They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina by Sarah Wooley

Author:Sarah Wooley [Wooley, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781840028188
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd
Published: 2012-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

SCENE FIVE

Same place an hour later.

RAY Like one of those people those

grubby people

Trisha people

Whores

Criminals

Obese men with fifteen tattoos and fifteen kids

That’s what we’ll be

EILEEN Shush!

He’s only upstairs he’ll hear

RAY Someone to point at

to whisper

Is that what he wants?

EILEEN Shush!

I asked them here not him

It was my idea

RAY I won’t be able to go out!

EILEEN You don’t go out

RAY Walk down the street

Go to the post office buy cigarettes

EILEEN You don’t smoke

RAY I won’t be able to post a letter

Potter in the garden

Open the front door for a parcel

EILEEN What parcel?

RAY The whole world will think we’re idiots

Sad old people who’ll believe anything

They’ll think I’ve got early Alzheimer’s

They’ll look at us and sigh

I’ll have to suffer strangers’ pity

EILEEN We’ll work out what we’re going to say

Work it out

It’ll be fine

RAY Once they’ve got you on tape that’s it you know

It’s not like the old days where they’d use it again

Go over with something more important

Every blink

every nod

every silence not filled they’ll grab it.

cut and edit

replay forever.

EILEEN He’s got a son.

RAY Who has?

EILEEN Patrick

RAY He’s not

don’t keep calling him that!

EILEEN He’s my grandson Ray

I won’t let you stop me from seeing him

RAY Seeing who?

Who?

He’s not

If he’s got some kid it’s nothing to do with us

EILEEN I want him here

I want him to go to school in the village

He’s only four / but he can start next term in the juniors

RAY What?!

This child?

Is it here?

EILEEN No and his name is Bailey

Isn’t that a nice?

He’s in America now with his mother

But we’ll go to court / get him back

RAY For Christ’s sake court?!

What are you talking about?

EILEEN Keep your voice down he’ll hear!

RAY I don’t care!

I go out for half an hour

half an hour to check on the on the

Beat.

Why didn’t we have another one, eh?

It wasn’t too late was it?

A girl maybe

A little girl who was into dolls and dressing up

I could have taken her to playgroup and when she got home we could have baked cakes

And as she got older she’d have known how far to go with me

how far to push

cause me and her we would have understood each other

fathers’ daughters that’s what they do

Pause.

Why did you turn away from me Eileen?

EILEEN You know why

RAY No, no it wasn’t that.

You say that put the blame the

but that came later

You’d hung me out

let me dry up

years before that.

Beat.

I was a catch me, once

EILEEN (Scoffs.)

RAY No no hang on you said that.

Used those very words yourself I remember

EILEEN No

RAY Yes.

You said it to that friend of yours in the office what was her name?

Dark rimmed glasses and flicked up hair

Pause.

EILEEN Violet

RAY Yes, Violet.

‘I’ve got a good one me’ – that’s what you said

‘He’s lovely looking, good at his work and he wants…me’

EILEEN I was a kid

RAY You were twenty-nine.

You said, ‘I’m lucky,’ that’s what you told her.

Pause.

You loved him more than me.

EILEEN No I didn’t

RAY After he was born I became invisible

What did I do Eileen?

Why did I disgust you?

Pause.

EILEEN Remember

It was Patrick’s birthday

I bought a cake

A cake with yellow icing

We had friends round.

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