Stenham Tusk Tusk

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-25288-6
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Come on troops. Let's take check: Finn Bar, slightly ruffled but still in fighting form. Maggie, could do with a full night's sleep but otherwise all in order... Stay here. Don't answer the door. I'll go out and get some proper food. In a new flat, three children play hide and seek. Eliot wears a crown, little Finn, King of the Wild Thing's, draws on the walls. Maggie climbs them. Hiding from the world, needing to be found, their one shared focus a mobile phone. Will it ring? Who will call? And what are they waiting for? Tusk Tusk is a tale of family loyalty as an uncertain future circles. Polly Stenham's second play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in March 2009.

Polly Stenham's plays include That Face (Royal Court and the Duke of York's), for which she was awarded the 2008 Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright 2007 and TMA Best New Play 2007. Also at the Royal Court: Tusk Tusk and No Quarter. Hotel premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2014.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stenham, Polly

Leseproben

Act One

SCENE ONE

Early morning. Present day. The open-plan living room of a flat in London. The front door leads directly into the room, as is the custom with town houses that have been divided into two living spaces. There is a kitchen area and a trapdoor that leads down into the basement. Closed floor-length curtains mask a large window leading out to the garden. A further door leads into adjoining bedrooms. The occupants have only just moved in. White moving boxes take the place of all furniture and furnishings with the exception of a large wooden table, a sofa and a dirty light fixture hanging from the ceiling. There is one mobile phone on the table.

The stage is dark. Maggie lets out a piercing scream. The lights go up.

We see Maggie, a girl of fourteen, standing petrified on the table. She is clutching a sheaf of money. As Eliot enters she stuffs it into her pocket.

Eliot charges in, rumpled from sleep. At fifteen he is still more of a boy then a young man, but only just.

Eliot What is it? What happened?

Maggie I saw –

Eliot What?

Maggie A mouse.

Eliot Is that it? Is that all?

Maggie Well, it could have been a rat.

Eliot I thought someone had broken in or –

Maggie I swear it looked at me.

Eliot Shut up.

Maggie Right at me with its beady little eyes. Ugh.

Eliot Don’t be such a girl.

Maggie I am a girl.

Eliot Technically.

Maggie What do you mean, ‘technically’? That I’m pretending? For a laugh?

Eliot No, just –

Maggie ’Cause let me tell you, it’s not a laugh. Being a girl is a fucking mission.

Eliot I’m going back to bed.

Maggie There’s a rat, Eliot.

Eliot I thought it was a mouse.

Maggie Does it matter? Do something.

Eliot Like what?

Maggie I don’t know. Get rid of it. Please.

Eliot Maggie, I can’t even see it.

Maggie You haven’t looked.

Eliot I’m looking now.

Maggie Properly, Ellie.

Eliot Fine. I’ll look ‘properly’.

He pokes around the boxes half-heartedly. While his back is turned Maggie tries to stuff the money deeper into her pockets but some escapes and falls to the floor.

I can’t see a thing. You probably imagined it … oh, hello … what’s that?

Maggie tries to hide the money by stepping on it.

Maggie Nothing.

Eliot Show me.

Maggie Your flies are undone.

Eliot Show me.

Maggie You look like a flasher.

Eliot Give it, Maggie.

Maggie Like one of those weird people in the park –

He yanks it from under her foot and backs away, doing up his flies.

Ouch.

Eliot Fifty quid! Where did you find this?

Maggie …

Eliot Where, Maggie?

Maggie I um … it …

She looks suspicious, rams her hand further into her pocket.

Eliot What’s in your pocket?

Maggie shrugs.

You’ve got more, haven’t you?

Maggie No.

Eliot Show me your hands.

Maggie My hands are cold.

He yanks her hand out of her pocket. Money falls to the floor.

Eliot My God, what did you do, mug someone?

Maggie It’s not that much.

He counts.

Eliot Two hundred quid! We’re loaded.

Maggie Give it back.

Eliot Where did you find it?

Maggie In one of the boxes.

Eliot You genius … let’s get takeaway.

Maggie It’s eight in the morning.

Eliot So?

Maggie You can’t get takeaway at eight in the morning.

Eliot We’re in London. You can get anything at eight in the morning. Come on, let’s have a Chinese breakfast …

Maggie Give it back, Ellie.

Eliot Dim sum yum.

Maggie I’m serious. I want to keep it.

Eliot No way. We’re splitting it.

Maggie It’s bill money, Eliot. It’s not for crap. It’s for emergencies.

Eliot Well, we don’t have any bills to pay, do we? We only just got here.

Maggie Would you be sensible please. Just for a second. I’m better with money, you know I am, and we have to be careful –

Eliot Sensible? You’re the one screaming over a pretend mouse.

Maggie IT WAS A RAT!

Eliot Oh I see. I understand now.

Maggie What?

Eliot No. It’s OK. I’ve read about this. I know what to expect.

Maggie What are you talking about?

Eliot It’s that time, isn’t it?

Maggie Don’t you dare –

Eliot It’s OK. Really. I understand. Things get stressful. Hormones flapping all over the place. No. It’s fine. You don’t need to explain your mood. I understand. It’s nature, after all.

Maggie Put the money on the table.

Eliot Maggie, look, you’ve dripped on the floor. A little splodge of blood –

Maggie Put it there right now.

Eliot It’s like a Borrower’s been murdered.

Maggie NOW, ELIOT!

Eliot I don’t think that’s wise, do you? I mean, you’re probably not thinking straight. Also, you know what they say …

Maggie Shut up –

Eliot You can’t trust something that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.

She pounces on him, he holds her hands up and she struggles, feline, but he is too strong.

Maggie I hate you I hate you I hate you.

There is a knocking on the door. They freeze. They glance at each other. Another knock. Their faces light up. Eliot slowly releases Maggie’s hands. He puts his fingers to his lips. Eliot creeps to the door and peeks through the peephole. He shakes his head. Maggie’s shoulders sag.

Maggie (whispers) Who then?

Eliot The guy from upstairs.

Maggie Again?

Eliot nods.

What does he want?

Eliot Shhh …

The knocking stops. The man appears to have left.

Maggie Maybe we should answer next time.

We can’t avoid him for ever.

Eliot We don’t have to avoid him for ever, do we?

Maggie We could make something up.

Eliot Like what?

Maggie I don’t know, we could say –

Eliot No way. No other people involved. We agreed.

Maggie It might get him off our backs.

Eliot On our backs more like. Did you learn nothing from last time?

Maggie It’s just he’s going to see us coming in and out, it just seems more sensible –

Eliot It’s simple, we’ll go out at night. Like bats.

Maggie What if we went upstairs and introduced ourselves? We could forge a letter from –

Eliot No.

Maggie I just –

Eliot I said no.

Maggie Don’t talk to me like that.

Eliot Will you shut up about this?

Maggie I’m not your wench.

Eliot If I let you keep the money, will you shut up?

Maggie All of it?

Eliot Most of it.

Maggie Ninety per cent of it?

Eliot Deal.

He spits on his hand and holds it out to shake Maggie’s. She looks at him with disdain.

What? That’s what we always do.

Maggie Times have changed. Your spit has become disgusting to me.

Eliot Ouch. Pain. Deep in my heart.

Maggie You have become disgusting to me.

Eliot Arrows tipped in wit. I’m injured. Help me.

Maggie Grow up.

Eliot What’s the rush about?

He flops on the sofa.

Is there any food? I’m starving …

Maggie Sorry, Peter Pan, forgive me. Did I not prepare you breakfast?

Eliot Evidently, wench, you did not.

She hits her own forehead.

What are you doing?

She does it again.

Stop it. You’re being weird.

Maggie I’m punishing myself for being a terrible human being. Obviously making your breakfast is the first thing I should have done. Instead of waking up early, scratching around for cash, and watching my phone. What I should have been doing was rustling you up one of those little trays, with a single flower in a wine glass and teeny tiny pots of jam and a folded newspaper, ever so crisply tucked between the teeny tiny pots of jam –

Eliot I get your point, cut it out –

Maggie And in the tiny space between the newspaper and the teeny tiny pots of jam I should have probably sprinkled some rose petals because –

Eliot You know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Maggie (sarcastic) Really? Is it?

Eliot Is there really no food …?

Maggie There’s some tins and stuff. Stuff we brought down.

Eliot Chinese it is.

Maggie Do we really have to stay inside all day?

Eliot Think of it as...