SCENE SIX
(Exterior, the Barras. MANDY enters followed by CHARLIE. MAX traipses on after them)
CHARLIE: It’s good of you to do this for me, Christian. Do you do this a lot?
MANDY: No.
CHARLIE: I mean, I acknowledge your goodness taking me into the bosom of your family. Will your ma be there too?
MANDY: Why d’you ask that?
MAX: Can we pause here Charlie to (take stock) break her arm, Charlie? Charlie, can we pause here to take stock? Because we’ve passed the hot dogs.
MANDY: Eh? Why d’you ask that?
CHARLIE: It’s just the way my somersaults, jumps, double-back mind works. I’m no trying to exclude your ma (she’s lovely too). I’m concerned what she might say.
MANDY: I’ll just tell her I’m trying to save ye.
MAX: I’m running out of excuses for ye, Charlie. Your mother can only last so long (the truth, Charlie), your mother’s only an excuse for so long!
MANDY: Do you ever think ‘I’m alive!’?
CHARLIE: I am alive.
MANDY: But do you never, like, think ‘I’m alive!’ and, like, you’re so happy you want to tear your scalp off.
CHARLIE: Listen, life’s no a good subject for me the now.
MANDY: If I was a tree, like, in the country (we got sent to a home there once), if I was a tree, like, in the country and I was, like, really tall and it was, like, a really nice sunny day, I’d be so happy I’d topple over. I wouldn’t be able to stand up.
CHARLIE: You’re an angel, you are.
MANDY: Don’t worry: I’m not as good as I look.
CHARLIE: You’re giving me hope. — To be honest with you mandy: I haven’t been living good. Time. Y’know? You marry, have a kid, leave them. Then you think, did I do that? Then, once upon a time, there was the cherubim, seraphim, thrones, dominions, powers; virtues, principalities; archangels, angels. Nice. Y’know?
(The two BILLYS enter carrying a huge big fucker of a wardrobe, followed by ANN. We see them as if in long-shot. An image accompanied by music. MANDY sees this and wants to exit)
MANDY: Anyway. Let’s get going.
MAX: Charlie, have you forsaken leave of your senses? Are you going to let her wander off with your cash?
(CHARLIE turns round to talk to MAX — sees the vision)
CHARLIE: Max, why don’t you —. — Look at that. Look at that, Mandy.
MANDY: Oh uh huh.
CHARLIE: How do you interpret that? The two men walk behind a woman carrying a coffer. The woman’s wearing black. So right away we’re talking about Fate, yeah? I look at that and I want to know the whole sad story. Who’s she? Who are they? What have they done to make her so unhappy? She looks so sad and so womanly and so longing …
MANDY: I sometimes think men should be blinded at birth. I don’t mean that to be horrible, their mothers could do it.
MAX: Blind would be fine by me.
MANDY: So they learned how to not look.
MAX: Blind me so long as she put something in my blind deluded mouth.
(ANN turns, looks at CHARLIE and MANDY)
CHARLIE: She’s looking at us.
(The BILLYS exit, followed by ANN. CHARLIE tries to find a position onstage where he can continue to watch ANN offstage. MANDY goes up to CHARLIE, touches him gently on the arm)
MANDY: Don’t let the devil steal your eyes away.
(CHARLIE doesn’t look at her, his gaze fixed offstage on ANN)
CHARLIE: She’s stopped.
MANDY: Haven’t you got something better to look at?
CHARLIE: She’s turned round.
MANDY: You think you’re looking but you’re not, you’re drowning.
CHARLIE: It’s Ann.
MAX: I don’t comprehend this. To me this passes —. This is past —.
MAX: I’ve passed out.
(CHARLIE takes up a position to await ANN’s arrival. ANN enters, talking over her shoulder)
ANN: I seem to be the only one that can see ahead to what’s coming. Ambulances? They have to wait till a thing’s happened don’t they. Till after everything’s all over and they might as well not have effn bothered. — Oh look who it is. My daughter Mandy. Has she been showing you her character, Charlie?
CHARLIE: She’s been trying to save me, haven’t you, Mandy?
ANN: What have you been saving him for, later?
CHARLIE: She’s very kindly offered to take me back to your house, Ann.
ANN: Has she? You watch your step, Charlie, she’s trickier than a mirror — see when it looks at ye? Oh look. Here come my two workers, Charlie.
(The BILLYS come on carrying the wardrobe)
ANN: Are you two going to follow me all the way home!
BILLY: What way are you going, Ann!
ANN: No, Billy!
BILLY 1: ‘No’?
ANN: I’m no walking the two miles home behind a stupid big thing like that.
BILLY 1: Could you no have thought of that before?
ANN: Fate, Charlie.
CHARLIE: We meet again, eh?
ANN: You can explain it.
CHARLIE: You can explain it.
ANN: Still doesn’t explain it.
CHARLIE: Fate.
BILLY 1: Can we put this down, Billy?
BILLY 2: I’m waiting on Ann to tell me, Billy.
CHARLIE: Would you no be better transporting it by van?
BILLY 1: Yeah. You got one?
CHARLIE: We must know somebody between us that’s got a van some kinna transport.
(They don’t)
BILLY 2: I’ve got a brother-in-law in Germany drives a big artic.
BILLY 1: Billy, can we put this down?
BILLY 2: Billy, we put it down: then what?
BILLY 1: Then I demolish ye, ya big wall.
CHARLIE: I mean, if there’s any way, Ann, I can help you … not help … if there’s any way I can not help you something you, then I’d be only too glad.
ANN: Uch, Fate, charlie: you can’t escape it. I had these two sons. First Robert hung himself. Then Martin?
(ANN imagines she’s got the sequence in the wrong order and ‘corrects’ herself)
ANN: What did I say there? First Robert hung himself. Then Martin. I don’t know what was the bigger shock. It was a shock the first time wasn’t it. Then when we found Martin in the boys’ wardrobe like his twin brother that was another shock. Like seeing things. You can’t blame Robert. He wasn’t to know the future was he. You can’t blame Martin either, he was only copying his twin. You’re white as a sheet, Charlie, what did I say, did I say something wrong?
CHARLIE: No. It’s just … some days you know you’re being told something. Y’know? You’re being told to get real or something. Y’know? How though?
BILLY 1: Talk to Billy. He’s so real it’s untrue.
BILLY 2: I might no be clever, Billy, but I can lift heavy things.
ANN: You just follow your instincts, Charlie. Well! I’ll go and look for something else I forgot. Mandy, will you go home and open the door for them? — I’ll see you two later. — I hope I bump into you again, Charlie. — I’m going to throw myself into the arms of Fate.
(ANN crosses the stage back in the direction of the Barras)
BILLY 1: Ann, will you —. Billy, will you —.
CHARLIE: Is she OK? Should someone no go after her?
(ANN has now exited)
CHARLIE: Should some bastard not, I think someone should go after her, Mandy.
MANDY: Why?
CHARLIE: I’ll go after her then, if no other bastard’s going to.
MAX: Charlie son, have you lost your sense of smell? Have you lost your sense of foreboding? Because I swear, Charlie, you go and loss yourself in ghostland you will be beset, beset, Charlie, and torn to pieces by your own hands.
(CHARLIE exits after ANN. BILLY 1 drops his end of the wardrobe. MAX loses the place)
MAX: OK, Christian? I’ve been as Christian as I can be without actually striking you. OK? You stand there while I look for a weapon, and it’ll be a big blind one-eyed lump of wood with a fucking five-inch nail where its cyclops eye should be and we’ll see who’s blind then!
(MAX hunts around for a weapon)
BILLY 1: OK, Billy: lift.
(The two BILLYS lift the big wardrobe and set off in the same direction as ANN. MAX locates a suitable weapon and advances on MANDY)
MAX: OK, Christian? I promised you …
MANDY: Not the now, Max …
MAX: … this is the bastard cyclops is going to explain violence to you … !
MANDY: … we’re going to the bookie’s …
MAX: … violence that I can’t seem to explain to you, except by returning to the original Greek!
(MAX drops his weapon. MANDY sets off in the direction of the bookie’s)
MANDY: We can get something to eat on the way.
MAX: You’re okay you. You’re alright by the way. Charlie, man: the smell of bad luck off the holy jinx creeps like a sweating urinal, I have to sleep the same room as him because he’s frightened he gets the fears! You’re okay you. You’ve doubled your money, put it that way.
(MANDY’s gone)
MAX: You’ve got ten notes on yir tail. Charlie, man: I’ve been carrying that thing all day.
(MAX exits after MANDY)