BU21 Read online

  Then fuck off, you’re being a twat –

  Because to cope, you’ve got to become a creature that’s no longer fully human.

  (Snaps out of it.) Doing well at work, you know?

  Everybody’s fucking caning it now, after the initial crash – (Hollow laugh.)

  Stock-market crash.

  Massive growth in construction and infrastructure firms, defence procurement, lawyers and other allied professional-services entities, healthcare – the list goes on and on.

  And, as Baron Rothschild said, ‘When there’s blood in the streets, buy property.’

  Quite literally.

  Everybody’s making a killing, you know?

  Sorry.

  And, to be even more brutal about it, a lot of bankers died in Fulham, so my promotion prospects are, you know – ‘rosy’.

  So actually, today, I’m kind of in a much better position than I was before. I’m totally beasting it.

  Lucky me.

  Anyway, back to Floss.

  Scene Three

  The chairs are gone, we’re in another space on the stage.

  CLIVE. So I ran down the King’s Road, trying to find Florence.

  And I was bashing into people, tapping these random girls on the shoulder –

  So it turns out that trying to find a posh blonde girl on the King’s Road is literally fucking impossible – they all look identical from the back – skinny jeans, ponytail, gilets – I don’t even know how they tell each other apart.

  But I couldn’t find her.

  And I had to find her – because when I’d gone to the inquest, my dad’s inquest, she was there, giving evidence.

  My dad died in her back garden, you see.

  And because of that I knew her address and her name, and I just found out from her Facebook that she came to these PTSD things here – and I –

  I wasn’t going to tell her all that, obviously – because that sounds fucking stalkery –

  Which I’m not – well –

  I was going to tell her that it was all more coincidental than that.

  But she told the story in the inquest so beautifully, with so much compassion and tenderness –

  More tenderness than I was ever able to have with my dad, you know?

  I don’t know what I wanted, but I kind of knew that I had to talk to her.

  And I knew that somehow, us meeting was fated.

  Divine providence.

  FLOSS. So I’m in my street, just getting to my house, and fuck’s sake, if it’s not the effing corpse again, running down the road like a – you know – bat out of hell or something.

  The days you’re out without your crucifix and your stake, you know?

  But this time I was just like – fuck it. I was sick of it. I just was like –

  (To CLIVE.) Come on then. If you want a piece of me, here I am, you know?

  CLIVE (to FLOSS). I’m sorry?

  FLOSS (to us). And I kind of looked at him, and I was kind of confused because it was Sunny and it kinda wasn’t.

  And he was totally going to say something – he was all – (Poised to speak.)

  And then he kind of wimped out, and almost turned around to go –

  And then all of a sudden he just blurted out –

  CLIVE (to FLOSS). I’m sorry I was chasing you. I’m really not a psycho, it’s just my dad died in your garden and I kind of wanted to see where he – but if that’s, like, not convenient… Sorry.

  FLOSS (to CLIVE, bewildered). Fuck.

  CLIVE (quietly, apologetically). I’m really not a psycho.

  FLOSS (to us). So, as a general rule, I find that if a stranger opens a conversation with ‘I’m really not a psycho – ’ best thing is normally to run for the hills because they’re total batshit, but – I’ve never been any good at following advice, especially my own.

  She sizes him up.

  (To CLIVE.) Fuck it, do you want to come in and have some coffee?

  CLIVE (to us). And that was it – the mood just – thawed – she let us in, with her keys on this key ring with a panda on it – it was enormous – oil paintings, massive bookshelves, dozens of invitations on the mantelshelf –it was fucking amazing.

  And I thought back to Dad’s house in High Barnet – the new furniture, the electric gate, the massive flat-screen TV, and I was suddenly mortified by how nouveau riche we were – like it was kind of gauche that my dad, the Pakistani immigrant, died in her garden – I can’t explain it.

  Fuck it –

  And we went in, and she took me to the garden.

  FLOSS (to CLIVE). So, here we are.

  CLIVE. Yes. Was it here?

  FLOSS. More, kind of, here.

  CLIVE. Oh.

  FLOSS. Although there was some there too.

  (Apologetically.) Shit, sorry.

  CLIVE. No worries.

  FLOSS. You could kind of see more where it was before, but my father had the wall repainted and a chiminea put over the hole left by the seat.

  CLIVE. Yeah. You’d kind of have to do that, wouldn’t you – tidy everything up. Get things back to normal –

  FLOSS. It wasn’t like that – Dad, he just –

  CLIVE (with difficulty). Look. I just wanted to say sorry on behalf of the whole family for all the trouble it caused you.

  FLOSS (to us). And the guy’s dad was dead, and all he wanted to do was apologise for the mess. The sweet, sweet little fucker. And I was all like –

  (To CLIVE.) Don’t be ridiculous. Honestly, it was no trouble at all –

  (To us.) And then I wanted to just die – ‘it was no trouble’ – what a massive tool – like it was his dog that shat in the garden rather than –

  (To CLIVE.) Let’s move the chimenia so you can see properly – if you want?

  CLIVE. I’d like that.

  FLOSS. Look, here, let me –

  She offers to move it, bending down in the process.

  CLIVE. No, seriously, let me. It looks heavy.

  FLOSS. We can do it together?

  CLIVE. No, seriously, I can manage if – I don’t want you to fuck your back –

  FLOSS. Quite.

  (To us.) And it was sort of getting to be this weird Mexican standoff –

  (To CLIVE.) I’ll go and make some coffee, yeah?

  CLIVE. Thanks.

  She leaves.

  (To us.) What the fuck do I do now?

  (Looks around.) I’m not going to move that fucking chimenia, for starters.

  I didn’t want to seem like a pussy in front of her – but fuck me, I’m as weak as a kitten at the best of times, man –

  And this is the place where my dad died – and the only thing I can think of is that when she bent over I definitely saw her bra strap –

  And I looked at the spot in the ground where Dad died, and I bent down and I touched it, because I sort of thought that’s probably what you should do in this sort of situation – sorry, Dad – I didn’t have a plan, you know –

  (Does this.)

  And then I was a bit like, okay, I thought that would be a bit more, like, poignant and moving, but it’s just some grass and – (Takes a deep breath.)

  Bye, Dad. I’m glad I saw this place. I feel closer to you here than I have for a long time.

  I know we didn’t always get on, but I fucking loved you, okay?

  FLOSS returns.

  FLOSS (to us). And when I came back he was just looking so lost – and kind, like his dad –

  And I thought about telling him about Sunny, and how kind he looked as he died, but I couldn’t, and then we sort of looked at one another, and neither of us knew what to say, so I told him that he could come back to the garden whenever he wanted, of course he could –

  CLIVE. I don’t even know what I was thinking – I just had this rush of blood to the head I guess.

  It’s just that, all of a sudden, after months of being so fucking unhappy, I suddenly felt joy and happiness surging back into my broken fucking heart – and I sudden
ly understood: love is the answer to everything, the cure for everything, the meaning of everything –

  I felt free. For the first time in my life – and it was glorious, man. It was what I’d always lacked.

  But I should never have tried to kiss her.

  He goes for the lunge.

  FLOSS. When you’re about to kiss a boy there are two basic questions –

  One: Do you fancy him?

  Two: Is now a good time?

  The guy was doing so-so on being hot –

  And – when you’re so depressed you’re not going out of the house, you kinda stop shaving your legs – so it wasn’t a great time –

  But to this I’ll add a third:

  Three: Does he precisely resemble a corpse from your nightmares?

  And it was mostly the third point – ‘the corpse protocol’ – that I really wasn’t going to let slide, to be honest.

  So he was leaning over, like that – (Mimes somebody wanting to be kissed.)

  And I was like:

  (To CLIVE.) What the fuck?’

  CLIVE (crushed). I’m so sorry. I should go.

  FLOSS. It’s not you, it’s – (Points at the ground.)

  You know?

  CLIVE. Of course.

  FLOSS (to us). And he looked at me with this despair – and there’s been quite enough of that shit going down in this city already, you know?

  And I was sad and vulnerable – probably the most vulnerable I’d ever been – and I kinda wasn’t thinking straight – but I kinda knew I really had to get the images of Sunny out of my fucking head, and maybe this – maybe this would help me exorcise them – who knows – maybe I just deserved to live a normal life again now – and maybe this would help –

  But you know what? There are times in your life where you’ve just got to not think, just fucking – commit –

  And then I just kissed him.

  Fuck it.

  She does.

  Scene Four

  ANA alone in her wheelchair.

  ANA. Three months later, and I’m not getting any better. Physically, a little. Here – (Points to her head.)

  Far worse.

  I’ve stopped going to the group.

  They tell you to discuss, to share, to ‘have a dialogue’ – but nobody who is suffering has a dialogue, ever.

  Suffering isolates you from the world. It doesn’t bring people together. How could it?

  If you don’t believe me, try putting your hand in the flames of a lighter, and then attempting to think about anything else than the pain.

  Yes?

  In the group, it was just people talking to themselves about their own suffering – caught up in their own pain to the complete exclusion of anybody else – monologue after monologue.

  Suffering makes you so selfish – and I hate being selfish, but I can’t stop suffering. So what can I do? What’s the solution?

  So today I went downstairs, but all the food in the fridge was rotten, the bread had mould on it – I hadn’t gone out for twelve days by this point, probably, maybe two weeks – and I just knew that the only thing more rotten than any of this food – and more fit for the bin – was me.

  And there were these Moshi Monsters yogurts in the fridge, and usually they made me smile – the ridiculous faces on them – you know – but today, I didn’t feel anything –

  And the sink was full of washing up, but I just couldn’t –because nothing had any value, or purpose, or even emotion. Everything was just flat.

  And I looked at my life, calmly and clearly. I weighed up the pain and the effort it cost me, versus the pleasure and the happiness I gained from it. And the outcome was clear. Mathematically clear.

  My life simply wasn’t worth living any longer.

  GRAHAM bounds onto the stage, full of purpose.

  GRAHAM. So I’ve got this amazing sense of purpose, these days.

  I’m so fucking pumped up.

  Basically, I got the idea a couple of weeks back. Whenever I saw my friends I started to notice that they almost always avoid mentioning BU21. Like it never happened. Which is fucking weird.

  It’s English, isn’t it? Brush it under the carpet, you know –

  If you walked down the street with a fucking unicorn’s horn sticking out your forehead, everybody would be like –

  (English embarrassment.) Ah – oh, look – what lovely roses!

  It’s not malicious, they’re just trying to not bring up painful shit.

  But it’s like the most important event in my life just increasingly is edited out of my life.

  Fuck that. That’s why I’m writing the book.

  Ta da! BU21: The Survivors’ Stories.

  I was asked to do it – it wasn’t, like, from me – my agent said there were like twenty publishers fighting for my story.

  But I don’t want to focus just on my story.

  I mean, I’m at the centre of it, but –

  So what I’m also doing is doing little vignettes of other peoples’ experiences too, you know?

  And the PTSD group I go to – there are all these people with all these inspiring stories –

  And every time I go, I go home and write down their stories, for the book.

  Obviously in the book I’ll mask their identities, you know – I’ll call Alex ‘Seb’ or something, and instead of him losing his girlfriend he’ll lose, I don’t know, his boyfriend – give it a more modern angle, you know?

  And Thalissa I’ll change to her sister dying, not her mum – and change her name to like Ellie or something. Maybe her twin sister?

  You know, to mask their identities, and to focus the story a little to make it more – more – I don’t know –

  Not exciting – that’s ghoulish –

  More ‘resonant’ – that’s the word the publisher used.

  Resonant.

  And before I signed up I made it clear that a proportion of the money I get will go to the BU21 Survivors’ Charity.

  Fifteen per cent.

  Which doesn’t seem much – but fuck’s sake –I mean, I’m actually writing the fucker – and I have to be reimbursed for my time, you know – because while I’m doing it, I’m not driving the van.

  Well, there’s a ghost writer who’s doing a lot of the actual wordsmithing, you know – the keyboard-pounding.

  It’s actually the same guy who did all those SAS guys’ books?

  I can live with that.

  You know what else? I’m doing a speech with the Prime Minister next month – well, he’s going to be there – probably – at a rally for the 22/7 Action Group.

  Boy done good, you know?

  THALISSA appears. She looks much more poised, more confident.

  THALISSA. So I’m definitely getting better, I think? Not moving on, but moving. Finally.I’ve always been this irrepressible optimist and –

  So a month after my mum’s funeral we just decided that we’d set up a charity in her name – the Polly Henderson Trust.

  We were sitting around at dinner – my father, sister, and Alex – chatting about it.

  We’re like totally together now, me and Alex.

  Utterly – (Makes suitable gesture of closeness.)

  You know?

  Sometimes adversity really –

  It’s just really great.

  Sorry, I’m probably even blushing and stuff.

  And my sister was all like – ‘there’ve been so many charities set up because of this thing, how are we going to differentiate ours and stuff?’

  And I do charity PR, so I’m well aware – it’s a fucking crowded market.

  You need a proposition that stands out.

  What’s great about our family is that between us, though, we can pretty much sort out anything –

  We have the tools. We have the talent!

  Seriously, though, we’ve got each other, it means we get through stuff.

  And Soph was all like suggesting a charity that would rebuild that nursery on the King�
�s Road – the one that –

  You know – that one –

  But Dad checked it on his iPhone, and there were already three charities just for that one nursery – they’ll live like fucking kings, those kids – sorry – and we were like –(Gestures frustration.)

  I mean, every single fucker in Fulham is endowing something or other – you’re fucked if you can land a plaque on a fucking park bench, these days, let alone renaming a primary school or a hospital ward. Remembrance is getting fucking competitive.

  So in the end we’ve endowed a home for seriously injured owls in Leicestershire – which wasn’t really anybody’s first choice, but it’s a legacy for Mum, you know.

  It’s something.

  ALEX comes in. He sits on the edge of the stage, looks directly at us.

  ALEX. Yeah, ever tried to get owl shit out of a cashmere jumper? Fucking nightmare. Utterly should have wrung the little bastard’s neck, but with owls, their heads go all the way round, don’t they? So it’s a fucker to actually. Wring. Them.

  (Mimes this.)

  They’re all like – ‘is that all you got, precious?’

  (Smiles.)

  Anyway, it was during the ceremony of dedication, so it would have been fucking poor form – I mean, the whole thing’s set up to preserve the owls, not massacre them willy-nilly.

  And he knew it, the little cunt.

  Anyway, that’s not important.

  So, a month has passed since you last saw me, and to be totally frank with you I’ve just nailed a line of gack around the back so from now on, I’m totally, totally focused on the story, right?

  Relentlessly focused on the story.

  Oh, by the by, you’ve only got like fifteen minutes of this left now, so if you need a piss, hold it in, you’re going to be fine –

  And anyway, this is the best bit of the whole thing, by far, so lean the fuck in –

  So, last week, this guy Graham – you know, chav media darling, rabble-rousing-cunt Graham – comes up to me afterwards and asks me whether I’d like to come for a drink with him.

  (Exaggerated East End voice.) ‘Cus I got something facking important to talk to you about, innit?’

  He doesn’t speak like that, but I can’t do the voice, you know.

  And so I say I’m busy, because he’s clearly a stratospheric dick, but he insists – and in the end I’m like, whatever, innit?

  ALEX and GRAHAM arrange two chairs, so they’re sitting opposite one another.