Leyshon - Comfort Me With Apples

First published in 2005 by Oberon Books Ltd
Electronic edition published in 2012 Oberon Books Ltd
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www.oberonbooks.com Copyright Nell Leyshon 2005 Nell Leyshon is hereby identified as author of this play in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted her moral rights. All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to United Agents, 12-26 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LE (). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the authors prior written consent. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. PB ISBN: 978-1-84002-633-7
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Comfort me with Apples was first performed on 20 October 2005 at Hampstead Theatre with the following cast: IRENE, Anna Calder-Marshall LEN, Alan Williams ROY, Peter Hamilton Dyer BRENDA, Helen Schlesinger LINDA, Kate Lonergan Director, Lucy Bailey Designer, Mike Britton Lighting Designer, Neil Austin Music and Sound Designer, Nell Catchpole Assistant Director, Dan Ayling Costume Supervisor, Fiona Coutts Voice and Dialect Coach, Jan Van Hool Casting, Siobhan Bracke

October. Dawn. Dawn.

The smell of cider apples fills the air: apples and oak and must and time. The claustrophobic and dirty farmhouse kitchen. There has been a disturbance chairs have been upturned, broken china lies on the floor. Behind the kitchen we see the vast orchard: a world of dying, falling leaves and over-ripe apples. Unpruned trees, falling trees, dead trees. IRENE enters through the orchard.

She is dressed in her winter nightdress, a cardigan over it. She wears Wellington boots, caked in fresh, red mud. IRENE stands at the table and looks through the objects she has placed together: a pair of leather kneepads, a selection of grafting knives, a pair of glasses, an old notebook tied with string, a pipe. A large bundle of orange binder twine. LEN enters from the house in his thick flannel pyjamas. IRENE watches as he walks round, looks for something, finds a packet of biscuits, carefully opens them and starts to eat.

He looks at IRENE, sees her watching him. IRENE: What you doing? LEN: Nothing. IRENE: Dont look like nothing. (LEN walks to the table, rights one of the overturned chairs.) (Sharp.) Dont touch it. (LEN backs away. IRENE picks up another chair and some broken china. IRENE picks up another chair and some broken china.

LEN watches her.) LEN: Where you been? IRENE: Out. LEN: Cold, was it? IRENE: No. LEN: Oh. Warm, was it? IRENE: No. (Pause.) LEN: (Careful.) Reen. You all right? (No answer IRENE continues to tidy.

LEN steps forward to help, thinks again and backs off.) I said, you all right? IRENE: What dyou reckon? LEN: I dont reckon you are. IRENE: Then why dyou ask? LEN: Cos youre my sister. IRENE: Am I? Well bugger me. Maybe you aint so thick as I thought. (IRENE picks up and rights the last chair. She walks to the window, turns back, watches LEN eat another biscuit.) That your breakfast? LEN: I like a biscuit.

IRENE: Do, do you? LEN: I do, yeh. Cold out, was it? IRENE: Christ. You already asked that. LEN: Oh. Where is it you been, then? IRENE: To the orchard. (IRENE goes back to the table and fingers the objects again, places and replaces them. (IRENE goes back to the table and fingers the objects again, places and replaces them.

LEN watches.) Spec you keep thinking of whats happened. Was a lot to take in, way Arthur went. I mean you think about it, one minute youre a wife, next minute youre a widow. Aint surprising you got so upset in the night. You know, all this. (Gestures at room.) IRENE: You got anything important to say? LEN: People do stuff when theyre upset.

IRENE: Do they? LEN: Dont even know what they do sometimes. IRENE: No? (Pause. Then:) LEN: Took me a while to get back to sleep. (IRENE isnt really listening: she is looking at the items.) Yeh. Took a while. Lay in the dark and thought, will I ever get to sleep.

Then as I was going off, I had that thing where you jump in the bed. Your heart goes like its just woke up, then you cant get to sleep again. You get to sleep, did you? (No answer.) Then, next thing I knew, it was morning, and the dark had woken me. Dont like a dark morning. Then I thought I heard summat down here. Thought I heard feet.

So I come down and it was you. And here we are. (LEN walks to the window.) Got to be autumn out there. What with the apples. (Turns back.) Wheres Roy? He wasnt in his bed when I woke. (No response.) I can still smell the burning, Reen. (No response.) I can still smell the burning, Reen.

From in the night. IRENE: (Sharp.) Shut up. LEN: I didnt mean nothing by it. IRENE: I said shut up. (Silence. LEN looks out the window again.) LEN: Yeh. LEN looks out the window again.) LEN: Yeh.

Trees is thick with apples. Got to be autumn. IRENE: You know its bloody autumn. (LEN laughs.) LEN: Course I know it is. I was tricking you. (He eats another biscuit.) There is a lot of apples.

IRENE: There is, yeh. (LEN turns from the window.) LEN: Funny, how it gets dark come autumn. Whys it do that, Reen? IRENE: You know why. LEN: Do I? IRENE: Cos the days is shorter. LEN: Why? IRENE: Cos it gets dark earlier. Cos it gets light later.

LEN: But why? IRENE: Its the sun and moon and that. LEN: I dont like it dark. IRENE: Some countries its dark all day in winter. LEN: I wouldnt like that. You wouldnt think peopled wanna live there. IRENE: Spec they was born there.

LEN: Spose. IRENE: You get born somewhere, you wanna stay. LEN: Yeh. Thing about autumn is next thing you know, winters here. IRENE: Aint a lot you can do about that. LEN: I know.

Aint just the dark I dont like. Dont like the cold neither. IRENE: What do you like? LEN: Biscuits. (LEN laughs at his own joke. LEN takes the binder twine from IRENE, tries to untangle it. (IRENE waits.) Did it hurt Arthur? (No answer.) Did he know, dyou reckon? (No answer. (IRENE waits.) Did it hurt Arthur? (No answer.) Did he know, dyou reckon? (No answer.

Then:) IRENE: When I went out, I stood in amongst the apple trees. Just stood there. LEN: Was you thinking of Arthur? IRENE: No. I was thinking back over the summer you was born. LEN: Was you? Thinking of me? You. Thinking of me.