The Violent Outburst that drew me to you
Page 4
Beat.
But then. Then, when we’ve had enough of all that—all this being-crazy … being-crazy-in-a-forest. Then it’s time to go home.
Isn’t it? Then it’s time to go back home, back to the ones who love you. Who love us! We’re so loveable! So fucking …
And that’s it. That’s your phase. Done. That was you being angry—but that’s okay. ’Cause there was never really anything to … to be angry about. You see it now. Just had to … to let off steam, that’s all.
CONNOR: You don’t know anything about me/
LOTTE: /No! And that feels excellent, Connor. That feels really great. I don’t wanna know anything about you. ’Cause … ’Cause everyone I know too much about, they tend to turn out a bit shit. Like now, you’re knowing a bit too much about me, aren’t you, and you’re seeing that I’m a bit shit! A bit self-important, a bit shouty, yeah?
And why’s that? Is it the divorce? Is it the mum’s affair she had? Is it the … the guy who broke up with this girl for no reason? Or her new school maybe—is it that? Some schoolyard thing? Bullying, maybe—bullying’s bad, isn’t it?
Or the … the fucked grades all suddenly piling up—and making you stress out. Making you stress so much your … your fucking hair starts coming out in clumps! That’s a bit shit, isn’t it? For a teenage girl. Is it that?
Or is it … is it just chemical? Yeah. It’s not circumstantial at all, it’s just ‘being a teenager’. That’s what it is, Connor—it’s biology. It’s fucking Biology 101 and … and that’s what’s turning me into a space cadet.
That’s not fun to be around, is it? A chick like that. Mouthing on. Where’s the kissing girl? Where’s the … smashing-shit-up-girl from before? She was fun. Let’s get her back.
CONNOR: Chill out, oka/?
LOTTE: /Or let’s not. [Crying] Let’s let her go, Connor. Yeah? Let’s let her go off. Into a forest. By herself. Or with some fake-angry guy, it doesn’t matter. Just let her … let her walk off. And let that … That’ll be the end of it. Yeah.
A long silence.
CONNOR: People’d miss you/
LOTTE: /Mmm.
Beat.
CONNOR: I would.
LOTTE: You don’t even know me.
CONNOR: Yeah. Well … that’s what I’d miss. Getting to know you.
She stares off. Beat.
Nothing I say makes any difference, hey?
LOTTE: Mmm.
Beat. He makes a decision and advances.
CONNOR: Alright, then.
LOTTE: What?
CONNOR: Let’s do it. Let’s keep going. You—and the fake-angry guy.
Let’s get more lost. Properly. Too lost to be found.
He waits for her. She joins him. They walk further.
SCENE FOURTEEN
Night-time. Both lie in a deeper part of the forest, sedate, maybe post-coital. Silence.
CONNOR: I don’t even know your name.
Pause. She searches her pockets, finds a pen, and writes on his hand.
Lotte Han … Hanlon. Nice to meet you, Lotte Hanlon.
LOTTE: Nice to meet you, Connor …
CONNOR: Nicholls.
LOTTE: Nice to meet you, Connor Nicholls.
She writes again.
CONNOR: What is it?/ Oh. Now I’ve got your number.
LOTTE: A number—might not be mine.
It works when I’m in civilisation.
CONNOR: Thanks. I’ll never wash my hand again.
LOTTE: You’re a sixteen-year-old boy, Connor. I know what sixteen-year-old boys do with their hands. So I urge you to wash them regularly and well.
CONNOR: [laughing] Pretty much everything you say impresses me.
LOTTE: Cool. Well, ring me one day and I’ll say some more stuff.
Silence.
Do you know what happens next? If we get found? If we leave the forest?
CONNOR: Sure. Um …
Pause. He settles into it.
We don’t get found.
LOTTE: Oh.
CONNOR: Yeah. But later tonight we stumble round some more and … we end up … standing right back at your camp, in the moonlight.
LOTTE: Wow.
CONNOR: I know. And then tomorrow you and your family have to go, and so we look at each other and I say, ‘Goodbye’. And you say …
LOTTE: … ‘Goodbye’.
CONNOR: Yup. And I watch you walk away.
Beat.
But.
LOTTE: But.
CONNOR: But—we make a plan, for later on, for a couple of weeks later, when our lives are back to normal, and no-one would suspect anything. And the plan starts …
It starts with you stealing your principal’s car again.
LOTTE: Cool.
CONNOR: Yeah. And you fill the tank—and then you come and pick me up.
It’s night, and I stand there waiting, under a thin awning, with the rain falling lightly. A stray dog comes and he sniffs at my heels. He isn’t scared of me, though, and that pleases me more than I expect.
Eventually the car pulls up and when I jump in the passenger seat you have a coffee held out already and the smell of it warms me even before I put it to my lips. As we drive out of my street you tell me a joke you just heard at the petrol station and I laugh a little bit, but really I’m staring out the back window watching the dog as it sits there in the rain. It doesn’t go under the shelter and it doesn’t run off either. It just stands there and waits for morning, maybe. I don’t know.
We drive all through the night and you never let me share the load. You say I just have to tell jokes and find radio stations and point out things we’ll tell our kids about in years to come, when we’re describing this drive and what it meant. ‘What does it mean?’ I ask you, and you laugh. ‘That’s a good joke’, you say. ‘More like that.’
There’s this one moment, maybe about four in the morning, when we drive right along the edge of a really high road and all the land below us looks purple and the cows sleep below us in the fields, even though I can’t see them. And I imagine everyone asleep then, that I can’t see, and us awake, and I say a little prayer for all of them (not a God prayer but a prayer prayer)—for every one of them with their knees up to their chest or a girl by their side or wrapped tight in their sheets or dreaming of being children again.
At sunrise we stop at a car yard and share sandwiches that I made, because I’m not a boy at all and do things like that. We kiss on the bonnet of a crumpled-up car, but then you wipe your mouth straight after, and I don’t know if you have crumbs or if the kiss tasted wrong. And I don’t ask either.
You say you’d like to learn to smoke right now, in a moment like this one, and I understand completely, because the sun is cold and it’s so so quiet and the smoke would have done nice things in the sky.
After a bit, an old guy with an umbrella walks past us staring and we pocket our cling wrap, and get back in the car, and this time I’m doing the driving and you sleep on my shoulder. And I think this is maybe the happiest I’ve ever been, before or since—and if we just kept driving like this for the rest of my life I would have gone to heaven, no questions asked. And they would’ve recognised me there.
But as it is, you wake up an hour or so later and we stop at a town someway after that, and ditch the car, and get jobs and have kids and buy a dog, and live a long and happy life.
And now, I still think I’ll go to heaven. But I don’t know if they’ll recognise me anymore, or if … if I just ended up looking like every other human.
They lie in silence.
LOTTE: Is that true?
CONNOR: Every word.
LOTTE: Good.
Beat. She moves in, spooning him.
CONNOR: Isn’t it meant to be the other way?
She shuts her eyes. He studies her, acknowledges this, and settles in, sleeping also.
SCENE FIFTEEN
LOTTE wakes and slowly extricates herself from the cuddle. She quietly does up her laces and rise
s. CONNOR stirs.
CONNOR: Where you going?
LOTTE: That way.
I need to piss.
CONNOR: Mmm.
He returns to sleep. LOTTE watches him. Silence. She exits.
Her footsteps are heard for a long time, growing ever fainter.
Finally there is silence.
THE END
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