I’ve done nothing but teach them, try to inspire them.
FLINT: I think you know what you’ve done, Ms Corrossi.
I think you’re terrified you’ve lost them.
CORROSSI: Do you always save them? The children you try to protect?
FLINT: I’ve watched children being abused, Ms Corrossi. In real time.
I worked for a special taskforce investigating online child abuse. Argos.
The all-seeing giant. It’s something you don’t forget. The images burn in your brain. They corrupt everything you see, everything you touch.
The way you are with your own daughter.
There was one girl, fourteen years old, known to us as Katelin. Katelin was being shopped around by her father for years. I watched her grow up. We were close to an arrest, but there must have been a tip-off. Katelin disappeared. She was swallowed up.
If they’re lost, if these girls are gone, it will consume you. Trust me.
Good afternoon.
CORROSSI: We’re not finished.
FLINT: We’re done, Ms Corrossi.
IRIS appears. She is soaked, dripping wet and in a state.
CORROSSI: Iris.
FLINT: You’re soaking wet.
IRIS: I’ve been swimming in the lake.
FLINT: Iris.
IRIS: It’s warm on the surface, freezing underneath.
FLINT: Did you take your medication?
How many pills did you take, Iris?
How many pills?
IRIS: Only three little white ones … or was it three million? I forget.
FLINT: Ms Corrossi was about to leave.
IRIS: / She can’t.
CORROSSI: I can’t.
IRIS: We haven’t finished the game yet.
FLINT: What game?
Beat.
CORROSSI: Okay, Iris. Let’s play. And you can be Edith.
IRIS: No—
CORROSSI: Yes—
IRIS: Not her.
FLINT: Who’s Edith?
CORROSSI: Edith from the book, from Picnic at Hanging Rock. Everyone remembers Edith.
IRIS: Not her.
CORROSSI: Why do you think they spent the holidays with you at Bella Vista?
IRIS: Because they liked me.
CORROSSI: They were preparing you.
IRIS: We were a circle.
CORROSSI: They needed you for the game.
IRIS: I wasn’t Edith.
CORROSSI: Oh, well who’d you think you were?
IRIS: I was never Edith.
CORROSSI: Who was?
IRIS: We didn’t need an Edith.
CORROSSI: Sweetheart, you didn’t think you were Miranda, did you? That’s always been Hannah. And Ava’s Marion.
Surely you didn’t think that you were Irma, did you?
IRIS: Why not? Why couldn’t I be?
CORROSSI: Perhaps they promised you pretty, dark-haired Irma—
IRIS: Yes!
CORROSSI: —but it was a trick.
IRIS: Stop it.
CORROSSI: A trick to get you to play. After all, what girl would want to be Edith—
IRIS: [to FLINT] Make her stop.
CORROSSI: —the fat, whingey, whiney little one who stuffs her face with cake.
IRIS: Shut up. Shut up. Vinegar Tits, you lonely fucking bitch!
CORROSSI flinches.
How long since you’ve been touched?
CORROSSI: I beg your pardon?
IRIS: It must be a million years at least. You must be all dried up.
CORROSSI: That’s enough.
IRIS: Did you get our card?
CORROSSI: What card?
IRIS: We put it in your pigeon hole.
CORROSSI: I’ve been away.
IRIS: From Maidstone?
CORROSSI: I’ve been searching for you. Worried sick.
IRIS: You didn’t get it?
CORROSSI: What did it say?
IRIS: You must learn to love another because I won’t be here much longer.
CORROSSI: From Hannah?
IRIS: No, it was from all of us.
We felt sorry for you, Hannah especially. How lonely you were. The sad, little, single teacup and saucer on the dishrack and the little frozen meals for one in the freezer. You offered us sherry to celebrate your birthday when no-one else remembered. It was tragic the way you fawned over Hannah. You were always forlorn when it was time for her to leave.
You loved her, didn’t you, Ms Corrossi?
You can say.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
We all did, in our own way.
CORROSSI: Why are you using the past tense?
IRIS: Was, is, loves, loved—what does it matter?
CORROSSI: It’s grammar, it matters.
IRIS: Hannah said the past didn’t matter, the future didn’t matter.
The feeling of now is all that exists.
CORROSSI: Where are they?
IRIS: If you ask me again I’ll scream.
I’ll scream and I’ll never ever stop.
FLINT: Okay.
We’re done here.
IRIS: I can go home?
FLINT: Home? No.
IRIS: But you said—
FLINT: You’ll never go back to Maidstone.
IRIS: You said I could, you promised.
FLINT: There’s evidence you received an illegal substance. Girls your age have done twelve months in juvenile detention for less—
IRIS: I hate you.
FLINT: Once you leave this room I can’t help you.
It will be your father’s decision.
Pause.
Trust me.
IRIS: Would you call me Possum?
FLINT: What?
IRIS: If I was your daughter?
FLINT: Would you want me to?
IRIS nods.
Then yes.
Tell me the truth and we can all go home. I promise you.
IRIS: She makes up stories.
FLINT: Hannah.
IRIS: She’s always playing games.
FLINT: What game did she play?
IRIS: She said he was looking at her.
FLINT: Who?
IRIS: She said he was consuming her with his eyes—
FLINT: Who was?
IRIS: My father.
FLINT: When?
IRIS: At a party at Bella Vista.
It wasn’t true.
They decided they were going to say that he was.
Hannah was going to say that my father had—
Beat.
FLINT: What?
IRIS: Hannah was going to say that my father touched her.
CORROSSI: Did he?
IRIS: No.
CORROSSI: She made it up?
IRIS: Yes.
CORROSSI: I don’t believe that.
IRIS: It’s true.
CORROSSI: Why would she do that, Iris, why would she lie?
Pause.
IRIS: Because he was selling Bella Vista.
CORROSSI: It had to be more than that.
IRIS: Because ‘they’ were eating the future.
CORROSSI: No.
IRIS: Like you said, Ms Corrossi.
CORROSSI: No. There’s more to this.
IRIS: It was just a stupid game, that’s all. I told them I didn’t want to play. I said they had to go home. So their parents drove all the way to Bella Vista to pick them up.
CORROSSI: And when the break was over and you returned to Maidstone—
IRIS: Hannah told the chaplain.
FLINT: About your father?
IRIS: About the lie. But the chaplain didn’t believe her. She said Hannah was making it up.
FLINT: The chaplain didn’t take the matter further?
IRIS: She said Hannah was crying wolf.
FLINT: So Hannah’s claim was never reported to the Principal?
IRIS: Hannah said it proved they were corrupt. That everything was rotten.
That’s why she had the idea.
>
FLINT: What idea?
IRIS: She said it was a sign. A sign that the place and time was right.
FLINT: You have to go back. You have to take me to where they are.
IRIS: I can’t.
FLINT: You can.
IRIS: What if my memory is like a clock that has stopped and it can’t go forward and it can’t go back and I’m caught inside a dream?
FLINT: Close your eyes.
IRIS: I’m scared.
FLINT: It’s okay. I’m right here.
Are they closed?
IRIS closes her eyes.
IRIS: Yes.
FLINT: The clock is ticking. Can you hear it?
IRIS: Yes.
FLINT: Rewind it. Imagine it’s going back. Can you do that?
IRIS: No.
FLINT: Try.
IRIS: I’m trying.
FLINT: You’re returning.
IRIS: Yes. Yes, everything’s rewinding. I’m returning.
FLINT: Where are you?
IRIS: It’s dark.
FLINT: What can you see?
IRIS: Nothing, nothing but inky black.
FLINT: What can you hear then?
IRIS: Trees … branches creaking in the wind.
FLINT: What else?
IRIS: A bird—? No … laughter.
FLINT: Who’s laughing?
IRIS: The three of us.
FLINT: Where are you?
IRIS: We’re in the forest.
FLINT: Which forest?
IRIS: The Black Forest.
FLINT: In the Ranges?
IRIS: We wanted to stay out all night and watch the moon rise.*
FLINT: What are you doing?
IRIS: We’re dancing.
We dance all night in the moonlight.
FLINT: The three of you?
IRIS: The Circle.
And when we wake the sun is burning.
It feels like we might burst into flames.
FLINT: What’s happening?
IRIS: Hannah wants to climb the ridge.
Hannah, it’s hot, let’s go back.
FLINT: What does she say?
IRIS: She’s laughing. They’re both laughing at me.
Let’s go home.
FLINT: What does Hannah say?
IRIS: She tells me to go—
Hannah, Ava, come back.
FLINT: What do they do?
IRIS: They keep going.
FLINT: What do you do?
IRIS: I follow.
FLINT: Where are you now?
IRIS: The ledge.
* Direct quote from the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay.
FLINT: Now what?
IRIS: Hannah gives each of us a little white pill.
FLINT: What do you do?
IRIS: I spit mine out. It’s bitter.
FLINT: And then what?
IRIS: Hannah says the words …
FLINT: What is she saying?
IRIS: This is exactly the right time and place.
FLINT: For / what?
CORROSSI: What did you do?
IRIS: We held hands.
CORROSSI: And?
IRIS: We all die at fifteen.
FLINT: No /
CORROSSI: No.
IRIS: We leapt.
CORROSSI: You didn’t.
IRIS: Yes.
CORROSSI: You let go.
IRIS: We’re a circle.
CORROSSI: You broke the circle.
IRIS: We’re forever, for eternity.
CORROSSI: That’s why you’re here and they’re—
IRIS: How do you know I’m still alive?
FLINT: You are.
IRIS: How do you know?
How do you know?
FLINT: Your pulse, can you feel it?
IRIS feels her own pulse.
IRIS: Yes.
FLINT: You’re alive.
Take my hand.
IRIS reaches for FLINT.
He pulls her from the edge.
IRIS: I let go.
At the last second I let go.
Time stood still.
They were hanging.
FLINT: You came back.
IRIS: I ran. I kept running.
FLINT: You’re safe now.
IRIS: I want to go back.
Pause.
FLINT: Hannah knew. Didn’t she, Iris?
She knew everything about you. Why you loved Maidstone, why Maidstone was safe. She made up the story about your father because she knew what he was doing to you.
IRIS: I told you—
FLINT: She lied—
IRIS: —they’d do anything.
FLINT: —to protect you.
CORROSSI: She lied to reveal the truth.
IRIS: I wasn’t Edith. We didn’t need an Edith.
CORROSSI: If you’d come to me, if you’d—
IRIS: You didn’t want me there—
CORROSSI: —told me—
IRIS: —at your reading group. I wasn’t welcome.
CORROSSI: Of course you were—
IRIS: You didn’t love me like you loved her.
CORROSSI: Iris.
IRIS: No-one ever believes the truth.
CORROSSI: No. I’m so—
She reaches for IRIS.
I’ve failed you.
IRIS: You know what you have to do, Ms Corrossi?
Pause.
CORROSSI: Yes.
IRIS: You know how it ends?
CORROSSI: Yes Iris. I know how it ends.
IRIS: Perhaps they’re still there. Hanging. Perhaps they didn’t fall at all.
CORROSSI slowly removes her shoes and stockings. She unbuttons her skirt and lets it drop to the ground.
She picks up her stocking and exits into darkness.
And there they lay in the dark mouth of it. Face down, an arm outstretched as if they were only sleeping … A closer look revealed the matted hair, the mask of corrupted flesh, the dance of flies around the sticky pools of blood. Their bodies dashed against the million-year-old rock.
For a minute—or was it millennia?—Flint nursed her beautiful bones.
Tormented by the effect, unable to rid their mind of the horror of it, they will seek to know the cause, to assign blame.
There will be calls to ban the book in an effort to isolate the contagion. They will conduct post-mortems of its pages seeking answers to the eternal question:
Are we doomed?
CORROSSI falls into darkness.
THE END
COPYRIGHT DETAILS
First published in 2017
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First digital edition published in 2017 by Currency Press.
Copyright: Eating Our Young © Sarah Goodes, 2017; The Hanging © Angela Betzien, 2016, 2017.
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