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Sugar Baby

Page 3

by Alan Harris

Can I come in?

  She walks through to the kitchen and I follow.

  I was going to do a runner and then I saw my dad and he said something to me and I thought…

  What did he say?

  I haven’t got long, the police will be looking for me, but he said, well someone else said and he repeated it –

  What did he say?

  He said: we make a smashing couple.

  Lisa moves a tiny bit closer to me and I’m starting to well up and she’s starting to well up:

  If I stay in Fairwater I’m going to die of a broken heart.

  –

  Let’s fuck off together, Lis, let’s go away with this…

  _

  I got six grand and we can start again, just me and you. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? Leave Fairwater.

  Where’d you get it? The money.

  –

  Where, Marc?

  That don’t matter.

  Sorry, it does.

  I might not even have to pay it back, depending.

  Depending on what?

  BUPA.

  She shifts to her left, facing me.

  You’re in love with me, Marc Chapps. Always was, ever since we was in reg class.

  You got it the wrong way round – you was in love with me.

  Marc Chapps loves Lisa Short.

  No, no, I just wants to fuck you. Tha’s all. I wants to buy you just like Oggy was going to buy you. I wants you to be my sugar baby.

  I can see she don’t believe me and I can see I’m in trouble. Big fucking trouble.

  She moves towards me.

  We don’t have to run away, Marc, to be together.

  Now she’s closer and there’s no need for either of us to say anything.

  I’m unaware of who’s moving forward; could be me, could be her. Or maybe the world is getting that little bit smaller each millisecond and we’re both riding an ever-shrinking brown-and-white Ikea rug towards each other until we are this far apart.

  And we kiss.

  Oh yes, we kiss. How we kiss.

  Boom.

  My world expands a little and different points on our bodies are making connections

  And we kiss. Again. This time it’s all me and she pulls away a bit and I grab hold of her and bring her to me – she’s like a fucking yo-yo at this point.

  Her lips are tickling the little hairs on my earlobe as she whispers something to me and I’m so out of it that I don’t catch what she says and the focus of her watery eyes shifts away from mine and I turn and I realise why she whispered ‘you have to get out of here now’.

  Oggy stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Gary and Mo stand behind him.

  Oggy is not dead.

  Oggy, you’re not dead, thank fuck for that!

  I rush forward and hug him and then realise this is, in the circumstances, highly inappropriate.

  I stand back and notice Oggy’s head has a massive bandage around it. Both his eyes are black. The missing front tooth makes him look harder than he is.

  Yeah, that’s right, brah, I’m not dead.

  I don’t feel as though he’s about to call me Wendy or tell the story about us at Rachel Patterson’s party.

  Which, I have to emphasise, again, is not true.

  Look, Oggy, I’m sorry, just an accident, yeah? Here, you can have this six thousand pounds, it’ll clear Lisa’s debt, yeah? We’re all mates, yeah? Brah…?

  He shakes his pinhead of a head.

  I know there’s no getting out of this – this is how it happens in gangster movies: Oggy is going to kill me. I can’t fight back cos if I do Gary and Mo will get involved. I can predict every move Oggy will make. I’ve known him and his type all my life and I knows what he will do next. He’ll take a step forward.

  Oggy takes a step forward.

  He will get out some sort of weapon to beat me with.

  It’s half a pool cue. The bottom half.

  I’m begging you, Oggy, please. Let us both go.

  Kiss my trainers.

  What?

  Lick the Nike. Just do it.

  The tip of my tongue licks the tick.

  Please, Oggy. Please…

  He slowly unbuttons his cargo pants and out flops his cock.

  Now give little Oggy a little kiss.

  He’s going to make me suck him off, then he’s going to kill me.

  I turn to Gary and Mo. They look away, this is too much even for them.

  Come on, Marky, little Oggy wants kisses.

  And what happens if I do give, uh, little Oggy kisses?

  You can walk out of here alive. Well, you might not be walking but… What you crying for, Marc? Come on, what you waiting for?

  And she does it.

  Lisa stabs Oggy in the ribs – he stops, a dramatic pause if ever there was one.

  From where I’m kneeling I can see it’s a big knife, with a big black handle. Something you might use for chopping larger veg.

  The knife sinks into a point in the middle of Oggy’s gut. It thrust up and sideways and split the stomach lining in two, cutting a slice off Oggy’s left lung before puncturing his heart. Surprisingly there wasn’t much blood to start with. That soon changed though.

  This time he doesn’t go down like a sack of shit. Lisa steps back and Oggy brings down the pool cue, drops it, it clatters, he staggers forward and leans on the kitchen table, cock still out. For a second looks he like he’s just taking a rest.

  Then he goes down like a sack of shit.

  I looks down and Beyoncé is looking back up at me – she ain’t moving.

  Oh oh oh. Oh oh oh.

  The coroner later said the blade, measuring five-point-four inches long, was probably purchased from Argos.

  We snap back to real time and Gary and Mo are already out the house.

  While Lisa’s being sick in the sink I turns and sees Billy out the kitchen window. He gives me a wink and runs down Fairwater Road as fast as his flippers can take him.

  Epilogue

  Celia’s considering her options: she’s down to some lobster thing or oysters. The restaurant isn’t posh posh but it isn’t Fairwater Fish Bar; put it like this – I’m the only one wearing white socks.

  The old girl nearly wet herself when I suggested a holiday.

  Yeah, before this cancer thing – before they starts cutting lumps out of you.

  Just a minor operation, Marc, nothing for you to worry about.

  Who said I was fucking worried, Celia?

  Mind your language, Marc. My house, my rules. Where should we go?

  I was thinking about Switzerland –

  Switzerland? Why?

  But maybe somewhere warmer might be better.

  I was hating it – I particularly hate sand. And with Marbella being on the coast there’s no getting away from the sand. At least Celia was paying.

  As Celia considers the menu, it strikes me that she couldn’t have sanctioned Bunce’s men beating the shit out of the old man – I’ve learnt she hates any type of violence. Except to shellfish, obviously.

  I could see Celia was in the mood to share – and I’m not talking tapas.

  Tell me, Marc.

  Tell you what, Celia?

  Anything you like, love. I’ve got three years of Marc to catch up on.

  When you and the old man split up I didn’t understand it – first thing I thought was, could I have stopped them? After a while I thought everything was your fault. Now, I can see things are more grey than black and white.

  I told her about drug dealing, living in Fairwater, about Oggy, about the cops turning up to a house in Fairwater to find him dead with his cock out and half a pool cue shoved up his arse.

  I shared with her the scene after Lisa had stabbed Oggy – of the holdall I packed for her, the warm cash in fifty-quid notes I placed in the side-zipped pocket along with a Dove deodorant and a bar of soap (at that moment I remember thinking how refreshing it was that Lisa used soap and not shower gel), the frantic pho
ne call to Stannie:

  I needs a big favour, Stannie, one you’ll actually have to get out the house for.

  I told her about Lisa, in a stupor, being led out the door, of her getting into a Vauxhall Astra.

  When it was her turn, Celia shared a story of when her and the old man had sex in a hedge. I know.

  The waitress walks towards our table and I can see that she does look good in anything and I remember having that very same thought at Cantonian High School, even though she sat behind me.

  Hi, my name is Wendy, you ready to order?

  I’ll have the lobster linguine and a glass of Rioja and my son will have…

  Curly fries and a pint of cava.

  Lisa laughs.

  I laugh.

  Celia gives an embarrassed shake of her head as Lisa returns to the bar.

  I can see the sea from where we’re sat. It looks fantastic.

  I sit there, waiting for my fizzy wine, glad that I’m not on my own, concentrating on the waves as they gently wash away what’s gone before.

  In the surf I see a head bobbing along. Not the head of a swimmer but… it’s Billy. Of course it fucking is. He lies on his back, flippers in the air, basking in the sun. He lifts his flipper and gives me a little wave before disappearing, diving deeper into the sea.

  The End.

  ALAN HARRIS

  Plays include: How My Light Is Spent (Royal Exchange, Manchester/Sherman/ Theatre by the Lake; Bruntwood Judges’ Prize 2015); Love, Lies and Taxidermy (Paines Plough/Sherman/Theatr Clwyd); The Opportunity of Efficiency (New National Theatre Tokyo/National Theatre Wales); The Magic Toyshop (Invisible Ink/Theatr Iolo); The Future For Beginners (liveartshow/ Wales Millennium Centre); A Good Night Out in the Valleys (National Theatre Wales); A Scythe of Time (New York Musical Theatre Festival); Cardboard Dad (Sherman); Orange (Sgript Cymru). He has also written radio plays for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3.

  Libretti include: Marsha: A Girl Who Does Bad Things (liveartshow/Arcola Grimeborn Festival); The Hidden Valley (Birdsong Opera/Welsh National Opera/Tête à Tête); The Journey (Welsh National Opera); Rhinegold, Manga Sister (both liveartshow/The Yard, London).

  A Nick Hern Book

  Sugar Baby first published in Great Britain in 2017 as a paperback original by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, in association with Dirty Protest

  This ebook first published in 2017

  Sugar Baby copyright © 2017 Alan Harris

  Alan Harris has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work

  Cover illustration by Nic Finch

  Designed and typeset by Nick Hern Books, London

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 84842 674 0 (print edition)

  ISBN 978 1 78001 930 7 (ebook edition)

  CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  Amateur Performing Rights Applications for performance, including readings and excerpts, by amateurs in English should be addressed to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, tel +44 (0)20 8749 4953, email rights@nickhernbooks.co.uk, except as follows:

  Australia: Dominie Drama, 8 Cross Street, Brookvale 2100, tel (2) 9938 8686, fax (2) 9938 8695, email drama@dominie.com.au

  New Zealand: Play Bureau, PO Box 9013, St Clair, Dunedin 9047, tel (3) 455 9959, email info@playbureau.com

  South Africa: DALRO (pty) Ltd, PO Box 31627, 2017 Braamfontein, tel (11) 712 8000, fax (11) 403 9094, email theatricals@dalro.co.za

  United States of America and Canada: The Agency (London) Ltd, see details below

  Professional Performing Rights Applications for performance by professionals in any medium and in any language throughout the world (and amateur and stock performances in the United States of America and Canada) should be addressed to The Agency (London) Ltd, 24 Pottery Lane, Holland Park, London W11 4LZ, fax +44 (0)20 7727 9037, email info@theagency.co.uk

  No performance of any kind may be given unless a licence has been obtained. Applications should be made before rehearsals begin. Publication of this play does not necessarily indicate its availability for amateur performance.

 

 

 


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