The English Game by Richard Bean

Author:Richard Bean [Bean, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849431569
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd

Act Three

(Ten minutes later. The cuckoo again. RUBEN looks after the old scoreboard. The total needed score is set at the bottom and reads 181. WILL is knelt down, near the tea things, tying his shoe laces. THEO is stage right clearing up tea things. SEAN and PAUL are getting ready to bat ie: strapping on pads etc. Birdsong and almost idyllic.)

WILL: (To THEO.) I’m getting old. When I was tying my shoe laces just then, I said to myself, ‘Is there anything else I can do whilst I’m down here’.

THEO: I can hear a cuckoo! Bird song in the city – beautiful! Can you hear it?

(WILL shuts his eyes, listening. There is birdsong. The electronic beep of REG’s blackberry.)

REG: (On the blackberry.) Train crash in the Philippines. Two hundred dead.

(Enter BERNARD carrying some used paper plates. He puts these down on the table.)

BERNARD: I worked out what the problem is with your new scoreboard. All objects have an inherent spectroscopy. White, specifically gloss white, reflects the sun, creating glare.

(BERNARD leaves.)

THEO: Deborah has been offered a sabbatical from work. She’s suggesting we live in the Perigord for six months, a kind of trial, to see if we could live there permanently, and to discover what we miss.

WILL: Six months, across the cricket season?

THEO: You guessed. How’s Harriet?

WILL: We haven’t had made love since 9/11.

THEO: Mmm. I heard you on The Moral Maze last week. I really think you should be careful Will.

(THEO holds up a beautiful white stone.)

WILL: What beautiful stones.

THEO: Yes. The Sunday of the Beamers match, I was on Eastbourne beach with Deborah. I’d wanted to play, couldn’t, and so did the next best thing – scoured the beach for umpiring stones.

WILL: I’ve wasted the whole of my life playing this game. It’s claimed my knees, and it fills every spare synapse in my brain. Not even sure I like it anymore.

(WILL goes over to LEN.)

SEAN: (To PAUL.) Are you ready?

(PAUL is in a world of his own, and doesn’t hear.)

CLIVE: Communication. The key to an effective opening partnership.

PAUL: What?

WILL: Alright Dad? I’m umpiring, for the first ten.

LEN: (Very weak.) I think I’m going.

WILL: Well, no-one’s stopping you.

LEN: The best moments of my life have happened on this pitch.

WILL: I won’t tell my mother you said that.

(THEO joins WILL.)

THEO: Ready? You and Harriet must come round for dinner sometime –

(WILL and THEO walk off to the centre. PAUL has picked up OLLY’s bat.)

NICK: Go on lads!

OLLY: (To PAUL.) Are you going to borrow my bat?

PAUL: Yeah. My bat’s split. I told you.

(PAUL sets off on his own to the middle.)

SEAN: Paul! I’d like us to walk out together, like members of the same team.

(PAUL tuts and waits.)

Call OK. Shout loud. ‘WAIT’ or ‘YES’. No ‘NOs’. OK?

PAUL: What’s wrong with ‘NO’.

SEAN: It sounds like ‘GO’.

PAUL: No it doesn’t. Go’s got a Gu in it.

SEAN: Oh piss off.

(PAUL turns and heads off.)

NICK: Play your natural game Sean!

WILL: (Off.) No bails! Bernard!? Have you got our bails?

BERNARD: (Off.) They should be in the umpires’ coats.

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