Ellie Don’t stop!

Joe Oh –

Ellie For me. Hello.

She opens her arms. They hug.

Joe You look exactly the same.

Ellie I’m literally twice the age I was when we were last in here.

Joe You look the same though.

Ellie Whereas you look dreadful.

Joe Thanks.

Ellie No, really, what happened? God I’m incredibly nervous. Nice to see you!

Joe And you, mate! I got you a coffee.

Joe goes to where he put the coffees down.

Ellie You’re nice.

Joe That’s what everyone says, but they’re wrong.

Ellie Are they?

Joe It’s a front. When I’m alone and no one can see me I’m very cruel to animals to balance it out.

Ellie Are you?

Joe I boil dogs, yeah. You can have a latte or a cappuccino. I got one of each. Ross gets the other.

Ellie Service station?

Joe No, I got ’em in town.

Ellie From the shop?

Joe It’s gone downhill.

Ellie Of course it has.

Joe They actually literally haven’t refurbished since we left. It’s rotting around them.

Ellie You remember the milk down the back of the fridges?

Joe How do you even get milk down the back of a fridge?

Ellie We managed it all the time.

Joe But I never knew how. I quite fancy the manager now.

Ellie Is it not Ken?

Joe No.

Ellie Are you serious?

Joe Yeah.

Ellie Are you serious?

Joe I am.

Ellie Are you serious? I thought that man would always be the manager. Governments would come and go, and ice caps would melt, and he would simply continue. Managing. Or whatever it was he really did.

Joe He had that weed farm.

Ellie No, it was his friend’s.

Joe That was it.

Ellie He was visiting his friend’s weed farm when the police raided it, and he got out the window and his friend didn’t, so he offered to run it till his friend got out in sort of solidarity.

Joe Why did the police not shut it down?

Ellie The weed farm?

Joe You’d think if the police had raided the place there wouldn’t be a weed farm left to look after.

Ellie Maybe there was more than one.

Joe Must be it. A franchise. He runs the Jobcentre now.

Ellie Yeah?

Joe I went to see him.

Ellie Why?

Joe I dunno. I couldn’t believe it. I thought he’d never leave there either.

Ellie Yeah.

Joe So I went in to see him, but I walked in the door and people were so hostile to me.

Ellie How do you mean?

Joe They marched me back out.

Ellie Of the Jobcentre?

Joe You have to have appointments. I think they thought I was gonna strip off or something.

Ellie Do an I, Daniel Blake.

Joe Does he do that?

Ellie Something like that. I haven’t seen it.

Joe Wees all over everything.

Ellie Something like that. So you didn’t see him?

Joe They said he was in a meeting.

Ellie And he doesn’t run the café any more?

Joe No, it’s someone else.

Ellie And you fancy her.

Joe She’s friendly. I have this terrible affliction around people who are nice to me. Very common in men. It affects approximately one in two men. I just fall in love with anyone who’s nice to me. Can’t even help it. Someone smiles at me, I don’t sleep for weeks.

Ellie I’ve seen that in you.

Joe There you go.

Ellie In my experience it’s actually probably more than one in two men, so don’t feel bad.

Joe Okay. It’s sort of like baldness then. Comes to nearly all of us.

Ellie Yeah, I guess it is. I’ll have the cap.

Joe Cool.

He gives her a coffee. She sips it.

Ellie That is stone cold and not in a good way.

Joe I got here early. You don’t have to drink it.

Ellie No, it’s all right. If you tell yourself it’s meant to taste like that it’s almost bearable.

Joe Like life.

Ellie Exactly. Thank you, Joe, I appreciate it. I go back in sometimes too.

Joe Yeah?

Ellie When I’m back to see Mum. It’s funny. They don’t know who I am. I feel like a spy, like I’m there incognito. And I keep getting older and they stay the same age.

Joe Right?!

Ellie It’s all kids in the exact same life stage we were at when we were there. It’s quite charged, really. Imagine. The same pheromones all the time in that room, just different bodies passing through and pumping them out one after the other. It’s beautiful. There must always be someone falling in love there. And someone preparing to come out to their parents. And someone saving to go round the world. And whatever other shit we did when we were young.

Joe Blackout drinking.

Ellie Yeah, that’s what we did. Then make beds out of bags of coffee beans in the basement and pass out down there.

Joe I never went round the world.

Ellie It’s overrated.

Joe I bet it’s not.

Ellie I was being nice. I don’t think you’d like it, to be fair.

Joe The world?

Ellie All the travel. You were never good at that. What?! You didn’t like buses. You wouldn’t have crisps in your bag because they rustled.

Joe That did really annoy me, crisps in my bag.

Ellie I know.

Joe That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked the world.

Ellie Just the little trays and waiting at airports. Lots of it is actually waiting at airports.

Joe Maybe it’s a good thing I stayed home then. And why go round India when there’s so much of Wiltshire I still haven’t seen?

Ellie Exactly.

Joe We’ve got as many ancient monuments as anywhere else.

Ellie And that’s just the people who drink in the pubs!

Joe Funny!