Write On...

I've finally started work proper on a new play and here's part of the opening scene...


SCENE 1: INTERIOR. CEMETERY.
Grams: Symphony No.3 by Gorecki.
A winter afternoon. A cross stands on stage. Size, a 40-year-old black man of dual heritage, stands near it. He is rubbing the knuckles of his right hand. Michael, a man in his late twenties, stands next to him. He is listening on a mobile phone and he occasionally mutters ‘Yes’ while Size talks to Michael and to himself. Both are dressed in suits with black ties.

SIZE
Shouldn’t be allowed… Taking liberties like that – and at your dad’s fucking funeral… (Silence) Everyone could hear their racket all the way across the cemetery… Sobbing and weeping like big fucking babies… (Silence) And they weren’t even sobbing and weeping in fucking English…

Michael raises a finger to request silence. Silence for a beat or two then Size continues.

SIZE
Look, Mikey. I know you’re pissed with me but I had to go over. All I did was ask him and his friends to quieten it down a bit… That’s all. I didn’t swear or lamp anyone or nothing. Well… not immediately. And it was him who kicked it off. ‘We also are trying to have funeral here too!’ he says. Then he turns his back on me. Like I’m nothing. Little cunt. Snide little cunt. In fact the sort of snide little cunt who should just have ‘I am a snide little cunt’ branded across his forehead. But even then, even under that sort of extreme… (He searches for the word) provocation, I kept my temper. I simply tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out that we were having a funeral as well – but the difference was we were trying to be dignified about the fucking thing and maybe they could try the same as they’re now living in our fucking country! Well he didn’t like that. Said something angry in foreign! So I hit him, punched him plum in the face and he fell into the grave with his nose splatted all over his boat. Like a big dollop of jam in a see of rice pudding it was.
Splosh… (Pause) You know what? Next time I’m not going bother being polite. And I don’t care if the cunt was a priest!

Michael comes off the phone. He closes it and puts it in his pocket. He brings his hands to his face and lets out a sigh.