Leaves

by Lucy Caldwell

  But David does not move, and he does not look up.

  Phyllis turns and leaves abruptly.

  SCENE FIVE

  The following day.

  Clover and Poppy have just come in from school. They are breathless and excited and buzzing with trepidation, jostling and interrupting each other.

  Poppy Mum!

  Clover Don’t shout, Poppy.

  Mum!

  Phyllis enters. She has been crying and is trying to hide it.

  Phyllis Girls /

  Poppy / Is she back?

  Clover / Did she get back okay?

  Poppy Is she upstairs?

  Poppy makes to dash upstairs and Clover grabs her by the arm.

  Clover Poppy –

  Poppy Get off!

  Clover Shut up –

  Poppy Mum, tell Clover to get off of me –

  Clover Would you shut up!

  / Mum is Lori back okay?

  Poppy No you shut up –

  / Mum –

  Phyllis Girls –

  Shh – calm down –

  Clover But is she back?

  Phyllis Your sister’s upstairs, she was tired, she’s gone to bed /

  Poppy I’ll go up and wake her / she’ll want to see us –

  Clover Would you let Mum speak!

  Poppy Don’t talk to me like that!

  Clover Shut up for God’s sake, Poppy –

  Phyllis Clover –

  Poppy Yeah, you shut up, Clover!

  Phyllis You two, will you please just for one second, Christ –

  Beat.

  Clover Are you okay, Mum?

  Phyllis I’m fine, Clover.

  Clover Are you sure?

  Phyllis I’m fine.

  Clover But you look /

  Poppy Leave Mum alone, Clover –

  Mum, can we go up and see Lori now /

  Phyllis Poppy, I think it’s best if we leave your sister to rest.

  Beat.

  Poppy Oh.

  Beat.

  But why?

  Clover Stupid –

  Poppy Shut up –

  Mum, did you hear that, Clover called me /

  Phyllis Oh Poppy, please /

  Poppy What, no, that is so unfair, I didn’t do anything I /

  Clover Give it a rest, Poppy –

  Is she okay, Mum? Is Lori okay?

  What – happened?

  Phyllis Nothing – happened, we – your father and I, collected Lori from the clinic, and we came back here, and Lori was tired and went upstairs, and your father – and so your father – went on into town.

  Poppy Dad went into town?

  Phyllis To the Linen Hall Library.

  Clover For his book.

  Phyllis Yes.

  For his book.

  Silence.

  Poppy And so then what?

  Phyllis And then what?

  And then nothing, your sister’s been upstairs since.

  Girls –

  Look –

  I’m going to have to ask you to be very grown-up /

  Clover Mum.

  Don’t.

  You don’t need to –

  Phyllis Yes, I know, but just let me say it, Clover –

  It’s going to be very hard on her, being back home. Being back home like this. And I know it’s going to be hard on the two of you, too – it’s going to be hard on all of us. It’s going to take a while –

  Clover Yeah. We know. It’s okay. We understand, Mum.

  Don’t we, Poppy.

  Poppy What?

  Yeah. Yeah, we understand.

  Silence.

  Phyllis She walked in through the front door and your father was getting the bags out of the car and she just turned and she had this funny smile on her face. And then she said, and it was the first time she’d spoken of her own accord the whole morning, and she said, this time three months ago she was getting ready to go to university, and here we were back where we’d started. I didn’t know what to say and I asked if she wanted a hand unpacking her suitcases and she just – looked at me.

  Beat.

  Clover Yeah.

  Beat.

  Poppy Don’t worry, Mum. Maybe she’ll go back to university. After Christmas.

  Do you think she will?

  Phyllis I don’t think so, Poppy. I doubt it.

  Next year, perhaps, who knows.

  Maybe Queen’s, or, or Jordanstown. She can live at home, or if she wants to move out we can find her a flat nearby.

  Beat.

  But.

  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  Beat.

  Clover, do you not have music practice on Fridays?

  Beat.

  Clover Yeah. It was cancelled.

  Phyllis Was it now.

  Poppy Yeah they –

  Announced it in Assembly, Mum.

  Clover Poppy.

  And anyway, I didn’t want anyone to ask me how the audition had gone. So.

  Beat.

  Poppy Did – did Lori see the card I made her?

  Phyllis I left in on her pillow for her.

  Poppy Did she open it?

  I wrote a poem inside.

  Clover You did what?

  Phyllis I’m – sure she appreciated it.

  Clover You wrote her a poem?

  You just don’t get it, do you, Pops /

  Poppy Leave me alone.

  Just cause you didn’t do anything special.

  Clover / Poppy

  Phyllis / Girls …

  Poppy (sudden) It’s funny Lori being back.

  The house feels different already.

  Doesn’t it?

  You can tell it feels different.

  Beat.

  Clover Do you want a cup of tea, Mum?

  Phyllis That’d be lovely.

  Clover Right.

  I’ll – put the kettle on.

  Poppy, will you help me?

  Poppy Help you make a cup of tea?

  Oh. Okay.

  Clover You sit down, Mum. I’ll bring it in here.

  Phyllis does not move and Clover tries to manoeuvre her into a seat.

  Go on, sit down, put your feet up.

  Phyllis (sharply, shaking herself free) Clover, I appreciate this, but you don’t need to – I mean I’m not –

  Beat.

  Clover (brittle) Right.

  Come on, Pops.

  Poppy Mum, Clover was only trying to / be nice –

  Clover Leave it, Pops.

  Come on.

  The girls leave the room.

  SCENE SIX

  Later on: early evening.

  Phyllis is sitting at the living-room table. There is a full pot of tea beside her but she hasn’t poured it. She has a couple of brand new recipe books open in front of her – Gillian McKeith’s You Are What You Eat Cookbook, How To Eat For Health And Happiness, The Optimum Nutrition Bible, that sort of thing. But she is not reading them. She is lost in thought.

  Poppy sidles in. She is holding John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. She hovers in the doorway – her mother doesn’t look up – she slides into a seat beside her.

  Slight silence.

  Poppy (Hi) Mum.

  Phyllis Hello, love.

  Beat.

  Where’s your sister?

  Poppy Doing her homework.

  Beat.

  You mean –

  Lori’s still in bed, I think.

  Silence.

  Dad’s not back yet.

  Phyllis No. No, your father’s not back yet.

  Beat.

  Poppy Should I –

  Do you think she’d like a cup of tea or something?

  Silence.

  Mum?

  Do you think I should take her up –

  Phyllis She’ll come down when she’s ready.

  Poppy But do you think maybe someone should –

  Phyllis I think we’d best leave her for the time being.

  Poppy But –
>
  Phyllis I don’t know, love, I don’t know.

  Silence.

  Poppy Shall I pour you a cup of tea?

  She starts to pour. Then she stops.

  This has gone cold. Shall I put the kettle on again?

  Mum?

  Phyllis Oh, don’t bother. I didn’t really feel like tea anyhow.

  Silence.

  Poppy What are you reading? (She reaches out and turns over the cookbook.) Gillian McKeith? (She giggles despite herself.) Mum, why are you reading You Are What You Eat?

  Beat.

  Phyllis I read somewhere – or perhaps I heard it on the radio – that –

  Well.

  Depression – that it can actually be caused by, by, a basic lack of B vitamins.

  Poppy What?

  Phyllis (reads) ‘According to psychiatrists –’ etcetera, etcetera … ‘there are two kinds of depression, exogenous, which denotes depression resulting from outside factors,’ and so on and so forth, here we are, ‘endogenous, which denotes a medical form of the illness resulting from internal biochemical sources.’

  (As Poppy goes to speak.) I know – but listen, ‘Even marginal vitamin deficiencies can negatively affect your mood. Diets lacking in fresh natural foods and comprising low quality foods containing chemical additives, i.e. ‘junk foods’, can run down the system sufficiently to cause depression.’

  And I just wonder – you know, she was in halls, and probably not cooking properly, out – drinking, not taking care of herself – and I just –

  Well. I’m going to make sure that now she’s back home, she eats – and all of us, for that matter – that she eats a healthy, balanced diet with plenty of –

  It can’t hurt, that’s all I’m saying.

  Poppy Mum, it’s not exactly as if we live on McDonald’s or –

  Phyllis Love –

  It can’t hurt, is all I’m saying.

  Beat.

  Poppy Right.

  So – what are you cooking tonight, then?

  Phyllis Haricot bean and root vegetable stew with curly kale.

  Beat.

  Poppy Right.

  Sounds –

  Phyllis And shiitake mushrooms. The book says they’re one of the most healing foods around. Here, you see– (She finds the page and reads.) ‘Shiitake mushrooms are a superb immune-system tonic.’

  Beat.

  Poppy Lori hates mushrooms.

  Beat.

  Phyllis Well, she’s just going to have to get used to them then, isn’t she.

  Silence.

  Poppy Mum, I wanted to ask you. What does ‘abeyance’ mean?

  Phyllis ‘Abeyance’?

  Poppy It says that ‘hostilities had been in a state of abeyance for several months and so a confrontation was inevitable and imminent’. It’s in The Chrysalids. We have to do it for English.

  Phyllis Have you looked up the dictionary?

  Beat.

  Poppy No.

  Phyllis You should ask your father. He’s the one who’s good at words. But let me see now. It means ‘inactive’, I think. Or perhaps ‘dormant’ would be a better way of putting it.

  Poppy Kind of like, things have been okay for a while but it hasn’t gone away?

  Phyllis More or less, I suppose.

  Poppy Right.

  Beat.

  Have you read it?

  Phyllis The Chrysalids?

  Years ago.

  Poppy It’s a good book.

  I like it.

  And look. I got the one that used to be Lori’s. When she did it in school. It was a boy in the other class had it. But I swapped him.

  Look.

  She shows Phyllis the inside cover of the book. Phyllis does not say anything.

  Mum.

  Isn’t that funny, Mum, that this was Lori’s?

  Phyllis Yes, love.

  Beat.

  Poppy Mum, do you think it’s true that that would happen?

  Phyllis That what would happen?

  Poppy All of –

  Well, I haven’t got to the end yet so I don’t know exactly how things are going to turn out. But I mean – nuclear war and that – ‘Tribulation’, they call it – I know it’s never going to happen to us. But if – like if there was a nuclear war or a terrorist bomb or something – do you think that’d be what it was like?

  Phyllis Do I think what would be what it was like?

  Poppy I don’t know – I mean – like – everyone fighting each other?

  Phyllis I don’t think you need ‘Tribulation’ for everyone to fight each other.

  Poppy No, but you know what I mean. And do you think – do you think that people would actually start to become psychic?

  ’Cause I think –

  I mean, I know the other people, the ones that can’t do the thought-pictures and that, I know they’re scared of it – but I think –

  Just imagine –

  Imagine knowing exactly how someone else was feeling.

  Silence.

  Phyllis (gently) And don’t you think, Poppy, that if we knew exactly how someone else was feeling, the, the – weight of it – we’d –

  Lose all capacity to carry on our normal, everyday lives?

  Poppy What?

  Beat.

  I don’t (know what you mean) …

  I just thought –

  You could tell someone exactly what you were feeling, or – like – show them how you were feeling. Wouldn’t that be good? You’d be able to see exactly how happy or sad everyone else was. And so if they were feeling sad, you’d know, and you’d be able to – I mean – you’d know what to do, to make them better.

  Silence.

  Phyllis Poppy, love, it’s a very sweet thought, but none of us can know how Lori feels, or what she feels.

  Beat.

  Poppy I wasn’t saying Lori, I was just saying –

  Beat.

  You’re treating me like I’m stupid.

  Like I’m a little girl.

  I wasn’t saying Lori.

  I only said it in the first place because we’ve to write an essay on it, that’s all. On ‘Communication’. Except I just wondered what you thought because I haven’t finished the book yet, and Clover says she’s busy.

  Phyllis When’s the essay due in?

  Beat.

  Poppy Tomorrow.

  Phyllis Had you better go upstairs and get on with it, then?

  Oh, don’t look at me like that, Poppy.

  Poppy (getting to her feet) Well it’s not my fault that I haven’t been able to finish reading it in this house, is it.

  Phyllis Please, Poppy, not now.

  Poppy ‘Not now Poppy’, ‘not now Poppy’ –

  Phyllis You watch your tone of voice –

  Poppy Why? Why should I? Why should I care what you say? You don’t care what I say. You just treat me like I don’t count. Or like I’m not even here. I hate mushrooms too, or had you forgotten? I hate them even more than Lori does, but it doesn’t matter what I say, does it. Nobody cares what I think. I wish I lived in a normal family. As soon as I’m old enough I’m going to get out of here and I’m never coming back.

  Phyllis You do that, Poppy.

  Poppy (thrown) What?

  I mean it.

  Phyllis So do I.

  You study hard and get out of here and never, ever come back.

  Poppy What do you mean?

  Phyllis I mean what I just said.

  Poppy You’re my mother, how can you even / say something like –

  Phyllis I say it because I’m your mother, Poppy.

  You’re right.

  Get out of here as soon as you can.

  Go as far as you can.

  And never come back.

  You don’t want to live in Belfast.

  You don’t want to bring up children in Belfast.

  In fact, you don’t want to bring up children anywhere at all.

  Don’t bother with children, Poppy. Whatever you do,
you’ll never manage to make things safe for them. One place is as fucked as another.

  Poppy Mum!

  Silence.

  Mum –

  Beat.

  You don’t mean that.

  You don’t mean that, Mum.

  Say it! Say you don’t mean it.

  Beat.

  Phyllis I’m sorry, pet.

  Oh, don’t cry, now. I’m sorry.

  Poppy You didn’t mean it, did you?

  Beat.

  Phyllis No.

  I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.

  Poppy Why did you say it if you didn’t mean it?

  Phyllis Love, I said I’m sorry.

  Poppy But you shouldn’t say things like that. You just shouldn’t say things like that.

  Phyllis I won’t say it again.

  Poppy Promise?

  Phyllis It was only words, Poppy.

  Poppy Promise.

  Beat.

  Phyllis Poppy …

  Beat.

  All right then, I promise.

  Beat.

  Now then.

  That’s enough of that.

  Let me get dinner on.

  Poppy Can I help?

  Phyllis Thank you, love, but I’m fine.

  Are you going to get upstairs and finish reading that book, then?

  Yes?

  That’s a girl.

  Poppy That’s what Dad says.

  ‘That’s a girl.’

  You don’t say that. It sounds funny you saying that.

  Phyllis ‘That’s a girl!’

  Poppy (tiny giggle) Yeah.

  Phyllis Okay then.

  Poppy Okay.

  Beat.

  I love you, Mum.

  Beat.

  Phyllis I love you too, Poppy.

  Poppy Okay.

  Poppy leaves the room.

  Phyllis watches her, and stands still for a moment.

  Then she turns to the table and stares at the books for a second.

  She closes the books and sits down.

  Then she gets up again. She stands, staring straight ahead at nothing.

  SCENE SEVEN

  That night.

  The table is set for five.

  Lori is not there.

  Nobody is really eating.

  Silence.

  David This is ridiculous.

  Silence.

  I won’t be –

  Held hostage like this.

  Held hostage.

  Will one of you girls /

  Clover She knows it’s ready.

  Mum told her, didn’t you, Mum.

  I’m not going to beg her to come down.

  Beat.

  David Poppy, go and tell your sister one more time to come down.

  Beat.

  Poppy Mum?

  Beat.

  Phyllis Do as your father says, Poppy.

  Beat.