theatre alibi · claire but not sweet things. ... alice she liked red wine, looking in charity...
TRANSCRIPT
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Theatre Alibi
Falling
by Daniel Jamieson
NOT FOR PERFORMANCE FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY © Daniel Jamieson 2015
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(Two women step in front of us holding hands. One is older - Claire. The
younger - Alice - is shy, and Claire isn’t exactly brimming with confidence,
but they seem determined to see something through together and they give
each other strength. Alice gets out her phone and uses it as a stopwatch.)
Alice: Ok… go.
Claire Right. Before the accident Alice was… seventeen, in her last
year at sixth form college, six months away from finishing her
A2s. Art, Maths and Geography. She was doing very well
actually - good grades, good reports and everything but just
generally… flourishing. Very Sociable, very active - climbing
club, college choir… lots of friends…erm… hoping to do
Architecture at Bristol Uni. What else…?
Alice What did I like?
Claire She liked interior design - she repainted her bedroom so many
times I think it was actually getting smaller! And she wanted to
live in a cabin in the woods or on a boat when she was older.
How long have I got now?
Alice 45 seconds.
Claire Ok. She loved living in Cornwall, near the sea. She loved
cooking, or eating to be more precise!
Alice Hey!
Claire But not sweet things. More of a salty person, weren’t you?
Anchovies, anything with bacon in it…
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Alice 30 seconds…
Claire She loved… her little cousin Amelie, loved doing stuff with her.
She loved climbing…
Alice Said that. Round up now.
Claire She was… optimistic I suppose, you know, how you are at
that age. And such high ideals! She wasn’t going to fall into
any of the pitfalls her mum did!
Alice Ok.
Claire Last thing. She was my best friend. We loved pottering round
together. Charity shops, cinema, down to the beach…
Alice Stop.
(Alice gives her mum the phone.)
Claire Ok. Where do I press?
Alice There.
Claire Ok, go.
Alice Before the accident, Mum was forty eight…
Claire Don’t tell everyone that! God…
Alice Her name’s Claire… She was one of those weird hippy mums
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who got their children to call her by name. I used to get so
embarrassed at school…
Claire Come on.
Alice She did Fine Art at Liverpool in the 80s and her and Dad were
a right pair of Goths! Mum said when Gran saw a photo of
them both all made up for a night out she thought it was two
girls!
Claire “Who’s your friend?” she said!
Alice Mum tried to be an artist for a while but then sold out and
trained to be an art teacher instead.
Claire Are you going to say anything nice about me?!
Alice Uh… Mum taught some of my friends and they said she was
the best teacher they ever had.
Claire Really? Who said that?
Alice Shush. I’ll tell you later.
Claire Ok.
Alice Dad left us in 1998…
Claire 99.
Alice Give me a break, I was only two. He went off to work in
America and he’s a photographer now…
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Claire Yeh, it’s me you’re talking about remember.
Alice She still had a studio…
Claire Half a studio.
Alice …half a friend’s studio where she was meant to do her own
work one day a week but she mainly used to go there and eat
biscuits and look at art books.
Claire Twenty seconds. What did I like?
Alice She liked red wine, looking in charity shops, going to the
cinema with her friend Bonnie, going on long walks with her
friend Bonnie…
Claire And with you.
Alice Yeah. She didn’t know how she would cope when I left home.
Anyway. That was Claire, aka Mum, before it happened.
Now we’re going to tell you what happened.
(They put on dressing gowns and slippers, talking as they go.)
Claire It was November the twenty second, two and a half years ago
at five o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.
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Alice It had pissed with rain through most of October and November
and we’d both got soaked on our way home that day. I’d had a
bath and Mum had got in after me.
(Claire dries her hair with a hairdryer. Alice tries to talk to her.)
Alice I’ll make that nice salad…
Claire (Turning off the hairdryer,) What?
Alice We need something fresh to have with tea, don’t we… I’ll
make that nice apple and celery salad.
Claire The apples have run out. You’ll have to get some more in from
the shed.
Alice Oh…
Claire I’ll get them if you wait a minute. I just want to finish drying my
hair first, ok?
(Claire turns the dryer back on. Alice makes a face at her
behind her back.)
I can see you in the mirror you know.
Alice I’ll go…
(She goes off. Claire dries her hair for a long moment, then frowns and
turns it off.)
Claire The house had shivered, like someone had slammed the front
door, only it lasted for two or three seconds.
(Calling to Alice,) Did you feel that?
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(No reply.) Maybe there’d been a car crash in the road…
Alice…?
(Getting up and going to the back door,) How long can it
take to fetch a bowl of apples?
And she left the back door open!
Alice?!
Five o’clock and already dark. Still. At least it had stopped
raining…
(We hear the sliding of earth and pebbles tumbling.)
The sound came from the lawn, but it wasn’t a sound that
belonged on a lawn…
(She peers into the gloom and steps forward cautiously.)
A hole…. a big hole…
(As she gets closer the sound gets louder. She peers over
the edge.)
going down out of sight…
(Added to the sound now is the moan of air rushing
through a constricted gap.)
…with cold air rushing out of it that smelt of damp cellars.
Alice Mum…
Claire ALICE?! ARE YOU DOWN THERE?!
Alice Help me…
Claire OH MY GOD…
Alice Mum?
Claire … I CAN’T SEE YOU! I’LL GET A TORCH…
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(Claire staggers back and rummages frantically.)
God… oh God… where is it? WHERE IS IT?
(She finds her bike torch and fumbles at the switch.)
WORK YOU FUCKING THING!
(It comes on but flashing. She runs back and shines it
down the hole.)
(We see Alice clinging twenty feet below.)
Claire OH!
Alice Help me!
Claire HOW CAN I?
Alice My feet aren’t touching anything!
Claire HOLD ON LOVELY! I’LL BE BACK…
(Claire runs off, leaving Alice hanging alone in space.
Suddenly, Claire runs back to the hole.)
I CAN’T FIND THE ROPE WE HAD LOVE…
Alice Get Steve next door…
Claire HE WON’T BE BACK YET!
Alice I’m slipping!
Claire HOLD ON!
(To us now, but still urgent.)
It was a man over the road who came out in the end, Geoff.
Luckily he had a ladder on top of his van and a halogen lamp.
When he shone it down the hole we could see that Alice was
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at the bottom of a huge funnel in the ground, half swallowed
by a jagged little hole at the bottom. Geoff didn’t hesitate, he
climbed straight down to her, even though the ladder was
sliding all the time towards the hole where she was. Then he
lifted her straight up like a cork out of a bottle, and she got on
his back somehow and he climbed out as fast he could…
(Alice dashes out into Claire’s arms.)
The ladder fell moments after they got off it…
(We hear the ladder falling, falling, clattering down. It hits the bottom with a
boom.)
(Blue flashing lights now.)
Claire An old mine shaft must have collapsed, the firemen said. They
evacuated the whole street.
Everyone went up to the Treleigh Arms which was the nearest
public building.
(They sit, dazed, with mugs of tea they don’t drink.)
We were still in our dressing gowns.
Alice I’d lost my slippers.
Claire That was all that seemed to bother you.
Alice Nineteen ninety nine from Jones in Truro.
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Claire But apart from that and a few grazes you were fine.
Alice It was weird. It was like we’d been to the cinema and seen a
horror film and now we were home again.
Claire Except we couldn’t go home that night because we weren’t
allowed within a hundred yards. So we slept at Bonnie’s… I
say “slept”…
Alice My eyes were wide open all night like this - (She shows us.)
Claire The next day they told us a bit more.
When they mined for tin and copper round here they dug very
deep vertical shafts to reach it.
Alice And this one wasn’t marked on any maps.
Claire Lots aren’t apparently. Not the really old ones.
Alice The man said that when a mine closed they often just blocked
the shafts with wooden beams then covered them over with
earth and rocks.
Claire Of course, these wooden beams don’t last forever. And when
it rains a lot, the ground above gets heavier and heavier ‘til
one day, snap, they break and down it all goes.
Alice It happens a lot in Cornwall he said, when it rains like this.
Claire He said the shaft could have been up to a thousand feet deep.
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Alice Some were three thousand, he said.
Claire And our garden was right over the top.
(They think about this.)
Alice Spotlight came to talk to me!
Claire It was rubbish!
“How did you feel when you fell down the hole…?”
“How did you feel when they got you out of the hole…?
Alice I looked really stupid because I couldn’t remember anything.
The first thing I remember when I got out was people talking to
me and I could see their mouths moving but I couldn’t hear
any sound coming out. But I wasn’t going to say that to
Spotlight, was I?!
Claire Anyway.
(They start making up a bed for Alice.)
We had to rent a flat on the insurance for the foreseeable
future.
Alice It was a holiday flat, so it felt like we were on holiday at first.
Claire But after a month everything was back to normal - same job
for me, same college for Alice, same town, same shops, same
duvets…
(She tucks Alice in and kisses her goodnight then turns out the light and
goes off. Darkness. Silence. Then suddenly there’s a great stony slither.
Alice falls out of bed and kicks frantically with her feet at the duvet,
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gasping for breath. This paroxysm holds her several moments, as if she’s
gripped by an electric shock. When it passes she sits bewildered on the
floor. Claire approaches, already talking. Alice jumps to her feet before
Claire sees her.)
Claire …You’re going to need your thermals this morning, it’s
freezing… Alice!
Alice What?
Claire (Plucking the duvet off the floor,) The cover’s clean on!
(Claire goes off, stripping the cover off the duvet. When her mum has gone,
Alice exits looking around warily.)
(Claire appears, dressed for work now.)
Claire I got stuck back in to “normal”. In fact I was more “normal”
than I normally was! I marched to work, taught my classes,
marched home and made the tea. It was perversely
invigorating actually because somehow I felt freed from my
natural tendency to put things off. Suddenly there was nothing
I wouldn’t do to help my year 13s with their coursework.
One morning I talked to a boy about the two Goyas - Goya
before he got ill, with his chocolate box paintings of the royal
court, and Goya after, with his dark, terrifying etchings.
There were no good books about Goya in school, so at
lunchtime I marched right across town to my studio.
(Calling in to her silent studio,) Hello?
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The place was cold as a tomb. I hadn’t been there for a couple
of months. It looked like a long disused playroom.
(She rummages out the books.)
Here we are…
(She leafs through one. We see a succession of Goya’s
early work.)
© Museo Nacional del Prado
© Museo Nacional del Prado
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© Museo Nacional del Prado
Young Goya, sweet and pretty and eager to please…
Then the Caprichos…
© Museo Nacional del Prado
“The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters…”
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© Museo Nacional del Prado
© Museo Nacional del Prado
(She reads,)
“…There is a kind of depth in the Caprichos… The darkness is
not merely black, it is also darkness…”
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© Museo Nacional del Prado
Those awful mouths, gaping black…
(We hear the sound that rushed out of the shaft below
Alice, which startles Claire back to her senses.)
Oh shit… I’m going to be late back to school!
(She grabs up the books and scuttles offstage.)
(We see Amelie, a puppet composed largely of five year-olds’ winter
clothes.)
Alice One weekend we went to visit mum’s sis in Penzance and I
took my cousin Amelie to the playground near their house.
Amelie (To Alice,) Are you going out without a coat?
Alice I’m bigger than you - I don’t feel the cold.
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Amelie Mummy says teenagers’ brains go mushy with hermones.
(Alice picks Amelie up and sits her on her hip.)
Amelie You’ve got a spot on your chin.
Alice Yes, and I think it’s about to burst… all over you!
(She buries her face in Amelie’s neck, which makes her
squeal with delight. Alice swings Amelie round.)
Whee!
Amelie Again! Againagainagain!
Alice No way! You’ve eaten too many mince pies!
(Alice puts her on a series of rides.)
I pushed her on the swings…
Ready?
Amelie Yeah! Higher!
Alice You’re nearly doing a Bronco!
Amelie What’s a Bronco?
Alice I spun her on the roundabout…
Amelie What’s a Bronco?
Alice When you loop the loop on a swing.
Amelie That’s impossible…
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Alice And I waited for her at the bottom of the small pipe slide…
Amelie (Little voice echoing,) Alice…? Are you there?
Alice No!
Amelie OK… Whee!
(Alice grabs her at the bottom and pretends to maul her
like a monster.)
Stop it! (Giggling,) You’re looking stupid!
Will you come down the big slide with me?
Alice Amelie! You’re not scared are you?
Amelie No but there’s big boys who sit at the top and say rude things
to me.
Alice Ok.
(To us,) So I went to the top of the wooden tower with her but
the boys had gone leaving a puddle of spit and a smell of
farts.
Amelie I hate boys.
Alice Me too.
The big slide is the best thing in the park. It’s a spiral steel
pipe about thirty feet long.
(They get ready to go, Amelie sitting between Alice’s
legs.)
Amelie Hold me tight…
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Alice I will. One… two… three… GO!
(They set off down, but almost instantly Amelie is gone and Alice is
hanging in space, her feet kicking in darkness below. All the sounds of the
accident crowd in - the sliding of earth and falling of pebbles down great
depths, the moan of rushing air, and a light flashes from above. But now
the flashback fades and Alice finds herself sitting on the ground. Amelie
stands looking at her in silent horror. Suddenly she runs away, crying, but
Alice catches her by the shoulders.)
Amelie… Amelie… Shush! Please…
Amelie (At same time,) Get off… Let go!
(Amelie kicks Alice.)
Alice Don’t kick me!
Amelie You kicked me!
Alice When?
Amelie Just now. On the slide.
Alice I didn’t…
Amelie Yes you did you were trying to scare me!
Alice How?
Amelie You were screaming and you were kicking me!
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(Pause.)
Alice Sorry. Give me a hug…
Amelie I don’t want to.
Alice Listen. You mustn’t tell anyone ok?
Amelie ‘Cause you were naughty?
Alice …Yes. Because I was naughty. Promise?
Amelie Ok.
Alice Good girl.
Amelie But I don’t want to play with you anymore.
(Amelie runs off home. Alice follows after her.)
(Claire opens her laptop.)
Claire One day I went online and I saw this news story flagged up
with a picture…
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© Pete Wentz
The man was on his honeymoon. He went for one last swim
before catching the plane home and took this picture of
himself. The shark killed him straight after.
It was a spoof of course.
But that mouth… It seemed to have crossed from bad dream
into reality…
It reminded me of something…
© Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerpen
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The mouth of Hell. You see the teeth?
Teeth make a hole infinitely worse because they turn it into
something that wants to eat you.
I started to look for the blackest holes I could find, from
space…
© Ute Kraus, Institute of Physics, Universität Hildesheim, Space Time Travel http://www.spacetimetravel.org
… to closer to home…
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© Lee Craven
…holes that open in places you thought were safe…
© David O’Hare
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Darkness that tries to snatch you in…
© Brian Stansberry, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
Alice Mum?
Claire (Quickly closing her laptop,) God you startled me!
Alice What were you looking at?
Claire Mind your own business!
Alice Was it something naughty?!
Claire I don’t appreciate you snooping on me Alice…
Alice It was!
Claire What’s got in to you? You’ve been behaving so… babyishly
over the last few weeks.
Alice I haven’t.
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Clair Yes you have… all clingy one minute and shouting at me the
next.
Alice You’ve been pretty grumpy yourself...
Claire Well, it gets so tiring! You don’t seem to pull your weight
anymore. You haven’t cooked a meal in ages…
Alice You said it was more important to do my coursework…
Claire It’s not just that, I mean, you’re leaving your clothes in heaps
on the floor again…
(Alice retreats to her room but Claire follows her.)
honestly Alice, I think you were more grown up in some ways
when you were twelve…!
Alice Leave me alone!
Claire But seriously love, how do you think you’re going to cope on
your own?
Alice What do you care? It’s like you’re waiting for me to leave
already.
Claire That’s not true…
Alice It is. Just the sight of me annoys you nowadays. You never
want to hug me or even be near me in a room. It feels like I
don’t belong to you anymore!
(Alice stomps off.)
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Claire Alice… Alice!
(Claire follows.)
(Alice and Claire come and stand side by side facing the audience and
sing, their mouths forming the words very clearly, but suddenly their
voices stop, yet they continue mouthing the words. The music carries on
very differently underneath. Claire carries on singing in another world.)
Alice One day at choir, suddenly I’m outside of everything.
I look at the girl next to me and I can see the little bits of spit in
the corners of her mouth as it chews the words, in perfect time
with all the other mouths.
It’s like an impossible skipping game – I can’t get back in.
I stopped going to choir.
And driving…
(Claire sits and Alice sits on her lap.)
I was learning with a woman called Dawn who sucked mint
imperials all the time, which made me feel a bit sick but we
were getting on really well.
Then one day she has this new air freshener hanging from the
mirror.
(Claire holds it up and swings it gently.)
And it keeps catching the light and swaying side to side,
responding to every little move I make with the steering
wheel… and I start to feel like maybe I’m dreaming I’m driving
and if I turn over I’ll wake up in bed…
(There’s a sudden loud blare of a horn and Claire lets
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Alice fall through her knees with a jolt.)
Dawn just grabbed the wheel in time. We’d almost been
squashed by a lorry.
(She prepares to sleep.)
She said she was fine to go on teaching me, but I cancelled
the rest of my lessons.
Maybe some of it was lack of sleep.
(She shuts her eyes but straightaway she is overtaken by
the sensation of hanging down the hole again - her
stomach pressed against sharp stones, her nails scraping
on pebbles, her feet kicking in empty space. Claire lifts
her round the waist. We hear the sound of things
bouncing down a deep shaft. Suddenly Claire drops Alice
and she jolts awake.)
So I’d try to stay awake but it was such an effort to get through
every second of every night…
(She drifts off on her feet again but Claire lifts her and
drops her again.)
Then suddenly it was time for the exams.
(She sits and yawns. Claire begins to sing softly in Alice’s
ear. Alice looks haunted.)
It was weirdly windy that June and you know the sound the
wind makes through the cracks in an old building? It felt like
every time I started to write, that sound would start…
(We hear the sound and it’s the same as the noise that
came out of the mineshaft the night Alice fell.)
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(Claire enters as if straight from work and immediately begins to take off
her coat and put on some paint-splattered overalls.)
Claire For the first time in years I started to do my own work again.
Every day I’d go straight from work to my studio and get stuck
in.
I really wanted to recreate the feel of a darkness that pulled
you in…
(She rummages out some pictures she’s made
previously.)
I started with a Bridget Riley approach with lines that sort of
pulsed into the dark at the centre, which kind of worked but it
all felt a bit neat and fiddly really… and too like Bridget Riley, I
suppose!
Some time round then I saw a photo of a star being pulled into
a black hole in space…
© European Southern Observatory
…and that set me off in a new direction. I made this…
… by pouring paint onto the paper while it was spinning on an
old record player. I liked the sense of movement… but it still
wasn't quite right.
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That quote about Goya kept coming back to me -
“The darkness is not merely black… it is also darkness…”
The darkness at the centre of my work was “merely black”. I
needed to make it more dark somehow.
I tried very matt black paint and charcoal was good too…
But then I remembered a dress I’d made for Alice when she
was a toddler out of this very dark green velvet… so I sneaked
it out of the house because Alice can get sentimental about
that sort of thing!
(She shows us the little dress, hemmed with white lace.)
I remembered how the fabric seemed to eat the light… so I
took a piece of that…
(She turns the dress round and shows us the sorry hole
she has cut out of the back of the skirt.)
…and I made a new version. But the velvet just stood out so
visibly... Then a rude phrase came into my head… A velvet
pocket!
So I made a velvet pocket that fitted in the recess behind the
frame.
That certainly ate the light better, but you could still see the
velvet at the bottom.
(She has been looking at this version on the wall but now
her attention switches to the wall itself. She taps it.)
The wall behind was a stud-work partition that went into a
shared storeroom between Sonia’s studio and mine.
(She checks round the back.)
She wasn’t in that day so I thought, what the hell…
(Claire fetches some tools and bashes and hacks a hole in
the wall, then re-hangs her picture in front of it.)
Real darkness.
(She puts her hand in, then her whole arm.)
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It felt really cold in there…
(She pulls out her arm uneasily.)
But it still wasn’t right.
(A timer goes off. Claire stops it.)
Six o’clock already. Better get back. Alice’ll be home.
(We see Alice eating some cereal.)
There was a time when I could look into her like a bowl of
clear water, but now she was completely opaque to me.
She was right. I was finding it a bit hard to be with her round
then. But it was only to be expected really. Exam results were
coming and she was spreading her wings. Some natural
distance was opening, that was all…
(Alice hears the letterbox. She goes to the door and finds a buff envelope
which she opens warily.)
(Claire enters, hoovering rather violently. Alice approaches and stands with
the opened envelope in her hands. Claire turns off the hoover.)
Claire Have they come?!
(Alice nods but doesn’t smile or meet her mother’s eye.)
Oh dear. Let me see then…
(Alice passes her the envelope and Claire looks at the results.)
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You’re not going to Bristol then, are you?
Will you get in anywhere to do Architecture with that?
(Alice shakes her head. Silence.)
What on earth went wrong? I mean… what were you doing all
those hours in your room if you weren’t revising?
(Silence.)
So what are you going to do?
(Alice shrugs.)
The ball’s in your court, lovely, I can’t decide for you.
Alice I don’t know what to do.
Claire You need to re-take, don’t you?!
Alice I’ll just get the same…
Claire Well you’ll have to get a job then won’t you…
I just never imagined this…
I was going to take us for a pizza but I don’t really feel like it
now, do you?
We’ll have something out of the freezer I suppose…
(She turns her back on Alice, crying to herself, and hoovers offstage.)
(Alice suddenly realizes she has to be somewhere.)
Alice Shit…
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(She struggles into a jacket. We see a picture of a name
badge on the chest of a careers advisor. Alice sits.)
Linda So Alice, what do you want to do with yourself then?
Alice …To get a job?
Linda Yes m’dear, but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, you
want to make sure you do something you enjoy, otherwise the
time will go very slowly, won’t it?
Alice Yes.
Linda Have you any particular ambitions…?
Come on! You must’ve wanted to be something when you
were growing up.
Alice I did…
Linda Ok…?
Alice But that was when I was growing up.
Linda And now?
Alice I don’t know…
(She stands.)
Alice I was out of there by eleven o’clock with an interview in three
weeks for a care assistant job.
It was raining again so I drifted into Morrisons. Mum had given
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me money for a pasty but the smell made me feel sick so I just
wandered about. After a bit I found myself in a quiet aisle.
(We see a picture of shelves full of bottles.)
The colours were so nice… I took a small bottle of vodka. At
the checkout a woman had to look at my ID.
(We see a picture of the woman looking straight at us over
her glasses.)
But where do you go to drink vodka at 11.30?
(We see the entrance to a grim-looking recreation ground.
Alice opens the vodka and swigs it. We see a succession
of desolate pictures of the park.)
A woman came and sat next to me.
(We see a picture of her grubby hands.)
Woman Hello Angel! Did the wings come off when you hit the ground?!
They make ‘em like that you see, so you get stuck down here.
Tell you what, you give me a little sip and I’ll show you the way
to go home…
No?
You can fuck off then!!
(Alice stumbles away. We see an image of tarmac all undermined by tree
roots.)
Alice The paths were all sagging. You never knew what you were
standing on.
(We see pictures of Alice as a little girl.)
The future looked so happy then.
Actually, when you reached it, the future was just a shabby
room round the back where you wait ‘til it’s all over.
(The last picture has faded away.)
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(Now Claire rushes across the stage, looking at her watch, without seeing
Alice. Alice sits up.)
Mum…?
(Alice gets up and goes off after her unsteadily.)
(Claire appears, buttoning up her workshop overalls.)
Claire I’d started going to the workshop every day in my lunch hour. I
hadn’t been this caught up in my work since before my degree
show.
Because I’d made a discovery the week before. It was
completely by chance when I was at the checkout in
Sainsbury’s. I didn’t even see the thing at first, it was the noise
that caught my attention…
(We hear a rolling noise, getting faster and louder, ending
with a chink.)
You know what it is?
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© Leo Reynolds
One of those things kids put coins in and they roll round faster
and faster until… (chink.) …they fall in the hole at the bottom!
I bought one off a charity online and painted it. It was perfect!
The vortex, the hole… but the best bit was the way the coins
went down - that was the missing ingredient - something
falling!
But the coins weren’t right. That was when I had the best
idea…
You know when your child has their picture taken at school
and you get a pack - one big photo you keep, then all those
others you don‘t know what to do with… desk size, wallet size,
stamp size… we’ve got a drawer in our kitchen dresser that’s
full of them.
Alice had gone out that morning, so I filled a big carrier with
photos.
And then I had a free period at school so I spent an hour
cutting out pictures of Alice and sticking them to coins and
disks.
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(We see school portraits with circles cut out where the
faces should be.)
Hundreds there seemed to be. Alice with her front teeth
missing, Alice with a fringe, Alice without a fringe…
(We see her face many times on coins.)
Looking back, it felt like she’d been at school for decades. And
all for two Ds and an E in geography… Here we go!
(She rolls down a coin.)
It was just perfectly what I’d been searching for all this time.
Because of course, the hole was always the hole that
appeared in our garden. And the thing falling down it was
always Alice…
(We see a succession of portraits of Alice disappearing
into darkness interspersed with pictures of terrifying
holes in the ground. The sound of the coins rolling mixes
inseparably with the sound of earth sliding, pebbles
falling, air moaning…)
I couldn’t…
I couldn’t find the rope.
I’m so sorry lovely…
(Horror spreads on Claire’s face. Abruptly she rummages
out her phone and dials. It rings unanswered and goes to
answerphone. Claire calms her voice as much as she can)
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Hello lovely, I just wondered how it went at the job centre.
Give me a call back. I’ll see you about four anyway and we
can have muffins, like we used to when you came back from
school… sorry I’m… Love you… Bye.
(Claire changes out of her overalls.)
I went back to work but it was impossible to concentrate.
Alice loved chicken curry so I decided to go shopping straight
from work and buy all the stuff.
I didn’t get home ‘til about five in the end because I’d spent so
long choosing nice things in the supermarket…
Alice? Do you want a cheese and black pepper muffin?
They’re “Taste the Difference”…
(Claire finds a note propped somewhere.)
“Mum,
I saw you going to your studio so I went there, but you’d gone.
I went in and saw the things you’d done.
I don’t want you to think that’s the reason.
Anyway.
I’m sorry for all the disappointments. I never meant them. I just
wasn’t good enough in the end.
And when I look ahead I see all the pitfalls.
Please remember me how I was as a little girl. That’s how I
really am inside.
38
Sorry. I love you. Alice.”
(A paralysed moment, which suddenly passes.)
I checked her room and the bathroom then the whole house
but she’d gone out. There were pills gone from the bathroom.
Where would she go? She’d taken purse, jacket, trainers,
blanket…
The beach! Near Gwithian - North Cliffs - she loved it there.
She was at the studio at one thirty, home by two thirty, set off
about three, the bus would have taken forever. She might
have got there about half an hour ago…
I drove as fast as I could but the traffic crawled out of
Redruth…
What if she’s not there? She could be anywhere.
I got to North Cliffs car park after the sun had gone down and
ran headlong down the hill. I couldn’t see her from the top of
the cliff but she would be back up against the rocks if she was
there. I picked down the steps without meeting a soul.
The beach was empty but it was so dark now I couldn’t see up
by the rocks. I went straight to where we normally sat…
nobody…
She might be at any of five other beaches, or anywhere - at
home in a cupboard - she used to love hiding in cupboards
when she was a little girl…
Wait… she had a ledge she called the castle where she used
to sit when we had a picnic…
(She searches with the torch. The light has fallen very
low. She finds Alice curled in a blanket.)
Thank God! My lovely girl!
39
(She hugs her up but she’s very groggy.)
You poor thing… I’m going to phone for some help OK?
(She tries to call.)
There’s no reception.
I’ve got to go up to the top to phone, lovely…
(Alice catches her arm.)
Alice Don’t go!
Claire I’ve got to!
Alice Please…
(Claire holds Alice.)
Claire Ok. Do you think you could hold on to me in a piggy back?
You can! I know you can. Ok…
(Between them they manage to get Alice on Claire’s back and Claire starts
climbing.)
The last time I gave Alice a piggy back she must’ve been
about ten. But I’d never felt more determined in my life
because I had her this time and I wasn’t going to let her go.
(Claire gets Alice onto a high seat like a bed or a gurney and sits beside
her, holding her hand. Neither of their feet touch the ground. Alice is
withdrawn.)
40
Claire They allowed her to come home within a few days.
Luckily there was no lasting physical damage…
(Alice totters off the seat and groggily changes into
comfortable clothes. She looks defeated somehow.)
We walked a lot on beaches over the next few weeks, looking
for cowries.
(Sound of waves. Alice searches on the ground, Claire
too. Alice picks something up.)
You must have millions by now.
Alice Hardly.
Claire What are you going to do with them all?
Alice Nothing. I just like the feel of them in my pocket.
Claire They’d look great in a big jar!
Alice There aren’t enough.
Claire Several tiny jars in a row would look good…
Alice I don’t really want to put them in jars.
Claire Do you remember that place we went…?
Alice (Cutting Claire off,) A la Ronde.
Claire Do you remember all those amazing patterns with feathers
and shells…?
Alice Mum, I don’t want to stick shells to the wall or on a picture like
41
macaroni Ok? Just… stop being an art teacher for once. I
don’t want to display them at all.
(Pause.)
Claire I’m very sorry.
Alice What are you so sorry about then?
Oh yes…your little art project. Don’t be sorry about that. Least
it was honest.
Claire How do you mean?
Alice It said that there were holes in the world. And I’m going to fall
in them.
Claire Come on, you’re no more likely than anyone else…!
Alice I am. I’m the stupid one, the clumsy one. And the future is full
of holes…
Claire But I’m holding your hand!
Alice Not for the rest of my life, you can’t!
Claire I tried everything to revive Alice’s confidence in the future. I
gave her a lovely book.
(Alice flicks through the book dispassionately. We see some of the
stunning buildings.)
42
Alice (Setting the book aside,) Thank you.
Claire Did you like it?
Alice Yeah. Well… It all seems a bit… fancy.
Claire Fancy?
Alice I don’t know… all to do with decorating things.
Claire But… isn’t that why you liked architecture?
Alice I can’t really remember to be honest.
Claire I thought it might jog your memory.
Alice I just don’t feel like decorating things at the moment, that’s all.
Claire (To us,) Round that time, partly for lack of something to do
one afternoon, I took Alice to look at our old house.
We’d instinctively avoided the area since the accident, but we
were both grimly curious now.
(They hold hands and approach. Orange flashing lights and the sound of a
heavy digger pass by.)
Alice There was engineering work everywhere…
Claire There were old mine shafts under all the back gardens
apparently.
43
Alice We went up to the barrier. There was a huge pit cut in the
ground.
Claire They seemed to be hammering girders in all round the edge…
(A burst of noise shocks them both.)
Do you want to go back?
Alice Yes.
(They begin to leave.)
Claire There’s someone waving over there… Do you know him?
(Alice peers then waves, putting on a brave face.)
Alice Hi!
Claire Who is it?
Alice You remember Jack in my class? It’s his brother Ash, he must
be working here or something.
Claire He’s saying come round.
Alice Oh God…
Claire Don’t then.
Alice I feel bad. I’ll just go and say hello.
Claire Do you want me to come?
44
Alice No, I’ll just be a minute…
(Alice goes to the far side of the stage.)
Claire She went through the gate. He gave her a hug, then it
occurred to me that he didn’t know that she’d been ill.
(Alice is putting on a hard hat and high vis vest and
shrugs at Claire.)
What was she doing? (She calls,) What are you doing…?
(A heavy vehicle passes and drowns her out.)
(Alice approaches.)
Alice He was desperate to show me round the site and he wouldn’t
take no for an answer…
(Ash talks nineteen to the dozen.)
Ash …Basically we can’t fill the hole because it’s too deep so
we’ve had to cap it, but the top of the shaft was too crumbly so
we had to spray concrete round the sides to stabilise it.
Alice (To Ash,) And that worked?
Ash That was just the start!
(The light is dimming. A sound is growing too, akin to the disturbance in
Alice. She walks cautiously, looking about.)
Alice (To us,) We went down into the pit. The deeper we went down
45
the darker it got.
Ash So then we built a steel platform and we put a ten-ton drilling
rig over the shaft, then we drilled out all the debris down to the
bedrock…
Alice The air was much colder down there.
Ash …and now we’ve put a concrete cap over the shaft with this
steel inspection hatch in it!
Alice Here?
Ash Yeah.
Alice The shaft’s under there?
Ash Yep.
Alice How deep is it?
Ash Six hundred feet. You want to see?
Alice No.
Ash It’s ok, it’s safe as houses!
(Ash jumps on the hatch. We hear a boom.)
Ash See? Solid as a rock. You want to try? Go on!
(The sound of disturbance grows huge. Alice shakes her head but is
46
reluctantly drawn on to the hatch. We can’t hear what she says. She
appears disorientated. Alice is obliged by Ash to jump on the hatch. It
booms. Alice jumps again and again in a fury.)
Alice No! No no no no no no no no!
(She falls into Claire’s arms.)
(Claire helps Alice to bed where she curls to sleep.)
Claire Ash helped me get Alice back home.
She seemed to sleep for days after that.
I’d creep in to her room to check on her every now and then
and she looked like some sort of pupa in a chrysalis.
Then one morning I went in and I noticed she’d marked a
page in the book I’d given her.
(She opens the book.)
47
© Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr
It was a bridge by Robert Maillart.
(Alice and Claire start to assemble something in the space together now.)
Claire We were both inspired.
Alice It started on the beach.
Claire I’d dig a hole about three feet deep and two or three feet wide.
Alice Then we’d find loads of driftwood and build bridges across it.
Claire Then we started building bridges in my studio.
Alice The basic brief was that they had to support our weight.
Claire Both of us.
48
Alice And look amazing.
Claire And she was brilliant at it.
Alice Joint effort, Mum.
Claire But you were definitely the brains.
Then one day, out of the blue, she announced she wanted to
be a structural engineer. There was a course at Bristol.
Alice Civil and Environmental Engineering. And I had to get the
grades first.
Claire But you were so businesslike. You went to college, you took
the exams, and you got the grades. Bish-bash-bosh.
Alice I still had nightmares… I still do. But less often now.
(They stand on the bridge they’ve made together with their arms round
each other for support, then Alice exits.)
Claire Next thing, she was gone…
A month after she left I was allowed to move back into our old
house.
It looked exactly the same from the front, but behind, all the
old gardens had gone and there were neat squares of bright
green turf instead.
I made a pergola and planted a grapevine in mine. I sit out
there with a glass of wine after work sometimes.
I come in at dusk though. I can’t help imagining the hole still
49
down there under all the steel and concrete. I imagine a few
pebbles crumbling from the side now and then and falling
down into the darkness…
(We hear them fall.)
Claire I’ve been to see Alice twice now.
(Alice enters, dressed much more stylishly now - a young
woman about town.)
The second time, she and a friend came to pick me up…
Alice Hang on…“A friend”? It was Adam!
(She nods at the musician or puts her arm round him, something to show
that he’s Adam.)
Claire Well he is your friend, isn’t he?!
Alice He’s a bit more than that Mum!
Claire Ok, I just didn’t want to assume you wanted everyone to know,
that’s all. Sorry Adam.
Alice (To us,) Me and Adam went and picked Mum up from the
station in his car.
(They all sit together round Adam. Alice says to Claire,)
Ok, so I’ve got a little surprise for you.
Put this on…
Claire What…? A hair band…?
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Alice Mum! It’s a blindfold. I’m going to take you somewhere but I
want it to be a surprise.
Claire I’ll get car-sick!
Alice It’s not far. Honest. Please…?
Claire Alright. For you, lovely…
(She puts it on.)
Alice It took about ten minutes through the traffic then we parked
and Adam waited in the car.
(Alice takes Claire by the arm and leads her gently forward.)
Claire There were cars passing, so we were walking along a street,
that much was clear. The pavement was very smooth and I
could hear gulls - I liked that.
Alice Alright. That’s far enough. Wait a minute…
(Alice unscrews a bottle of cheap white wine and pours some into two
mugs.)
Claire You’re not playing a horrid trick on me are you?
Alice Would I? Here…
(She hands Claire a mug.)
51
Claire What’s this?
Alice White wine.
Claire Ah. I feel better already.
Alice Ok. So you can take it off now.
(She takes off the blindfold.)
© Rodw, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Claire Wow… wow… (She looks down over the parapet.) Whoa…
Alice Are you ok?
Claire Yeah but, are you…? I mean, with being here?
Alice Yeah. I’m fine.
Claire It just… it feels so precarious!
Alice It’s been here for a hundred and fifty years, Mum!
52
The Victorians couldn’t believe how spindly it was. It looked
like magic to them.
Claire I must be a Victorian then…
(Claire wipes her eyes.)
Alice You’ve set me off now…
(Alice hugs her mum, then, to pull herself together,)
“The road becomes barely suspended” - that’s the inscription
on the tower.
Claire Here’s to Isambard then, and the road barely suspended…
Alice The road barely suspended.
(They raise a mug to each other and drink, then put an arm round each
other and look out away up the river.)