A Table for Six

Dramatis Personae

George: A man in his mid-forties.

Act 1 Scene 1

Six people sit around a dining room table as they eat hungrily, and chat jovially about their lives.

GEORGE

It’s worrying sometimes – no, all the time – when the conversation turns to children. I’m not always sure what to say. So, I often just try and look incredibly involved with something else. I pretend to look so amazingly distracted no-one would think to interrupt me. This time, the object of my interest is a rather plump looking chocolate fondant pudding that had just been placed down in front of me. It is just sitting there, staring at me with almost an air of self-conscious vanity as though it knows that it craves to be eaten by all that set eyes upon it. Even me yes, even me, I admit – despite all that it evokes; all that it stirs within the still unsettled, bubbling crucible of my heart. God, that sounded quite poetic, you should think about writing that down. Pretentious old twaddle more like. I don’t know. I liked to cook my own chocolate fondants once, but it has been quite a while since I have done so, that I am not sure I would be entirely able to recreate the wonderful examples that once used to grace our table inLondon. I would proudly walk the steaming puddings into the dining room, holding each plate aloft as delicately and preciously as though the plate were a velvet cushion and the pudding a diamond crown. The puddings would then be set down onto the table, and the eyes of my family would gaze with greedy eyes, spoons at the ready, barely able to stop themselves from scoffing the lot before I had even sat down myself. So I look at this pudding in front of me and, as delicious as it looks (though not anywhere near as delicious as mine, I’m sure) it stirs in me not just hunger but pangs of sadness and longing. Yet, hunger is also important and there’s no point in letting it go cold – so tuck into it I must. Apart from satisfying my sweet tooth, maintaining a mouthful of food is also another good technique to avoid engaging in topics that I would prefer not to discuss. So yes, I will dig into this chocolate molehill and see if it is as disappointing as most other fondants are. Usually they are rock solid in the middle without the lovely, rich sauce that is meant to ooze out over the plate. Here goes nothing.

(Breaks the pudding open with his fork).

Oh, dear. No, no, no, that won’t do at all. I mean, it’s actually quite good. The middle actually is smooth, luxurious chocolate sauce. Of course, it doesn’t mean it will taste good.

(Puts a piece of pudding into his mouth)

Oh…well…it’s, it’s not a bad effort. Still, they’re not as hard to make as they are made out to be anyway, no, not that hard at all really. You just have to be precise with every ingredient, ensuring it’s all weighed out correctly and then, when that’s done, cooking it for the exact time it is meant to be cooked for, and at the exact temperature. I use Larousse as my guide. Have done for years and it’s never lead me astray. Well, I used to. I haven’t actually cooked a decent meal for myself for some time now. Must be nearly a year. And just over a year since I moved out here – away from England– to Australia. I don’t miss the place much. I certainly don’t miss the weather. Or the people to be honest – particularly as I didn’t have much in the way of friends before I left. Some of them accused me of running away. But I wasn’t, I wasn’t running away, not really. Was I? That’s what I ask myself all the time. I tell myself that they were all wrong, cynical, jealous that they were unable to just leave the dreary, cold place as I was able to. It would have been better if circumstances were different though – if I hadn’t had to travel alone. No looking back now though. No regrets – that would be nice. To be able to just forget it all and regret nothing. I really do wish that I was one of those people who could just go on without regretting a thing, but then they don’t really exist – do they? They don’t. If they do, they just haven’t done anything big enough to regret. I don’t know what other people think. I mean, they sit around the table drinking and chatting yet they don’t seem too fussed about finding things out about me. I think that perhaps they are used to the odd ex-pat wandering in, face as creased as their suitcase-packed clothes, eyes squinting against the new, bright sun, getting ready to adjust to a new, different life. They’ve seen people like me before, I think that’s what it is. I suppose I am no different. Nothing special, or would they be shocked, alarmed and upset by what I could tell them? It’s funny, if you just erect a kind of invisible barrier of secrecy, people, people who would normally ask anyone else every question they wanted to, will simply stay away from asking anything remotely personal. They just stick to the banalities – work, the weather, the roads, the odd story they read in the news, then back to work. So that’s how I have got by, for nearly a year, without really getting to know anyone. That’s how I wanted it to be. Just me. To myself. No connections. None at all. I zone in and out of the conversation around the table – at times a topic comes up I feel I can join in with, but it is amazing how people just don’t talk to you if there are others around to chat to. Sometimes, they will discuss something food related, like how they have started making their own bread. And I will chip in with a few bits and pieces, such as whether they have made sourdough, or if they have tried, say, Irish potato cakes. Farls they call them. They were one of the favourite things my eldest used to eat. Not to mention me. I used to enjoy those too. I still do. Still would, if I made them. There just isn’t that impetus when you are alone, to cook for yourself. There just doesn’t seem any point in slow-cooking pork belly for 4 and a half hours when you are the only one who’s going to sit down to eat it. They must wonder what I’m doing here though. A guy of 44 just turns up out of the blue in Sydney, thousands of miles from everything he knows, no apparent connections or ties back home. If I was them I would be suspicious. It looks like I’m on the run or something like that. Of course I miss home. Well, the past I miss. I mean, I miss all the places where I have happy memories when I was there . I miss the dining room in which Sarah and I hosted dinner parties of our own. The table itself was beautiful. It was to me anyway – an incredible piece of mahogany we found going cheap in a car boot sale, of all places, and the person selling it had no idea it was real mahogany. And we managed to find some exquisite matching chairs. In reality the table was too long for the room and so it was always a bit of a squeeze to get round the far end. I always ensured it was polished, by myself, and kept scratch-free. I know it was only a table, but this thing had such value to me and I find it hard to really pin down the reason why. Now it has a different importance to me altogether, because it is at the centre of one of the last positive memories I have of Sarah and I. And I remember thinking after we bought it that, despite the years we had been together, we still enjoyed each other’s company, still made each other laugh and could still have so much fun. The dinner parties we used to have though! We knew how to have a proper party. We’d never let our guests go hungry, or their glasses unfilled. That was my job. I was good at providing the consumables. Sarah was the more personable one – always ensuring no-one was left out. She always invited a range of people round as well, meaning we were never short of guests in the house. Whether it was a friend of a friend of someone at work, or some old college buddy that had fallen on hard times. She would always be the first to offer them a place to stay. I never really used to see myself as a dinner party sort of person. Whatever that is. I mean, when you are twenty five, you don’t imagine that your idea of fun on a Saturday evening will be to sit around a table in a low-lit room, serving food that you have slaved over for hours to a group of people, some of whom you enjoy the company of, some of whom you can’t stand or, as was sometimes the case in my household, people you barely know at all. But yet, I did enjoy it. I mean, it’s not the same reckless partying and boozing-until-you’re-sick that you may indulge in when you’re younger. When I say it like that, it doesn’t sound fun at all. No the thing was, I grew into it all, like I suppose your feet grow to love a pair of old slippers. Soft, comfortable and warm. That is what I had. That was my life in my mind as I remember it now, all light, warmth, and comfort – until the image was shattered. Shattered by me. Now it’s the cheeses. The cheese course was always one of my favourites. Who could possibly deny the delight of the sharp tang when they bite into a mature cheddar, or the creamy saltiness of a blue veined gorgonzola. Many people say that despite being full, they can always fit in a bit of dessert. That the almost primitive desire for a sweet course after the savoury overrides any feeling of satiation that may have arisen two minutes previously. That is of course contestable though. For there is always room for cheese as well. The body cannot resist the desire for the instant calorific gratification it will get from the rich, fattiness of the cheese. Cold, hard, soft, melted. Either way, irresistible. It’s the summer evenings I think of the most, maybe because I left Englandjust at the end of winter and, after months of cold, short, dark days, you could sense the hope and anticipation even in the voice of the TV weatherman as he reported minor increases in temperature across the country. It’s one of those absurd things the English summer – often disappointing, yet it somehow manages to maintain it’s presence in the national psyche of a time of long, golden evenings, where you run through tall-grass meadows as the butterflies fly out of your path and you settle down beneath the shade of a willow tree, as you lay back and listen to the quiet babbling of the brook running past your feet. That’s what I always think of anyway, despite how far from reality it really is. What I do remember of the summer are the long, warm evenings when I played with my young children, chasing them around or teaching them to kick a ball. Then, later on I would simply watch or listen to them as they became old enough to play together. Yes, sometimes they would get out of hand and they would end up fighting, usually because someone tackled the other too hard, or an accusation of cheating was made. They’re not bad memories to me though – I cherish them all. I cherish the tellings off along with the time I saw my eldest score a goal in his first school match. I cherish the tears alongside the pride I felt when I watched my youngest cycle for the first time without my assistance. I cherish it all because they are all I’ve got now. No-one blamed me. Her family, my family. They all said it wasn’t my fault and maybe they meant it. Maybe they meant to mean it – but I know they didn’t mean it. They can’t have. It was my fault. But with such a freak occurrence, such a tragic accident as the media and everyone else put it, no-one says there is blame, because it just shouldn’t have happened. The problem is…the problem is, even if they don’t blame me and even if they would still take me into their homes, I can’t stop blaming myself. It was my fault. I know there’s nothing that will change that. Apart from anything else, how could I look into the eyes of her mother and father knowing that I killed their daughter? That it was me that killed their only grandchildren. How can I face my own parents and look at them, remembering the outpouring of the most sincere of joy when I told them they were to be grandparents. The same grandparents that always jumped at the chance of babysitting them and attending birthdays, giving them presents and, more importantly, love. They told me that I didn’t need to leave, that it would work out alright, that it wasn’t my fault, that I wasn’t the one responsible for the monster that did it, that I didn’t create him, that I can’t stop things like that from happening. But. And that’s the thing. But – that word that is in itself a distillation of doubt. It wasn’t my fault but…Sarah told me about a man she had seen loitering around her workplace. It wasn’t my fault but she said she had seen him at least two times and although she thought it was probably nothing, she thought she saw someone drive past the house the other day when she was weeding the front garden. Someone that looked very like the man she had seen outside her work. It wasn’t my fault but I told her it was probably nothing to worry about but if she saw him again, she should tell someone. It wasn’t my fault, but she didn’t tell anyone because I made her think that she was overreacting or being paranoid and I told her not to worry. It wasn’t my fault but I told her when the phone rang and went dead that it was just a faulty line. It wasn’t my fault but I told her we should only call the police if the man spoke to her again – he had spoken to her once but she hadn’t thought anything of it the first time as he only asked for the time. It wasn’t my fault but I insisted that I had to go on the business meeting inLiverpool overnight, leaving them alone in the house. It wasn’t my fault but it was always my responsibility to lock the patio doors, and I had left them open on the Sunday. It wasn’t my fault but I was going to tell her to lock the patio doors, as it was always my responsibility to do it, but I forgot to tell her. But I was in a rush. I couldn’t find my keys. I had been stressed about the trip – I didn’t want to go much. It was important to be there though as there were plenty of other people who would take my job. That’s what I told her when she asked me to stay because she didn’t like being alone in the house at night. I told her that she would be fine, that the kids were with her and that there was Paul and Alice next door who would help her with anything. The day I left, it was a crisp spring morning, and the sun shone down with the first hint of warmth in the year. This was at odds with how I felt though. I had run out of time. I had overslept. I had to rush. I didn’t eat breakfast but just showered and just had time to kiss my children and wife goodbye as I ran out the door and down the road, just about in time to catch the train. I was in a hurry – a rush. I hadn’t hadbreakfast. I had been up late the night before preparing for the trip, I hadn’t slept much. I was tired. I had dark circles under my eyes and I was tired. I didn’t think, I didn’t think about anyone but myself when I stormed down the stairs, shouted at my wife for my tie, then apologised. I didn’t think about anyone but myself when I flew out the front door, sweating before I had even walked down the road, and forgot to tell my wife to lock the patio door. The patio door that she had opened on the Sunday and I forgot to lock. She opened it, but it was always my responsibility to lock it – that’s just how it was and it always worked. This time it didn’t work – I had not locked it, and then I forgot to remind her to lock it. They say, they say, it wasn’t my fault but I know whose fault it was that the door wasn’t locked. And I remember my children’s faces as they sat at the kitchen table in their school uniforms, the youngest with his spoon in his hand eating a bowl of cereal , a little milk on his chin, and the eldest eating marmite on toast as he sat watching the television. And they both hugged me, and they both said ‘Bye Dad’, the youngest saying that he hoped I have a nice trip. And then my wife. My wife I kissed last. She dressed for work in a dark green shirt and dark black trousers. Wearing a hint of the perfume I bought for her birthday. The woman – the person – I had known for nearly twenty years stood there in front of me for the last time and I saw anxiety in her eyes. This was normal though as she had always been a nervous person which perhaps made me selfishly, slightly dismiss her earlier concerns about the man and the calls. I took it seriously, I did, but I wasn’t sure how serious it was. I sort of wanted to keep everything undisturbed and normal, to almost pretend that there was no man. The thing is, she played it down so much…almost like a bullied child keeps the extent of the bullying from their teachers and parents for the embarrassment and fear of further damage. Sarah just told me to hurry up as I would miss my train and so I did what she said, ran out the door and never saw her or my children alive again. That night, that Monday night, a man by the name of Alan Casey – the same man my wife had seen outside her work and who had called us several times before – climbed over the gate at the side of the house, walked into our garden, slowly and silently eased open the unlocked patio doors, walked into our home, went quietly up the stairs and strangled my wife and two children to death. I stayed inEngland to see the man sentenced to life, and it is only recently that I can even make myself say his name. They said I should have stayed, that I couldn’t have prevented it from happening. I even told them about the patio doors and everyone said that he would have just found another way in. They kept saying it wasn’t my fault. It will always be my fault.

Act 1 Scene 1

Harry cuts hair like a man who has done it all his life. He has done it all his life. He cuts hair like a builder who has laid a million bricks. Over and over and over and over – until he just wants to lay that last brick and be done with it. Harry has a weariness in his eyes that comes of doing a job that lost its sheen, after the second week he started it. Once again, on a day much like every other day, Harry cuts a man’s hair and thinks to himself.

Harry: Bit of an awkward silence sometimes. But I mostly gave up talking to the customers a while ago. I used to enjoy this job, to a degree. It is true that I tired of cutting hair very quickly. But hair isn’t the issue, because cutting hair, especially men’s, is very routine. A man comes in, he sits in the chair and you ask, “What would you like?” They say, short back and sides. You say, “How short?” They say, “Number two”. Or three. Mostly two. Especially in this neck of the woods. It actually pays to look like you have just joined the army. Oh, of course the odd person asks for a “One all over” or a two. A “two all over”. The skinhead look. Actually, it is not usually the tough guys that ask for that these days, oh no. It is often the men who are getting a bit old and a bit thin on top. Many of them think that getting it all shaved off will look better. It certainly does look better in some respects. It looks much better than those poor old souls who grow long wisps on top and try to comb it over as though to deceive the world that they are not bald at all. Just face the facts mate, that’s what I want to say to them, just shave it off – that’s the best you can do.

Harry finishes shaving around the sides and back.

Harry: How’s the work going, Jim?

Jim: Oh, not bad thanks Harry. Still ticking over. People still buy cars. Especially cheap ones. (Chuckles)

Harry: They do and all. (half way smiling/grimacing). And is Sandra alright?

Jim: Very well, very well.

Harry: Good to hear.

Harry (to himself again): That’s the thing you see – I know most of my customers. And like old Jim here, they have been coming here for years. He, like all the others, always has the same hair cut. Short round the back and sides. Short round the back and sides, Jim? That’s the one Harry. Always the same. Amazing the things you hear about people doing this job though – the things you learn. Another old boy, Barry, who pops in once a month – not a day younger than 74 – is a swinger. He holds these parties, more often than he pops in here. You walk past his house on a Saturday and there are an unusual number of cars outside – some parked in the road. He always was a strange sort. I always wondered why he liked my Pauline so much. Now I know. Probably wanted to lure her in.

(Harry watches TV while he snips hair from the top of Jim’s head.)

Harry: Kiwi Fruit.

Jim: What’s that?

Harry: The answer. It was Kiwi Fruit. On the quiz show.

Jim: Oh (chuckles) Yes, I sometimes watch that.

Harry: People these days don’t seem to know anything.

Jim: Especially the kids. Don’t get me started on the kids.

Harry: I won’t Jim. (To himself): This is one of the few good things about being a barber now, you see. The television. I can just chop hair and watch TV all day. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a job. Except that it can be so dull. Don’t get me wrong, I used to like talking to all the different people that came in and out. I liked cutting the hair of youngsters who had never had it done before. They were always so scared and some made a fuss, while others were still the whole time. But at least they were unpredictable. Not like my regulars who have the same old cut week in, week out.  The problem is that mums don’t bring their kids here at all anymore. No-one below the age of 50 comes in anymore, and they are all the old boys who have been coming to this same place for half their lives. They would go somewhere else, but they just can’t be bothered.

Harry finishes snipping the hair and holds the mirror behind the customer’s head. Jim knods in approval. He takes off the robe and brushes the hair from Jim’s neck.

Jim: Thanks Harry. Seven pounds?

Harry: As always.

(Jim hands over a ten pound note and Harry produces 3)

Jim: Cheers.

Harry: Pleasure. Take care.

Jim: Take care.

Jim leaves the shop and Harry slumps into the barber’s chair, breathing out a long sigh.

Harry: (talking to himself) Half four and only the second customer today. I do wonder why I carry on sometimes. I mean, with hairdressing. No-one really lives around here as it is. Half four and only two poxy customers all day. (Tuts to himself and grips scissors he has in his hand more tightly.) What is the point in any of it? Bloody Jim would live without me. I doubt he would be unable to find another barber. There’s one ten minutes on the bus for a start. I doubt he would end up letting it grow into a tangled grey mess until it was down to his knees. Don’t get me wrong, Jim’s a stand up bloke, he really is, and you know I ma happy to cut his hair, happy to have been his barber for so many years. But honestly, he doesn’t need me. I am not needed round here. Not like I used to be.

My dad taught me how to cut hair. I finished school at 15 – a lot of people did in those days – and cut hair with my dad. Father and son. Didn’t need any qualifications then. He could cut hair well, and he taught me how to do it. People in the whole town came to get their hair cut. Well, I say people: the blokes. Every bloke in the area came here to get a nice cut. They would come in all misshapen and overgrown, and they would leave fresh, tidy and clean – a new man. All sorts would come in. Young lads taking a new girl out, wanting to look their best. Older guys having a big meeting with the boss, trying to make a big impression in the hope of a promotion. They would tell you everything. The would treat it almost like a confessional, except they can see me. And I’m not a priest. But they feel, for some reason, that they can speak to me and remain somehow anonymous. Despite the fact that half of these young boys had dads who also had their hair cut in here. Still, I never grassed. Or told anyone anything that was obviously meant to be a secret. Told Pauline everything of course. She heard it all. But believe me, it wasn’t just the youngsters who had things to hide. Their dads’ often had a few skeletons in the closet as well. Let’s take a hypothetical customer, a guy called Steve, say, who may or may not have been a frequent customer.

“This must be your second haircut in a month, Steve.” I might say.

“Well, yes, you know, just started a new job and have to look my best.” Steve might reply.

“Oh I see, you don’t work at the insurance place any more then?” I might add.

“Ummm, well, yes yes I am still there, but, you know doing a different role. Meeting customers a lot more, that sort of thing.” A hypothetical character possibly called  Steve might say.

Now, I had been cutting Steve’s – hypothetical Steve’s -  hair for some 10 years at least. I also knew he had been married for about 12 years. In those ten years of cutting his hair, he had never been into my shop more than once every month and a half. He was like clock-work. Month and a half was up, and he would pop in on a Saturday afternoon. It doesn’t take a genius to work out he was seeing another woman. I mean, it was blindingly obvious. There was also the fact that his brother told me. You find out everything as a barber. Well, I used to, when people actually came to the place.

The change happened only about 5 years ago, when they closed the factory at the top of the hill. A huge car plant that had hundreds of guys working there. But you see, it wasn’t just the factory. People moved here to work there. More shops opened up, schools opened, and the area was full. It had life. After closing the factory, people have moved elsewhere for work. Some stayed around and found jobs in other trades, but many left for work in town and, unpredictably, they get their hair cut there.

Just the way it is. Now, for most of the day, it’s just me and the telly.

(He looks up at the TV perched on a corner cabinet. The TV suddenly seems bright and ultra-colourful, as though hyper-real. It caches Harry’s attention and he cannot help but lean in.)

TV: Looking to find that perfect getaway? That beautiful holiday home that you have always dreamed of? Why not just get away from it all?

Well, Samantha and I are going to help two busy Londoners to do just that. Sarah and Peter have both worked in the city for 8 years and are expecting their first child. They want to find a nice place abroad where they can get away from the hustle and bustle of London….

(Harry stares at the screen utterly transfixed, then gets up and switches off the TV. He looks at his watch.)

Harry: Right! 5 o’ clock, time to shut up shop. (He sweeps up hair, puts scissors away etc).

Course, a few years ago, I would have stayed up until seven, for the guys that have just left work…it being Friday, I used to get a good crowd of guys, often a mix of ages. All going out later that night, in the search of love, or something like that (chuckles to himself)…what we would all do if we could just go back eh? I don’t mean, wouldn’t it be great if we were younger? Although that would be good. What I mean is I wish I really could go back to see what would have happened if I had done things differently. To do all the things right that later became regrets, to stay in touch with the people I said I would, to do the things I wish I had, but didn’t have the balls to do at the time. To have said yes to that invite. To have punched that bully. To have kissed that girl.

Still, I’m not complaining, no, no. I can’t imagine having met anyone better than Pauline. There was no-one like her.

No. No point in nostalgia or thinking about the past for too long. Gets you absolutely no where.

I know that, I really do, but I would just do anything anything to spend a few more moments in the past. Just to speak to Pauline again. To hold her again. That’s all. Not that I haven’t moved on. I have had to. But you just can’t help but think, now and again, I wish I could go back, just for a day.

Act 1 Scene 2

Harry is in the pub. It is around 9 pm and he is with his two friends, Mark and Alan. He went to secondary school with them.

Alan: I’m telling you, the stuff people listen to these days is rubbish. I mean, what happened to real music? You hear these cars go by, you know the ones. Crappy little hatchbacks with huge spoilers and loud exhausts. They all drive along with the windows down so everyone can hear their awful music. All I can make out from it is just drums and a heavy deep thud that you can hear coming from miles away…like Godzilla’s footsteps approaching from afar. I think I would prefer that…be a  bit interesting…you know what I mean?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah….they don’t make music like that used to etc etc, what happened to bands like Led Zeppelin and the Stones? Heard it all before…

Alan: But it’s true! And you bloody know it. The Beatles.

Mark: Yes, the Beatles.

Alan: A good band or not?

Harry: Everyone knows the Beatles were a brilliant band.

Alan: Not everyone. Not the youth of today. They all sit around listen to whatever it is they listen to, and they think they are listening to music. But they are not. They are listening to an imitation of it.

Mark: I don’t know Alan, music’s music. It changes with the times.

Alan: I don’t think that is true. The Beatles made proper music that will never be surpassed.

Harry: They did write a hell of a lot of good songs.

Mark: You know, you say that, but my granddaughter played me some music of her’s the other day. She said it was rap but it wasn’t what I expected. You know it was actually alright. It wasn’t all swearing you know. I mean some of it was. But this stuff she had was more about life and, and empowerment, you know?

Alan: What I know is that rap music is total bullshit. Empowerment? Pull the other one? Are having me on? I’ve heard it all now! I mean, what about those women on these music videos? Are they empowered? All they do is dance around with nothing on! Just basically like watching porn, but with worse music!

Mark: And I suppose you just know all this because you stumbled on the channels by accident? Or perhaps you were doing research for a book on how crap modern music is?

Alan: It is crap!

Mark: Look, I’m not saying that all of it is good.

Alan: Sounds like that’s what you’re saying to me.

Mark: No, no. What I’m saying is you should be more open-minded. You know, look at it from a different angle.

Alan: Don’t need to do that, the camera does all that. Up, down, on the ceiling, on the floor…the cameramen these days must be drunk, the amount of times they change around.

Mark: Now you’re just being stupid. Look. Yes, women show a bit more flesh than they used to on TV, but in a way the nudity is so obvious and that, it’s like it’s just commonplace so it’s not really that shocking anymore, right? It’s a bit like, they are just wearing uniform, but instead of cheap polyester t-shirts, their uniform involves wearing very little.

Alan: Sometimes Mark, you astonish me…

Mark: Well…thanks.

(In the meantime Harry looks depressed and irritated by the constant semi-row)

Alan: No no, it’s not  a complement. Sometimes you just come out with the most amazing rubbish. I wonder  where you get it from.

Mark: You know just when I think you are being nice…saying something half-decent…you come back with something like that.

Alan: Come on now, you haven’t got some of that wacky backy off of your nephew, Pete, again have you? Because I remember that and you said some pretty strange things then. Stuff about how people thought the world was square once so it could still be square now but in a kind of rounded square…

Mark: I do not know where you are getting all this from. I didn’t say all that..noooo not me.

Alan: Harry. You were there. You must remember it.

Harry: It’s true. He is right, Mark. You were saying some strange things that night. We all know what you had been doing.

Alan: Thank you Harry.

Mark: Oh whatever! All I am trying to say is that nudity, like everything else, stops being shocking when it becomes commonplace. Not that it being commonplace is necessarily a good thing…but then, it is how we enter the world…naked.

Alan: Honestly Mark…this is what reading the Mirror does to you! It’s addled your brain, son. Eh Harry? It’s addled his brain, hasn’t it?

Harry: Oh dear…I don’t know what’s wrong with you two tonight. I thought we were just having a quiet drink and all of a sudden it’s turned into Newsnight and you (pointing to Alan) are Jeremy Paxman.

Mark: It’s alright…we were just having a debate about music and that.

Alan: Yeah, nothing more…nothing serious.

Harry: It’s not just that though is it? I mean, it’s not just tonight. We come in here twice a week, every week, and talk about the same old rubbish. Bad music, bad TV, bad football, bad politicians who think they know what they are doing but actually don’t and in fact should be asking the advice of two old codgers in a pub…

Alan: Now, now Harry, that’s a bit much…not our fault if the country is as it is.

Harry: You see, there it is again.

Mark: What’s that, Harry?

Harry: The same old negativity. I mean what is  the country like? What state is it in? Are we in that bad a state? We have got clothes on our backs, beer in our glasses – which admittedly is a lot more expensive than a few years or more ago – but we still have it in our glasses. Why not look at that? Look at the things that we do have? You know, the positive stuff.

(Long silence).

Alan: Blimey, that’s a bit heavy for a drink down the pub…You haven’t been smoking the same stuff as Mark have you?

Mark: Look Al, for the last time, I do not smoke any of this cannabis or “wacky backy” as you call it.

Harry: Oh, for the love of God! (Gets up and goes to the toilet.)

Act 1. Scene 3

Harry stands in the toilet in front of a urinal, but is finding it hard to stand straight.

Harry: (Whispering aloud) Woop! Bit wobbly there old boy! Haha! I can piss straight. Not drunk at all. Just had a few sherbets, that’s all. Come on, lad, keep it in the pot….keep pissing in the pot. 4 pints is all…or was it 5? 6? Definitely not 6…how did I get to 6? Surely not 6 pints…no no no…But you know, you know, why don’t  I just do something different? Always the same old bloody rubbish day in day out….

(Harry has stopped pissing but still stands at urinal)

Why not do something different? You know…from the norm?

(Man comes out of cubicle and sees Harry chatting to himself. Harry tries to stop talking. Man is wearing a white shirt that is stretched tight over his large beer belly. He also wears brown cotton trousers and white trainers.)

Man: You alright there mate? First sign on madness, talking to yourself. That and walking up and down the street in your dressing gown shouting at the moon. (laugh loudly and abruptly).

Harry: Erm, yeah, yeah, fine, fine…

Man: It’s alrigh’ fella, it’s totally normal – I love a natter to myself, mull over the day you know, think about stuff, who’s doing what, who controls what – they control a lot more than you think you know. The LOT.

Harry: (Remains silent.)

Man: Don’t worry, don’t mean to scare you I just know more about the system than is good for me (laughs)…you know, sometimes I just come down here and sit in that cubicle. All on my own. Just to have a good think. It’s always  that one on the far left. Really. I’ve had some of the best thinks of my life in there. I could sit in there for hours.

Harry: Right…(makes a move to go).

Man: Sorry, am I boring you?

Harry: No, no, but my friends are waiting you see.

Man: Good, good. Why don’t you take a look, with me?

Harry: What?

Man: Come on, take a look. You’ll see.

Harry: See what?

Man. The toilet. The toilet, mate. Come on, mate, have a look.

Man beckons Harry over to the toilet and Harry follows.

Harry: (under his breath) Oh, God.

Man goes into the cubicle and sits on the toilet, the toilet seat down. Harry looks at him.

Man: Amazing, isn’t it?

Harry: What?

Man: What do’you mean, what? This. THIS my dear boy. Amazing isn’t it?

Harry: Err, it’s, it’s just a toilet.

Man: I know what it is. I know, I know. You don’t get it. You don’t understand. You need to experience it. More fully. Properly actually.

Man stands up.

Man: Come on. (Breathing heavily). Come and sit on the seat. You come in and sit down. Come on.

Harry: I really should be getting back.

Man: (Speaking in a more forceful way). It won’t take a minute. Now come and sit down. Where I was sitting.

Harry walks into cubicle and has to squeeze very close past Man who is doing little to get out of the way. Harry sits down on the seat, and Man stands watching him, both men inside the cubicle.

Man: Good, isn’t it?

Harry: I don’t mean to sound rude, but it is just like sitting on any toilet.

Man: That’s what I thought at first. But it has some sort of real power –it does. Come on. Sit there a bit longer. (Few seconds pass.) Now. Now what do you think?

Harry: I think I’m just sitting on a toilet.

Man: Maybe you just need longer, yeah, that’s it a bit more time.

Harry: I really should be going. (Begins to strand up).

Man: (Suddenly a bit aggressive) Sit back down. (Harry sits back down). Lay lines or something. I think that must be what it is, yeah. An energy. There’s definitely some sort of energy running through it. Who would have thought it eh? A pub toilet, literally FILLED with radiant ENERGY. (Laughs manically.) Helped me get over the death of my wife. Coming in hear. I used to come to this old public house on a Friday night or Saturday. Or Monday…Tuesday….and have a drink or two with my mates, mate, (quietly) sometimes just me….and I would have a pint or two – (loudly) or 5 vicar I confess! (laughs loudly again) – and come in here and think, think, think.

Harry: Ok. Ok. Sorry to hear about your wife.

Man: We’re alike you and me, you see. I know, I can tell. I can see it in you. I can feel it. You radiate it. We’re alike, and I know, I can sense it. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t you?

Harry: How do you know about Pauline?

Man: Oh. So that’s her name. A lovely name that, yes, lovely.

Harry: Ah, yes, she –

Man: No, it’s alright. What you need, what you need is to try it for yourself.

Harry: What?

Man: What? (laughs). What, he says? The toilet. You should try it alone. Yeah. Yes – always better to pronounce yes is what my mother said, yeah is lazy – yes is best she would say. Yes is best. Going on it alone will give you a real feel for it. A real experience. I can see you want to be alone. To think alone. I’ll go. You just sit and absorb it’s energy. Just sit. Goodbye now. Nice chatting. Bye bye.

Man leaves cubicle closing door behind him. Harry sits for a moment looking puzzled, then opens the door and looks to see if Man has gone. Then he runs out of the toilet and into the bar.

Act 1 Scene 4

Alan: Bloody hell, Harry. That took you long time! What was the hold up? What were you doing in there?

Mark: Exactly what I was thinking. We thought we would have to send out a search party but then we though what we would say when we called the police but thought “I need help finding my friend who went to the toilet but hasn’t come back yet” wouldn’t get the best response.

Alan: For a moment we thought maybe you had gone the way of the great Elvis.

Harry: Well you probably won’t believe me but this weird guy was in there and he started talking to me and he just wouldn’t shut up.

Mark: What? That’s weird. Where is he?

Alan: Yeah, point him out, and we’ll give him a good kicking.

Harry: (Scans the room) Nope. Can’t see him now. Must have left. Like you would be able to do that anyway, you old codger.

Alan: I could have you.

Harry: (laughs)

Mark: Maybe he wanted a bit of your bum. You hear about them. Hang about in toilets, waiting for a tasty morsel to come their way.

Alan: Must be desperate if he wants a bit of Harry’s arse.

Harry: What is wrong with you lot? He was just a bit weird, that’s all…just a little…strange.

Mark: Whatever you say. Maybe you imagined it. You have had a few pints.

Harry: Of course I didn’t imagine it. I’m totally sober. Clean as a whistle. Or something.

Mark: Well, I’m glad you are, ‘cos I’m not.

Harry: (laughs). Not the same as it used to be, eh? When I was 25 I could drink twice what I have had and still drive home. Not that I would, obviously.

Alan: Feeling your age, are you? And you were calling me an old git!

Harry: Old codger actually.

Alan: Old codger, then. Just as bad.

Mark: Is it? I always thought git was a much worse word than codger.

Alan: It’s the old part that is the worst. Anyway, I’m not old. Well, I don’t feel it.

Harry: Maybe we are getting too old for all this. You know, coming down this horrible old pub, getting pissed, getting harassed by some weirdo in the toilet. I don’t need it anymore, you know?

Mark: Alright Harry, what’s this, a leaving speech?

Alan: Yeah, sounds like you are getting too emotional. Let’s have a whisky, that usually helps.

Alan goes and gets 3 double whiskies. They sit and drink the whisky.

Mark: Same whiskey you always get I take it?

Alan: Yep. Why?

Harry: (laughs) You get it because it’s the cheapest.

Mark: I’ll second that…

Alan: That’s rubbish, it’s nice, I like the taste…it’s not the cheapest anyway.

Mark: Yes it is.

Alan: No, it’s the second cheapest, by 5p. So there.

Harry: How long have we been coming here?

Alan: I don’t know…too long. Twenty years. Maybe more.

Harry: Twenty years. And in that time you have always bought the exact same brand of whiskey, every time you have ever bought whiskey, which isn’t that often…and the beer is the same. The same beer, year after year after year.

Mark: Blue Fox.

Alan: What? So you’re agreeing as well?

Mark. Blue Fox. You have never bought anything different. Hang on a minute. You drink the same thing every time you come here.

Harry: No I don’t.

Mark: Yeah, you do. You drink Blue Fox as well.

Alan: That’s right. We all do. I know because if I go up to the bar to get a round, I say, three Foxes please, and  I bring them back and you drink them.

Mark: He’s got you there, Harry.

Harry: That’s not strictly true. I used to drink Hooded Winker. Remember. That used to be what I had all the time. And you Harry, I can’t remember what you used to drink but it wasn’t the same as it is now.

Alan: Yeah yeah but I don’t drink the same thing all the time. If I’m at home, with the wife and that, sometimes I might venture into wine territory. Glass of red or white here and there.

Mark: Blimey, Harry, did you know about this? Alan. Drinking wine?

I could swear that you have never mentioned this before Al. I mean, I always had you down as a pie and chips man. Next you will be telling me you have been watching the ballet.

Alan: I don’t know what you mean by that. There is nothing wrong with the odd glass of wine. Anyway, I only drink it because Kath does.

Harry: You see. There’s the truth. Only do it because you are forced to. I don’t know. We have all been coming here for years and sometimes I look back on it all and think what have I ever done? What is there in the last I don’t know how many years that I can actually remember with excitement.

Mark: Alright, Harry, we were just talking about beer that’s all.

Harry: Do you know how old I am?

Alan: 61?

Harry: Yes. Sixty – fucking – one and here I am in the same pub I used to drink at when I was only 23. Probably even younger.

Mark: Well…they did have that big renovation about ten years ago, so it’s not all the same. And they never used to serve curry or do karaoke, like they do now.

Harry: It’s still the same pub though isn’t it? The only difference is that I used to come here on a Friday or Saturday, to get all warmed up before heading into town, full of excitement, optimism, possibility…

Alan: (Laughs). I seem to remember we just wanted to try and get laid.

Harry: Now I just come here to have a few drinks before heading home for the night.

Mark: Who is more powerful, the Queen, or Barack Obama?

Harry: What?

Alan: Yeah, hang on a minute. Were we even talking about this?

Mark: I was just wondering. Who makes more decisions that affect the world?

Harry: Who cares?

Alan: I think it is the Queen. She has more power than people realise, you know.

Harry: That is ridiculous. She doesn’t do anything anymore. She’s just a figurehead.

Mark: No, people like Barack Obama and the Queen don’t operate things. It’s people like Simon Cowell and Bill Gates. They make the real decisions. The money men. The business men.

Alan: And they go and ruin everything. Computers. What have they ever done for anybody? All they seem to do is keep kids cooped up indoors, typing and shooting and their skin gets paler and paler from lack of sun until they are practically transparent. And as for Simon Cowell.

Harry: Here we go. This is your fault (looking at Mark)

Mark: Don’t blame me!

Alan: Look, I know I have made the point before…

Harry: Many times before…

Alan: But it is a good point to make…he is the face of everything that is wrong with music today. What is wrong with proper bands? People that had talent and that actually wrote and played their instruments? Not just some 15-yr-olds who become overnight stars by singing a few songs on that bloody X-factor.

Mark: You can’t argue with that, Harry. I mean, he’s right, I haven’t heard a good song on the radio in years. I don’t listen to the radio much, but if I do, I never hear anything good.

Harry: He is only moaning about that show, because he auditioned for it and was rejected straight away.

(Alan looks at Harry in disbelief).

Alan: Harry! I cannot believe that you would spread such a rumour.

Mark: Come to think of it, I do remember someone telling me about this. But I dismissed it at the time as gossip.

Harry: It’s true. Isn’t it Al. Didn’t even get through the first stage. He wanted to sing Jesus to a Child to 10 million people, but was told that he just didn’t cut it.

Mark: (laughing) You are joking?

Alan: Look, I went but then I decided half way there that I was going to back out, so I never sang to anyone.#

Mark: Are you sure, only you look like there is more to this story…

Harry: Ooooh, he didn’t turn back.

Alan: Alright! Alright. I wanted to go on the show…I wanted to re-educate people about George Michael. He is much undervalued these days.

Mark: Dear God. I’ve heard it all now. So you were too awful to get through.

Alan: Of course not

Harry: That’s the sum of it.

Alan: No, no…it was basically ageism. No-one wants a pop star like me, do they? Eh?….You can laugh all you like. At least I had the courage to have a go.

Harry: Courage? That’s what you call it. I call it stupidity. And vanity. Mostly vanity.

Alan: Look. Many years ago when I was going through some tough times…George helped me.

Mark: Sorry?

Alan: His music…it is powerful stuff. Let’s just move on, shall we?

Harry: No, no, no, so tell us some more about how George helped you.

Alan: No, no. You are just taking the piss now. Try to be serious for one second and you just take the piss. Typical really.

Mark: No. Alan. We shall listen with totally open minds.

Harry: Listen with all seriousness.

Alan: Look. All I’m saying is that listening to some of George’s music, during a tough time of my life, really helped me…..

Mark: Go on.

Alan. Particularly one song. I just listened to it over and over. It became almost like an obsession, but it helped it really did. That’s all.

Harry: Come on, you have to tell us the song now.

Alan: Well…I dunno

Mark: Come on, this can’t get any worse.

Alan: It was…Last Christmas

(Mark and Harry burst into laughter).

Harry: Are you kidding me?

Mark: Last bloody Christmas?

Alan: You can laugh all you like but it is a good song.

Harry: Hang on a minute. That was by Wham – not just George Michael.

Alan: Well. George Michael was in Wham so it counts.

Mark: But it’s not even a sad song. It’s all cheery and christmasy.

Alan: That’s not true you see though, is it? Listen to the words and the song suddenly has a different meaning. “I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away.” You see. It’s about loss. Loss. Pain. It’s not that happy at all.

Harry: I can’t think of a worse song to listen to when feeling a bit down. I think it would just push me over the edge.

Mark: I wish I had been a singer. Lead singer in a band. Rock star. Pop star whatever they call it these days.

Harry: So do I Mark. So do I.

Mark: At least you have an honourable profession. People need a hair cut.

Harry: Hah! Honourable? There is no honour in my job.

Mark: But it is worthwhile.

Harry: It is about as worthwhile as a cow that can’t produce milk and has inedible meat so you can’t even eat the thing. I’m just a milkless, steak free cow.

Alan: We all need to get our hair cut though, don’t we.

Harry: Well, even if that is true, people don’t need to get their hair cut at my shop.

Mark: Well, nothing is more pointless than my job. Selling bloody double glazing. Over 30 years. The same thing. Turn up at some person’s house and give them a three hour speech about how great the windows are to justify their costing four times as much as anyone else. Then, whether they want or need windows, they just sign the dotted line, half the time just to get me to leave.

Harry: To be honest I would argue with you there but I can’t.

Mark: Easy, no need to be too harsh.

Harry: What can only you criticize your job?

Alan: God, you two don’t half dribble on when given the chance. At least you two have bloody jobs. I have been looking for a job now for just under a year. No-one wants a pensioner working for them. Anyway Harry, if things are that bad, why don’t you go somewhere else and cut hair there? Or sell the shop, and cut hair somewhere else?

Harry: I couldn’t do that.

Mark: He’s been there years…

Harry: It’s not just that though…My father gave me that shop. It’s a family business.

Shame my eldest son has no idea how to cut hair. And he has no desire to learn, either.

Alan: And as for your youngest…

(Mark breathes out heavily and rolls his eyes)

Alan: Sorry, it just…

Harry: What? As for my youngest he is never going to take it over. He was never going to cut hair. Can’t even hold a pair of scissors? He was good at many things in his time. Many things. He is still alive. Although everyone seems to think he is dead, including Paul, I think about him everyday. Don’t talk about my son. If I want to talk about Danny I’ll talk about him.

Mark: How is he doing?

Harry: Ask now, why don’t you. Too busy moaning about the music business and everything else to ask about anything…anything serious.

Alan: Is he doing any better? Any worse?

Harry: Of course he’s not doing any better. He’s going to die. That’s it, I’m going.

Going for good.

Mark: What do you mean by that?

(Harry leaves)

Mark: What did he mean by going for good?

Alan: Nothing.

Mark: You don’t think he means something more drastic do you?

Alan: What? Like kill himself? Don’t be stupid. Harry’s not the type.

Mark: How do you know what the type is? You hear about those people all the time on the news. They seem fine on the surface. Happy. Content. Loving family. Then one day they don’t come home from work, and the police are called. Then later that night they find an empty white Vauxhall Astra – the company car  – parked by a path leading up to a cliff.

Alan: Yeah, well. Harry’s not content is he? He’s a grumpy bastard. He’ll be fine.

(Bell rings for last orders).

Act 1 Scene 5

Harry is standing outside the pub on his mobile phone.

Woman: Hello?

Harry: Hello Wendy, it’s me.

Wendy: Harry. It’s 11:30, I had just gone to bed.

Harry: I know, I’m sorry. I just wanted to tell you something.

Wendy: Have you been drinking Harry?

Harry: Only a little. I just wanted to say that I wanted to take you up on your offer. I want to do it Wendy.

Act 2 Scene 1

Harry stumbles drunkenly into his Barber shop doorway, whistling happily. Fumbles with his keys and after dropping them on the floor eventually gets in. He goes over to barber’s chair and sits in it heavily. He goes into back room and comes back with a picture of his wife, balancing it on the corner of the sink, and stops whistling. The only light is the yellow of the streetlamp outside shining through the blinds in the window.

Harry: Pauline. I have something to tell you. You are not going to like it. It’s hard for me to say. I have met someone else. There. That wasn’t too hard. If the world was perfect Pauline, you would still be here. Actually there would still be a lot more that is wrong with the world, but I would be able to cope with its imperfections better. The truth is Pauline, no-one will be able to replace you, but I can’t be alone for ever. Not like this. Moping around in a dead end barber shop, my eldest son moved away up north and my youngest…my youngest not to be here much longer…I can’t help but think you see, when I go to that miserable fucking pub with those moaners, what I have actually done with my life. And what I have done for me. I have cut peoples’ hair for ever. I have never done what I have really wanted to do. Bloody Mark saying my job is worthwhile! Hah! He should try doing it for a day. One day and then we will see what he says. Of course, he would obviously find it difficult because he can’t cut hair but the point is, he would see the job for what it is. What it has become for me. It is not really worthwhile now, is it Pauline? I’m not just being selfish am I?

I remember when I used to come upstairs after a long day and I would moan about this and that and how we were getting less customers and I wished I did something else. But you always made me see another angle. Old Roger who came in here once a month who lived just down the road and struggled with all his might just to get here for his haircut, despite two hip replacements and arthritis.

“Old Roger depends on you Harry. And every time you finish, he looks so much happier, and leaves the shop with a bounce in his step.”

Well, Pauline, Old Roger became Dead Roger last Christmas. So did Old John and Old Pete. Yep. Even Old Pete who you said would live to one hundred. Still, people used to say that you would live that long. And look how wrong that was.

Sometimes I can’t help but think. Why? Why and I doing this? Some people say everything happens for a reason. But I could prove them wrong instantly if I just showed them my life. There was no reason that Danny was born with Muscular Dystrophy and no reason that you went when you did. None of it has made me stronger. If anything it has made me weaker. But as well as that, there is no reason to me. What reason have I got for being here?

(Harry picks up razor from a cup and walks over to the window. He slices the air as he talks.)

Why have I fucking well been standing here over and over year after year doing the same bloody haircut for people I don’t even like and never will, just for enough money to get drunk on? Eh?

Harry walks around room slicing air in anger.

What’s been in it for me eh? When I look back, I don’t see anything but the same image.

(He stands in front of mirror, pretending to cut his hair with the razor).

Just this. Me, standing here for ever. A man comes in. “Please, take a seat sir,” I say.

They sit down. And they tell me that they want the same hair cut as last time. And I cut it. Like so. Down one side, down the back, down the other side. And snip the top. Chop, chop, chop. Chop, chop, chop!

(Harry brings razor to his throat)

Then sometimes it flashes through my mind, as they are blathering about how many piles they have this week, or what their nephew’s brother is in jail for this month, I just think I could just take that bloody blade and draw it across  – like this – slice!

(Harry pretends to slit own throat)

There head would flop forwards. Quick. Very quick. I would just tip them over the sink, catch the blood until it stops bleeding and get rid of the body. I’ve seen Sweeney Todd. I could bloody do it. He may have been a murderer, but at least he has got books written about him. Nothings going to be written about me.

(Throws razor into bowl with force.)

It’s on fucking good, going on like this. I’m through, Pauline. I’m through.

Act 2 Scene 2

There is a hard banging on the door. It is morning. Harry is asleep in his chair.

Paul: Dad! Dad! Dad!

(Harry wakes up and opens the door).

Harry: Bloody hell son what are you doing here?

Paul: I thought I had better come down, about, you know…Dan

Harry: Right, right. Well you didn’t have to.

Paul: Of course I did, he’s my brother. Anyway, why aren’t you open for business?

Harry: What do you mean? What time is it?

Paul: It’s 11.

Harry: 11!?

Paul: Yeah, what’s going on? This is usually a really busy time.

Harry: Yeah well, you haven’t been here for a while, have you?

Paul: You don’t have to be like that.

Harry: No son, I’m not being like anything. Saturday’s are not busy here anymore. In fact no day of the week is.

Paul: Well I know you mentioned something on the phone about business slowing up but I thought you were just being a bit dramatic.

Harry: Why would I do that?

Paul: Well, I don’t know. You exaggerate sometimes. We all do.

Harry: Do we? Well look, I wasn’t exaggerating, ok? I haven’t been making any money in this place for the last three years at least. The only reason it’s still going is because I own the shop and it doesn’t cost me much to run.

Paul: But you’re managing?

Harry: If you can call that managing then yes, I suppose I am. Managing. I need to get changed.

(He turns sign in the door to OPEN. He sees picture of Pauline on sink and grabs it as he sees Paul looking at it, taking it upstairs with him.)

Paul: Strange.

(Walks over to sink and picks up broken razor, putting it back in cup. Harry comes down stairs and into the shop).

Paul: So how come you weren’t open then?

Harry: Oh I don’t know, just overslept.

Paul: Overslept? I am nearly totally certain that in the time since my birth to now, you have never overslept and not had the shop open bang on time.

Harry: Yeah well, I’m older than I used to be, aren’t I? Anyway, how’s things in Manchester? Everything alright with Sarah?

Paul: Yes, yes. Everything’s fine….Dad, How long has he got?

Harry: Is the weather much worse up north? Colder?

Paul: Come on dad, you said that things are bad. How bad.

Harry: Oh I don’t know Paul. Pretty bad, that’s all. Pretty bad. He is in a coma now. Not doing anything.  Nothing.

Paul: I want to see him, before he goes.

Harry: You don’t need to. It will only depress you even more.

Paul: He’s my brother. I have to.

(Silence).

Harry: How’s the job going? Still getting on alright?

Paul: Yeah. I got promoted the other day. Assistant Supervisor of the Sales and Marketing team. It’s only a small pay rise but it’s a small step in the right direction.

Harry: Well done, son. That’s good. And everything is going well with Sarah?

Paul: You asked that already, Dad.

Harry: Oh yes, so I did.

Paul: I didn’t realise things had got so bad down here, with the business I mean. I always remember it being packed. Well, busy at least. Now there is nothing. There hasn’t been a sound all morning. I haven’t even seen anyone walk past. Why? How could it have got this bad?

Harry: I’m sure I mentioned before that the factory closing down up the top had an effect. People have moved out. They go to other places to get their haircut. You know, apparently there are barbers now where they give you a free beer when you go in, and you can play computer games while you wait. How can I compete with that? Free beer? Maybe I should have modernized. The place hasn’t had a fresh lick of paint for about ten years, that can’t help.

Paul: So the place is a bit old fashioned. So what? It’s not that bad. I mean yeah it could do with a bit of a spruce up, but it’s just somewhere men go to get a haircut.

Harry: That may be true son, but whatever it is, whatever the reason, people do not come to Harry’s Barbers for a haircut. That’s not completely true. Some old boys still come here, but most of them are slowly dying off. I sometimes wonder whether they only come in so that when they do die, the first person to find them will tell everyone that he always looked his best, even at the end.

Paul: Blimey Dad, you don’t have to be like that.

Harry: I’m sorry son. I can quite morbid when I think about this shop and then I think of Danny. I can’t help but wonder on days like this when no-one comes in the shop for hours at a time…what am I doing here?

Paul: Don’t say things like that dad. You sound like you are going to pack it all in. This is the family business. Grandad ran it.

Harry: But you’re not going to run it are you?

Paul: Well I have my own commitments, you know that.

Harry: Well, how can you even mention that it is a family business when you have never had an interest in cutting hair and still don’t. You’re not going to help out are you? Family business my arse.

Paul: Come on dad, you always said I should do what I want. Have my own ambitions.

Harry: Well, you have done that alright.

Paul: Well, maybe I could help in some way. Maybe do some marketing,,,get the place known again. Try to get people to come in rather than pass by.

Harry: When would you do that?

Paul: Well, obviously I wouldn’t be able to do anything at the moment…

Harry: Please Paul, don’t make promises you can’t keep…it’s a waste of yours and my time.

Paul: Don’t accuse me of making false promises.

Harry: Why not? That’s what you are doing now. You never can stick to anything.

Paul: What is that meant to mean?

(Car tires are heard screeching outside as though avoiding a collision).

Harry: Well, you haven’t exactly made an effort to come down and see Danny have you?

Paul: Oh yeah… I wondered when this old one was coming. I am busy Dad, you can’t resent me trying to live my own life with Sarah.

Harry: Don’t accuse me of resenting you from having anything. But you said that you were going to visit, didn’t you? You said you would come at least every month. At least. And you have only just about made it twice in the last 3 years.

Paul: I can’t believe you would say all this. You are…

(Telephone rings)

Ring ring.

(They are both silent and just look at the phone.)

Ring ring.

Ring ring.

Harry: Come on Paul answer it.

Paul: It’s your phone! You answer it!

Ring Ring.

Harry: For god’s sake Paul, just bloody answer it!

(Paul answers the phone).

Paul: Hello? Yes. What time? Ok. Goodbye.

(Paul puts phone down and stands in silence looking at the floor).

Paul: It’s Danny.

Harry: Yes.

Paul: They don’t think he has much longer. Won’t last until tomorrow.

Harry: No.

Paul: Said we might want to be with him…

Harry: Yes. I’ll drive.

Act 2 Scene 3

Paul and Harry sit in a hospital room. Danny lies motionless in a bed. The two men look frozen, not sure what to say or do.

Paul: (Clears his throat, Harry looks up.) I can’t believe how sudden it is. I was going to come and visit him…I was going to some and visit mate – next week – but then Dad said you were a bit under the weather…(Looks at Harry) This seems so strange. How much can he hear?

Harry: I’m not sure…he’s been like this for a few weeks. Barely conscious really. I haven’t a clue how much he can hear.

Paul: A couple of weeks?

Harry: It hasn’t been sudden. Not really. I did tell you at least three weeks that he had got worse.

Paul: I didn’t realise it was this bad.

Harry: You could have come down…I did tell you he was worse.

Paul: Don’t try and make me feel guilty…not here, not about something like this. He might be able to understand all of this. You might, mightn’t you Dan? Dan. I can’t believe this is you. My brother. You don’t want to hear us arguing do you?

Harry: Alright Paul. Alright. I’m going to get a breath of fresh air.

Harry wipes his eyes as he walks out. Paul pulls chair up to sit next to Danny’s bed.

Paul: I know I have been away for a while. But I could swear it wasn’t that long ago that you were kicking a football around…well kicking it around might be an exaggeration. But it wasn’t that long ago, I’m sure it wasn’t.

I, I know I haven’t been home as much as I could have but you know how it is. We have to make a life for ourselves. I know you don’t resent that. Not like Dad. Anyone would think he wishes I had just stayed at home. God…I can’t believe I’m sitting here moaning about him to you. But that’s what we used to do. That’s one of the things I miss. Miss how you and me can’t really talk like we used to. I didn’t realise how much fun I used to have talking to you. I mean, I have Sarah and other friends but they haven’t lived the same life we have. And there are all these things we know and jokes we have that others just wouldn’t get. Like how Dad used to wave us off when we left for school every morning and he would always say, every time, “You two stay out of trouble now”. But it wasn’t just that he always said it, but that he always sounded exactly the same – and we found it so funny and would imitate him and we would both crack up laughing. Anyone else would think it was just about the worst joke they had ever heard, but to us, to us it was hilarious…that’s what I miss, what I’m going to miss the most. Still, you might be alright yet…

Do you remember that time we went to the park, when you were really young? And we played those boys from St.Paul’s? We used to take the piss because they had those red blazers and they were an all boy’s school. We always said that they were a bunch of poofs. (Laughs softly) Ridiculous when you think about it now. It was the last day of the year before I went into my last year and you had just finished your first. We went to the park straight after school and it was hot and bright. The grass just the right length for football and the sun wasn’t burning hot, but just at the right temperature. Just a warm glow, a bit like a hairdryer on the medium setting. You know, when you can keep it in front of your hand for ever without it burning. And we played 3 of those guys from St.John’s – just threw down our bags as goal posts and started playing. I remember being worried as we started the match, that you might get injured. It would only take one knock and you would crumple into a heap of bones. I used to worry a lot. It was quite a relief when they took you out of school to be honest. I know it was a sign that things were getting worse, but it at least it meant you were away from those other kids.

I knew then that you were having more problems. Your walk wasn’t quite right. Slightly lopsided. More delicate. More careful. But that summer’s day we played them anyway. We played those guys and I thought at the time that you probably wouldn’t be able to play football for much longer. So I decided right then that I would try to make it the best match ever, so you would remember it as a victory, your last win. So we thrashed them, but as far as I was concerned I would have beaten Chelsea at that moment, just to ensure you remembered winning your last football match. The most amazing thing was not only was it as fun as it could have been, but you even scored two goals yourself. Not just one, but two, ending up with a score of  6-1. It’s odd. The way it took hold of you. I’m sorry…I don’t mean to be so morbid but it did. I know it’s pathetic but I can’t even remember the type you have…but you just seemed to be normal for so long…looking back I suppose you can think of things that indicated that you weren’t quite right. I remember wrestling on the carpet in the lounge. We pushed the sofa out of the way – and the coffee table and somehow even managed to get a mattress down from upstairs so we could jump on it without getting hurt. Dad was working in the shop as usual. We tried to do all the moves we had seen on TV which was a pretty bad idea on reflection but actually for once neither of us ended up crying. Not like the time we stayed up and watched that Enter the Dragon, and pretended to be Bruce Lee. That time you ended up falling on the radiator and cried for hours. But the time we wrestled in the lounge was fun. Just fun. Not marred with any negativity at all. Other memories have a negative aspect to them. Like when I think about mum, I think about the fact that she isn’t here anymore which is unbearably sad sometimes. And no matter how happy a memory is I have of her, it will always be slightly sad. I suppose the wrestling will become sad soon. I’ll try to keep it happy though. I don’t want to be unhappy sitting here now. It wouldn’t be fair. Though sometimes I do wonder what is fair.

Act 2 Scene 3

Outside in the hospital garden, Harry and a Wendy, a nurse, sit together on a bench, talking.

Wendy: I know it’s hard. But you have to be strong.

Harry: It’s just so hard. I’m not sure I can cope with it.

Wendy: Don’t you want to be there?

Harry: When he dies? Why? Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to see the life I tended to and looked after for so many years, disappear?

Wendy: You may regret it…

Harry: I don’t think so. I was there when Pauline died. The image will never leave me. Everything about that day will never leave me. Unlike remembering something nice…I just have this most grotesque and horrendous of memories scarred into my brain. If I think of it I can smell everything. Feel the blanket she had on her. I feel hot like it was in the room. I don’t just remember it – I’m there.

Wendy: I understand Harry, but death can be like reading the last page of a long book. Imagine if you got to the end of the book but the last page was missing. It would drive you mad not knowing how it ends. But life is not a book. It’s real. It helps to read the last page.

Harry: I know. I know. It just hurts so much. Yet, at the same time, I have been praying this day would come for a while now. I don’t mean I want him to die. But watching him decay month after month, gradually getting worse and worse has been unbearable. I can only imagine what it must have been like for him. He used to love football, but after a while the closest he could get to playing it was on a computer game. Although he and his brother had a lot of fun playing them. Before Paul went to Manchester. Sometimes I wonder how he could do that. To go away when Danny had so little time left…what was I supposed to do? Keep him company while I was at work all day? So he just had to sit there, watching television, or listening to the radio until he became so ill he had to come here. I just don’t understand how his own brother could desert him.

Wendy: Come on, Harry. Paul stayed with you for a long time. He couldn’t stay here forever, waiting. He had to make a future for himself. You don’t mean what you are saying,

Harry: I’m not sure anymore. What I do mean is that at least if Danny goes now, it will be the end of the waiting. The end of this agony. The waiting is awful Wendy, like torture. I have had these calls before, where they tell me that Danny hasn’t got long, and I come up here and wait and wait and his breathing slows and I think that’s it and he’s gone. And then he breathes in again, and he ends up struggling on, but it’s unbearable. It sounds stupid, but it always reminds me of those films Wendy. The typical thrillers…the ones where they end with the good guy fighting the baddie, on some rooftop. And they fight away until the hero gets beaten off the edge of the roof and he is just hanging there – and it’s so tense sometimes you can hardly look. But in those films the hero always wins, throwing the baddie to his death.

Wendy: Honestly Harry I think you have been watching too many films. You will make it through all of this..

Harry: No no, I’m trying to make a point. In the films, the good guy always pulls himself up the ledge, beats the bad guy and everything turns out alright. What I have finally realised, is that in the real world the good guy doesn’t get saved. In reality there are no good guys or bad guys. There are just people, and sometimes good stuff happens to them and sometimes bad stuff. In real life, some people hang on for a long time, sometimes other people come and tread on their fingers, and other times they just get tired and lose their grip. But they all fall.

Wendy: I think I understand Harry. I do. You need time, that’s all. You need to think about things and to work things through.

Harry: Think? That’s all I have been doing for years? What else can I do when I’m cutting people’s hair? Most of the time I’m just thinking. And I certainly don’t need time. I have had too much of that. Too much of just waiting and waiting and waiting.

Wendy: Of course you have. But maybe you need to talk to Paul then, sort things out with him.

Harry: I expect he will want to go back to Manchester soon enough. Do you know what the worse thing has been? It’s waking up, every single morning for years, the same thought comes into my head, nearly always the first thing I think?

Wendy: What’s the thought?

Harry:  Am I going to lose my son today? Every morning. Every bloody morning, for years, since he came here. I can’t stand it anymore. I want it to end. How can I say that eh? I’m his Dad. I brought him into this world and now… How can I say something like that?

Wendy: You are a man Harry. You are a human being. Your thoughts are not borne out of malice. Danny has suffered for a long time. And so have you. You have felt it. I often wonder what is worse. I see it here all the time, and I really don’t know which is worse. The suffering of those dying, or the people that love them and see the person that they have loved for so long, suffer and slip away?

Harry: I think I should go back.

Paul comes into the garden and sees Harry and Wendy sitting on the bench. He goes over to them.

Paul: Hello Wendy.

Wendy: Hello Paul, how are you? It’s been a while since I saw you.

Paul: Yeah…it has.

Harry: How is he?

Paul: I’m not sure. Not that great really. I think his breathing has slowed down a bit. First it was in, out, in, out, in, out. Now it is more like, in…..out……in……out  – slower. I thought his finger moved for a moment, but actually I think that it was just light through the window shining on his hand.

Harry: I think we should go in.

Paul: No. No Dad. I can’t do it anymore. I have seen enough. I have done what I wanted to do. I have said goodbye….in a sense. I think I want to stay here.

Harry walks into the hospice. Paul stands. Wendy remains seated on the bench.

Wendy: You can sit down if you want.

Paul. No. No thanks. I just wanted to say….Thanks You know, for looking after him all these years.

Wendy: I don’t do everything. But it’s ok. It’s my job.

Paul: I know. But, I always felt – feel – that you put extra care into it with Danny. Like you really care for him. Like it’s more than a job.

Wendy: Thank you Paul. That means a lot. And in a way, it is more than just a job. You can’t come here everyday and go home feeling like you did when you arrived in the morning.

Paul: Am I a bad person?

Wendy: Why?

Paul: (Becoming exasperated) I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t. But…I just had to get away. I had to get away from here. From the suffering and pain. Away from the shop decaying to dust.
Wendy: Really, Paul, you shouldn’t beat yourself up. You are here now.

Paul: It’s just…I was scared. I didn’t want to come and see my brother die. I couldn’t cope with seeing him fade away like a candle burning further and further down until…until it just burns away to darkness. Can you believe that I am that much of a coward?

Wendy: We all get scared and deal with these things differently. You are not a bad person. There are no rules about what to do at times like this. When people you love are ill or dying, we just make it up as we go along. No-one knows what to do.

Paul: The worse thing is that…although it is hard. I don’t feel proper sadness. Not really. I’m not sure what I feel. But, seeing him suffering, that makes me more sad. He can’t go on like this, as he is. He needs peace. I don’t want to insult you Wendy, but whenever I come here, as soon as I seen the building emerge behind the trees when you come up the main road, my stomach tightens and  I feel sick. Everything about this place scares me. The yellow paint, the heavy wooden doors, the white blinds on the windows. I don’t want Danny to be here anymore, in a place of sickness and sadness.

Wendy: It’s alright…it took me a long time to block out everything I see, and hear. Paul: The thing is you see, I didn’t want to accept that this moment would come. I thought maybe if I moved further away, I could pretend that none of it was really happening. And visiting here just made me face the reality of what was really happening and what would really happen to him.

Wendy: It’s ok…I understand it…I have been working here for twenty two years. I have days when I hate the place. Hate coming here and seeing the suffering and the sadness. I would be lying though if I said that you don’t get used to it. You do. You de-sensitize. But the thing is, when I help people…to alleviate their pain in their last moments, I feel that it is worth it. It doesn’t take away all the negative aspects, but it gets me here everyday. And when I try and help in even a small way, people like your Danny and you and your father, I feel like I am doing something to help.

Paul: (A long pause). You know, when I came here the last time, Danny had been here around a month. And I came in and he was sitting in a chair beside the bed. His body was frail and he couldn’t move much below the waist. But he was still alive, still bright and he spoke to me like he used to. Now the person I see is not even my brother anymore. Just a body constantly laying in bed struggling to stay alive, yet in reality already dead.

Now. Why don’t you go back in and be with your Father?

Paul: No. I can’t go back. Not now.

Wendy gets up and goes inside.

Act 2 Scene 4.

Harry sits by the bedside of his dying son.

Harry: Hello son, it’s your dad again. Expect you enjoyed hearing from your brother again. Look son, I don’t know how much you can hear or anything but I need to tell you something. I need to get it off my chest with you before you…it’s just I, I have found a woman. I don’t know why I’m telling you this…I have met this woman and she means a lot to me and I haven’t told anyone. It’s just I want you to know that despite it, I have come in and I have sat with you and nothing has changed. And that, though I have met this woman…I still love and respect your mother. But I have had to move on…to have something of my own. I just hope that, if you can hear me, you won’t think I have done anything wrong…

Harry looks at Danny for a few second, gets up and stands over him.

Harry: Is that it? Danny! Danny! Are you gone? Is that it? Gone? Gone?

Wendy walks in.

Harry: I think he is dead. Dead, Wendy. He isn’t breathing anymore. Is he dead?

Wendy: He is dead, Harry. He has gone. He will be at peace now.

Wendy hugs Harry and holds him as he cries. At this point, Paul walks in. He looks at Wendy and Harry hugging and looks suspicious.

Paul: Is he…? Gone?

Wendy and Harry stop hugging.

Harry: Yes, son. That’s it. He’s gone. Another member of my family has gone. Lost to death.

Paul: (Standing over his brother’s body, softly).  My brother’s gone. (Struggling with sadness) Goodbye Dan.

Paul leaves the room.

Act 3 Scene 1

(Paul and Harry walk into the Barber shop. It is beginning to get dark outside, so it is gloomy inside, as they don’t put the lights on.

Paul sits in the Barber’s chair. Harry moves to go out the back door.)

Paul: Where are you going?

Harry: I was just going to go and make a tea.

Paul: No. Stay here.

Harry: Why?

Paul: I just want to speak to you.

Harry says nothing and sits down in a waiting chair facing Paul who sits in the rotated cutting chair.

Silence.

Harry: Son?

Paul: It’s…it’s just…you know…you know that…oh….well

Harry: What’s wrong?

Paul: What other than that I just saw my brother die?

Harry: It’s hard for me too.

Paul: Is it?

Harry: What do you mean by that?

Paul: Well…when I walked in, you were talking to that Wendy. Dan’s nurse.

Harry: And?

Paul: She was hugging you. Holding you.

Harry: Yes.

Paul:  That’s it? Yes?

Harry: I’m not sure I follow you son.

Paul: You seemed close to her. To Wendy. You seemed much closer than I would ever be to a nurse.

Harry: Yeah, well, I have got to know her a lot more than you.

Paul: Oh…don’t make me say it dad. Don’t make me speak it out loud. You and Wendy, looked like more than just…friends. You looked close. Much closer than you would normally be with a nurse or even a good friend. You know what I’m getting at.

Harry: Well, I suppose this was bound to come up eventually. You are right, me and Wendy…

Paul: Oh my god! You?! You and some fucking nurse!? I don’t believe I am hearing this or that I’m fucking seeing it! You and her!? How could you?

Harry: Don’t get angry son, not now. For Dan’s sake.

Paul: Don’t bring Dan into this. Anyway what is he going to say now? So what were you doing, chatting her up over the bed while your son lay there dying?

Harry: This is totally unfair!

Paul: Or perhaps your eyes met as you offered to help her with his catheter? What do you think the hospice is, some sort of dating agency where you can go and find nurses and grieving relatives?!

Harry: Look, I expected you to get angry…but it’s different… she’s important to me.

Paul: For Christ’s sake!? Important to you? More important than Dan I should think. Maybe that’s why you ever really went to visit as often as you did. Of course it is. And there was I feeling guilty that I didn’t go enough, and you are only going to chat to your bit on the side! What about Dan!? (Paul hits the side of the chair furiously) What about my fucking brother?!

Harry: Paul, calm down. She is not my bit on the side! Your mother isn’t here anymore. It wasn’t like you suggest. She’s just comforted me and we have become more close.

Paul: God, I can barely imagine what you talk about. You probably walk around the garden, listening to Wendy talk about all the people she has seen die and all the sadness of the people that loved the dying person, and you look and sound concerned. Trying to empathise for those people. But you can’t, because you are not them. And Wendy stopped caring years ago, no doubt, due to the job. So it’s the two of you just walking around making callous comments at the expense of other people’s suffering.

Harry: What are you bloody on about?! You are talking utter rubbish!

Paul: Don’t tell me I’m talking rubbish! You stupid old dick! Maybe you get off on it! Get off on seeing the grief and the death…you get some strange pleasure out of it all.

Harry: Why don’t you shut up! Just go away until you’ve calmed down!

Paul: You are telling me what to do? I’m not a child anymore. I can do as I fucking want!

Harry: Oh yeah, you do that alright!

Paul: What is that supposed to mean!?

Harry: You know what it means!

Paul: Well, I thought it would be a matter of time until this came out! You never were happy about me going to Manchester with Sarah. That’s what it is isn’t it?!

Harry: Look at me, Paul! Look at this bloody place! It’s falling apart, I had no-one to look after Dan…I could barely cope with you as it was but with you gone…

Paul: Oh don’t give me that shit! Dan was basically going to go into this awful place by the time I left! What did you want me to do? Stay here my whole life?!

Harry: But you didn’t have to go so far away did you! So far away that you couldn’t even visit! What sort of brother does that? You didn’t see him for a year! A whole year! The last year of his life!

Paul: I can’t believe you! Saying all of this now! You are sick. You are, you’re the sick one. Copping off with some old nurse who is meant to be looking after your son! What would mum think, eh!? Mum would be disgusted at you!

Harry: Don’t you dare bring your mother into this!

Paul: Why not? I thought you loved mum! I thought she was meant to mean everything to you! It doesn’t look like that now, does it! It’s disgusting! All of it. You. The nurse! All of it!

Harry: She has been gone for 12 years! 12 long years! I can’t feel guilty now! I can’t be in love with someone who’s not even here anymore! I am 61 son. How can I go on worrying what she might think?

Paul: How can you be so bloody callous?! She is still part of us! She brought me up. Cared for me. And you want to just pretend like she never existed!

Harry: That’s not what I said and you know it.

Paul: Don’t you feel any guilt!? Any shame?!

Harry: Of course I do! I feel guilty every day. But you know what else how I have felt for the last 12 years? Lonely. And every time I cut someone’s hair in this mirror I think to myself how much older I’m getting. The mirror reminds me of it constantly – that my time is running out to live again. And I constantly ask myself if I am ever going to find anyone else again?

Paul: We all get old dad, it’s just what happens. It sounds like you’re just having a delayed mid-life crisis.

Harry: You know. I knew you’d get angry. I knew you would. But I thought. No I hoped that maybe somehow you would understand.

Paul: (Building in anger) Well I don’t. I don’t understand how you can be so CALLOUS! And now you have the cheek to accuse me of being stupid or emotionally detached! (Gets up) I have had enough of this! (Goes out the back and gets picture of his mother) Well. I guess you won’t need this anymore, will you! (Paul smashes it on the floor).

Harry: Why did you have to do that you stupid CHILD! You stupid arrogant shit! How could you do that!

A long silence ensues as Harry picks up the pieces. Paul sits down in the waiting chair. Harry puts the pieces of glass and the frame next to the sink, and sits down one chair away from Paul.

Paul: (Chastened) Sorry…I didn’t mean…

Harry: It’s ok. It’s been a hard day for all of us. I knew this day was coming. But I always imagined it to be somehow further away or…different. The worst thing though, is that I actually feel…

Paul: Relieved.

Harry looks at Paul.

Harry: (Quietly). Yes…

Paul: Look Dad. It wasn’t easy to leave Dan and you and just head up north. It wasn’t a decision I made easily.

Harry: It’s ok. If I am honest, I would have liked to have done the same myself. To just get away from it all. There was not one time that I enjoyed seeing Dan in the last few years…

Paul: I just couldn’t…

Harry: I know…

Paul: In the last few years before he went in, I saw him just get weaker and weaker. And that was bad  enough. But the thought of seeing him get even worse was too much to bear.

Harry: I won’t lie to you son, it was hard. Very hard. But, and I know it is a terrible cliché, but he is in a better place now. I don’t mean heaven or anything like that. I just mean, he wasn’t really living in the last year of his life. He was barely really alive. He was just laying there every day, barely unable to eat or drink by himself. In the end, barely able to breathe. I wouldn’t really have wanted you to see all of that.

Paul: (Crying) I didn’t want to see him suffer. I didn’t want to see him in pain. I’m a coward…I am dad, I know I am, but I just couldn’t watch it…my brother.

They look at each other and sit in silence while Paul wipes away his tears.

Paul: The thing is, it wasn’t just about Dan. I don’t want to bring it up but…it was also about Mum…

Harry: Come on Paul. Do we have to go into this now?

Paul: Why not? We have never talked about it. We just pretend it never happened. Almost like mum is still alive but is on holiday, and we’re just waiting for her to come back.

Harry: It’s not quite like that. Not really. Come on, we have had enough sadness for today.

Paul: I, I have this memory of mum. It’s like a reoccurring dream, but actually a memory, but I think about it all the time. I was sitting in the lounge. I can’t have been much older than fourteen. I came in from school and sat down on the floor because mum was laying on the sofa. I leant my back against the sofa. I remember it all so clearly. I think I woke her up as I sat down, and she put her hand through my hair, and asked me how my day was. I remember looking up and seeing her face, which was so tired and worn. So heavy. And it was when the cancer was spreading I suppose and she was getting more ill, though you didn’t tell me at the time. I knew she was ill, but not sure how ill. We watched this programme on TV. A stupid cooking programme. This chef was on a boat going across the sea off the coast of Cornwall. And he was going to catch some fish to cook and eat on the boat. Then he caught this big dogfish, and showed the face to the camera. And Mum just said, softly, “God, I wouldn’t eat that fish. It looks horrible.” And I laughed, and she laughed quietly. The whole thing is so clear in my mind. So fresh as though it just happened to me. And I have wondered why I remember it so clearly.

Harry (Crying silently): Come on, Paul. Is this all necessary.

Paul: I have never told anyone this day, and I feel like it needs to be said. For me if no-one else. It’s just after she laughed, we watched a bit more of the programme, and the chef caught another fish a few minutes later, and I said, “What about that one, Mum?” But she didn’t answer, so I turned round and she had fallen asleep. In the space of no more than two minutes. And I went upstairs as quietly as I could so as not to wake her, and I lay down on my bed with my face in my pillow and cried and cried more than I ever have before because I knew at that moment that mum was too ill. That she was too ill…that it was only a matter of time before she went. And that’s how it was…I had to see my mother who used to be a strong woman, who used to pick me up, and tell me off, and cook for the both of us…just become this ghost…just a tired, weak, ghost…

Harry. I know son. It was hard for everyone.

Paul: But it’s not just that it was hard dad. It’s the awfulness of realising at that point that she had really gone. That…although she was going to die at some point…she was already gone and I had to just hold on to whatever was left of her fading body and mind. Struggling to hold on…

Act 3 Scene 2

Harry and Paul walk in the park. They look out over the large green field.

Paul: It’s so strange to walk through here again. I don’t really know why. Just, been so long I suppose. Don’t think I have walked down this path for over 5 years, and yet I used to come and play football here nearly everyday when I was younger.

Harry: (Laughing) I know you did son, no need to tell me! You used to run into the shop and say to me all excited, “Can I go and play football at the park, dad?” Even though you always knew I would say yes, you always asked. Every time.

Paul: I know…sometimes I just thought that perhaps you might say no. For whatever reason. Of course I remember playing with Danny a couple of times when he was still up to it…

Harry: Yes. Happy memories.

They walk along until they come to a bench and sit down opposite a match which they watch as they talk.

Harry: Memories aren’t enough though, are they?

Paul: What do you mean?

Harry: Well, sometimes, it’s good to have something real, you know. Someone real.

Paul: Are you going to start on about this Wendy again?

Harry: Come on, son, don’t be like that. I have to. I wouldn’t talk about Sarah like that. Look. I have to talk about it – I can’t go on unless I feel that you accept her.

Paul: I’m not sure. I’m just not sure Dad. I mean, of course you need company as much as anyone else, but this…I just don’t know…

Harry: The thing is, I know what you are thinking and yes, I feel bad and guilty, but no-one will replace your mother. No-one. It’s just that,  I can’t keep living in the past. I have to move on.

Paul: Well. You have done that alright.

Harry: That is not fair and you know it. Your mother has been gone now for a long time. In that time, you have grown up and moved out. Danny has, Danny’s… and despite all this change I have been alone in that shop and that flat for too long. Look, how long have you been seeing Sarah?

Paul: What’s that got to do with anything?

Harry: Come on, just answer the question,

Paul: About three years.

Harry: And can you imagine…

They lean forward watching the football as the ball nearly goes in.

Harry and Paul: Ooooh.

Paul: A close one.

Harry: Look, back on what I was saying…Can imagine being without her now, can you? I mean, your days are structured around each other. Your lives are shared. You wouldn’t know what to do without her…would you?

Paul: I don’t know. I think I would be able to manage after a while.

Harry: Now you are just lying to spite me. Just imagine for a second, if Sarah disappeared. Vanished off the face off the earth. You went home one day and she wasn’t there. You couldn’t contact her. You couldn’t speak to her again. You couldn’t look at her again. At the very least, you would feel alone, wouldn’t you?

Paul: I wish you would stop asking me all these questions. It’s a bit obvious isn’t it? Look dad, I get what you are saying. You are lonely. But everyone gets lonely from time to time. That’s just life. You just have to deal with it.

Harry: I have dealt with it! I have dealt with it for 12 long years. But I don’t want to deal with it anymore, because it’s bloody awful. I suppose you can’t quite understand it. You haven’t been so alone for so long. I suppose when you were there as well, it was slightly better because I had a bit of company and a focus. I had to care for you. But since you have been away. The emptiness of everything is unbearable.

Paul: I was only a little bit of company eh? Oooh! They scored! Good goal that.

Pause

Harry: I go upstairs and open the door to the flat on a dark corridor. I go to sleep alone in a double bed, the size a constant reminder it is meant to be for two. As do the two bedside lamps. Only one of which I turn on,  and there are two bedside tables, but only mine has any stuff on it. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, panicking, and not knowing what to do. Someone might break in and it’s just me there. Then in the morning I put on my slippers where Pauline and I used to leave them every night, except now there’s only my pair. I go down the stairs to do my breakfast, putting in two bits of toast when I used to do 4. You always had cereal of course. I get out the raspberry jam and margarine for me. When I used to get out the blackcurrant jam and a bowl for you. I just make tea in a mug, when I used to make a nice big pot for everyone. Sometimes we used to have a boiled egg for breakfast, but now you would be lucky to find an egg in the house. There used to be a nice table cloth on the table that your mum would wash and change every week, but that table has been bare and rough since she left.

Paul: But mum has been gone for years dad. You said so yourself. She hasn’t done these things for years.

Harry: I know…but I remember it all and I still miss it every day. Still miss all of it. And since you have been gone I notice it all so much more. Especially the mornings. You can wake up and look out the window and see no-one out there at all and feel like you are the only person left on earth. The nights aren’t great either, but the mornings…they have felt jagged for so many years.  So sharp and hard. But do you know what I hate the most?

Paul: Blimey, that was close…hit the bar…

Harry: It’s eating alone…it sounds silly but eating alone is the most depressing thing. Something so painful about sitting by yourself at a table to eat. It’s like being at school when you can’t find anyone you know, and you have to sit by yourself while you watch others chatting and laughing. Yet, even though I’m not in the canteen anymore, and the people are gone, the same feeling is there of being utterly alone.

(Paul wipes his eye)

Paul: (Pause) Another close one.

Harry: Are you listening to anything I’m saying?

Paul: Of course I am dad. I just…don’t know what to say.

Harry: Well. Look, if you have listened to anything, surely you don’t want me to feel guilty about finding someone else? Do you?

Paul: (Long pause). No…I do want you to be happy dad…I do.

Harry: Come on, give your dad a hug.

They hug, uncomfortably but sincerely. Then they watch the football match again.

Harry: I could swear that was a handball.

Act 3 Scene 3

Paul sits on the bed in Danny’s old bedroom. It is the middle of the night and the curtains are open. It is dark apart from the moonlight shining through the window.

Paul: I dreamt of him. I had a dream of him just now. I had a dream that me and Dan were walking through a wood. The air was heavy with the smell of pine, or whatever it is that wood’s smell of. Sweet. It had rained the night before and when the trees moved in the breeze raindrops fell to the floor. We walked along a path. Yet you should have seen him. His legs were perfect. His body was solid, strong and agile. It’s strange but he seemed almost cat-like. We came to a hill. And he just leapt up these rocks ahead of me, bouncing up the hill, one to the other, up and up. And I stood at the bottom in awe before clambering up slowly, my legs heavy and tired, and then we both stood at the top and he was smiling. We carried on walking, panting slightly, and for some reason I tripped on a tree root but just as I was about to hit the floor he managed to catch me at the last moment. And then we walked on further until we came out of the trees and we were able to look out over a huge town from this kind of cliff. It was huge, sprawling, dirty and grey…and it then I realised that even though it must be much bigger…that it was actually mine and Danny’s home town. Where we had grown up and lived together. Neither of us said anything. We just stood there together looking.

(Paul lays down on Danny’s bed and closes his eyes).

Paul: Night, Dan.

Act 3 Scene 4

Paul wakes up and looks at his watch. Sun shines through the window.

Paul: God…11?

He stands up. He goes to see where Harry is.

Paul: Dad! Dad! You in? Not him as well, surely. Dad! Where are you?

He goes from room to room in the flat then goes downstairs to the shop. He sees a note stuck on the mirror.

Paul: What’s this?

Paul reads the note aloud.

Dear Paul,

I know that this is very sudden and I should have done this better but I have not always been great at communication. I have decided that I need to take this chance to be happy again. I have sold the shop and the flat, and I have gone to Trinidad with Wendy. She was born there and always wanted to go back. Well now she will have someone to go with. I know I should have told you properly, but I couldn’t face it. I hope that you can forgive me for being such a coward. I don’t know when, or if, I will come back, but you are more than welcome to come and stay with us, any time you like.

Yours,

Dad.

P.S. My new address is on the back.

Long pause. Paul sits down in the barber’s chair and lets out a long sigh.

Paul: The cheeky bugger.

END.

We are ok while we are just us, humans. It is the consumption of that which we do not know. That which we have engineered and evolved to become something else.

Humanity is built on the founding principle that we as a race will be here forever. That we shall know no end. Death is an end, but the great impulse to reproduce is nothing but immortality. We believe we shall never end. Even as humans living every day as every day is, death is a shock. We know we are permeable but never accept that fact until it hits us. When it does, it never fails to be a stun.

 On top of the shock of the unknown, is the shock of the unexpected. The times when we have no reason to suspect, and then, just when we do not realise it, we are shattered, our emotions like fragments of glass flying through the air.

The unbearable reality is that unwanted beasts haunt every corner that we have yet to turn around, the sudden deadened face of grief. Not even grief; disbelief. That totally uncontrolled, uncontrived, open eyed release. Unaware. Not like you are unaware when you laugh to yourself while reading a book on the train. Total lack of unawareness, other than that which you have just heard.

A face paralysed for a second by awful knowledge.

Thus, perhaps the mind is like – or the same as – the concept of the soul; the crucial non-physical element of our being that makes us human, and gives us mindfulness. For you see, scientists and philosophers alike have been trying to get to grips for years, with the concept of the mind and soul. We have a brain which is a physical, visible object which we don’t really understand but which we are learning more about all the time, and so understanding more about how it works. But, when we think, what is it that is thinking? What is it that defines us apart from non-thinking beings, like plants? What is it that makes us, us? How do we know who we are?

However, even as I write this, I cannot but think these questions are all rather absurd. They rely on an element of willingness to engage in the more general dialogue relating to philosophy and self-exploration – to become part of the analytical game. Like any game, philosophy has its own jargon and phraseology. Just as football uses jargon to describe something such as “off-side” and “man-on” which cannot be used in everyday language, so philosophy is the same, with a whole ream of quasi-scientific lexis that means little in any wider sense. These words lend the practice an air of science, of value and believability.

I am not saying however that philosophising on existence and the mind and so on is pointless or not worthwhile. The point I make is that engaging in a discussion about the mind, the difference between brain and mind, is quite absurd until you believe that decide to partake in the whole process, to become a part of it, and so believe that you are thinking of very worthwhile things.

The mind, and the brain, and clearly the same thing. The problem I think people have had is that they see the internal voice of every sentient human, as something outside or other to the brain. The truth is far more likely that the brain and mind are not just inseparable, but that there is no such thing as the “mind” or the “soul” and the trying to pin it down or define it is pointless because it is impossible.

People wonder what it is that makes us human, and have for some reason concluded there is a thing called a soul which is ou crucial “bit” that makes us live and conscious, as opposed to a tree that merely, “is”.

Some people apparently have concluded that we thought and consciousness are merely evolutionary extensions that have developed to enable us to better catch food and to mate. This to me is highly improbable because the things that make us eat and mate are instincts. Thought makes us better at finding ways of harvesting food and so on, but thought is not needed to get food or to find a partner,

To me, you have to draw a link between language and thinking. That when people started communicating, language evolved to make communication more efficient. As our language grew, so we moved from talking to each other, to talking to ourselves in an internal conversation held silently in our heads where we are almost imagining that we are talking to another person that is not there. We are talking to ourselves yes, but at the same time imagining that we are talking to another.

The core part of the idea though is that there is nothing spontaneous about human thought and that everything we think or even feel is actually plagiarised – or more believable, is just learnt from those that rear us and thousands of other influences we may have.

I like sometimes like to write poetry and when I more seriously pursued this activity, I read advice from other successful poets about what helps you to write good poetry. Very often, poets will say read as much poetry as possible. Keep reading. Is this because it gives you inspiration and new ideas? No. It is because your mind takes on all the phrases and different words and ways of writing and constructing poems and, when it comes to writing a poem of your own, you are able to reproduce one that is essentially an amalgam of all that you have read. Because we all read different things in life and have different experiences, we are able to produce different things.

I think the one thing that computers lack in terms of thinking, is the ability to do what I have described above. To absorb everything at your fingertips, to break it down, move it around, flip it upside down, and come up with something that looks entirely new. It is essentially creativity that we are talking about.

If we go back to the point about thought and language, the internal conversation we have in our mind, is essentially an echo of all that has been said to us, heard or perhaps even read. All being reproduced and echoing through our mind. But the fundamental question still remains. Where is this “mind” and how can it produce words that we almost “hear”? Is it an actual space? A physical part of the brain? Perhaps it is merely memory? Perhaps the internal voice is essentially just an amazing reproduction and adaptation of remembered words that feels new because we can rearrange words in a seemingly infinite combination of ways.

They say that every person sees the world differently. That two people can be looking at a chair but still not be seeing exactly the same thing. The reason given for this is that the image we have in our mind is essentially based on a “schema” a basic image of what we think a chair should look like, based on all the chairs we have seen and all the times, presumably while very young, that what we were sitting on etc was a chair. If we grew up in a culture where all chairs had 3 legs and then we came to another culture where all chair had 4 legs, we would find it difficult to totally believe that the chair with 4 legs is the same thing as one with 3, and this would affect the way we see a chair.

Our experiences then, the way we see the world, are memories. Memories creating reality. As all of us have different upbringings, different experiences, we all have different memories. As our memories all differ, the way we see the world will differ.

Is it possible that memory lays at the heart of many things, like who we make friends with? Maybe, when we say that we “get along” with someone and that we are “like” someone, we are really saying that we get the sense that their memories are similar to ours – that we feel that they see the world similarly because we imagine that their early experiences were similar to ours and that they will therefore see the world in the same way.

This is one of the fascinating things about television and methods of mass communication and broadcasting – they make people more alike by making our experiences similar. When millions of people watch a television programme, they are all having a similar experience, and will therefore be aligning themselves to each person who watched that programme. It makes our language more alike, and makes  the way we see the world more alike.

When it comes to the question of the brain and the mind, I think that in truth there is no separation between the two. There is only an illusion of the mind due to self-talk and thinking. We would not think of a dog as thinking, of being conscious of itself as we are, yet really this is only because they rely on instinct to guide their actions. I doubt we are different from dogs in that sense. But if that is true, and we think a dog does not have a mind as we do, then why would we have a supposed “mind”? Mindfulness is merely an extension of thought. A step beyond instinct brought about by development of language. The concept of “I” is a true illusion, but in reality it is only language, I think, that gives us this ability.

Without language we would not even have the ability to conjure up these theories at all.

Actually I never have so called “bad” days. My days are generally good as long as nothing bad happened in them. Even so, what good comes of labelling days – or anything – as good or bad. Good and bad are not objective qualities but are relative to individual world views, cultures and general personality, circumstance and a whole other range of quantities.

When politicians talk about the future they like to talk about problems. How they will solve problems, how they can change things.  This is obviously meaningless. Talking about problems without saying what the problem is is pointless.

But there is far more at stake.

Why is it that when many people talk about politics, they talk about how things are unfair towards them, as though they are the victims of an unjust system. They often moan about “benefits” and how pregnant girls in Britain get benefits and a home by the govenment. This then leads to – according to some – many young women getting pregnant just to geta house.

They then see this as “unfair” and wrong. What they don’t consider though, is that one day they may be in the position where they will need the support of the government and other peoples’ tax money.

Then what about social imbalance? What sort of society leads to women being so desperate and helpless about their future that they would rather become a  mother and give up on a career and so on, just to get a house. You could argue that the government has failed to provide such a person with the right education, motivation and job opportunities to seek a different route to getting a house of their own.

Why is it though that so many people sound so bitter about the benefit system, as though they are the ones losing out?

My outlook, though it may be naive and possibly wrong, is that a large benefit system does not bother me, and that in reality the government probably found that giving larger benefits to poor people, leads to less societal problems and costs the government and everyone else less than not giving them benefits.

However, I was walking down the road the other day from the train station, and I started thinking about the origin of sexism. I wondered why it came about, and why society would hold such enduring views regarding men and women for so long.

I am sure what I have to say is nothing, but basically I dwelt more upon the idea that sexism perhaps has more to do with biology than power structures. In essence, men convey superiority and dominance over women in any aspect of their biology, and this is  a major contributor towards sexism.

Here are a few physical characterists that imply male dominance:

• Men are taller (generally)
• Men have greater muscle mass
• Due to greate muscle mass, men are stronger. (although this obviously varies from man to man etc)
• Men – due to muscle mass etc – have a broader chest and shoulders, making them generally bigger.

Then more came to me, when I asked myself a question. What is one of the most obvious differences between the sexes – other than genitals and so on? The voice. Men have a deeper voice generally, which itself is generally louder and conveys a greater sense of power and dominance.

More than this though. Puberty is the time that girls and boys really separate as they become noticably different; separate.

When the male’s voice breaks, this is often a big moment in a boy’s life, as it is a clear marker that they are growing up. In many ways, the breaking of the voice, leading to the voice that sounds more like their father’s now than their mother’s, separates them even further from girls, or young women.

More than this though. It is this very change  – this divisive change  – that marks the point in the male’s life where he casts off the young boy he was, and acquired the status of an adult man, albeit a young adult at this stage.

When this happens, there is a clear distinction between the young boy with a girlish voice, and the man they are now with a deep voice. Just in the adjective “girlish” I have gone half way to make my point. The fact that women retain what is essentially – to a man – the voice of a child, a young boy, means that they are immediately at risk of being labelled as childlike, inferior and weak. Which is exactly as women were treated for hundreds, if not thousands years in the western world, and still are in many parts of the world.

In essence, men will always see women slightly as the child that they used to be, before they became a “man”, before they became strong, independent, powerful.

Women are equal in mind, and can also become stronger and fitter than many men, but there will still remain the fact that – to men- a woman is child that has yet to grow into a full adult.  Would it not be the instinctual reaction of a less educated society, that simply because women are physically less dominant, they should be treated as second class.

In fact, they were not treated as second class. They were treated as children – weak, and vulnerable. 

Now I know why.

They say, “People today cannot be bothered to vote. They are too lazy, too stupid, too naive too get off the sofa and vote. They do not understand how precious their vote is, how democracy is such a great political system that many around the world do not have the chance to enjoy.”

Generally, this lack of willingness to vote, resulting in no vote being cast by many people, is referred to as voter apathy. This implies laziness. Or disillusionment with politics.

I say, what if apathy is a good thing? The reason being that perhaps apathy is a sign of stability and contentedness. Perhaps people do not vote because they are confident that whatever party comes into power, their lives will still be able to go on the same, that their country will still remain fair and just. They are confident that whoever gets into power will abide by the equality of society, and so then society itself will continue to be liberal and fairly confident.

Perhaps it is that, people don’t vote because they are largley happy with their lives, and they a) Do not want to change their life b) They think that any political party voted in will be fair and just, like them. Perhaps voter apathy is not a sign of social collapse, but a sign of a happier society,one that feels confident in a stable future.

You could discuss for hours how a church that espouses love and kindness can effectively have condoned paedophilia for many years. You could likewise argue whether this will siginificantly affect the church and perhaps the popularity of christianity and even organised religion around the world.

What I want to discuss though, is why paedophilia had become embedded within the church? To be honest, all I really have here are questions, so this post will be a fairly short one.

It may be an absurd thing to suggest, but perhaps there is something inherent to catholicism that encourages or brings out paedophilia. That perhaps in its repressiveness and obsession with sin, purity and sex, often so tightly entwined,  this all stimulates paedophilic urges in people that may not have come out otherwise. I very much doubt this is true, but it is just an idea.

On the other hand , I wonder whether priests enter the church because they are paedophiles. It may be possible, that some men – catholics – start to feel urges towards paedophilia, but are terrified by them. They do not know what they can do, they cannot tell anyone because they know the abuse they themselves would get. They try to repress the urges, but they will not go away. “Perhaps”, they think to themselves, “perhaps if I enter the church, with the help of god I will be able to banish these urges and be steadfast in my devotion to celibacy…and then I will not act on my urges.” Unfortunately, it is rarely the case that such desires can be controlled and so, eventually, they end up expressing them to catastrophic effect.

Or, there is the other option. It might be the case that some men who know they are paedophiles, do not repress their desires but seek to satisfy them. As catholics, they can see that many priests can get close, private contact with young boys and girls. As such, they choose to go into the priesthood as a way of living out their fantasies, as is sometimes the case with members of other professions that involve contact with young children.

As I said, this is not really a complex discussion of the connection between religion and paedophilia, but I do think that the scandal exposes the ability of powerful instutions to cover up atrocious acts, and the willingness of humans to betray not just others, but even their own sense of morality and justice.

There is then, a certain weariness in typing up ideas that may be hackneyed and old, just as nobody wants to follow last year’s fashions, if you are one to follow fashion. No, everybody likes to remain original, fresh – it is that which allows us to feel present and so, human.

I have up until now held the belief that religion, though not a thing to0 be inflicted upon people, is not something that need be actively repressed for, if people take personal pleasure in believing something, then let that be so. I have not really understood those that campaign to remove religion from every element of British society. The problem is that recently it came to my mind that religion is deficient in one respect and that it is in a very real sense an ideology, not unlike a political movement has an ideology. All religions have an ideology, a set of beliefs and rules that the religion sticks to. In effect, it is what makes the religion the religion that it is. That is possibly why people in England may complain that modern political parties are all the same because they lack ideology.

The problem is, you see, that ideologies are inherently divisive.  I am more than sure that there are many people that would argue with that statement. But if you were to take any political movement, party, group and so on, they would all differ from each other in their core beliefs: their ideology. They therefore define themselves by their differences, and they express this via membership. Any group with an ideology states that those who want to join – and this is exactly the same for religions – must agree with and live by the group ideology.

You could discuss forever the reasons people join groups and desire membership to groups and why there is a desire to construct and live by a mutually agreed ideology, but there is no denying that is what a group does. By doing this it instantly isolates those not part of the group: the outsiders then become “different” and it is not long before difference comes to be seen as wrong. 

Anyway, without getting too caught up in metaphors and so on, the main point is this: ideologies cause division, which then leads to conflict. This is because ideologies are inherently inflexible: they are about believing only one set of rules and no others. The problem then is what happens when another group of people believe something different? It is not hard to conceive how this then leads to conflict.

For some reason, people easily argue about a difference in belief, even if an apparantly trivial one, such as whether cats or dogs are better. It seems that when a belief is extremely long held and ingrained, meeting someone that completely disagrees with that belief, is like a challenge to your very right to be human, or  to hold any views at all.

Ideologies are divisive. Strongly held, unwavering beliefs lead to conflict. This is the point I am trying to make. I do not think it a coincidence that in the western, democratic world, political parties are becoming more neutral, central, while at the same time, religion is taking less and less of a role in everyday life. Maybe then, it is not that the political parties have nothing to say, but they are merely reflecting the widely held view that ideology is no longer necessary but, not only that, it is detrimental to society.

People no longer want unwavering views - and why would you? The centralising of political ideologies is a positive sign that demonstrates that we are in a post-ideological age, where we can see, quite rightly, that staunch ideology is out of line with a society that has greater freedom and equality than ever before.

Ideology then, be it political or religious, is not compatible with a fair, equal society. 

Some people would say that religion provides a stable foundation upon which we have buit a strong moral framework that holds society together. Some people think that without religion, we would have no morals and society would collapse into chaos.

I think it is time we were brave enough to believe in our core humanism that we all possess to lead us into a better future. It is not religion that tells us murder is wrong, it is the sadness of the people that loved the murdered person. It is not religion that enables people to feel love or a human, personal attachment to another human. It is not religion that creates a bond between a child and its parents. It is not religion that makes the old look after the young. It is not religion that makes people help a person who is ill or weak. It is not religion that creates friendships. It is not religion that causes sadness at the departure of a friend. All of these emotions are the true core upon which our morality rests, and we should feel confident to see that we do not need ideologies to help us live together civilly, peacefully. If anything, it is ideology that we need to stay away from.

Right there a man sits alone on a bench on a hill overlooking a city

approaching dusk – the park will shut soon –

The park rangers may shut the gates – shut him out, or in–

The rangers are nice – they seem nice – always in pairs

Green uniforms and brown boots – natural

He sees a bee –

The bee floats towards him – docile weary looking for somewhere to die–

Come rest upon my knee – the bee glides weaving down lays to rest on the black trouser knee

Suit – the jacket is off – his tie loosened –  still warm in the evening  – early September – the nights shortening and days cooling –

The park is much quieter in the winter – people huddle together at home warmth in the fox screaming nights –

Winter especially –

Looking out the frosty winter window  – black frosted road – smooth glass

Empty but for the yellow glow of the lamplights lighting the road –

Their aching light somehow barely like light

But this light he sees –such painful beauty– the sunlight

The disc of pink sun dropping down beneath the city – silhouetting the tall buildings –

Trying hard to enjoy it – I remember it once – some point back then when I sat and wondered at the beauty –

But now the pink is just a wound in the sky and the soft pink beautiful light pure blood

Bleeding into the concrete, the shining hard glass people crowding round pub doorways smiles bleeding into the empty paddling pool down there by the park entrance bleeding into the trees at the hill bottom the trunk the bark bleeding into the winding path snaking up here grey to meet the bench bleeding into the wood the stained marked wood carved with names of teenage loves loves lost loves forgotten loves never had loves requited loves unrequited loves pink with bleeding bloody sun blood the bloodlight bleeding into the leather of the suitcase at the man’s feet bleeding into the cows blood that was the cow that made other cows before becoming a bag the blood of the leather and the bag and the pain in the bag and the life in that bag that was that life that was that life that could have been and  it soaks in and pours on to the floor and down on the grass the blood pink blood flooding the grass under the suitcase – flooding the sharp blades turning green to red now red deep the sky bullet wound sinking down beneath level of the eyes that can see but still the blood gushing still darker drying blood  – onto the grass under the bare feet of the man – nothing beats grass on bare feet tickles reminds of childhood days – then the red sun blood covers the feet covers the cared-for toes the soft white skin getting cold in the chilling air – the blood pours up over the feet rushed up the legs the black leather belt the neon white shirt the eye-green tie – the colour of his eyes – the blood flood over the chin the lips – pink lips red now – up  flooding up the nostrils over the forehead into the hair – covered.

Then he sits in gloom. The semi-darkness of post-dusk –  stages of grey after the death of day – gradual approach of  blackness. 

He had forgotten about the bee. It has ceased to move. He looks at it for a second. A tear comes to his eyes, he nearly cries, then brushes it to the floor.

The rangers have come now. He must leave. Probably to come back tomorrow.