Bedroom.
Hilary’s phone beeps. She checks it.
She gets into bed beside Mark.
Hilary Great Expectations?
She picks up a book.
Where were we? Pip’s met Mr Pumblechook.
Mark I think I’m going to sleep.
Hilary We’ll never get through it at this rate. If you keep falling asleep. At night.
Immediately, like this. I could just read a page.
Mark What’s the point? I’ll be asleep the minute I close my –
Hilary Christmas. That’s how long we’ve been reading this. We reckoned a couple of months. It’s July. We’re defaulting on our project.
Mark Don’t call it a project.
Hilary Project is a good word.
Pause.
Projects stop you being bored. I used to be so scared of boredom as a kid I had a kind of phobia about it. Like I feared being thrown into a living grave and trapped there for eternity. Did you get that feeling?
Mark No.
Hilary Lucky you. We lived in a flat. You had a garden. Maybe that had something to do with it, being trapped in a flat with a depressed mother.
Mark Maybe you were an odd kid.
Pause.
Night.
Hilary I wasn’t. The sixties. The dark ages. Women in nylons and stilettos. That’s how my mum picked me up from school when it was snowing.
Her only concession to the arctic conditions was a headscarf. Femininity must be asserted over everything, even frostbite.
Pause.
Are you asleep?
Mark How could I be asleep? You’re talking.
Hilary It’s interesting though, isn’t it?
Pause.
I told you about our core funding.
Mark Yes.
Hilary We haven’t got any.
Mark You thought it might go.
Hilary It’s still a shock when it does.
Mark You’ll have to crawl up the arse of the commercial sector.
Hilary I’m not looking at it that way, Mark. That’s a predictable way to go.
I’m heading down the road of creative partnerships.
Mark Excellent. Goodnight.
Hilary How’s your work?
Mark It’s not picking up.
Hilary I got a text.
From Tilly. She’s bringing Josh back.
Mark To stay?
Hilary Yes.
Mark I want to go to sleep.
Hilary They’re back together. Thank God. Which is good for Tilly.
Mark I don’t want to hear anything.
Hilary You won’t hear anything. There are walls. Walls.
Mark Goodnight.
Hilary Walls between us. Solid walls.
Pause.
You’d have to be really listening out for –
Mark All right.
Hilary You know, really listening.
Sound of two young people walking past the room and going into the next-door room. Laughter. Muted talk.
You can hardly hear a thing. The good thing is we have a wardrobe against that wall. Full of clothes. Muffling everything. A happy accident.
Quite loud creak of bedsprings.
I could hear that. Could you?
Another creak.
We have to let them know. We have to – if we laugh – they’ll know we can. Come on.
She looks at him, she laughs.
Mark What are you doing?
Hilary Laughing.
Mark Laughing like a lunatic.
Hilary If you weren’t going to join in, why didn’t you let me know? Of course it sounds strange to laugh out loud when the other person is totally silent. Do you want him to think I’m eccentric?
Mark Who cares what he thinks?
Hilary He goes to Forest School.
Mark So what?
Hilary He’s a nice boy. If he likes us – he’ll be kind to her.
Mark He better be kind to her – He’s in there –
A loud creak.
Hilary Well, this isn’t the nineteenth century.
Mark We never brought girls home when we were fifteen.
Hilary Sixteen now.
Mark Whatever. We fumbled about in the cinema.
We waited till university to have full sex. It was all part of the learning experience.
Is it respectful – to bring back – into the next room – next to your parents?
Hilary Shh. They’ll hear us talking about them.
Mark Don’t tell me to shh in my own house.
Hilary Shh.
Another creak.
She starts to laugh.
He starts to laugh.
Mark What?
He reaches out for her.
Hilary No, no. What if they hear us?
He is hurt.
Mark We’re not doing things right.
Hilary This is what happens now.
He turns over. Shuts his eyes. Hilary turns out the light.
Creaks in the dark.