Jez Butterworth Plays: One by Jez Butterworth

Author:Jez Butterworth [Butterworth, Jez]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781780012223
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Published: 2013-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

Five

Darkness. The storm is calmed. In the silence, the night heron passes low over the theatre, its scream-call ringing out, and fading over the black marsh.

The cabin in the dead of night. Enter GRIFFIN, in his balaclava, in the moonlight. He is out of breath. He takes the balaclava off. His nose is bloody. He goes to the stove to get warm. The firelight flares up in the room, revealing a rabbit hanging from the central beam. He stares at it hanging there. He unhooks it. He switches on the light. A lithe figure, with shoulder-length blond hair, is lying there, wrapped in a white sheet.

GRIFFIN (hissing). Wattmore. WATTMORE!

WATTMORE sits up.

WATTMORE. What?

GRIFFIN. Get up.

WATTMORE. Griffin –

GRIFFIN. Get up.

WATTMORE. What’s wrong? I’m on the cushions.

GRIFFIN. Get up.

WATTMORE stands up, laboriously.

WATTMORE. What time is it? Where have you been?

They both look at the BOY, sleeping there.

Who’s that?

Silence.

GRIFFIN. Who’s that? What?

WATTMORE. What?

GRIFFIN. What? I don’t know. Who is it? Why did you let him in?

WATTMORE. I didn’t let him in.

GRIFFIN. Well what’s he doing here.

WATTMORE. How should I know?

Beat.

Is it a boy?

GRIFFIN. Okay.

Pause.

Wake him up.

WATTMORE. You wake him up. I’m not waking him up.

GRIFFIN. Wake him up Wattmore.

WATTMORE. Fuck off. I’m not waking him up.

GRIFFIN. What’s he doing here? Wake him up.

WATTMORE. No.

GRIFFIN. Wake him up.

WATTMORE. No.

GRIFFIN. Wattmore.

WATTMORE. What?

Pause.

GRIFFIN. Stand back.

WATTMORE does.

WATTMORE. Griffin...

GRIFFIN. What?

WATTMORE. Put the rabbit down.

GRIFFIN passes it to WATTMORE. He shakes the stranger once. He shakes him again.

GRIFFIN. You.

Pause.

Boy.

WATTMORE. It might be a girl.

GRIFFIN. Shut up will you?

Beat.

You. Boy.

Beat.

Miss.

He shakes him again. He shakes him again. Harder. Very hard.

WATTMORE. Oh no.

GRIFFIN. What?

WATTMORE. Oh no. Is he... don’t say... Oh Jesus. Is he cold?

GRIFFIN. Course he’s cold. He’s fucking starkers.

WATTMORE. Is he breathing?

GRIFFIN listens.

GRIFFIN. He’s breathing.

Beat.

Okay Jess. What’s going on?

WATTMORE. Nothing.

GRIFFIN. How did he get here.

WATTMORE. I don’t know. What are you saying?

GRIFFIN. I come home there’s a boy asleep on our couch.

WATTMORE. What are you saying? Where have you been Griffin. What happened to your face?

GRIFFIN. I went out. I fell over.

WATTMORE. What have you done Griffin?

GRIFFIN. I fell over.

WATTMORE. What’s going on Griffin? Who is he?

GRIFFIN. Where’s Bolla?

WATTMORE. She’s in there. She’s been in there all night.

GRIFFIN. Wake her up.

WATTMORE. No chance.

GRIFFIN. Wattmore...

WATTMORE. I’m not going in there.

GRIFFIN. I woke him up.

WATTMORE. No you didn’t.

GRIFFIN. This is your fault.

WATTMORE. What. Why?

GRIFFIN. You were here. You were minding the fort.

WATTMORE. I was asleep.

They glare at one another in the moonlight.

GRIFFIN. Stand back.

He walks to the back door. He knocks on it.

Bolla.

He knocks harder. He goes in. Silence.

WATTMORE. The keys have gone. Griffin. And the tape recorder’s gone. She’s taken Dougal’s recorder.

Re-enter GRIFFIN.

GRIFFIN. Is the car out there?

WATTMORE. She’s gone out the window.

GRIFFIN. Wait here.

GRIFFIN leaves through the strip plastic. WATTMORE approaches the youth. He reaches out a hand, but stops. He gasps.

WATTMORE. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Re-enter GRIFFIN.

GRIFFIN. You can stop whispering now Jess. We’re the only fuckers here. Who caught that rabbit? Jess. I didn’t catch it. I’ve never went... I never went in the reeds.

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