Jerwood New Playwrights. - Notes on Falling Leaves

Ayub Khan Din

NOTES ON
FALLING LEAVES

NICK HERN BOOKS
London
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

NOTES ON FALLING LEAVES

for

Zaffa

ere yare now

Notes on Falling Leaves was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, London, on 11 February 2004. The cast was as follows:

Characters

MAN, twenty-six

WOMAN, early fifties

Leaves completely cover the stage and wings. A rusty iron bench is centre stage. A WOMAN in her early fifties stands upstage centre in the semi-darkness.

The WOMAN has short grey hair. She wears a large maternity-type dress with a Peter Pan collar. She plucks at the waist of the dress all the time, as if irritated in some way. On her arm she carries a handbag. When she moves, it is in a stooped shuffle. She slowly bends and picks up a leaf and whispers to it and then drops it again. She shuffles towards the bench and contemplates it. She knows there is something she has to do with it, but it doesnt come to her.

Beat.

She looks about her, a pained expression on her face. She moans little moans. She comes to the front of the bench and lowers herself down towards the seat, but misses it completely. Slowly she squats down in front of it, whispering to the leaves as she picks them up. Upstage, a MAN, twenty-six, slowly follows her forward. He lights a cigarette. He clears his throat. He does this throughout his speech. He stands and stares at her. In his hand, he holds a bright-pink childs drinking beaker with a lid and two handles.

MAN. I stayed at the house last night. Your house Last night

He clears his throat again. The WOMAN does not acknowledge him but carries on handling the leaves.

I stayed in your house last night Our house. The house we all lived in.

The WOMAN pays no attention to anything the MAN says. Her focus is never on him.

WOMAN. Hanawahd. I couldevin

She moans. He clears his throat again.

MAN. It was there but it wasnt bit like you really. Shadowed. Dirt on the handle of the fridge. Fingerprints that belong to fingers that dont feel any more. I touched them. Ran my fingers over them. You. Everything I touched had you on them. Every room had conversations in them.

It was all there exactly as I remembered it, nothing changed. But its a dead house. If houses can die, then your house is dead. The girl Id brought with me thought it was spooky. She sat in a chair afraid and wouldnt move. Followed me about like you did Could hardly tell her to Fuck off and sit down, could I? It was cold. Soulless. There was still a distinctive odour of stale piss around the place not your fault, I know. She smelt it. The girl. The moment we walked in. She didnt let on but I know she smelt it. I knew it was coming at the top of road. Even before I put the key in the back door. Youll be pleased to know I used the back door. Even though Id brought a visitor. It made me laugh Shocking, to come to your boyfriends parents house permeated with the smell of age-old piss.

I didnt care. What dyou think? I said in a very Ive just had the whole place redesigned kind of voice. Oh its very nice, she said. Its council, I said. Oh right Ive never been in one before. She sat down in your chair. She probably thinks all council houses smell of piss. She lives with her parents in a house in Mayfair Its very nice. You would have liked it. Not a whiff of piss in that place. I watched her. I think I was enjoying her discomfort. She didnt know what to say or do. She didnt seem to want to touch anything

Shed have freaked if Id told her she was sat in your chair. Your pissy old chair I could still make out the ash in the carpet from your fags missing the ashtray.

I began to resent her being there. She looked clean and fresh. So was I, but I was part of it I still belonged there. Even now, after all this time. It all looked the same. But dead. There was a Christmas tree bulb on the floor behind the telly Papers still in the two pouffes by the electric fire. Bills behind that awful glass swan. Are they called pouffes? You used to call them pouffes. Ive heard them called Ottomans Ottoman pouffes? Probably a grain of truth in that. They were partial to taking it up the shitter I believe I fucked her in our kids old bedroom. She wouldnt use yours or mine. The only two with beds still in them. The others took theirs with them when they left. Four gone, two to go. Mine and yours. Not that Im gonna take mine I stuck my mattress on the floor in our kids room. Hope you dont mind

It was dead the sex. Dead sex in a dead house. Cold, clammy, shadowed, dead sex.

Offstage we hear the faint sound of a vacuum cleaner moved across a floor.

Sex with the smell of piss and decay. It was hard getting into her, entering her I hope you dont mind me mentioning this to you its not therapy or owt Im not looking for a reaction from you. Were well beyond that now I just feel I can. Cause you dont hear or understand and it helps me in some odd fucked-up kind of way. Where was I? It was hard I think she was a virgin. I dont know Ive never consciously had a virgin, Mother, though its not through lack of trying. Its not something you ask, is it? We havent been seeing each other long. A couple of weeks. I dont know why I asked her to come.

There was blood lots of it even in the dark I could see it dark on the sheets. I understand blood I know theres something wrong when I see blood. Theres something you can do. She didnt scream out like Ive heard virgins are supposed to do their first time. Im not saying I was disappointed or anything A scream I understand pain I understand. Shes worried about the bloodstains on the sheets. She wants to wash them. Your sheets. Your best sheets. The ones you won at Bingo. Your big win. Remember how happy you were when you won all those prizes and they sent you home in a black taxi? Sheets, a glass swan that you could put flowers in, a photo album for all your happy memories, a thatched-cottage tea set

I told her not to worry about the sheets as everythings being dumped by the council next week. Your house and its contents. All our lives. Going to the dump. It freaked her out even more. She cried. I was worried, in an oddly detached way, that she might become hysterical. I ran her a bath, I thought it might help I sat outside the door listening to the water splash about. I took a towel in for her she stood up in the bath, smiling, waiting for me to wrap her up in the towel and lift her out, the way you used to do to us when we were kids She looked fuckin horny standing there drips of water running down her body I started to get a hard-on again. But then you were standing next to her wet and scared with your saggy old tits dangling down and your sad old bush Sons shouldnt see their mothers bush They shouldnt give directions on how to wash from outside the bathroom She looked at me strangely and took the towel.

Sitting in her water, I washed the blood off my cock all looked a bit like fuckin Psycho. By the time Id finished she was asleep. I lay awake and listened for your snores.

Nothing youre not there. I sit on the stairs and listen to the house. Its breathing low and shallow it must be getting harder now cant be long. I wandered round the rooms in the blackness Just like you used to do. What were you looking for Who were you whispering to in the dark? Would I bump into your ghost but youre not dead youre as good as, if you dont mind me saying you may as well be everythings basically working but I cant speak to your spirit if youre not dead bit of a disappointment in the dead-parent-conversation department. Ive a friend who speaks to his dead mother all the time in his head. He finds this very comforting I cant. Youre not dead Which is inconvenient sometimes. It feels like youre dead I try to pretend that youre dead, but you wont die. You blink. Its amazing how much life there is in a blink. I think sometimes, youre about to say something but then you dont. You blink.