Armitstead - After the Accident

Julian Armitstead Published by Methuen Drama 2011 Methuen Drama, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Methuen Drama
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.methuendrama.com First published by Methuen Drama in 2011 Copyright Julian Armitstead 2011 The author has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. ISBN: 978 1 408 15533 2 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Available in the USA from Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 175 Fifth
Avenue/3rd Floor, New York, NY 10010. www.BloomsburyAcademicUSA.com Typeset by Mark Heslington Ltd, Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY Caution All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for
performance etc. should be made before rehearsals to Micheline Steinberg
Associates, 104 Great Portland Street, London W1W 6PE www.steinplays.com
(email: info@steinplays.com). No performance may be given unless a licence
has been obtained. No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the Work are hereby
granted and performance rights for any performance/presentation
whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means
graphic, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval
systemswithout the written permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Leon, a boy of nineteenPetra, a woman in her early/mid forties, a journalistJimmy, a man in his early/mid forties, a teacherAnd the voices of: Mr E, the prison art teacherLeons mum(These characters are portrayed by the actors playingJimmyandPetrarespectively.) 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. Authors 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.

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 oclock
Friday night.
Were going fishing,
Says Freddie.
And he holds out this piece of kit:
This fishing rod in three pieces.
And at first
I think hes having a laugh
Cos were 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, Were all here to learn.

Were all here to listen. Well: Im listening. Im 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.
Tescos,
Brantanos,
JJB.
Freddie said
All we needed was
A burger drive-in (Stops himself; beat.) But thats not funny any more. Petra(surveying the conference) So its just chairs facing each other.

Casey sits in the middle. The boy opposite And next to the boy, His supporter. Hes only got the one: Since no one from his familys Managed to turn up, Hes 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 thats when we first saw what you can do:
Handbrake turns at forty mile an hour,
Young blokes bringing cars,
Spinning them around like tops,
Its like the wacky races Im telling you. Except when theyve finished using them,
They torch them,
Cover their traces.
And once youve seen that / Petra And I want to tell her: I dont want blood Leon
Once youve 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. Please. 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.
Its like
Waving your little red card at the teacher. Petra Im sorry, Jimmy. Its doing my head in. Seeing him here and everything.

JimmyandPetramove out of the setting of the conference.JimmyandPetramove 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.
Heres a memory.
Three years after,
After the accident.
Im waking up early.
Well,
Theres this sodding pigeon
Cooing from the bottom of the garden.
(Beat.)
So I have this idea:
Im going to get my dads shotgun down from the loft,
Im going to take it down
And shoot the fucker,
Cos its driving me nuts.
(Beat.)
But when I get outside,
The suns streaming through the trees,
And theres been a late frost:
This patina of frost all over the back garden. Petra
Memory.
Heres another:
One year before,
Before (Beat; she wont name it.)
Well,
We move house.

(To Charley, a mother again.)
You remember, Charley?
Shes 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 havent finished!/ Leon
We walk for about half a mile,
Freddie and me,
Till we come to this place. Petra
I wont.
I cant.
Im not listening! Jimmy So Im thinking: Im not going into work On a morning like this.

And I just get into the car And start driving. Leon Its a luxury development,
We pass it every morning
On the way to school.
Its got a name on a sign outside.
Its got a gate.
And around the gate
Its got this wall.
The only thing it hasnt got
Is a lake and a fiery dragon.
And the things you can see through there: