After the Accident
Julian Armitstead
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Characters
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten
Scene Eleven
Scene Twelve
Scene Thirteen
Scene Fourteen
Scene Fifteen
Scene Sixteen
Scene Seventeen
Scene Eighteen
Scene Nineteen
Scene Twenty
Imprint
Characters
Leon, a boy of nineteen
Petra, a woman in her early/mid forties, a journalist
Jimmy, a man in his early/mid forties, a teacher
And the voices of:
Mr E, the prison art teacher
Leon’s mum
(These characters are portrayed by the actors playing Jimmy and Petra respectively.)
After the Accident is set around the outworking of a restorative justice process, from before to after a conference. It is set in the present day.
Author’s note
The play makes use of the convention of simultaneous dialogue. To indicate this, speech ending with (/) continues into the next piece of speech by the same character.
The layout of the text reflects the way in which the voices first emerged, neither randomly, nor consistently, but in a constant struggle for the centre. Having revised it to a more conventional prose format for the purposes of radio, I was asked by the actors and cast of the subsequent stage production to return it again to the original. From which I can only suppose, that this is how the characters intended it. Make of it what you will.
Scene One
The stage is bare except for three chairs standing in approximate symmetry across the stage.
Leon
So this is what happened:
Freddie comes to my window,
Starts chucking stones against the glass.
Must have been about
Eight o’clock
Friday night.
‘We’re going fishing,’
Says Freddie.
And he holds out this piece of kit:
This fishing rod in three pieces.
And at first
I think he’s having a laugh
Cos we’re a long way from the sea.
Jimmy
(as from an ante room, before the conference)
Before we enter the room
Casey talks to us outside,
All lowered voices:
‘The thing about a
Restorative conference,’
He says,
‘We’re all here to learn.
We’re all here to listen.’
Well:
I’m listening.
I’m listening.
Leon
There was this place called the strip.
It was just a piece of land behind a warehouse.
They was going to build on it, once they got permission.
They was going to develop the whole place.
Tesco’s,
Brantano’s,
JJB.
Freddie said
All we needed was
A burger drive-in –
(Stops himself; beat.)
But that’s not funny any more.
Petra
(surveying the conference)
So it’s just chairs facing each other.
Casey sits in the middle.
The boy opposite
And next to the boy,
His supporter.
He’s only got the one:
Since no one from his family’s
Managed to turn up,
He’s got this social worker instead.
Leon
So I remember how it was:
Freddie and me.
Sometimes when we was bunking school,
But best of all
Was late at night.
Cos this place,
It had tarmac,
And concrete,
And fields at the end.
And that’s when we first saw what you can do:
Handbrake turns at forty mile an hour,
Young blokes bringing cars,
Spinning them around like tops,
It’s like the wacky races I’m telling you.
Except when they’ve finished using them,
They torch them,
Cover their traces.
And once you’ve seen that –/
Petra
And I want to tell her:
‘I don’t want blood –
Leon
Once you’ve smelled that/
Petra
An eye for an eye
Making the whole world blind’ /
Leon
What half a gallon of petrol in the back seat can do
When you chuck in a match.
Petra
‘But when it comes to a life;
The life of your own child –’
Leon
Well:
What else comes near?
Petra
(to the conference)
Stop.
Please.
Mr Casey?
I think I need a time out.
Jimmy
Time out!
Anyone can call a time out
At any moment in the conference.
It’s like –
Waving your little red card at the teacher.
Petra
I’m sorry, Jimmy.
It’s doing my head in.
Seeing him here and everything.
I’ll be all right in a moment.
Scene Two
Jimmy and Petra move out of the setting of the conference. As they place themselves on stage, we are aware that these are private, parallel monologues, mediated perhaps through the context of individual therapy.
Jimmy
Time out.
(Beat.)
OK.
Here’s a memory.
Three years after,
After the accident.
I’m waking up early.
Well,
There’s this sodding pigeon
Cooing from the bottom of the garden.
(Beat.)
So I have this idea:
I’m going to get my dad’s shotgun down from the loft,
I’m going to take it down
And shoot the fucker,
Cos it’s driving me nuts.
(Beat.)
But when I get outside,
The sun’s streaming through the trees,
And there’s been a late frost:
This patina of frost all over the back garden.
Petra
Memory.
Here’s another:
One year before,
Before –
(Beat; she won’t name it.)
Well,
We move house.
(To Charley, a mother again.)
You remember, Charley?
She’s five
And you do:
You remember things at that age.
You lay down memories like a new wine.
And I want her to remember everything,
So she can write about it when she goes to school:
‘The Day We Moved House’,
By Charley.
Leon
So this is how it happened:
Petra
No./
Leon
We walk for half a mile.
Petra
No!
I haven’t finished!/
Leon
We walk for about half a mile,
Freddie and me,
Till we come to this place.
Petra
I won’t.
I can’t.
I’m not listening!
Jimmy
So I’m thinking:
‘I’m not going into work
On a morning like this.’
And I just get into the car
And start driving.
Leon
It’s a luxury development,
We pass it every morning
On the way to school.
It’s got a name on a sign outside.
It’s got a gate.
And around the gate
It’s got this wall.
The only thing it hasn’t got
Is a lake and a fiery dragon.
And the things you can see through there:
Four-by-fours,
Turbo convertibles –
It’s like Top Gear,
I’m telling you:
The specs on those cars.
You want to put your hands all over them.
And that’s why they got the walls, right?
Cos they’re expecting you to try.
Petra
(lost in her thoughts)
So I’m pointing things out to her
All the while:
Look, Charley.
The van’s pulling up!
Look, Charley.
Dad’s about to open the front door.
Smell that, Charley!
Jimmy
Past woodland.
Hills.
One time I have to stop the car.
There’s this field of bluebells.
I want to get out and walk.
Take my shoes and socks off.
Get my toes wet.
God!
The world can be so beautiful.
(Beat.)
But instead I’m on the motorway again.
Getting off at junction nine.
Petra
What’s that sound, Charley?
We’re all sat at the bottom of the stairs listening.
It’s like holding a shell so close to your ear that you can hear the sea.
Even the removal men can hear it.
What’s that?
Can you hear that, Charley?
That’s the sound of an empty house!
But what’s it saying?
What’s it saying?
Leon
We’re hanging there for about an hour
When this Mini Cooper comes in the drive.
Young bloke,
Yuppie in a suit.
And out of the passenger seat
Comes this girl.
(Beat.)
Well, Freddie gives me the elbow,
You know,
As they go in.
And we’re waiting
Five,
Ten minutes
When the light goes on in the bedroom.
(Beat.)
The girl looks out.
She’s standing there in the window.
She’s let her hair down.
She’s in this gown,
This red gown.
And we’re both wanting her to take it off
Like you do, you know,
When the bloke comes up behind her
And takes her back behind the curtains.
Jimmy
I find my way along an A road
To this village.
Looks nice enough.
Pub on the right-hand side,
Signpost.
Almost miss it,
In fact I do,
I do miss it.
Have to turn back on myself.
Then it’s down a lane
Bare trees either side,
Till the lane turns into this:
Driveway.
(Beat.)
And there it is.
Christ.
And though it’s larger than I’d imagined,
In other ways
It’s just how you do imagine it.
A place like that,
With razor wire over the top.
(Beat.)
I park up.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Half an hour.
You hear what I’m saying?
Till I find myself sitting there for three,
Four hours,
Just looking at the sodding gate.
Thinking all the time:
‘He’ll be coming through there.
He’ll be coming through that gate there.’
(Small pause.)
Then someone knocks at my window.
Petra
‘Hello,
Can I help you?’ says the house.
‘I hope so,’
We say.
‘We’ve come to live here:
Me, Charley, Jimmy,
We’ve come here to stay!
We’ve come here to be happy!’
Leon
And from that moment:
Well, I’m still seeing her.
So’s Freddie, I reckon,
Though he don’t say nothing.
That bloke pulling the girl back
Makes me feel so
Horny,
Not just for her,
But for every inch of what he had.
Made me feel
So
Like:
I’ve got to have something of his now.
I’ve got to take something of his now.
Petra
Stop
Jimmy
(relentless)
Here’s another memory:
Petra
No,
Stop, please!
Jimmy
Can’t stop!
Another memory!
(Beat.)
We went to the sea that summer.
The summer after we moved house.
She had a ride on this donkey.
Next thing we know
She’s wanting a pony of her own!
(Beat.)
So I take her to a stable
And let her stroke the foal.
Petra takes a picture.
(Beat.)
Then Charley says:
Petra
(not as Charley, but rather as herself, fondly remembering)
‘I want it,
I want it, Daddy!’
Jimmy
So I say:
‘But you know what, Charley?
I want, I want
Can’t always have!’
Petra
‘But I want it, Daddy!’
Jimmy
No, Charley!
Petra
‘Then I’m not going home!
I’m not going home!
I’m not going home
Without Horsey!’
Jimmy
Horsey?
Horsey?
(Suddenly fearsome.)
I’ll give you bloody Horsey!
Petra
Jimmy, no!
No.
Stop.
Stop.
Jimmy
(small pause; softer now)
So I say to her:
I say to her:
‘Maybe when you’re older, Charley.
Maybe when you’re ten,
Eleven.
You know?
You know?’
Scene Three
Leon in jail. Tentative, at arm’s length, as if introducing a tableau of his own making.
Leon
When I go down.
(Beat.)
When I go down,
My mum shoots me this look:
‘I can’t help you now, son.
Don’t blame this on me.
You’re on your own now, boy.’
/> She says it all,
With the eyes.
Just with the eyes.
(Then, turning to Petra.)
Then the woman stands up:
Petra
(turning to him)
Murderer!
He’s a bloody murderer!
Jimmy
(drawing her back)
Petra.
Leon
And I want to say something back,
I have to say something!
Petra
(as if to the whole world)
But he needs to know.
Someone needs to tell him
If the court bloody won’t!
Leon
Then screw you!
Fuck you!
The moment is briefly held: Leon his fingers in the air, Petra and Jimmy watching.
Scene Four
Jimmy moves into next scene, his first, preliminary meeting, alone with Casey, the victim liaison officer cum RJ facilitator.
Jimmy
And that was the last we saw of him,
Mr Casey
Four years ago in court.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
And to be honest,
If I allow myself to experience now
What I was feeling then:
Christ!
I want to kill him.
I just want to kill him.
(Beat.)
But you know:
It’s all very well,
This idea of us
All sitting in a room together,
Even supposing we could get that far.
Even supposing I could get Petra
To see the need.
(Beat.)
Well, even then,
The things
We could say:
They’d just be the things we could say.
You know?
Cos what we really want,
I don’t think
We know how to take.
(Beat.)
It’s not an apology we’re after.
And it’s not
Painting our garden fence for a couple hours on a Saturday
morning.
We’d be there
Because we needed to see his face,
Before we have to catch a glimpse of him
Walking down the street with a girl on his arm,
Or coming out of a pub
Singing.
Do you think he sings, Mr Casey?
Do you?
Do you think he sings in the shower?
Or when the sun shines outside?
Because we don’t.
We don’t sing any more.
(Beat.)