Lucy Kirkwood Plays: One E-Book

Lucy Kirkwood

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 446

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Since her debut in 2008, Lucy Kirkwood has firmly established herself as a leading playwright of her generation, the writer of a series of savagely funny, highly intelligent and beautifully observed plays that tackle the pressing issues of our times. This collection, with an introduction by the author, brings together five of her plays, starting with the wild and riotously funny farce, Tinderbox (Bush Theatre, 2008), a disturbing vision of a dystopian future where England is dissolving into the sea, realised with 'off-kilter imaginative flair' (The Times). Written for Clean Break theatre company, it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (Arcola Theatre, 2009; winner of the John Whiting Award) is a devastating report from the hidden world of Eastern European women trafficked to London to work in the sex industry. The previously unpublished small hours (Hampstead Theatre, 2011), a collaboration with Ed Hime, directed by Katie Mitchell, is an intimate dissection of the claustrophobic world of a new mother struggling to cope on her own. The sharply satirical NSFW (Royal Court, 2012) is a 'richly absorbing and inventive' (Telegraph) look at power games, privacy and gender politics in the media. The volume concludes with Chimerica (Almeida Theatre and West End, 2013), a gripping and provocative examination of the shifting balance of power between East and West. Winner of multiple awards, including the Olivier and Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Play, the Evening Standard Best Play Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Chimerica is 'gloriously rich and mind-expanding' (Guardian), and a 'tremendously bold piece of writing' (Evening Standard). 'Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation' Independent

Leseprobe

Lucy Kirkwood

Plays: One

Tinderbox it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now small hours NSFW Chimerica

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Tinderbox

it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now

small hours

NSFW

Chimerica

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

I grew up on the border of Essex and London, and my maternal ancestors came from the Isle of Thanet, and I started thinking aboutTinderboxat the end of four years of university in Edinburgh, as I prepared to go home. In 2006 it seemed to me like everything that had felt new and young and revolutionary for a while had revealed itself to be as old and reactionary as what came before it. So it was about change seeming impossible. A series of white men running the show. But it was also about how difficult change is for those at the sharp end of it. A country is a delicate organism and some parts are more exposed than others to the arrival of foreign bodies. I wanted to be honest but generous about this. Saul is a racist, but he is also a man who has been culturally and economically displaced by forces beyond his control. Modernity. Multiculturism. Weather. He’s a crook and a murderer and – worse – very sentimental. But he is grieving, and while his grief is sometimes presented comically, I don’t find it entirely funny.

I was lucky when Mike Bradwell commissioned me to write the play and when, after he left the Bush, Josie Rourke programmed and directed it. I remember her being very kind and calling me ‘baggage’ a lot. Lucy Osborne designed a stifling butcher’s shop behind a red velvet curtain and ignited my passion for model boxes. We opened in May at the old Bush Theatre, then a tiny space above a pub, during a heatwave when the air conditioning was broken. Dystopian farce is a genre with a niche fan club anyway: it’s fair to say it divided people. I think the play is better on the dystopia than the farce, but writing this introduction in the months after the Brexit vote it feels like its prevailing concerns are alive and kicking violently.

it felt empty…was developed closely with Lucy Morrison as a commission for Clean Break during my residency with the company. We had seen the Helen Bamber Foundation’s installation about human trafficking in Trafalgar Square, and both of us were struggling with the idea of victims of crime being incarcerated as criminals. We worked with the Poppy Project (whose funding was diverted in 2015 in the name of Austerity to, oddly, the Salvation Army). The women we talked with had been victims of the most inhumane crimes, not only by their traffickers but by the British Government. They were angry, articulate and bitterly aware that their suffering had begun with an ambition to improve their lives. Many of them had a coal-black sense of humour. All of this went into Dijana.

I had the idea for the first two acts, and writing them made it clear what the third one should be. I was roughly Dijana’s age at the time, and it felt important to show more how she was like me than how she wasn’t. It was supposed to go on in a disused shop unit in the old Shepherd’s Bush shopping centre. When this fell through the Arcola gave us a vast warehouse space at fairly short notice. Lucy gave me a beautiful and unflinching production, and Chloe Lamford created a dazzling, grubby, Lynchian rabbit warren for the audience to follow Dijana through. In the final act, the audience sat on white goods still in their packaging.

small hourswas entirely inspired by a request from Katie Mitchell to write a one-woman show for downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre, with Franz Xaver Kroetz’sRequest Programmeas a reference. Ed Hime and I wrote it in Brussels, taking it in turns to type. In the stage directions we had specified that she would stop and rewind the song at least five times, and in performance it was never less than nine, which was unbearable and why Katie is a great director. The audience sat in Maggie’s living room, which had very thick cream carpet. I remember how discomfited the small act of having to take your shoes off made them. I am glad to see it in print because so many people at the time seemed bewildered by the idea of playwrights writing stage directions, not just dialogue. Here is the proof.

NSFWwas the first play where the structure presented itself quite quickly. The spark was seeing my sister’s CV, which was five or six pages long and entirely filled with unpaid internships. It was never intended to be specifically about the magazine industry or even the media in general, but about how the industrialised workplace and Capitalism itself compromises us, by substituting over time its economic morality for our emotional one. No one in the play is inherently corrupt, and most of the corruption we do see is self-harming. Sam loses the woman he loves (and his love of women). Mr Bradshaw and Aidan lose their souls. And as a woman of fifty, Miranda’s been wired to find herself disgusting by a culture she herself has helped to enshrine. There’s a line in Martin Crimp’s brilliant playThe Treatmentabout corruption having three stations:

‘The first is the loss of innocence. The second is the desire to inflict that loss on others. The third is the need to instil in others that same desire.’

Which I think is a good way of describing the ‘Fall’ of the play.

Simon Godwin cast it beautifully and Janie Dee was resplendent in an obscene leather dress. I remember lots of trouble being taken at the Royal Court to make sure the topless photograph of Carrie was ethically sourced. I think it’s more about class than gender and it’s a play that gets progressively less funny as it goes along.

Chimericastarted as a commission at the National Theatre Studio, an incredible gift, as it gave me licence to think on a larger scale than young playwrights are usually advised to do. The problem was that when it was released after a period of development, there weren’t that many other theatres with the capacity for an epic play with a cast of twelve. So it then went on a long journey before Michael Attenborough programmed it at the Almeida. The most important thing that happened in that time was that Headlong came along on a white horse and rescued it from the doldrums. Ben Power and I worked on it together for some time, pacing around Covent Garden,talking it out. The Occupy movement hadn’t emerged when I first started writing, and Barack Obama was also a couple of years away. Later there were many drafts of the play set during the ’08 US election, and eventually I realised I was writing a thriller.

I was over the moon when Lyndsey Turner agreed to direct it, and for more than a year she worked intensively on the play with me, visiting me in Norfolk and going as deeply into the research as I had. She is a peerless dramaturg and we value the same things, so her rigorous notes and questions were often hard but never painful, and always made the play better. Es Devlin agreed to design a year in advance, so the final drafts were entirely tailored to her sleek, protean design of a spinning cube. At the first reading it was four-and-a-half hours long and I felt despair. We changed a lot during previews, which was possible due to a talented and heroic cast and crew who understood with grace the complexity of the play’s mechanics – it is down to all of them, and Lyndsey’s holding of all our nerves, that it got to be performed in its best possible version.

At the time of writing, three years later, a ham-faced Donald Trump is whipping his supporters into a frenzy over China, and it occurs to me for the first time thatChimericahas more in common withTinderboxthan any of the other plays in this book, being in part about the yielding of empire and identity, and the anxiety and ugliness that come with that. And as I am halfway through a new play about a comet, knee-deep in elliptical orbits, it seems right, somehow, that this body of work, spanning seven years of writing, should end up right back where it started.

Lucy Kirkwood October 2016

I’d like to thank Mel Kenyon, Lucy Morrison and Ed Hime for their help in the writing of all of these plays.

TINDERBOX

or, Love Amid the Liver

To Pip, Ted, Kirk, Robert and Peggy

Tinderbox was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, on 23 April 2008, with the following cast:

JOHN/JOHN JUNIOR JUNIOR/

Nigel Betts

DIXON

JOHN JUNIOR/DOCK/

Sartaj Garewal

DETECTIVE PRAWN

PERCHIK

Bryan Dick

VANESSA

Sheridan Smith

SAUL

Jamie Foreman

Director

Josie Rourke

Designer

Lucy Osborne

Lighting Designer

James Farncombe

Sound Designer

Emma Laxton

Assistant Director

Tim Digby-Bell

Production Manager

Felix Davies

Company Stage Manager

Helen Reynolds

Deputy Stage Manager

Rebekah Kirk

Casting Director

Chloe Emmerson

I started making maps when I was small Showing place, resources, where the enemy And where love lay. I did not know Time adds to land. Events drift continually down, Effacing landmarks, raising the level, like snow. I have grown up. My maps are out of date. The land lies over me now. I cannot move. It is time to go.

Alasdair Gray,Lanark

Characters

PERCHIK, a tall and thin young man in his mid-twenties, Scottish. An Inverness cowboy.SAUL, a big, energetic man, sixties or older, old-fashioned Cockney accent. He walks with a stick supporting his right leg.VANESSA, tired-looking, pretty at one time but this isn’t it, thirties or older. Noticeable scar down one side of her face.DIXON JOHN WINSTON JOHN JUNIOR JUNIOR DOCK JOHN JUNIOR DETECTIVE PRAWN

DIXON,JOHN,WINSTONandJOHN JUNIOR JUNIORare to be played by the same actor; as areDOCK,JOHN JUNIORandDETECTIVE PRAWN.

The play is set in Bradford, Yorkshire, sometime in the twenty-first century.

Note on the Text

( / ) indicates the point that the next speaker interrupts – ) indicates an abrupt interruption (…) indicates a trailing off *) indicates two or more different characters speaking simultaneously

ACT ONE

‘Dry Bones’

The end of a blazing afternoon. An old-fashioned butcher’s shop. Tiles, marble slabs, a display counter covered with a sheet. A desiccated feel to the place. A yellowing blind on the window. Straw on the floor. Three dead pot plants and a thriving cactus. The sound of police sirens and dogs barking gets louder and louder. Louder still when the shop door is opened.JOHNenters. He looks around the empty shop, then calls:

JOHN. ’Livery!

He mops his brow. He has a stripe of zinc-oxide sunblock on his face and a clipboard in his hand.

Mr Everard? Delivery!

No answer.JOHNsticks his head out of the door.

John Junior! You want to stir yer bleedin’ stumps, lad?

Beat. ThenJOHN JUNIORstaggers in, dishevelled, and lugging a sack. He also wears sunblock. He dumps the sack and stares accusingly atJOHN.

(Innocently.) What?

JOHN JUNIOR. You left me!

JOHN. I had to see a man about a dog.

During the following,JOHNtakes out a Cornetto and rolls it slowly over his face. He then peels off the wrapper, folds it, puts it in his pocket, and starts to eat.

JOHN JUNIOR. They were kicking me and you said, ‘I’ll run ahead and meet you there.’

JOHN. I thought they were your mates.

JOHN JUNIOR. They were trying to set fire to my shoes! (Beat.) You know why they always go for me, don’t you?

JOHN. You’ve just got one of those faces, I s’pose.

JOHN JUNIOR. No. It’s cos it’s always me carrying the bleeding sack!

JOHN. We’ve been through this, JJ. You carry the sack. I carry the clipboard. See?

He holds up the clipboard to demonstrate.

JOHN JUNIOR. S’like trying to carry a sugar cube through a sea of ants out there! Maybe if you had to be the human donkey once in a while, then – What’s that?

JOHN (still eating). What does it look like?

JOHN JUNIOR. It’s an ice cream!

JOHN. To some extent.

JOHN JUNIOR. Where d’you get that from?

JOHN (primly). Some of us don’t fritter away our dairy rations on cheese omelettes, John Junior. Been saving up for weeks for this.

JOHN JUNIOR. Give us a lick.

JOHN. Not on your nelly.

JOHN JUNIOR. Aw, lemme have a –

JOHN. Get off –

JOHN JUNIOR. Just a quick one –

JOHN.No!

JOHN JUNIOR. Alright, well, what about your wrapper then?

JOHN. What about it?

JOHN JUNIOR. Give us a little suck on it.

JOHN. Piss off.

JOHN JUNIOR. Alright, just a lick then.

JOHN. No. I’m saving it for my wife.

JOHN JUNIOR. I only want a taste, your wife’s fat enough already. You’re a feeder, you.

JOHN. John Junior! My wife is not fat. My wife has just –

JOHN JUNIOR. LET ME LICK YOUR WRAPPER!

JOHN. Pull yourself together, boy! What would Mr Womble say if he could see this exhibition, eh? Now come on. We’ve got four more drop-offs before we can –

JOHN JUNIORquickly leans in and takes a big bite ofJOHN’s ice cream.

You little – !

JOHN JUNIORruns out.JOHNexits after him. Silence once more. A beat. Another beat. Then the sack bursts open andPERCHIK, choking and spluttering, bursts out. He is blood-streaked. Feathers fly. He leans into the sack and pulls out a knapsack. Quietly, he crosses to the door. Opens it. The sound of a riot; angry crowds, sirens, dogs barking, glass smashing. He slams the door shut again. Suddenly,VANESSAcomes running, weeping, through the shop from a door out to the back. She stops short as she seesPERCHIK. They both freeze. Beat.

SAUL (off). Vanessa!

VANESSAruns to the icebox door, heaves it open and slams it behind her.PERCHIKpanics, jumps back into the sack.SAULenters hurriedly. He limps on his right foot and carries a stick. He stops and looks at the sack.PERCHIK’s heavy breathing can be heard.

(Under his breath.) Hmm… fresh.

He runs to the icebox door and bangs on it.

Little pig, little pig, let me come in!

He listens. No reply.

You can’t hide in the icebox every time Sauly is naughty, Vanessa.

Pause.

Why won’t you play with me?

VANESSA. Go away!

SAUL. But Vanessa! I’m having a heart attack!… Ow!

Pause.

Ow.(Beat.) Really hurts.

Pause. He bangs on the door.

Open this door!

VANESSA (singing). Oh, the toe bone’s connected to the foot bone, the foot bone’s connected to the –

SAUL. Vanessa!

VANESSA. –anklebone, the ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone, the leg bone’s connected to the –

SAUL. Shut up!

VANESSA.– kneebone, thekneebone’s connected to the –

SAUL. Open this door now!

VANESSA (shouting now). – THIGH BONE, THE THIGH BONE’S CONNECTED TO THE HIP BONE, NOW HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD –

SAUL. You’ve left off the torso, you silly cow! If your toes freeze together again, I’m not taking you to the hospital to have them chipped apart this time. I’ll do it myself and put the bits in a punch bowl and have cocktails on the bloody veranda!

He waits.

Vanessa?

No response.SAULgoes to the shop door, locks it, and exits. Beat.PERCHIKjumps out of the sack.VANESSAcomes out of the icebox. They stare at each other. The power fails.

(Off.) I have turned the electricity off, Vanessa!

PERCHIKandVANESSApanic.PERCHIKruns and throws himself down behind the counter.VANESSAruns to the door, finds it locked, looks around.

VANESSA (calling). Don’t be so stupid, Saul. The stock will spoil.

SAUL (off). Then you will have that on your conscience, wife.

VANESSA (calling). I didn’t turn the power off, did I?

SAULapproaches.VANESSAjumps in the sack.SAULenters. Goes to the icebox.

SAUL. You are behaving in such a naughty way that my hand was forced. Do you understand, wife? You left me no other option. No other option!

Pause. He opens the icebox door and peers in. Closes it silently.

No, no, Vanessa. You’re quite right.

SAULturns to see the sack wriggling across the floor, towards the door. He sighs, goes to the sack and sits on it. It stops moving.

The best thing for us to do is to sit quietly and Think About What You Have Done.

SAULhacks up some phlegm and spits it into a Union Jack handkerchief.

I am a man of infinite patience. (He suddenly turns to the counter.) Whoever you are, I’d come out of there if I was you. The sound of your rattling pipes is getting distinctly on my breasts.

Pause.

I’m talking to you. Behind the counter. It’s bloody sardines in here tonight. Come out.

Pause.

Tell you what. Make it sporting. I’ll give you till ten. One… two… three… four…

PERCHIKmakes a dash for it.SAULtrips him, picks him up and sits him on a chair.

Aha! Can I see your passport please, baggage?

PERCHIK. What? I’ve no’ got a – What? Get off!

SAUL. Ah. You’re aforeign! Splendid!

PERCHIK. No – I’m Scottish.

SAUL. Like I said. Foreign! Can I see your passport?

PERCHIK. This is an invasion of my civil liberties – What do you want tay see my –

SAUL. An Englishman’s home is his castle, but an Englishman’s shop is his Empire. We are short on staff at the moment so I am both monarch and border control.

PERCHIK. I don’t –

SAUL (shouting into the sack). The First Lady has gone AWOL at present.

PERCHIK. I’ve no’ got my passport wimme. I mean – I’ve no’ got a passport.

SAUL. ‘No’ got a passport’! Dear me. What an untravelled young larrikin you must be. The marvellous crevices of this great turning world are of no interest / to you?

PERCHIK. What are you / on about?

SAUL. Never smelt the swamps of Venice or seen their silt of sunken city? Or watched the ice fields of Siberia melt into daisy-dotted washing-powder meadows?

PERCHIK. No, I’ve not!

SAUL. What! Never danced through the dusty kasbahs of In Salah picking mint leaves from your teeth, or observed the powdery course of the Milky Way as the bombs come down like windfalls on to Norwegian fjords? The blaze of a watery nation going up in flames. Tell me, have youneverseen the Kalahari Desert lights, baggage?

PERCHIK. No. I told you, I’ve no’ got a passport.

SAUL. Neither have I, I have an aversion to sand, but I am assured they are quite spectacular. I have never been to Scotland either, but I am assured that it is not. How did you get across Hadrian’s Channel without a passport? Ferries wouldn’t take you without papers, and you can’t walk it at low tide any more.

PERCHIK. I swam.

SAUL. You swam?

PERCHIK. From Berwick to Newcastle.

SAUL. You swam from Berwick to Newcastle?

PERCHIK. Aye.

SAUL. You swam. He swam! Thirty-eight miles! That shows some gristle that does, shows some / bloody gristle.

PERCHIK. I should probably be / going.

He stands.SAULimmediately forces him down again.

SAUL. I underestimated you, er – what did you say your name was?

PERCHIK. I didn’t. S’Perchik. Peter Perchik.

PERCHIKholds out a hand in introduction.SAULexamines it.

SAUL. Perchik? Not very Scottish, but that can only be a good thing. It will aid your integration into our native culture and value system. My name is Saul Everard but you may call me Mr Saul. More friendly, don’t you think you’re bleeding on my floor.

PERCHIK. What’s that? (He looks down.) Oh. Yeah. Sorry ’bout that.

His knuckles are dripping blood.SAULsilently passes an already bloody tea towel to him, andPERCHIKbandages himself.SAULwatches with detached interest.

SAUL. It’s a bit fighty out there tonight?

PERCHIK. Ay. A bit. Got lost in the Asian Quarter.

SAUL. The Asian Quarter? The whole city is the Asian Quarter, you dolt. Except for this shop. Do you want a job?

PERCHIK. What?

SAUL. A job. Do you want one? My last boy has just left me in the lurch and your low horizons and negligible intellect suggest you would be quite perfect for the role.

PERCHIK. But no one’s hiring. There’s nae jobs anywhere.

SAUL. On the contrary, there is one job in the whole of Bradford and you have had the serendipity to trespass right into it. So. What do you say?

PERCHIK. I dunno – what’s the work like?

SAUL. Oh, awful.

PERCHIK. But the pay?

SAUL. Very bad. All round it’s an excellent situation.

PERCHIK. Right. Well thanks, but no –

SAUL. Is it about the money?

PERCHIK. No, it’s not about the / money.

SAUL. Because it’s really quite distasteful / to haggle –

PERCHIK. I don’t care about the money!

SAUL. Then don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, little Perchik! Or it might eventually come to believe you are a sugar cube andeat you.

Pause.SAULcrosses to the shop door and pulls the blind aside.

Awful lot of coppers about tonight. Awful lot. You can say what you like about them, but they still have a tremendous sense ofpageantry, don’t you think? Tremendousflair. For example (I don’t know if you read the papers but) it must take a certain amount of brute strength to physicallypeelan Irishman’s kneecap off with just your bare hands – and just because he didn’t have a passport! I mean, obviously unpleasant for the Irishman. But a realspectacle, nonetheless.

PERCHIKcrosses the shop and looks through the blind himself. He looks back atSAUL.

PERCHIK. Mr Saul? I’ve bin thinking ’bout your offer.

SAUL. And?

PERCHIK. And I’ve decided to reconsider.

SAUL. Tremendous! (He shakesPERCHIK’s hand.) You know I was hoping you would!

PERCHIK. Sounds grand. Thank you. You, er, you get a lot of people coming and going?

SAULstops pumpingPERCHIK’s hand.

SAUL. People?

PERCHIK. Customers, ken.

SAUL. Customers, Perchik?

PERCHIK. Buying things?

SAUL. Oh! You mean ‘The Wallets’! Not many, no. You couldn’t call it many. The market has become awful hostile of late, what with times being not so much lean as anorexic. And of course it’s very hard to get hold of good stock now, you know?

PERCHIK. Imagine it is, aye.

SAUL (deadly serious). You imagine? But I didn’t ask you to imagine.

PERCHIK. Sorry?

SAUL. I didn’t ask you to imagine. How hard it is to get hold of good stock, I mean. It wasn’t open for debate. Itisveryhardfor me to get hold of good stock. Understood?

Pause.

PERCHIK. Ye-ah. Right, Mr Saul. Very hard.

SAUL. Good. Good! And now, Perchik, you must tell me: what exactly are you doing in my shop? Naturally, you’re on the hoof from someone. The question is, why?

PERCHIK. I’m a painter.

SAUL. Never mind.

PERCHIK. I was painting. On the palace. In London.

SAUL. A-ha. And what, Peter Perchik the Painter, were you painting?

PERCHIK. It was a… portrait. Of sorts.

SAUL. Of sorts?

PERCHIK. You’d mebbe call it an… erotic impression.

SAUL. Of who? The King?

PERCHIK. Nah. Of the PM.

SAUL. Aha. And what was the Prime Minister doing in this erotic impression?

PERCHIK. He wasnay really doing anything. Not that you could see.

SAUL. Not very erotic.

PERCHIK. But you know the Statue of Liberty?

SAUL. Intimately.

PERCHIK. Well, she was sitting on his face.

SAUL. Ha! Excellent. You’re going to fit in nicely round here, Perchik, though I don’t much care for your methods. Altogether too cerebral. Utopia will be born from the body and not from the mind. When the body is ordered, society follows. Do you see?

PERCHIK. No.

SAUL. Good! Now, my scrofulous whelp, justone more thing: do you know what a tinderbox is?

PERCHIK. Yeah – s’for fire-lighting and that.

SAUL. And that. Yes. Well, this shop is a veritable tinderbox. The walls are little more than parchment, and what you must remember is: who holds the matches, little Susan?

PERCHIK. My name’s Perchik.

SAUL. I prefer Susan. It suits you better and brings out the blue in your eyes. Who holds the matches, little Susan?

PERCHIK. You do?

SAUL. Very good! Mr Saul holds the matches. You look a bit like a match, you know that? That swollen, scabby skull atop a stick of a body. Best not go rubbing your head on the walls, eh?

PERCHIK. Listen, can I stay here – just for tonight, I mean?

SAUL. No fixed abode, eh? Yes, very well. There’s a mattress out back, you can bring it in here. Don’t mind the stains. It’s only blood. Now. Any questions?

PERCHIK. Ay. As it happens. What happened to your foot?

SAUL. My father fired an airgun at it during our annual family cricket tournament.

PERCHIK. Why?

SAUL. He said it was a joke. He had a funny sense of humour, my dad. Anything else?

PERCHIK. No. I mean yeah. Just one thing. What exactly do you sell?

SAUL. Dreams, baggage.

PERCHIK. What?

SAUL. The stuff dreams are made of. That is to say, meat.

He pulls the sheet off the display counter to reveal a pathetic show of sad-looking cuts. He pulls out the pocket watch and examines it.

(Whispering.) Now, zip your lip and do as I say. Quiet now.

He unlocks the shop door, then deliberately opens and closes it with a slam.SAULgestures toPERCHIKto hide behind the counter.PERCHIKfollows. After a moment,VANESSAtentatively pokes her head out of the sack.SAULjumps up.

Vanessa! You’ve come out! Marvellous, it’s like our honeymoon all over again!

She tries to get to the icebox, jumping as if in a sack race, butSAULgrabs her.

You’re awful skittish today, my love, all this running about will be no good for your weak ankles. Give me a kiss.

VANESSAshakes her head. He puts something in her hand.

Give me a kiss.

She kisses him.

Thank you. And now, Vanessathisis a young man fromScotland. His name isPerchikwhich is rather ugly but at least it matches his face so we all knowwhere we stand.

VANESSA. Hello, Perchik.

PERCHIK. Hello, Vanessa.

SAUL. That’s right, that’s right, get acquainted. Perchik,thisis my wife.

VANESSA. I might just have a little smokey…

She reaches to a key hanging on a hook, tied to a long ribbon. The ribbon runs up through the floorboards to upstairs. Next to it is a small wall-mounted cupboard.VANESSAunlocks the cabinet and takes out a rumpled, nearly empty packet of fags.

SAUL. Common-law, but then she’s a common girl. You’ve already had two today, wife.

VANESSA. Just to steady my / nerves…

She sticks a fag in her mouth, puts the pack back and locks the cupboard.

SAUL. Common, Perchik, is a politically correct way of saying vulgar. Vulgar is a refined way of saying trampy. Trampy is a slightly more coy word for sluttish. And by slut, Perchik, I mean, of course, that she puts it about, which is in itself an idiom dependent on a shared understanding between interlocutor and receiver of exactly what ‘it’, the great indefinite of our age, is.

He takes out a long box of matches and lightsVANESSA’s cigarette. As he talks,SAULrummages in the sackPERCHIKarrived in, fishes out a few paltry bits of meat, wipes them with his hankie and slaps them straight into the display counter.

No good if one of you thinks the term refers to apple strudel, now, is it? (Away from themeat, wife!) In the eighteenth century, she would have been a whorish orange-seller, you see, but in these days of bad health and halitosis skies, the orange trees spend their days gasping for breath and so she must say it out right. Say it out right, wife.

VANESSA. No –

SAUL. Say it out right.

VANESSA. Shan’t.

SAUL. Say it out right or I shall smack your bottom in front of Perchik, and I think he might enjoy the spectacle a little too much.

VANESSA. Leave the boy alone.

SAUL. The boy wants to hear what you have to say, Vanessa. Say it.

VANESSA. No.

SAUL. This is my shop and Empire and while you’re within her boundaries you’ll do as I say! Or you will be put into jail at His Majesty’s Pleasure.

VANESSA. You don’t have a jail.

SAUL. Well, then I will put you in a sack. And post you.

PERCHIK. Where?

SAUL. What?

PERCHIK. Where will you post her?

SAUL. I don’t know! Somewhere degenerate with an unfavourable exchange rate. (Beat.) France. Now say it!

VANESSA. I always thought that was a strange phrase. ‘At His Majesty’s Pleasure.’ Imagine the King grinning at the thought of all the poor souls that he’s locked up, away from the sky and the blossom and the stars blanking away in the indigo sky.

SAUL. I won’t have poetry in this shop, wife, you know that.Now say it!

VANESSA. No.

SAUL. Yes!

VANESSA.No!

SAUL.Vanessa…

Pause.

VANESSA (quietly). I’ll give you a kiss for a quid.

SAUL. A kiss for a quid! Disgusting! Pity the morally cankered, innocent little Perchik, but mind you don’t get too close. Whatever my wife has, it may be infectious.

VANESSA. Do be quiet, Saul.

SAUL. I remember the first kiss we had together, Perchik, it was on the night before the riots started and it tasted distinctly metallic.

VANESSA. Nonsense. Tell him the proper story.

She starts to wheeze.

SAUL. Never kiss a bought woman. All your food will start tasting like pennies.

VANESSA. You’re getting me upset. You know it’s not good for me. I better sit down.

PERCHIKbrings her a stool but she sits on the floor.

SAUL. My wife has trouble breathing. Her tubes close up. Her body hates her. I don’t hate her. I love her. Together we are waging a war against the enemy body. Watch.

He pushes her into a prone position, sits on her chest and holds her nose. He takes the cigarette from her and blows smoke into her mouth.

Show it who’s boss, wife.

PERCHIK. Stop it. Don’t do that.

SAUL. What? What was that, contraband? Did you say something?

PERCHIK. Nut. She’s going to suffocate, s’all.

SAUL. Not if she knows what’s good for her she won’t.

VANESSAis crying and wheezing.

Show it who’s boss, leather lungs! Relax the old pipes! Mind over matter!

She finally pushes him off, and moves onto her hands and knees.

See! Well done, wife, verywell done!

VANESSA (choking). You’re a bastard, Saul.

SAUL. On the contrary, Vanessa, unlike you, my mother was a saint and I am one hundred per cent legitimate. Ah, if you’d met Mother Everard, Perchik. She was really something. Put a live crab in her vest every morning to keep her on her toes and always a hot supper on the table. Now that’s a woman. Not like Emphysema Annie here.

VANESSA. Could I have some water, please?

SAULphlegms into his handkerchief.PERCHIKpours her some water from a bottle into a pint glass.

PERCHIK. You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.

VANESSA. Most of the things I love are.

She takes the glass fromPERCHIK, butSAULsnatches it away.

SAUL. Ah-ah-ah! Think before you drink!

He bangs a poster Blu-Tacked to the wall, that reads ‘THINK before you DRINK!’ with a sad water droplet under it, then to a black line drawn around the pint glass like a WWII bathtub. He pours most of the water back.VANESSAgulps down what’s left.

We are very careful of water in my Empire, Perchik, because we know its treachery. Once, we came home to find this very shop under two feet of the stuff.

VANESSA. When we were still in Barking, this was, Perchik.

SAUL. The arse-end of London proper, flooded so that more salubrious postcodes should be saved. Standing where you are now, we were, water up to our shins.

VANESSA. We began packing up, there and then. Everything we could take, we took.

SAUL. Took us eight hours to chisel the tiles off the wall.

VANESSA. This counter has travelled over two hundred miles, Perchik!

SAUL. Put the lot in the van and drove through the night.

VANESSA. And thank goodness we did! Because then –

SAUL. Because then, Perchik, the waters of Barking began to rise…

VANESSA. The River Roding spilled its banks!

SAUL. Just as the Tiber foamed with blood / before it!

VANESSA. Everything swimming in dirty water, kiddies crying on / rooftops –

SAUL. Within three months, all our friends and neighbours were dead.

PERCHIK. All of them?

SAUL. Well, either dead or very, verydamp.

PERCHIK. But why here? Why Bradford?

SAUL. You recall, Perchik, that my Empire and I only narrowly escaped a drowning? And understand we were not anxious to repeat the experience?

VANESSA. Well, Bradford, you see, Perchik, is unusual for being one of theonly cities in Englandto be built away from large bodies of water.

SAUL. See, baggage? (He taps his head.) Not just a hatrack!

VANESSA. Also, our petrol ran out, didn’t it, Saul?

SAUL. Well, yes. That too.

VANESSA. By the time the drought was over, well, we couldn’t face going through the whole palaver again. Saul was having funny turns as it was, weren’t you, dear?

SAUL. I am not fond ofchange, Perchik. It disturbs my placid disposition. You’d do well to bear that in mind. Now, as Perchik will be staying with us, Nessa, I’d like you to make the place nice for him. Take your knickers out of the fridge, that sort of thing. Housewifery does not come easily to my wife. She was brought up in the lap of luxury and is unaccustomed to menial tasks such as the wiping of her bottom.

VANESSA. It was hardly luxury, Saul.

SAUL. Compared to what I had, it was. Compared to what I had –

VANESSA. I grew up on a council estate on the Roman Road.

SAUL. Stop trying to spoil the romance of our relationship! I’m your bit of rough! Isn’t that exciting, Perchik?

PERCHIK. Do yous have any kids, like?

SAUL. What a question! No. We are not blessed with an heir.

VANESSA. No, but tell him, Saul.

SAUL. Tell him what?

VANESSA. Tell him about Enoch and Peggy.

SAUL. You tell him if you want it told. Come on, Perchik. Time to learn the drill.

He goes to the counter and starts slamming knives on to the surface.

VANESSA. We did have kids, Perchik. Two.

SAUL. All utensils must be thoroughly disinfected.

VANESSA. A boy and a girl.

SAUL. I am scrupulous in my regard for Health and Safety.

He coughs up some more phlegm into his handkerchief.

VANESSA. They died, Perchik.

SAUL. They didn’tdie, Perchik. They wereslaughtered.

PERCHIK. Slaughtered? By who?

SAUL. By people like you. Immigrants with backpacks and accents. During the 2012 attacks on Stratford. Floor!

He handsPERCHIKa broom.PERCHIKstarts to sweep.

VANESSA. That’s how I got this. (She points to her scar.) Only went for the day.

SAUL. I warned her. I said to her, I said the whole shebang was just an open invitation to rabid ragheads. What did I say, Vanessa?

VANESSA. You said that the whole shebang was just an open invitation to rabid ragheads.

SAUL. See? Get right into those corners, Perchik!

VANESSA. But they were mad for the ice-dancers, you see. My little munchkins.

SAUL. I wanted to have more but Vanessa has failed us in that way – her uterus is now dryer than a dead camel’s tongue.

My wife may be a fine actress but even she cannot emote a working reproductive system. (He handsPERCHIKa bin bag.) Chuck that.

PERCHIKnervously opens the door. The riots are heard. He chucks the bin bag out.

PERCHIK. An actress, ay? Will I have seen you in anything?

SAUL. You’ll need an apron.

SAULcrosses toPERCHIKwith a number of blood-stained white aprons of varying lengths, and tries to find the best fit.

VANESSA. Oh no. My career never really took off.

SAUL. Don’t be somodest, wife! Vanessa here was thestarof a series of short party-political pornographic films intended to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party to the masses!

VANESSA. Featuring Great Englishmen of History, Perchik. All the big ones they did: Winston Churchill –

SAULputs the apron onPERCHIKand ties it, standing behind him.

SAUL.We Will Fuck Them on the Beaches–

VANESSA. Francis Drake…

SAUL.The Spanish Arse-mada–

VANESSA. It was all proper. Lovely costumes. I played Lady Hamilton wearing silk skirts and a powdered wig.

SAUL. InFellatio Nelson.

PERCHIKstares atVANESSA, wide-eyed.

PERCHIK (whispering).Fellatio Nelson?

VANESSA (solemnly). It was a bestseller.

SAUL. Yes, Vanessa was worth a good deal of money when I met her.

PERCHIK. How do you know?

SAUL. Because I bought her, didn’t I! Bought her out of it!

VANESSA. Saved me.

SAUL. I can’t stand to see a woman defiled. It was the same when I was younger and used to run an agency making flats in West London affordable to young Eastern European girls.

PERCHIK. How d’you do that then?

SAUL. By helping them sublet by the hour to businessmen from the Home Counties.

VANESSA. Ever so charitable you are, aren’t you, Saul?

SAUL. It’s just my character, dearest. Now, what about some supper for Perchik?

VANESSA. Um. There’s your stew, Saul…

SAUL. Perfect! A fine introduction to our customs. The way to a country’s heart is through its stomach. No, no, wife.Ishall fetch it!

SAULexits with ceremony.

VANESSA (fondly). My husband is a very keen cook.

PERCHIK. Ay? What’s his speciality then?

VANESSA. Well… he’s very good at brown things. Not like me, I’m shocking, I’d burn a banana split! It comes of not having had a mum for very long I think, there’s a certain kind of knowledge that gets passed down isn’t there certain things like how to choose a good tomato and pricking sausages with a fork though that said I do make very good pastry, cold hands you see goodness listen to me banging on about myself! I’m sorry, er, Perchik, was it? Saul’s right, it is a funny name, isn’t it – I don’t mean that in a horrible way – so what are you doing in our shop then, Perchik?

PERCHIK (not missing a beat). I’ve come to fix your pianoforte, Lady Hamilton.

AsVANESSAspins round sharply,SAULenters bearing a stockpot and ladle.VANESSAandPERCHIKbreak gaze asVANESSArushes out to the back.

SAUL. Ta-da! This’ll put some strength in you, Perchik! Are you handy with a spade?

PERCHIK. Dunno. Never used one.

SAUL. You’ll soon pick it up. Foundations must be laid!

PERCHIK. Foundations for what?

SAUL. For the extension! I’m expanding my Empire out back.

SAULtucks his hankie into his shirt-neck.VANESSAenters with bowls and cutlery, and starts laying the table.

And you are going to help me!

PERCHIK. Vanessa and I were just havin’ a wee chat about –

VANESSAquickly holds out a salt-shaker and a pepper-grinder.

VANESSA. Saul! Condiments to the chef!

SAULstares at the salt and pepper for a moment, then they both roar with laughter.

SAUL. Condiments to the – !

VANESSA (giggling). You will be careful, won’t you? Out back?

SAUL. Of course we will.

VANESSA. Only, I wouldn’t want Perchik to leave like Frankie.

SAUL. Not now, Vanessa.

PERCHIK. What happened to Frankie?

SAUL. Nothing happened to him. Who said anything happened to him?

PERCHIK. I just meant – why did he leave, like? Did he find another position?

SAUL. Yes. He found another position. At a more… grass-roots level.

VANESSA. But, Saul, he didn’t –

SAUL. I’m trying not to frighten the boy, Vanessa.

VANESSA. But he should know…

PERCHIK. Know what?

SAUL. It’s a sad story. A very sad story.

VANESSA. Oh, ever so sad, Perchik.

PERCHIK. What happened?

SAUL. Oh, I couldn’t possibly say. No, it’s too sad. I couldn’t. No. I’d sooner die. Not even if you begged me on hand and knee I couldn’t. Not in a million trillion billion –

PERCHIK. Please?

SAUL. He fell.

VANESSA. Into the cement mixer, Perchik.

SAUL. It was dreadful, I can’t deny it, but entirely consonant with the laws of gravity, as I understand them. We were out back. Expanding the Empire. The boy was blind as a bat – he was a foreign as well, like you, no papers, barely spoke a word of English.

VANESSA. Saul is very socially minded.

SAUL. Thank you, wife. I appreciate that.

VANESSA. He’s always taking people in, giving them a job.

SAUL. Even in these lean times, an Englishman must behave as an Englishman.

VANESSA. Oh, but so few do.

SAUL. Yes, so few do.

VANESSA. Go to the lengths you go to.

SAUL. I can’t say it’s not a daily struggle.

VANESSA. I mean, he’s not a wealthy man himself.

SAUL. Never aspired to be.

VANESSA. But what he does for these poor foreign blind boys.

SAUL. Just a little education.

VANESSA. And don’t they love him for it!

SAUL. They’re like sons to me.

VANESSA. Like family.

SAUL. That’s enough, wife. One lump or two?

SAULstarts to dish up stew for himself andVANESSA. It is indeed a stew of indistinguishable fleshy lumps(seeDelia Smith’s Cookery Course(1981), p.332).

VANESSA. Little Francesco. Two please, Saul.

SAUL. Dig in, Perchik.

PERCHIK. I’m. Ah. I’m no’ that hungry.

Pause.

SAUL. You’re ‘no’ that hungry’?

VANESSA. But everyone is hungry, Perchik.

PERCHIK. I don’t have a very big appetite.

SAUL. Do you know the lengths I go to to put meat on this table? You think it’s easy? Essex underwater and Dorset dissolving into the sea like sherbet. There’s no pasture any more, no grazing, and here I present you with a delicious stew and you turn up your nose!

VANESSA. Frankie never used to eat much either. The amount of work he did on the food you gave him, Saul. The boy was a real treasure.

PERCHIK. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but –

VANESSA. Actually, Perchik reminds me a bit of Frankie, Saul.

SAUL. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re being very short-sighted.

VANESSA. Ah, see, Frankie was long-sighted.

SAUL. How long do you think this heat can continue? Only those with enough food stores about their person have any hope of making it through the winter we will have.

PERCHIK. I’m just not –

AsSAULtalks, he lifts out a ladle of stew. Sitting on top is a pair of NHS spectacles.VANESSApanics.SAULandPERCHIKare oblivious.

SAUL. We must make ourselves into living larders, that is what we must do, for, to paraphrase the late, great / Charles Darwin –

VANESSA. Um… Saul –

SAUL. ‘The human race will soon boil down to little more than survival of the / fattest.’

VANESSA. Saul –

SAUL. And you, you scrawny runt, won’t last a minute!

VANESSA.Saul!

SAULlooks from her to the ladle. Sees. Starts. Chucks the ladle back into the pot.

On the other hand, nobody likes a fatso.

PERCHIK. Aw, go on then, just give us a few tatties. You’re right, I should –

SAUL. No, I’m not.

PERCHIK. What?

SAUL. Don’t listen to me! I’ve always had an unhealthy relationship with food!

VANESSA. He was chubby as a child!

PERCHIK. Och, now you’re offended, I didnay mean – Just think my stomach must’ve shrunk, that’s all, been that long since I ate properly –

SAUL. And how well you look on it! Doesn’t he, Vanessa!

VANESSA. Oh yes. Very handsome.

SAUL. What?!

VANESSA. If you like that sort of thing, I mean.

PERCHIK. You’re just trying to be polite.

SAUL. How dare you! I’d never dream of it.

PERCHIK. I’ll just have a little taste – to show my appreciation, like.

SAUL. No – you mustn’t.

PERCHIK. Why not?

SAUL. Because – because… because Vanessa spat in it! Didn’t you, wife?

VANESSA. Did I?

SAULwhacks her with his stick.

Ow! Oh yeah. I forgot. I’m disgusting, I am. Spit in anything.

SAUL. One of her charming little habits.

VANESSA. Like a bloody llama, me.

PERCHIKtakes the ladle fromSAUL.

PERCHIK. Really, I don’t mind. I wouldnay want to insult my hostess.

SAULsnatches it back.

SAUL. Ah, but you see, she spends an awful lot of time licking unpalatable objects in public toilets, so I wouldn’t dream of asking –

PERCHIKfirmly takes the ladle back.

PERCHIK. It’s fine! I shouldnay’ve made such a fuss in the first –

PERCHIKladles out a spoonful of stew. The glasses are sitting on top. There is a pause as the three of them stare at the object.

SAUL. The riots are quiet tonight, don’t you think?

PERCHIK. Saul? Where did these come from?

SAUL. This blasted heat, I find it very draining. Don’t you, Vanessa?

PERCHIK. Are they yours?

VANESSA. Saul has excellent vision.

SAUL. Shut up, wife.

PERCHIK (toVANESSA). They’re no’ yours, are they though?

VANESSA. I should think not.

SAUL. I don’t care for what you’re insinuating.

PERCHIK. I’m not insinuating nothing.

SAUL. I offer you my pot and you start fishing out bits of old junk.

VANESSA. Calm down, Saul –

SAUL. I will not! There’s one thing I can’t abide and that’s fussy eaters!

PERCHIK. I just wondered what a pair of glasses was doin’ in your stew.

SAUL. Waste not want not, Perchik. ‘Dig for Victory’ etcetera etcetera.

PERCHIK. Whose are they, Saul? Are they – They’re not – Jesus.

The penny drops. Beat.VANESSAsuddenly sobs loudly.

They’re Frankie’s. Aren’t they, Saul? Saul?Saul?

SAUL. I did not ask for the Spanish Inquisition, Perchik! (Beat.) But seeing as you ask… I thought it a shame that such a… serendipitous bounty should go to waste.

Pause.SAULpolishes his cutlery intently.VANESSAstifles her sobs.

PERCHIK (quietly). How did he get in the cement mixer, Saul?

VANESSA. It was an accident. Wasn’t it, Saul! A tragic twist of fate!

PERCHIK. Saul?

SAUL. I told you. He fell.

PERCHIK. Yeah, butwhy? People don’t just –

SAUL. We were laying foundations. I stumbled over a spade young Frankie had carelessly left lying on the floor.

PERCHIK. And?

SAUL. And what?! And I may have knocked him with my elbow in my attempts to steady myself! Alright!

Beat.

VANESSA. But – you said that it was an accident. You said hefell.

SAUL. He did fall.

VANESSA. But… you pushed him.

SAUL. I… manipulated his centre of gravity, yes. Accidentally.

PERCHIK. And then he fell.

SAUL. I can’t be held responsible for his trajectory thereafter.

VANESSA. But you pushed him.

SAUL. Don’t be so naive, Vanessa. He had a terrible life. Terrible.

VANESSA. He was happy here, Saul.

SAUL. Worked his arse off –

VANESSA. We used to sing together –

SAUL. And for what? For a pittance! And you remember that disgusting acne –

VANESSA. It was characterful.

SAUL. It was pus-ful. His life was a waste of harvestable organs.

VANESSA. But you told me he fell.

SAUL. I was trying to spare your feelings. It wasn’t my fault.

PERCHIK. But you pushed him.

VANESSA. He loved it here.

SAUL. Course he did.

VANESSA. Called me ‘Mamma Vanessa’.

SAUL. Better than the godforsaken rathole he came from.

PERCHIKbegins to edge away from the table.

VANESSA. Fitted in well.

SAUL. Forty degrees in the shade and women with hairy armpits.

VANESSA. Like it was his home.

SAUL. WELL, IT WASN’T HIS HOME, WAS IT!

Still looking atVANESSA,SAULstabs his fork intoPERCHIK’s leg and holds it there.PERCHIKyelps then writhes in silent agony.VANESSAweeps quietly.

VANESSA. I thought… I thought it was an accident… Poor Frankie…

SAUL (conversationally). My wife has a very sensitive disposition. As a young girl she used to cry at compost heaps.

VANESSA. I did not. Last time I cried was when me mum died.

SAUL. You’re awful talkative tonight, wife. Come here.

He lets go of the fork, grabsVANESSA’s wrist and pulls her onto his lap.PERCHIKpulls the fork out of his leg with relief, and breathes deeply.

I think the pair of you are forgetting who holds the matches here. Discipline, Perchik, is the cornerstone of any Empire. I find the old methods remain the best, over time.

He turnsVANESSAover on his knee, pulls up her skirt and pulls down her knickers.

VANESSA. Saul!

SAUL. Now, Perchik, give it a smack, she won’t feel it, it’s like donkey hide. The whole region is like donkey hide. The meaning of that simile is that my wife’s nether regions have no sensation. The result of years of overuse, eh, my flower?

He smacks her, hard. She struggles, trying to cover herself.

VANESSA. Ow! Saul, stop it, not in front / of him, please – Saul!

SAUL. Have a go. It’s great fun.

PERCHIK. No, thanks all the same.

SAUL. No?

PERCHIK. … Nah. You’re alright.

SAUL. Do you have any testicles, Perchik? Or do you just view them as useful if inconveniently located paperweights?

PERCHIK. I jus’ don’t think it’s – appropriate.

SAUL. Nonsense! Come over and give her a smack now! Plant it rightthere.

He smacks her again to indicate the spot.PERCHIKcrosses to them. He stands for a moment, raises his hand, then leans over and softly kissesVANESSA’s bottom.

Eh? What’s all this? Who said you could kiss my wife’s arse?

PERCHIK. You did.

SAUL. I did not!

PERCHIK. I must have misunderstood. You should give your invitations more clarity in future.

SAUL (disbelieving). I should what? You little –

PERCHIK. A slip of the tongue, a flawed e-nun-cia-tion. Can send the whole meaning of your sentence into chaos.

SAUL. You… you… get in the van. We’re going for a drive.

Beat.SAULthrowsVANESSAoff his lap and grabsPERCHIK.

PERCHIK. Ay? Where we going?

SAUL. Calais.

PERCHIK. I don’t want to go to Calais.

SAUL. No onewantsto go to Calais. Even people wholivein Calais don’twantto go to Calais. It’s a stinking grey mudbank reeking of pilchards. It would be like wanting to wear a syphilitic streetwalker’s knickers as a sunhat. But nonetheless, we’re going.

VANESSA. Don’t hurt him, Saul, he didn’t mean anything by it.

SAUL. Who said anything about hurting him? I didn’t.

VANESSA. But you said you were taking him / to Calais.

SAUL. Yes. Calais was mentioned, hurting him was not. Vanessa’s confused, Perchik, perhaps my enunciation was flawed.

PERCHIK. Perhaps it was.

SAUL. Are you trying to be clever?

PERCHIK. No. Not trying.

SAUL. You ungrateful little – !

Suddenly there’s a banging at the door. All three start.

DETECTIVE PRAWN (off). This is Detective Prawn. Open up!

VANESSA. They know, Saul! About Frankie! Oh God! I can’t – I / can’t breathe!

SAUL. Don’t get hysterical, wife.

DETECTIVE PRAWN (off). I can hear you in there!

SAUL (panicking). Just coming, Detective! Get the door, Perchik. Quickly!

PERCHIK. You’ve got to be kidding?

SAUL. Oh yes! I look like I’m in a puckish mood, do I?

PERCHIK. What I meant was, if I do, that they’ll come in here and – you know.

SAUL. Of course they won’t.

PERCHIK. Oh no? And what makes you think that?

SAUL. Because I won’t tell them who you are, you fetid little arse-kisser! Now get the blasted door before I decide to introduce you as Colin the paedo cop-killer!

PERCHIKflings open the door. As he does,VANESSAnotices Frankie’s glasses.

VANESSA. The spectacles, Saul!

SAULpanics, then puts the spectacles on. Gravy drips down his face.DETECTIVE PRAWNenters.

DETECTIVE PRAWN. Who’s in charge of this establishment?

SAUL. Hello. This is my shop. This is my wife. And this is… Um…

VANESSA.Francesco. Frankie.

SAUL. Yes! Very good, wife. This is Frankie, my – Frankie. He’s Italian.

PERCHIKthrows a panicked look atSAUL, then smiles.

PERCHIK. Er… Ciao, bella!

DETECTIVE PRAWN. I’ve not got time for ‘Ciao, bellas’! A dangerous painter is on the loose!

SAUL. The worst kind! Perhaps we can help. What does he look like?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. He looks… like a painter.

VANESSA. Which one?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. All of them.

VANESSA. All of them?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. What I mean to say is that he has a generic artisticcountenance. (Beat.) You know. Shifty.

VANESSA. But why would you think he’s here?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. We have intelligence to suggest that he hitched a lift from London and arrived at a landfill site here in Bradford at around four-thirty this afternoon.

VANESSA. How do you know it was him?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. The car that he flagged down was an unmarked police car driven by my Superior, DCI Swann. It seems this ‘artist’ is an exceptionally stupid character.

VANESSA. But why didn’t DCI Swann arrest him?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. He’s not too bright either.

SAUL. I’m sorry, Detective. We’ve not seen anyone of that description, but of course we’ll let you know if… What?

SAULstops.DETECTIVE PRAWNis staring at him.

DETECTIVE PRAWN. Umm… there’s gravy on your face, sir.

SAUL. Sorry?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. There’s gravy.

SAUL. Where?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. On your face.

SAUL. Oh.

Beat.

DETECTIVE PRAWN. Why is there gravy on your face, sir?

SAUL. Why is there gravy on my face? Why is there gravy on my… What anexcellentquestion, the reason is – The reason, I mean to say –

PERCHIK. It’s our custom, Officer.

DETECTIVE PRAWN. What?

PERCHIK. Er – I mean… it’sa oura customa! Ciao, bella!

SAUL. Yes! Very good, P… Frankie! Our custom! A silly little custom of ours. If we’ve had an exceptionally good meal, to, ah – show our appreciation we put – um –

DETECTIVE PRAWN. Gravy on your face, sir?

SAUL. Exactly!

DETECTIVE PRAWN. I see. You must waste a lot of gravy.

SAUL. Not really. My wife is a very mediocre cook.

DETECTIVE PRAWN. I’m sorry. You, er – You mind if I have a taste?

He picks up the ladle,VANESSAswipes it off him.

VANESSA. Won’t you spoil your dinner, Detective?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. Oh no. Mrs Prawn has recently become a freegan.

VANESSA. A freegan?

DETECTIVE PRAWN. She’ll only eat food out of skips. Ecologically it’s very sound, but I can’t say it’s not damaged our standing on Bradford’s dinner-party circuit. You mind?

He takes the ladle fromVANESSAand ladles out some stew.

SAUL. No!

VANESSA. No!

PERCHIK. No… -a!

Sitting on top of the ladle is a flip-flop.

DETECTIVE PRAWN (staring down).What the hell is this?

SAUL. It was an accident!

VANESSA. He fell!

Silently,SAULtakes a cricket bat from behind the counter, creeps behindDETECTIVE PRAWN