Abandonment (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Kate Atkinson

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 121

Beschreibung

A play about love, death, identity and evolution, from the best-selling and highly acclaimed novelist. Elizabeth, forty-something, childless, recently separated, just wants to be alone. She's moved into a converted Victorian mansion, alive with history, character, woodworm and rot. But worse than that she's besieged by invaders of the human kind. Her best friend, her sister, their mother, the builder and a photographer are all determined to make their mark. And a former inhabitant of the house, disturbed from her resting place by Elizabeth's arrival, revisits her own long-forgotten past. 'Atkinson has arrived at theatrical customs with a huge amount to declare' -Guardian 'Witty, intelligent and absorbing... terrific comic dialogue' -Scotsman

Leseprobe

Kate Atkinson

ABANDONMENT

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Dedication

Characters

Abandonment

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Abandonment was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 11 July 2000. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

AGNES

Michelle Gomez

ELIZABETH

Patricia Kerrigan

SUZY / GERTIE

Kathryn Howden

KITTY / LAETITIA

Elaine C Smith

CALLUM / REV SCOBIE

James Cunningham

INA / LAVENDER

Sheila Reid

ALEC / MERRIC

Neil McKinven

Director

John Tiffany

Designer

Georgia Sion

Lighting Designer

Ben Ormerod

Composer

John Irvine

For John Tiffany

Characters

ELIZABETH McMICHAEL

KITTY, her sister

INA, their mother

SUSIE, Elizabeth’s best friend

CALLUM INNES, a builder

AGNES SOUTAR, a governess

ALEC FRAZER, photographer

MERRIC CHALMERS, a lawyer

LAETITIA, his wife

LAVENDER, his mother

GERTIE, their maid

REVEREND CHARLES SCOBIE

ACT ONE

Scene 1

The living-room of a flat in a converted Victorian mansion. A large window. No carpet on the floor throughout. The place is in some disarray, packing-cases etc. A piano with old photographs on top of it and a candle. AGNES sits at the piano, playing ‘Home Sweet Home’. She stops abruptly, blows out the candle, and leaves.

ELIZABETH (offstage). No, I have everything I need, it’s okay.

ELIZABETH enters, carrying a cardboard box and switches on the light. SUSIE, also carrying a box, enters, followed by KITTY, carrying a bottle of champagne.

KITTY. God it’s wild out there.

SUSIE. I hope it’s not bad luck to flit in a storm.

ELIZABETH. Stormy weather.

SUSIE. Mother Nature’s in a stushie about something. You kept the curtains.

ELIZABETH. It would cost a fortune to put up new ones. It’s such a big window.

SUSIE. I do like big windows. It’s like . . . I don’t know, the outside world coming in.

ELIZABETH. Not the inside world getting out?

KITTY. You’re going to have to get double glazing. And central heating. And God knows what else. The place is a wreck. Has it had anything done to it in the past hundred years?

ELIZABETH. Not much. That’s why I liked it.

KITTY. It smells like someone died in here. They’re a strange colour, aren’t they? The curtains. What do you call that?

SUSIE. Yellow?

ELIZABETH. I think it’s chartreuse.

KITTY. Chartreuse?

ELIZABETH. Chartreuse.

SUSIE. Old lady’s curtains.

KITTY. What old lady?

SUSIE. The one who lived here. The one who died here.

ELIZABETH. The famous Miss Aurora Chalmers.

KITTY. Famous? How?

ELIZABETH. Famous in her day, quite forgotten now. She had an extraordinary life – flew solo across the Channel at the age of eighteen, climbed Mont Blanc, nearly married a German count. Ended up writing dreadful novels, On the Wilder Shores of Love, The Abandoned Heart, The Path of Passion. This was the family home, the Chalmers family owned the whole house.

KITTY. God, is that the time?

ELIZABETH. There was a displenishment sale. I bought some of her things.

SUSIE. Displenishment. I always think that sounds like such a sad word.

ELIZABETH. She had no relatives, no one. No one who even wanted her things.

KITTY. You wanted her curtains.

SUSIE. Maybe she died in this room. Maybe she died right here. On this sofa. Everyone’s got to die somewhere, after all.

ELIZABETH. That’s my sofa, I brought it from the old flat. No one’s died on it.

KITTY. Not yet.

SUSIE. Do you believe in ghosts?

ELIZABETH. I don’t know.

SUSIE. I do.

KITTY. Listen to the pair of you. You’re like a couple of old witches.

SUSIE. I always wanted to be a witch.

KITTY. And you are, Susie, you are, trust me.

SUSIE. I’ve never seen these photographs before. Are they the old lady’s too? Miss Aurora Chalmers.

ELIZABETH. There was a whole suitcase of them. Photographs are so odd, aren’t they? All these people, lost to time.

KITTY. They look a bit like you. You could pretend they were your real family, seeing as you don’t have one of your own.

ELIZABETH. But I have you, dearest sister, I have you.

SUSIE. We’re all related by blood to everyone if you go back far enough.

KITTY. How far?

SUSIE. Adam and Eve.

KITTY. Before the Fall. (To ELIZABETH.) Imagine.

SUSIE (to ELIZABETH). You can die here. Who will you leave your things to? Kitty? (Laughs.)

ELIZABETH. Kitty’s older than me.

KITTY. That doesn’t mean I’ll die before you. When she dies I’d like that French carriage clock she keeps in the bedroom.

SUSIE. She?

ELIZABETH. The cat’s mother.

KITTY. You know who.

ELIZABETH. Mother. Try it. Mo-th-er.

SUSIE. How will you divide her things up without fighting? You could go around putting little stickers on them – red for Kitty, blue for Elizabeth.

KITTY. Stickers?

SUSIE. Little round ones. Like dots. You can get them in Office World.

KITTY. I like Office World.

SUSIE. All women like stationery shops. No one knows why. It’s one of life’s little mysteries.

KITTY. All women? Even lesbians?

ELIZABETH. I think it’s because they give you the illusion that you can live an orderly life. That you can sort things and file them, index and catalogue and staple, write in different coloured inks.

KITTY. Narrow ruled with margins.

ELIZABETH. Cartridge paper. A4, A5.

SUSIE. As 3, 2 and 1.

ELIZABETH. Reams of foolscap and quarto.

KITTY. Quires of imperial.

ALL THREE. Yeah.

KITTY. We should have a toast. (Opens the champagne.) To Lizzie’s new flat.

SUSIE. Home sweet home.

KITTY. It is lovely though. It’s like the Winter Palace or something. How much did you have to pay in the end?

ELIZABETH. Enough.

KITTY. Or Gothic, maybe. Victorian Gothic. This used to be the drawing-room, I suppose. Imagine what this house was like before it was converted.

SUSIE. Imagine the upkeep, the servants . . .

KITTY. But they knew how to live in style.

SUSIE. The servants?

KITTY. Better than your last place certainly, that was so full of the past.

ELIZABETH. And what might have been?

KITTY. What’s happened to your carpet?

ELIZABETH. I haven’t put it down yet – there’s a problem with some of the wood – dry rot, wet rot, something. The wood people looked at it.

SUSIE. The wood people?

KITTY. Like some kind of New Age tribe? How much did you pay?

ELIZABETH. A lot.

KITTY. Tell me.

ELIZABETH. No.

KITTY. You’ve got a dado rail, nice.

SUSIE. You sound like your mother.

KITTY. Don’t be so insulting.

ELIZABETH. You’re so irretrievably bourgeois underneath all that street-cred crap.

KITTY. Me?

ELIZABETH. Yes, you. There’s probably a gene that you got from her, the genteel gene, the one that likes embroidered peg-bags and hand-knitted toilet roll covers. It’ll out in the end, you’ll see, you’ll be walking along the street one day when you’ll suddenly feel compelled to run into Frasers and buy an antimacassar.

KITTY. All I said was ‘dado’.

ELIZABETH. That’s all you needed to say.

SUSIE. I don’t think Frasers sell antimacassars anymore.

KITTY (to SUSIE). Tell her. Tell her that some things aren’t inherited. Tell her.

SUSIE. You’re terrified of turning into your mother.

KITTY. No, actually, I think I’m more terrified of turning into my father. Go on. How much did you pay? God, you’re so annoying. You only won’t tell me because I want to know.

SUSIE. Are you going to buy somewhere of your own, Kitty, now that you’ve moved back up here?

ELIZABETH. The return of the native.

SUSIE. Or are you just going to keep on sleeping in other people’s beds?

KITTY. Miaow.

SUSIE. Elizabeth said you were sacked in London.

KITTY. I’m a journalist, journalists spend their lives getting sacked. It’s not a word that has the same meaning for you as it does for us.

SUSIE. How is the new job going?

KITTY. I think you’re confusing yourself with someone who gives a shite, Susie.

SUSIE. Oops, so I am.

ELIZABETH. Two hundred and fifty.

KITTY. Two hundred and fifty? Thousand? That’s a quarter of a million. My God, you must be minted.

SUSIE. Minted? Is that tabloid lingo?

KITTY. Where do you get that kind of money from anyway? Since when did historians earn so much?

ELIZABETH. I saved. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.

KITTY. You’re such a spinster.

ELIZABETH. I’m a divorcee. You’re the spinster.

SUSIE. An old maid.

KITTY. You can talk, you’re a fucking dyke. Sorry, I didn’t mean that.

SUSIE. Yes you did.

KITTY. Yes, but I didn’t mean to say it.

SUSIE. Is it because I’m a dyke that you don’t like me?

ELIZABETH. It’s nothing personal. She doesn’t like me either.

SUSIE. You’re her sister, she’s not supposed to like you.

KITTY. It wouldn’t bother me if you were doing it with sea otters, Susie.

SUSIE. Sea otters?

ELIZABETH. She’s not really my sister.

KITTY. Yes I am. Let’s not fight, Liz. (The doorbell rings.)

ELIZABETH. Are we fighting?

KITTY. Yes.

ELIZABETH lets CALLUM in.

CALLUM. Hi. Mrs McMichael?

KITTY. Mrs?

CALLUM. Ms.

ELIZABETH. Mrs, Miss, Ms. Whatever.

CALLUM. Sorry I’m late. I was hindered – there was a tree down on the road. Amazing weather out there.

ELIZABETH (puzzled). Are you? Late?

CALLUM. I’ve come to give you an estimate? Callum Innes?

SUSIE. The ‘Woodperson’.

ELIZABETH. Of course. Sorry.

CALLUM. Nice place. Top stuff. A lot of books. Have you read them all? Are you a teacher? Wow, look at that old light. Sweet.

ELIZABETH. So . . . do you just want to have a look at the . . . wood and see what you think?

CALLUM. Sure. No problem.

KITTY. Aren’t you going to introduce us?

ELIZABETH. No.

KITTY (to CALLUM). Would you like a drink?

CALLUM. Cool. Thanks.

ELIZABETH (to KITTY). Excuse me?

KITTY. What? (To CALLUM.) My sister doesn’t think the servants should be treated as equals. This is my sister. This is her best friend, Susie. She’s a lesbian so don’t waste your time.

CALLUM. Servants?

SUSIE. Ignore her. She has a disease that stops her from growing up.

CALLUM. Really?

ELIZABETH. So . . . the . . . rot?

CALLUM. Right. (Starts looking round.) You wonder about these old places, don’t you? The people who lived in them, what they did, what they thought. Were they just like you and me? Did they have the same worries, think about the same stuff?

KITTY. I can see you’re a thinker, Callum.

CALLUM. For a builder, you mean? I’ve got Highers you know, I was thinking about going to uni, but then I just thought, ah fuck it. You know? Everyone does stuff because they think they’re supposed to, as if there was this invisible set of rules, like the Ten Commandments or something. And it’s all shite – you get a degree, you buy a suit, get a job, you get married, have kids.

KITTY. Not everyone.

CALLUM. Not that kids aren’t great, they are, they’re fantastic. I’ve got a kid. Finn.

KITTY. Finn! We had a dog called Finn. Lizzie – Finn – remember Finn? Remember Finn, Susie?

SUSIE. Border collie. Black and white. Blue eyes.

ELIZABETH. Best dog in the world.

KITTY. Yes, best dog in the world.

Silence.

CALLUM. But. Anyway. It doesn’t have to be like that. I mean you can do what you want really.

ELIZABETH. No rules?

CALLUM. Well, I’m not an anarchist.

KITTY. What are you then?

CALLUM. Well, I’m more into, kind of, otherworld stuff.

KITTY. Otherworld? Dear God, isn’t this world enough?

ELIZABETH. Otherworld? Through the looking-glass.

SUSIE. And into the wardrobe.

CALLUM. The wardrobe?

SUSIE. The world we cannot see.

CALLUM. Well, yeah. Like vision quests, spirit journeys – shamanism.

SUSIE. Shamanism?

CALLUM. Yeah. Like I think we all have a spirit animal, for example.

KITTY. And yours is, hmm, let me guess now – a wolf?

CALLUM. How did you know?

KITTY (laughs). Everybody wants to be the wolf, Callum.

CALLUM. I believe there’s a spiritual world that’s the reflection of this one. The spiritual world is . . . watching over us.

ELIZABETH. No one’s watching us. That’s the tragedy.

SUSIE. That’s the freedom. The world’s indifferent to us. When nothing means anything then everything means something.

ELIZABETH. But no meaning, no meaning at all.

KITTY. You think there might be a meaning to life? You so still want to be a Catholic, don’t you?

ELIZABETH. Don’t you? All that certainty. When you’re on your deathbed you’ll be first in the queue for extreme unction.

KITTY. Well, of course I will. So will you. That’s the beauty of it.

SUSIE (to CALLUM). So how do you find the wolf in you?

CALLUM (doubtful). Do you really want to know?

SUSIE. Yes, really. I’m interested.

KITTY. Susie’s a scientist as well as a lesbian.

CALLUM. Cool. Science is amazing. Fractals and stuff. Chaos theory. The butterfly thing.

ELIZABETH. Butterfly?

CALLUM. You know – the butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle and there’s a hurricane in China. All that stuff.

SUSIE. Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The infinite complexity of non-linear dynamics.

KITTY (to CALLUM). Lesbians, eh?

SUSIE. A small disturbance in the normal order of things having far-reaching consequences.

CALLUM (to SUSIE). Chaos specialist, are you?

SUSIE. No, that’s Kitty.

KITTY. Piss off. She’s a geneticist.

SUSIE. I’m a cell biologist actually.

CALLUM. Geneticist. I can’t say I approve of that.

SUSIE. Approve?

CALLUM. Yes, but it’s interfering with nature, isn’t it? Scientists playing God. ‘Do you want a blue-eyed baby or a brown-eyed one, Mrs Smith?’ All that stuff. It’s not that I’ve got anything against genes.

SUSIE. How could you possibly have anything against genes?

KITTY. Genes R Us.

CALLUM. I mean okay, survival – the selfish gene, life will find a way and all that.

SUSIE. Life will find a way?

KITTY. He’s quoting from ‘Jurassic Park’. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?

CALLUM. Yes. But all that Dolly and Polly stuff . . . anyway I should . . . get on. (Looks around again.) Hmm.

ELIZABETH. ‘Hmm’ – is that bad? It sounds bad.

CALLUM. It’s not good. You should sue the people who did your survey. Except they have all kinds of get-out clauses and lawyers watching their backs. You’re not a lawyer, are you?

KITTY. Historian.

CALLUM. Yeah? I’ve never seen the point of studying history. It’s just battles and dates and lists of kings and queens. It’s . . . gone, hasn’t it? It’s like the only moment that matters is the moment you’re in. There is nothing else.

ELIZABETH. But history is people, not dates and battles.

CALLUM. Hmm.

ELIZABETH. Hmm again?

CALLUM. Who did the work on this before?

ELIZABETH. I’ve no idea.

CALLUM. Their spurs must have been jangling from a mile off.

ELIZABETH. Sorry?

CALLUM. Cowboys. I’ll look at the rest, shall I? Better safe than sorry.

ELIZABETH. You sound like my mother.

CALLUM exits to the bedroom.

SUSIE. I like your mother.

ELIZABETH. I don’t know why.

SUSIE. Because she’s not mine.

ELIZABETH. He fancies you.

SUSIE (laughs). I know. He’s quite cute.

KITTY. I saw Gregor the other day.

ELIZABETH. Gregor?