Бесплатный фрагмент - Blown Out

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Characters

RITA, 30S
ADAM, 30S
ROGER, 70S, RITA’S FRIEND
AGATA, 30S, RITA’S FRIEND
JAMIE, 30S, ADAM’S FRIEND
LIZ, RITA’S FRIEND — VOICE ONLY
POPPY, 30S, ADAM’S SISTER
ARTHUR, 70S, ADAM’S FATHER
PHOEBE, 10, ADAM’S NIECE

THE ROLES OF ROGER AND ARTHUR CAN AND PROBABLY SHOULD BE DOUBLED.

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Setting

ACT ONE. ADAM AND RITA’S PLACE IN LONDON.
ACT TWO. GARDEN OF ADAM’S FAMILY’S COUNTRY HOUSE.

Time

ACT ONE
SCENES 1—3: CHRISTMAS DAY
SCENES 4—6: FEBRUARY 14TH

ACT TWO: A WEDDING DAY IN AUGUST

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ACT ONE

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SCENE 1

ADAM AND RITA’S HOUSE IN LONDON. A PHOTOGRAPHERS’ LAIR. A ROOM WITH MANY WINDOWS, ONE OF WHICH MUST BE VISIBLE FROM EVERYWHERE IN THE THEATRE.

AFTERNOON. IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY — A COUPLE OF CLUES MIGHT POINT TO THIS, BUT NOTHING AS OBVIOUS AS A CHRISTMAS TREE.

ADAM. HE’S IN CASUAL CLOTHES, WITH NO SHOES ON. HE IS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM, HOLDING UP A SHOE.

ADAM: (TO RITA, WHO IS OFFSTAGE) Dead.

RITA: (OFF) Alive.

ADAM: Dead.

RITA: (OFF) Alive.

ADAM: It is no more. Expired.

RITA ENTERS, DRESSED ALL IN BLACK.

RITA: (DRAMATICALLY) It’s alive!

ADAM: The news was in all the papers.

RITA: Adam, your ability to fall for the cheapest of baits escapes my comprehension.

ADAM: And the BBC.

RITA: November. I might have… Maybe I’d have believed it in November, but it’s the twenty-fifth of December now.

ADAM: With photographic proof.

RITA: If they can make it through 1995—

ADAM: Dead.

RITA: Alive.

ADAM: I guess we’ll find out soon enough. When are we calling Liz?

RITA: Later, when everyone’s here.

ADAM: I’m so winning this bet.

RITA: In your dreams.

RITA EXITS.

ADAM: By the way, have you seen —?

RITA: (OFF) Nope.

ADAM: But-

RITA: (OFF) No.

ADAM: Rita, please…

RITA ENTERS, JUST IN TIME TO SEE ADAM PUT HIS ONE SHOE ON.

RITA: No idea.

THEY STARE AT EACH OTHER CHALLENGINGLY.

Jesus, Adam, just wear something else.

ADAM: Have you not-

RITA: No! Don’t get me wrong… It’s not like I don’t wish to light the funeral pyre for them, but no… I didn’t touch your shoes.

ADAM: I can’t find the other one.

RITA: Look again.

ADAM: I looked everywhere.

RITA: Look better.

ADAM: A little busy trying to fix this dilapidated mansion on the hill with shit flowing from every bloody hole.

RITA: Any progress?

ADAM SAYS NOTHING.

I don’t have a clue where it is.

ADAM: Is anything ever not lost in this house?

RITA: Temper, I hope?

ADAM: (BEAT) Look, about the pipes — I don’t think I can fix the problem. We need a plumber.

RITA: So I keep telling you.

ADAM: There’s nothing to be done till after tomorrow. It’s Christmas.

RITA: Spending it with your family doesn’t sound like such a horrible idea now. Disasters never fail to put things into perspective.

ADAM: “Horrible idea”? They love you. My family likes you more than they ever liked me. They were so long past hope—

RITA: I’m a marginally better option than you dying a bachelor?

ADAM: That’s not—

RITA: What a relief! I can instantly feel the serotonin flowing. Mmmmmm! (BEAT) You insisted we stay.

ADAM: You invited everyone.

RITA: We should have called the dinner off. This is ridiculous.

ADAM: What do you want me to do? I can’t fix it.

RITA: That’s the attitude. You wouldn’t even try.

ADAM: Oh, for goodness sake… What do you want me to do? Tell me. (BEAT, THEN SOFTLY) Just tell me… What can I do?

RITA DOESN’T ANSWER.

What do you want?

RITA: (BEAT) God, it smells.

RITA GOES AROUND THE ROOM OPENING THE WINDOWS.

ADAM LIGHTS A CIGARETTE.

RITA JOINS HIM, AND THEY QUIETLY SHARE THE CIGARETTE.

Roger is coming, too.

ADAM: Our jolly friend. You’ve a soft spot for that old bastard.

RITA: Don’t… call him old. (BEAT) They kicked him out of the Dog yesterday.

ADAM: How did he unlock that achievement?

RITA: (SIGHS) Some semi-illegal betting scheme.

ADAM: Of course.

RITA: He’s banned from everywhere.

ADAM: He could still go to the Bull’s Hit. A hole-in-the-wall, but they’re always open, and they ban no one.

RITA: It’s gone.

ADAM: What?

RITA: Closed. For a couple of months now.

ADAM: Really?

RITA: Yep. Rog is convinced there’s going to be a trendy barbershop in its place.

ADAM: Oh… I ought to say, “good riddance”, but I suddenly feel nostalgic.

RITA: I can’t let Roger spend Christmas Day alone with nothing but the radio for company.

ADAM: Let me guess… Rhythm-n-booze? Country-n-wasted? I get it, I do, but didn’t it occur to you that he might not mingle well with our other guests?

RITA: Don’t demonise him. He’ll mingle just fine.

ADAM: (BEAT) Okay. I agree. If we stay, we stay. And we give our guests the best Christmas dinner of their lives. We owe it to them.

RITA: (SURPRISED APPRECIATION) Excellent.

THE DOORBELL RINGS.

Must be Roger.

RITA EXITS AND RETURNS A FEW MOMENTS LATER WITH ROGER.

ROGER IS IN PERFECT SHAPE FOR A SEVENTY-SOMETHING MAN — LEAN AND MEAN. PERHAPS HE WEARS A BROWN LEATHER BOMBER JACKET.

ROGER: The winter’s curiously mild, I must admit, but still, it’s freezing outside.

RITA: Please don’t take your jacket off.

ROGER: What are you doing with the windows open in the middle of December?

RITA: I’ll explain later.

ROGER: Hello, Adam.

ADAM: Hello, Roger.

ROGER: (TO RITA, MATTER-OF-FACTLY, WHILE STARING AT ADAM’S SINGLE SHOE) Your husband’s only got one shoe on.

RITA: I know.

ROGER: Why is he only wearing one shoe? (MEASURING ADAM WITH A LONG LOOK, THEN TO RITA) He doesn’t look so good. This Byronic paleness doesn’t suit him. Methinks he could use a good steak… raw and bloody. Do you feed him?

RITA: We have turkey on the menu. He’ll be fine.

ADAM: I’m here, you know.

ROGER: (IGNORING ADAM) Doesn’t look fine to me.

ADAM: Rita wanted to call off Christmas, but we’re carrying on just for you.

ROGER: Call it off? Why would you call it off?

RITA: We have plumbing problems. Between you and me, my kitchen sink’s full of shit.

ROGER: Literally or figuratively?

RITA: (LOOKS AT ADAM FOR A MOMENT) Quite literally.

ROGER: Did you call a plumber?

RITA: There’s nothing to be done till after tomorrow. It’s Christmas.

ROGER: (BEAT) You’re right.

RITA: Anyway, we should kick-start the night. I need a drink.

SHE BRINGS OUT A BOTTLE OF WINE, A BOTTLE OF SCOTCH FOR THE MEN, AND GLASSES AND THEN PROCEEDS TO POUR THE DRINKS.

Merry Christmas!

THEY TOAST ONE ANOTHER.

ROGER: How’s our bet going?

RITA: Swimmingly. We’re marching to my overflowing victory.

ADAM: Your bet? (TO RITA) Is your bet our bet?

ROGER: Betting on a white Christmas seemed rather ill-advised…

RITA: I’m so winning this one.

ADAM: You’re not.

RITA: I am.

ADAM: Dead.

ROGER: Alive.

NOW, IT’S TWO AGAINST ONE.

ADAM: Oh, lovely.

ROGER: I’ve got something for you. Consider it a Christmas gift.

HE TAKES OUT AN ENVELOPE.

RITA: Rog, you didn’t have to.

ROGER: (HANDING THE ENVELOPE TO RITA) I wouldn’t dare compete with you two professional photographers, but…

RITA OPENS THE ENVELOPE AND TAKES OUT SOME PHOTOS.

RITA: Thank you. (TO ADAM) They’re of us.

ROGER: (TO RITA) You never have your picture taken.

ADAM: Exactly. How did you manage to snap her?

RITA: Contrary to popular belief, I do appear in photos.

ADAM: (TO ROGER) Private to the point of banning pictures.

RITA: Don’t paint me as one of those who make a public show of how they don’t make a public show of their lives. I even have Instagram.

ADAM: With your safari photos and landscapes.

RITA: Roger, don’t listen to him. The photos are lovely.

SHE KISSES ROGER ON THE CHEEK.

ROGER: Adam, your wife is an angel, you lucky son of a canine.

THEY STUDY THE PHOTOS TOGETHER.

ADAM: Did you use a film camera?

ROGER: What if I did?

ADAM: No, nothing.

ROGER: What?

ADAM: No. No. Film cameras are timeless.

ROGER: Your digital photos, digital personas, and digital lives. My advice is remain vigilant and remember that we’re only one nuke away from the Dark Ages. Or a digital gulag.

ADAM: Oh, God.

RITA: Rog, they’re perfect.

ADAM: (POINTS AT A PHOTO) Look at this one.

RITA: I remember posing for this… We both look disgustingly happy.

ADAM: (TO ROGER) See this uber-bright area here? A blown-out spot. It has no detail. We’ll never know what’s there. The details cannot be recovered.

ROGER: Alas.

RITA: And shooting with a digital camera would have helped how?

ADAM: He’d have seen the problem right away and retaken it.

RITA GOES TO FETCH A PAIR OF SCISSORS AND A BOX. SHE CUTS OFF THE BLOWN-OUT PART, MAKING THE PHOTO INTO A SQUARE.

RITA: Problem solved.

ADAM: An Instagram version.

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RITA THROWS ADAM A DISAPPROVING LOOK.

What?

RITA: (TO ROGER) They’ll go in my collection. I’ll cherish them.

SHE PLACES THE NEW PHOTOS IN THE BOX, PAUSES, AND THEN REACHES IN FOR ANOTHER PHOTO.

My photos with Adam. How romantic of me. (SHOWING THE PHOTO TO ADAM) Our very first together, remember? The taxi driver took it on the way to the airport.

ADAM: (TAKES A LONG LOOK AT THE PHOTO) Lagos, 2015. She saved me from being stranded there. We’d landed ourselves in the middle of a fuel crisis so severe I couldn’t find a taxi to the airport. Every fuel stop, every black-market stall, every vehicle in town down to every bloody donkey was out of juice. They were even sending all the planes to Ghana to top up. The whole country was grinding to a halt. Rita gave me a lift.

RITA: That’s how we met.

ROGER: Fuel crisis in Nigeria?

RITA: Not to be confused with the Niger Delta oil crisis that’s been going on for decades. (PARTLY TO ROGER AND PARTLY TO THE AUDIENCE) I strongly suggest you Google that one. Later.

ROGER: Needless to say, they have oil.

RITA: Loads of oil.

ROGER: Interesting.

RITA: They export oil, but they import petrol.

ROGER: So, how did this fuel crisis come about?

ADAM: The changing of the guard. Old president. New president. The new president decides he doesn’t like the favours the fuel importers are getting. New president, new rules. The fuel importers prefer the old rules, so they decide they don’t like the new president one bit, and they give him a not-so-gentle squeeze.

RITA: Or… the new president decides he doesn’t like the fuel importers, but one does not simply change the rules. First, you need consent — you need the public securely on your side. So the new president stages the fuel crisis and blames it on the fuel importers so he can give them a not-so-gentle squeeze later. Bonus points for being able to claim he inherited a country so firmly set on going to the dogs that anything he does now looks like manna from heaven in comparison.

ADAM: Doesn’t cut it. Too complicated. And where’s all the fuel?

RITA: Right there (SHOWS ADAM THE SAME PHOTO).

ADAM: All I see is an endless line of empty fuel tanks.

RITA: How do you know they’re empty?

ADAM: I don’t, but someone would’ve checked.

RITA: Someone. Would have. Maybe. That’s why you do fashion photography. You never question what’s inside.

ADAM: My theory is as good as yours unless you can prove it.

ROGER: Or… perchance it had something to do with the Nigerian nuclear weapons programme.

ADAM: Nigeria has no nuclear weapons.

ROGER: Ah, they all deny it, don’t they?

ADAM: They can’t even purify their bloody oil.

ROGER: Sneaky bastards.

ADAM: Roger, I never seem to get it. Yankees, Russkies, Commies, Tories… What’s your conspiracy theory of choice? Pick a lane.

ROGER: I’m impartial. I distrust them all.

ADAM: Then I hate to break it to you, but the system that you hate so much — it has you. Cynics who “distrust them all” are harmless.

ROGER: At least I’m honest. And don’t make me suspect you’re a closet idealist, Adam.

RITA: (BEFORE ADAM CAN ANSWER) Truth is, I can’t tell you what happened in Nigeria. Not based on anything I’ve seen with my own eyes. And I can’t recommend you trust anybody else’s accounts — I wouldn’t. I never got to the bottom of it. It wasn’t a job, but I should have. I’d just finished another assignment. It was… I needed to get my mind off it, and I got distracted.

ADAM: Do you regret it?

THEY LOOK DIRECTLY AT EACH OTHER.

RITA: No, I don’t.

(TO ROGER) That was so typical. Apparently, I’m a magnet for trouble.

ROGER: Certainly you’re not!

ADAM: (GOOD-NATUREDLY) Is that your definition of me?

RITA: Why, of course.

ADAM: (TO ROGER) Seriously, she attracts disaster. Pick the country you dislike the most. We’ll send Rita there.

RITA: Such an old joke.

ADAM: Never.

RITA STANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM.

RITA: (DRAMATICALLY) I’m a hurricane… I’m a typhoon… I’m a cyclone.

A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND RUFFLES THE CURTAINS. THEY ALL LOOK AROUND.

ADAM: (AMUSED) Uncanny timing.

RITA: Oh, shut up.

ADAM AND RITA LOOK AT EACH OTHER.

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SCENE 2

LATER THE SAME DAY.

ADAM, RITA, ROGER, AGATA, AND JAMIE.

EXCEPT ROGER, THEY PROBABLY ALL WEAR COATS OF DIFFERENT COLOURS. AGATA IS SOMEONE WHO MIGHT GO FOR RED WHILE JAMIE IS IN SOMETHING EXPENSIVE.

ADAM HASN’T FOUND HIS OTHER SHOE. PERHAPS HE’S FOLLOWED RITA’S ORDERS AND IS WEARING SOMETHING ELSE — SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT. PERHAPS TENNIS SHOES.

THERE’S AN OPEN LAPTOP SOMEWHERE THE AUDIENCE CAN SEE IT.

THE TURKEY’S FINISHED, BUT DRINKS ARE IN SEEMINGLY LIMITLESS SUPPLY.

EVERYONE IS SINGING THE LAST HALF OR SO OF “AULD LANG SYNE”. ROGER HAS THE BEST VOICE AMONG THEM AND THE DRAMATIC FLAIR OF AN OPERA SINGER.

THEN, THERE ARE LAUGHS, MERRY CHRISTMASES, AND THE REFRESHING OF GLASSES.

RITA: What’s next?

JAMIE: “All I Want for Christmas”?

AGATA: A bit too mellow, don’t you think?

RITA: We need to go to eleven before Roger lays the blame for all modern sins on our generation.

ROGER: (TOO READILY) Youth gone mild?

ADAM: Oh no…

ROGER: But I refuse to participate in one of your Christmas-special renditions of “Hell’s Bells”.

ADAM: Too old for rock ‘n’ roll?

ROGER: Your rock ‘n’ roll is dead. A ghost of Christmas past.

ADAM: Alive — decaying in its seventies.

ROGER: Died a disgraced traitor to our old ideals.

RITA: Please, let’s sing. How about “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”?

AGATA: Yes!

ADAM: Good song.

JAMIE: (ADJUSTING HIS COAT TO KEEP THE COLD AIR OUT) Fits the occasion.

RITA: Consensus reached.

JAMIE: May I?

AGATA: (EMBRACING RITA BY THE SHOULDERS) Jamie, I’m sorry, it’s our number. I do the poor beggar.

RITA: I sing the hard-to-get part.

AGATA: Our gloriously tone-deaf duo.

ROGER: How is this song not mellow?

ADAM: It’s recently earned a place among the most notorious heavy metal anthems. (BEAT, THEN, AT EVERYONE’S LACK OF COMPREHENSION) They tried to ban it.

AGATA: Why?

ADAM: Remember the lines “Mind if I move in closer”, “What’s in this drink?”, et cetera? As it turns out, if you play the song backwards, you’ll hear “date rape and roofies”.

RITA: There were no roofies in the forties.

ADAM: There are now.

AGATA: I like that. (TEASING) Can anyone sing backwards? I feel I must step down and let one of you comrades sing my part. Jamie, still eager to join?

JAMIE: Um, not really, no.

AGATA: Ah!

ADAM: Roger?

ROGER: I’m afraid my decaying seventy-year-old brain is not quite up to the task. What about you?

ADAM: Nope, not touching it even if I wear my hazmat suit.

JAMIE: Why don’t we sing something else?

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RITA: In that old film, they had two couples; one of the girls also got to play a snake. Why does no one remember?

ADAM: When a picture doesn’t fit your favourite frame, do you throw the frame away, or do you cut the picture?

ADAM DOES A PERFECT IMITATION OF RITA’S GESTURE FROM THE FIRST SCENE WHEN SHE WAS CUTTING THE PHOTO.

RITA: The question is not rhetorical.

JAMIE: Come on, let’s sing something else.

AGATA: The moment is gone. (ADJUSTING HER COAT, TO RITA) We should do something about your kitchen. Did you call a plumber?

ROGER: There’s nothing to be done till after tomorrow. It’s Christmas.

ADAM: We have a living, breathing astrophysicist all to ourselves tonight, and we choose to discuss plumbing.

JAMIE: Do you wish to talk about astrophysics?

ROGER: What a stimulating conversation that could be. Picture a tennis pro wiping the court with some five-year-olds.

AGATA: Don’t underestimate Adam — I’ve seen him in action.

RITA: He isn’t stupid, just good-looking.

AGATA: In my experience, he’s quite the Roger Federer.

JAMIE: Not at tennis, though.

ADAM: I’m here, you know!

JAMIE: What would you prefer to discuss?

ADAM: The dark secrets of the universe?

JAMIE: Like?

ADAM: Mmmm… The socks problem. You know, the big questions.

AGATA: Socks? What about them?

ADAM: Where do all the missing socks go? When you lose them, are they gone forever? Or is there a chance of finding them? And if you do, will they be the same socks you’ve lost, or will they have been altered? Better or worse for having been lost?

ROGER: You know what, Adam?

ADAM: Yes?

ROGER: I might be covertly fond of you. We never agree on the answers, but we ask the same questions.

ADAM: What a disturbing realisation.

AGATA: It’s a very good question.

ADAM: You haven’t thought about this problem?

AGATA: I never noticed there was a problem.

ADAM: You don’t lose your socks?

AGATA: No.

ADAM: Let me guess… You don’t wear them?

AGATA: You need to be one of the greats to be allowed such eccentricities. I’m not.

JAMIE: Not yet.

AGATA: Thank you, daring.

ROGER: Have you met any greats?

AGATA: Never meet your heroes, Rog. Never meet your heroes.

ADAM: I lose my socks nearly every time I do the laundry.

AGATA: I don’t.

ADAM: We’ve established that.

AGATA: Do my laundry. (BEAT) What? I don’t.

ROGER: One doesn’t become an astrophysicist to do their laundry.

AGATA: Thank you, Roger.

ADAM: That explains it. So you can’t help me.

AGATA: I could come up with a couple of theories.

JAMIE: Adam, your socks might as well be in Narnia for all we know.

ROGER: They don’t need that hypothesis.

RITA: (SIGHS) I’ve a nagging suspicion that Adam’s socks have sneaked their way into our pipes.

ADAM: Ah, the mystery remains. (BEAT) And the missing shoes! I demand to be enlightened about the exact location of the missing shoes.

AGATA: What can I say? Keep looking.

ADAM: An optimist?

AGATA: I would be if I believed you’d find yours.

ADAM: And you don’t?

AGATA: Just… keep looking.

ROGER: Now there’s a question I never had a chance to ask you, Agata: Why does one become an astrophysicist?

AGATA: I’ve a shocking confession to make. I’m an astronomer, really. Less cool, less hype, I know. Sorry to disappoint.

ROGER: No, that’s even better. So, an astronomer?

AGATA: There are two answers to your question: the unglamorous and the untruthful. Take your pick.

ROGER: Unglamorous, of course.

AGATA: To avoid doing laundry. Need I say more?

ROGER: By all means.

AGATA: To get a permanent leave of absence from the mundane?

ROGER: Please elaborate. We need details.

AGATA: To repress the trauma of doing too much laundry as a child. And way too much cleaning. A single working mother with four kids — I’m the oldest. A huge communal flat in Warsaw with cockroaches and alcoholics to clean up after… The cockroaches I got used to eventually.

ADAM: (TO ROGER) Is that enough detail?

ROGER: (TO AGATA) I’m sorry. Must have been a miserable experience.

AGATA: So that you know, no one was miserable under communism. We were all deliriously happy.

ADAM: Happily delirious.

RITA: Blissfully ignorant.

AGATA: All the same.

ROGER: For supposed communists, the Soviets were too good at deceptive marketing. Even I was fooled, I must admit. (TO AGATA) When I knew, I protested it to the best of my abilities.

AGATA: I’m sorry, Roger, but… there’s a good old Soviet anecdote: An American and a Russian walk into a bar.

ADAM: A promising set-up.

AGATA: After a few drinks, the American says, “In the States, anyone can stand in front of the White House and shout at the top of their lungs that they hate the American president, and nothing bad will happen to them.” And the Russian guy replies, “Oh, well, in the Soviet Union, anyone can stand in the middle of the Red Square and shout at the top of their lungs… that they hate the American president… and nothing bad will happen to them either.”

ROGER IS ABOUT TO SAY SOMETHING BUT CHANGES HIS MIND AND HAS A DRINK INSTEAD.

RITA: (TO AGATA) Seryozha?

AGATA: Who else? Sergey always had some lovely anecdotes. Do you remember him?

RITA: How could one forget? My first photojournalist.