Three Plays Read online

  The sitting room of the Wiley’s farmhouse in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. It is late afternoon, early summer. Outside, there is a thick mist. There are piles of boxes and framed pictures stacked against the walls. Pale rectangles on the walls mark the places where the pictures once hung. Old rosettes from horse shows, riding hats, yellowing documents and bits of fishing equipment fill the boxes. There is an armchair and a table, on which lie a plate of apples and a knife, with a standard lamp alongside it. A mantelpiece testifies to a rather grander past. A faded Persian rug and some animal skins are scattered across the floor. Yellow flystrips, covered in dead flies, hang from the ceiling.

  PATRICIA is looking through one of the boxes, deciding what to keep and what to discard. She may have a black rubbish bag for the things she wants to throw away. When she moves, she does so with some difficulty.

  PATRICIA: Richard? Have you gone yet? Richard! Are you there? What the hell’s he up to?

  She pages through an old magazine and then digs up a framed picture of a young man on a motorbike. Her face glows quietly with some pleasing recollection.

  PATRICIA: Richard!

  RICHARD enters holding a pair of boots and a spade.

  RICHARD: Who told you to buy new furniture?

  PATRICIA: Does this look like new furniture?

  RICHARD: I’m not sure I like those animal skins lying about.

  PATRICIA: Then you shouldn’t have shot the animals.

  RICHARD: I shot those?

  RICHARD regards them sceptically.

  PATRICIA: Have you taken your pills?

  RICHARD: Of course I’ve taken my pills.

  He is about to sit on one of the boxes.

  PATRICIA: Careful!

  RICHARD: Of what?

  PATRICIA: I’m tired of you breaking things. That’s what. (Gesturing to another box.) Sit there. That’s rosettes.

  Instead of sitting, RICHARD wanders over to PATRICIA’s armchair. He picks up the apple and the knife and cuts off a piece of apple.

  RICHARD: You want?

  PATRICIA: What are you planning to do with that spade?

  RICHARD: I keep seeing her. All broken up. Lost in a heap of rubble.

  PATRICIA: We’ve gone over this, Richard. I made it very clear in the agreement. The site will be protected.

  RICHARD: Where’s the television gone?

  PATRICIA: Packed.

  RICHARD: Someone must’ve taken it.

  PATRICIA: Beauty packed it.

  RICHARD: What for?

  PATRICIA: We’re leaving. Tomorrow. Everything has to be packed.

  RICHARD: Leaving? (He looks at the boxes.) Then I want to take the dog.

  PATRICIA: Of course we’re taking the dog.

  RICHARD: To my father’s place. I want to take him there tonight.

  PATRICIA: That’s impossible.

  He stares at her.

  PATRICIA: Your father died twenty years ago.

  RICHARD: That’s extremely unlikely.

  PATRICIA: Too many pies.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Don’t you remember how you dithered about the funeral? You said if you went back to England, you may never come back. Imagining, I suppose, that everyone would find it a great loss.

  RICHARD: But I saw him yesterday. We shared a cigarette. You think I was addressing his ghost?

  He sits on the box with rosettes and starts to put on his boots.

  PATRICIA: I think it will rain. I don’t advise going out. The last time you went, you disappeared for the whole night. Bheki eventually found you up in top woods. Fast asleep inside a porcupine hole you’d scooped out.

  RICHARD grunts.

  PATRICIA: You looked hilarious, I might add. Half dressed. Twigs in your hair. Starlings nesting in your beard. And what did you achieve in the end? Bronchitis for a month.

  RICHARD: Who are we talking about?

  PATRICIA: You.

  RICHARD: You know I don’t like that.

  PATRICIA: What else would you like to talk about?

  RICHARD is still struggling with his boots.

  RICHARD: I was dreaming. Before I came here.

  PATRICIA: I could hear you snoring.

  RICHARD: I was dreaming that we were dead.

  PATRICIA nods – as if she’s heard all this before.

  RICHARD: We were in Heaven or Hell. I wasn’t sure which. I don’t think it mattered. All that mattered was that we were dead and we didn’t know it. No one had decided to mention it.

  PATRICIA: Who would have mentioned it?

  RICHARD: God could have. Or one of his angels.

  PATRICIA: Well you can relax. Because we’re not.

  RICHARD: We’re not?

  PATRICIA: Not quite.

  He tries again with his boots.

  RICHARD: Because it’s coming.

  PATRICIA: What is coming?

  RICHARD: The ambulance. I said I have two dead children for you to pick up.

  PATRICIA: What do you mean two?

  RICHARD: You know what?

  PATRICIA: No.

  RICHARD: You think I’m not here, but I am.

  PATRICIA: Roo – I know very well you’re here.

  Silence.

  RICHARD: When I was three, my whole family went away.

  PATRICIA: It was only your mother who went away.

  RICHARD: No, I don’t think that’s right.

  RICHARD makes to get up.

  PATRICIA: Richard, I want you to concentrate. If you have to go out. For a walk. Some air. For the sake of generally plodding about – you can. Alright? But go to the stables. Get Bheki. Tell him to come with.

  RICHARD: Alright.

  He moves towards the spade.

  PATRICIA: You don’t need that spade. You’re to walk around the stables a few times with Bheki and then come straight back. Is that understood?

  RICHARD: Absolutely.

  Silence.

  RICHARD: Understood absolutely.

  He moves away from the spade, looking defeated.

  RICHARD: When I’m gone are you at least going to tidy up? It’s impossible to find anything in this place.

  PATRICIA: What have you lost?

  RICHARD: It’s not always clear. I get confused. Everything’s such a bloody mess.

  PATRICIA: Tell me about it.

  RICHARD: Why did you bring us here? What did you expect? There’s nothing out there. Not a soul to talk to. I stood at the end of the dirt road. It went as far as my eyes could look. But there was nothing at the end of it. Just another hill. Who would live to hell and gone like this?

  PATRICIA: Us.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Tomorrow, Roo, we’re going to the sea. We went once on your motorbike. You drove us all the way from the farm to Sheffield beach. You buried me in the sand, right up to my neck, and kissed me. There was sand in my mouth from laughing. We stayed up all night. And went for a swim as the sun was coming up. Just the sea and us, and the pale green haze of the hills beyond the shore. The sugarcane. In the mist. There was not a soul to disturb our peace. It was paradise. You were paradise. We both were.

  RICHARD: That was another man.

  PATRICIA: Too damn right.

  RICHARD: At least I never married you.

  PATRICIA: Actually – you did.

  RICHARD: Well if I did, I did it to please you.

  Silence.

  RICHARD: Always getting what you want.

  PATRICIA laughs with bitterness.

  PATRICIA: Go on. Go for your bloody walk.

  He leaves.

  PATRICIA: And mind you don’t fall down a donga and break your neck.

  Silence.

  RICHARD re-enters.

  RICHARD: Outside there’s a bloody fog. I can’t see my hand in front of my face.

  PATRICIA: It isn’t fog, it’s mist. Will you never learn?

  RICHARD picks up the spade. PATRICIA moves towards him as fast as she can.

  PATRICIA: Richard, I don’t have time for this.r />
  RICHARD: There are strange people in the shed.

  PATRICIA: Give me that spade!

  RICHARD leaves with the spade.

  PATRICIA: Damnit. Richard! Beauty!

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Beau-ty!

  BEAUTY enters. She is a small woman, dressed in blue overalls, a doek on her head. Her feet are bare. She is neat, deferential, difficult to read. Whenever PATRICIA calls her, she does so in a song-like way, the second note much higher than the first.

  PATRICIA: Richard has gone off again. With the spade.

  BEAUTY: What must I do?

  PATRICIA: Get him. Or get Bheki to get him.

  BEAUTY: I will go, Mesis.

  PATRICIA: Ngiyabonga (thank you).

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: And Beauty? Go to Rachel first. Then you can check on the stables and the chicken shed. You know what happens when he can’t find the animals. He goes out to look for them. He tries to herd them back in from the hills.

  BEAUTY: Yebo (Yes), Mesis.

  From the front garden, a dog has started to bark.

  PATRICIA: Mesis?

  PATRICIA: It’s probably the civet. Leave it.

  BEAUTY peers through the window that overlooks the front garden and the stoep.

  BEAUTY: I can see a silver car standing under the tree. Angimboni umshayeli (But I can’t see the driver).

  PATRICIA: Well it can’t have driven there itself. Maybe the driver’s gone around the back.

  BEAUTY: Must I go and look?

  PATRICIA: Yes – go look. And afterwards find Richard. I don’t want him digging anything up.

  BEAUTY: Yebo, Mesis.

  With a quick habitual bob of the head, BEAUTY leaves.

  The barking grows more ferocious.

  The front door clicks closed.

  Someone has arrived in the hallway, outside the sitting room, just out of sight.

  PATRICIA: Hello? Beauty? Bea-uty!

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Who is that?

  Silence.

  PATRICIA looks at the fruit knife. It is just our of reach.

  PATRICIA: What do you want?

  The shadowy presence remains at the doorway.

  LOOKSMART: Good evening, Madam.

  PATRICIA: Good evening.

  LOOKSMART: The dog. It is still here.

  PATRICIA: Which dog?

  LOOKSMART: The Rottweiler. Chloe – you called it. Still there on the stoep. How is that possible?

  PATRICIA: That one is Ethunzini (Zulu for ‘shadow’).

  LOOKSMART: ‘Shadow’? Good name. Chloe’s puppy, perhaps?

  PATRICIA: Chloe died before she could have a pup.

  Silence.

  LOOKSMART: It doesn’t matter. It is still the same dog.

  PATRICIA: Do I – know you?

  LOOKSMART finally steps into the room. He appears to be in his late thirties. He is dressed in an impeccable suit, with a flagrant red tie.

  LOOKSMART: But I am Looksmart. It is just possible you remember me.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Looksmart. Why – you’ve come back! Goodness. And how well you look!

  LOOKSMART: As you can see, Madam – I am a different man.

  PATRICIA: Yes. You certainly look different. You’re wearing a suit.

  LOOKSMART enters deeper into room. He laughs quietly.

  LOOKSMART: Yebo, Madam. This is what I’m like these days. I wear a suit.

  He stands there proudly.

  But there is an undertone of hostility in him too: whenever he addresses her as Madam, he does so with a bitter irony.

  PATRICIA: It took me a moment to recognise you.

  LOOKSMART: Because I’m wearing a suit?

  PATRICIA: I never thought I’d see you again. How long has it been? I’ve long ago given up trying to do the Maths – on anything.

  LOOKSMART: About fifteen years.

  PATRICIA: As long as that?

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Times have changed, haven’t they?

  LOOKSMART: Have they?

  PATRICIA: For a start – you’re wearing a suit.

  LOOKSMART: And you – you are smaller than I remember you. Smaller and – not half as frightening.

  PATRICIA: Me? Frightening? I was never that.

  LOOKSMART: Ja, ja – I had to look up to you once.

  Silence.

  He looks about with disbelief.

  PATRICIA: Wouldn’t you like to sit?

  LOOKSMART: Thank you, Madam, but I prefer to stand.

  PATRICIA: As you like.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Only the other day I was thinking about you.

  LOOKSMART: Oh yes?

  PATRICIA: The day you caught your first fish.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: Do you remember that?

  He turns away, moves off.

  PATRICIA: You caught your first fish in the bottom dam. I bought you a little red fishing rod and taught you to cast on the front lawn. Don’t say you can’t remember that?

  LOOKSMART: I’m sorry, Madam – but it seems my mind is a blank.

  PATRICIA: We went down to try one afternoon. Just as the thunder was starting up. I can still see you, running over the field with the rod held high – like you were tempting the lightning to strike us. You were so light on your feet. Like a little bird. Made out of twigs.

  LOOKSMART: I was made out of twigs?

  PATRICIA: You know what I mean.

  LOOKSMART: Not really, Madam.

  PATRICIA: The hook kept getting caught everywhere. The grass, your hair. Even your ear once. But you kept on going, determined to get a bite. And then at last – you did! You were so excited, you turned and ran. You ran all the way up the riverbank until the fish came bumping up behind you.

  LOOKSMART smiles oddly.

  PATRICIA: How I laughed!

  BEAUTY enters.

  She stares at LOOKSMART.

  He barely looks at her.

  PATRICIA: We’re fine – thank you, Beauty.

  BEAUTY leaves.

  PATRICIA: You stared down at it. You said how beautiful it looked, flapping there in the dead grass. Then you decided: we had to return it to the water. You remember how we slipped it back? It lay on its back for a while. We thought it was too late. It had taken in too much air. But then it righted itself, flicked its tail and disappeared.

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: You didn’t want to go fishing again after that.

  Silence.

  LOOKSMART: If I remember myself correctly, I’d have wanted to eat that fish.

  PATRICIA: You were a gentle child. Always wanting to please.

  LOOKSMART: Don’t you mean always wanting to please you?

  PATRICIA: Me? Me and everyone else. Even Richard seemed to like you.

  LOOKSMART: The Big Baas Richard – liking me? (With a laugh.) I certainly don’t remember that!

  Silence.

  PATRICIA: So tell me, Looksmart. How did you come to wear such a smart suit?

  LOOKSMART: This isn’t fancy dress, Madam. I am not wearing this to please you.

  PATRICIA: I know that.

  Silence.

  He looks again at the wreckage of the room.

  PATRICIA: You’ve caught us here at quite a moment. If you’d come tomorrow, you’d have found us gone.

  LOOKSMART: You’re leaving tomorrow. Yes – I know all about that.

  PATRICIA: You do?

  LOOKSMART: Oh yes. I make it my business these days to know about such things. There’s a secret network that runs underground. When it pleases me, I put my ear to it.

  PATRICIA: That sounds very – mysterious.

  LOOKSMART: Oh, it’s no mystery.

  Silence.

  LOOKSMART: So after tomorrow – what are you plans?

  PATRICIA: I’m going back to the house where I grew up. By the sea. I’m a Durban girl at heart.

  LOOKSMART: (Another laugh.) Come, come, Madam. In my head, I can’t sep
arate you from this farm.

  PATRICIA: Over the years, I might have settled into it. Become accustomed to it. I’ve become so overgrown with creepers and moss, with old man’s beard, that I probably look a part of it. But no – originally I’m not from here.

  LOOKSMART looks disappointed.

  LOOKSMART: But surely you’re going to miss this place?

  PATRICIA: Oh, backward glances only crick the neck.

  LOOKSMART: So what will you do?

  PATRICIA: As little as possible. I plan to spend whole days simply looking at the sea. The ships will be there exactly as I recall them, queuing across the horizon, honking as they come into the harbour. Everything shimmers in Durban. The air, the insects. There are birds in every tree. Have you ever heard the fruit bats?

  LOOKSMART: In Durban? I can’t say I have.

  PATRICIA: They ping.

  LOOKSMART: Ping?

  PATRICIA: They’re as big as turtle doves. My father used to tell me they’re the only bats the human ear can actually hear.

  LOOKSMART: But what about the Baas? Is he still around? Is he – coming with?

  PATRICIA: Of course he is.

  LOOKSMART: So what does he say? Won’t he miss this place?

  PATRICIA: Richard isn’t well.

  LOOKSMART: (Pleased.) Not well, hey? What is it? A heart attack?

  PATRICIA: He has a condition. He’s losing his mind. I mean – quite literally losing it.

  LOOKSMART: And it’s too late to find it?

  PATRICIA: Far too late to find it.

  Silence.

  LOOKSMART: It doesn’t sound like a very happy ending.

  PATRICIA: That’s getting old for you.

  LOOKSMART: But you’ve sold the farm. You must be rich.

  PATRICIA: Rich? We’ve been buried in debt for about as long as I can even – think. You know, for every rand the Welsh ponies brought in, Richard’s cows and chickens cost another two. And Llewellyn died. You remember Llewellyn?

  He shrugs.

  PATRICIA: Of course you must. Llewellyn was our very first stallion. All the foals came from him. When he went – my interest in the farm seemed to wane. We sold all the other ponies off to a man in White River. A man who looked very much like yourself. But Richard and I – we can’t complain.

  LOOKSMART: That’s more than can be said for most of us.

  She looks at him.

  PATRICIA: You don’t look as if you’ve done too badly for yourself.

  LOOKSMART: I don’t?