England & Son (NHB Modern Plays) (eBook)

1.

Beep, beep. Vehicle reversing. Beep Beep… !

Shit!

Dover.

Five a.m.

Paper and carboard piled on top of me. I can’t move.

Industrial paper bin. Me inside. Paralysed.

I’ve got to get out!

Beep, beep!

Bin lorry!

I try to stand.

The clang-clang of death approaching.

What’s wrong with my legs? Come on!

I’m in hell again. Back of Wetherspoons.

I push the lid up. Heave myself over the side. Scrape my shins. Crack my shoulder. Crawl away. Lie there.

Relief.

No one about. Just this yellow jacket looking at me.

Are you alright, mate?

I can’t speak.

Yellow jacket calls his mate over.

He must’ve been sleeping in the bin.

They stare down at me like I’m an insect.

Behind them the giant bin – hotel for the night – ascends above the lorry’s crushing jaws.

Industrial boom.

The bin shoots its load.

But sudden glimpse.

My best friend Paul – like litter – giant rag doll – still out cold – tumbles into the crusher.

I shout and point. Try to stand.

Arms hold me.

It’s all right, mate. Phwoar – he stinks!

My voice grates over the grinding clang.

He’s in the lorry! My friend Paul!

They run. Get there too late.

I’m on the ground crying.

Banging my head.

I’m in the shit again.

And I’m not getting out of this one!

Or am I?

Fuck! Vehicle reversing, reversing, reversing…

2.

My Dad at the Yard.

To distract myself when I’m in the shit, I sometimes try to solve the mystery of my dad when I’m little. When all I want from life is for him to smile at me and ruffle my hair.

Which is hard fucking work.

Example.

(Gradually becoming his younger self.)

Me and him – just the two of us – knocking down a building.

My dad does the demolition with a crowbar and a lump hammer while I – aged eight – burn the lead off the brass fittings with a blow torch.

It’s great. You hold the brass with tongs and drip the molten lead onto a ladle and make little smooth domes.

I love the blow torch so much I want to burn everything at the yard.

Dad says he knows the feeling but we have to ‘show some restraint’.

The lump hammer’s good too. It’s like a sledgehammer but with a short handle and I can smash whole bricks with it in one go. Booff!

Mum says you should always wear goggles when you smash bricks, but Dad says it’s fine.

My other jobs – aged eight – are:

Break the mortar off bricks the size of my head. Stack the clean ones and make a mound of rubbish. Sort the zinc and aluminium gullies – butterfly clips – C-clamps – D-clamps…

All day. Nothing goes to waste. Everything will end up in one of Dad’s lock-ups.

Three lock-ups he’s got. A mile from our house.

One for bricks, slates and masonry. One for ladders and scaffold. One for things Dad calls ‘miscellaneous’, which I know how to spell and he doesn’t.

England used to build things, son, he says. Now we knock everything down.

I laugh because England’s our name.

England and Son. If we ever go ‘legit’ Dad says that’s what we’ll be called.

In the third lock-up he’s got an oil drum. If anything is rusty or won’t come undone – into the oil it goes. Four months later out it comes. Bingo. Working again.

Anyhow. Back at the yard. Lunch comes. We eat a sandwich. Nothing.

My dad. Silent as a mountain. Staring at nothing. Definitely not smiling or ruffling my hair.

Sometimes he nods like he’s thinking something. Sometimes he looks over at me.

Eat up, son.

If his workmates are there they argue about Margaret Thatcher who’s the prime minister.

My dad voted for Margaret Thatcher because he was in the army once. But he says she betrayed him because she stole his job when she said she was all about England.

I don’t laugh at that England.

Anyhow. By five o’clock the building’s gone. I’ve sorted several mountains of everything that can be salvaged and put it in the van. We’re covered in muck, I’m proud of myself and I’m waiting for my reward.

Dad says, Burn the rubbish. Gives me some matches. Goes off to talk money.

The rubbish pile is huge. It’s gonna take ages to burn all that.

So I get the petrol can I saw earlier behind the old outhouse and pour it on the pile.

Over the back. Round the side. The rest on top. And you know, it’s a big can. Almost as big as me.

I don’t know my dad’s already done this.

And then… (Strikes a match.)

How do you describe that sound?

Four streets away they think it’s a meteorite.

Next thing I know I’m lying on my back and my dad’s staring down at me.

He picks me up. Plonks me on my feet. Probably checking I can stand.

The flames are going up to the sky.

Then it comes.

The smile. Beaming. Laughing smile. Fills up the whole world.

I’ve got no fucking eyebrows and my dad and everyone from the yard is laughing at me.

But I’m happy because he ruffles what’s left of my hair, puts me on his shoulders and we watch it all burn to the ground.

Later my mum shouts about it and my dad goes out on his own.

They’re always shouting. Usually it’s about money.

Mum says Dad will do anything for money except get a job.

He says where has she been there are no jobs.

She says she’s got three.

(Faint echo of the bin lorry beeping – kept at bay by the next scene.)

3.

My Dad and the Mystical Power of Learning.

Dad always says, Education’s the only way out, son.

I always think, Out of what?

He takes lessons himself. Make sure you’re doing it right.

His favourite is the Greek Myths because: It’s what educated people learn.

But worst of all. He comes in to speak to my teacher.

This great big bloke. Donkey jacket the size of Balham. Putrefying the air with some stink from the yards. Striding up the playground to Miss Jones. Object of my prepubescent stirrings of wonder.

’Scuse me love. Can you help me with some pedagogy?

Miss Jones pulls a strange face. All the kids laugh.

Is that funny man your dad?

No.

But if I try hard Dad ruffles my hair. So when I’m eight I’m a good boy. Top of the class.

All the dreams he has left in life are for me.

It was just never gonna happen.

4.

Beep-beep!! – Beep-beep… !!

5.

My Dad in the West End.

He does the doors at the theatre sometimes. After he’s finished at the yard. Sometimes he wears a top hat. Tonight it’s just the livery and a bit of braid.

He says, I was a soldier once. Then I made cars. Now look at me. (Meaning: dressed like a clown.)

I think, He does look smart in that clobber.

I don’t remember why I’m there that night but I do remember I’m eating a raspberry ripple tub with a little wooden spoon one of the girls with the trays always gives me.

My two favourite things. Raspberry ripple and my dad.

Except for the blow torch.

And the lump hammer.

Anyway. A car pulls up and my dad looks down at me.

There’s four men in the car. One of them winds the window down and says something to my dad about some money.

My dad ignores the man. Talks to me.

Go inside. Find the woman who gave you the ice cream. Stay inside.

I go through the big doors, but stop and look back. He’s watching me.

He signals, Go!

I sneak round to the side door and peer through the glass.

A Scene.

The man from the car window out now. Waving his arms around.

My dad. Looking down at the man like he wants to put a collar on him and take him for a walk.

My dad says something. The man with the arms nods.

My dad comes into the foyer. Goes into the loo on the ground floor. Comes out a minute later with a massive iron bayonet from a First World War rifle.

It looks heavy.

Later I think, How was there a massive iron bayonet from a First World War rifle in the toilet of a West End theatre? He must have had it hidden in there.

My dad’s face is calm. But he looks like someone else.

I watch through the side door. Cold glass on my forehead.

He strides past the man with the arms to the front of the car.