I went on a Tinder date last week, and I only did it because the girl looked vaguely like Holly. Similar hair colour, sort of the same body, dark brown eyes like Holly’s. I took this girl out for drinks and sweet-talked her into coming home with me so I could fuck her and pretend I was fucking Holly. If I squinted it was her, you know? If I covered this girl’s face with a pillow it was her.
Isn’t that just the
Saddest fucking thing you’ve ever heard.
Scene Six
ADAM sits on the chair, silent, thinking. When he speaks, it’s from nowhere.
If office parties didn’t exist, there would be a lot less infidelity.
Don’t you think?
They’re breeding grounds for mad behaviour. Sensible people lose their minds over cheap wine and fake Christmas trees and suddenly they’re photocopying their own arsehole and fucking Dave from Accounts in the stationary cupboard.
I have a friend who used to work at an upmarket restaurant in Covent Garden. One year a big, famous company had their Christmas party there. They were loud and rowdy and didn’t tip. At 3 a.m., my mate went to check the loos. Inside he found this woman, this fucking executive, passed out mid-piss. Covered in her own vomit. She must have been late forties, early fifties, power suit, seriously well-to-do woman, and she was passed out in her own sick like an eighteen-year-old fresher. Anyway he woke her up, and as she staggered out of the door, a human shit fell out of her hair. Honestly. A human turd. Most of the time that woman is probably shouting about stocks in conference calls and taking oil barons out for business lunches but because it was the office Christmas party, she became the woman with shit in her hair.
People go mad. They go mad. They must pump every office Christmas party with some kind of airborne drug that drives people to drink far too much and flash their tits and
Cheat on their partners.
It’s the only explanation for why Holly
Alright, full disclosure. Things hadn’t been fantastic. There’s no point in me lying about that. But every relationship goes through rough patches. That’s just… love. That’s relationships.
I thought she’d calmed down, and when she started to exhibit signs that maybe she hadn’t, I suppose I didn’t take it very well. I mean, look at it from
For me
I thought she’d just accepted where she was. She had a good job, Jesus, there are people who would kill for that job. She was a working writer, even if it wasn’t for the
The exact
And she had a boyfriend who adored her, and a nice house, and attractive friends, and a good fucking life. This is what people aspire to, isn’t it? We weren’t skint or fat or ill. I mean what else What else is there?
And it seemed to me like she had mellowed, like people do as they get older, like you’re meant to, because life isn’t one massive uni common room where you can shout your feelings about abortion and female genital mutilation all day long
You grow up
You can’t make a difference. Sit down and shut up.
And you know, I wanted to get married and have kids and I couldn’t do that with her wanting to go to protests and sit-ins and fucking gay-pride parades
And it seemed like she got that, like she’d
But
Ashley
Even his fucking name is inadequate
It only takes one person, you know, to
Ashley also hated the magazine. Ashley also wanted to write about the important stuff. Ashley also thought he was worth something more.
He wrote for a satirical website and one day asked Holly if she’d write something with him for it, because ‘she’d said something so funny about Putin the other day’ and ‘she’s so wasted writing for this magazine’. And she came home all excited, saying she was writing this thing with Ashley, and it was like she’d ‘woken up’ and she’d forgotten why she’d wanted to be a journalist, she’d been blinded by money and living comfortably – by me, was the subtext, she’d been blinded by me – and wasn’t it cool that Ashley had asked her to do it?
And I said, so you’re leaving a good job at a magazine that actually manages to stay in print for some blog?
No, I didn’t say I was leaving anything. It’s just one article.
And of course it wasn’t one article, because what have I told you about Holly? She’s funny and clever and talented. Ashley’s editor loved her writing and then we were back, like no time had passed, to her up all night writing and reading and that buzz was back, her background noise was turned all the way up again and off she went. She’d come home and ask if I’d watched Prime Minister’s Question Time? Or had I seen the thing about HSBC in the Independent? Or that documentary about ISIS on BBC 4? And I wanted to scream, no Holly, I haven’t fucking as much as glanced at any of that stuff because I’m not interested. And you shouldn’t be either. Let’s go to the pub. Let’s order throws from John Lewis. Let’s talk about starting a family, you know that’s what I want, you know that’s all I want
I couldn’t feign interest. I was irritated.
We were back where we started, but we had a mortgage now, you know? We had nice normal friends who didn’t want to listen to her ranting on and on. We were on our way to a proper life.
She was throwing a lit match onto the warm bed that was our life. She was filling it with smoke.
I was anxious.
I mean, can you blame me?
So yes. We were arguing. We weren’t really having sex. We were doing less things together.
I wanted her
To stop.
And she would scream at me, god, she would go absolutely insane at me if I tried to make my feelings known, if I tried to make her be quiet, calm down, relax.
She was exhausted and run down and up all hours. She got sick. I would hear her being sick in the mornings and late at night. She became impossible to live with and when I tried to say that, you know, as her partner, as the person she was meant to love and be with she would
It would drive anyone to do strange things. That kind of tension, day in, day out. It would lead anyone to
I cared about her so much
Anyway
Four years we’d been together, and everything fell away in two horrible, horrible weeks, hinged on two nights that I will never forget, that she’ll never forget, that
Haunt me
Is it cliched to say that? Because they do. Haunt me. They follow me around, those nights
Of course, the first night was Holly’s Christmas party. December 17th. I’d asked to go with her, isn’t that what you do? She’d come with me to mine, she always came with me to mine. We were Holly and Adam. But – no, Adam you’ll hate it. Everyone is such a dick, it’ll be so boring, let me go alone. I won’t be back late.
I prowled the flat like a caged animal that night. I felt on edge. I didn’t trust
I just had a bad feeling
I
Yeah, I looked through her stuff. Laptop first. Nothing. Then I looked through her drawers and boxes and that’s when
Well
I found
The pregnancy test. A tiny pink plus sign that
Pause.
She hadn’t told me.
I thought maybe she was waiting to see the doctor before telling me. Something like that.
I went to bed. I felt sort of
Because she would have to slow down. She would have to give up and relax and be with me.
Her key turned in the lock at about 3 a.m. I pretended to be asleep. She stumbled in, pulling her tights off, falling into the chest of drawers. She got into bed next to me. A few minutes later she was snoring, drunk snores. Last night of boozing for a while, I thought. I rolled over, put my arm around her.
The unmistakeable scent of aftershave that isn’t yours.
I could have shaken her awake, demanded answers. Tears.
Begging forgiveness. A quickly packed bag. A slammed door.
I ignored it. She was pregnant. I had her. The af
tershave hit the back of my throat. I could taste it.
And I’m the bad guy.
Scene Seven
ADAM seems animated and positive.
Oh god, we’d absolutely been drinking yeah
Drugs too
Is that not
I thought I’d mentioned that?
Oh yeah. I mean it was New Year’s Eve. It’s not like either of us are like, mad addicts or anything
I mean, I’m thirty-one, I take it easy
Or I
When we were younger, both of us, we, you know. Nothing hardcore. Just the stuff that everyone does. And I do mean everyone. As we got older, we did it less and less until I decided we’d only do drugs at festivals or on New Year’s. And we don’t really go to festivals any more.
So yeah, god yeah. Not a lot, but yeah. I thought I’d mentioned that?
I mean that was the whole point, the er, the cornerstone of that
What I mean was, that was the tell. For me.
I’m not making
Basically
It was New Year’s Eve. I’d found the pregnancy test two weeks before.
And things were
Holly had gone home for Christmas. I always went with her.
But she just announced she was going on her own
That I should spend time with my mum
With my mum, what the
And she went away on the
Must have been 20th? Something like that
Still hadn’t told me about the
Hard Christmas. Hard for me. I’d call her every day, you know, and she’d be so fucking
So distant and weird
I suppose you’re thinking, why didn’t I say something?
Confront her about the
The truth is she had hidden it, the test, you know, it’s not like I found it in the bin and I didn’t want her thinking I was spying on her or anything like that and
And like I said last time, I thought she was keeping it from me for a reason and that reason would become clear
So
She came home on New Year’s Eve.
We were going to a house party, Sarah’s party, Sarah of Romeo + Juliet barbecue fame
The theme this time was Disney because as previously mentioned Sarah is fucking weird but luckily we were allowed to choose our own characters this time
I’d totally forgotten that we had to dress up, to be honest, but
Holly got home on the 31st with bags of crap from her mum’s house and declared that we were going as The Incredibles.
She’d got red spandex leggings and leotards. There’s a picture, did I give it to you?
You have a copy, right?
Yeah
Yeah, well things had been weird, strained, I don’t know, and obviously we hadn’t seen each other
But she pitched up at ours all… normal. She seemed happy.
With these stupid fucking costumes
That normally I’d probably have argued about, I wasn’t hugely keen on going out in red spandex, but she seemed really, you know
I was surprised she wanted to go out. With the baby, the pregnancy, I.
I thought maybe she was going to tell me that night. I mean, I would notice her not drinking
But she did drink
A lot
She did not stop drinking, actually. I was sweating in my stupid spandex as I watched her at the party, all chatty, calm, cool, and drinking. Vodka and soda. By the pint.
Then she went off to the loo with her mate and came back doing the, you know, sniffing thing
I felt sick, mate. Sick.
But we were at a party, I couldn’t
I just kept drinking. Kept going. But it built up and eventually I took her aside, 1 a.m. or something, and just went – Holly, we need to go home
We need to go home.
She was pissed and I was sort of pissed and she didn’t want to come with me but I booked an Uber and sort of shepherded her into it
And in the car she sang along to that stupid ‘Happy’ song on the radio and I got tighter and tighter inside, thinking over and over again – she’s pregnant and she’s been drinking, she’s pregnant and she’s been drinking, she’s pregnant and she’s been drinking, until the first bit fell away – she’s been drinking, she’s been drinking, she’s been drinking. And it was like
Like a fog
Everything went dark and we got home and out of the taxi and into the flat and she was still singing
Because I’m happy
She was really fucked. All over the place. I was, I don’t know, I felt drunk of course, but I was also quite
She was in our bedroom, getting changed, she was just in her underwear
I stared at her stomach, as if I could see through the skin and the muscle and right inside
Holly
What happened to the baby?
She looked at me, a bit shocked, too drunk to cover that up, then shrugged it off
What are you on about?
Now this is where it gets a bit
I mean, it was not a nice
It was awful. For both of us. That conversation.
Anyway I sort of grabbed her, shook her, trying to wake her up, sober her up, I don’t know
What happened to the baby?
And she kept saying I don’t know what you mean, I don’t know what you mean
So I
I grabbed her chin, like this
So I could look her right in the eyes, so she couldn’t avoid me, you know, so she couldn’t
And I said, something along the lines of
Tell me right now what happened or I will hurt you.
Moment-of-madness stuff. You know. I was, I’m sure you can understand, I was beside myself.
And she looked at me, finally, in the eyes, all bleary, all pissed and
And went,
Adam, I got rid of it.
I don’t love you any more. We can’t have a baby.
Then she pushed me off her.
Just the worst words I’ve ever heard.
I don’t love you any more. We can’t have a baby.
I got rid of it in Warwick.
This isn’t working. I wasn’t going to say any of this tonight but you’ve made me.
And then she said,
You stifle me.
She was crying.
You make me feel invisible.
I loved you and you stifled me.
She was crying and drunk and half-naked and I was crying and drunk
And I reacted
Out of the
I just thought about the baby
I got rid of it in Warwick
I got rid of it in Warwick?
I deserved that baby. I deserved it. We were meant to have a baby and be happy and normal
I hadn’t worked on her for
I hadn’t
I hadn’t put years into her to
And I said, this is because of Ashley then, is it? You’re fucking him behind my back and
And she denied it, of course she denied it
Ashley’s my friend, it’s not like that
Yeah, yeah.
I kind of screamed at her to, you know, admit it, admit that she’d been sneaking around with that poncey little cunt, fucking him at work and coming home to me, but it was all wide eyes and no, no, you’re wrong
It happened really quickly, I think, and like I said we were both drunk.
I wanted her near me and I wanted to convince her to change her mind and I wanted to beat Ashley and I wanted our baby and I wanted to give her another chance to go back on what she’d done
So I pulled her onto the bed, and can I just say, she didn’t tell me to stop, she was just crying
Like I said before, sometimes couples cry during
I wanted her, it was, I don’t know, but through the fog of anger and distress I felt this huge pull towards her and I wanted to be inside, as close, as close as I could get, as close as
She didn’t say
no
I don’t think she said no
I probably was quite rough. I didn’t notice, it wasn’t intentional, but it was very emotional, and yeah I think I was probably quite rough
And she was crying
And no, I mean, in terms of ‘consent’ – you don’t get written consent from your live-in girlfriend every time you have sex
I suppose, uh, I suppose I had her arms pinned back, maybe.
But that’s quite
I mean, come on. We’d been together for three years, and this was obviously an extremely difficult piece of news for me to hear, and I was upset, I was past upset, I was distraught
She had betrayed me, seriously betrayed me, and I could have done worse, I mean, you’d understand if
If I’d hit her or
I didn’t hit her. I just
We just
I stopped when I saw she was bleeding. From
I
I
Obviously I’d been quite rough. Rougher than I meant to be
But, yes, it’s not a nice, it wasn’t a nice, I can see that, but to call it
What she’s calling it
I mean
You can see it from my
…
I was worried about her, I mean, because of the bleeding and, and she was drunk and
But I was also extremely angry so I just
Walked out, got in the car
Don’t mention that in
I mean that looks bad
I was drunk, slightly, no, very drunk, er
Very irresponsible, I’ll admit, that isn’t okay. But anyway I drove, to Hampstead Heath, and just sort of walked around for hours
Sobering up
Thinking about
Thinking about what she’d done to me.
She had been brutal.
And when I got home the next morning she’d left, most of her stuff gone, and at first I was glad, you know. I didn’t want to see her or speak to her, I was furious, I was hurt, god I felt like I’d been stabbed in the gut
So I didn’t call her, that’s why I didn’t call her, I was just so angry
And a week passed
And then I got the call from the police.
And here we are.
So, what do you think?
Scene Eight
ADAM is dressed in a dark (but not black) suit. He’s drinking a bottle of San Miguel.
I’m not like my dad. I’m resilient. I stick with things, even if it’s hard. I stick with people. I’m not going to hold it against my mates. Or Ella. Or Holly, even. I’m going to accept apologies.
Plays from Vault Page 7