THE MISSINGAndrew O’Hagan

Draft 10: 1st October 2011

1

YOUNG WRITERApril Fools Day today. April. 'The cruellest month,' eh? I just walked here to find the right street. A bit of a walk actually. Got here the old-fashioned way. On Shanks's Pony. The old legs.

(pauses)I came from the bus station. Right through the mall with all the shops blaring at ye. Colours. Music. People. Living. It's so ordinary around here. Just like anywhere, really. Up there, in the mall, the muzak was playing and I'm walking through it, and the questions you could ask, right, they just grow in your head. The questions just grow in a place like this.

Gloucester. Go there- the editor said- just go there. See what you can see. So here I am.

(pauses)And this muzak is like the news. It has a message, you know? A message that says: Don't Listen to Me, People, Listen to Yourselves.

Christ, this morning it was a total circus round here. The press. They all want something. They want it badly. All the radios are crackling. All the editors are blaring down the phone. And I'm thinking: what is the story they're all wanting to tell? Maybe the muzak up in the shopping mall has more to tell them than the police press officer. Maybe if they wait and say nothing.

Don't Listen to me, People, Listen to Yourselves.

Don't Listen to me, People, Listen to Yourselves.

Don't Listen to me, People, Listen to Yourselves.

2

A woman with a shopping bag crosses.

WOMANIs that shorthand?

YOUNG WRITERNo, just messy. Just messy writing.

WOMANI tried to learn shorthand once, at college. Pitmans. It was hard.

YOUNG WRITERIt's been raining.

WOMANYes, I know. It's been one of those days. Are you Scottish?

YOUNG WRITERAye. Well, I used to be.

WOMANOh, you're funny.

YOUNG WRITERI used to be that, as well.

WOMANYou’re one of the nice ones. Not many of them are nice. These reporters.

YOUNG WRITERWe’re just doing our job.

WOMANWell the locals are making money out of it.

YOUNG WRITERAre they?

WOMANOh yes. They’re charging them to use their loos. They’re selling them sandwiches and cups of tea. It’s like a carnival. It’s disgusting.

3

YOUNG WRITERThere’s a lot of unemployment around here.

WOMANAre you from the Guardian?

YOUNG WRITERI'm not from anywhere.

WOMANYou're from Scotland.

YOUNG WRITERYeah, that’s right, from Scotland.

WOMANIt’s nice up there.

YOUNG WRITERThat’s what they say.

WOMANThis place will never be the same again. The image they’re creating. Well, anyway.

YOUNG WRITERWhat do you think of the discoveries at number 25?

WOMAN(ponders) The discoveries.

YOUNG WRITERThe murders.

WOMANOh don't. I just can't bear thinking of those poor girls. It's just terrible, isn't it?

YOUNG WRITERDid you know any of the girls? The victims.

WOMANI don't know any girls like that.

YOUNG WRITERLike that?

4

WOMANThey should knock it down.

She disappears. A lone policeman is now standing outside the house.

YOUNG WRITERIt's gone really quiet.

POLICEMANIt has, yes.

YOUNG WRITERStrange, isn't it? Quiet. After all the... people and all the cameras.

POLICEMANI've never seen that many journalists before.

YOUNG WRITERI don't suppose there's been a case like this before, round here.

POLICEMANNever. Haven't you had enough yet? You must have a home to go to.

YOUNG WRITERI'm waiting to see...

POLICEMANYou've been here for ages. Can I help you with anything?

YOUNG WRITERNo. I just wanted to see...to see what it's like when there's nobody here.

POLICEMANRight.

YOUNG WRITERJust watching the rain dry. Up there. On the windows of the house.

POLICEMANIt makes you think.

5

YOUNG WRITERIt does, aye. (pause)You don't mind me talking to you?

POLICEMANI have no problem with that, sir. We're not discussing the case.

YOUNG WRITERTo think they - the remains - lay under the house for most of the years I've been alive.

POLICEMANThey were just ordinary girls. Probably nice, too. Like nice girls you could meet anywhere.

YOUNG WRITERAye. And trusted them- the Wests.

POLICEMANIt's not the world I grew up in.

YOUNG WRITERNo?

POLICEMANIs it yours? The world you grew up in, I mean.

The YOUNG WRITER is caused to pause at this.

YOUNG WRITERNo. Maybe.(pause)They're not asking the right question.

POLICEMANWho?

YOUNG WRITERUs. The reporters. We’re not asking the one question we should all be asking.

POLICEMANWhat's the right question?

6

YOUNG WRITERNine young women's bodies have been found, right? And I've checked. Hardly any of them were reported as missing.

POLICEMANThat's correct.

YOUNG WRITERWell that's the question. Why weren't those girls reported as missing? They had lives, schools, parents, boyfriends, doctors, right? And nobody noticed they’d gone, and for all these years.

POLICEMANThey were able to pick them off. They were easy to kill somehow. Nobody noticed.

YOUNG WRITEREasy to kill?

POLICEMAN leans in. He is trusting the YOUNG WRITER.

POLICEMANSpeaking just for myself, mind. Just between ourselves. For talking sake, you know? The young women had what some people call killability.

YOUNG WRITEROh my god.

POLICEMANThat's what you see when you look at this case. These girls were easy to kill. And the Wests knew how to home in on girls like that. The unattached...

YOUNG WRITERThe missing...

POLICEMANThe killable.

YOUNG WRITERNo—

7

POLICEMANThey could come and live here in bedsits and...

YOUNG WRITER...nobody knew they were here?

POLICEMANThey could be done away with.

YOUNG WRITERIf it’s true, how do you become killable?

POLICEMANThat's for other people to answer. That's for...

YOUNG WRITERUs.

POLICEMANDon't quote me on any of this.

YOUNG WRITERIs that what it’s about.

POLICEMANAs I say- it's just us talking.

YOUNG WRITERI want to know who they were in life.

POLICEMANGood luck, sir.

The POLICEMAN disappears.

The set turns into a Gloucester pub, The Washington. MRS. COPELAND, a middle-aged woman, is sitting at a table.

MRS. COPELANDShe wasn't that kind of girl. Not like they're saying in the papers. Not a whatsit -- a stray. A loose...you know. A tearaway. You know, it was a long time ago. 15 years ago.

YOUNG WRITER

8

1979. Thatcher just came in.

MRS. COPELANDThat's right.

YOUNG WRITERThe Winter of Discontent.

MRS. COPELANDThat's right.

YOUNG WRITERThe rubbish bins piled up on the street.

MRS. COPELANDUhuh?

YOUNG WRITERThe first Happy Meal at MacDonalds.

MRS. COPELANDWhat you talking about?

YOUNG WRITERWere you getting on at the time?

MRS. COPELANDLinda and me?

YOUNG WRITERYes.

MRS. COPELANDNot really, to tell you the truth. She knew people we didn't know. She was only 17.

YOUNG WRITERAnd you remember the day?

MRS. COPELANDOf course I remember the day. The day is all I remember. That's what you have to know: if you lose a child, it's like BC and AD -- you count the years before the disappearance and the years after. And when she turned up it was year 15.

YOUNG WRITERAre you religious, Mrs. Copeland?

9

MRS. COPELANDI became like that. I did. You want something to cling onto. Weird, really. Because God shouldn't let things like that happen.

YOUNG WRITERWill you tell me about her?

MRS. COPELANDShe had shoulder-length blonde hair. She wore oval glasses.

YOUNG WRITERYes.

MRS. COPELANDFirst she went to Linden Road School. Then she went to a school for children with learning difficulties...

YOUNG WRITERShe had that.

MRS. COPELANDYes. It wasn't easy for her.

YOUNG WRITERShe needed extra help.

MRS. COPELANDIt wasn't easy for any of us.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

MRS. COPELANDShe didn't have any qualifications. She worked in the Co-op. Linda was...she made things hard for herself. There were these boys she would hang around with. One of them was scruffy. She...

YOUNG WRITERScruffy. They were bad boys.

MRS. COPELANDNot bad. Just...we didn't want that way of life for her. She was 17. That day I

10

came home from work and she had left a note. It said, 'Dear Mum and Dad: Please don't worry about me, I've got a flat and I'll come and see you sometime. Love, Linda.' We never saw her again.

YOUNG WRITERDid you look for her?

MRS. COPELANDYes, we looked for her.

YOUNG WRITERWhere?

MRS. COPELANDWell, we thought she would come back. Young people at that age...you know...

YOUNG WRITERTell me.

MRS. COPELANDThey do their own thing.

YOUNG WRITERDid you report her as missing?

MRS. COPELANDWe tried...

YOUNG WRITERDid you report her disappearance to the police?

MRS. COPELANDWe wrote to the DHSS.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

MRS. COPELANDWe contacted the Salvation Army. We had a neighbour who worked for the police. He said he'd look into it.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

11

MRS. COPELANDIt wasn't our fault. Are you saying that? Are you saying it was because of us?

YOUNG WRITERNo, I'm not.

MRS. COPELANDAt that age -- they do their own thing.

YOUNG WRITERI've checked the files. Linda was never reported as being missing.

MRS. COPELANDI see.

YOUNG WRITERThat's what happened.

MRS. COPELANDA lot of things happened. I heard from somebody she was in Gloucester. It was a flat...

YOUNG WRITERThe flat she mentioned?

MRS. COPELANDIt wasn't a flat. It was that house. In Cromwell Street. She never had her own flat. It was a bedsit. Round there. Cromwell Street. I came to the house and that woman answered the door.

YOUNG WRITERRose West?

MRS. COPELANDRose West. She answered the door. She said she'd never heard of Linda. She told me that. She said Linda had never been there. So many girls coming and going, she said. But you know...she was wearing Linda's slippers.

YOUNG WRITERShe was wearing her slippers?

12

MRS. COPELANDYes. Linda's. I saw them on her feet and I knew they were Linda's.

YOUNG WRITERDidn't you say?

MRS. COPELANDNo. I didn't. I didn't say. I couldn’t think what to say.

YOUNG WRITERThey were Linda's slippers?

MRS. COPELANDThey were. Yes. But...

YOUNG WRITERYou just left.

MRS. COPELANDI left and went home and thought maybe, maybe Linda just didn't want to see me.

YOUNG WRITERAnd you never saw her that day?

MRS. COPELANDNot any day. Not that day and not any day.

YOUNG WRITERAnd you didn't go the police?

MRS. COPELANDSome of us aren't like that. We don't go to the police.

YOUNG WRITERAnd then...

MRS. COPELANDAnd then she turned up years later in the basement of that house. It was Linda.

They sit in silence for a moment.

MRS. COPELAND (CONT’D)

13

You're from Glasgow, right?

YOUNG WRITERI grew up in Ayrshire. Then I went to London.

MRS. COPELANDThey say it started in Glasgow with his first wife.

YOUNG WRITERRena.

MRS. COPELANDWest's first wife and then his baby...

YOUNG WRITERYes. They lived right beside where I was born in Glasgow. (pause) Rena Costello was the exact same age as my mother. He killed Rena and this woman from the same area, Anne McFall.

The YOUNG WRITER crosses to his microphone.

YOUNG WRITERI want to be able to see them.

She looks at him.

MRS. COPELANDOh, you're young.

A lone cello plays. The YOUNG WRITER is alone amidst falling paperwork in the background, a blizzard of paper on the LED. He speaks directly to the audience.

YOUNG WRITERI don't sleep. I just listen to the sound of the trains entering and leaving the station down there at King's Cross. The window is always open.

It's all smoke. Smoke and noise from the station. You come back here to think and listen to the station and write up your notes. And all the time, I'm saying to myself: where is this search for missing

14

persons leading me? I write up my notes. They become sentences, phrases, ways of seeing. Those trains going back to Scotland.

The phone rings. He answers: he's clearly talking to mates in a pub somewhere. A hubbub.

YOUNG WRITERWhere? Soho sluts the lot of you. Naaaaah. Work, mate. You young people just go and enjoy yourselves. That's right. I am my granny. What? No, yer all right, mate. I'm hanging up the phone. Cheerio. Fuck off.

We see a woman standing upstage, lit behind the LED screen. She is catching the images of falling paperwork from the LED screen and ironing the creases out on an ironing board.

(to the audience)These crowds of the missing, like lost souls in the here and now. You sift through the paperwork, looking for evidence of people's lives. The paperwork.

Birth certificate. Marriage certificate.

Medical records. Dental records.

Report cards. School files.

Tax returns. Wage slips.

Prison records. Psychiatric reports.

Phone bills. Gas bills.

Their paperwork stops. And we are all, if nothing else, a manifestation of our paperwork. Missing persons are not only untraceable, but they are cut off from their paper lives. They are not cashing cheques in their own name. Not drawing benefit or earning money through their national insurance number. They have broken the pattern of what is known about them.

15

The police call them Mispers. Missing persons. They are everywhere and nowhere, in the world and out of it.(pause)But when a child goes missing, it is always...it is always... It can only be foul play, an accident, or...a stranger. Mispers. Mispers.

A recorded announcement: we hear Scottish television presenter John Toye reading a news report.

JOHN TOYE“Fears are growing as to the whereabouts of Ayrshire toddler Sandy Davidson, aged 3, who has not been seen since yesterday morning. Police have mounted a major search operation in Irvine New Town, where locals have joined in the search.”

An Old Lady enters, pulling a shopping trolley.

OLD LADY One of them kicked a dog. Did you see? Somebody should bloody kick HIM.

YOUNG WRITERNo. I didn't see it.

OLD LADYWell, he did. Kicking dogs. No need for it. I’ve seen them at it before, these dog kickers. These people who drop rubbish. You don’t get to be a woman of my age without knowing all about people who drop crisp packets in the street. Are you collecting for something?

YOUNG WRITERI'm looking for Mr. Bennett.

OLD LADYIn the flats?

YOUNG WRITERThat's right.

16

OLD LADYNever heard of him. No, just kidding. Number 12. God bless him.

YOUNG WRITERIs that right?

OLD LADYGod bless everybody. Is that not what they say? Are you collecting for something?

YOUNG WRITERNo.

OLD LADYThe television license. Is that it? Have you got that van with you? The one with the thing? I know all about it. The radar.

YOUNG WRITERNo, I'm...

OLD LADYI don't even have a television, so don't bother yourself.

YOUNG WRITERNo...

OLD LADYDon't bother knocking at my door. Have you parked the van?

YOUNG WRITERI'm looking for...

OLD LADYThere's nothing on. That's the thing. You can go through them channels. Nothing.

YOUNG WRITERI've come to interview Mr. Bennett.

OLD LADYNumber 12. Nice man. You see all the televisions going in the evening. Blue. All the rooms.

17

YOUNG WRITERYes.

OLD LADYNone of my business, mind you. Quiet round here. Some of them people never go out.

YOUNG WRITERMr. Bennett.

OLD LADYPoor man. They never leave the estate, you see. Man who lives above me, he died. Nobody came, you see. Nobody for weeks.

YOUNG WRITERThat's terrible.

OLD LADYFound him, they did. Weeks later. Poor man. Mr. Shaw. Wife died two years ago. Survived the war, he did. Round here. The Blitz.

YOUNG WRITERIt was bombed.

OLD LADYOh yes, love. Badly. And Mr. Shaw was one of the whatsits, the firemen up on Holborn.

YOUNG WRITERHe lived alone?

OLD LADYNo, he had a telly. And a license an' all, don't you worry.

YOUNG WRITERWho found him?

OLD LADYThat's what they did. They found him dead, poor soul. What a state. I'll tell you something for nothing, though. You need to watch your van. They tow you as

18

soon as look at you! Those men and their big woolly hats under their work hats. Traffic wardens. Nigerians. They come over here. They hardly know what a car is where they come from.

She disappears just as- stage left- the light comes up on a small working class kitchen. MR. BENNETT is placing two chairs by a little Formica table. A lone cello plays.

MR. BENNETTThe 70s were nice. It was the 80s and 90s was the problem. That's where it started being a problem, anyhow. Billy got in with them taking drugs and that and he got what-do-you-call it -- depressed.

YOUNG WRITERAs a teenager.

MR. BENNETTThat's right. A teenager. He got depressed.

MR. BENNETTThey took him into the Royal Free a few times, to the psychiatric bit, and then he went to stay with his friend. Lowell was his friend.

YOUNG WRITERWas he on the dole?

MR. BENNETTJesus, was he on the dole? They were all on the dole. He was king of the dole. There wasn't any work. Not for them anyhow. He had a date to go up to court.

YOUNG WRITERCourt?

MR. BENNETTThat's right. He stole a pair of gloves. What kinda daft thing is that to steal

19

out of a shop, a pair of gloves? Did you ever know anybody who stole gloves?

YOUNG WRITERNo.

MR. BENNETTWell, he did. And he got caught, silly bugger. Then he goes to Portugal the day before the court case. Lowell drove him to the airport. I can remember the date. It was 19th December cause Christmas was due.

YOUNG WRITERAnd what did he do there?

MR. BENNETTThey say he lost his passport for one thing.

YOUNG WRITERDid he work in a bar, or go to raves and that sort of thing?

MR. BENNETTI don't know about those things.

YOUNG WRITERDid he have a girlfriend?

MR. BENNETTHe was a nice boy.

YOUNG WRITERWhat about money? Could he have stayed on in Portugal?

MR. BENNETTHe was always skint.

YOUNG WRITERDid he borrow money?

MR. BENNETTBorrowed plenty off me. Not that I have any money. You never think about that when you're young, that one day you'll get used to living with no money.

20

YOUNG WRITERWas he on medication?

MR. BENNETTEverything. I'd say he was on everything. Those...Rizla papers. I still have some in the bowl.

YOUNG WRITERHe just went on a plane and...

MR. BENNETTThat's about the size of it.

YOUNG WRITERBut I don't understand. I mean how... Did he get on the plane? Did he arrive at a hotel? Did he never telephone?

MR. BENNETTHe's missing. And nobody has seen him from that day to this. I thought he would have got in touch. When he was a little kid, he'd come into the house, and right away it'd be “Where's mummy? Where is she?” And his mother is a wonderful woman, the best in the world you know.

YOUNG WRITERWhere does your wife live?

MR. BENNETTShe lives in a residential Gospel Hall. She went to God. I mean, she's not a bible-thumper but she put her life into that.

YOUNG WRITERDo you miss them?

MR. BENNETTI miss him, yes. I miss both of them.

YOUNG WRITERMr. Bennett, when you think of Billy, do you think of him as a teenager or as a 25 year old? How do you picture him?

MR. BENNETT

21

I think about him as a teenage boy, 'cause that's how he was the last time I saw him. I can't imagine him as a man. I'll never be happy until I find out what happened to him. I'd be a different person then, I really would. Know what I mean?

YOUNG WRITERYes. I think I do.

Pause.MR. BENNETT

You're from Glasgow?

YOUNG WRITERYes. Well, Glasgow and Ayrshire.

MR. BENNETTThat's where I started out you know. In Anniesland. Tambowie Street. I still think of it. It's probably not there now, but I'd love to see it again. I've not been there since I was a boy but I can remember the dead-end of the street. There was a place you could steal coal; there was a railway there.

He draws in the air with his hand.

MR. BENNETT (CONT’D)There was a close. They called it a close. An arch like that. It's the place where I'd most like to go now. Memory's a funny thing.

YOUNG WRITERRena Costello was from Glasgow.

MR. BENNETTWho's she, then?

YOUNG WRITERHave you seen the news, this killer in Gloucester, Fred West?

MR. BENNETTOh, yeh. The one with the wife.

22

YOUNG WRITERThat's right.

MR. BENNETTIt's her they're after.

YOUNG WRITERWell, this woman I'm talking about, the woman from Glasgow. She was West's first wife. I went to Gloucester to look at the house.

MR. BENNETTDid he kill that woman in Glasgow?

YOUNG WRITERIt looks like he lured her down to England.

MR. BENNETTRight.

YOUNG WRITERAnd he killed her and the child they had together.

MR. BENNETTAwful.

YOUNG WRITERAnd it's on my mind. It starts in Glasgow.

MR. BENNETTWith that woman?

YOUNG WRITERRena, yes. Well, she came from there.

MR. BENNETTAre you saying it all links up?

YOUNG WRITERI don't know.

MR. BENNETTI didn't know anybody called Rena.

23

YOUNG WRITERI know. Of course. I don't mean it links up like that.

MR. BENNETTWhat then?

YOUNG WRITERIt's how we live. We don't just have our own lives, do we? We have each other's lives, too. We're in the world at the same time. And when people go missing, it's...it's part of what happened to us, part of our experience.

MR. BENNETTBilly happened to me.

YOUNG WRITERI'm working it out.

MR. BENNETTI'll never work Billy out.

(pause)You're young. You don't have to live with the sadness. The sadness is all some of us have. We live with it. We live with it every day.

YOUNG WRITER'We live with it, we live with it every day.'

MR. BENNETTYou read a lot of books?

YOUNG WRITERYes. That's what I studied.

He reaches into a cupboard in the Formica table and pulls out a small dictionary.

MR. BENNETTI was reading this. Just to see if I could get the lingo.

YOUNG WRITERCan I see?

24

MR. BENNETTIt's the Portuguese Dictionary.

YOUNG WRITERYes.

MR. BENNETTA complicated language.

YOUNG WRITERIs it?

MR. BENNETTYes. Complicated. I might go to a class some day.

YOUNG WRITERYou just look at the book.

MR. BENNETTI look up words.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

MR. BENNETTDefinitions.

YOUNG WRITEROf course.

MR. BENNETTIt would be good, you know. I'll be able to talk to Billy if he ever...

YOUNG WRITEROver there?

MR. BENNETTOver here. If he ever comes back. I used to go there, when he first went missing. The Algarve. Just to see if I could...

YOUNG WRITERNo sign?

MR. BENNETTNever. But he might come here one day I suppose.

25

YOUNG WRITERAnd you've got the book.

We hear the cello again, as if playing from a distant room.

MR. BENNETTThere's a word in here.

He rifles through the book. Spots it.

MR. BENNETT'Saudade'

YOUNG WRITERWhat's that?

MR. BENNETT'Saudade.' It means, 'to be homesick for somewhere that might not exist.' Like, to regret something and not know...

YOUNG WRITERRight.

MR. BENNETTYou've heard of that?

YOUNG WRITERYeah. In a way.

MR. BENNETT'To miss the past.'

(he closes the book)You can have that word.

YOUNG WRITERFrom Portugal.

MR. BENNETTYes. From Billy.

The interior of a police station. PC CHRIS GARRARD is standing by a table and two chairs. She is placing the chairs for herself and the YOUNG WRITER as she starts to speak:

PC CHRIS GARRARD Is the tape running? Okay. I'm PC Chris Garrard. I've been at Limehouse for more

26

years than I care to mention, the first 15 of which was spent on shift work. I then did five years as a home beat officer on the Isle of Dogs. At the end of that five years, senior management here saw that there was a problem with missing people. A big problem. We were getting so many of them. It was the 1980s. It got much worse in the Eighties. Recession, broken homes, changes in what society meant in this country. And the mentally ill being, you know, 'decanted' into the community. The numbers were crazy and suddenly we recognized this...this new problem.

YOUNG WRITERYes.

PC CHRIS GARRARDSo we decided to have a dedicated officer. Me.

YOUNG WRITERIt's a new job. A new kind of job. To look for missing persons...

PC CHRIS GARRARDNew, yes. Looking for people who somehow dropped out of the community.

YOUNG WRITEROr who were never in the community.

PC CHRIS GARRARDThat's right. Bodies turn up...

YOUNG WRITERWhat do you mean?

PC CHRIS GARRARDBodies, I'm afraid. In the river. It's one of the city's stories, you know. Every year an average of 50 people are found dead in the Thames. Every year. Always around that number. 50 lives you have to piece together. We spend a lot

27

of time on that. You have to identity them.

YOUNG WRITERIdentify.

PC CHRIS GARRARDYes. That's my job. To put a name to them. Many of them were missing people. They turn up in the river and they aren't...anybody.

YOUNG WRITERHow can a person not be somebody?

PC CHRIS GARRARDWell, of course, they aren't nobody. But we have to work to find out who they are. Who they were. They have no papers. No reports of them as being missing. Sometimes you’re identifying them from body markings. You have to trace it back to the person who did the tattoo. These Mispers, many of them, they don't have wallets, you see. They don't have that sort of thing. Some are nameless.

YOUNG WRITERNot nameless. They started off...

PC CHRIS GARRARDBut nameless at the end. Think about it: they make up a name, they aren't in situations where people know anything about them. Sometimes for years. They become sort of invisible.

Sometimes it's the clothing. You trace them back by finding evidence of who they were by what they were wearing. Difficult. Clothes go from person to person. Charity shops and so on.

Or jewellery. You find these people and they were obviously married at one time. You look at them and think, 'there but for the grace of God', you know? It could be any of us. It really could.

28

Just by taking the wrong turning in life. Bad luck.

YOUNG WRITEROr a bad start in life.

PC CHRIS GARRARDA woman turned up in the river two weeks ago. Very sad case. Down by the Hungerford Bridge. She had nothing on her, not a penny. No markings. Nothing. Not a thing on her to give you a clue who she was. But in her pocket there was a small pair of babies' shoes. That was all.

YOUNG WRITERJesus Christ.

PC CHRIS GARRARDThat was all. Just the shoes. And we've been working hard to match her up. This poor missing person. God knows what her story was. God knows. To end up like that. We all have a story, don't we?

YOUNG WRITERI hope so.

PC CHRIS GARRARDYes. But this woman had left no trace of herself. Except the shoes, the little red shoes in her pocket. Just terrible. Heartbreaking, really.

YOUNG WRITERAnd what happens with the people from the river, if you just don't ever find out who they were? What happens then?

PC CHRIS GARRARDThere's always a few of those a year. That's the saddest thing of all. We had one a while ago, a man, maybe 60-something. We pulled him out of the river and spent months trying to trace him. But he wasn't anybody we could identify. In the end, he went into an unmarked grave behind King's Cross. That day, it was just me and a social worker

29

and the priest. Hard to believe. We were lucky to get the priest. It only took a minute. The priest couldn't even say his name at the grave. He didn't have a name.

They pause. PC CHRIS GARRARD (CONT’D)

But you could look at the history of it. As I say it's a hidden story. After the war, it happened much less. You know, with the welfare state and all that. But recently...

YOUNG WRITERIt's getting worse?

PC CHRIS GARRARDI think so, yes. Back to the Victorian era. To Stanley Booth and the Salvation Army. They set up a service to look for missing girls in London. It's like that all over again. It’s easy for certain people to disappear.

We hear a low tone, and the sound of numbers counting down. The YOUNG WRITER is clearly affected.

VOICE69, 68, 67, 66, 65, 64…

PC CHRIS GARRARDWould you like a glass of water?

YOUNG WRITERNo, I'm fine. I'm okay.

PC CHRIS GARRARDYou're not used to this kind of work.

YOUNG WRITERNo.

PC CHRIS GARRARDYou feel a personal connection?

YOUNG WRITERWhen I was a child…

30

PC CHRIS GARRARDIn Glasgow.

YOUNG WRITERIn Ayrshire.

PC CHRIS GARRARDRobert Burns country.

YOUNG WRITERThat's right. I grew up there. A boy went missing from my estate.

PC CHRIS GARRARDReally?

YOUNG WRITERSandy Davidson. They never found him. I’m wondering if it was easy for him to disappear.

PC CHRIS GARRARDWell, all I can do is try to find out who they were.

The voice of a LONDON UNDERGROUND ANNOUNCER: “This train will terminate at Morden.”

The scene shifts from the police station to start forming a suburban living room.

YOUNG WRITERMrs. Boxell said I should come to the end of the line, then get a bus outside, the number 93, and I should stay on that, she said, until it reached the last stop. You know you are really out of London when you see a woman being helped onto the bus with her pram; the driver whistling patiently until they were all aboard.

(pause)I'd really forgotten about places like this. The rows of houses; they go on for ages. Then you get this wee clump of shops; then the same houses again, I swear: and grocer-Oddbins-videos-hardware-pub. Ford Fiestas. (pause)

31

Tudor beams. Dead quiet. And the street totally empty.

MRS. BOXELL is sitting on a sofa, her husband MR. BOXELL stands beside it.

MR. BOXELLIt was a lovely day, our wedding.

MRS. BOXELLA lovely day.

MR. BOXELLIt was a lovely day. We lived in Worcester Park before that. We moved to this house just before our daughter was born.

MRS. BOXELLLee was only two years old then.

YOUNG WRITERThat was your son?

MRS. BOXELLYes. Lee's my son.

MR. BOXELLWe came here for the extra room. We needed the extra room.

MRS. BOXELLWe were always happy here.

MR. BOXELLThat's right. Always.

MRS. BOXELLThey had everything they needed. You struggle to get them all the things. To make them happy. You want them just to be able to say...they were happy.

MR. BOXELLSome people would say it was the perfect childhood.

MRS. BOXELLThat's true.

YOUNG WRITER

32

And Lee went to Cheam High School?

MR. BOXELLChatsworth Road, Sutton.

YOUNG WRITERSM3 8PW.

MR. BOXELLYou getting used to this?

YOUNG WRITERWhat?

MR. BOXELLResearch and that.

YOUNG WRITEROh yes.

MR. BOXELLAnd how do you do that? How do you get good at that, getting all the details?

YOUNG WRITERIn research libraries. At Scotland Yard.

MR. BOXELLAn expert.

YOUNG WRITERWell, not an expert...

MR. BOXELLAn expert at being able to tell the story.

YOUNG WRITERYou just want to get closer.

MR. BOXELLWe all want that.

There is a long pause.

MR. BOXELLLee went to school in Cheam. He didn't like it all that much, did he, Christine?

33

MRS. BOXELLHe isn't really one for lessons. Not really. I suppose he's average that way. Not what do you call it -- academic. Not very much.

MR. BOXELLHe was quite into football. That was his thing.

MRS. BOXELLHe is. That's his favourite thing. To watch the football matches.

YOUNG WRITERDid he play?

MR. BOXELLHe played a bit, didn't he? He would kick a ball outside the house or up in the park with his pal, Russell. He didn't have what you would call confidence.

MRS. BOXELLShy, really, when you think about it.

MR. BOXELLBut he became quite a supporter of Sutton United.

MRS. BOXELLHe likes it up there, doesn't he?

MR. BOXELLHe went to the ground. He felt safe up there.

MRS. BOXELLHe feels safe.

MR. BOXELLHe was a bit frightened to go to the bigger matches, say, Wimbledon or that. He didn't like to show his colours. Other boys could get lairy, if they saw your colours.

MRS. BOXELL

34

Yeah. If he did wear one of the tops or a scarf, he would wear it, wouldn't he, but he’d hide it.

YOUNG WRITERWhat did he want to be?

MRS. BOXELLA policeman. Definitely. Doesn't he. Pete? A policeman.

MR. BOXELLA policeman. A policeman. That's true.

MRS. BOXELLI had to keep measuring him.

(pause)He spends...

(she stops, corrects herself)He spent whatever money he had on records.

MR. BOXELLLoved pop music.

MRS. BOXELLYeh. First it was Shakin' Stevens, remember? Then Whitney Houston. Then that one with the red hair, T'Pau. Remember, Pete?

MR. BOXELLI think he would've liked a girlfriend.

MRS. BOXELLHe once took a girl to a Capital FM Road Show. I don't think he knows that many girls.

MR. BOXELLHe was 15.

YOUNG WRITERCan you tell me about the day he disappeared?

MR. BOXELL

35

It was a hot morning, the 10th of September. About half-nine in the morning, we were getting ready to go out.

MRS. BOXELLMy mother wasn't well. I was going to Bromley to see her.

MR. BOXELLYeh.

MRS. BOXELLI was going to take some things over and stop the night.

MR. BOXELLI was off to do a bit of shopping.

MRS. BOXELLAnd Lee was just flopped on the sofa in his pyjamas. You know the way. Teenager on a Saturday morning. You know the way they are at that age.

MR. BOXELLThat's right. The TV was on.

MRS. BOXELLPete asked him what he was doing that day and he just mumbled something.

MR. BOXELLYeah. Just mumbled. You know the way they mumble. Sort of, 'see you later' or whatever.

MRS. BOXELLAnd we went out the door.

MRS. BOXELL presses her fist on her lips. She is distressed.

MR. BOXELLThat was the last time we saw Lee.

MRS. BOXELLWe keep going back.

36

MR. BOXELLWe have to.

MRS. BOXELLWe keep going back to the start.

The BOXELLS freeze. YOUNG WRITER walks forward to the audience.

YOUNG WRITERYou have to keep going back, back to the start. You have to keep looking at the facts and trying to get the story right. After his family had gone, Lee got dressed and went round the corner for his friend Russell. They walked to Sutton, where they spent the morning going round the shops, looking at records and clothes. Russell says they chatted about nothing in particular. They went to McDonald's. They liked it there. Some time after lunch, Lee said he fancied going to see a good match. You know, the football. Russell couldn't go, and he said he was going back home to watch the racing. Russell left Lee in Sutton High Street.

MRS. BOXELLHe left Lee in Sutton High Street.

MRS. BOXELL waits and YOUNG WRITER stands with his back to the BOXELLS. They have become perfectly in sync as storytellers, as if the YOUNG WRITER is talking now from the centre of himself, confident, in possession of the facts. He has become the chief imagineer. He could almost be talking about something second nature to him.

YOUNG WRITERHe left Lee in Sutton High Street.

MR. BOXELLIt was the start of the football season...

YOUNG WRITERAnd Lee's own team, Sutton United, were playing away...

37

MR. BOXELL...in Lancashire. He'd said before that he'd like to go to Crystal Palace, where Millwall were due to play...

YOUNG WRITERCharlton. And Russell felt that was the game he was headed for.

MRS. BOXELLYes.

YOUNG WRITERThat's what Russell said.

MRS. BOXELLThat was the game he was headed for.

YOUNG WRITERHis father thinks Lee would've gone to Crystal Palace Station, believing that was nearer the ground.

MR. BOXELLHe would then have been confused, as the right station for the ground was actually called Selhurst Park.Lee was always quite trusting, wasn't he, Christine. Christine. If someone had got talking to him, and said they'd give him a lift to the match, Lee would have gone with them.

YOUNG WRITEROn the Saturday afternoon, Pete came back to the house with the shopping. He did some work in the garden, then Lee's sister came home, and he made a meal for her. Christine was still in Bromley...

MRS. BOXELLI was still in Bromley.

YOUNG WRITER(to MR. BOXELL)

You went over the road, didn't you -- to see if Lee's friend Russell was in?

MR. BOXELL

38

I did, yes. There was no-one at home. I thought they might have gone to the coast or something, you know -- taken Lee with them.

MRS. BOXELLI was up to High Do.

MR. BOXELLI tried to keep her calm.

MRS. BOXELLI just knew...

MR. BOXELLI rang round all the friends.

MRS. BOXELLI came back from Bromley in a cab.

MR. BOXELLPanic.

MRS. BOXELLThey were looking everywhere.

MR. BOXELLEverywhere.

MRS. BOXELLEverywhere you can think of.

MR. BOXELLWe didn't sleep at all. We'd just sit up, waiting for a ring at the doorbell...

MRS. BOXELLJust waiting.

She weeps. MR. BOXELL

...or the telephone. It was like a nightmare.

MRS. BOXELL sits upright and wipes her face and stares forward.

MRS. BOXELLEvery day, you'd think...

39

YOUNG WRITEREvery day, you'd think...I'm going to wake up and find he's here and none of this has happened. You'd go to his room and he'd not be there.

MR. BOXELLThe police set up an incident room at Epsom. They searched everywhere. Derelict houses, rivers, railways, parks, housing estates. They got one of the footballers who was with Wimbledon to do a thing on telly, an appeal.

MRS. BOXELLAnd then there was the West End.

MR. BOXELLYeah. Another world.

MRS. BOXELLAnother world, the West End.

YOUNG WRITERI know that. For sure. It's as if the West End was made for missing persons.

MRS. BOXELLBut our Lee wasn't typical. He didn't go to places like that.

MR. BOXELLHe was 15.

MRS. BOXELLA lot of them are 15.

Pause.

MR. BOXELLTube stations. River embankments. Doorways. We looked everywhere.

MRS. BOXELLAmusement arcades.

MR. BOXELL

40

Squats. Markets.

MRS. BOXELLNight shelters. Everything like that.

MR. BOXELLThey even videoed the crowds at football matches, hoping Lee's face would turn up.

MRS. BOXELLWe put posters up everywhere. Bus shelters.

MR. BOXELLYouth clubs. Airports.

MRS. BOXELLWhen people went on holiday we'd give them a poster to put up in their chalet or hotel, you know...

MR. BOXELLEverywhere. Everywhere you can think of.

MRS. BOXELLAnd then the press move on. Everybody moves on. That's the worst part. I'd phone up the newspapers. I'd ring them up and ask them to print something. I remember one of them saying to me, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Boxell, but he's just another missing child."

MRS. BOXELLHas it ever happened to you, son?

She turns to YOUNG WRITER with pain in her eyes.

YOUNG WRITER(coming back)

Sorry?

MRS. BOXELLLosing someone.

YOUNG WRITERWhen I was a child, a boy went missing where I grew up. It was a housing estate.

41

MRS. BOXELLYou can't get over it.

YOUNG WRITERNo.

MRS. BOXELLIt grows. It only gets worse.

YOUNG WRITERThat's what I was thinking.

MR. BOXELLWorse if it's your own.

YOUNG WRITERAye.

Light dims on the Boxell's living room the scene shifts to Lee’s teenage bedroom. The YOUNG WRITER sits down the edge of the bedside table. MR. BOXELL comes to the 'door'.

MR. BOXELLShe's making a cup of tea.

(waits)

It's hard to tell you what it's like. It's limbo. If he was just dead, you know, we would be devastated but we could move on. But this thing...Missing. If he was dead we could put a stone on a grave and she'd have somewhere to go. But she just comes up here and she sits and she still believes...

YOUNG WRITERI know.

MR. BOXELLShe washes and irons his shirts. Even if he did come back they wouldn't fit him.

YOUNG WRITERThat's true.

MR. BOXELL

42

It's a museum. She thinks if she changes this room it'll mean...

YOUNG WRITERYes.

MR. BOXELLThis guy phoned up once. He said he'd seen Lee working on a market stall in Brixton. I went down there. I couldn't believe my eyes. He was the double of Lee. I had to speak to him. After a few years you think he might have changed and you wouldn’t know what he looked like. This boy was so like him. His voice was different, though. I was beginning to think maybe I should ask him to come and live with us. Just come here and be our son. You get these ideas, you know. Daft. But it wasn't him.

MR. BOXELL stands up. He walks to the 'door'.

MR. BOXELLCome and have your tea.

YOUNG WRITERI will. Just give me a second.

MR. BOXELL leaves. YOUNG WRITER is left sitting on the bedside table and he bows his head and catches his breath. He finds a book in the bedside table. He reads-

YOUNG WRITER'Sutton are experimenting over these friendlys with new signings. And reserve players looking a good prospect for the future. Tooting played well against us but we were unlucky not to score. An average match.'

Suddenly, a teenage girl, Lee's sister LYNDSEY, comes into the bedroom. She stares at the YOUNG WRITER, in her brother’s space.

YOUNG WRITER Hello.

43

LYNDSEYHi. You the writer guy?

YOUNG WRITERAye.

LYNDSEYYou’re in his room.

YOUNG WRITERHis little sister.

LYNDSEYI’m 17. Mum says you're good at doing research. Police files, that sort of thing. Maybe at getting publicity for Lee.

YOUNG WRITERI hope so.

LYNDSEYIt's a weird thing to be good at.

YOUNG WRITERYou try to imagine it.

LYNDSEYThat's impossible.

YOUNG WRITERYou start by thinking that. But everybody's imagining it. By the end, it's hard to stop imagining it.

LYNDSEYAnd that's what you do?

YOUNG WRITERIn a way, yes.

LYNDSEYLike a lightning conductor?

YOUNG WRITERThat's too grand. But yeah.

LYNDSEYLike a snoop, then?

44

YOUNG WRITERThat's too low. But yes.

LYNDSEYSo, you're clever then?

YOUNG WRITERI don't know about that.

LYNDSEYYeh. That's what clever people say when asked that question. 'I don't know about that.'

YOUNG WRITERYou're the clever one.

LYNDSEYFlattery.

YOUNG WRITERYou don't trust me, do you?

LYNDSEYI don't care, to tell you the truth.

YOUNG WRITERI want to be helpful.

LYNDSEYThey all say that.

YOUNG WRITERDo they?

LYNDSEYThey all say that. Then they disappear.

YOUNG WRITERI understand.

LYNDSEYYou sure? Look. Lee disappeared. It destroyed this family. And you know what else destroys this family? People thinking they can help.

YOUNG WRITERYou don't trust me.

45

LYNDSEYNo, I don't. Don't take it personally. You get burned...

YOUNG WRITERWho does?

LYNDSEYUs. The families. The subject's family, is that what you call it?

YOUNG WRITERCome on Lyndsey.

LYNDSEYYou use our names. You always do that, you tabloid guys, you...

YOUNG WRITERI'm not one of them.

LYNDSEYAren't you? Are you posher than that?

They pause. Stare at each other.

YOUNG WRITERIt must have been hard for you.

LYNDSEYIt's hard for all of us.

YOUNG WRITERNo, for you.

LYNDSEYWhy's that?

YOUNG WRITERWhen Lee disappeared, it meant he would always be the special one.

LYNDSEYLee was special.

YOUNG WRITERYes.

46

LYNDSEYHe is special.

YOUNG WRITERAnd are you allowed to be special, Lyndsey? Is there any room for that?

LYNDSEYWhat are you, a shrink now?

YOUNG WRITERI'm just...

LYNDSEYNo. I never felt at a disadvantage because of what happened to my brother. I never felt ruled by it, until now, when the storyteller came along.

YOUNG WRITERI'm sorry.

LYNDSEYI could tell you all about sorry.

YOUNG WRITERThat's what I was getting at. Your story.

LYNDSEYThat's enough.

YOUNG WRITEROkay.

LYNDSEYWe're not just a story.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

LYNDSEYCan you remember that?

YOUNG WRITEROf course.

LYNDSEYNo, not 'of course’. Say, you will.

47

YOUNG WRITERI will remember that, Lyndsey.

LYNDSEYOkay.

Pause.

YOUNG WRITERWhat was he like?

LYNDSEYHe was like you.

YOUNG WRITERReally?

LYNDSEYA bit like you.

YOUNG WRITERThat’s odd...

LYNDSEYHe loved stationery. Office stuff. Look...

She goes to the bedside cabinet and removes an object.

LYNDSEY (CONT'D)A glass bulb full of coloured drawing pins.

YOUNG WRITERThat's great.

LYNDSEYThat's you, right?

YOUNG WRITERWhen I was younger...

LYNDSEYIn Scotland?

YOUNG WRITERYesah. Absolutely. That was me.

48

She looks round.

LYNDSEYAll this stuff.

YOUNG WRITERAll our things.

LYNDSEYThere's all this stuff...

YOUNG WRITERThat we have in common.

LYNDSEYYeh. Right. People's stuff.

She exits and the bedroom disappears, leaving the YOUNG WRITER alone. He is then joined by the company

YOUNG WRITERYou can't go home again. It's a book by Thomas Wolfe. I read it when I was young and began to look for stories that might shine a light. And I found You Can't Go Home Again. I don't give a fuck about the book, but the title...the title...It has never stopped resonating. YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN.

Glasgow.

Images begin to appear. They are images of Glasgow tenements in the 1860s, the famous Annan photographs, showing ghost-like children in alleyways and lanes, grubby, lost children.

My father's people lived at 86 Saltmarket, right at the beginning of photography. The people in these pictures are my relatives, and they are Glasgow's relatives, people who lived but who always seemed to be disappearing. Like the houses themselves. Like the shipyards. Like the crowds of people that once jostled for space to stand on the pier at Broomielaw as the boats came in, and left again,

49

bound for holidays down the Clyde. Where are those people? What happened to them?

Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Welcome home, to the place where absence makes the heart go yonder. Scotland. Where never being found is a way of life. Welcome back to Scotland. Where the past is manufactured, where history is beautifully confected, and where the glens are cleared and where the piers are empty and these old photographs speak of a world filled with people who must have existed but whom history doesn't record. They have no paper lives. They have no part in the national story. This near-republic of the missing. Who are we when we're not being proud?

I was born in 1968, in Duke Street Hospital. It seems it was a fine year to be new in; everything was changing, and the Glasgow of before was being battered into a new shape. Giant tower blocks, and new housing developments, were rising out of the rubble.

MARION and JEANNIE are sitting on a sofa. These women used to go to the Barrowland. Jeannie's sister was murdered by Bible John.

MARIONHave a wee biscuit, son.

YOUNG WRITERI'm okay, Mrs. Cadder.

MARIONEverybody likes a wee biscuit, sure they do?

YOUNG WRITERI'm fine, honestly.

MARIONWell, as she says: the Barrowland was the place to be.

50

JEANNIEIt was that.

MARIONWhat would the young ones say? The In Place. That's right. It was the In Place To Be. Half the men in there were married mind you. Is that no right, Jeannie?

JEANNIEOh, aye. Married. Giving it all that and taking off the wedding ring and sticking it in their pockets. That was the Barrowland for you.

MARIONThat right. The ladies' men would be out in force. A right laugh, though, eh? A laugh and a half, we used to say. Eh? My god. We had some good times, Jeannie.

JEANNIEWell.

MARIONI know. I know, hen.

YOUNG WRITERCould you just tell me about that night, Mrs. Williams?

JEANNIEYou know they never found him?

YOUNG WRITERBible John.

JEANNIEThat's what they called him. After he got oor Helen. It's hard to talk about. You never get over a thing like that.

MARIONNo.

JEANNIENever.

YOUNG WRITER

51

Just take your time.

JEANNIERight. Well. It was an October night. We left the house maybe about half eight. As I say, it was cold. A right cold night.

MARIONThere was a freeze on.

JEANNIEHelen had this coat, a kind of imitation ocelot fur coat.

MARIONWe were all wearing them at the time.

JEANNIEOver wee black dresses.

MARIONOh, aye. The wee black mini dress.

JEANNIEWe all had them.

MARIONAye. The things ye wore. The daft things we used to put on. And we thought we looked a million dollars, giving it the big hair and the eyeliner.

JEANNIEThe house was in Earl Street. Helen's.

MARIONRight hard up against the Clyde.

JEANNIEYou know, Scotstoun. I went over there to meet her that night and we caught the bus going into town...

The image of a Glasgow street map appears on the LED.

JEANNIE (CONT'D)

52

We jumped off the bus at Glasgow Cross. It was busy.

YOUNG WRITER30th October, 1969: Mist hung around the tops of the buildings.

JEANNIEWe walked up the Gallowgate, stopping now and again to look into the shops.

YOUNG WRITERWhich shops? Which ones?

JEANNIEYou want to know the actual shops?

YOUNG WRITERI would, yes.

JEANNIEWe checked the prices of high heels in the window of Gordon's Shoe Shop...

YOUNG WRITER... at number 64...

JEANNIE...and wandered on, past Lynch's pub ...

YOUNG WRITER174...

JEANNIE...stopped for a wee minute at Bayne & Ducketts...

YOUNG WRITER176...

JEANNIEAnd we carried on, you know, linking arms... Glasgow was like that then -- all shops.

MARIONWe knew them all by heart. Every shop. We were never oot them.

JEANNIE

53

Past the City Ham and Egg Stores.

YOUNG WRITER208...

JEANNIEIt was cold but we weren't in a hurry. We looked in the window of the Pawnbrokers.

YOUNG WRITER...215 Gallowgate…

JEANNIE...and after a drink at the Trader's Tavern...

YOUNG WRITERIn Kent Street...

JEANNIE...we went up to the Barrowland.

YOUNG WRITERTo the dancehall. Address showing as 244 Gallowgate.

JEANNIEPeople were already dancing.

YOUNG WRITERA man called John asked you to dance?

MARIONThey were all called John.

JEANNIEAye.

MARIONThat's what it was like.

JEANNIEThis one was a roofer -- from Castlemilk. Quite a good dancer, by the way. At least he was, you know, sober...no the worse for drink. Most of them were half cut, weren't they Marion?

54

MARIONO, miroculous.

JEANNIEMy sister Helen just stood at the side that night watching them all and smoking a cigarette.

MARIONSometimes watching was just the thing. Just to stand there and listen to the music.

YOUNG WRITERA tall man came up to Helen. She was happy to dance with him.

JEANNIEShe seemed to like him.

YOUNG WRITERAnd they stayed in each other's company for the rest of the night.

JEANNIEHe wasn't the Barrowland type.

YOUNG WRITERHe was 5 foot 10 or so.

JEANNIEHe had nice eyes. He looked reserved and well turned out.

YOUNG WRITERHis suit was brown, well cut, with three buttons.

JEANNIEHis shirt was clean, light blue. His tie was stripy. The thing I noticed was his skin was clear and fresh.

YOUNG WRITERHis hair was sandy-coloured and cropped unfashionably short.

(He turns to MARION & JEANNIE) So he was somewhere, you'd say, between 25 and 35?

55

JEANNIEAye. He mentioned his name… Templeton…

MARIONSempleson…

JEANNIE…Emerson. Or something.

YOUNG WRITERThe music stopped…

JEANNIEWe moved downstairs to get our coats. There was something about him. Something strange. He was the sort of guy you'd see mibbe in like a bank or on the telly. The way he smoothed down his scarf before putting on his coat.

MARIONYou said he spoke wi' a West Coast accent, didn't you?

JEANNIEThat's right. Probably Glasgow, but more refined, know what I mean? I put some money into the cigarette machine and pulled the lever for some Embassy tipped.

MARIONOh, for the coupons?

JEANNIE That’s right.

YOUNG WRITER walks over to a desk in the City Archives. A LIBRARIAN is standing there with records.

YOUNG WRITERI'm trying to find out how much a packet of Embassy Tipped was in 1969.

LIBRARIANEmbassy what?

YOUNG WRITER

56

Cigarettes. A lot of people smoked them at the time.

LIBRARIANYou might have to try the People's Palace.

YOUNG WRITERRight.

LIBRARIANAre you getting close?

YOUNG WRITERI think so.

LIBRARIANIt's a big job. Just trying to reach back and get that information. Things change. People forget. Let me see if I can locate those advertisements.

YOUNG WRITERThat's great. Thanks.

LIBRARIANThe Post Office Directories for the year in question...over there by the shipping lists...they will show you the addresses of these places you're talking about.

YOUNG WRITERBrilliant.

LIBRARIANI've left you the original plans for the Kingston Bridge.

The archive desk goes dark. YOUNG WRITER appears back on the sofa with JEANNIE and MARION.

JEANNIEThe cigarette machine was stuck. I tried it a few times and then this guy, Helen's one, John, got angry, and he demanded to see the manager and said it would be sorted out. And then he said something. He said 'My father says these

57

places are dens of iniquity.' He said that. Like Biblical.

MARIONThat's how he got the name.

YOUNG WRITERBible John.

JEANNIEThat's right. That's how he got it.

YOUNG WRITERJeannie walked down the Gallowgate with the roofer from Castlemilk, and Helen walked at the back with her John.

JEANNIEI could hear them, Helen and this bloke laughing at my back. Then we got the taxi rank beside Lawsons...

YOUNG WRITEROn the London Road side of Glasgow Cross. She said the roofer went for the night bus in George Square. The other one, Helen's one, stuck with them and came in the taxi to Scotstoun.

JEANNIEIn the taxi we just spoke about what we'd got up to in the summer. We told him how me and Helen had gone to the coast...

MARIONA wee caravan at Irvine.

YOUNG WRITER They went under the bridge at Central Station.

MARIONThe Highlandman's Umbrella. It always smelled of fish and chips. Hiding under that bridge out of the rain. Glasgow was darker in those days. I'm sure it was.

58

JEANNIEHe said something about adulterous women. About religion. He said he didn't drink at Hogmanay -- he prayed. I remember we passed an advertising board, you know. For the Evening Times.

YOUNG WRITERIt said 'SEX MANIAC SENT TO CARSTAIRS'.

MARIONAnd you always said he had this look on his face, Jeannie. When the taxi went under the Kingston Bridge. It was only half built then. Cement mixers and diggers everywhere.

YOUNG WRITERWhat kind of look?

JEANNIELost in thought. You know. That kind of look. Away in a world of his own.

(pause)He said something about Moses and foster children. He was adamant that I be dropped off first and all that I remember is waving goodbye to Helen as the taxi drove off. Her face at the taxi window.

JEANNIE puts her hand over her eyes. YOUNG WRITER leans forward and touches her arm.

YOUNG WRITERThe night-service bus on Dumbarton Road picked up a man around 2 am. He didn't look right. A passenger noticed the man's jacket was muddy, and he had what appeared to be a fresh scratch on his face, just under the eye. He looked agitated. He got off the bus just past Gray Street and was never seen again. This man had just left Helen Puttock in a backcourt at 95 Earl Street, strangled to death, naked, and with a used sanitary towel placed under her left armpit. The whole city felt the weight of these crimes. There were three like it. Exactly the same. Women from the

59

Barrowland Dance Hall. The sanitary towel.

MARIONIt was terrible.

JEANNIEI'll never get over it, ne'er I will.

MARIONNever. No.

JEANNIEIt leaves you not trusting anything. I think they interviewed every man with sandy-coloured hair in Glasgow. Every guy, looking for Bible John.

YOUNG WRITERMy mother always told me she recognized that made-up face of Bible John. She knew it, she just did. She couldn't place it.

MARIONEvery mother was like that. They thought they knew him. I mean, there's not that many faces to go around, in a place like Glasgow.

JEANNIEIt was like being...you know...like being a child again. Like your childhood coming back. Being frightened of something and not knowing what it was. You know. Not knowing if the fear would ever go away. Like something hiding under the bed.

MARIONAnd all the men were suspected.

JEANNIEThat's right.

MARION

60

The police gave out cards saying 'I am not Bible John' to men with sandy hair or that, who had been interviewed and cleared, you know.

The three of them wait.

JEANNIEHave you met a lot of people this has happened to?

YOUNG WRITERIn one way or another.

MARIONGod help them.

JEANNIEWe'll always be looking. That's who we are now. The people who this happened to. There's other things. Nicer things in life. Weans and their Holy Communions and that. But Bible John killed oor Helen and we don't know where he is and why he did it. That's the hardest thing: accepting it, that you might never know the answer. There might never be an answer. Only a question. How could it happen?

YOUNG WRITERI've met a lot of people who lost people they love. I say lost them. They disappeared.

JEANNIEIt must be odd to churn it all up.

MARIONOdd for you as well.

(pause)What's been the...you know...the thing that sticks in your mind.

YOUNG WRITERIn London, there's a police officer who tries to identify missing persons. She told me about...a woman who was found in the Thames. They couldn't work out who

61

she was. Nobody missed her. Nobody noticed.

MARIONMy God, eh?

YOUNG WRITERAll she had was a small pair of red babies' shoes in her pocket.

JEANNIEOh, my.

The stage dims and the YOUNG WRITER crouches in front of the sofa. With a small handheld projector, he projects the images of identikit photofit images onto MARION’S face as he speaks:

YOUNG WRITER An Identikit picture. A kit to catch a killer. A picture made up from features that may appear on a mass of different faces; a nose that someone might have, eyes from somebody else, a hairstyle you see from time to time, lips you once noticed on a film star. Until they find the killer, every man in the area who shares one or two of those facial bits will fall under a little suspicion. If they are never caught it means they could always do it again.

JEANNIEIn the newspapers, they quoted from the Bible. Trying to attract him. Jeremiah, 23:24. 'Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him', saith the Lord.'

The living room dissolves and the YOUNG WRITER is centre stage. He watched the LED screen fill with images of housing estates being constructed: archive images of Irvine new Town.

YOUNG WRITERI was only two when my parents decided to escape from Glasgow and all its old, dark places, and come into the light, the world of Ayrshire.

62

VOICESIrvine, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Livingstone, Glenrothes.

YOUNG WRITERIrvine New Town. They built those houses just for us. Housing estates, houses that smelled of fresh cement. Those rooms in our New Town house had never had wallpaper on the walls before. My grandparents’ houses in Glasgow had layers of wallpaper, layers of memory. Lived life. But Scotland's New Town houses were built on optimism, with a new white vision of life.

VOICESIrvine, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Livingstone, Glenrothes.

YOUNG WRITERThe housing estate seemed like a place with nothing missing. We looked on them as places with no past, with no secrets. We felt like the men who first walked on the moon. But it was a set of squares on a housing estate. A Scottish field by the railway line. There was a children's play area in the middle of each square; little clusters of rock and bench and a swing. Underpasses. The ice cream van.

(waits)You can't. You can't go home again.

VOICE65, 64, 63, 62, 61…

YOUNG WRITERIt turned out our fresh new towns were not free of the darker things. The violence of the old city...

The YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHER appears. She is behind the LED screen and is ironing a child’s shirt. Two other figures stand behind her, also ironing.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERWhat violence?

63

YOUNG WRITEROf the old city.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERThat's just something people say. Glasgow was no more violent than other places.

YOUNG WRITERIt was in my mind.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERThat's one man's mind.

YOUNG WRITERHello mother.

YOUNG WRITER’S MOTHEROne wee boy's mind.

YOUNG WRITERYou can make a universe of one boy's mind, mother.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERCan you?

YOUNG WRITERYou can so.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERI know YOU can.

YOUNG WRITERThe world was full of disappearing things.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERLike that wee boy.

YOUNG WRITERThat's right.

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERThat wee boy -- Sandy.

YOUNG WRITERThat's right. Sandy Davidson.

64

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHERGod love you, to start off with something so sad.

YOUNG WRITERI know... They thought he might have been buried under one of the new houses. An accident...Or had...

YOUNG WRITER'S MOTHEROr had he been taken? It happened in other places.

YOUNG WRITERBlue coat. White shoes. The wee boy ran down to the burn with the dog Kissy. It was a warm day and the coat was found on the path. By the river.

VOICE 251, 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45…

YOUNG WRITERThe garden of paving stones. The prefab world. The sound of seagulls on the Ayrshire coast and the smell of freshly planted trees. Remember: you used to work cleaning the local Primary School. The brand new chairs for the infants. The new blackboards. Do you remember?

YOUNG WRITER’S MOTHERI know you can. I know you can make a universe out of one boys mind.

YOUNG WRITERYou used to work at night in that baking factory- The Wonderloaf? Do you remember all that, and the sound of seagulls? Like in the morning? There was always cake for breakfast. When you came back from The Wonderloaf, and we'd been in our beds all night in the house alone.

YOUNG WRITER’S MOTHERIs that how you remember me?

YOUNG WRITERJust us and the new walls. Salt air. Emptiness. And the Council, when we

65

first moved in, they did it with all the young families, remember? Tell me you remember. They tied red ribbon around the bath taps in the bathroom. We were Glaswegians, we’d never had our own inside bath before.

VOICE 322, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17…

YOUNG WRITERWhen that child disappeared my mum went with us through the fields of long grass and the building sites, just looking for Sandy Davidson. There was a woman who was living in Irvine, right next to us, all those years. She lives about 5 doors away from the house where Sandy lived. She was Rena Costello's best friend. Rena that got lost to Fred West. Isa McNeill was her best friend at one time. My mother is the same age as those women. She moved in the same world as them...

(pause) It could've been her.

ISA MCNEILL enters, mopping the floor.

ISA MCNEILLYou'll have to talk to me while I'm working. It's my break, but I'm behind...you don't mind?

YOUNG WRITERCarry on. Work's work.

ISA MCNEILLAye. It is that. Oh Rena. She loved it here. The beach. We would come on day trips. It was like you could just start again wi' yer life, know what I mean?

YOUNG WRITERTell me about her, Isa.

ISA MCNEILLWell. You know Savoy Street in Brigeton?

YOUNG WRITER

66

Aye.

ISA MCNEILLGone now.

YOUNG WRITERThat's right. Fred used to park his ice-cream van there.

ISA MCNEILLAye. O God. He boasted to one of oor pals that when they were building the M8, you know, and all the rubble was piled up there at Cowcaddens, Fred said you could put a body into one of the holes they were digging up there and pour cement in on top of them and that's the last you'd ever see of them.

YOUNG WRITERJesus. You think he did that?

ISA MCNEILLI've no' got a clue. But that's the kind of thing he would say.

YOUNG WRITERYou knew him.

ISA MCNEILLWell, my best pal was Anne McFall and she lived at number 6 Savoy Street, just down from where Fred West lived with Rena. I stayed in Parkhead at the time, right next to Celtic Park.

YOUNG WRITERNext to your team?

ISA MCNEILLNo' really, son. I'm a Proddy.

YOUNG WRITERSo, you pallied around with Anne and then Rena.

ISA MCNEILL

67

Anne and me went to this place, the Victoria Cafe in Scotland Street, so we did. And we met Rena in there.

YOUNG WRITERJust met her?

ISA MCNEILLAye. We became pals. You know. We were young and daft. Smoking and talking aboot fellas. We were always tapping each other. There was this five pound note: we called it the Magic Fiver. It just went from one of us to the other, whoever needed a bung that week got the Magic Fiver.

YOUNG WRITERThen what happened?

ISA MCNEILLThey moved to Kinning Park. Rena and Fred, and I came to live in the house and help them with the weans.

YOUNG WRITERLike a nanny?

ISA MCNEILLThat's what he called me. It was a shame for Rena...

YOUNG WRITERWhy?

ISA MCNEILLOh. He was a bad pig. She always had a sore face.

YOUNG WRITERHe hit her?

ISA MCNEILLNot half. A punch bag. He was a Jekyll and Hyde, that one. He could just turn. He was jealous of Rena. She had this lovely hair, great big beehive, and she messed about wi' fellas. Fred couldn't

68

take it, ne'er he could. He battered her.

YOUNG WRITERBut you all followed him to Gloucester?

ISA MCNEILLAye, we did. Looking back: I think I thought we would dump him once we got there, to be honest.

(pause)We went down there in the back of his works' van. He was working for an abattoir, a disgusting van it was, with old meat rotting in it. And we went to live in a caravan park. But Fred was getting more and more violent towards Rena.

YOUNG WRITERIt must have been scary.

ISA MCNEILLOh, terrible. We used to run into other people's caravans to get away from him. Rena and I had a plan to get back to Glasgow. But Anne had fallen for Fred and she told him about the plan and West went mental. Rena and I left Anne down there with the kids. It was horrible, and Rena cried all the way back to Scotland.

YOUNG WRITERJesus.

ISA MCNEILLI know. And you know what breaks my heart, son? Anne's mother would get these letters from down south, from Anne, saying she was living in a beautiful house with a garden, with this lovely man who had a great job and was taking care of her. I didn't have the heart to tell her mother she was living in a caravan with this...

(pause) And then the letters stopped.

YOUNG WRITER

69

They just stopped?

ISA MCNEILLAnd now we know what happened. He killed Anne. And Rena went down there to see her kids and she never came back either. We were left all those years wondering about them: what happened? Did they work things out? Maybe they were in a nice house somewhere. But they weren't, were they? They weren't in a nice house?

She looks at him.

YOUNG WRITERNo. No they weren’t. And nobody reported them as missing?

ISA MCNEILLWe didn't think, son. You just didn't think in those days about things like that, reporting people and what have ye.

YOUNG WRITERThey found their bones in Letterbox Field, next to a place where there used to be...

ISA MCNEILLA caravan site.

He puts his hand on hers.

YOUNG WRITERYou okay, Isa.

She's struggling not to weep.

ISA MCNEILLJust you saying, 'their bones'. You can't believe it. Those two nice Glasgow lassies. They never did any harm. If you could only see them back then, their hair up, laughing and joking in the Victoria Cafe.

(pause)You know something? You don't get proper tea-breaks in here. If the till's busy

70

you can work through lunch. Some place, eh?

YOUNG WRITERYou need a union in here.

ISA MCNEILL(smiling)

Oh. You're one of them, are you? (pause)It must be strange for you, hearing all these stories.

YOUNG WRITERAye. Well. It's something I believe in.

ISA MCNEILLThat's good. I mean, it's good to believe in what you're doing. Time passes that quickly nowadays.

She exits as we hear the recorded voice of a television news broadcast. Numbers are counting down in the background.

JOHN TOYE“Fears are growing as to the whereabouts of Ayrshire toddler Sandy Davidson, aged 3, who has not been seen since yesterday morning. Police have mounted a major search operation in Irvine New Town, where locals have joined in the search. Sandy was last seen playing near the Annick River with his dog. The dog returned home but no trace of the boy has been found. Police are appealing for information.”

3….2….1…

YOUNG WRITER is now with the POLICE INSPECTOR at Irvine.

YOUNG WRITERI would have these terrible nightmares for years after it.

POLICE INSPECTORAbout the child?

YOUNG WRITER

71

I don't know. About numbers. In my dream the numbers would just get higher and higher and I'd get more upset.

POLICE INSPECTORI see.

YOUNG WRITERNearly every night, at one time. It was like the numbers were going out of control. And the only way to calm down, to sleep, was to count the numbers backwards until I got to zero.

The POLICE INSPECTOR opens the file.

POLICE INSPECTOR My colleagues at the time were nervous of the building sites. The boy went missing at 10.40. The boy's family engaged in a search before telephoning Irvine Police Station at mid-day. Soon after that we had police officers onsite. By that evening: sniffer dogs and divers were deployed. The victim- the young boy- his father was working away at the time. In Carlyle. He came back and we held a press conference.

YOUNG WRITERWhat did he say?

POLICE INSPECTORWell, I have it here.

YOUNG WRITER takes the sheet of paper and turns it over in his hands. Then reads.

YOUNG WRITER'Instinct tells the whole family that Sandy is alive. He has been taken by someone in a car. We can only hope and pray for Sandy, but one thing is for sure: the family will throw a huge party when he returns home.'

POLICE INSPECTOR

72

We put posters up on all the bus shelters.

YOUNG WRITER'Have you seen Sandy?'

POLICE INSPECTORThat's right. School parties went out searching.

YOUNG WRITERWe did that. Our school. There was an atmosphere...like a school trip atmosphere, looking for Sandy.

POLICE INSPECTORI myself conducted thousands of door-to-door enquiries. Nothing.

YOUNG WRITERAnd when do you decide an enquiry has come to an end?

POLICE INSPECTORWith a case like this, it never comes to an end. It's unsolved. We keep going.

YOUNG WRITERRight. What else is in the file?

POLICE INSPECTORWell, there’s something here. We didn't release it to the public.

YOUNG WRITERWhy not?

POLICE INSPECTORWe do that in possible murder cases. Hold something back to avoid copycats and to help identify serial killers.

YOUNG WRITERGo on.

POLICE INSPECTORA witness saw a man with a sky-blue car, a man of 40 years old or thereabouts, 5

73

foot 8, with fair hair -- taking a child about 10.55 and driving off.

YOUNG WRITERDid it check out?

POLICE INSPECTORIn cases like this, things often don't check out, but they don't go away. They become part of a mystery, I'm afraid. Around that time, we got into a sort of panic at the number of missing cases in Scotland. But all these cases remain open. But we'll probably never know what happened.

YOUNG WRITER A sky blue car?

POLICE INSPECTORWe never found it.

YOUNG WRITERThat settles it. He was abducted. Jesus.

(pause)There’s something about these people.

POLICE INSPECTORWhat people?

YOUNG WRITERThe missing. I’ve met so many families, so many officers, people like you, and it all adds up to something.

POLICE INSPECTORYou think?

YOUNG WRITERThey weren’t just random.

POLICE INSPECTORI’m afraid they were.

YOUNG WRITERNo. They weren’t. One of your colleagues, an officer in Gloucester, he said to me many of them were ‘killable’, they were born into a world, into a class, into a way of life, that made it

74

more likely that they could come to harm.

POLICE INSPECTORThat’s a very dangerous thing to say.

YOUNG WRITERIt doesn’t happen to just anybody. The missing are a culture, a people that life or history or Christ Knows…economics – something -- has prepared for the possibility of being lost.

POLICE INSPECTORSandy Davidson was just a wee boy. He came from an ordinary family. It could happen to anybody.

YOUNG WRITERIt happens to certain people. It happens to the people it is likely to happen to. It’s the thing nobody ever says: some people have harmability. They can disappear.

POLICE INSPECTORThere’s none of us safe in the world.

YOUNG WRITERYes, but some are more unsafe than others. Some of these people were born…

POLICE INSPECTORWhat -- to disappear?

YOUNG WRITERIt was never an impossibility for them. Obviously not inevitable, but possible.

POLICE INSPECTORCould it have happened to you? Were you one of them, one of the people born to go missing?

YOUNG WRITERThe planners intended our lives to be something else. A great improvement. A new kind of life for families like ours.

75

They built these new towns and we thought life had finally…

POLICE INSPECTORTurned in your favour?

YOUNG WRITERThat’s right. Life had finally turned in our favour. We would now be the sort of people who couldn’t go missing.

(pause)I might never leave that year -- 1976.

POLICE INSPECTORSandy’s disappearance?

YOUNG WRITERNot just that. The red ribbon the council put on the taps-- it was an illusion. People died in those houses where nobody had died before. Layers of wallpaper grew on the walls.

POLICE INSPECTORThat's what happens.

YOUNG WRITERI know. We filled out our lives-

POLICE INSPECTORAnd our jumpers.

YOUNG WRITERSandy is three. He'll always be 3.

POLICE INSPECTORBut you’re not. Go and live your life, son. This little boy didn’t get to have a life. We couldn’t do anything for him.

Cello music begins. It is sustained, and the YOUNG WRITER watches images of the housing estates of his youth on the LED. He is looking for something.

A lone woman is playing a cello onstage. This is SANDY’S SISTER, the older sister of the disappeared boy from the YOUNG WRITER'S childhood. There is a sense that the YOUNG WRITER has been moving towards her.

76

YOUNG WRITERSandy Davidson. I can find you in my head.

SANDY’S SISTEROh, I hope you can.

YOUNG WRITERWhat?

SANDY’S SISTERI'm his sister.

YOUNG WRITERWho?

SANDY’S SISTERSandy’s sister. You wanted to talk to me.

YOUNG WRITERI feel I’ve been waiting to meet you for a long time.

SANDY’S SISTERWe read about you in the paper. All those missing people, their families. You’ve started something. You’re on a mission.

YOUNG WRITERI lived just up the road.

(pause)Tell me what you remember.

SANDY’S SISTERA wee boy followed his dog down to the water. He was gone for 5 minutes. He's never been seen since. It was 20 years ago. He was my brother.

YOUNG WRITERBut what about the new stuff? There's a new detail. I got it from the police inspector -- the sky blue car. The man of around 40 who was seen picking up a boy that morning...

SANDY’S SISTER

77

That's not new. We've known about it for years.

(pause)I read about you. The people missing in your own family for generations. All those relatives of yours who signed their marriage certificates with an X.

YOUNG WRITERYes. They lived then disappeared. That was it.

SANDY’S SISTERAnd you want to…

YOUNG WRITERI want to give them back the dignity of having been noticed.

SANDY’S SISTERI wonder if you could do that for Sandy.

YOUNG WRITERIt depends what you mean.

SANDY’S SISTERJust to be remembered. We don't even have a grave we can go to.

YOUNG WRITERWe must write about him.

SANDY’S SISTERI wanted Sandy for a brother. I've wanted him for a brother all my life.

(pause)I can’t live for him, or instead of him. But I won’t just sit and take all the terrible things for granted.

YOUNG WRITERThat’s an achievement.

SANDY’S SISTERPlease remember Sandy.

YOUNG WRITERI will.

SANDY’S SISTER

78

Just do me a favour. Keep me out of it. Just say we're looking for a little boy who went missing.

YOUNG WRITERI can't promise that.

SANDY’S SISTERWell let's just stick to the facts. We can go to the cafe. You can write the facts in your notebook.

YOUNG WRITEROkay.

SANDY’S SISTERYou're paying.

YOUNG WRITEROkay.

She returns to playing her cello. The YOUNG WRITER faces the audience. As he speaks he is joined by the company.

Maybe Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Maybe going home is all you can ever do. We come home only to go away again: we go away only to come home.I want to find us, find those children, find the people who live like smears on these old pictures. Rise again. Step into the light, the poor mad people of Barnhill. Show us your face, the lost Irish, the denizens of the Calton and the Gorbals. Speak your piece, the laughing boys of the Gallowgate, the perambulating wives of the Botanic Gardens. Come forward you people of Scotland. All those people. The hours. The men and women at their work and ghosts now in their demolished tenements; the children whose voices were once heard over Glasgow Green and tumbling from the playgrounds of Pollockshields and Cowcaddens. Stand up. Come forward. You children at the back, hiding in shadows. Come back to your place. The people. The hours. The girls of Templetons carpet

79

factory. The weavers of Dundee. The mussel-pickers of Saltcoats. Rise up! The Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders lost in the Somme.Light up. Speak, memory. And let the missing appear, raised at last in the stories we can tell.

There was once a house in a town in a country I knew. When we moved in, the Council put red ribbon round the taps. Like life was a present. There were sunny days. I still remember the Silver Jubilee party of 1977. The beautiful weather and all the kids smiling. Sometimes we went into the fields beside where they were building the new houses, and we ran through the grass. We ran and we ran and you wouldn't believe the laughter. You wouldn't believe how happy we were to be alive in those Scottish towns and getting to know the world.

YOUNG WRITER’S MOTHERLong afloat on shipless oceans I did all my best to smile ‘til your singing eyes and fingers Drew me loving to your isles.

YOUNG WRITERAnd you sang "Sail to me,Sail to me; Let me enfold you."

YOUNG WRITER & YOUNG WRITER’S MOTHERHere I am, here I am waiting to hold you.

ALLDid I dream you dreamed about me? Were you here when I was flotsam? Now my foolish boat is leaning, Broken lovelorn on your rocks.

Hear me sing: "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you.""Here I am. Here I am, waiting to hold you."

80

The light comes up on the desks behind them. There are no pupils, but a small pair of red shoes sits on each desk.

Lights dim.

Curtain.

81