by Ella Hickson
KATE. All the other ones, I’m watching – I’m always watching, I’m never /
ALBIN. / Observer memories – necessarily inaccurate because you wouldn’t have been watching yourself at the time.
KATE. All the ones from later – from – anywhere after about – eight or nine – I’m outside, I’m watching.
ALBIN. Usually the more recent memories are more sensory – and the earlier ones are observed – it’s unusual for it to be the other way around.
KATE. I want to be back on that bed and naked because that – that memory is so different because it’s just, it’s just the heat of my skin and the cool of the sheets and the sound of the fan and there’s nothing else – there’s no – there’s no noise in my head. (Finding it hard.) There’s no fucking – questioning and worrying and fucking – standing outside and – and – commentating. I can’t remember when that started but it isn’t in that memory of the bed and I want to go back – so badly – because all the time, in all the others and worse and worse as I’ve got older – you pull out of everything – you’re always – it’s a wide-shot, it’s a – do you know what I’m saying? It’s never a close-up any more – I’m never in my eyes – I’m thinking instead, writing this second story – jotting it all down, there’s no temperature or skin or sound – I remember – the – you know our first kiss; I can’t remember how it feels, I just remember thinking – the sound of the thought of ‘I wonder if I’m enjoying this – does this feel sparky, can I feel sparks here?’ – that’s what I fucking remember – not the feel, the touch – the – and sex – I’m seeing wallpaper, I’m thinking ceiling fans – not feeling –
ALBIN. Great, good to know – I’m so glad.
KATE. It’s not you – it’s not you, it’s my fucking head; and sex – you then – sex – is the one time – still – most times – I’m back on that bed, there’s silence and just – it shuts up a second – and I – when you’re around I’m on holiday, for a minute.
Pause.
But all the rest of the time… I hate it. I want it to go away. I want to relax.
ALBIN. I don’t like it much either.
KATE sees the diaries on the floor, pages of writing lying around – she starts kicking them.
KATE. Fucking diaries, fucking jotting it down – fucking nine years old I started this shit – thought it was smart or poetic or something, I wish someone had come and ripped the fucking pen out my hand and said go outside and run around, you self-interested pretentious little fucking idiot. /
ALBIN. / You were nine, Kate.
KATE. / You have no idea what you’re doing to yourself – what you are setting up here – you fucking idiot. Put the fucking pen down! Why? Why did you start – why?
KATE picks up a diary and throws it at the projection image.
Pause.
ALBIN. Um –
KATE. I know. There’s a hole, isn’t there?
ALBIN Give it up.
KATE. Writing?
ALBIN. I don’t want to spend my life with someone that’s always watching.
Pause.
They look at one another.
KATE shakes her head.
I’m sorry –
KATE. I know.
ALBIN. I’m sorry – I’m really sorry – I’m sorry – I can’t.
KATE. I know.
ALBIN nods silently – yes – sorry – yes – biting it back – but yes, I’m sorry.
KATE takes a step towards ALBIN.
ALBIN. You think it’s a right – this special thing – that everyone should fucking respect – but what if it’s not important? What if it’s – actually just ego – just self-centred and destructive /
KATE. / I – it feels like I need to – if I don’t I’ll – get lost; really lost. On paper – there are – reasons for people being how they are – causes – there are good guys and bad guys and bad guys can learn and fix themselves – and –
ALBIN. But it doesn’t have to be painful.
KATE. But it does have to be true.
ALBIN. They aren’t the same thing.
Pause.
KATE looks at ALBIN.
What? You want to be Jayde – you think ‘real gold’ has to be trauma – and pain – and fuck everything that gets destroyed in the process? Hm? Bullshit. Bullshit does it. You’re fine – you’re a comfortable nice middle-class girl whose parents happened to divorce – well, big fucking deal, babe; it happens. And most people just get the fuck over it. They don’t go rooting around trying to find the pain in every good fucking thing. You’re fine – so grow up and stop spoiling everything – stop being so fucking self-indulgent!
Beat.
KATE. I started remembering in a house where… when I feel loss and anger and hurt – it feels like the proper feeling, it feels like the base note – the only real one actually and all the others are just pretenders – and all that smiling and joy and contentment are just fucking impostors and I know that sounds ungrateful and spoilt and indulgent but those other feelings can fuck right off because it’s the pain that makes you feel most alive – and that might be because I started my being alive in a house that was filled with pain or it might just be that pain and hurt and anger actually are the real thing, the proper ones – the base notes – the closest we ever really get to whatever it actually is to be alive. It’s chicken-and-egg maybe. But either way it feels like hard-wiring.
But since I met you – I’ve tried harder than I’ve ever fucking tried – to believe bunnies and happy endings to pull myself together and just get on with it – but, but you do have to believe in it, you have to have faith in a thing, Al – it’s not just strapping a pair on and putting one foot in front of the other – and I – I – I’d like to tell you – I’d like to make it clear to you that believing – for me – believing things are going to turn out okay – I mean for ever – I mean, to look at the rest of it all and to see some kind of happy ending – I’d like you to know – to be clear that that takes an almost impossible – I mean – it feels like every single fucking cell is sweating with the effort of looking at the horizon and trying to see sun and my fists are tight and I’m trying as hard as I’ve ever fucking tried for anything to see the blue sky and the two-point-four and the happy-ever-after and I’m squeezing the will, aching to generate because I want to – because I want to believe so fucking badly – it’s really all I want – that’s the thing – it’s all I want – really – I just – I just – there’s this little Nazi inside of me that doesn’t care about anything but the wanting of that place – the wanting of that place where it’s safe and warm and there’s the sun out and the mama and the papa and the little babby and they all love each other – and that little Nazi in there – it has big dreams and the dreams make it feel nice – and it wants its world to be safe and if that means that people have to die – if it means they are cold because me and my three are warm then I don’t mind – my little Nazi doesn’t mind as long as we three are safe and warm. And so you do believe it – you believe in it for a second – you see it like you’re small and naked on a bed – you see it like you’re in it and there’s no noise – and then – and then – (Beat.) and then you’re afraid – (Beat.) you remember something else and you’re afraid because it feels like if you do believe it – then something bad is going to happen – just come up and smack you in the face for being a fucking idiot and not keeping your eyes out for the bad thing – it’ll smack you just for being stupid enough to not expect it to jump up and smack you.
ALBIN. Shh. Stop – shh.
KATE is gasping a bit – panicking.
Shh.
ALBIN takes the duvet off the bed and lays it on the floor – KATE watches.
ALBIN makes KATE sit on the duvet.
ALBIN sits behind her and rocks her – like a little boat.
I think it’s just your brain, I think it’s – okay.
KATE. What?
ALBIN. If you give a human half a loaf of bread – they’
re happy. If you give the same human a whole loaf and take half away – they’re distressed; we’re designed to feel the loss more acutely. It’s loss aversion – it’s evolution, it’s economics – we’re engineered not to let things be taken from us. Your body tries to make you learn the lesson by replaying the loss over and over again – in your head – if you think through all the possible bad outcomes – if you go and find the pain first – then you’ll be prepared. If you can hurt yourself before anyone else can, it won’t be so bad if it happens, you’ll be ready.
KATE. Yeah.
ALBIN. It’s just science. You’re not crazy – it’s not weak – it’s nature.
KATE. How do I change it?
ALBIN. A brain scan wouldn’t be able to solve the flamingos.
KATE. Flamingos?
ALBIN. I was thinking – your mum remembers the notebook – your dad remembers no notebook – the brain scans of the recall of those two memory engrams would both show ‘true’.
KATE. But they can’t both be right.
ALBIN. Our brains can’t tell the difference between something that is actually true and something we believe to be true.
KATE. So?
ALBIN. There are some things that happened to you that you never remember again – you just lose them – completely – and the sad thing is that those things we lose are probably the good bits – the humdrum frequent happy bits – the body doesn’t remember them because it doesn’t need them for anything. You can’t remember what you had for breakfast yesterday because you have breakfast every day and it’s pretty enjoyable and easy to do. You’ve just got to re-remember. Get out all the good bits – go back, remember all the good stuff – join all those dots – make that story instead. Stop replaying the bad – stop being afraid that anyone is going to go away. You don’t need to protect yourself.
KATE. Don’t I?
ALBIN. If we go wrong, it is going to hurt like fuck – and thinking it through first, trying to defend yourself beforehand – isn’t going to make the blindest bit of fucking difference – so you might as well not bother.
KATE looks back at ALBIN.
ALBIN nods down at KATE.
Beat.
Relax. Stop being afraid. Go back to being that little naked kid on the bed – and just don’t let the fear in – be brave and relax. Tell your brain not to be afraid.
Silence – several seconds whilst the idea of it sits in KATE.
KATE. I’m very tired.
ALBIN. Me too.
KATE. Will you help me? I can’t keep keeping the thingy in the cross hairs, keeping the – focusing on the – trying to –
ALBIN. Yes – I’ll help you.
KATE. We’ll lie down and close our eyes –
ALBIN. Yeah.
KATE. And we’ll lie back and we’ll just see – just see the dreams real and we’ll build the pictures of it all and if we believe it then we can see it – and if we see it – together – with the living together and the baking and the cleaning and the shopping and the kids and the laughing and the getting old – if we can see it – if we can do that then we’ll be okay – and all the worries, all the bad thoughts – we’ll just blow them out – think them up and blow them out like whales – okay? Okay? Out our blowholes?
Both now lying on their backs like starfish . They both take in huge breaths and blow them out like whales – over and over again – big deep breaths in and then they blow them out like whales, blow them away.
Science is very good.
ALBIN. The best.
KATE climbs into ALBIN’s arms and they curl around each other – they keep blowing.
KATE. I’d like to marry you if that’s okay? If you’d – it looks rather nice.
ALBIN. Yes, please. That sounds lovely.
They keep blowing a little.
Can you turn ‘naked you’ off so we can sleep?
KATE. What?
ALBIN. The projector.
KATE. Oh – yes.
KATE carefully unhooks herself from ALBIN.
KATE looks up at her little naked self once more – sort of says goodbye.
KATE goes to turn the projector off – she presses the wrong button and it clicks forward onto a new image – it’s a holiday – no sound – eighties people moving around and talking, a dinner being had on a balcony – there’s no one KATE recognises. Suddenly she stops the video – keeps it still – she’s spotted something. In one corner – in the back of the picture – KATE walks towards the image – IKE and NESSA much younger, are holding hands and laughing – really laughing.
KATE puts her hand over the image of their hands.
KATE turns the projector off.
LONDON
KATE turns the printer on.
KELSO
KATE tucks herself back underneath ALBIN.
KATE turns the light off – they sleep.
LONDON
The play prints.
KATE lays down on the duvet – exhausted.
KATE sleeps.
Nine
LONDON
KATE sleeps on the duvet – alone.
ALBIN enters – sees KATE sleeping.
ALBIN goes to the printer and takes the script – he starts to read the play.
The sun rises – it fills the office with light.
ALBIN reads – time passes.
ALBIN sits, dressed in smart clothes, reading the printed script.
ALBIN finishes the script.
KATE rouses – confused.
KATE. Oh.
ALBIN puts down the script.
Pause.
ALBIN. The science isn’t bad. Not perfect but /
KATE. / Thanks.
Beat.
ALBIN stands and starts to tidy the room.
Do you mind?
ALBIN. You killed my parents.
KATE. It was just tidier – narrative-wise.
ALBIN. I’ll let them know.
KATE. Al – I /
ALBIN. / Your parents, however, about to arrive – just rang, two minutes away – personally I can’t wait, really excited – sounds like I’m going to have a ball. Can’t wait to meet your mum, bet she can’t wait to meet me.
KATE. I’m sorry, I can change anything – I can /
ALBIN. / I haven’t asked you to marry me.
Beat.
KATE. / I know.
ALBIN. I wasn’t planning on – not any time soon, I –
KATE. I know.
ALBIN. This today – with your parents coming, you’re not going to –
KATE. No – no – it’s just – it was just –
ALBIN. Tidier?
KATE. Sort of.
ALBIN. Weird that it’s in there before I’ve even…
KATE. I’m sorry.
The front-door buzzer goes.
They haven’t been in the same room for twenty years, Al. It might be a bit –
ALBIN. You’re still in your pyjamas.
KATE starts desperately getting changed.
KATE. I’ll be ready. I’ll sort everything – I just had to – It’s done though, it’s done.
Beat.
ALBIN. I’m pretty funny – I think I’m quite funny in there.
KATE. You’re quite funny in real life.
ALBIN. Really?
KATE. Yeah.
ALBIN (chuffed). Hm.
The door buzzer goes again.
ALBIN goes to the door.
I’d never ask you to – you take what you get, all in.
KATE. I love you.
ALBIN nods and exits to answer the door.
KATE stands and looks at the printed version of the play – holds it to her, it’s done.
KATE places the play in a bottom drawer and shuts it – it’s done.
KATE dresses quickly – smoothes down her hair.
ALBIN and IKE enter.
IKE. Kate.
