Cast
SCARLETT: a woman in her thirties.
LOVEY: a caring woman in her fifties.
VOICE OFF: Mother, a histrionic woman in her late sixties with early onset of dementia. She speaks in a voice ranging in a variety of moods from the past. She is shrill and sarcastic, sometimes melodramatic, but always brittle. A French accent would be a bonus.
VOICE OFF: Norma, a woman of mature age, Nurse Norma speaks in a voice off-stage from the past. She impersonates normality.
[i]
I had dreamed of loving—Robert Desnos.
[ii]
Stage in darkness. Surf just audible in the distance.
Fade up to Scarlett centre-stage. She stands motionless in her red dress and red shoes, facing the audience. To her left, Lovey stands in a grey outfit and sensible shoes with her back to the audience. Lovey looks at Scarlett.
[I]
LOVEY But she’s still your mother.
SCARLETT Bother.
LOVEY I said mother.
SCARLETT Mother. Bother. Swap one letter for another.
LOVEY Yes, but look at the state you’re in.
VOICE OFF Scarlett! (With urgency.)
SCARLETT Nothing to worry about.
LOVEY It’s serious.
SCARLETT Neither rhyme nor reason.
LOVEY So, what’s to be done?
VOICE OFF (Laughter.)
VOICE OFF Where’s your brother?
SCARLETT I don’t know.
VOICE OFF Vipère!
SCARLETT I.I.I.
VOICE OFF Ted. Ted. Teddy. Teddee. Ee. Ee. Ee. (Laughter, getting more hysterical. Fracas.)
[II]
LOVEY Speak to me.
SCARLETT I can’t.
LOVEY Come on. Say something.
SCARLETT Don’t know what to say.
LOVEY Tell me why she freaks you out, your mother.
SCARLETT She doesn’t.
VOICE OFF Who does she think she is?
SCARLETT It’s just the words.
LOVEY So why can’t you speak to me?
SCARLETT Sorry, that’s the way it is.
VOICE OFF Sss sss sss sss sss.
LOVEY What am I to you?
SCARLETT Don’t know. Neither ego nor alter. Nothing alters. Ergo. Mother, bother, brother. Bro. Mo… Mud.
LOVEY Why can’t you make a choice?
SCARLETT There is no choice.
LOVEY As long as you’ve got a clear conscience.
VOICE OFF (Laughter.)
SCARLETT What makes a conscience, anyway?
VOICE OFF Do your duty.
SCARLETT Nothing matters. No matter what.
LOVEY Whatever happened to forgiveness?
SCARLETT Forgiveness is God’s business.
VOICE OFF Speak to me.
SCARLETT Sk sk sk sk sk…
LOVEY Go on. Say it.
SCARLETT Scar.
LOVEY Scar?
SCARLETT She made us in her own image. Scarred and scary.
LOVEY Scared?
SCARLETT Mud. Gag. Choke. Dot. Dotty. Barb. Ranting and raving until death ensues.
LOVEY Come on.
SCARLETT I’m not going anywhere.
LOVEY What are you scared of?
SCARLETT Cakes. Fruitcakes. Voices. Sentences.
LOVEY Don’t see what you mean.
SCARLETT Some words just choke me. Freak me.
LOVEY Like?
SCARLETT Speak to me for sentence makes me think of cakes and pains. And I remember.
LOVEY What do you remember?
SCARLETT I remember a scene when I said my mummy aches and lost my balance for ever. And I remember a photograph of my sixth birthday when my mother told me to shut my cake hole and smile. Then I remember a judge who asked me to speak up. I dismember telling him my mother’s unhappiness took the place of dreams.
VOICE OFF Neither rhyme nor reason.
LOVEY Quite a memory.
SCARLETT I hate remembering. I hate recalling. I hate remembering all the cake I ate and not having it. I feel sick recalling my mother and sick at what a pain I was, sick at how she never spoke to me, but teased or yelled, and sick at how I could never speak to her, cramped up as I was, looking for a counterweight.
LOVEY Now, you’re telling me stories.
VOICE OFF What can you say?
SCARLETT Stories. The truth. And nothing but.
LOVEY Go on.
SCARLETT My memory is a caked up snake, a cakey snake I hold upside-down not to see the head scoffing the cup-cake of my sixth birthday, the seed-cake sprouting, taking root, replicating itself in mud. I try holding memories at bay not to see the head, not to feel the head I can’t hack off. Oh, the headache.
LOVEY Getting poetic now?
SCARLETT I tell it like it was. Like it is.
LOVEY Like?
SCARLETT Is it a drawing you want?
LOVEY Can’t you get to the point, Scar?
SCARLETT OK. If I must.
VOICE OFF (Laughter.)
[III]
SCARLETT Shut your eyes.
LOVEY Why?
SCARLETT Shut your eyes.
LOVEY But why?
SCARLETT You tell me to speak to you. I tell you to shut your eyes. Go on.
VOICE OFF Open shut them open shut them give a little clap.
SCARLETT Shut them.
VOICE OFF She’s away with the pixies.
SCARLETT Don’t stare at me.
LOVEY What?
SCARLETT Don’t. You look like my mother.
LOVEY You’re raving.
SCARLETT Shut up. Shut your eyes. (Screaming.)
LOVEY There.
SCARLETT Now picture this. Behind our bright red door, a drab room with the T.V. going. The couch is worn in and the stuffing is pushing through. A ray of morning sunlight creeps through a hole in the yellow curtain.
LOVEY A hole?
SCARLETT A hole. A tear.
LOVEY Keep going.
SCARLETT A little girl—
LOVEY You?
VOICE OFF Where’s your brother?
SCARLETT Don’t know.
LOVEY But is it you?
SCARLETT No. A little girl. As in once a puny time a little girl—nearly ten, but small for her age, sits in the corner, crouched. She looks cold.
LOVEY Cold? How do you know?
SCARLETT Her hands are scrunched up in white fists and her eyes are wide.
VOICE OFF Don’t be such a pain.
SCARLETT I spring on my feet, turn around and look at mud. She sits slumped away from the cot. Kate’s all scrunched up, like my hands. She’s crying like Teddy. Like she’s Tedee ee ee ee.
VOICE OFF Bloody babies. Nothing helps.
SCARLETT I go to the cot and try to pick up cake. Kate. Mum’s mad at me. I can tell. Her face is creased. Her arms clutch her stomach. When I pick up Kate, her arms flap loosely.
VOICE OFF Leave her alone. (Screaming.) You’ll drop her.
SCARLETT A lady in a navy suit comes in. She’s a nurse: Norma. She takes Kate from me.
NORMA VOICE OFF Thanks Scarlett. How are you?
SCARLETT. My mummy aches.
VOICE OFF Mmmmm.
SCARLETT Norma takes my baby in her arms. She looks into Kate’s face. She speaks to her.
VOICE OFF After all I’ve done.
LOVEY And…
SCARLETT Tummy talks about her pains and us bloody kids. Kate grabs Norma’s earring and sniffles. Norma tries to put her back in her cot, but she cries again. Norma says she needs a buoy. A toy. I go and get her teddy bear. Kate spits her dummy out. She babbles and cuddles her teddy.
NORMA VOICE OFF That’s a good girl.
NORMA VOICE OFF Scary, you’re a good girl aren’t you?
SCARLETT (Nod.)
NORMA VOICE OFF So, why aren’t you at school?
SCARLETT Mum glares at me. Her body twists, cramps up.
VOICE OFF Speak to me. (Demanding and loud.)
SCARLETT (Looks frightened.)
NORMA VOICE OFF Come on, you can speak to me. (Coaxing.)
SCARLETT (Sigh.)
NORMA VOICE OFF Go on. (Softly.)
SCARLETT I’ve got a headache in my tummy.
NORMA VOICE OFF Now, you’re telling me stories.
LOVEY I’m beginning to see.
[IV]
SCARLETT Behind the bright red door, a dull room with the T.V. going. The couch is worn in.
LOVEY Same one?
SCARLETT Same one, but there’s a red blanket to cover the stuffing pushing through. A ray of vanishing sunlight creeps through a hole in the yellow curtain. This is all recorded on the photograph I have of my sixth birthday.
LOVEY Any presents? A cake maybe?
SCARLETT There is no record of the birthday girl opening her present on her sixth birthday or blowing her candles or eating cake. But on top of the T.V., there’s a framed picture of this lad—this lass with her face caked in pink icing, her pig tails dripping with emergency oil, her hands behind her back. You can tell she’s trying hard to smile, but it is guilt she shows to the world.
LOVEY You’re so wordy.
SCARLETT Thought I was being clinical.
LOVEY OK.
SCARLETT The birthday girl has just raided her mother’s medicine cupboard.
LOVEY Why?
SCARLETT Emergency.
LOVEY Emergency?
SCARLETT The birthday girl remembers the day of her death. The day her brother Ted drowned. The day stuck with the smile on her dead brother Ted’s face under the blanket. Face caked with mud and blood the day the Emergency team brought him home saying he suffered no pain. The day she first saw herself split in the mirror stuck to the door of the medicine cupboard. The day with no words.
LOVEY The day with no dreams?
SCARLETT No dreams. No words. Just mud cakes and fruit-cakes.
LOVEY And the birthday story?
SCARLETT Wait. The birthday girl drags a chair down the hall-way, puts it up against the vanity and climbs on it. She sees her face splitting in the mirror. Split off. Cut. She flings the doors open.
SCARLETT What’s this?
VOICE OFF This is emergency oil. If there’s an emergency, you pour it on your head and it fixes it.
SCARLETT How?
VOICE OFF It just does, you little squirt.
SCARLETT Is it magic?
VOICE OFF That’ll do.
SCARLETT The birthday girl stands there, trying to find her balance on the chair, and puts her fists on her hips.
VOICE OFF What do you think you are doing?
SCARLETT You’re lying, mud.
VOICE OFF Can’t you ever shut this cake hole of yours? Mummy never lies. Try it.
SCARLETT There’s no emergency now, silly.
VOICE OFF There is. Watch.
SCARLETT The birthday girl’s mother grabs the teddy on top of the linen basket and pulls its nose off. The birthday girl shrieks, jumps off the chair, and tips the contents of the bottle of Emergency oil on her head.
VOICE OFF You do all you can and it’s never enough.
LOVEY What can you say?
SCARLETT And so you see why the birthday girl feels stuck on the day marking her birth. She does try to beam like her brother Teddy as she is meant to, but guilt is what pushes through her zipped cake-hole.
VOICE OFF She’s away with the pixies.
LOVEY Mother of a fruit-cake.
[V]
NORMA VOICE OFF She’s coming back.
LOVEY Yes?
SCARLETT Behind our drab red door, a bright December morning.
LOVEY Yes?
SCARLETT No.
LOVEY Something brighter?
SCARLETT No.
LOVEY But wasn’t there just then a glimmer?
SCARLETT No. This will not do.
LOVEY I’m sure I caught a glimpse. A tiny flash.
SCARLETT Wham. Bang. Cut. Eweeeeee. Bye-bye mummy.
VOICE OFF Hang on. (Fracas.)
SCARLETT I give up calling out for mother. I can’t say I’m the sssum of my pieces, but at ssseventeen I feel grown up. My pockets full of acorns, I set out to unpiece my memory. I’m outward-bound. I embark on a train headed for the city. I disembark, sssnaking my way through the crowd, pushing through. I enter a bookshop, ssstuck in a train of thoughts. I browse through autofictions. I’m an automaton bound to recall. I steal a book called The Lover. I get a free ride in a police car. Next time I’ll do time. When I come out of the police station I can’t touch the ground. I lose my footing for good. I hang on to the bark of trees. I slip. Don’t know how to go on. I’m too busy thinking about taking a breath. I tie a noose to the lower branch of the first oak tree I pass. Piece of cake. I forget I’m in pain.
LOVEY You’re in pain?
SCARLETT Don’t take me to the letter. In fact, don’t take me anywhere. Leave me alone.
LOVEY Fine.
SCARLETT Don’t leave me.
LOVEY Do you know what you want?
SCARLETT Don’t—
LOVEY Speak up.
SCARLETT Go away.
LOVEY I’m here to stay.
SCARLETT Then you will ask again why I can’t look after my own mother now that she’s old and too much of a fruit-cake to look after herself. Ask again why I have no moral poise. Ask me again to speak to you. And I will tell you I don’t know. I don’t know how to speak to you. Don’t know what to say.
LOVEY Go on.
VOICE OFF Bloody kids.
LOVEY Speak to me.
SCARLETT But you got it your little speech. And the moral is—
LOVEY Yes?
SCARLETT What if there isn’t any?
VOICE OFF (Groan.)
LOVEY Speak up.
VOICE OFF You call this a life?
SCARLETT Where there’s death there’s hope.
LOVEY You mean you’re not prepared for the sacrifice?
SCARLETT There’s no such thing.
LOVEY The easy way out.
VOICE OFF What did you expect?
SCARLETT All pain is gain.
LOVEY But she’s your mother.
VOICE OFF Where is your brother?
SCARLETT Bugger.
LOVEY Watch your language.
SCARLETT So much for speaking.
LOVEY. Speaking is remembering.
SCARLETT Dismembering.
LOVEY Still, speaking well’s a duty.
VOICE OFF Don’t complain to me afterwards.
SCARLETT I had dreamed of loving.
LOVEY The secret is to speak well.