by Sarah Wooley
CLAY He did?
EILEEN Yes
But you were too young too
You didn’t have the patience.
CLAY I really
I don’t remember
EILEEN No, of course you don’t
It was just once, just one time.
Sorry, you were saying, you and your friend
CLAY Me and this girl, well we had a canoe
EILEEN (Laughs.) A canoe?
CLAY We used to row out into the middle of the lake and attach these little red pellets onto a hook and line
We didn’t catch much, just guppies
And the lake had leeches
EILEEN Ugh!
CLAY Yeah
Slimey little bastards
Freaked her out
and mosquitoes too
Man they’d eat you alive
You’d be all bitten up by noon.
But I loved it
I felt…free
Stopped me thinkin’ too much
EILEEN Wish I could have seen you
Playing out in the open, you and your friend
It sounds like
You did have…moments
When you were happy?
You were able, sometimes, to enjoy yourself?
CLAY I guess
Pause.
EILEEN Did you never try to to
leave him to
run away?
CLAY Once.
I was ten
I made it down to the highway but ended up getting lost
The trees cast long shadows in the dark
It was cold the snow had only just thawed
I was scared.
He found me…
I never tried again.
Silence. Clay moves away from Eileen, his eyes fall on the buffet for the press.
I didn’t expect all this
I didn’t think
All this fuss and
I didn’t think they’d send a TV crew.
EILEEN It’s a big story
CLAY Yes but
one newspaper I thought that’s all just one
EILEEN But this is wonderful news Patrick
The world is waiting.
If you’d followed our story after all these years wouldn’t you want to know how it ended?
And they’ve been very good
They don’t usually do it like this
Usually, you have to go to them but this is special that’s what they said
They want pictures of you back at home, safe with us, where you belong
Beat.
We should go through what we plan to say, get our story straight.
CLAY You make it sound like we’re lying.
Beat.
EILEEN It might be an idea to write things down
Get things clear, that’s all.
Pause.
When it happened when he
You did tell him about us?
The man I mean the
You must have known we were looking for you
CLAY He said you didn’t want me
He said your parents don’t love you no more
I’m your father now
This is your new name
I was five
I believed him
EILEEN But people at the school they must
You would have had an accent
You would have stood out
CLAY I was no different from the other kids
EILEEN No but you were you
CLAY You say that
but people they don’t look
They’ve got their own lives their own kids to raise their own worries.
What does it matter to them what goes on behind the trailer door
People believe what they’re told
Pause.
EILEEN You said he gave you a new name
What did he call you?
CLAY Clay.
Short for Clayton
I’m used to it now
At first I wasn’t so keen.
Beat.
Donna, she wants to change my son’s name
He’s got a new father too
She wants to call him after this guy’s fucking dad or something
EILEEN Can she do that?
CLAY Can do what she likes
Unless I get custody.
Pause.
I think when you change someone’s name their old self disappears
You’re reinvented, repackaged
Your past belongs to someone else
EILEEN When I got married and changed my name
I didn’t feel like me anymore.
Pause.
CLAY What’s Ray gonna say when he gets back?
Finds half the world’s press in his front room while he’s been waiting for the fuel guy to come?
EILEEN We’ll talk to him
CLAY The last time I talked to him he threw me out
If the reporters think he doesn’t believe then
EILEEN Don’t worry
I’ll talk to him.
Pause.
Clay.
Short for Clayton.
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.
Maureen and Alasdair Clarke, Bill and
Of course this was all before…before all that
Patrick was waiting for me to take a photograph
When all of a sudden, he put both his hands in the air and brought his fists down
hard, on top of the surface of the cake.
Of course the cake exploded there was sponge everywhere.
He smeared some over his face
Some went in his hair
It was even in his eyes, clinging to his lashes.
We hadn’t had a chance to cut it
Let alone light the candles
It was ruined.
And he turned to me, Patrick and
giggled
waiting for me to laugh back I suppose, maybe take a photograph, record the
moment.
Him, with his cakey cream hands.
But then you shouted.
Broke in with your big man’s gruff
and you grabbed him by his little wrists and dragged him to the sink
You forced his hand under the cold tap, he was crying big sobs as he was straining to reach the water
and you kept jerking his hand upwards til he was stretched out
like a monkey hanging off a tree.
Pause.
You didn’t deserve another child
And you still disgust me
Silence.
RAY He said he remembered that birthday, the American
But the icing on the cake was blue not yellow
EILEEN Maybe it was blue
Maybe I got that wrong
RAY No
It was definitely yellow.
Clay enters.
CLAY I’ve been making notes
Like you told me
I’ve written quite a lot
EILEEN Can I read it?
Or if you want to…
CLAY Out loud?
EILEEN Yes why not
Out loud is good
Ray moves to go.
You need to listen to this
RAY It’ll only be bunch of lies, a work of fiction
CLAY Is this how he’s going to be when they get here?
EILEEN It’s important we go over this Ray
RAY I’m going
CLAY But if he’s
Mom you said
RAY What did you call her?
CLAY Mom I called her Mom
RAY Is this a joke?
EILEEN If you go Ray
You go for good.
RAY considers this, realises she is serious and reluctantly sits.
(To Clay.) Ok
Go on please
We’re ready
Clay reads the following. He reads in a rather stilted self-conscious way, like a child.
CLAY I believe that I am Patrick Moreton
I believe that I was born on December the Eighth, 1979
I was born in England and although I lived in the city at first I was raised in the country.
I am my parents’ only child.
In June of 1985 I went on vacation to Disney World, Orlando
It was a dream vacation for me as I was looking forward to meeting Mickey Mouse and all his / friends
RAY Mickey Mouse?
EILEEN (Warningly.) Ray
Pause.
CLAY It was my first vacation abroad.
There may have been other vacations in England but I don’t remember
Is that…?
EILEEN Keep going
CLAY On the morning of June the Seventh, my mother, Eileen Moreton, went to the store
I wanted to go with her but she wouldn’t let me
RAY You going to let him say that?
EILEEN Yes
RAY Makes you look bad
EILEEN No it doesn’t
RAY Yes it does
Makes it look like you abandoned him
EILEEN I didn’t abandon him
RAY But that’s what it looks like
EILEEN (To Clay.) Did it feel like I abandoned you?
CLAY Don’t think so
RAY Well that’s what it sounded like
EILEEN Plenty of mothers leave their kids behind when they go out
Especially if they’re behaving badly
I didn’t want a scene
and I didn’t leave him on his own
I left him with you remember
RAY So we can agree that he was behaving badly
EILEEN What?
RAY Patrick, he was behaving badly?
EILEEN Reasonably badly, on that particular day yes
RAY Reasonably badly?
EILEEN As badly as kids do when
RAY What?
EILEEN When they’re tired or
RAY Tired?
At eleven o’clock in the morning?
EILEEN Yes.
CLAY Shall I [continue]
EILEEN Yes
RAY Hang on
Suppose, you’d taken him with you
what would have happened?
EILEEN Happened?
RAY Yes
If Patrick had gone with you, to the shop, what would have happened?
EILEEN I don’t know
I didn’t take him did I
RAY But what would he have done if you had taken him?
EILEEN Done?
RAY Yes done
What would he have done?
EILEEN I don’t know what he would have done
RAY I think you do
I think you have an idea
EILEEN No
Look, I didn’t take him so I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I had taken him
It’s all…hypothetical.
RAY What was he like when you usually took him out?
EILEEN Fine he was fine
I didn’t tend to take him shopping you know that
RAY And why was that?
EILEEN Patrick didn’t like shopping
(To Clay.) Did you
Who does?
You don’t.
>
I don’t.
(To Clay.) Go on please
CLAY After my mother left
I stayed with my father, Ray Moreton
He was washing up at the sink
I went to play outside
RAY Where did you get that from?
CLAY Pardon?
RAY This detail this
I was washing up
Who told you that?
Did you get it from the newspaper?
CLAY No
EILEEN Ray stop it.
RAY Because it was in the paper
That bit about me washing up
I remember
I’ve still got the clipping
EILEEN Ignore him
RAY I’m just saying
none of this so far is very original is it?
It’s all known it’s all
EILEEN (Talking over Ray to Clay.) Thank you
Pause.
CLAY I went outside
My father could see me from where he was standing at the sink
I was playing a game
I was enjoying playing the game
RAY What was the game?
CLAY What?
EILEEN He won’t remember that
RAY He ought to
What was the game?
CLAY I can’t remember
RAY Thought not
EILEEN Ray!
CLAY But I’m sure if
EILEEN You don’t have to remember everything
Don’t feel you have to
RAY I think he has to
EILEEN Why?
It’s a game!
A game he played when he was five
How is that important?
What’s important is
RAY I think it is important
I think we should be interested in the details
EILEEN Minor details
RAY Yes ok minor details but it all counts
All adds up to
CLAY Tag
I played tag
RAY Tag what’s tag what’s
CLAY You know, where you chase someone and then tap them on the shoulder and
EILEEN You mean catch?
CLAY Catch no
Catch has a ball this is
you run and whoever gets back to base first – kind of like hide and seek
EILEEN You mean tick.
I think you mean tick
CLAY Someone stands at a base like a base could be a / tree
EILEEN I think that’s tick
You played tick
See you remembered.
He did remember the game
RAY That’s not a game for one
EILEEN What?
RAY That game, whatever its name, it requires two or more to play it
EILEEN Oh
(To Clay.) sorry, maybe I confused you
CLAY No
I’m not confused
We’re talking about the same game
Tag or tick whatever
that was the game I played
RAY But it can’t have been you idiot
EILEEN Don’t call him an idiot!
RAY But you can’t play that game on your own that’s
CLAY I wasn’t on my own
Beat.
EILEEN You weren’t alone?