When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell

Author:Andrew Bovell [Bovell, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925359107
Publisher: Currency Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE SAME ROOM

LONDON 1962

HENRY: I’ve lost my umbrella.

ELIZABETH: Where?

HENRY: I’ve left it on the train.

ELIZABETH: But didn’t you notice it was raining when you got off?

HENRY: Strangely no. Not straight away. And by the time I did the train had left the platform.

ELIZABETH: There’s soup in the pot.

HENRY: Right.

ELIZABETH: It’s fish, I’m afraid.

HENRY: Terrible weather.

ELIZABETH: Relentless.

HENRY: Still.

ELIZABETH: Yes.

He takes a nappy from the pile and dries his face.

HENRY: Where’s Gabriel?

ELIZABETH: Asleep.

HENRY: Something happened on the train. [Beat.] It was crowded, stifling, standing room only, and I was completely lost in my own thoughts… when I realised that I had tucked my hand down the front of my trousers and was absent-mindedly pleasuring myself. [Beat.] I know.

ELIZABETH: You’ll be arrested.

HENRY: At first I didn’t think anyone saw me. I mean nobody looks down there on the train.

ELIZABETH: The people with seats look down there. It’s at their eye level.

HENRY: I know, but I thought nobody saw me. And then the train pulled into the platform and a woman approached and as she passed to get off she said, ‘You should be ashamed. There are children on this train.’ And I looked around and there were, several children, and I mean I don’t know if they were aware of what had happened but, Beth, I was appalled, I was so ashamed.

ELIZABETH: Well, it wasn’t intentional.

HENRY: No.

ELIZABETH: You weren’t deliberately trying to be offensive.

HENRY: No.

ELIZABETH: I mean you’re not one of those men who do it in public phone boxes and places like that, are you?

HENRY: Absolutely not.

ELIZABETH: Well, then… No wonder you forgot your umbrella.

HENRY: I’ll look in on Gabriel.

ELIZABETH: Talk to me. I’ve been stuck indoors all day. I’ve been waiting for you to come home. You’re late. I don’t know where you are. I start thinking the worst.

HENRY: I was caught by the rain.

ELIZABETH: I need adult company, Henry. I’m going mad. I wasn’t meant to be a mother… What were you thinking about, by the way, as you absent-mindedly pleasured yourself on the train?

HENRY: Well, the weather actually.

ELIZABETH: And you were aroused by this?

HENRY: No. At least not consciously. No, I was thinking about a hurricane.

ELIZABETH: Oh.

HENRY: In the year 1780. The deadliest hurricane in history tears the Caribbean apart. It bears the name of a Pope. Callixtus. Credited with establishing the practice of absolution in the Christian Church for all repenting sinners. But Callixtus shows no mercy now. More than twenty-two thousand people are killed. The force of the rain strips the bark from the trees before it rips them from the earth. Not a single building is left standing on the island of Barbados. The same on St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent. Can you imagine, Beth, what it must be like to be at the centre of such a maelstrom?

ELIZABETH: I think it would be terrifying.

HENRY: Yes…

Beat.

ELIZABETH: ‘Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.’

HENRY looks at her.

Diderot, Henry. The French philosopher. You must be familiar with him?

HENRY: Vaguely.

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