Night in the puppet attic. The box is resting on a wide shelf that runs most of the way across the room, and inside ‘Marjory’, the pygmy lady, sits writing. A couple of pages slip out through the paper slot and gently glide to the floor, as Hans swaggers in, slightly drunk.
Hans Thunderous applause! He exited to thunderous applause! What was the applause like what he exited to? Fucking thunderous!
Marjory Did the children like it?
Hans Like it? They loved it, mate. Even the thick ones. And there were loads of them, it was all rich kids.
Marjory They loved it? They loved ‘The Little Black Mermaid’?
Hans Um … everybody loved it, reallly. Yeah. Although, y’know, I had to make a couple of changes. Minor changes.
Marjory Changes?
Hans Just to the title … and some bits about, y’know, the lead character.
Worried, Marjory comes to the front of the glass.
There’s no such thing as black mermaids! Everybody knows that!
Marjory But …
Hans But what?!
Marjory There’s no such thing as mermaids!
Hans Splitting hairs! At least I kept your stupid downbeat ending. I thought she should’ve married the prince! Not floated about in the aether/either for three hundred years. Next story, upbeat. We’ve had enough death in the snow. Kids like a bit of dark, but seriously, send ’em to beddy-byes smiling. Like in real life. Unless they’re chimney sweeps. I mean, I’ve had loads of sad stints in my life, I was a mental washerwoman’s son, but now look at me. Lauded. Worshipped. The best writer about, and yet it all comes so easy to me.
Marjory quietly starts to cry, crumpling down.
Alright, to us. To us. Oh we’re not having crying again this year, are we?
Marjory You can’t!
Hans I can and I have, haven’t I? Forever. ‘The Little Mermaid’. No colour specified. Which means she’s white, so suck it up. (Pause.) Come on, Marjory. I did get you a sausage!
He offers her the sausage through the hole. She takes it.
Marjory Can’t you call me by my African name just once?
Hans No, I can’t. It’s too hard to remember. Too many ‘M’s and too many ‘B’s. ‘Mbubba bububbaba’. No. ‘Marjory’. I like ‘Marjory’. It’s kind of like an ugly English princess! ‘Is there any other kind?’ cry the chorus!
Marjory Then can’t I at least come out of the box for an evening? I’m sure our stories would be much less downbeat if I had a view of the birds and the trees and the rooftops to hold on to.
Hans They’re pretty good already with just the things you can see from a two-inch sausage-hole.
She looks crestfallen again.
She brightens.
You remember what the payment was the last time I let you out, of course …
Marjory No! You’re not having another foot! I’ve only got one left!
Hans Ah, I don’t feel like sawing tonight anyway. Too splashy. And I’m a bit tired from all the plaudits. Fucking thunderous it was!
Marjory thinks for a moment.
Marjory ‘And each night he would let her out of the box, because he wasn’t such a bad man. Yet each morning, when he put her back inside, he would have made the box one inch smaller, because I was lying before when I said he wasn’t such a bad man, he was terrible, actually.’
Hans thinks about it.
Hans Ooh, I like that, making the box smaller, cos it plays into my other thing I am brilliant at …
He waves at the terribly made ladder under the window …
Carpentry!
He undoes the heavy screws holding the glass in place.
Three inches smaller …
Marjory One inch smaller, for fuck’s sake!
Hans Alright! Grumpy.
He slides the glass side down, allowing her to step out, stretch and idle along the shelf on her poorly made crutch, checking out the puppets she passes …
Marjory (singing)
‘One day my Prince shall come.
One day my Prince shall come.
He’ll call me by my name.
He’ll free me from the ring
Of Hell I’m dwelling in.
He’ll bring a gun.
He’ll bring a gun.
‘And all the world will rue
And all the world will rue
What Europe did to you.
Ten million skulls will bring
A dreadful reckoning
From Hell to you
From Hell to you.’
Hans takes the saw and the slide-rule that are attached to the top of the box and starts sawing into it.
Hans (gleefully) You’ll get crushed to bits if we do this too many times!
Marjory Yes. Did the children really like ‘The Little Mermaid’?
Hans Fucking loved it, mate! My agent said it was ‘one for the ages’!
Marjory That’s agents though, ain’t it? Bullshitters.
Hans Oy! Ah, look at the little crutch I made ya. See, you can’t say I’m all bad! You’re like a tinier Tiny Tim! But African and not as funny.
Marjory I liked Tiny Tim. I like doomed cripples in stories who die. I was sorry he came back alive at the end. Even if it was Christmas.
Hans That, right there, is everything that’s wrong with your attitude. Our new mantra is ‘Upbeat, yes …’
Marjory ‘Upbeat, yes …’
Hans ‘Doomed cripples who die at Christmas …
Marjory (smiling, same time as ‘No’) ‘Maybe …’
Hans No, not ‘maybe’. No. Which reminds me! Charles Darwin has just invited me to come and stay at his house in London …!
Marjory Charles Dickens …
Hans Charles Dickens has just invited me to come and stay at his house in London because he thinks I’m totally fantastic! I think he’s quite good too, although I haven’t read any of his things, they’re all too long, but he was very nice to me ten years ago when I met him at a party for what looked like a lot of high-class prostitutes in Dorset. We’ve been corresponding ever since. Well, I have. He’s too busy. But it seems like we’ve got so much in common.
Marjory Like what?
Hans I dunno. He’s a writer, we’re a writer. He likes the poor, you like the poor. All our charity works for Africa. I think his mum might’ve died mental too but I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask him.
Marjory Just remember to leave food this time.
Hans Yeah, yeah. Talking of remembering things …!
He takes out a bunch of letters from his jacket.
I just remembered my fan mail! Yay!
He starts going through the envelopes.
What’ve we got … poor kids, poor kids, poor kids …
Ooh, what’s this! A letter from the King of the Spaniards! My gosh! A proper seal too, look. Classy!
Marjory comes and sits beside him, playing with a spider puppet.
Marjory I’d like to get a letter from a proper seal.
He gives her a look.
Hans As I say, a letter from the King of the Spaniards! ‘Dear Hans Christian Andersen …’ Ooh, a little formal, but that’s okay. ‘Your one about the duckies, it was great …’ He must mean ‘The Ugly Duckling’. ‘Duckies!’ Sweet King! ‘And we at the Palace are usually quite delighted at all your new stories …’ There’s a ‘usually’ in there I’m not keen on. ‘However …’ Ooh, a ‘however’ too, even worse. ‘However, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” has us quite perplexed.’ ‘Perplexed’ is alright, just means he’s thick. ‘I don’t know nothing about emperors, but, as a king, which is like an emperor, no way would I go around with my cock and my balls out for all the world to see. No way would I do that, even if it was fashionable. And surely people would notice my cock and my balls out, and mention it, not just some little girl? And is that right anyway, to be showing my cock and my balls to some little girl in a children’s story? She must be only about seven years old, this girl. Surely there are some moral implications to my cock and my balls right there in her face? In this little girl’s face? Or am I reading it wrong? Yours sincerely, the King of the Spaniards.’ (Pause.) Well, I think he’s missed the satirical aspects entirely.
Marjory He’s missed the satirical aspects, yes …
Hans He’s reading it too literal, isn’t he? A positive letter though, overall! And from a King, no less! Brilliant to get a letter from a King, isn’t it? Even if it is just Spain.
Marjory A day will come when there are no kings and there are no queens. People still won’t love each other quite as they ought to, it won’t solve everything, but at least there’ll be a few less cunts in the world we’re paying through the teeth for.
Hans Do you want to go back in the box?
Marjory King Leopold the Second of Belgium, for instance.
Hans The Belgian Congo King? Your bête noir?
Marjory Now there was a cunt.
Hans You’re just jealous cos he’s rich and you’re poor, and he killed nine million people in Africa and you didn’t.
She gets up and wanders again.
Marjory Ten million people in Africa.
Hans Nine, ten, it’s hard to remember when the numbers get that big, isn’t it? Let’s just say ‘lots’. But I bet there’ll still be statues up to him in Belgium in a hundred years’ time. There won’t be none to you. People like kings. African dwarfs they can take or leave.
Marjory We had kings and queens in Africa.
Hans Did ya?
Marjory Yeah. They were cunts there too.
Hans Let’s have no more of the C-word, please. Ooh, a letter all the way from Oireland. From little Maureen, aged eight. Sure, we’ll give her a go! Appalling handwriting, but I suppose it is Ireland.
Marjory wanders up the ladder to the window with some pigeon puppets.
Perhaps Maureen was using a little potato, dipped in ink?! Aren’t I mean?!
Marjory If she’s writing from Ireland in the 1850s, and if she could find a potato, I doubt if she’d be dipping it in ink.
Hans What’s that, current affairs? Way over my head.
Marjory They don’t have any potatoes there now.
Hans How sad! When it’s what they’re famous for. ‘Dear Hans …’ A little informal! ‘I did read …’ I’ll do it in my Irish voice … ‘I did read your wonderful story, “The Little Match Girl”, and it brought a tear to me eye, so it did. For didn’t it remind me of me own harsh life …’ Here we go, begging letter … ‘Me own harsh life, orphaned and destitute at the age of eight …’ Hang on, she’s eight and she’s using big words like ‘destitute’? I don’t think so, Maureen! Her mum probably wrote this … Blah blah blah ‘Had to bury the youngest in a Connemara peat bog …’ blah blah blah … ‘Yet all I could ever wish for …’ Here we go … ‘Would be a photograph from Hans Christian Andersen …’ Oh … ‘The man who taught children the world o’er how to dream again. Yours sincerely, Maureen … Currflurrrgghh …’ I’m not even going to try to pronounce that! It’s worse than yours! (Pause.) Hmm. Turned out not so irritating by the end. Poor Maureen. But come on, a signed photo all the way from Denmark? I’m not made of stamps, Maureen!
He tosses the letter away.
Marjory They’ll be alright. They’ll be free soon.
Hans Don’t get any funny window ideas, by the way. That reinforced glass cost shitloads.
Marjory If I’d wanted to escape, I’d’ve escaped years ago.
Hans Says you.
Marjory I can’t leave until it arrives, anyway.
Hans Until what arrives?
Marjory My future.
Hans Gobbledygook was the first signpost on my mum’s flightpath to the nuthouse, so you just watch yourself.
Marjory What did you do with my foot, by the way?
Hans Your little foot? I sold it to gypsies for a haunted concertina. Well, they said it was haunted. I’ve been too scared to play it!
He gestures to the concertina on the wall and makes a scared face.
Marjory Yes, I hate haunted musical instruments. The bagpipes especially.
Hans And my final fan mail for this week comes from … Ooh, ‘Anonymous’. Jerk! ‘Dear Andersen …’ Well, that’s a bit, I don’t know what that is …
Marjory Abrupt?
Hans Abrupt, yes. ‘Dear Andersen, how come all your stories seem like they could have been written by a black midget imprisoned in a three-foot box?’
They exchange a look, then Marjory comes back down the ladder to sit beside him again. As she listens she plays with a kitten puppet, along with the pigeon ones.
‘“Thumbelina”, for instance. A tiny woman, befriended by bugs, and rescued by a bird. Or “The Shadow”. A writer, after a strange trip to Africa, becomes haunted by his own shadow, a shadow that turns out to be smarter than the writer, takes over his entire life, and then executes him. All things that, most likely, only a very clever pygmy woman … chained up in a three-foot box … with one glass side and a two-inch sausage hole … might dream up. You heard me, Andersen. A pygmy woman chained up in a three-foot box.’
They look at each other, then he gestures to the pigeon and kitten puppets she’s playing with.
Well, that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons! (Pause.) He was wrong about the chains, at least. Him or her.
Marjory Or them.
Hans Or them.
Marjory (pause) There wasn’t anyone unusual at the reading today, was there?
Hans Unusual? No. No one that springs to mi—Unusual how?
Marjory Foreign, perhaps? Or covered in blood?
Hans Not that I noticed. (Pause.) But there were a lot of people there, y’know? I’m very famous. (Pause.) What else might they have looked like? These non-existent people.
Marjory Carrying guns, perhaps? Or Belgian-sounding?
Hans Belgian-sounding? Well, they didn’t say anything.
Marjory Who didn’t say anything?
Hans (pause) Quite.
They both stare out front.