by Tanya Ronder
Quarter beat.
I’m not injecting, I’m not drinking, I’m not smoking, give me a break, I’ve just chosen a different economic reality to you.
GORDON. Chosen it have you, to not be able to afford the can of paint to dip your brush in.
CLARENCE. I came this weekend hoping for something new, imagining I might even sit down with the family for a piece of toasted cheese or something…
SERENA. Gordon got pizza, did he not say? But a glass broke so –
CLARENCE. It’s fine, Serena, honestly – you needed the paint job. I just wonder if you have cash in the house.
SERENA. How much?
He gets the receipt out.
CLARENCE. One four eight for the three pots, including undercoat.
SERENA. Maybe in the swear box…
SERENA goes to the box, empties it. There are plenty of fivers.
CLARENCE. I wouldn’t want to take from charity…
SERENA. Let us know if there’s a shortfall.
He takes the money. BLUNDHILDE comes out, picks up Iggie, CLARENCE takes her case.
GORDON. Do you have somewhere to go?
BLUNDHILDE. I’m going to drink merlot and play Clash of Clans with the Australians.
Beat.
For a night or two.
GORDON. Can we call you a taxi?
CLARENCE. I’ll take her.
BLUNDHILDE addresses SERENA and GORDON.
BLUNDHILDE. I don’t want to spend one more night under your roof.
SERENA. Look, can I call you tomorrow? It’s been a day.
BLUNDHILDE. Rachel can, not you. You stand wringing your hands, ‘I’m so unfulfilled, better buy a new top from Sweaty Betty…’
SERENA. How dare you, have you looked at my web history?
BLUNDHILDE. I just take in the parcels – then you go and have a half-hour shower which when you do the sums at the end of life will basically amount to the same as picking up a gun and shooting someone.
SERENA. I have absolutely had it with your revolutionary talk,
Blundhilde. BLUNDHILDE. Me too, boring, huh?
BLUNDHILDE gives SERENA back her house key.
It’s Rachel’s first swimming badge on Tuesday, you need to arrive ten minutes early, okay?
SERENA. Okay.
BLUNDHILDE goes.
Back to Lewes?
CLARENCE. Shoreham –
SERENA. I mean Shoreham.
He addresses GORDON.
CLARENCE. I’ll call to see how you are.
GORDON. Make more amends.
CLARENCE. It’s all I can do. I’ll send Mum your love. Please tell Rache –
GORDON. Yup.
CLARENCE. That I’d love to see her.
CLARENCE goes out, the front door slams.
GORDON. Could you put those last lights out, Serena, would you mind?
SERENA. Let me get some candles first…
She lights candles, eventually turning the last light out.
Are we going to boil in our beds, Gord?
GORDON. No one really knows, but natural disasters will start happening. Have started happening. Droughts won’t hit here first – it’s more likely to be floods – but it’ll mean more people come to the country, poor and hungry – ’cause when you run out of water, you don’t die of thirst, you starve. Calais could look like a human chicken farm. And we could get shot on our beaches over a tin of Green Giant.
Beat.
I think shale might be the last nail in the coffin, because we have more shale than time.
We can’t run the dirty fuel down any more, won’t be forced to or slow our habits.
Beat.
Having the Cabinet in your pocket is not a good feeling, it’s that midnight feast when no one tells you to brush your teeth and go to bed. All it really took was, ‘Do you want the lights to go out, Minister?’
SERENA. Are you exaggerating about the sweetcorn and the beaches?
GORDON. I don’t think so. We get, ‘Take fish oil for your joints’ – there’s hundreds on the market – but not, ‘Make your showers too long and you’ll make the world unlivable in.’
SERENA. I shower at the gym too. When they say one towel or two, I say two. I dry my hair at the same time as boiling the kettle and watching Strictly, I use an electric blanket – how do I hate myself, let me count the ways.
Half beat.
Did you know we’re killing the Peruvians by eating so much quinoa, I mean, I don’t want to be held responsible for the Peruvians.
GORDON. No.
SERENA. What is it Amazon do or don’t do?
GORDON. Tax. Some other stuff.
SERENA. ‘I could do with a…’, and before I even know it I’ve bought it. Because it’s quick and achievable. Why did I choose this time of all times, to get rich?
GORDON. Even the climate scientists open up their apps and buy a frothy coffee at the weekend.
SERENA. I’m not rich, you are.
GORDON. And I want you to enjoy it.
SERENA. People are up in the air watching episodes of Humans, commuting even, but ’cause you work for an energy company and I’ve had a live-in tyrant dripping this in my ear…
Beat.
Trying to be good ruins my fucking day.
Beat.
GORDON. I am scared for our daughter.
SERENA holds him, they are the most intimate they’ve been.
SERENA. If it’s for real, what do we do? I mean, trying to do something about it feels like the boy putting his finger in the dyke, you know, totally hopeless.
Beat.
GORDON. Though that worked.
SERENA. What worked?
GORDON. That boy who put his finger in the dyke, stopped his country from flooding.
SERENA. Did he?
GORDON. He stayed there all night till the grown-ups came, who wrapped him in blankets and fixed the hole.
Beat.
I could pull out.
SERENA. Of CEO?
GORDON. Yeah.
SERENA. You’ve set the loan up and everything…
GORDON. I’ve not.
Half beat.
I know I can.
Half beat.
We can’t move house without the salary.
SERENA. Course.
Half beat.
GORDON. We’d love it by the river – so long as it didn’t flood…
SERENA. We’d save on petrol…
GORDON. We’d save on petrol. But, we don’t need to move house.
Half beat.
I’d have to leave the company if I backed out now.
SERENA. Rache would leave her school.
GORDON. I’d get another job. In renewables, even.
SERENA. Would you do that?
GORDON. It’s not very sexy.
SERENA. Like hairy German legs.
GORDON. Needs a makeover, but they actually know how to do it, just needs investment. Once it’s up it’s peanuts to run –sun, wind, tides.
SERENA. What would it cost UK to go hairy?
GORDON. A hundred and ten billion.
Beat.
Hard to walk from the fortune that’s sitting in the ground and pay that much for the pleasure.
SERENA. I’d have to work out who to be, the wife of a green-energy frontman. I couldn’t fly and see my family… but I’m behind you, Gord, if that’s what’s doing you in, of course…
Half beat.
We could move to Shoreham, keep chickens.
There is affection and humour between them.
How much good would it do, if you put a halt to that bill?
GORDON. It could make a worldwide splash. I’d be going against Government, parent company, the already nervous shareholders… It might inspire China. They’re on the case, but to step down when you’ve only just got to the front of the queue, oh cool, yeah, we’ll have one phone instead of three, catch a train, take one for the team…
Beat.
Customers are up for it
.
SERENA. Not the climate deniers.
GORDON. Tiny minority.
SERENA. Vehement though!
GORDON. I can’t pretend we’ve not been glad of them.
Beat.
SERENA. If the likes of you stand up and say we’re in trouble, people would believe you, wouldn’t they.
GORDON. For once.
Beat.
SERENA. When Rache says she wants the lights on ’cause she’s scared at night, we’d have to say, ‘No darling, ’cause if you keep the lights on what’s coming will be an awful lot scarier.’
GORDON. If the world could tell its children at the same moment…
SERENA. They do learn about it at school.
GORDON. Make the last mindless Google search, eat the last daily burger, drop our wages, together. Because unilateral doesn’t work. If you’re not doing anything about it, why should I?
SERENA. How do you organise multilateral, worldwide, self-denial…?
Half beat.
GORDON. Our industry could lead. If we gave up getting stuff out the ground, people would stop buying.
SERENA. Who of the Big Six would do that?
GORDON. There’s the rub, who’s ready to admit they’re a dinosaur?
SERENA. You’re not a dinosaur to me.
GORDON. D’you know the sediment left over from humans will settle on the earth’s crust like a cigarette paper, that’s how thin it’ll be. All this huffing and puffing and human life amounts to a parenthesis.
Beat.
SERENA. Can’t believe I’m saying this but, what if it’s just evolution? It was nice having some warm weather this summer…
GORDON. Serena.
SERENA. Just playing devil’s advocate. I mean, on a depressed day, who are we humans anyway?
GORDON. If you asked those bodies from Pompeii if they had their time again, would they choose to stay or would they listen to the alarm bells and run, what would they say?
Beat.
Fifty years’ time, Rache’ll only be fifty-seven.
Beat.
SERENA. Gord, I’m on the pill.
GORDON. Since when?
SERENA. Few months. I get so overwhelmed. I think I’ve basically been depressed since Blundhilde’s been here.
Beat.
I can’t live with imagining this stuff. Even keeping the reality of it in my head, it’s so mammoth, horrifying.
Half beat.
But the fact that you’re saying these things, thinking them, I love that. This was locked up in you.
Half beat.
Some monster could come in and become CEO instead of you and make it all even worse, then what would we do? At least if it’s you we know there’s a good man in the role.
GORDON. I don’t know how good a man I am.
SERENA. Look at me, that guilt does you no good, you’re a good man. There are so many people doing such wicked things, it’s insane that you’re the one that gets eggs pitched at you.
GORDON. We used to be hailed as magicians, bringing supplies to all corners of the earth.
Half beat.
I’m glad I know about the pill.
SERENA. I should have told you.
GORDON. She’s such a blessing, our girl.
Beat.
Doesn’t giggle as much as she used to, does she.
SERENA. It’s a lot of driving at the moment.
Beat.
If climate disaster is honestly going to happen in Rachel’s lifetime, the reality is she’s going to need one hell of a nest egg, isn’t she? I had such a shit education. I want Rache coming out smart from that school, finding a place at the top table…
GORDON. Able to protect herself.
Double beat.
Do they have a rifle range in Bushy Park?
SERENA. Why?
GORDON. Let’s find out. Book her some lessons.
The noise of the tumble dryer starts up.
SERENA. Is that the…? That timer must be faulty.
She goes to investigate.
Beat.
The computer comes on by itself – SERENA’s Balance class, GORDON stops it. A final solo egg flies against the window. RACHEL appears from her bedroom in her polar-bear outfit and BLUNDHILDE’s bear ears.
GORDON. Hello, Rache.
Beat.
I’m so sorry about earlier… Daddy wasn’t at all himself.
Beat.
We should get you out your suit and into your pyjamas.
Beat.
RACHEL. It’s dark.
GORDON. Isn’t it.
Beat.
Do you like the candles? Look at the shadows!
Double beat.
RACHEL. Can we switch the lights on?
SERENA watches from the doorway.
Beat.
End.
TANYA RONDER
Tanya Ronder is a celebrated playwright who trained at RADA and spent fourteen years working as an actress before turning to writing. Her 2007 adaptation of DBC Pierre’s Booker Prize-winning novel, Vernon God Little, was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play as well as a What’s On Stage Award for Best New Comedy and was revived by the Young Vic in 2011 as part of their anniversary season. In 2009, she adapted JM Barrie's much-loved children’s book, Peter Pan, which played to critical acclaim at Kensington Gardens’ twelve hundred seat tent and then moved to the O2 for Christmas before touring America. It toured again in the summer of 2014. Her original plays include Table, which opened to critical acclaim in the Shed at the National Theatre in 2013, and Fuck the Polar Bears, which premiered at The Bush Theatre, London, in 2015. Other credits include Liolà which opened at the National Theatre’s Lyttleton in 2013 and Dara which opened in January 2015, again in the Lyttleton.
A Nick Hern Book
Fuck the Polar Bears first published in Great Britain in 2015 as a paperback original by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, in association with the Bush Theatre, London
This ebook first published in 2015
Fuck the Polar Bears copyright © 2015 Tanya Ronder
Tanya Ronder has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover photograph by Eric Richmond; design by Well Made
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 510 1 (print edition)
ISBN 978 1 78001 659 7 (ebook edition)
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