The Children
Lucy Kirkwood
THE CHILDREN
NICK HERN BOOKS
London
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk
Contents
Title Page
Original Production
Characters
Key and A Note on the Dance
The Children
About the Author
Copyright and Performing Rights Information
The Children was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, London, on Thursday 17 November 2016. The cast was as follows:
ROSE
Francesca Annis
HAZEL
Deborah Findlay
ROBIN
Ron Cook
Director
James Macdonald
Designer
Miriam Buether
Lighting Designer
Peter Mumford
Sound Designer
Max Pappenheim
Fight Director
Bret Yount
Assistant Director
Ed Madden
Assistant Lighting Designer
Charlotte Burton
Casting Director
Amy Ball
Production Manager
Marius Rønning
Costume Supervisor
Lucy Walshaw
Stage Manager
Laura Draper
Deputy Stage Manager
Sophie Rubenstein
Assistant Stage Manager
Erin McCulloch
Characters
ROSE
HAZEL
ROBIN
All in their sixties.
Key
A forward slash (/) indicates an overlap in speech.
Words in brackets are spoken aloud but are incidental.
A comma on its own line (, ) indicates a beat. A beat is shorter than a pause. It can also denote a shift in thought or energy.
The text has been punctuated to serve the music of the play, not grammatical convention. Dashes are used sparingly and generally indicate a hard interruption.
A Note on the Dance
In the Royal Court production we used ‘Ain’t It Funky Now’
by James Brown, chosen by the actors from a shortlist, but
I haven’t specified this in the text as you could use anything. These are the things we liked about our track in case they help you in choosing yours:
1. It is of a period but not defined by that period. The play is not addressing a single generation, and it would be a shame if this moment made it feel like it was.
2. It is credible a group of friends might have choreographed a routine to it.
3. It is quite spare, so doesn’t compete with the dialogue that is spoken over it.
4. It is cool. But not too cool.
This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.
The light moves slowly from dark to light.
The effect of a painting being cleaned.
Revealed is:
A small cottage on the east coast.
A summer’s evening.
The sound of the sea through the open door.
It is not usually lived in full time.
Camp has been made here by someone with a domestic hand.
Wild flowers in milk bottles.
Candles in wine bottles.
Tupperware fruit bowl.
The room is at a slight tilt.
The land beneath it is being eroded.
But this should not be obvious to the naked eye, and only becomes apparent when, for example, something spherical is placed on the kitchen table.
And ROSE.
Her nose is bleeding.
Blood has spilled down her top.
She looks around the room and does nothing to tend to her nose.
She looks for a long time at a basket of washing on the floor.
Finally she raises her voice.
ROSE. How are the children?
HAZEL (off).What? Oh, the – they’re fine, they’re – just keep holding it Rose! At the bridge. Are you doing it?
ROSE. Yes.
HAZEL enters with a towel.
HAZEL. And put your head down!
ROSE puts her head down.
Here.
HAZEL clamps the towel over ROSE’s nose. ROSE holds it there.
I’m so sorry, Rose, it isn’t broken is it? It’s not swollen anyway.
ROSE. It’s fine.
HAZEL. No I’m mortified. I don’t know what – can I, sorry, let me just, I won’t hurt you.
HAZEL lifts ROSE’s chin.
She gently wipes the blood from her nose and chin.
ROSE watches her.
Look at your lovely top. Would you like me to put it in to soak?
ROSE. No, / that’s
HAZEL. Please let me, you can borrow / something
ROSE. No, I don’t care, I hate it. It doesn’t suit me any more. Honestly, I’ll throw it away.
HAZEL. Oh you can’t! Because of this? But I can get that out, no problem, I have a special, it’s a stick, for oil-based products.
ROSE. Oil-based?
HAZEL. You know, blood, butter. All dairy really. Suncream. Semen.
ROSE. That’s a big problem you have is it?
HAZEL. Well, when the boys were younger.
ROSE. You have boys?
HAZEL. Very young / I mean, not
ROSE. How many do you have?
HAZEL. What?
ROSE. How many / children?
HAZEL. Please let me wash it. It wouldn’t take me ten minutes.
ROSE. It’s fine, it doesn’t
HAZEL. No but, I feel terrible, I don’t know why I got so frightened, just / I thought I was alone
ROSE. I should have knocked.
HAZEL. I wasn’t expecting anyone, we’re so isolated here / so I just
ROSE. I did call out. The door was on the latch.
HAZEL. It isn’t your fault. I’ve been on pins all day. And normally you hear the tyres, on the gravel so
ROSE. The taxi dropped me at the top / of the drive.
HAZEL. It isn’t your fault it was just feeling you come up behind me, I sort of, I panicked.
ROSE. Fight or flight.
HAZEL. And also, (yes I spose) no but and also Rose, when I saw you standing there, Rose don’t take this the wrong / way but
ROSE. It’s fine, Hazel.
HAZEL. But we heard you’d died!
ROSE. Ah.
HAZEL. Yes so it was a bit of a shock.
,
Lovely you’re not of course.
They laugh. HAZEL takes off the apron she is wearing, shuts the door.
Sorry, let’s – start again! So good to see you. Is it stopping?
ROSE takes the towel away from her face.
ROSE. Yes, I think so.
HAZEL. Good, that’s good. Sorry, what were you saying?
ROSE. Oh. How many children do you have?
HAZEL. Right yes, after Lauren you mean?
ROSE. Yes.
HAZEL. Three more
ROSE. Four children! God, / that’s
HAZEL. another girl and, and two boys. Not children any more / of course.
ROSE. fantastic, no, of course. Because Lauren must be, what?
HAZEL. Thirty-eight.
ROSE. thirty-eight!
HAZEL. Thirty-nine at Christmas.
ROSE. Thirty-nine at Christmas.
HAZEL. A grown woman. Did you want to sit down, Rose?
ROSE. I just can’t. I can’t believe it. Thank you.
ROSE sits in a battered armchair.
Without looking she reaches under it and pulls out
a footstool, rests
her feet on it.
HAZEL watches her.
She loved beards, didn’t she?
HAZEL. What?
ROSE. Lauren. As a baby. She was cuckoo for beards.
HAZEL. I don’t…
HAZEL takes a seat herself.
ROSE. Because yes because every time she saw a man with
a beard – d’you remember? She’d stick out her arms and scream with laughter
HAZEL. Well. She was a very friendly little thing at that age.
ROSE. and I spose Robin had one, didn’t he?
HAZEL. Probably why she was drawn to them, / would you like some tea?
ROSE. I’ve always wondered about things like that, (thank you, love one) if there’s a study or something, that charts our relationship to the things we’re drawn to, as children, and how that changes as we grow up. I mean for instance does Lauren have a husband or partner?
HAZEL. Yes.
ROSE. Oh great. Great, no that’s great. And so then does her husband or partner / have a
HAZEL. She’s clean-shaven.
ROSE. She’s clean-shaven is she? Well there you go, no correlation! I mean, an inverse correlation. Of course you’d have to test a much wider sample than just Lauren.
HAZEL. Rose.
ROSE. Yes?
Pause.
HAZEL. I’m growing a beard you know.
This morning – I found two hairs on my chin and I looked
at them, for a good minute, and I tried to convince myself this was alright, it’s natural, it’s chemical, it’s your age,
you know?
She takes an apple from the fruit bowl, begins to polish it on her top or a tea towel.
Just oestrogen declining.
Because you know I don’t hold with people our age trying to look twenty-two, because you see these women don’t you, in the paper, looking like stretched eggs, trying to hide it when all it’s doing is shouting it out loud isn’t it, ‘I’m old and I’m frightened of it!’ I mean and because I’m not frightened of it so so so so but then I thought no. No because this is how it starts isn’t it, the slow descent into the coffin it starts with two black hairs on your chin that you let run wild one day and you don’t even know it but right there, in that moment, you’ve lost, you’ve lowered your defences and the enemy’s got in hasn’t it yes so I went at these hairs I went at them ruthlessly with a pair of tweezers and I can’t describe to you the sense of triumph.
HAZEL puts the apple on the table.
It rolls down the table away from her.
ROSE catches the apple, returns it to the bowl.
ROSE. Grandchildren?
HAZEL. What?
ROSE. Do you have grandchildren?
Pause.
HAZEL. Oh. Yes. Yes, / Rose
ROSE. Hazel a granny that’s insane! I can’t / believe it!
HAZEL. Rose I’m sorry. I feel a bit. I might have a glass of water
ROSE. I’ll get it.
HAZEL. No, it’s fine, I’ll –
ROSE finds a glass in the first cupboard she opens.
HAZEL watches her.
ROSE. I guess you’re not using the tap?
HAZEL. No. There’s clean water / in the
ROSE. Oh yes.
ROSE fills the glass from a large plastic container andgives her the water.
HAZEL takes it and looks at it for a beat before drinking.
How many?
HAZEL chokes slightly on her water.
Sorry, go ahead.
HAZEL drinks.
Puts the glass down.
How many grandchildren do you have?
HAZEL. Four now. Rachel has two and my sons have one each, they’re poppets.
ROSE. I bet you’re a wonderful granny.
HAZEL. Like it more than being a mother actually. I enjoy the feeling of handing them back!
The women laugh.
We haven’t seen them since the disaster, of course.
ROSE. They weren’t affected I hope?
HAZEL. Well we’re all affected.
ROSE. No but they weren’t, in the area or it’s a terrible thought / I know
HAZEL. Well yes actually Rachel’s lot were supposed to be visiting only by the time they got up here they’d closed the roads.
ROSE. So you were at home when / it
HAZEL. Yes.
Yes I was… making banana bread, for the children and, because it was the eggs, they started shaking in the box and – this sounds stupid, but I thought, they’re hatching. Something’s going to come out of them, like a, like a a
ROSE. Chicken.
HAZEL. No a Gremlin, but then because that’s when I realised the whole kitchen was shaking, the plates started falling and the lights went out and the ground was sort of rolling and
I thought this must be what it’s like on a ship in a storm and then I thought, what are you doing you stupid woman, get out, just get out, so I did, I just ran outside in my apron, and
I saw the road cracked down the middle and then… and then it just stopped.
Pause.
ROSE. God. You must have / been
HAZEL. Yes so then I wanted to call Robin so I walked, I ran down to the beach, because the reception – and that’s when
I saw the tide had gone out. I mean it wasn’t miles but it looked like miles, and then I saw the wave, only it didn’t look like a wave, it looked like the sea was boiling milk and it just kept boiling and boiling and boiling and.
,
And then everyone was running, so I ran too.
,
I’m so sorry, did you say you wanted tea / or
ROSE. Lovely, thanks. Sorry it’s so late in the day.
HAZEL starts to make tea using hot water from a large thermos.
HAZEL. Oh / don’t be silly
ROSE. Only it took me a while to track you down.
HAZEL. Sorry I can’t make you a fresh one. We’re still on scheduled blackouts round here.
ROSE. I went to the house. Those lovely old pink walls.
I thought – I heard you were still living there.
HAZEL. Yes but we left it, just after the disaster, we left it.
ROSE. But it’s outside of the exclusion zone, isn’t it?
HAZEL. Yes but only just, and we didn’t feel like we could take the risk, I mean you can actually see it, the power station, from the house and the idea of it, I know that probably sounds, does that / sound?
ROSE. No, not at all. It’s funny though isn’t it. You think us, of all people.
HAZEL. You mean having spent so much time inside it?
ROSE. Yes you think, three scientific minds, we’d be a little more, insulated. From the hysteria.
HAZEL. No, exactly. I mean I’m not a silly sort of woman.
ROSE. No of course / you’re not
HAZEL. But after. When we went back to the house, after the wave, after the explosions, I felt like, it’s stupid but, I felt like I could see it the radiation hanging in the air a sort of a sort of filthy glitter suspended and I didn’t like it, I’m not a silly woman and of course my background would suggest that I could but I couldn’t I couldn’t stand it any longer. Milk?
ROSE. (No thanks.) I would have done exactly the same thing.
HAZEL. It’s skimmed.
ROSE. No, I really, I shouldn’t
HAZEL. Are you intolerant?
ROSE. No.
HAZEL. No, sorry, none of my business is it.
HAZEL pours milk into her own teaandhands ROSE a cup of black tea.
ROSE looks around the room.
ROSE. It’s a lovely cottage.
HAZEL. Yes, belongs to some distant cousin of Robin’s. She offered it to us, kindly I thought because they’re not close.
ROSE. But this place. It’s only ten miles from the house, / it’s not
HAZEL. No, it’s just that little bit extra but it makes a world of difference to our peace of mind. And because the thought of leaving the area e
ntirely felt somehow I don’t know it felt disloyal, to the land if that makes sense?
ROSE. Well, you’ve lived here so long.
HAZEL. Yes exactly. I would’ve felt like a traitor. Besides, retired people are like nuclear power stations. We like to live by the sea.
They laugh.
ROSE. I nearly told the taxi to go off at the turning, it was like autopilot. Five minutes later I would’ve been walking through the car park expecting Ken to pop out of his booth to validate me!
They laugh.
HAZEL. Ken! I’d forgotten about Ken, I wonder what happened / to
ROSE. Dead I should think.
HAZEL. Oh I hope not, he was only young
ROSE. No I meant. If he was still… you know. Working there when the wave came and…
HAZEL. Oh. Yes. Of course.
,
You know lately I’ve realised it’s sort of beautiful when the sun’s on it.
ROSE. The power station?
HAZEL. Yes, when the smoke clears for a moment. That great white dome like a duck egg.
ROSE. I always thought it should have a flake sticking out of it.
HAZEL. A flake?
ROSE. A chocolate flake.
HAZEL. Oh, yes. And a drizzle of raspberry sauce maybe?
ROSE. making me hungry!
HAZEL. Sorry Rose, where are my, would you like something / to
ROSE. No I didn’t / mean
HAZEL. No because have you had dinner? We haven’t had ours yet. We’ve mostly been eating cold meals because the electricity doesn’t come on till ten o’clock sometimes, and we try not to use more than we absolutely have to.
ROSE. Yes of course.
HAZEL. Salads because we’re lucky this time of the year, you know, with the peas and the beans and the tomatoes. There’s an old boy with an allotment up the road. It’s been tested, it’s perfectly alright.
ROSE. No well that’s. Personally I find salad deeply depressing.
HAZEL. Well you just become aware of the risks, don’t you. Osteoporosis strokes diabetes blood pressure, all the usual suspects –
ROSE. Cancer.
HAZEL. Well yes cancer naturally cancer! I do yoga you know.
ROSE. Do you?
HAZEL. I love it.
ROSE. Do you?
HAZEL. Absolutely love it.
ROSE. Really.