After the Accident Read online

  After the Accident

  Julian Armitstead

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Characters

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  Scene Four

  Scene Five

  Scene Six

  Scene Seven

  Scene Eight

  Scene Nine

  Scene Ten

  Scene Eleven

  Scene Twelve

  Scene Thirteen

  Scene Fourteen

  Scene Fifteen

  Scene Sixteen

  Scene Seventeen

  Scene Eighteen

  Scene Nineteen

  Scene Twenty

  Imprint

  Characters

  Leon, a boy of nineteen

  Petra, a woman in her early/mid forties, a journalist

  Jimmy, a man in his early/mid forties, a teacher

  And the voices of:

  Mr E, the prison art teacher

  Leon’s mum

  (These characters are portrayed by the actors playing Jimmy and Petra respectively.)

  After the Accident is set around the outworking of a restorative justice process, from before to after a conference. It is set in the present day.

  Author’s note

  The play makes use of the convention of simultaneous dialogue. To indicate this, speech ending with (/) continues into the next piece of speech by the same character.

  The layout of the text reflects the way in which the voices first emerged, neither randomly, nor consistently, but in a constant struggle for the centre. Having revised it to a more conventional prose format for the purposes of radio, I was asked by the actors and cast of the subsequent stage production to return it again to the original. From which I can only suppose, that this is how the characters intended it. Make of it what you will.

  Scene One

  The stage is bare except for three chairs standing in approximate symmetry across the stage.

  Leon

  So this is what happened:

  Freddie comes to my window,

  Starts chucking stones against the glass.

  Must have been about

  Eight o’clock

  Friday night.

  ‘We’re going fishing,’

  Says Freddie.

  And he holds out this piece of kit:

  This fishing rod in three pieces.

  And at first

  I think he’s having a laugh

  Cos we’re a long way from the sea.

  Jimmy

  (as from an ante room, before the conference)

  Before we enter the room

  Casey talks to us outside,

  All lowered voices:

  ‘The thing about a

  Restorative conference,’

  He says,

  ‘We’re all here to learn.

  We’re all here to listen.’

  Well:

  I’m listening.

  I’m listening.

  Leon

  There was this place called the strip.

  It was just a piece of land behind a warehouse.

  They was going to build on it, once they got permission.

  They was going to develop the whole place.

  Tesco’s,

  Brantano’s,

  JJB.

  Freddie said

  All we needed was

  A burger drive-in –

  (Stops himself; beat.)

  But that’s not funny any more.

  Petra

  (surveying the conference)

  So it’s just chairs facing each other.

  Casey sits in the middle.

  The boy opposite

  And next to the boy,

  His supporter.

  He’s only got the one:

  Since no one from his family’s

  Managed to turn up,

  He’s got this social worker instead.

  Leon

  So I remember how it was:

  Freddie and me.

  Sometimes when we was bunking school,

  But best of all

  Was late at night.

  Cos this place,

  It had tarmac,

  And concrete,

  And fields at the end.

  And that’s when we first saw what you can do:

  Handbrake turns at forty mile an hour,

  Young blokes bringing cars,

  Spinning them around like tops,

  It’s like the wacky races I’m telling you.

  Except when they’ve finished using them,

  They torch them,

  Cover their traces.

  And once you’ve seen that –/

  Petra

  And I want to tell her:

  ‘I don’t want blood –

  Leon

  Once you’ve smelled that/

  Petra

  An eye for an eye

  Making the whole world blind’ /

  Leon

  What half a gallon of petrol in the back seat can do

  When you chuck in a match.

  Petra

  ‘But when it comes to a life;

  The life of your own child –’

  Leon

  Well:

  What else comes near?

  Petra

  (to the conference)

  Stop.

  Please.

  Mr Casey?

  I think I need a time out.

  Jimmy

  Time out!

  Anyone can call a time out

  At any moment in the conference.

  It’s like –

  Waving your little red card at the teacher.

  Petra

  I’m sorry, Jimmy.

  It’s doing my head in.

  Seeing him here and everything.

  I’ll be all right in a moment.

  Scene Two

  Jimmy and Petra move out of the setting of the conference. As they place themselves on stage, we are aware that these are private, parallel monologues, mediated perhaps through the context of individual therapy.

  Jimmy

  Time out.

  (Beat.)

  OK.

  Here’s a memory.

  Three years after,

  After the accident.

  I’m waking up early.

  Well,

  There’s this sodding pigeon

  Cooing from the bottom of the garden.

  (Beat.)

  So I have this idea:

  I’m going to get my dad’s shotgun down from the loft,

  I’m going to take it down

  And shoot the fucker,

  Cos it’s driving me nuts.

  (Beat.)

  But when I get outside,

  The sun’s streaming through the trees,

  And there’s been a late frost:

  This patina of frost all over the back garden.

  Petra

  Memory.

  Here’s another:

  One year before,

  Before –

  (Beat; she won’t name it.)

  Well,

  We move house.

  (To Charley, a mother again.)

  You remember, Charley?

  She’s five

  And you do:

  You remember things at that age.

  You lay down memories like a new wine.

  And I want her to remember everything,

  So she can write about it when she goes to school:

  ‘The Day We Moved House’,

  By Charley.

  Leon

  So this is how it happened:

  Petra

  No./

  Leon

 
We walk for half a mile.

  Petra

  No!

  I haven’t finished!/

  Leon

  We walk for about half a mile,

  Freddie and me,

  Till we come to this place.

  Petra

  I won’t.

  I can’t.

  I’m not listening!

  Jimmy

  So I’m thinking:

  ‘I’m not going into work

  On a morning like this.’

  And I just get into the car

  And start driving.

  Leon

  It’s a luxury development,

  We pass it every morning

  On the way to school.

  It’s got a name on a sign outside.

  It’s got a gate.

  And around the gate

  It’s got this wall.

  The only thing it hasn’t got

  Is a lake and a fiery dragon.

  And the things you can see through there:

  Four-by-fours,

  Turbo convertibles –

  It’s like Top Gear,

  I’m telling you:

  The specs on those cars.

  You want to put your hands all over them.

  And that’s why they got the walls, right?

  Cos they’re expecting you to try.

  Petra

  (lost in her thoughts)

  So I’m pointing things out to her

  All the while:

  Look, Charley.

  The van’s pulling up!

  Look, Charley.

  Dad’s about to open the front door.

  Smell that, Charley!

  Jimmy

  Past woodland.

  Hills.

  One time I have to stop the car.

  There’s this field of bluebells.

  I want to get out and walk.

  Take my shoes and socks off.

  Get my toes wet.

  God!

  The world can be so beautiful.

  (Beat.)

  But instead I’m on the motorway again.

  Getting off at junction nine.

  Petra

  What’s that sound, Charley?

  We’re all sat at the bottom of the stairs listening.

  It’s like holding a shell so close to your ear that you can hear the sea.

  Even the removal men can hear it.

  What’s that?

  Can you hear that, Charley?

  That’s the sound of an empty house!

  But what’s it saying?

  What’s it saying?

  Leon

  We’re hanging there for about an hour

  When this Mini Cooper comes in the drive.

  Young bloke,

  Yuppie in a suit.

  And out of the passenger seat

  Comes this girl.

  (Beat.)

  Well, Freddie gives me the elbow,

  You know,

  As they go in.

  And we’re waiting

  Five,

  Ten minutes

  When the light goes on in the bedroom.

  (Beat.)

  The girl looks out.

  She’s standing there in the window.

  She’s let her hair down.

  She’s in this gown,

  This red gown.

  And we’re both wanting her to take it off

  Like you do, you know,

  When the bloke comes up behind her

  And takes her back behind the curtains.

  Jimmy

  I find my way along an A road

  To this village.

  Looks nice enough.

  Pub on the right-hand side,

  Signpost.

  Almost miss it,

  In fact I do,

  I do miss it.

  Have to turn back on myself.

  Then it’s down a lane

  Bare trees either side,

  Till the lane turns into this:

  Driveway.

  (Beat.)

  And there it is.

  Christ.

  And though it’s larger than I’d imagined,

  In other ways

  It’s just how you do imagine it.

  A place like that,

  With razor wire over the top.

  (Beat.)

  I park up.

  Five minutes.

  Ten.

  Half an hour.

  You hear what I’m saying?

  Till I find myself sitting there for three,

  Four hours,

  Just looking at the sodding gate.

  Thinking all the time:

  ‘He’ll be coming through there.

  He’ll be coming through that gate there.’

  (Small pause.)

  Then someone knocks at my window.

  Petra

  ‘Hello,

  Can I help you?’ says the house.

  ‘I hope so,’

  We say.

  ‘We’ve come to live here:

  Me, Charley, Jimmy,

  We’ve come here to stay!

  We’ve come here to be happy!’

  Leon

  And from that moment:

  Well, I’m still seeing her.

  So’s Freddie, I reckon,

  Though he don’t say nothing.

  That bloke pulling the girl back

  Makes me feel so

  Horny,

  Not just for her,

  But for every inch of what he had.

  Made me feel

  So

  Like:

  I’ve got to have something of his now.

  I’ve got to take something of his now.

  Petra

  Stop

  Jimmy

  (relentless)

  Here’s another memory:

  Petra

  No,

  Stop, please!

  Jimmy

  Can’t stop!

  Another memory!

  (Beat.)

  We went to the sea that summer.

  The summer after we moved house.

  She had a ride on this donkey.

  Next thing we know

  She’s wanting a pony of her own!

  (Beat.)

  So I take her to a stable

  And let her stroke the foal.

  Petra takes a picture.

  (Beat.)

  Then Charley says:

  Petra

  (not as Charley, but rather as herself, fondly remembering)

  ‘I want it,

  I want it, Daddy!’

  Jimmy

  So I say:

  ‘But you know what, Charley?

  I want, I want

  Can’t always have!’

  Petra

  ‘But I want it, Daddy!’

  Jimmy

  No, Charley!

  Petra

  ‘Then I’m not going home!

  I’m not going home!

  I’m not going home

  Without Horsey!’

  Jimmy

  Horsey?

  Horsey?

  (Suddenly fearsome.)

  I’ll give you bloody Horsey!

  Petra

  Jimmy, no!

  No.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  Jimmy

  (small pause; softer now)

  So I say to her:

  I say to her:

  ‘Maybe when you’re older, Charley.

  Maybe when you’re ten,

  Eleven.

  You know?

  You know?’

  Scene Three

  Leon in jail. Tentative, at arm’s length, as if introducing a tableau of his own making.

  Leon

  When I go down.

  (Beat.)

  When I go down,

  My mum shoots me this look:

  ‘I can’t help you now, son.

  Don’t blame this on me.

  You’re on your own now, boy.’

/>   She says it all,

  With the eyes.

  Just with the eyes.

  (Then, turning to Petra.)

  Then the woman stands up:

  Petra

  (turning to him)

  Murderer!

  He’s a bloody murderer!

  Jimmy

  (drawing her back)

  Petra.

  Leon

  And I want to say something back,

  I have to say something!

  Petra

  (as if to the whole world)

  But he needs to know.

  Someone needs to tell him

  If the court bloody won’t!

  Leon

  Then screw you!

  Fuck you!

  The moment is briefly held: Leon his fingers in the air, Petra and Jimmy watching.

  Scene Four

  Jimmy moves into next scene, his first, preliminary meeting, alone with Casey, the victim liaison officer cum RJ facilitator.

  Jimmy

  And that was the last we saw of him,

  Mr Casey

  Four years ago in court.

  I remember it like it was yesterday.

  And to be honest,

  If I allow myself to experience now

  What I was feeling then:

  Christ!

  I want to kill him.

  I just want to kill him.

  (Beat.)

  But you know:

  It’s all very well,

  This idea of us

  All sitting in a room together,

  Even supposing we could get that far.

  Even supposing I could get Petra

  To see the need.

  (Beat.)

  Well, even then,

  The things

  We could say:

  They’d just be the things we could say.

  You know?

  Cos what we really want,

  I don’t think

  We know how to take.

  (Beat.)

  It’s not an apology we’re after.

  And it’s not

  Painting our garden fence for a couple hours on a Saturday

  morning.

  We’d be there

  Because we needed to see his face,

  Before we have to catch a glimpse of him

  Walking down the street with a girl on his arm,

  Or coming out of a pub

  Singing.

  Do you think he sings, Mr Casey?

  Do you?

  Do you think he sings in the shower?

  Or when the sun shines outside?

  Because we don’t.

  We don’t sing any more.

  (Beat.)