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Umbrellas (A black comedy)

By

Sheila Duncan

© Sheila Duncan 2019

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UMBRELLAS

Characters:

Pamela: A fit woman in her 70’s.

Mem: An actress aged from 18 - 45

Teddy: A dead man in his mid-eighties. (Could be a

dummy)

Setting:

The stage is divided into two performance areas. Pamela

always inhabits PA 1. Mem inhabits PA2.(Possibly a video

projection) They never cross into each other’s space.

Performance Area 1 (PA 1): A beach. Two li-los under a

large beach umbrella.

Teddy lies in one of them covered by a towel. Pamela,

lies/sits next to him. There is a magazine in her lap and

a beach bag on the ground beside her.

Performance Area 2 (PA 2): A versatile space, or series of

video projections, ideally distant and elevated in height

from performance area 1.

Locations and times traversed in this performance area

/video are:

A stage for Romeo and Juliet. 1939.

A stage for Macbeth. 1955

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A stage for Antigone.1947.

A bus stop. 1948.

Livvy’s House. 1944.

A stage for Death of a Salesman. 1971.

Living Room: 1971.

A neutral space, without time.

A Park. 1941.

A stage for St. Joan. 1942.

A neutral space, without time

A hospital: Late 1943.

A cinema: 1945.

Train station and flat 1946.

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Umbrellas.

PA 2: A stage for Romeo and Juliet. 1939.

Mem stands holding a vial. She plays Juliet.

MEM: “Farewell!

God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear

thrills through my veins

That almost freezes up the heat of life.

I’ll call them back to comfort me:

Nurse! What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.

Come, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?”

Mem drinks from the vial.

PA 1: A beach. Present.

Teddy and Pamela are asleep under the beach umbrella.

Pamela wakes with fright.

PAMELA: What if this mixture do not work at all?...

She sits up and looks at Teddy next to her.

I just had the strangest...

Pause

Fuck. I’m alive.

She flops back in the Li-Lo and picks up the magazine.

She flips through impatiently before giving up.

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Oh, this isn’t working Edward. I can’t keep my

mind on the job. Death’s something that always

happened just before the bows, with an encore on

Saturdays ... No matter how gruesome, I’ve

always got up, brushed myself off and said

“Thank God that’s over”. I can’t imagine the

real thing will be any different.

I’ve just done it too often.

Teddy?

I counted everything up the other day when we

were packing. I’ve been stabbed, shot,

poisoned, strangled and even hung. I was burned

at the stake no fewer that two hundred and

fifteen times in one season, and I’ve lost count

of how many times I starved to death. It’s

astounding I can still walk.

PA 2: A stage for Romeo and Juliet. 1939.

MEM plays Juliet:

MEM: “Oh God, I have an ill-divining soul!

Methinks I see thee,

As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:

Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale”

PA 1: The Beach. Present.

PAMELA: Juliet.

She looks at Teddy

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Are you pale? Maybe I’m going mad.

Pause

I’ve gone mad exactly twenty eight times.

Twenty eight. Mostly through grief at the loss

of a husband...Sometimes through shock

treatment. That was very popular in the

sixties. The alternative was tranquilizers and

copious amounts of whiskey. It always amazed me

how much booze we were expected to drink. I

suppose it’s because the writer’s themselves

were all soaked to the follicles.

She goes back to the magazine.

Do you know apart from you, I’ve had 118

husbands, most of whom killed me, or I killed

them, or we just made each other so bloody

miserable that in the end I was grateful for the

shock treatment.

Pause

I’ve had fifty three extra- marital affairs.

Appalling behaviour. I lost count with the

children. All up I’ve had about three hundred I

think. Killed two of them in one play, ate one

in another, and traded a few in for bread during

the war. I never liked a single one of them

except for Samuel. Dear Samuel. He said, “He has

killed me, mother” with such conviction, I

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forgot where I was and hit the poor murderer on

the head with a candlestick.

PA 2: A stage for Macbeth. 1955.

MEM: “He has killed me mother” and there’s his

darling little face, and before I know what I’m

doing I’ve picked up the candlestick and THWACK.

I bundle him up in my cloak and I carry him off

stage….Oh the furore behind me and I say “my

darling boy”

PA 1: Beach. Present.

PAMELA: It was the first time in history, that Lady

McDuff and her son escaped. Everyone was

mortified of course. You’re not supposed to re-

write Shakespeare. It’s apparently bad form.

Livvy was furious. Took him out the play. I told

you that, didn’t I? Didn’t I? You’re probably...

She looks at Teddy.

...sick to death of hearing it.

She kneels at Teddy’s side.

PA 2: A stage for Romeo and Juliette. 1939.

MEM: “What’s here? a cup,

clos’d in my true love’s hand?

Poison, I see,

hath been his timeless end.

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O churl! drunk all,

and left no friendly drop

to help me after! I will kiss thy lips;

Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,

To make me die with a restorative”.

PA 1: Beach. Present.

Pamela kisses Teddy.

PAMELA: Sick to death. Thy lips are warm... It’ll be the

bows in a minute. Any minute now. I’ll pick

myself up, brush myself down and say “Thank God

that’s over”

Pause

Damn! I hate this feeling... No man’s land.

MEM: Everybody dead.

PAMELA: Oh Shut up!

Pause

PAMELA: I’m glad we left the hotel. It’s better here on

the beach.

PA 2 : Antigone’s tomb. 1947.

MEM: Shut up; walled up.

PA 1: Beach. Present.

PAMELA: Do you know we’ve been coming here every June

for thirty five years? That’s a lot of time

sitting on this beach. Looking at that sky.

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Almost pink. Black rocks jutting out with the

odd commorant on top. We’re practically part of

the scenery.

MEM: In a tomb; hidden off.

PAMELA: Picnics with ham rolls and pickles. Flasks of

tea and sometimes you’d make a meatloaf. When

you could still eat of course...

MEM: Switched off.

PAMELA: Before the chemo.

Pamela looks at her watch.

Half past two.

She looks at the watch again, takes it off and throws it

into the sea.

I’ve always wanted to do that.

Pause.

That probably wasn’t the best timing. Half past

two. I’ll be dead in a minute, but if I’m not

I’d hate to miss afternoon tea...

Pause

I’m feeling a bit...strange. Mixed up. I

remember this feeling. Sophocles.

PA2: A Classical Greek Stage (Antigone). 1947.

MEM: “I did not think your edicts strong enough to

overrule the unwritten unalterable laws Of Hod

and Geavan”.

PAMELA: God and Heaven, it’s God and Heaven.

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MEM: “They are not of yesterday or today, but

everlasting. Though where they came from none

of us can tell. Guilty of their transgressions

gefore Bod.

Gefore Bod.

Gefore Bod.

PAMELA: Antigone when I lost all the words.

MEM: Before God! Idiot.

PAMELA: All mixed up after the war.

MEM: Tombed up; shut up and every body

dead...everyone except Livvy, Samuel and

Sophocles.

PAMELA: No. Sophocles was definitely dead. I gutted him

myself at the Aldwych. I got all the words mixed

up... Just before I met... It was the night I

met you Teddy.

Pause

Waiting at the bus stop for the number twenty

seven.

PA 2: A bus stop. 1947.

Mem paces in frustration.

MEM: Embarrassing. I’ll never work again. Where’s the

life? When does it begin? Silly question when

you’re always playing dead. The world is dead.

Bombed to all buggery and everybody dead.

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PAMELA: No! There’s a bus still coming...See? There’s

a woman carrying her baby. There’s hope. That

man coming your way.

MEM: Oh Christ there’s that critic. He’s coming this

way, damn. Maybe if I pretend I’m...

PAMELA: What? Dead? Are you just going to keep doing

that? Pretending you’re dead? Come on, pull

yourself together and stop complaining.

MEM: He’s carrying an umbrella and it’s not even

raining. Very nice umbrella. Full of colours. I

wonder where he got it? Couldn’t have been in

this shit hole of a...oh...oh he’s seen me.

He’s smiling, like he knows me. Earth swallow

me NOW!

PAMELA: You walked straight up to me and offered me a

cigarette.

Mem smiles and shakes her head.

MEM: No thanks, just put one out.

Mem studies Teddy.

Smokes Rothmans. Got a squiggy nose... like a

piece of plasticine that hasn’t been smoothed

out properly. Bad skin too. Covered in

crevices. Probably had acne when he was

younger. That must have been hard. I wonder

how anyone can see through glasses so thick.

Nice umbrella though, full of colour in amongst

all this grey rubble of a life.

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Pause. She talks to Teddy

“Nice Umbrella. I’ve never seen such a nice one.

Not around here anyway. They only make black

umbrellas here...or dark blue. But I suppose

since the wars over they’ve decided to make them

with roses on them to cheer everyone up. God

knows we could do with a bit of cheering up eh?”

He smiles. Nice smile. Little dimples in his

cheeks, or maybe they’re pock marks, it’s hard

to tell. And he says “Do you need cheering up?”

PAMELA: Keep your mouth shut.

MEM: I don’t want to give too much away, but he looks

nice. He looks like the kind of man that you

could tell him anything and he’d take it in his

stride.

PAMELA: That’s not true.

MEM: All the same he is a critic. Better be careful,

so I say...“Depends on what play I’m in.”

PAMELA: Jesus!

MEM: And he says “Then you must have it.”

And Oh my God he gives me his umbrella! Just

hands it over without a second thought with his

pale long fingers touching ... mine. And he says

“To protect you from the stories that fall from

above.”

PAMELA: Oh, steady hand upon the rudder, how did you

know Teddy? How could you tell I needed

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protection from all those rotten stories where

everyone dies. In the end everybody always

dies.

MEM: It’s the most colour anyone has given me for a

very long time, and I say “Thank you”. The

number twenty seven is just at the corner and

I’m jingling the change in my pocket... and he

says “Thank you. For destroying Sophocles. It

needed to be done”.

PAMELA: I didn’t know what you meant but I never got

round to asking.

MEM: I just stand there with him under the umbrella

watching the number twenty seven drive away.

PAMELA: And you never explained. You just left it

hanging there for fifty years for me to ponder.

You paid me the respect of assuming I

understood.

Cool, calm, steady.

Granite Teddy.

Like a rock.

You gave me a different umbrella every opening

night.

Pause

What if I never see you again? I’m nervous, I

don’t think I’ve ever felt so nervous.

I mean...what if the Hindu’s are right? What if

all your lies keep building up like calcium and

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eventually you get reincarnated as a downpipe in

someone’s toilet? I suppose it’s better than the

fire and brimstone you get from the Christians.

Jesus. I couldn’t bear that. Much too hot. I’d

rather be a downpipe...

Pause

There’s definitely something pulling...something

vital pulling at me. Something... unravelling

and being pulled out. I keep remembering the

past as if... as if it were real. Like it

actually happened. But who’s to say eh Teddy?

Who’s to say that a memory is any different from

the last good film you were in? When it’s all

ravelling out there in front of you like a film

come off its sprockets?

PA 2: Livvy’s House. 1944.

MEM: Can I hold him Livvy? Can I hold him? And

there’s his little face all screwed up and

screaming in his cot.

PAMELA: My sister putting on her lipstick in the hall

mirror.

MEM: “My name is Olivia,” she says “don’t call me

Livvy it’s childish”. And she shuts the bedroom

door, so I can’t see Samuel. But I can still

hear him screaming and choking in the room where

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his little lungs are empty and he needs to

breathe.

“Dr Patrick was very clear” she says and she

straightens her hat in the mirror. “Babies have

to learn a routine. He gets his bottle at ten,

then again at one, a walk in the park from two

till three. That’s his routine and he has to

learn it.”

Sammy’s still screaming and I’m torn up in bits.

I want to open the door and hold him in my arms

to make him feel better, but if I do Livvy’ll

yell at me and that’ll just make things worse.

I follow her into the kitchen where it’s warm,

it smells like chicken soup and the geraniums

are blooming.

There’s a pile of washing on the table, nappies,

and I think it’s the least I can do to help her

with her new baby, so I try to fold one but I

can’t quite get the ends to match because

they’ve dried all strange on the line and

they’re not square. And she yells

“Leave it! Pamela”

Pause

PAMELA: Everything was frozen. All the clocks stopped

and even Samuel stopped crying. She shouted so

loud, little bits of paint cracked off the

ceiling and fluttered down onto the nappies. It

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took a very long time before they landed. Then

she growled at me like an angry dog.

MEM: “Go home. I know what I’m doing.”

So I walk from the kitchen past the bedroom

door. Samuel starts to scream and scream and I

walk straight out and down the street feeling as

if I’ve left my guts tied to the side of his

cot. And they are unravelling, ripping out,

extracted out of my body the further I walk,

with his tiny lungs bursting in my ears all the

way to the bus stop.

PA 1: Beach. Present.

PAMELA: Unravelling. That’s what it is. I know I’m

dwelling on the past but what else am I supposed

to do, when it’s two thirty in the afternoon and

it’s still not working? What am I supposed to

do? It’s not like I can dream about the future,

is it? Except maybe... seeing Sammy again.

Seeing him happy… That smile again. The look of

hope in his eyes...remember that? On the day he

got into RADA; bounding into our kitchen with

his acceptance letter and dancing around the

table with me. You took photo’s remember?

Then Livvy went out and contracted one of those

lingering diseases that never bloody killed her

but made his life an existential servitude.

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Vicious little bitch. She did it on purpose of

course. She couldn’t bear it that her son wanted

to be an actor. I said nothing.

And when he pulled out of school I said nothing.

And when I saw the track lines on his arms I

said nothing.

But when he said “he has killed me mother” I hit

the murderer on the head with the candlestick.

MEM: THWACK! He tumbles to the floor and there’s

Sammy’s little face beaming at me. I wrap him up

in my cloak and bundle him off and I say, I say,

I say, ....

PAMELA: Nothing. I said, nothing.

Pamela reaches into the bag and takes out a white card.

Mem also takes out a white card and reads it.

PAMELA: She sent a white embossed card. How civilized.

PA 2: Wings & Stage of “Death of a Salesman”. 1971.

MEM: “My son Samuel passed away peacefully in his

sleep on Thursday 10th October. He always

remembered you fondly.”

PAMELA: Liar. I could hear him screaming for weeks.

MEM: She signed it Livvy.

PAMELA: Terrible way to die, screaming. He knew that

better than anyone. He knew instinctively that

if you don’t die with dignity, you’ll lose the

audience. There has to be a struggle, of

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course, but not too desperate. You can’t feel

sorry for yourself, but must instil pity for the

bereaved. Especially a stupid mother who’ll

deal with it by sending out white embossed

cards.

MEM: Black.

PAMELA: One has to feel pity for a mother like that.

It’s pathetic. Some mother’s deal with it by

hauling around a cart, or wearing a hair shirt,

or at least cutting their tongue out. It all

depends what play you’re in, of course, but I

have never known a mother in any decent work,

who dealt with it by sending out cards embossed

with lies.

MEM: Black and safe.

PAMELA: No junkie dies peacefully in his sleep. I heard

the screams myself. When you’ve had as many

children as I have, you just do.

MEM: “He always remembered you fondly”.

PAMELA: She signed it Livvy.

Pause

MEM: It’s too quiet out there.

Something’s not right. Gas bill in my pocket. I

was supposed to give this to Willie but I didn’t

because...Willie? ...Willie Loman! Death of a

Salesman. Shit!

PAMELA: You’re supposed to be on stage.

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MEM: Shit! It’s a treacherous rake and my shoes

don’t fit, but I get there just as Willie’s

telling me he wants to take our boys and make a

new life in Alaska.

PAMELA: Ben put him up to it, of course. Willie didn’t

have the brains to think of it on his own.

MEM: He’s told me about this plan every night for the

past six weeks and I’ve never once agreed to go

because, well, it’s in the script

PAMELA: And all I could think of was...

MEM: Samuel passed away peacefully in his sleep.

PAMELA: Every cell in my body wanted to explode with

rage.

MEM: Samuel passed away peacefully in his sleep.

PAMELA: Outrage. Cruel, unutterable truth.

MEM: But Willie’s talking to me and I know I’m

supposed to say something cause there’s a pause

and I say “Why that’s wonderful dear”, because

that’s what Linda always says, and they’re

looking at me, as if something’s gone terribly

wrong. And I’m thinking; what are we all doing

here on this stage repeating the same mistake

night after night? Knowing it’s going to lead to

tragedy? What the hell are we doing? And then

Willie repeats his line...something about Alaska

and I think., why don’t we learn something from

the past? Why don’t we just take the risk? So I

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smile my biggest, warmest smile at Willie and I

say “Why that’s wonderful dear. I’ll tell the

boys”. And I yell into the wings. “Biff! Happy!

Pack your bags! We’re going to Alaska!”

Long, still, pause.

MEM: All the clocks have stopped. The punters have

stopped breathing, they’re dead, all dead, until

one brave soul starts to clap in the dark.

Willie’s smiling and shaking his head. Then he

starts to laugh. Biff and Happy come out and

throw the football into the crowd. Someone

catches it and throws it to someone else. They

stand to their feet, cheering and laughing and

throwing the ball around.

PAMELA: I walked off stage like cutting through

history... Reversing time.

MEM: I get through the dark wings and the stage

manager has turned a kind of blue-green colour.

His face is contorted and he’s swearing at me.

Suddenly time speeds up again and the whole

theatre is shaking, trembling with laughter and

the terrible stomping of a thousand feet. I

think the roof is going to fall in.

Pause

PAMELA: That night... that night in our living room. I

got home from the theatre and my face was all

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swollen because I’d been crying for hours and

you...you were...

PA 2: Living Room: 1971.

MEM: He’s writing one of his reviews and he looks up

at me and he says “Pamela, you can’t take this

so seriously. It’s just a play.”

Yes. Yes. Just a play. I keep forgetting

that. He gets up from the desk and offers to

make me a cocoa. I give him the white embossed

card and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he

asks me...

PAMELA: No, you didn’t ask straight away, but after

you’d made the cocoa you asked me...

MEM: “Is there something you want to tell me?” And

its right there, right in my mouth, the words

are forming in my mouth but then I hear someone

yell from very far away...

PAMELA: No! You can’t tell him!

MEM: So I say “No”, I say... “nothing”.

PAMELA: I said nothing.

Darling Samuel. He never knew who he was. The

loneliest man on the planet. He didn’t die

peacefully. He was screaming for his life, his

story, his identity. Screaming at the top of his

lungs while Livvy just stood there, saying “Die

peacefully Samuel, or I won’t know what to say

on the card”.

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PA2: Neutral white space/time.

MEM quotes Ophelia:

MEM: “... will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, He is dead;

Go to thy death bed,

He will never come again”

PAMELA: I quoted Shakespeare at his funeral.

MEM: Always somebody else’s words in my mouth.

PAMELA: But I did not speak...Would never speak...

MEM: The words, the words, the words.

PAMELA: ...The truth.

MEM: Always someone else’s words in my mouth.

And the words are...huge black letters standing

in a white room. I can walk around them, touch

them. And each letter is the surface of a world

into which I must enter. The secret is to find

the first world, because there is always one,

one in particular that comes first.

PAMELA: That’s enough now.

MEM: And if you don’t find the first world, you can

never make sense of the others. Everything gets

jumbled. So it’s very important to find a

beginning that will lead to...

PAMELA: Enough.

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MEM: All the little spaces between the bones in his

ribcage.

PAMELA: Stop this,

MEM: A beginning I can believe in.

PAMELA: Teddy was the beginning. And now he is the end.

MEM: A beginning that will lead me to...

PAMELA: Death.

MEM: Jack Hodder.

PAMELA: No.

MEM: Such a simple name.

PAMELA: Shut up! Shut up! Don’t listen to her, Teddy.

She’s a liar.

Pause

PA2: A Park. 1941.

MEM: Jack was the beginning. A beautiful day in a

beautiful park, under a tree as old as the

planet.

PAMELA: That was a dream.

MEM: A giant oak. Jack holds my hand. He’s never held

my hand before and it feels warm. There are

little sparks of electricity running up the

veins of my arm.

PAMELA: A memory. Told in words. Never as it was.

MEM: His eyes are pale blue...Transparent all the way

back to his soul and beyond. We look into each

other’s souls and recognize each other there.

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Jack says “step as if I am there”, even though

his lips aren’t moving. And I don’t ever once

have to ask him what he means because I already

know, because Jack has been saying that to me

for centuries and centuries... Even before we

were born. I remember this as I’m looking into

his eyes and he remembers too and then... and

then...he...kisses me

She touches her lips.

Jack says “I’ve never kissed an actress before”

And I say “I’ve never kissed a pilot before”. He

smiles, but I know he is worried, because he’s

leaving for Singapore the very next day.

PAMELA: Stop this now. A ridiculous fantasy you got

carried away with.

Pause

PA 1: Beach. Present.

PAMELA: This is intolerable. I need to settle down.

Yes. Settle down and sort this all out in my

head, because...I didn’t think this through. I

thought it would be simple. Close my eyes and

that would be the end of it. None of this ...Oh

Edward... it’s not working!

Pamela rummages in her bag and takes out a brown medicine

bottle.

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PAMELA: We should have shaken it better. I think you

got all the good stuff at the top.

She shakes the bottle vigorously and takes a swig.

I think I must be extremely difficult to kill.

Under any other circumstance I’d be reassured by

that, but it’s a bit late to think about

survival now isn’t it? Can you hear me?

Pause

Well there’s a sort of death, not to be heard.

Maybe it’s the wrong stuff.

She looks at the label.

No. Definitely the right stuff, this could knock

out an army.

She looks at Teddy’s corpse.

Well, it obviously worked for you.

She takes another swig.

Might as well drink it all. No point being

careful about the prescribed amount of poison.

You’d have to be pretty bloody anal wouldn’t

you? Unless there was a shortage or something.

You know, one bottle for a whole community all

setting out for the promised land together, like

a picnic.

She finishes the bottle

That should do it. It’ll be the bows in a

minute. Any minute now. Don’t go on without me

will you?

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Pamela leans back on the lie lo. Pause.

Why didn’t you go through all this? It was

supposed to be simple. We were supposed to… I

refuse to be left alone. I won’t have another

husband up and die on me. It’s too bloody much

...oh!

PAM clutches her stomach and breathes rapidly. She

crouches...slowly regaining her breath.

PAM: It’s working, Teddy.

Pam closes her eyes, breathing deeply.

PA 2: A stage. 1942.

MEM plays Shaw’s St. Joan (arms tied behind her back)

MEM: “I bid you remember that I am a saint,

and that saints can work miracles.

And now tell me: shall I rise from

the dead, and come back to you as a

living woman?”

PAMELA: God forbid!

MEM: “O God that made-est this beautiful earth

when will it be ready to receive Thy saints?”

PAMELA: Can’t you see it’s time to go?

MEM: “How long, oh Lord, how long?”

PAMELA: I want to go with Teddy! I want to see Samuel.

I want to see...

MEM looks out to the audience.

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MEM: Jack! Jack! He’s home! Jesus, he’s waving.

Can’t wave back. About to be torched. St Joan

doesn’t wave....damned ropes... Oh! Oh. He’s

smiling.

PAMELA: This is unbearable.

MEM: Unbearable, I want to smile back at him. Oh.

Oh. I can’t help it.

MEM smiles.

PAM: There’ll be notes.

Mem giggles.

MEM: Why not smile? St. Joan would laugh. Oh yes she

would laugh right in the face of her enemies. In

anticipation of her beloved. Oh, the ecstasy of

him, seeing him again after months and months.

Laughing as she burns in the passion of his

embrace. Pure joy as she melts in his arms. His

hot mouth kissing her breasts. Bliss in the

sticky hot kiss. Him parting the flesh between

her legs with his tongue. St Joan is delicious,

and he is delicious ... and burning, both of us

burning, and we gorge ourselves in the fire of

delirium.

Oh oh joy!

Mem dies as St. Joan, tied to the stake, engulfed by

flames.

Pause.

PAM: Thank God!

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Pause.

Mem steps forward and brushes herself down.

MEM: Thank God that’s over.

Smiling, Mem bows.

MEM: Nancy, can I borrow your flat tonight?

She bows again.

Can I borrow your flat tonight?

She bows again

Can I borrow your...?

MEM bows again

PAMELA: Don’t go!

MEM: Can I..? ...Hold him? Can I touch his beautiful

face? Can I kiss him again in Nancy Morgan’s

flat?

PAM: You’re going to regret this for the rest of your

life! I must be delirious. Talking to myself...

Romantic fantasy. Oh... oh...

Pam crouches in pain.

PAMELA: Heart’s thumping ... any minute now it’s going

to ... explode.

After a struggle PAMELA regains strength.

PA 2: Neutral space, early 1943. MEM reads a letter

PA 1: Beach. Present.

PAMELA: We had such a lovely life together didn’t we

Teddy? Such a lovely peaceful life, until your

cancer. Oysters from the market. Salt them with

29

a squeeze of lemon. Shave the rinds on top.

Sitting on the back porch learning my lines and

you calling from the window in your old grey

cardigan. “Would you like a glass of wine my

sweet?”/

MEM reads aloud from the letter.

MEM: /Dear Miss Greenwood.

In response to your enquiry, we regret to inform

you that Flight Lieutenant Jack Hodder’s plane

was shot down off the coast of Singapore. Fl.

Lieutenant Hodder has been listed as “missing

presumed dead”.

PAMELA: You gave me a different umbrella every opening

night. I had nearly a hundred of them by the

end, my favourite was always the Streetcar. A

yellow silk parasol all the way from Louisiana

with a little fringe which...Oh...

Pamela clutches her stomach in pain.

PAMELA: ...bobbed up and down when I...walked...on the

beach. It was very...very...beautiful...

Pamela breathes deeply trying to control the pain.

PAMELA: ...There’s something vital pulling Teddy. Oh.

30

PA 2: A hospital. 1943.

Mem is in shock.

MEM: Something. Vital.

Something. Beautiful.

Lights in my eyes.

Forceps.

Something. Pulling. Wrenched out.

Out of me.

Out.

PAMELA: (In pain) Oh!

MEM: Out. Leaving my body. Out.

Pamela : Oh!

Mem: Umbilical cut.

Separate. Cut loose. Split

Can I? Can I? Can I?

Hold him?

PAMELA: No!

MEM: Please don’t take my...

Don’t. My innocent,

Innocent.

Livvy. No!

I’ve changed my mind.

MEM sits totally still.

Pamela regains her breath, and settles down a little.

MEM: Livvy comes to visit me and I tell her I’ve

changed my mind, but she just laughs at me and

puts the chrysanthemums in a vase.

31

They’re purple.

She says “don’t be so childish Pamela, you start

rehearsals in two weeks. And anyway you made a

promise”.

PAMELA: Yes, Yes. A promise, never to breathe a word. “I

promise the words will never pass my lips”.

MEM: The words, the words, the words will never pass

my lips.

Pause

PA 1 & 2. Neutral. Outside time.

PAMELA: It’s for the best.

MEM: Yes.

PAMELA: There’s a war on.

MEM: Yes.

PAMELA: Everyone’s desperate.

MEM: Yes.

PAMELA: Thousands dead. Slaughtered, dead in the

streets calling out for sanity.

MEM: What did you say?

PAMELA: I said calling out for ...

MEM: How can they call out if they are dead?

PAMELA: Well, maybe they’re not all dead. Yet.

MEM: Yet.

PAMELA: Maybe they’ve lost a limb.

MEM: Yes. Lost a limb.

32

PAMELA: Lost a vital part of themselves. Like their

hands. Or their legs. Or maybe some shrapnel

has lodged in their brain and they forget who

they are. But they’re still alive. They just do

what they can to go on living.

MEM: Do they?

PAMELA: Yes.

MEM: How?

PAMELA: They just get used to it. And after a while,

they forget.

MEM: Just forget it ever existed.

PAMELA: Yes.

MEM: Like pretending it never happened.

PAMELA: Yes, like that.

MEM: But doesn’t that cause your brain to black out?

If you’re always chopping bits out and

pretending they don’t exist, how does your brain

know the difference? How does it know the

things it is supposed to remember and the things

it isn’t?

PAMELA: It’s better to forget.

MEM: But I’m an actress. It’s my job to remember.

PAMELA: Sometimes forgetting makes life more bearable.

MEM: But I can’t have any more children.

PAMELA: No.

MEM: I can’t ever forget that.

PAMELA: Not if you keep remembering.

33

MEM: No.

Pause

PAMELA: You have to pretend it’s a film.

MEM: Yes. A film.

PAMELA: That’s all this is, a film off its’ sprockets.

MEM: A wonderful film.

PAMELA: Madness.

Pause

PA 2: A Cinema. Late 1945.

MEM: I’m in the cinema watching a film. A black and

white news reel. In the film people are

laughing and hugging each other. Flags and

banners fly from the windows. There’s a piano

out in the street and everyone’s singing and

dancing, throwing their hats in the air because

Hitler is dead, and the Japanese have

surrendered.

PAMELA: What?

MEM: Then the film changes to a prisoner of war camp

in Burma. The men are like skeletons, sitting

around, looking blankly into space. They don’t

even have the energy to get up, even though

they’ve been rescued. And I’m thinking...as I’m

watching them I’m thinking, I know just how they

feel. All the stuffing’s been knocked out.

PAMELA: That’s not the film I meant.

34

MEM: And then I see him. At the end of a line of men,

he’s half dead and shaking with Malaria. He

looks straight into the camera and it’s Jack.

Jack Hodder.

PAMELA: I don’t want to watch this.

MEM: He gives a little smile that comes from the

depths of his soul and beyond. That smile is

just for me and I hear him say “Step as if I am

there” even though his lips aren’t moving.

MEM stands up excitedly.

MEM: That’s my Jack! He’s alive. That’s Jack

Hodder.

PAMELA: I refuse to watch this film.

Pamela starts to leave but stumbles and sits down.

PAMELA: I can’t. I can’t Teddy. All the stuffing’s been

knocked out.

Pamela breathes with difficulty.

PA 2: The train station. Then a flat. 1946.

MEM: I meet him at the station and he’s wearing a

brand new uniform.

PAMELA: You’re getting this all wrong!

MEM: Here! Jack Hodder! I’m over here.

Jack? It’s wonderful to...I can’t believe

you’re...here.

PAMELA: He’s not there.

35

MEM: He’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger. What’s

wrong Jack? He doesn’t recognize me so I say.

“Come on, let’s go home. Let’s go home Jack,

where I’ve bought new curtains. The bed’s

second hand but it’s still good, see”?

What’s wrong? What’s wrong Jack? But he

doesn’t answer me. Just looks into space like

I’m not even there. Jack?

I drape my body over him like a blanket, and I

kiss all the empty spaces between the bones of

his rib cage. As if I can fill them up, as if I

can pour some life back into him. But Jack isn’t

there.

The only time Jack comes back is when his

friends from the war come to visit. They sit in

the back yard, not saying a word for hours on

end.

And when they leave Jack cries in his sleep. At

least when he’s crying I know he’s alive. And

then, then one night Jack looks at me again as

if he remembers who I am. And he ... and then

he...kisses me

She touches her lips.

Jack says “Thankyou” over and over again and I

know that everything will be alright.

Everything will be alright because he pours it

all back, everything back again that I’ve given.

36

And we’re together again. But then, but then...

I can’t help it. It’s like a dam bursting in

his face. I might as well have taken a sledge

hammer to his skull.

I say the words, the words, the words I have

promised never to speak.

PAMELA: Stupid girl!

MEM: I tell Jack the truth.

PAMELA: NO! It was a film.

MEM: I tell him what I have done and he...he looks at

me with his pale blue eyes...and ...my stomach

feels like a walnut stuck in my throat.

PAMELA: That was a role I played...

MEM: The very next day I smell it, the sweetness of

blood on the carpet.

And there’s Jack on the floor, with his

beautiful lean arms and little blonde hairs.

His eyes are closed so he looks as if he is

asleep, but the bullet has blown his mouth away,

so I can never kiss it again.

Jack? Oh Jack.

PAMELA: A film I did.

Pause

Wasn’t it? Yes. In the seventies... with

Samuel.

Pause

37

Wasn’t it? Yes. A film. I remember because

Samuel was a pilot and ....I couldn’t help

thinking how much he looked like...an empty

shell like...

PA 2: Neutral Space. Outside time.

MEM: Must not speak.

PAMELA: Everything’s all jumbled up. All chopped up in

my brain, Teddy. I can’t tell the difference

between...

MEM: Must never speak the words.

PAMELA: It must have been a film because Samuel came to

see me afterwards. Did I tell you Teddy? I

don’t think I told you.

MEM: Never tell anyone.

PAMELA: During rehearsals for Salesman. We broke for

lunch...And there’s Sammy sitting in the gutter

outside stage door. He’s sweating and his pupils

are dilated. I sit down beside him, there in the

gutter with the cigarette butts and dead train

tickets. I put my arm around him. “What’s wrong

Sammy? What’s wrong?” He starts to cry and he

says “I know who you are”... and I say...

MEM: Nothing.

PAMELA: I say nothing.

PAMELA breathes with difficulty. She looks at Teddy.

PAMELA: Not even to you. Sorry Teddy.

38

MEM: There are some words that can never be spoken.

Pause

PAMELA: Not by me anyway.

Long pause.

MEM: But by someone else.

PAMELA: But by someone else.

MEM: By Queen Margaret.

PAMELA: Yes. Queen Margaret.

Pause.

PAMELA: “Hadst thou but lov’d him half so well as I,

Or felt that pain which I did for him once.”

MEM: Always someone else’s words in my mouth.

PAMELA: “Or nourish’d him as I did with my blood

Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart blood

there,

Rather than have made that savage bitch thine

heir

And disinherited thine only son.”

Pamela sits, eyes wide open...waiting. She writhes in

pain. Mem and Pamela look at each other for the first

time.

MEM: Thine only son.

The End.