Jez Butterworth Plays

by Jez Butterworth

  NED. Joy –

  JOY. I worked double shifts all spring to pay for them. This is splendid. Thank you very much, Edward. You’ve made my day.

  NED. I’m sure they’ll turn up.

  JOY. I’m glad you’re so confident.

  NED. They’ll be somewhere silly.

  JOY. You’ve made my day.

  NED. You know me. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on.

  Pause.

  JOY. Well, that was delicious, Edward.

  NED. Hang about, I’ve made a sweet.

  JOY. I’ve not got the room.

  NED. I’ve made jam roly-poly.

  JOY. I couldn’t possibly. I’m full up.

  NED. You sure? Couldn’t squeeze some in?

  JOY. I’d love to but it’s physically impossible. I’m stuffed. It’s your fault. You’ve filled me up.

  NED. But there’s always a sweet. I always make a sweet.

  JOY. I’m already in discomfort, Ned. You don’t want me in more discomfort, do you.

  NED. Of course not, Joy.

  JOY stands up.

  JOY. Compliments to the chef, Edward. I’m going to bed.

  NED. It’s nine o’clock.

  JOY. I don’t feel well.

  NED. Cripes. Was it the food?

  JOY. The food was fine.

  NED. Was it the gravy? Was the gravy too rich?

  JOY. The gravy was perfect. I need to lie down.

  NED. Well, goodnight, my cuddly toy. Perhaps when I come up, we could play Scrabble. Would you like that? Little game of Scrabble?

  Beat.

  JOY. Goodnight, Edward.

  NED. Sleep tight. (Beat.) My little cuddly toy.

  She heads out.

  Joy.

  JOY. What?

  NED. I remember. What it said on the cufflinks. I remember.

  He watches her leave.

  Blackout.

  Spotlight on:

  DALE. Me and Lyn, Ned and Joy, we live six feet apart. It’s the same house. But round theirs, everything’s backwards. You’re in our lounge, you need a slash, come out, do a left. Do that next door, you end up in the kitchen. It’s a nice area. Young couples. Families. You’ve not got to drive far to see a cow. But like any nice area now, you’ve not got to drive far before you’re in the fucking Dark Ages. You can see them from the end of the garden. Six black blocks, on the horizon. Hatfield Towers. I know they haven’t got it easy over there. And there’s some good people. Some good, hard-working folk. And some right maggots. Their kids don’t give a fuck. They come in the car wash, some spotty little orc in a brand-new Boxster. And the nine-year-olds. We had stinkbombs and snappits. This lot’ve got crossbows. Muskets. Poison darts. So I said to Ned, check your locks and windows, mate. Could be a sneak thief. Someone from over there. From Middle Earth, some twelve-year-old can inch in through a bog window. Some four-stone kid they can grease up and feed in through the letterbox. But Ned said, why would someone steal a stamp collection and leave the Xbox. Walk past three tellies to nick a box of Victorian postcards out the attic, the Collected Works of H.G. Wells, an Edwardian clay-pipe collection, a stuffed badger and a bronze bust of Aldous Huxley. And I had to admit it didn’t add up. (Beat.) But you have to know Ned. What is Ned? I don’t want to say paranoid. But on a good day, on the flat, he’s volatile. Fragile. Sometimes, when he gets an idea, it doesn’t always wash through. It plants itself. It stays there and it grows and grows and ripens. And then it starts to go off. It starts to fester. (Beat.) Two months back, the doorbell goes. Seven in the morning. It’s Ned. Dressed for work. He looks terrible. Hasn’t slept. Three, four nights on the bounce. Big bags. Shivers. He comes in the kitchen, I’m making tea, and I turn round to hand him a cuppa and he’s fast asleep. On his feet. I touch him and he wakes up, takes the tea and drinks it down, boiling hot. Straight out of the kettle. Doesn’t even notice. Doesn’t flinch. Then he looks at me square in the eye and says, ‘Dale, I am fat. I want to get fit. Tone up.’ I like to keep fit. I know the ropes. So I say, ‘Why not? Let’s devise a program. Get you match fit. Tight. Tough. Back in shape. Can’t hurt, can it?’

  Blackout.

  A surtitle appears:

  ‘Each year, the birds came back.’

  NED and JOY’s house. NED and DALE, warming up. Stretches. They stop. Facing each other.

  DALE. How you feeling?

  NED. Good. Loose.

  DALE. You ready?

  NED. Ready to rock, Dale.

  DALE. Ready to work.

  NED. Bring it on, Dale. Rock and roll.

  DALE. Okay. On your back.

  DALE lies on his back. NED does too.

  Feet six inches off the floor. Thirty seconds. Go. (Beat.) How’s that feel?

  NED. Instantly awful. Instantly wrong.

  DALE. Push on.

  NED. Terribly terribly wrong. Like I’m going to puke. And possibly soil myself.

  DALE. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Twenty more seconds.

  NED. My God. Make it stop. Make it stop, Dale. Please make it stop.

  DALE. And rest.

  NED collapses.

  Are you okay?

  NED is panting. He starts crying.

  NED. I’m sorry, Dale. FUCK!

  DALE. Ned –

  NED. Fuck it.

  DALE. Ned –

  NED. I tensed up. I’ve been building up to this all day.

  DALE. Calm down.

  NED. I’ve had a shocker there.

  DALE. Okay, Ned. Stand up. Ned. Relax. Stand up. We’ll take it slowly.

  NED. I’m sorry, Dale.

  DALE. We’ll start again. We’ll try something else. Just do this. On the spot. (He starts a ropeless skipping motion.) One foot then the next. Just copy me. Until I ask you to rest. Okay?

  NED. Got it.

  DALE. Keep breathing. In. Out.

  He starts skipping.

  How is that?

  NED. Fine.

  DALE. Good.

  NED. Just like this?

  DALE. Just like that.

  NED. Cor. Feels great to blow the cobwebs out.

  DALE. Tell me your goals.

  NED. Basically I’m looking for core fitness. Strength. Stamina. And I want to lose the tits. I’m not worried about the legs. Fuck the legs. Ignore them. I just want to look, you know. Normal. Alive. Without tits.

  DALE. So just talk normally. Okay? What were you saying before? When we came in.

  NED. Where were we?

  DALE. Gloucester. A five-star hotel in Gloucester.

  NED. Right. Gloucester. Five-star country mansion. Michelin restaurant. Spa. Four-poster. We’ve just had a massage, or I’ve had massage, and Joy’s had a facial, whatever, we’re feeling well blissed out and we’ve got a couple of hours to kill before we go up in this balloon. (Off DALE’s look.) It’s the honeymoon package. You get a four-poster bed, your food, a set number of spa treatments, and a go in a balloon. Sunset balloon trip. England at sunset. Bird’s eye view. Champagne and that.

  DALE. And rest. That sounds regal. That is a regal package. Keep talking. Go again in thirty seconds.

  NED. So we’ve got a couple of hours to kill before the balloon trip. I suggest a stroll. I suggest a walk round Gloucester. I’ve heard it’s nice.

  DALE. I’ve heard it’s nice.

  NED. The centre’s nice. Olde worlde.

  DALE. That’s the Romans for you.

  NED. So we park and ride, and we’re walking round Gloucester, and it is nice, find the cathedral, that’s nice, pop our heads in, light a candle, feeling blissed-out after the massage. Facial.

  DALE. Whatever...

  NED. Anyway, we’re walking down the high street, and suddenly I see this thing blowing towards us down the pavement. And I bend down and pick it up and it’s a fifty-pound note.

  DALE. Bollocks.

  NED. On my life. A nifty.

  DALE. Get in!

  NED. Just blowing down the street. Just blowing along the pavement.

/>   DALE. Get in! (Looking at watch.) Go.

  They start skipping again.

  NED. So I have a shufty round and no one’s looking distraught, no one’s patting themselves down, having kittens, shouting for the fuzz... so I think, ‘Result,’ and I stick it in my pocket. So I say to Joy, you know, ‘What shall we do with it?’ And Joy turns to me, it’s this lovely sunny day, and she turns to me, and she says this brilliant, really touching thing...

  DALE. Oh no. Don’t...

  NED. What?

  DALE stops.

  DALE. She didn’t. Tell me she didn’t make you hand it in.

  NED. Wait. Wait. No. She doesn’t. She doesn’t say that. She says... She says this fantastically romantic thing.

  NED stops.

  She says that it’s a sign. From the gods. From God. Or whatever, blessing our nuptials. And she said to honour the gods, whatever, we should take half each and go and buy each other a present. Something spontaneous, you know, that we’d remember for ever, to remember this moment by. Like if you saw it in ten years’ time or whatever, it would nourish us.

  You know, when you think of... Just two people... in Gloucester... walking down the street...

  DALE. Amazing. Magical.

  NED. Just two normal people, find this money...

  DALE. Get in!

  NED. It’s amazing. And then she says that...

  DALE. It’s a moment. It becomes a moment...

  NED. Spontaneous –

  DALE. With the money.

  NED. Exactly. But it’s not about the money.

  DALE. Ned. Come on. Of course it’s not. It’s the magical...

  NED. Exactly.

  DALE. The magical mystery...

  NED. Exactly. So we buy a Yorkie, something, Juicy Fruit, break it for change, and agree to meet back in an hour outside Argos.

  DALE. I like this. I like this story.

  They start skipping again.

  NED. So here I am, walking around Gloucester with this big smile on my face, thinking, this is great. I am a man. On his honeymoon. I’m on my own but it’s a lovely day, and I’m somewhere in this old town, and there’s a woman walking around performing this magical task, on a quest to honour me. And I shall honour her.

  DALE. Plus you’ve got the balloon ride to look forward to.

  NED. Yeah, but I’m not thinking about the balloon ride at this point.

  DALE. Of course not. You’re lost in the moment. You’re in the zone. I like this story. I like it a lot.

  NED. So I start browsing. Pop in a couple of antique shops, because my first thought was get her something old. I just thought. Gloucester. Olde Worlde. Something classic. Something with soul.

  DALE. With...

  NED. With a past...

  DALE. Character...

  NED. A treasure... Exactly. I’m looking at all these bits and bobs. Trinkets, whatnot, but nothing’s leaping out.

  DALE. Whoops.

  NED. I go from shop to shop. Nothing’s leaping out.

  DALE. I didn’t like to say but you’re going to struggle. In most antique shops with twenty-five sheets –

  NED. I can’t find anything...

  DALE. What are we talking, realistically? Some old bottle? Some tin? ‘It’s filled with the patina of a bygone era.’ Really. It’s a piece of leather, you nit. It’s a leather strap. And, you don’t even know what it’s off. Can I stop you, Ned? Two words. Victoria’s Secrets.

  NED. What?

  DALE. If that was me with twenty-five sheets I’d get straight up Victoria’s Secrets. Up the minty end. Get something really cheap and minty.

  NED. Dale –

  DALE. It’s my honeymoon, Ned. There’s no better time. ‘There you go, love. I’ll give you something to... fuckin’... nourish...’ (Beat.) Ignore me. Please. Carry on. Please. I like this story. Ignore me.

  Beat. NED sighs. Soldiers on.

  NED. Now I don’t know Gloucester. So I go round this one corner, and suddenly, the shops have stopped. I’ve run out of shops.

  DALE. And rest.

  DALE stops. NED too.

  NED. I’m walking out of Gloucester. And I don’t know why, but I didn’t turn round. I just kept on walking. It’s just petrol stations and roundabouts. Then the countryside. It’s like I’m in a dream. But I can’t stop walking. (Beat.) So I’m at this roundabout, fourth or fifth out of town. I come across this yard. And it’s just this Portakabin, and this old bloke selling all these objects. Stone things. Things made out of stone. Wood things. Garden seats. Benches. And I’m suddenly drawn to this blue tarpaulin. And this is mad, but I thought, whatever it is I’m getting her, it’s under that blue tarpaulin over there, in the rain. So I go over. And I lift the tarpaulin. And underneath, there’s this beautiful, soapstone birdbath. Really simple, but beautiful. Not fussy, just beautifully proportioned. Simple. Perfect. So I knock on the Portakabin and I ask the man how much it is for the birdbath. And he says it’s twenty-five pounds. (Beat.) On my life. That birdbath, the one over there, under the blue tarp, is twenty-five pound.

  Pause.

  DALE. Did you haggle?

  Pause.

  NED. What?

  DALE. You didn’t haggle?

  NED. You’re missing the point, Dale. It’s twenty-five pounds.

  Pause.

  DALE. Of course. The fuckin’... The magical mystery twenty-five pounds.

  NED. Exactly. It’s perfect. So I buy it. But now I’ve got ten minutes to lug it all the way back into Gloucester. It weighs a fucking ton.

  DALE. Fuckin’... Rocky. Go on, my son.

  NED. I’m telling you, Dale. It weighs ATON.

  DALE. Fuck off. It’s the magic birdbath. It’s light as a feather.

  NED. It weighs a fucking ton.

  DALE. I don’t care. Put your back into it.

  NED. I’ve got to dead lift a stone birdbath half a mile back into town. So I get back there, absolutely shagged –

  DALE. Sweating like a dogger...

  NED. Pouring... pouring with sweat and I show it her. And she looks at it, and I know straight away it’s perfect. She’s got tears in her eyes. And when we moved into our house, the first thing we did, we put that birdbath in the garden. And on that first morning when we woke up, there was this pair of chaffinches perched on it, drinking from it. And every single morning when we woke up, we’d go and sit by the window, before breakfast and watch the birds. Robins, finches, warblers, tits, we’d get up really early in the morning, on a spring morning, we’d watch the birds splashing in the water, watch them preening, dancing for each other, in little pairs, each pair perfect. And each year, the birds came back, and each year it was the same. (Pause.) Yeah. So anyway, I come out this morning, and it’s gone. It’s... the birthbath has gone. There’s just a white patch of grass. It’s disappeared.

  Pause.

  DALE. Ned –

  NED. It’s a birdbath, Dale. A twenty-five-quid birdbath. Our fence is eight foot high. The gate’s padlocked. It’s a soapstone birdbath. It weighs a fucking ton. I should know. I’ve lugged it clean across Gloucester.

  Pause. DALE’s watch alarm goes off.

  DALE. And rest. (Pause.) How long have you been married, Ned?

  NED. Eleven years.

  DALE. How are things?

  NED. Things?

  DALE. Things.

  Beat.

  NED. Things. (Beat.) Good.

  DALE. Good.

  NED. Good.

  DALE. Good. I’m just kicking the tyres.

  NED. Exactly. Good. (Nods.)

  Pause.

  DALE. Recently...?

  Pause.

  NED. Recently? Recently. (Nods.) Recently less good. Recently... not so good. Recently not good.

  DALE. Good.

  Silence.

  NED. Few years back... We used to spend all day in bed. Drinking tea. Playing Scrabble. Then... you know... Between games. All day long. Five, sometimes six games of Scrabble. Sometimes we’d play Sexy Scrabble. If yo
u could spell it, you could have it. I once got forty-five points for ‘blow-job’ on a triple-word score.

  DALE laughs. NED laughs. He stops laughing.

  Then we stopped. We haven’t played in years. I’m not sure I’d even remember the rules.

  Pause.

  DALE. Year or two back. Lyn and me. In the boudoir. Major tumbleweed.

  NED. Whoops.

  DALE. Move along. Nothing to see.

  NED. Whoops-a-daisy.

  DALE. In the end I bought this tape. This doctor lady. New approaches. Techniques. I used to listen to it on the way to the car wash. I’ve still got it somewhere. I could dig it out.

  NED. Thanks, Dale. I don’t think so.

  DALE. If you change your mind. But I warn you. This doctor lady. She’s dirty. She’s deeply filthy. Medical website? Not a bit of it. There’s stuff on there would make a sailor blush.

  NED. Thanks, Dale.

  DALE. Well, if you change your mind.

  Pause.

  What did she get you?

  NED. What?

  DALE. With the magic twenty-five pound.

  Beat.

  NED. A tie. (Pause.) A tie with air balloons on.

  Blackout.

  Spotlight on:

  DALE. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Fine. Yes. At the end of the day, even if it’s true... A pocketwatch? Lawnmower? A stuffed badger? That’s not it. That’s not the problem. That’s not why he can’t sleep. Shakes. When I let the dog out at four in the morning, he’s out there, on his back lawn, staring out over the fence. Sometimes he goes a week, two weeks, without so much as a wink. Makes him antsy. Jumpier than a crow on roadkill. Because he doesn’t sleep. He has black moods. Forgets things. Gets confused. Imagines things. And so it goes round. I said to him, I said, ‘Go down the doctor, get some pills. Sort it out.’ But, see, Ned’s a blaster. A D-Man. He handles high explosives, week in, week out. If a D-Man’s got anything more than a sniffle he can’t go to his GP. They knew you was on the sleepers, or the happy pills, they wouldn’t let you blow up a bouncy castle. So he’s got no choice, just got to white-knuckle it. Bite down. Wait for morning. And I tell you one thing. Joy don’t know. She don’t know about the sleeping. (Beat.) Joy don’t know the half of it.

  Blackout.

  A surtitle appears:

  ‘An unquenchable thirst.’