Scene One
The day room. 5.30 p.m.
Hope is pacing around the room. She looks out of the window, then through the door to downstairs. She is in despair. She is now wearing one of the women’s clothing.
HopeFuck, fuck, fuck, this is fucking fuck . . .
MayAccurate but repetitive.
HopeFuck, fuck, fucking fuck . . .
MayShe looks nice in that nightie.
GloriaLooks better on her than it did on Edna.
JuneMaybe we shouldn’t have let her go.
Gloria We can’t keep her tied up.
MaureenIt was quieter.
JuneIt’s like a tiger at the zoo. Is that racist? I didn’t mean it to be. I just meant she’s like a tiger at the . . . you know. I find it so hard to know what to say these days.
HopeUnfuckinbelievable.
MayGloria, you talk to her.
GloriaJune, stop being racist.
MayNo, talk to Hope!
GloriaOh! Hope, we can’t get out and no one is coming so you just need to calm down. Come on . . . what does BAM mean?
Hope What?
GloriaYour blog. You said it’s called BAM.
HopeBlack angry motherfucker.
MayCatchy. Can’t think how you thought of it.
JuneYou don’t look old enough to be a mother.
HopeI am not a mother! I’m angry.
Maureen Why, darling?
Hope Why? Are you kidding me? Look at me. I’m black and I’m a woman. (Looking at June.) When I speak people ask me where I’m from. You oldies have fucked up this country. I’m never gonna get a house or a job or a pension. The fucking flooding is global warming – thanks for that! You think you’re in trouble right now, I been knee deep in that shit all my life. And now! Now my phone’s so wet I’ll never get a fucking signal!
GloriaYou think you have a monopoly on being pissed off? Do you have any idea how many old people die alone each week in this country? I read a survey which said that the UK is officially the loneliest country in Europe.
Hope Well, it is now! Thanks to you old bastards. I voted Remain.
GloriaRemember the story about that woman found dead in her flat in Portsmouth six years after she died?
MaureenThat’s why I came in here. It got too hard on my own. I knew I should go out but sometimes I just didn’t feel like it and before I knew it I was lying on the sofa in front of Cash in the Attic covered in Ryvita crumbs, and realising I hadn’t spoken to another human being for a week.
JuneI like a Ryvita.
HopeYou old people! You don’t know nothing. You got it easy.
MayYou’re right. It was always easy.
Lightning and a clap of thunder.
The weather. 1952. December. Oh, it was bitter out. A great thick layer of cold air but full of fumes.
Hope Why?
May Well, we all burnt coal to keep warm and then there were the new diesel buses. The exhaust choked the air. It smelled like tar. The smog came in so thick people couldn’t drive. They even cancelled concerts because the audience couldn’t see the stage.
Hope Was it scary?
May Well, no one panicked. We just carried on but thousands of people died. Old people mainly. Undertakers were running out of coffins and there were no flowers in the shops. That day the fog was so thick there was a blackness like I’d gone blind. I couldn’t even see my own feet but I ploughed on going to work. I’d just started at the BBC.
HopeThe BBC?
MayDidn’t it sound grand? I was working at Bush House learning the technical side. Nothing would have stopped me going. Nothing. I was good at it and I loved it. I was seventeen and I knew I had found what I wanted to do.
We should never have met. I mean, what were the chances in all that but she bumped right into me. She bumped right into me and I reached out to stop her falling. She was twenty-two.
Hope Who?
MayPeggy. Most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Wearing her dad’s coat cos it was warm. I remember the feel of it. Thick wool and too big for her. She could have bumped into anyone. Fate. That’s what she used to say. Fate.
Silence. Rain.
HopeYou and her? You?
MayOh yes. You young people think you invented everything. Believe me, I know angry. Peggy and me. We were half a century too soon.
More silence. Rain. Lightning and thunder.
MaureenI killed my husband.
GloriaDoesn’t surprise me.
MaureenI mean not really but sort of. I hadn’t realised I was so angry. Ten years we’d been in that flat with him never going out. He got made redundant and somehow it sucked the life out of him. The boys grew up and left. You know what they say – daughters stay and sons leave. Left us alone. Me and Howard and the telly. I really loved him. I had really loved him.
He was on the loo and I was sitting on the edge of the bath waiting for him to finish. He didn’t like to manage on his own. He made a funny noise and tried to reach for his chest but he was so fat by then his hands just came up a bit at the side. His face turned red and he looked at me. He couldn’t speak but I knew he was having a heart attack.
‘I should call an ambulance,’ I thought, but I just sat there and watched.
I kept smiling at the funeral. Couldn’t help it. All those years in that flat. Never going out. I’d had enough. Everyone said I was too young to come here but I like it. I never have to cook or clean. Sometimes I’m as ill as I please and that’s fine. It’s my turn. This was supposed to be my turn.
Hope has calmed a little. These are not the stories she was expecting.
Hope We can’t just sit here.
GloriaYou can’t swim.
JuneDisgraceful! It should be compulsory.
Hope goes to the phone on the wall, picks up the landline and listens.
HopeNothing.
June picks up her knitting and begins clicking her needles. The other women just sit resigned.
HopeYou’re knitting? People! Hello? I hate to be the killjoy here but you do remember this place is going to be up the ying yang soon with foaming water? This might be the time to think about shifting your arse still.
GloriaNo one is coming. We are abandoned. Abandon all, Hope.
MayIt’s cold. Maybe we could light a fire. We’ve got matches.
GloriaLeave that!
May picks up Gloria’s matchbox and opens it.
May What the hell is this? Pills?
GloriaYes, fucking pills! Oh don’t you start, May. I’m done.
Hope What?
MayShe’s been hoarding pills.
HopeYou been planning this? Taking your own life?
GloriaOh, you’re young! What do you know? You probably believe everything is ahead of you. What do you think? That one day you’ll do something worthwhile? Well, I thought that. That I’d do something, maybe even something grand but one morning I woke up and realised it was too bloody late.
HopeSo the only answer is to kill yourself? Nice one!
GloriaI tell you what is not nice is realising that you have wasted your life.
HopeYou could have done it different.
GloriaI was busy.
Hope Well, you’re not now, are you? You’ve got bugger all to do now.
GloriaOh yeah because this is the perfect jumping-off spot to something fabulous.
HopeIt’s up to you. No one is stopping you.
MayNot even Nathan. He doesn’t even answer your phone calls.
GloriaOh May! When the weather turned I thought he might have . . . He’s got his own life, I guess. Too busy for me. That’s how it works. Life passes us by while we’re busy. Yeah, I’ve been saving half a pill every night when they give them out. Give them to me.
May hands them over.
GloriaYou not going to stop me?
MayIt’ll be something to watch while we wait. Telly’s not working.
GloriaJust my luck – suicide with an audience. It’s what I always imagine a Peter Andre concert must be like.
HopeThis is ridiculous. You cannot just top yourself.
GloriaYou think we all ought to be dead already.
Hope has had enough.
HopeGive me the fucking pills.
She snatches the pills, opens the door to the stairs and throws the matchbox down into the water.
This is not happening. We have to do something.
MayGod Almighty, do sit down.
JuneMay, I would ask you not to use the Lord’s name in vain.
MayOh shut up, June. Do you think God cares about us? St June of Bloody Arc.
JuneMy devotion to Our Lord is very important to me.
MayOh, why don’t you just butterfly out of here?
JuneI’m not leaving you.
MayEven if it were my last request?
St Michael suddenly sits up and pays more attention.
St MichaelI was a welder in the war.
HopeA welder? You were a welder? See! Big man ting!
St MichaelA welder? Was I? I thought I was in the WRENS. I wonder if it was both? I know about both.
MayShe’s cracked.
Suddenly Gloria gives a loud laugh.
Gloria ‘Angels sail back to God.’ Ha! June of Bloody Arc!
MayI tell you, she’s flipped.
GloriaYou were brilliant, Maureen, with that man. Bloody brilliant. We are bloody brilliant. Ha!
Maureen What’s happening? Why are you doing that?
Gloria punches the air in triumph and almost skips away.
Gloria Ha!
MaureenIs Gloria all right? I mean she’s smiling.
JuneAre you all right, Gloria?
GloriaI’ve been depressed because being old and living here is bloody depressing so I forgot how brilliant we all were. How brilliant we all are. Look at us. Maureen – strong as an ox. May – funny and nice. June – well, you know, June . . . St Michael, God knows what’s in there. They’ve written us off. They think we’re not worth saving, well, bugger that. We may be old but we’re not done yet. I’m not done yet.
Maureen What are we going to do?
Gloria holds aloft the angel saying.
Gloria We are going to sail like the angels.
June What?
GloriaThere’s going to be a flood so what do you do when there is a flood? You build a sodding ark. We need a boat so we’re going to build one.
JuneYou’re mad.
MayStill, why not?
Maureen We’re too old.
GloriaJune, how old was Noah when he made that boat?
JuneSix hundred.
MayAlways the most believable bit about that story.
GloriaBesides, we have Hope!
Hope What do you mean you have me?
GloriaYou’re young. You can help us or you can wait for the tide. I’m just going to remind you, you can’t swim and drowning is an equal opportunity activity.
HopeI’m not very practical.
GloriaBut I am. Forty years running my own pub.
MayShe can literally organise a piss-up in a brewery. Look, I don’t know whether we can build a boat but I can’t think of a better plan and it’s preferable to just sitting here. Okay, I will still just be sitting here but at least I can direct. Come on, June. We are going to do this.
GloriaDamned right we are.
There is a loud clap of thunder. She shouts to the heavens.
You listen to me, Vera, I’ll die when I’m good and ready and I’m telling you, this ain’t it yet. Right, let’s get started. Any ideas? Anything.
MayNot a clue.
St MichaelUpward thrust!
JuneNot now, St Michael.
HopeNo, she’s right. Buoyancy. We need buoyancy.
GloriaHow do you know that?
HopeI did go to school, you know. I wasn’t raised by wolves.
St MichaelIn an emergency plastic bottles can make a fine temporary flotation device.
Hope goes to stare at St Michael’s head right up close.
Hope What the hell is in there?
St MichaelPlease be aware that size may vary from the illustration shown.
MayA raft! Built of bottles! I wonder how many we would need.
GloriaI don’t know.
MayI’m not asking you. Oddly, I’m asking the one with dementia.
St MichaelAbout a pint of volume per . . . a pint per . . .
HopePer what?
St MichaelPer pound.
GloriaBrilliant!
MayA pint per pound. We’ll need pencil and paper.
Hope produces a small notebook and pencil from her plastic bag. She gives it to May, then starts looking around the room.
St MichaelAnd that was the last time we saw Father.
MaureenI don’t understand.
Gloria We’re going to have an adventure, Maureen. Everyone has written us off but we’ll show them.
MaureenLike a film?
GloriaYes. Ours will be just like The Great Escape without, you know, the motorbikes and the Germans.
Hope stands by the water-bottle stand where there are a number of large empty bottles.
HopeIt’s calm! We got bottles! (She stops for a moment.) This is so cray!
Maureen We could be famous! We’ll be like the Trojan women sailing out of . . . wherever they sailed out of. Costumes! We’ll need costumes!
She starts looking for things to wear.
MayHow many pints are those bottles?
HopeIt’s in litres.
JuneI can’t do litres.
MayIf only we’d thought to drown pre-decimalisation.
GloriaFor goodness sake. St Michael, what are litres in old money?
St MichaelI’ll have a P, please, Bob. Greenham Common. That was nice.
Gloria Wonderful. She’s gone again.
HopeLook on your phone.
Gloria gets hers out and shakes her head.
Maureen removes a cardboard bedpan from a shelf.
Maureen What about these?
GloriaDon’t you think there’ll be enough water without us making more?
MaureenThis would make a fine captain’s hat with a bit of ribbon.
GloriaThere’s two pints in a quart and . . . oh, I should have paid more attention at school. All I can remember is the French for horse and how you make an oxbow lake.
MayI don’t think you make them. I think they get left behind.
JuneBit like us.
HopeI hate to be the one speaking into the microphone but is there like a plan for building this boat?
May ‘Like’ a plan? So not an actual plan just something similar to one?
HopeDon’t snake me up when I’m trying to help.
MaureenHow many hats will we need?
She begins counting bedpans and gathering what she needs. She sits down to make hats.
MayYes. Well, I think it’ll be more like a raft. Hope, grab that table and see if one of those bottles will shove in underneath. We’ll lay tables next to each other, tie them together and shove the bottles in for bouyancy.
HopeIt fits okay.
MayRight. Come on, everyone, shift yourselves. We’ll need more tables.
Hope and Gloria begin moving tables.
MayI’m sure there aren’t enough bottles here. We’ll need some more.
JuneThere’s lots in the dining room.
GloriaProblem solved apart from the dining room being almost entirely under water.
JuneI can swim.
MaureenOoh, it’s like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure.
MayJune, I don’t think . . .
June heads for the dining-room door and exits. Gloria follows and stands by the open door.
Gloria What are you doing?
June (off)Taking my clothes off. I’ll need dry clothes for the trip.
GloriaDon’t look, Hope, you’ll be scarred for life.
June (off)I’m ready.
MayJune, you be careful.
GloriaHang on, let me get a photo.
There is the sound of a splash. She looks at her phone.
I may have mistimed that. Makes her arse look like the moon setting over the river. Ooh I’ve got a signal.
HopeAny news?
GloriaI don’t know. I was tweeting my photo.
There is the sound of splashing.
June Whooo!
GloriaSignal’s gone again.
MayOne brief window and you thought the best thing to do was send the world a picture of June’s bottom?
GloriaNow you put it like that.
Maureen has finished one hat. She puts it on and imagines she is speaking to the press.
Maureen ‘You’ve all been so kind to pay attention to our little adventure but . . . a film? About what happened? I’d have to check with my agent.’
June (off)Here comes one!
A bottle bounces into the room from the stairs.
And another!
Another bottle appears.
MayHope, you gather the bottles.
Sound of a splash.
The tables will need to be right next to each other. Gloria, find something to fasten them together.
Hope shoves bottles in under tables while Gloria start to look for something to fasten them with.
MaureenDoes anyone know when the curtain will be?
MayThe curtain?
Maureen What time the show will begin? Our great departure?
MayIt depends when the – what did they call it? – surge happens.
MaureenI don’t like not knowing the timing of everything.
May We need to listen to the news.
GloriaRadio’s not working. No power.
June (off)How about these?
A packet of biscuits flies into the room.
St MichaelPick up a Penguin!
Hope goes to pick them up but St Michael gets out of her chair, slaps Hope’s hand, grabs the biscuits and takes them back with her. The others pause for a minute and then carry on.
MayDoes anyone have any paper clips?
GloriaGood idea. Let’s all do paperwork while we wait.
MayI can make a radio. An old-fashioned radio.
Hope With paper clips?
MayAnd a pencil and some magnetic wire.
She begins taking the table fan apart.
Maureen What are you doing to that fan? We might need that.
MayYes, because the weather’s so changeable. I need the wire for my radio.
June (off)Fore!
Another bottle appears, closely followed by another. For the first time Hope realises she is impressed.
HopeYou ladies are something else.
Gloria takes the end of a length of bunting and hands it to Hope.
GloriaHere. Tie that round the legs. Tight as you can.
St Michael (suggestively)Ooh! Tie it round my legs. Tight as you can!
HopeDirty old bugger.
Hope and St Michael high-five each other.
MayRight, Maureen, I need a razor.
MaureenOh, I’ve got one of those in my room.
GloriaI knew that beard wasn’t held back with tweezers.
Maureen shoots her a look.
GloriaSorry. Sorry.
MaureenI’ll get it.
June (off)Catch!
Maureen goes off. Another large, empty water bottle is ejected from the doorway to the dining room along with a spray of water
GloriaAtta girl, June!
June (off)Mind out!
More bottles roll across the floor. Gloria tries again to hold her mobile aloft to get a signal.
GloriaStill nothing.
MayI need some kind of speaker. Ah!
She picks up the loudhailer.
Maureen re-enters carrying a bag of other items. She is singing along to some music.
MaureenHere’s your razor, May.
GloriaIs this going to work?
MayAbsolutely. Foxhole radio. They made them all the time in the war. It’s like a crystal radio but the razor acts as the detector with the lead pencil as a diode and . . . You don’t care, do you?
GloriaHonestly? No.
MayHope? Have you finished tying up the tables yet?
HopeDoes anyone else remember that brief part of today when I was calling the shots?
She continues constructing the shape of the raft.
MaureenI see. Like a stage. Like working in-the-round in fact. I did a production of The House of Bernada Alba like that. Made me quite dizzy. Forty years in the Padhiam Amateur Players, you know. Forty years of proud PAP.
Gloria (to May)Want to see June naked? (Holding up her phone.) I got a close-up. Fills the whole frame.
MayYou should have seen her when she weighed two tons. Watching her swim then was like willing the Queen Mary into port.
June (off)I heard that.
She re-enters from the dining-room stairs door. She is dressed again.
There’s six or seven feet of water everywhere. It’s filthy.
MayAnyone around?
JuneNot a soul.
GloriaJune, can I just say that was very impre –
MayShhh! Shhh! I’ve got it.
The improvised radio fizzes into life. The sound of the Weather Girls singing ‘It’s Raining Men’.
HopeGeri Halliwell!
MaureenNo! The Weather Girls!
MaySomeone’s got a sense of humour.
MaureenOh I like this one. Turn it up.
JuneI thought we wanted the news?
GloriaSod it! Let’s dance!
May turns the music up. The women begin to dance along while making the raft. The women continue but the music begins to fade.
Everyone ignores St Michael and certainly no one is listening to her.
St MichaelI don’t know what I know or how I know it but I do know that I don’t seem to mind. It’s all fragments like nodding off while watching telly and waking up to find the story has moved on. I used to fear it, losing my mind, but it’s all right. There’s bits, nice bits. That’s all life is – just lots of tiny pieces which we struggle to keep together but mostly they don’t really fit in one place. I think I had a son but in my mind I only see him when he was little. Maybe he died and I don’t remember. That’s all right. It must have hurt. If it happened.
I know I was busy. Always busy. Everyone asking me for something, expecting me to put myself second or last actually. I know that. I can feel it. I think I had a business but I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Now I don’t even have to remember my name. I don’t have to do anything. I know everyone looks at me and wonders what’s inside but I’m fine with the space. I don’t mind just sitting. I had a lifetime of doing.
The music builds again as the women complete the basic shape of the raft. The music dies.
HopeThe radio’s died.
May fiddles with the radio and they all listen.
MaureenThere, there!
GloriaEars like a bat when she chooses.
Newsreader (voice-over). . . The authorities are bracing themselves for a massive surge in water levels –
May We know that.
Newsreader (voice-over)– which will occur at the next high tide. It is predicted to be strong enough to actually sweep away any properties still standing along the river front in the area around Gravesend at approximately . . .
The radio fizzes and dies.
HopeAt approximately what?
Maureen When is that? When is that? The next high tide? How will we know when to begin?
GloriaI don’t know. Put the radio on again.
MayThe pencil lead has broken.
Hope (surveying the raft)I can’t believe I am building a boat. I don’t think it looks very safe.
MayYou’re right. We need more rope or something strong.
Maureen We need to know what time the show starts.
St MichaelTime and tide – same thing. It’s from the Norse. Tide means time. It’s time.
Maureen When is curtain up?
GloriaCurtains! It’s curtains.
MayYes, well, let’s try and keep optimistic.
GloriaNo! Curtains in the rooms! Hope, there’s tie-backs and pull-cords on all the bedroom curtains.
HopeI’m on it.
She exits.
MayI’m still worried we won’t make it strong enough.
St MichaelArchimedes’ principle.
June What?
St MichaelThe law of upthrust.
JuneOh, she’s off again.
MayNo, of course, what an idiot I am. I know this perfectly well. ‘A body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.’
JuneOh May, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
MayArchimedes principle.
JuneStop saying that!
MayI would reckon a litre bottle per kilogram of weight. We need everyone’s weight in kilos.
GloriaI can’t do kilos.
JuneOh I can. 2.2 pounds which is roughly ten Kit-Kats and a gingerbread latte for me.
Maureen is looking through her bag for something.
MayThe more weight the more bottles we need.
June What if there isn’t enough? Oh May, how many times did I try to get you to come to my slimming classes? What if you’re too heavy?
MayYou’re right, I should have slimmed down because we all saw this day coming.
June Well, you may not be able to come.
MayI’m designing the boat and yet you’re going to pick me to stay behind? Is that the real reason? Because I’m a pound or two over or is because you think God is going to punish me? You and your perfect suburban life. Always sitting in judgement of me.
JuneI never did.
Maureen produces a pineapple from her bag which surprises and pleases her.
MaureenPerfect!
JuneRon and I never sat in judgement.
MayYes, you bloody did. The two of you! The ideal couple. Like Celia Johnson and Trevor bleeding Howard. Who were you to be so high and mighty? You didn’t know anything about my life. You never even asked.
JuneI didn’t want to intrude.
MayIntrude? I’m your bloody sister. Where were you when Peggy died?
Maureen Who’s Peggy?
GloriaMaureen, mind your own business.
JuneI didn’t know what to say.
MayNo, so you said nothing and just let me crumble. I’m not fighting with you. I’ve got work to do. I need a sharpener. June, haven’t you got one for your eye . . .
She picks up June’s bag and looks in it.
May What is this?
She holds up a watch.
MaureenThat’s mine. That’s my watch.
MayJune?
June What are you doing in my bag?
MayI was looking for a sharpener. You’re my sister. I didn’t know you had any secrets.
Maureen Why have you got my watch?
Hope re-enters carrying lots of lengths of cord and a bed sheet.
HopeRight, I’ve got plenty I think, and . . . what’s going on?
MaureenJune stole my watch.
May removes a bracelet from June’s bag.
MayIsn’t this Gloria’s bracelet?
GloriaYou bloody thief.
MayJune?
GloriaYou stand about being sanctimonious, quoting God, and all the time you’re nicking our stuff.
JuneI know. I’m sorry. Sometimes I . . . I steal things. I don’t know why.
MayI don’t want to hear this.
June Why? Are you too busy? Too busy being important?
MayI’m trying to save us.
June May, please! You have to understand. I’m not like you. I can’t manage like you can. It was never what you thought. Ronald was . . . is so important and I . . . well, I wasn’t. I married him because . . . well, he asked.
He was senior partner at the practice. His name was on the door in the high street. I used to walk past it. Gold letters on black wood.
He was on the farmers’ market committee, an usher at the church. He ran everything and I . . . He used to say ‘You’ve got the house, a position in society, what else do you want?’ I hated the house. Bungalow. It even sounds depressing. I didn’t choose it. I would have chosen something with an upstairs so you can go ‘upstairs’ to bed. A proper house.
Mrs Ogilvie from the tobacconists had died and Ron was doing her probate. He said it was too big a chance to pass up on. That the house hadn’t even come on the market so we could get it cheap and, anyway, we needed to think long term. ‘This is a home for life, June. Hard to imagine now but there will come a time when we can’t manage stairs. It’s a fifty-year plan.’ Fifty years. I didn’t want a plan. I wanted to be, I don’t know, spontaneous.
MayJune, that will do.
JuneNo, it won’t. I used to sit in church watching him being important. I prayed and prayed but I don’t think I’m any good at it because I never hear anything back. Maybe if I had been on a committee. Been more important. We had Allyson and that first morning I held her I knew she didn’t really like me. That she was Daddy’s girl. I started taking money from the collection. A pound or two and spending it in the café. Made me feel better somehow.
GloriaBetter? Well, here’s better – you’re not coming with us. You can stay here and drown in your self-pity for all I care.
June begins to cry. She goes off by herself, sobbing quietly.
MayJune!
HopeOkay, Maureen, let’s . . .
MaureenI’m not doing it. You can’t do a show unless everyone believes in it. My shoulder hurts. I need to listen to my music. It makes me feel calm. I don’t feel calm. My nerves . . .
She sits down. June is crying while May sits looking out of the window.
HopeGloria?
GloriaMaybe we can’t manage it. Maybe it’s too much. What are you doing here, Hope? Why aren’t you in college or something? What are you doing looking after old biddies?
HopeI was gonna go to uni but I . . .
GloriaMet a boy?
HopeHe’s not a boy!
GloriaA man!
Hope nods.
GloriaI been there. It was hot. Sexy hot. Sweat trickled down between me breasts and along me legs and I felt so great. I was beautiful. Everyone said so. Riccardo said so. Riccardo Balducci. I was eating ice cream and it was melting on to the pavement. It dripped on his foot. Strawberry. Looked pink to me. ‘Carmine,’ he said in his Italian accent, ‘with a hint of titanium and a splash of Payne’s grey.’ How sexy is that?
He was a ‘madonnaro’. I didn’t even know what that was. A street artist. I was from Hackney. We only had piss artists. He went from town to town drawing. He was painting pictures in chalk on the pavement in Trafalgar Square. Pictures of the Madonna and child.
My dress was tight. Carmine, like the ice cream. I loved that it was tight. I loved that feeling. My clothes just covering what needed to be covered. Every inch of cloth ready to be pulled off at a moment’s notice and everyone knew. You could smell sex on me. It made me feel powerful.
It was hot all summer and Riccardo couldn’t keep his hands off me. He drew my face, said I was his inspiration and there I was – the Madonna, so big on the pavement holding the baby Jesus and smiling. It was wonderful. I didn’t like it when it rained and the pictures faded away. Ric said it was okay. That it didn’t have to last for ever.
‘A baby,’ I said. ‘There’s a baby coming.’ ‘I have a wife,’ he replied. ‘A wife in Italy’, and then he was gone. I stood by the lions in the square as the sun died and the rain came. The rain came and it washed my Madonna away. My face, my smiling face slipped away in small rivers of colour which dripped across the grey slabs of the pavement and then my child washed away too. There were no more. When you are young you don’t know that there isn’t always time for more. He broke my heart and it never mended.
MayI didn’t know, June.
JuneYou didn’t ask.
MayNeither did you.
JuneYou were always so busy.
GloriaI am not going sailing with a thief.
MayIf she stays, I stay.
HopeEnough! Listen. I nearly drowned today. This is not the day I planned. That anyone planned. We are all going on the boat. No one is going to be left behind. You don’t think it’s bad enough the world wants to leave you behind because you’re old? Now you’re going to narrow that down to those of you who have led a blameless life?
Listen, earlier today, after certain . . . violations, from that one, I would of left her too! But at the end of the day, the world is messed up and, yes, people hurt each other – they even hate each other, they decide we’re no use because we’re too old, or we’re a different colour or something – but the truth is, we’re all the same.
May ‘Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.’ I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me.
Hope What she said. So, let’s not leave anyone behind!
MayI’m not sure the boat will float anyway. Not with all of us. Somebody will have to stay behind.
There is silence and the sound of rain. June’s crying has quietened and the rest sit in resigned silence as Hope looks at them.
HopeSeriously? Come on, people! You’re like a headache with pictures. Gloria! Speak to them. This is your moment. This is it. Your chance to do something grand.
JuneI give up.
HopeCome on! I get the years have wrinkled your skin, but not your soul.
June What do you know about my soul?
HopeI’m black, remember? (With an American accent.) I got rhythm, I got soul and I’m here to save your skinny white ass.
JuneSkinny!
Hope (to Gloria)How about it, Gloria? You too old?
GloriaMe? No. I’m up with the kids.
HopeIt’s down.
GloriaDown as well.
JuneIt’s all right. I won’t come.
Gloria shakes her head and gets up to take charge.
GloriaYes, well, you don’t get to choose. Hope’s right. You’re coming too no matter how annoying you are.
JuneI’m too heavy.
GloriaYou can’t possibly be. Not with them light fingers.
June begins to cry again.
GloriaToo soon?
HopeCome on, June.
JuneRon gave them the house.
Hope Who?
JuneAllyson and Roger, her husband. I had a letter yesterday. They’ve had plans done. They’re adding a second floor to the bungalow and they say I’m welcome but . . . but they don’t think I’ll be able to manage the stairs.
Pause.
GloriaCome on, we’ve got a boat to finish. SS Saga Cruises. May, what’s next?
May Well, a rudder would be good.
MaureenMy ‘Votes for Women’ sign!
Hope We’ll need a ramp for the wheelchairs.
GloriaIn the corridor!
Hope goes to get a ramp.
GloriaLet’s have a drink. I’ve got some gin.
She gets the gin from her bag and some cups from the water cooler. Hope returns with a ramp.
June We shouldn’t drink if we’re going sailing. It can make you queasy.
HopeYou’ve understood about the storm, right? Queasy is going to be the least of our troubles.
MayYou stay sober. I’m going to get rat-arsed.
JuneYou know you’re not supposed to drink.
MayAt this stage I don’t think even crack cocaine would be an issue.
St MichaelI can fart the Marseillaise.
Gloria Well, there’s the on-board entertainment sorted.
Everyone except June begins drinking.
MayI’ve got some cake! June?
JuneNo. Mustn’t, thanks.
May gets out a tin with cake. Hope is securing a Zimmer frame at the front of the raft.
HopeYou’re like those women who waved away the dessert trolley on the Titanic.
June moves to look out of the window. Hope moves to the Zimmer frame at the front of the raft and puts her arms out.
GloriaI’m the King of the World!
Hope laughs and moves to act with Gloria.
HopeI love you, Jack.
GloriaNever let go.
HopeJack!
Gloria pretends to drift away and die as Hope attempts to reach out for her. Gloria makes a gurgling sound and falls to the floor. Maureen applauds and Gloria and Hope bow.
Maureen Marvellous!
GloriaApart from the fact that I can’t get up again.
HopeI got you.
She goes to help Gloria, who is unsteady. Hope holds her carefully.
GloriaThanks.
HopeYou’re welcome.
Hope and Gloria smile at each other.
MaureenThat’s all I ever wanted.
Gloria What? To die in a major shipping accident?
Hope ( pretending to be a TV host)Well, Maureen Cookson, tonight your dream is about to come true.
MaureenNo. To be in a big film. To be a star. I wish I had.
Gloria Wishes. Don’t waste your life hanging all your wishes on one man, Hope.
Hope What happened to him?
GloriaRiccardo? I heard he died about ten years later.
MaureenHeartbroken?
GloriaBowel obstruction.
June We’re on the first floor.
MayYes?
June We’ve built a boat on the first floor. I think I will have a drink after all.
MayYes, but . . . Hang on a minute . . .
She wheels herself over to look out of the patio doors.
Gloria Oh, I’ve got a signal! Ha! June’s bottom’s gone viral. Oh, signal’s gone again.
St MichaelMother, I’m tired of this.
HopeYou rest a minute, St Michael. Have forty winks.
GloriaThat caring thing is coming on a treat, Hope.
HopeYeah, don’t be fooled. I’m just looking for your money.
St MichaelI commend the motion to the House.
MayHope, you were downstairs. Come and look at this.
Hope joins May at the window. St Michael sleeps. Gloria has another drink.
MayYou see how the water should come towards us? Was it like that downstairs? When the water rushed in?
HopeYeah, exactly.
MayNow look here, everyone, timing is going to be everything.
MaureenThat’s so true especially with farce.
MayBut I think we may manage it. We’re on the first floor but the water is still rising.
HopeRising? It’s nearly at these doors.
May Exactly. All we need to do is wait for the precise moment that the surge hits. It’ll burst open the doors just like it did downstairs, the water will rush in, pick us up and carry us out.
MaureenOut to triumph!
MayThat’s the plan anyway.
GloriaMay, you’re a genius.
June What do we do till then?
MayWe wait.
June gets up, goes to get a chair and pulls it up next to May.
JuneOh May, please forgive me.
She takes her sister’s hand and they sit for a moment.
MayDo you really think God will hate me?
JuneNobody could hate you.
May What if we both die and go separate ways?
JuneI’ll come down after you.
May Who said I was the one going down? (Pause.) I’m scared.
JuneMe too.
Hope is listening
MayI just lived my life.
JuneI know. I’m sorry.
MayI don’t know where Peggy is.
JuneShe’s dead, May.
MayI know, but I don’t know where she is. All that time, all those years and her family didn’t speak to her. Forty-six years, but after the accident . . . well, I thought they ought to get a chance to say goodbye.
She’d been riding her bicycle. It was a lorry driver . . . at Shepherd’s Bush. He didn’t see her. My name was in her wallet, of course. I rushed to her but there was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do.
I asked the hospital to call her brother and his wife. I thought it was the right thing, you see. She never regained consciousness. I gave them a minute and then the doctor said I couldn’t go in again. It was family only. That they wanted to be alone with her while she . . . passed. We were everything to each other. They had the funeral without me.
I don’t know where she is but I see her. She’s wearing her father’s coat as she pushes her bicycle. She stops on the corner and turns one last time to look at me up in our flat. She turns to wave goodbye.
JuneShe was lovely. Peggy.
May What if I can’t find her?
JuneWe’ll find her. I’ll help you.
May Peggy.
MaureenI’ve done everyone’s hats!
She hands out her bedpan hats.
JuneNow what?
GloriaLike May said – we wait.
The women sit. The sound of the storm is steady.
JuneHow will we know when . . .
HopeWe’ll hear it.
Silence. Rain.
JuneI’d like to have learnt a language.
GloriaYou’re young, Hope, you could still do what you want.
HopeI’d like to travel.
GloriaWhere to?
HopeKenya. Where my gran lived. I never knew her.
GloriaIt’s not too late.
HopeShe’s dead.
GloriaOkay, that part may not work out but you could see the country.
HopeMy boyfriend . . .
GloriaSeriously? I wish I’d had kids.
MaureenI wish I hadn’t.
HopeMaureen!
MaureenOh, no woman ever says it but lots of us think it. Three little sods. I used to look at them and think of all the things I hadn’t done.
HopeI think we should get on the raft. Look at the water!
JuneYou’re right. May, who ought to sit where? he turns to May and realises she is not responding.
JuneMay? May! May! Oh my God, oh my God!
Hope rushes over.
HopeMay? May?
She confirms that May is dead.
HopeI’m so sorry.
JuneI told her not to drink. I told her . . . her insulin and . . .
Gloria Oh June.
JuneShe didn’t want to die here.
St MichaelNobody wants to die here, you fool.
Suddenly the foxhole radio crackles into life. It’s next to Maureen and startles her.
MaureenI never touched it.
Hope What can you hear?
BBC Radio Announcer (voice-over). . . The entire area around Gravesend has now been cleared of all residents and abandoned to its fate by the rescue services. In a sombre statement the prime minster . . .
The radio dies again.
Maureen We’ve not been cleared.
GloriaNo one even noticed us.
JuneI never told her. I never said. All those years.
HopeAbout Peggy?
JuneNo. How unbelievably dull my life was. I did everything I was supposed to. I was such a good girl. I lived in the house he chose and cleaned a dead woman’s furniture. I bought hats – who the hell wears a hat? And all the time I wanted to scream because I was so bored. I need to find Peggy’s grave and say I’m sorry. What am I going to do? Now I’m here and I have no house, nowhere to go.
St MichaelYou didn’t like the house.
MaureenYou hated the house.
JuneI did.
GloriaYou weren’t all that keen on Ronald.
JuneNo.
HopeAllyson?
JuneAlso dull. And fat.
HopeAnd now you don’t have to do any of it any more. You’re free. Allyson can clean the sodding furniture.
GloriaFate.
June What?
GloriaThat’s what May said about her and Peggy. It was fate. This is fate. Ladies, we are not going to die today. We lost one, a really good one, but we are not losing any more. Here we are and right or wrong, this is our time. Time for an adventure. Come on, load up. Let’s do something grand!
HopeGood for you, Gloria.
St Michael gets out of her chair as if it were nothing.
St MichaelI’ll need my box.
Hope shakes her head and gets the box. Then she helps Gloria and Maureen get her on board.
GloriaLet’s go to Kenya. I’ve been paying Mrs Silver thousands, let’s blow the rest.
JuneI thought you were going to give the money to Nathan?
Gloria Well, he should have turned up. I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to die just so he can upgrade his software. Time to blow that inheritance and have some fun.
HopeKenya? I’m with that.
She moves to help St Michael on.
GloriaThe boyfriend?
HopeHe can bounce.
JuneCan I come?
GloriaChrist, it’s never straightforward, is it?
JuneI could give them my sweaters for the babies.
HopeListen!
There is a great rush of water. Hope stands with St Michael.
HopeIt’s nearly time.
St MichaelI also have a very good trick with ice cubes and a ping-pong ball.
Hope What’s that smell?
JuneI think it’s –
June and Gloria – the Marseillaise.
MaureenIt’s getting darker. I don’t think I can do this.
GloriaYou can. It’s a movie. I’ll make a movie. (She holds up her phone.) You’ll be the star. Find some music for your movie.
Maureen What kind of music?
GloriaSomething noble and grand.
MaureenVerdi’s Requiem!
GloriaGreat! Music for dead people.
June gets off the raft and goes to push May towards it.
Gloria What are you doing?
JuneGetting May on board.
Hope gets off to help.
HopeYou’re right.
GloriaJune, the weight . . .
JuneI didn’t lose half my body fat so that I still had to worry about weight. She is coming with us. If we make it then it was May who saved us. She deserves to be on board. Besides, no one is staying in this . . . this . . . shithole.
Hope and June get May on to the raft. The thunder, lightning and rain worsen.
GloriaGod, it is The Tempest. (Declaiming.)
Now I will believe
That there are unicorns –
St Michael – that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there.
Gloria We are the phoenix rising!
MaureenJune! Hope! Hurry!
Hope We’re on!
Maureen puts on Verdi’s Requiem.
JuneI’m scared. Oh May! It’s so dark!
Gloria reaches in to St Michael’s box and removes the light-up dildo. She hands it to June.
GloriaHere. Light the way for us, June.
June looks appalled, but then grabs the dildo.
JuneFuck it!
HopeI can hear it coming! The water!
GloriaGet in the middle, Hope!
Hope Why?
Gloria and JuneYou can’t swim!
The older women move the younger one into the middle to protect her.
Gloria We got you! Louder, Maureen!
Maureen turns the music up.
GloriaHold on! Here we go!
June holds up the light. There is the most massive sound of roaring water, wind and music.
Blackout.