Ravenhill Plays: 1: Shopping and F***ing; Faust is Dead; Handbag; Some Explicit Polaroids (Contemporary Dramatists) (28 page)

Augusta
     I know nothing of motherhood yet. I thought marriage first, as happens in all the best families.

Exit
Augusta
.

Phil
shakes the baby.

Phil
     Come on. Please. Come on.

(
Taking baby to
Cardew
.) Can’t you make him breathe?

Cardew
     No, John. Dead to me now.

Phil
shakes the baby
.

Phil
     Come on, cunt. Breathe. Come on.

He puts the baby down. Lights a cigarette.

Breathe – you.

He burns the baby’s skin with the tip of his cigarette. It cries.

There. See. Can breathe if you try. Good.

Enter
Constance
.

Constance
     This is mine. This came from me. What it feels, I shall feel. Here. Here. To me. Give me the child.

Phil
     Yes. Alright.

Constance
     Oh yes. Come here. Come here. Let me feel something.

She takes the baby.

And now, of course, it should flow through me. Now I should feel overwhelmed by a mother’s love.

Phil
     And what do you feel?

Constance
     Nothing.

Phil
     Here. Give him to me.

Constance
     No. It will come. Hold him long enough and it must come. Don’t want to look down and see – what? – little square bundle of feet and teeth and eyes. That is not it, is it? No. No. No. Should see love. That is quite the proper thing to see. So why? Feed him. Feed him. That will do it. Yes. That will do it.

Enter
Moncrieff
and
Prism
.

Moncrieff
     Oh my love. No. No. Come.

Constance
     Must do my duty.

Moncrieff
     Not the duty of an animal.

Constance
     Must be as one with the child.

Moncrieff
     Not like this. Come.

Now – hand the child over. Cling to the child and the child will cling to you.

Constance
hands the baby to
Prism
.

Moncrieff
     Now we will go about our business. My billiards, your piano. And from time to time the child will be shown to us and we will be shown to the child. And so the proper degree of affection between parent and child will grow. You understand?

Constance
     Yes.

Moncrieff
     Good.

Exit
Moncrieff
and
Constance
.

Prism
     You were born in quite the wrong family, were you not? Neither father nor mother to care for you. So, why should I?

She sits and works on her novel. Baby cries.

I’ll thank you for a moment’s silence. Please. If I could just enjoy a moment’s silence.

Phil
     Here. I’m good with him. I’ll . . .

Phil
takes the baby.

Prism
     Well, that is a little better.

Really, how am I to deal adequately with fiction when reality keeps making such rude interruptions on my time? Because, really, you are a single infant. You really won’t make one bit of difference to the world.

Whereas this is a novel. Think of the emotion and instruction contained in a three-volume novel and think of the thousands of readers.

I have just reached the part where she goes into the night, out into the storm to challenge the ghost . . .

Phil
     Isn’t breathing.

(
Taking baby to
Prism
.) Isn’t breathing.

Prism
     I must have peace. Peace. I don’t want you. Why won’t someone take you away? Why won’t the bogeyman or anyone take you away?

Cardew
     Might I be allowed . . .

Prism
     Mr Cardew. I thought they had driven you from the town.

Cardew
     I will be leaving London shortly. I will begin again. I thought the coast. Worthing, I think. Nobody much bothers what happens in Worthing.

Prism
     But you will still have your boys?

Cardew
     If I cannot care for another what am I? But I have been too liberal with my charity, my care has been too ostentatious. Now I shall care for just one lost soul, one boy.

Prism
     A child in need of care? A child ignored and forgotten by its parents?

Cardew
     Exactly. Might I have . . . ?

Prism
     Bags become so easily muddled at Victoria Station. It is quite possible, in a moment of mental abstraction, I should place my manuscript in the perambulator and the baby in this handbag. What a confusion. And that, similarly abstracted, you should mistake my bag for your own.

Cardew
     Victoria Station? Which line?

Prism
     The Brighton line.

Cardew
     Thank you, thank you.

Exit
Cardew
.

Prism
     To he who needs the child, the child shall be given. That is what justice means.

Exit
Prism
.

Phil
     Oh no. Can’t get me like that. Know how to make you start again. See I know how.

He stubs the cigarette on the baby. Nothing.

Come on. Come on.

Stubs the cigarette. Nothing. Again. Again. Again.

Come on. Come on.

He pushes the cigarette into the baby’s eyes.

Just gonna be awkward? Just not gonna breathe, eh? Alright. Alright.

He sits, looks at the baby. Long pause
.

He puts the baby in a bin-bag.

Enter
Cardew
with handbag. Sets it down carefully. Opens it. Brings out a baby.

Cardew
     My own.

Enter
Lorraine
with shopping bag. Puts down shopping bag. Goes to cradle. Sees it is empty.

Phil
     I did a bad thing. I . . .

Lorraine
goes to bin-bag, picks it up.

Cardew
     My own one.

Lorraine
cradles the bin-bag.
Cardew
cradles the baby.
Phil
howls.

Some Explicit Polaroids
, produced by Out of Joint, was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, on 30 September 1999 prior to a run at the New Ambassadors, London. The cast was as follows:

Directed by
Max Stafford-Clark

Designed by
Julian McGowan

Lighting by
Johanna Town

Sound by
Paul Arditti

Helen

Nick

Nadia

Victor

Tim

Jonathan

A slash in the dialogue (/) is a cue for the next actor to start their line, creating overlapping dialogue.

Helen
’s flat

Nick
and
Helen
.
Nick
is very wet.

Helen
     Nick. Fucking hell. Nick.

Nick
     Hello, Helen.

Helen
     Fucking hell.

Nick
     I tried to ring you.

Helen
     You’re / wet.

Nick
     Wet. Yeah. It’s raining.

Helen
     Right.

Nick
     I tried to ring you. Let you know. But I was there and I couldn’t work out how to get the money in and there’s a girl behind me and she says ‘they only take cards’ and I’m like cards? What the fuck does she mean ‘cards’?

Helen
     Listen, I have to –

Nick
     I’m soaked. I need to change my / clothes.

Helen
     Nick, I was on my way out.

Nick
     I thought maybe you still had some of my gear . . .

Helen
     Sorry?

Nick
     Something I could change into?

Helen
     Nick. I threw it all away.

Nick
     What? All of it?

Helen
     All of it. Years ago.

Nick
     Right. Right. I see. You look smart.

Helen
     I’ve got a meeting to go to.

Nick
     Kid in the lift tried to sell me smack. Must have been about seven. I said: ‘You shouldn’t be selling drugs at your age.’ And he said: ‘How else am I gonna buy a PlayStation?’

Helen
     There’s a lot of that goes on.

Nick
     What the fuck is a PlayStation? How’s your mum?

Helen
     Dead.

Nick
     Right. Right. But the council let you –

Helen
     I bought it.

Nick
     Yeah?

Helen
     Yes. I bought the flat from the council. Alright?

Nick
     Fucking hell, Helen.

Helen
     Yeah. Propertied classes me. So, what you going to do to me? Firebomb through the letter box? Picket the entryphone. Or maybe you’re going to kidnap / me and do all sorts of terrible things to me?

Nick
     No. No. No. I’ve changed.

Helen
     Well good.

Nick
     I really want to change out of these clothes. I think I might get flu or something.

Helen
     Nick –

Nick
     Maybe if I just –

Helen
     I haven’t got time for this.

Nick
starts to take off his clothes.

Helen
     Nick.

Nick
     There’s no ring. You’re not / married.

Helen
     No.

Nick
     I think that’s a good choice. Not to tie yourself down like that. Keep your independence. Play the field a bit when you fancy it. I think that’s a really good choice you’ve made there.

Helen
     There was someone.

Nick
     Right.

Helen
     For a few years but in the end she moved.

Nick
     She?

Helen
     Yes. She moved to America.

Nick
     Really? / She?

Helen
     She’s in computing. I still get the odd card from Silicon Valley.

Nick
     So you’re a . . . ? What? You’re . . .

Helen
     There’s been a few blokes / as well.

Nick
     Right. Right. You still look great.

Helen
     I look middle-aged. I am middle-aged.

Nick
     No, you’re . . . So, nobody actually around at the moment?

Helen
     Maybe. No . . . It’s none of your business actually, is it?

Nick
     No toy boy in the bedroom? No lady wrestlers behind the sofa?

Helen
     Yeah. But they all hid when they heard the door go. Which doesn’t mean I’m up for it, okay?

Nick
     I wasn’t asking.

Helen
     Alright. Just in case you were thinking of . . . Don’t.

Nick
     Alright then.

Helen
     You’re going to have to put those on again. I’ve got a meeting and I’m already running late.

Nick
     Yeah.

Helen
     You caught me on my way to a meeting.

Nick
     What sort of meeting?

Helen
     Council meeting. I’m a councillor.

Nick
     Yeah?

Helen
     Yes. Nowadays I’m a councillor, hence . . .

Nick
     Smart clothes.

Helen
     Hence smart clothes. Look. There’s some jeans and a T-shirt Finnoula left. She was quite a big girl. You can have them.

Nick
     I need somewhere to stay.

Helen
     Oh.

Nick
     I’m sort of stuck and I need somewhere to stay and I thought you might just put me up until . . .

Helen
     I’m sorry, Nick.

Nick
     For a short time.

Helen
     No.