one can, and I hadn’t even heard the door go.
They were just standin’ in the sitting room. In no hurry and certainly not afraid.
Only three of them…and just young fellas…eighteen, if even.
I started to shake Git, but he was in ‘Lala’ land.
One of the young fellas put his finger to his lips and made a fist with his other hand.
The other two started gathering up the presents.
‘Git,’ I says, ‘wake up, ye fuckin’ eejit.’
The young lads just laughed… It was too easy for them.
‘Your tree is gorgeous missus,’ one of them says, lifting it from its stand. But it gets caught at the plug and he’s stuck as to what to do, so he yanks it.
His mates are at the door then, arms full of presents, ‘leave the tree ya fuckin’ queer,’ but he’s got it in his head now. He keeps yankin’ the bleedin thing and me good decorations are getting tossed all over the shop.
So I picked up an unopened can and hopped it off his head.
Only for his mates broke their holes laughing he’d have probably punched me…and they just danced out the door with all the things meant for my little ones.
Pause.
So do I miss him…me ex-fella…the father of me kids…the half a man…no…I don’t.
Pause.
DAN: Were you married?
PAULA: Are you mad?
DAN: Small mercies.
PAULA: When he was locked or stoned he’d start mouthing off – new start, this and that – make somethin’ of ourselves, this an’ that. But sure, he’d have it all forgot by mornin’. He had a knack of meaning nothing of what he said.
Pause.
I suppose he did us a favour by walkin’.
DAN: You didn’t…?
PAULA: The first sign of trouble and he was out the door. Very fond o’ sayin’ he had options – and right enough, he did in the end.
DAN: Well he’s missing out. I’d love to be a Da. (Pause.) Sure the day is young yet�
�
PAULA: You don’t have anyone…?
DAN: To make pregnant? I don’t. Not at the moment.
PAULA: Well if you’re not married, what’s wrong with ya?
DAN: I bottled it.
PAULA: What?
DAN: I didn’t rock up at the church.
PAULA: Stop!
DAN: It’s true. School mates, friends, work people…they were all there, hats at the ready…my family, her family… But I just couldn’t…I had this knot in my stomach that was just saying, No.
PAULA: Did you not have, like, years to think it through?
DAN: I know. I did. She was a lovely girl, but she didn’t make me feel anything but ordinary, you know? I’m not looking for fireworks every time I look at someone, but I do want to feel…something. I want to be excited.
PAULA raises an eyebrow.
Not in that way! Well actually, yes, in that way too…but in loads of ways…
PAULA: But waiting ’til the day? I mean…
DAN: I’m not proud of it. But an hour later and we’d have spent our lives miserable or trying to get out of it.
PAULA: What did she say?
DAN: Thanks.
PAULA: Shut up!
DAN: She sent me an email. She hasn’t spoken to me since – but she actually said thanks and went on to list the reasons why we shouldn’t be together – and she was petty enough at times but she spoke loads of sense too – like she was more straight talking and sensible in those few lines than she had been in eight years of going out, so I was like – good for you – and at the end of the mail she wrote in CAPS the main reason she was glad we didn’t get married…
PAULA: Yeah?
DAN: Because she didn’t love me.
PAULA: Fuck.
DAN: And I was like – snap – and good – because it means that we did the right thing. And it made me wonder then why I asked her and why she said yes – but then we do that kind of thing all the time because it’s easier, isn’t it – than being on your own?
PAULA: I don’t know.
DAN: Am I talkin’ too much?
PAULA: No.
Pause.
DAN: I bumped into her sister in a club last time I was home and she took great drunken pleasure in telling me that Elaine was engaged again. And even though I didn’t love her – that was still a kick in the balls.
A light goes on in the hallway. PAULA’s ears prick up.
PAULA: I’ll only be a second.
PAULA leaves. Offstage we hear her talking to the kids.
I know you’re asleep baby. I’m just wiping your face ’cos you’re piggy…now, close your eyes if you’re asleep.
Pause.
I’m puttin’ you into my bed with me, okay sleepy? In with me tonight.
Pause.
I know she did… She is bold, I know. I’ll get you the chips tomorrow. Close your eyes now okay, and I’ll be into yiz in a little minute. (She laughs.) Close them!
PAULA enters the kitchen. The gentle tumble of the washing machine is heard. Noises from the street. A siren. They look at each other. They really look at each other. DAN moves to PAULA. He kisses her.
SCENE NINE
ROXANNA enters. She’s drunk. She switches on the kitchen light to reveal PAULA waiting at the kitchen table.
ROXANNA: What?
PAULA slaps ROXANNA across the face.
ROXANNA: They ran off on me Paula.
Throughout the next exchange PAULA has the red mist around her. When she is physical with ROXANNA it should look uncomfortable for the audience and really painful for ROXANNA. PAULA grabs ROXANNA by the hair.
PAULA: I will have your tiny fuckin’ life before I let you do anything to those kids, do you hear me? Let me guarantee you that, I will cut your throat the minute my boys are scratched as a result of you.
PAULA has ROXANNA by the hair, her other hand is over her throat or face.
ROXANNA: (Crying.) You’re hurtin’ me Paula. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…I am.
PAULA: My kids could have been dead.
ROXANNA: I’m sorry.
PAULA: Do you even hear that? They could have been dead because of you. Your flesh and blood. You’re horrible. I can’t even look at you. You have me heart torn out.
PAULA releases her grip on ROXANNA who is crying.
ROXANNA: There’s just stuff going on is all Paula; with Fitzy.
PAULA: I don’t want to hear your excuses.
ROXANNA: His brother hung himself.
Pause.
PAULA: I wouldn’t even know whether to believe you. The lies fall out of your mouth.
ROXANNA: Fitzy’s brother hung himself Paula. He’s dead.
PAULA: Well that’s a crying shame. That’s heartbreakin’, but it’s no excuse.
ROXANNA: He won’t see me.
PAULA: Grow up Roxanna.
ROXANNA: I’m serious Paula.
PAULA: I warned you about him, and I told ya not to come crying to me over the scumbag.
ROXANNA: He’s not replyin’ to me messages and his auld fella says I’ve not to go near the house.
PAULA: If the brother is dead, then that’s the why. Have some cop on.
ROXANNA: He promised he’d be there for me Paula. No matter what.
PAULA: That’s fellas!
ROXANNA cries.
ROXANNA: Not Fitzy.
PAULA: What about him saying he’d take you to Leeds?
ROXANNA: He couldn’t go Paula. He couldn’t face it.
PAULA: But he let you face it on your own? What kind of a man is that?
ROXANNA: He couldn’t face it ’cos he didn’t want me to do it.
PAULA: Well that’s very fuckin’ easy for him to say. Did it occur to him to think about that when yiz were lyin’ down?
ROXANNA: He wanted the baby Paula. He said that when I told him I was, he started having dreams about it; about a little baby and about me…the three of us…and a house of our own…a family like.
PAULA: You’re sixteen, you thick bitch. You can barely look after yourself.
ROXANNA: He needs it Paula. It’s the only thing keepin’ him goin’.
PAULA: What d’you mean, he needs it? Needs what?
Pause. ROXANNA is quiet.
PAULA: No Roxanna.
ROXANNA: Sorry.
PAULA: Love – no. No.
ROXANNA: I couldn’t do it. Not on Fitzy. He wanted it so badly. He said it would help him get out of his gaf and the whole lot. He’s miserable Paula. He’s so sad.
PAULA grabs ROXANNA tightly.
I’m sorry. It’s still in me.
SCENE TEN
DAN and PAULA arrive home after a daytime date. They look fresh having stepped in out of the cold. DAN catches up with PAULA. He kisses her. She kisses him back, slightly uncomfortable.
DAN: We should head further afield next time.
PAULA: Sure Dolly-er is on the doorstep nearly. Any further and the day’d be gone.
DAN: I mean like a weekend somewhere – something short – my old dear has a cottage in Sligo that she’s always trying to get me down to. There’s a door needs fixing…
PAULA: Sligo?
DAN: Well it’s not Paris, but it’s a fine house – just needs a bit of TLC. It has a little pathway down to the beach and fuck all else for miles. No traffic, no noise – no interruptions. Just nothing.
PAULA: Would you not go mad?
DAN: With the quiet? No. Everything just slows down. It’s brilliant.
PAULA: You’d only be there and it’d be time to come home. What would be the point?
DAN: A few hours up the motorway is all.
PAULA: It sounds lovely an’ all – but sure, I haven’t been anywhere. Not in ages.
DAN: So?
PAULA: It’s not that easy.
DAN: It’s a weekend in the sticks.
PAULA: Still.
DAN: I’m not asking you to emigrate.
PAULA: I have to collect the kids.
DAN: I’ll
get them. I said I would.
PAULA: Right. Thanks.
DAN makes to leave.
DAN: I’d just like to take you somewhere. That’s all.
PAULA: And I have responsibilities. I know that’s boring but – that’s the way it is.
DAN: We’ll take the kids with us. Whatever you want.
PAULA: It’s not about the kids. Roxanna needs people around her right now.
DAN: You can’t watch over her twenty-four-seven.
PAULA: She needs me. End of story.
DAN: She has you wrapped around her little finger.
PAULA: She’s a fuckin’ teenager – she’s pregnant…
The hall door slams.
PAULA: Rox?
DAN: Roll out the cotton wool…
ANTOINETTE enters.
PAULA: What do you want?
ANTOINETTE: Lovely!
DAN: I’ll go so.
ANTOINETTE: The accent on ’im. See you love.
DAN: Paula?
PAULA: What?
DAN: I’m going.
ANTOINETTE: I think she heard ya love. It’s only the three of us here.
DAN: Yeah. See you.
DAN exits.
ANTOINETTE: I love it when they’re moody.
PAULA: What?
ANTOINETTE: What? I got you credit.
PAULA: You don’t get your scratch ’til tomorrow?
ANTOINETTE: Found fifty outside Dunnes didn’t I? Says I better get rid, before it burnt a hole in me pocket.
PAULA: Dunnes? I thought we were going tomorrow?
ANTOINETTE: I got the chance of a lift off…bleedin’…Adeola. And sure you were off gally-vantin’.
PAULA: Off who?
ANTOINETTE: Your wan. Me neighbour. She’s downstairs waitin’ on me. You wanna see the kids in the back o’ the car; four black ones and Stacey…it’s like one of those parralolly unilolly (She means parallel universe.) yokes… says I to Adeola, (Speaks as if ADEOLA is deaf.) – space time continuum. – Says she to me – I’ve no idea what your talkin’ about – I says – I’m not far behind you love. – ah yeah…she’s sound as a pound.
PAULA is a little taken aback.
PAULA: Well, that’s good. That’s great isn’t it.
ANTOINETTE: He got his taxi’s worth in the end what?
PAULA: What?
ANTOINETTE: Your man, Dan. Oh that rhymed – I’m at that all day. Me nerves.
Pause.
Dots called over last night.
PAULA: Right?
The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Irish Plays Page 11
