Leon
So one day
I get this visit.
This bloke from
Victim Liaison.
Mr Casey.
Casey the case!
He says he’s got this proposal.
This bit of news.
And I’m expecting him to say
Something about my parole,
You know:
Something about my chances there.
So I’m like:
‘Oh yeah?’
(Beat.)
But does he – ?
Fuck.
‘How would you like to meet the people you did this to?’
Just like that.
Right between the eyes.
(Beat.)
‘I’m sorry?
Do what?’
(Beat.)
‘Meet the victims,’ he says.
‘The parents of the child.’
And he sits there with this smile on his face
Like he’s just offered me tickets to the football.
‘So what’s in it for me?’
I say.
‘What’s in it for me?’
(Beat.)
And there’s this
Crafty look on his face:
‘Are you ready to face your future?’
(Beat.)
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘I think I am.’
(Beat.)
‘But I’m hearing good things about you,
Leon.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Such as all these pictures you’re painting.
Is there nothing else you’d like to share with these good
people?
Nothing else you’d like to tell them,
Now you’ve had the chance to think about
What it is you’ve done?’
(Beat.)
‘Look mate,
Let’s cut the crap.
I done four years.
So I’ll ask you a question, shall I?
How would you like to be run over by your own car?’
(Beat.)
That knocks the smile off his face.
He doesn’t look very happy now, does he.
(Beat.)
‘Look, boss,
I just want to get out.
I just want to get out, all right?’
(Beat.)
‘Well,’ he says,
‘There’s getting out,
And getting out.
What exactly are you going to be doing,
When you get out?’
Scene Fourteen
Petra alone, after Casey’s departure.
Petra
So when he’s left,
When we’ve said our piece,
I see what I always see:
Another person,
A do-gooder,
A visitor to the shrine.
But it’s not their shrine, is it:
So what can they say
When they know
No holy words?
Scene Fifteen
Leon in jail: a speech delivered as much to his own interiority, as for the benefit of Casey.
Leon
(grandly)
‘When I Get Out’,
By Leon.
(Beat.)
OK,
I’ve thought about it.
I’ve thought a lot about it,
Mr Casey.
(Beat.)
I’m not afraid of work,
I’m not afraid of getting my hands dirty.
You get an apprenticeship in a garage.
They pay you while you get your level one.
Stick your hands down the bonnet of a car.
Like being a vet,
Except this one’s got wheels,
Farts black smoke!
Grease up to your elbow:
On your cock
When you go for a slash.
I’d get one of those souped-up racing engines,
Stick it on to a Fiesta.
You know, something
Turbo-charged,
Fuel-injected,
Which means the air gets right in there,
Where the petrol burns.
Not difficult if you know how,
If you’ve got your basic welding.
(Beat; now positioning himself.)
Tail fins sloping round behind,
Twin exhausts coming out the back.
Dashboard like a bloody,
Bloody –
Jet plane!
Are you watching, Mr Casey?
Then watch this!
Cos this is me taking off.
This is me flying!
Right out of here.
Right out of this fucking place.
(Pause.)
Goes on my record, right?
If I agree to meet them:
It goes on my record, yeah?
Scene Sixteen
We are back at the conference. But late on now. The first, expository stages are over.
Petra
(emphatic, stating her purpose)
Now that it’s my turn to speak
I think I should warn everybody:
I’m not here to be nice.
And I find it striking
How, in all this careful arrangement of people and chairs,
My daughter is the only one who hasn’t been invited.
So is that OK with everyone?
If I invite her?
(She brings a chair and places it.)
There.
This will be her chair.
Charley’s chair.
She’s going to be ten next week.
We remember her birthday.
Don’t we, Jimmy?
Scene Seventeen
Cut to a subsequent preparative meeting between Leon and Casey, a fortnight, perhaps, after the first. Leon in jail.
Leon
If I agree to meet them,
If I do, Mr Casey:
There’s just one thing I want to ask.
Freddie died cos he wasn’t wearing a safety belt,
And that was his look-out.
But from what I heard,
Their kid died because she was in the front seat.
And that was an offence what they did.
My lawyer told me
They were lucky not to be charged.
So what I want to ask is:
Why was she there
Where she should never have been?
I need to know that, Mr Casey.
I have a right to know.
(Beat.)
So that’s it.
If I agree to meet them,
If I do:
It’s because I’m thinking about my future, too.
Which is what you want, isn’t it?
Scene Eighteen
Back to the conference.
Petra
(abruptly, to Leon)
So tell me:
When you do get out,
Are you intending to visit us again?
Leon
Don’t know what you mean.
Petra
I mean,
Are you coming back?
Is there anything else you want from us?
Leon
No.
Petra
Are you sure?
Leon
Yes.
Petra
What makes you so sure?
Cars?
Money?
Possessions?
Leon
I’m not doing it again.
(Small pause.)
Petra
This car you stole:
The car that killed our daughter.
Did you know,
That the development you broke into,
The estate you described to us in your account,
It happened to be our home.
It was where we lived.
Did you know that?
Leon
No.
<
br /> Petra
Well, who can blame you for that?
It’s just one of those things.
Leon
I didn’t know.
Petra
Well, how could you have known?
In the heat of the moment?
Leon
Yeah, I didn’t know.
Petra
So this place:
Our home.
Would it surprise you
That we moved there
To bring up our family?
Jimmy
(seeing the way she’s going)
Petra.
Petra
Well, that’s why people move
To places like that,
Why should we be any different?
A family estate without graffiti on the walls
Or gob on the pavements.
A place where children can play.
He must have seen that.
He’d cased the joint.
You’d cased the joint,
Hadn’t you?
You’d seen the cars through the gate.
Leon
Yeah.
Yeah, we’d seen the cars.
Petra
So what could be more natural?
I mean,
I think I completely understand what you’re driving at,
If you’ll pardon the pun.
You saw where we lived,
What we had,
And you thought:
‘That’s easy pickings.
That’s fair game.’
Leon
No.
We just come for the car.
Petra
You just come for the car?
Leon
Yeah,
That’s what I’m saying.
Petra
But you never
Just come for the car.
Isn’t it obvious?
You come to break into somebody else’s home,
You come to break into somebody else’s life!
Leon
And I’m sorry!
Petra
You’re sorry?
(Beat; then savage.)
You know, Jimmy,
I think I’d have respected him more
If he’d broken in and taken her
Like any regular child-snatcher.
Leon
But I didn’t take her!
I didn’t take anybody./
Jimmy
All right, Petra.
Leon
I didn’t come to take anyone.
It’s what I’m telling you.
I just wanted a car.
A nice car.
Petra
A nice car?
You mean
A car with tits?
Leon
What?
Petra
A car you could fuck.
Leon
What are you talking about?
What is she talking about?
Petra
You see,
This is the point.
It’s just another story, isn’t it,
Another picture he’s preparing
For the judge:
He just wanted a nice car.
So he comes to where the nice cars are.
Where else?
What could be more natural than that?
I mean,
There we were,
Daring to live in a place
Like that.
Leon
What’s she saying?/
Petra
I’m saying:
Leon
I don’t understand what she’s saying.
Petra
I haven’t come here to be nice.
And I’m not allowing this lie
To go unchallenged.
This lie,
This picture you’re painting:
That somehow,
You had no choice.
what you did was understandable.
That people like us
Deserve to be preyed upon
By people like you.
Leon
What’s people like me?/
Petra
We all have choices.
Leon
What’s people like me?
Petra
Little arseholes
Who choose to take a car,
As though it had no more consequence than
Lifting a shopping trolley from Sainsbury’s.
You choose to take a car –
A car you can’t properly handle
And drive it at high speed
Along a road you don’t know.
And then you take a life.
Two lives!
And this is a direct result,
If anyone cares to look –
There’s this simple,
Straight line from one act
To the next.
You didn’t just
Take a car.
You killed my child!
And I’m not letting you off the hook.
I’m not letting you walk away
As though it were just some accident.
You’re not just walking away from this!
Leon, angered now, rises to fetch a second chair, which he places in opposition to Charley’s, so the two empty chairs face each other.
Jimmy
What’s he doing?
Leon
What about Freddie?
Does he get a chair and all?
Petra
Is this supposed to be a joke?
Jimmy
What’s he doing, Mr Casey?
Leon
Same as what they’re doing.
I’m doing what they’re doing.
Freddie can sit by me, Mr Casey.
Maybe he has something to say, too.
He’s dead too, remember?
Jimmy
It’s not the same, Leon./
Leon
So what’s not the same?
He’s dead too.
Jimmy
Freddie was an accomplice.
A victim of his own behaviour.
Our daughter was innocent.
Leon
So why not tell him that.
Tell him
What you keep telling me.
Ask him why he came knocking on my window that night.
Ask him why he was in the passenger seat,
And not me.
Ask him for a change!
Jimmy
No,
I don’t think you understand.
Petra
(over Jimmy, to Casey)
So tell him, Mr Casey,
Because unless he can understand that
We might as well pick up our things and go.
Leon
(to Casey)
But I’m not trying to say
What they think I’m saying.
Jimmy
So what are you saying?
Leon
It was an accident!
Petra
It was an accident!
Petra
(indicating the empty chair)
So tell her that!
Go on:
Stand up and tell her that!
Jimmy
You’ve stolen more cars
Than we’ve had hot dinners, Leon.
You were going to kill someone sooner or later.
Did you never stop to think about that?
Leon
Yeah.
I thought about it.
Jimmy
You thought about it?
Well, you must have thought a lot about it, Leon,
Because it wasn’t just that night was it,
And it wasn’t just that car.
It could have been any night,
And any bloody car.
And you could have killed anybody.
(Beat.)
But you knew that, didn’t you
?
Because you’d thought about it.
Leon
(beat)
What can I say?
What do you want me to say?
That it was a rush?
It was a buzz?
It gave me a hard-on?
Jimmy
Jesus Christ!
Leon
You know what?
If I could,
I’d change everything.
I’d put me there, instead of her.
I’d put me there instead of Freddie.
I’d kill me now and bring them two back to life.
That’s the truth.
But you don’t want to hear that, do you.
You want to hear that I’m some kind of monster,
Some kind of perv.
And I don’t blame you.
How could I?
So what can I say that would make any difference?
Jimmy
You can show us what this actually means to you.
Leon
But I just have.
Jimmy
Then you’ll have to show us again, won’t you.
Because we just don’t believe you.
Leon
The pictures, Mr Casey!
Tell them about the pictures!
Jimmy
The pictures?
The pictures?
Where are the scars, Leon?
Show me what hell looks like!
(Beat.)
Oh! You can’t do that, can you.
Because no one can teach you to draw that.
Petra
You know, I think it’s perfectly clear
What’s going on here:
The pictures!
I think we understand each other perfectly.
Leon
So what do you want me to do?
Tell me what it is,
And I’ll try to do it.
I swear I’ll try.
Petra
Then try this, Leon.
Try this!
Just in case you think for one moment
That we should be grateful
For your being here –
For this picture of your remorse –
Listen to this.
(Beat.)
You think there’s a bottom to it, don’t you.
You think that we’ve reached that now,
Seeing as you’re here,
Telling us how apologetic you are.
How very sorry.
As if everything comes to rest on something,
Eventually –
Like you falling out of that chair,
Or me chucking a stone down a well –
When you hear the splash back,
Or you hit the floor.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
(Beat.)
But it’s not.
It’s not like that.
(Beat.)
After the Accident Page 4