Mosquitoes Read online

  LUKE. You can’t tell Alice.

  JENNY. I won’t tell Alice.

  LUKE. No but you can’t say that now and then later / on

  JENNY. I don’t tell Alice anything.

  LUKE takes a deep breath.

  LUKE. Okay. Okay so I went to this girl’s house and she we we like oh my God this is so, gaaaaaah, we

  JENNY. you had sex.

  LUKE. yeah and because well no not like actually but we like

  JENNY. did stuff

  LUKE. yeah and she sent this picture of me, of my like… you know

  JENNY. oh shit.

  LUKE. yeah to everyone, / like

  JENNY. fuck

  LUKE. everyone exactly like the whole… world and now it’s, they can just because I can’t do anything to

  JENNY. Okay so just calm down

  LUKE. No but I can’t do anything. I can’t do anything.

  ,

  D’you understand what I’m, I / can’t

  JENNY. Yeah, no, I. I understand.

  ,

  Was it the girl you liked?

  LUKE. Yeah.

  JENNY. The one you told me about?

  LUKE. Yeah.

  JENNY. What a bitch. What a fucking, I hope she gets multiple sclerosis.

  ,

  Alright. D’you wanna show me, or?

  LUKE. What?

  She gestures to his crotch. He stares at her.

  Oh my God, what is actually wrong with you?

  JENNY. What? You just showed it to half of Geneva, and I’ve seen it before, you were a very naked / child

  LUKE. I’m not getting my cock out for you.

  JENNY. Get it out, who said get it out? I don’t want to touch it

  LUKE. this is, / this is literally so

  JENNY. I’m not asking you out, I’m not Barbara Windsor

  LUKE. I don’t know who that is so

  JENNY. I’m just offering to give you a second opinion because it’s possible actually that this is not the end of the world, it’s on your phone, right?

  LUKE wrestles with this. Finally, in an agony, he unlocks his phone. Shows her. She looks at the photo. Scientific detachment. Nods. Solemn.

  Okay so that’s a great cock.

  She hands his phone back. He makes a sound of mortification.

  No, listen to me: that is a really fantastic cock. Seriously, I’ve seen thirty-nine in real life and that’s way better than basically all of them, you should be really proud. That’s a fact, okay? That is a fact, if anyone’s laughing it’s cos they’re jealous, fuck ’em.

  LUKE. Okay well, you wouldn’t tell me anyway so.

  JENNY. No I would. I would cos it wouldn’t be helpful to you to pretend. Honestly, that is a stellar dick, people should see it, Uncle Mike used to show his to black women on the internet and it’s like half as big and actually quite repulsive looking. You’re lucky. The world is lucky that that cock exists and it’s attached to a really good person.

  Pause. LUKE is still mortified but now also calmer.

  I do get it. I do. But your mum’d never talk to me again if I just took you. And I don’t think I could… cope with that right now, / so

  LUKE. Please. Please though.

  JENNY. No because we’ll talk to her, I’ll help you talk / to

  LUKE. It’s too late.

  JENNY. Why?

  ,

  Why is it / too

  LUKE takes ALICE’s laptop out of his backpack, shows her.

  LUKE. It’s Alice’s.

  JENNY. So? You took her stuff, you’re her kid, that’s what happens when you have kids, they take your stuff, we’ll just put it back and…

  He opens the laptop. Shows her. The screen is frozen and corrupted.

  …did you put something on here?

  ,

  LUKE. She doesn’t listen to me.

  JENNY. What did you put on here?

  ,

  Luke / what did you put on here?

  LUKE. I just wanted her to actually, a worm.

  JENNY. A worm.

  LUKE. yes a worm, a worm, a virus. Okay? I attached it to an email and went in through the CERN network so

  JENNY. so, so

  LUKE. yeah and I sent it to her whole address book and.

  JENNY. fucking hell

  LUKE. yeah I know it’s really bad

  JENNY. is this a joke? Is this like a, because you’ll destroy her. You’ll completely destroy her.

  LUKE. yeah, that was the, that was kind of the

  ,

  I mean that was the whole. Cos then maybe she’d understand.

  Pause.

  JENNY. Okay let’s go. Before / someone

  LUKE. I told you, I’m / not

  JENNY. no seriously Luke, after that thing at school, they find us here, with that, you’ll go to jail. You’ll go to, you’ll go to Swiss jail which I bet, it’s probably five times as boring as normal jail. So we / should, let’s go.

  LUKE. I don’t care. I’d rather go to jail for the rest of my life than spend another day at that school.

  JENNY. Yeah well you’re a teenager so that probably sounds like a really cool thing to say, but / the reality is it’d fuck up your entire life, so I think there’s, that is not a, I think we need to think of a different plan.

  LUKE. Like what?

  JENNY. Yeah, I don’t know.

  A helpless pause.

  LUKE smashes up the laptop.

  Okay well I think it’s a bit late for that but.

  JENNY watches until he is still.

  D’you think she’s backed up / cos

  GUARD (off, distant). Hallo? Qui est là?

  JENNY. okay. Shit, no it’s, / I’m

  LUKE drops to the floor, scrambles to collect the pieces of laptop.

  LUKE. Fuck.

  JENNY. thinking / I’m

  LUKE. Shit. Shit.

  JENNY. thinking no it’s okay. Listen to me: everything’s going to be alright. I am not going to let anything happen to you. Okay? Leave that – (The laptop.)

  LUKE. I don’t think / this is

  She shoves money at him. A torch beam sweeps across them.

  JENNY. No, we’re not having a discussion. You’re a child, I’m a grown up, I’m telling you, take that, get a taxi, go home. Get into bed. You don’t tell Alice. This is just between us.

  GUARD (off). Vous êtes sur une propriété privée!

  LUKE. what are you going to

  JENNY. Doesn’t matter, just go.

  LUKE. yeah but

  JENNY. I love you

  LUKE. it’s

  JENNY. very much.

  I loved it when you played with her on the blue rug. The thing with the sock. The pair of you.

  LUKE. Jenny.

  JENNY. I know

  LUKE. No but / I

  JENNY. I know.

  I know.

  I know.

  I know.

  Okay.

  Fuck off then.

  GUARD. Arrêtez! Arrêtez!

  LUKE runs. A searchlight flashes across JENNY.

  She looks into it. Puts up her hands. A SECURITY GUARD enters.

  JENNY. Bon soir. Um. Parlez-vous anglais?

  Behind her, Shiva starts to dance.

  Sudden black. In the dark, a terrifying wall of sound. A vast cloud of helium tearing through the largest machine in the world, concrete torn up, magnets ripped from anchors, metal tearing, alarms blaring as an emergency shutdown is triggered.

  QUENCH

  Interview room, police station. JENNY at a table. ALICE sits across from her, holding her bag on her lap, coat on. A POLICEWOMAN sits, apart, engrossed in her phone. ALICE stares at JENNY for some time, then:

  ALICE. What happened?

  JENNY.…

  ALICE. Okay well I need you to explain it to me. Because it doesn’t make any sense I can’t

  understand it and I need to

  understand it so so so you need to explain it to me because right now I am…

&nb
sp; how did you even do it?

  JENNY. What d’you mean?

  ALICE. I mean, given your PIN number is 1234, how did you manage / to

  JENNY. I got it off Luke. It’s not his fault. He didn’t know. Sorry.

  Pause.

  ALICE. Is that it?

  Pause. ALICE stands.

  Fine. I have to (jesus) I have to go to work so.

  JENNY. Now?

  ALICE. Yes now, there’s been a quench. The whole thing’s shut down. It’s like a disaster movie, magnets ripped from / the

  JENNY. Oh my God. And. But. Did I do that?

  ALICE stares at her.

  ALICE. There is not a single piece of machinery in that building simple enough for you to destroy it. Even the hand-dryers would defeat you.

  JENNY. It wasn’t my fault?

  ALICE. We invented the internet Jenny. I think our IT system can withstand a middle-aged woman having a tantrum.

  JENNY. So… but what caused it then?

  ALICE. We don’t know. We think maybe an electrical fault. There seem to be some… faulty connections.

  JENNY. It’s only been running a week, how is that even?

  ALICE. A hundred million active parts. Something was bound to go wrong.

  The POLICEWOMAN laughs at something on her phone. ALICE and JENNY look at her. She looks up briefly, unapologetic, then back down again.

  What have they told you?

  JENNY. No one’s told me anything. They brought me a croissant.

  She shows her. Bangs it on the table to show how hard and stale it is.

  ALICE. They’re deciding whether to press charges.

  JENNY. Right. D’you think they will / or

  ALICE. I don’t know. I explained it all.

  JENNY. What did you explain?

  ALICE. What did I explain?

  JENNY. No, like. How you explain it?

  ALICE. I explained that you’re in a state of emotional distress.

  I explained that you’re not very clever.

  I explained that you’re a mad bitch who believes everything she reads on the internet, and that the combination of these things caused you to behave like a fucking peasant.

  The POLICEWOMAN’s phone starts to ring. Jaunty. She goes out.

  Pause. JENNY tries to take a bite of croissant. It’s too hard. She puts it down.

  JENNY. I wish you’d told me.

  ALICE. I am, I’m telling you right now, you’re a fucking peasant.

  JENNY. No, I mean. You never told me.

  ,

  ALICE. What?

  JENNY. What?

  ALICE. I never told you what?

  JENNY. That I should, you know, I should give her the, I should give her it.

  ,

  ALICE. It? The vaccination? Are / you

  JENNY. You never said, and I just wish. Cos I’d’ve listened to you.

  ALICE. Because it was obvious. / It was, this is not, we are not having this

  JENNY. Yeah no, I wasn’t trying to, it was a compliment I was saying, / you’re the only person I would have

  ALICE. No you’re not. You’re pretending it’s a compliment, when actually you’re saying it’s my fault, / how is it my

  JENNY. No, just, Mum told me and Mike told me but you were just, oh it’s your decision Jen, think for yourself / and I think maybe

  ALICE. Don’t put this on me. Don’t you dare put this on me because there’s Progress and there’s Horror, and you chose Horror Jen, you chose it

  JENNY. It’s not that simple.

  ALICE. Yes it is. It really is.

  JENNY. Yeah well try telling that to Mark Falshaw.

  ALICE. Who?

  JENNY. Mark Falshaw! You know! We used to play football / with him.

  ALICE. Are you talking about Thalidomide?

  JENNY. A person can ask questions, that’s all I’m saying, a / person can

  ALICE. It’s a vaccination, of course you give your child a / vaccination

  JENNY. Yeah but you never told me that, that’s / all I’m

  ALICE. Because I assumed you had! Because I assumed no one could be that stupid, it’s not like an optional fucking thing, it’s what you do, / it’s like feeding them and washing them

  JENNY. Okay but can I just say something? Can I just say something?

  ALICE. it’s the twenty-first century, it’s what you do, you child

  JENNY. Hang on

  ALICE. You cripple

  JENNY. Hey. / HEY.

  ALICE. You know Jen, you’re exactly the person they print ‘caution: hot liquids’ on coffee cups for. It’s amazing to me how you ever

  ALICE cuts herself dead.

  ,

  JENNY. What?

  ALICE. No, I just meant maybe you, maybe you just.

  ,

  JENNY. What?

  ALICE. Maybe it’s… in the long run. Maybe you weren’t… cut out for it.

  ,

  JENNY. For being. For being a

  ,

  I am cut out. I am so cut out. What do I do all day with Mum? You think that’s some sort of pleasure for me, I’m some sort of, lady’s companion, do I look like Joan fucking Fontaine? I mother her, I am her mother I take her to the toilet and I wash her clothes and iron the clothes and put her back in them, and I, I am a good mother, I am a good mother to her.

  ALICE. Fine all I’m saying is / maybe it’s a responsibility you weren’t – sorry I’m talking. I am actually still talking Jenny

  JENNY. I’m not cut out? Who says that, I need some qualification, some letters after my name, I gave birth to her, they pulled her out of me, that’s my qualification, not cut out for, you can talk, Luke hates your guts love. He ran away, doesn’t say two words to you, ‘oh my son doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t drink’, he stole my fucking Crème de Menthe, didn’t he, good luck to him I say, have a drink son, I would if I / was your

  ALICE. When?

  JENNY. What?

  ALICE. When did he steal it? Did he come back from school?

  JENNY. I don’t know.

  ALICE. So when did you see him steal it?

  JENNY. It was gone, I just assumed… maybe he didn’t. I don’t know.

  ALICE is staring at her. A realisation.

  ALICE. I asked you. How many times did I ask you if you’d seen him?

  JENNY. Maybe Henri… maybe I drank it.

  ALICE. Stop it. Why did he run away? What did you say to my son?

  JENNY. I never. I didn’t mean it. Allie…

  ALICE. Why did you lie? Why did you lie?

  Pause.

  JENNY. I thought you’d shout at me.

  ALICE stares at the table for a really long time. Eventually:

  *Okay, look:

  ALICE. *There’s this security guard at work. The head of security, he used to be in the army and he – Nico, his name is Nico, Nico gives us talks on what to do if a gunman enters the facility which, I find it really hard to get through them without laughing because he takes it so seriously.

  He says first of all: you have the advantage. You know the geography of the building. Use this knowledge to evade the gunman and barricade yourself in your office. Second, he says:

  The group is as slow as its slowest member.

  But you cannot allow the slowest member to put your life at risk.

  Your instinct will be to help them, because they’re weaker or younger or older or more frightened than you.

  Don’t.

  Leave them behind.

  If they’re lucky they’ll find a place of concealment.

  For example under a desk, or a low cupboard.

  And then he makes us all practise breathing completely silently for ten minutes and then we all go back to work.

  ,

  JENNY. Okay so can I / just

  ALICE. So this happens about once a year, this speech, and every time I hear it, when he says ‘the group is as slow as its slowest member’, it makes me think of you. Because I spend all day with some of the cl
everest people in the world then I get home and my inbox is full of messages from a retard.

  JENNY. ’Scuse me, no, nine days your machine has been running and the whole thing shuts down cos you fuck the wiring up, and I’m the retard am I?

  ALICE. Yes.

  JENNY. I’m the retard?

  ALICE. Yes.

  JENNY. I’m the retard?

  ALICE. Yes.

  JENNY. How’s that work then?

  ALICE. Because the only thing that makes us worth anything is that we try to be less stupid and you don’t fucking bother.

  JENNY. I am not stupid. I am not stupid.

  ALICE. No, to be honest Jen it’s not that you’re stupid really but more that you’re completely devoted to being stupid. You worship it. I think you might actually be quite proud of it. And I don’t, I’m finding that more and more frightening, actually. So I think that might be it.

  JENNY. What?

  ALICE. I think… I might be done. Yeah.

  ,

  JENNY. But I’m.

  ALICE. I know. I’m sorry.

  ALICE gets up to leave.

  JENNY. Alice please. Sit down, you have to, you have to

  ALICE. I have to? Why do I have to? What is the reason I have to? Blood?

  Because actually I think if the world’s going to get better and not worse then Nico might have a point. He’s mad, he has PTSD, he lives in his car, in a quarry, but I think he might be right, maybe that’s all we can do with you. Just leave you behind. Go on ahead. Maybe you’ll find a place of concealment.

  The POLICEWOMAN returns.

  POLICEWOMAN. Time is over, please.

  ALICE. Thank you. Merci.

  JENNY. What so you’re just going? I’m here and you’re / just

  ALICE. Yes well that’s it isn’t it? You’re here. We have to share a world with you, and because you’re weak, you think that means you’re powerless but actually, actually, and this is what really frightens me

  POLICEWOMAN. Scusez-moi, allez-y…

  ALICE. actually you’re a very powerful woman Jenny yes, thank you, I’m coming.

  ALICE turns, JENNY reaches for her.

  JENNY. I want to speak to Luke. I need / to

  ALICE turns like a tiger. Incandescent.

  ALICE. NO! No. You don’t come anywhere near him. I mean it. I really mean that, I’ll never speak to you again, I’m not joking. Okay? (To the POLICEWOMAN.) I’d like you to keep this woman away from me, please, thank you.

  POLICEWOMAN. Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?

  ALICE. What?

  POLICEWOMAN. Does she threaten you?