attempts at a (responsible) life
Fourth draft June/July 2017
An old Church
Music: Mozart Piano Concerto #21 in C, K467 – 2. Andante
The woman (Catherine) enters crawling.
She crawls slowly up the aisle from the back.
She gets to the front of the stage.
She slowly lays seven stones. (The birth)
She stands up. Wobbly. She attends to the stones.
She gathers herself.
Time extends.
She leaves the stones.
[Transition: When she reaches the midway point on the stage she sees the apron and the other shoes. She changes tempo, moves to the filing cabinet, changes her shoes, puts on her apron, gets out the little LED tea lights and is Cath McIveney, ready to do her jobs around the church]
In which a woman asks: how do we care?
How could this happen?
Where has our village gone?
How was no-one there for her?
Where is the village for our children?
She’s never really bothered God before. This is a first.
A Church.
The woman (Cath MacIveney) comes in and does her tasks…the candles…the flowers…ready for the morning service. She looks around. Is there someone there? She is wearing an apron [which has some blood on it]
There is someone there. God.
She sits.
Hello.
I’m Cath MacIveney, (nee Jeffries) I’m sure you know me…well I come here regularly…and I’m part of the organising committee for the new sports pavilion. And our fundraiser last weekend made quite a lot more money, which is wonderful. Thank you.
Pause
But I was out the back, that night, fixing the sandwiches, and I heard something at the wire door. I didn’t think anything of it because that wire door has always been loose and whenever there’s any kind of a breeze it moves about a bit and bangs, you know?
Anyway it was banging quite a bit, and it took me a while to realise, but I did finally realise, that there was something there, maybe a dog I thought or one of the little ones who’d got bored with the ballet dancing and had come around trying to find something to eat.
So I went to have a look.
The blood was pouring out of her, through all these cuts: wrists, forearms, thighs. She was just kind of lying there on the back step. Her head was rolling, that’s what was making the wire door bang. I’m not so good with blood; Shawn always teases me about that. And there was so much of it.
She still held the razor blade, in her hand. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to call out because I didn’t want any of the kiddies to see her. I mean, who knows what nightmares they might have had after seeing something like that? I managed to prise the razor out of her fingers. I tore a teatowel and wrapped it around her arms. I put my cardigan onto her chest. I sat down on the step, took her in my arms, and held her tight.
Cath is overcome. She moves to a bench at the back of the hall. Takes a few breaths.
Luckily just then Russell appeared and so he went to call an ambulance.
There was this quiet, like a bubble…like the whole world had suddenly stopped. I couldn’t even hear the music from Swan Lake any more. I was very frightened.
This girl with the cuts all over her was Karen Dalton whose mother I knew and who I’d seen growing up and who’d hung out for a while with my Susan and what was she doing there in my lap with her body all cut open like that and what had caused her to do such a thing?
She stands.
I thought about Karen: all the things I could remember, like the High School graduation ceremony, where she unexpectedly won the home economics prize and the biology prize, ahead of Amanda Paxton and Michael Reid. Everyone cheered so much, didn’t they? Even Amanda cheered, but I don’t think Michael did. Selfish boy. Always has been and always will be. And then there was the time when she and Susan dressed up like flappers; I think it was for Maxine Lister’s thirteenth birthday. The girls looked so beautiful, and Shawn took some photos; they were both so happy.
And then I thought about her Mum, and Dad, and all that business with Jarred Taylor.
Kneels? Takes her in her arms again?
I apologised to her. I said I was sorry, so sorry that she felt like she had to do something like that to herself and that no-one was there for her. Because I don’t think anyone was there for her, you know? In this small town. No-one was there.
Then, mercifully, Russell came back, with the ambulance. Kiera and David were so quick and so good; they said that she’s probably going to be okay.
What did we do wrong that I had to hold our own Karen Dalton in my arms, one of our young, only nineteen, and watch her suffer like that? What did we do wrong?
I’m worried for the future and that she might not be the only one…
This has shocked her to the core
Boy machete news Keith
[The moment in the play beyond which nothing is ever the same]
[Now, we are within the questions, the doubts]
She braces herself, and exits the hall.
[Transition: she takes a clicky pen out of her hair and starts clicking it.
Sounds of a hospital.
She is now Catriona. She walks back and forth along the corridor, finally moving toward the stage left side to the waiting group of medical professionals for the ward round]
