Consider First a Bird (1 Act Play)

CONSIDER FIRST A BIRD…

A hill on the Essex-Suffolk border (which is more than 20 miles from Ilford) on August 12^th. Enter, first, Gary, then David.

GARY So then…will this do?

DAVID Yes, of course. Yes, this’ll do fine.

GARY Only this is the fourth hill we’ve tried. The first three were wrong and I don’t have a fucking clue why, so I just wanted to make sure. Will this do?

DAVID Yes. Yes, this is fine. Look, what do you see?

GARY Nothing. Miles and miles of fuck-all. Is that what we were looking for?

DAVID Fuck-all is fine as long as it’s dark fuck-all. Dark’s what we want. No street lights. No headlights. No house lights. Dark. That’s what we want.

GARY Like this?

DAVID Dark like this. Exactly so.

GARY So how far are we from Ilford?

DAVID Don’t know. Twenty miles?

GARY And what is it we’re looking for again?

DAVID The Perseids.

Enter Rosa, upstage, unseen.

GARY The who now?

DAVID Perseids. It’s a meteor shower, it happens every August, it’s famous.

GARY Not to me. Never heard of it. Them. It.

ROSA I have.

GARY Hey! Where did you come from?

ROSA That bit of the car they put behind the front seats, where you can store children and shopping and women and the like.

GARY I never saw you.

ROSA No, well, that’s back seats for you, always full of surprises. But here I am.

GARY And you know about these Percy things?

ROSA Meteors. The Perseids. Yes.

GARY So what are they?

ROSA Meteors? Bits of stuff from outer space. When they come into earth’s atmosphere they burn up, sort of astronomical fireworks, so we see the flare trail, and say “Oh look, a shooting star” but they aren’t stars, which are really, really big, they’re meteors, which come in all sizes from quite big to tiny, and these ones seem to come from the same point in the sky..

DAVID ..which looks as though it’s the constellation of Perseus, so we call them the Perseids.

ROSA As opposed to the Leonids, which happen in November and look like they’re coming from Leo, or the Geminids, which happen in December, and seem to originate..

GARY ..in Gemini, I get it. Shut up now.

DAVID My book said the Perseids were the best. Is that right?

ROSA You get clear skies in August, and you get lots of meteors. I haven’t seen any meteor showers for ages, but these are good ones. Like starting bird watching with pied wagtails.

DAVID Sorry?

ROSA Well, if you know that pied means black and white, you see this little black and white bird, in a car-park or somewhere really open and obvious, and it’s wagging its tail, and you go: “Oh look, a pied wagtail” and there you are, you’re a bird watcher.

DAVID Astronomy for idiots.

ROSA Astronomy for beginners. Looking, that’s where you start. First you look, then you find out what you were looking at. But first you have to look.

GARY So you’ve driven me twenty miles to watch space-crap burn?

DAVID You didn’t have to come. I said “Anyone want to drive out and look at the Perseids, because it’s the twelfth of August?” and you said “Hold me back” and ran out of the house shouting.

GARY Tennants.

DAVID Per-se-ids-per-se-ids-per-se-ids actually.

GARY No. It was eight cans of Tennants. Eight cans of Tennants and I’ll agree to anything. Even this. Must have a slash.

Gary off.

DAVID You wanted to see them, didn’t you?

ROSA Me? Yes. Very much. Thanks for bringing me.

DAVID Oh, pleasure. Have you seen them before?

ROSA Oh yes. You haven’t?

DAVID I’ve only just started trying to look at the stars, if you get me. It’s really hard in London, there’s just like little glimpses through the haze, it’s really a piss-off, but yes, I’ve started looking.

ROSA First you have to look.

DAVID I want to know what I’m looking at. I look at all these stars and I can’t see the patterns. I can see the Plough, and Polaris, and the “W” thing..

ROSA Cassiopeia

DAVID Yes, her. That was dead good when I got her, because everyone can do the Plough, but she was new to me, so I was dead excited. And Orion, I can spot Orion. Then I’m pretty much done.

ROSA My dad had a telescope, and he’d take me out on clear nights and point them out to me. I like Lyra, she’s pretty. Like a kite, sort of. See Cassiopeia?

DAVID Yes.

ROSA Well go round that way. See the bright, bright star?

DAVID That one?

ROSA Yes. That’s Vega, she’s the brightest star we see, I think. She’s right next to Lyra. See the sort of wobbly kite, four stars just next to Vega?

DAVID Yes. Yes. Got it. That’s brilliant!

ROSA So now you know Vega and Lyra. Onwards and upwards.

DAVID That’s so brilliant. I’m ever so glad you came.

ROSA Me and my sister were well into Phillip Pullman. We called Vega Pantalaimon.

DAVID Why?

ROSA He’s Lyra’s daemon. You’ve not read it, “Northern Lights”?

DAVID Isn’t that a kid’s book?

ROSA I like it.

DAVID So will we see the Perseids, do you reckon?

ROSA There’s no moon, not much cloud. And they aren’t hard to spot. Kind of like stars, only shooting. There’s one.

DAVID Where? Rats. Missed it.

ROSA There’ll be more. There. There.

DAVID That’s amazing. How come you can see them and I can’t?

ROSA Relax. Corner-of-the-eye stuff. There’ll be more. There.

DAVID Yes! Got it. I think. That little flash?

ROSA That’s it. What were you expecting, colours and stuff? The Northern Lights?

DAVID I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s really simple, though, isn’t it? Beautiful. Can I wish on them, or will I get thrown out of Junior Astronomers Club?

ROSA Just don’t confuse astronomy and astrology. Star-gazers are quite relaxed about wishes and stuff, but you mustn’t mention astrology.

DAVID Got you. So don’t mention being a Libra, then?

ROSA Don’t mention that.

DAVID So what are you? What’s your sign?

ROSA No Through Road. Keep Left. I don’t know. December. The third.

DAVID Ah. Sagittarius. That makes us compatible, I think.

ROSA If we were, that wouldn’t be why. If we were. Your friend Gary. He’s very loud, isn’t he?

DAVID Just one of his qualities. Loud. Annoying. Rude. Pain in the arse. Drunk and lecherous. That’s Gary.

ROSA Yes. Great.

DAVID Also kind, generous, loyal. Warm. Possibly steadfast, if I knew exactly what that was. But always loud.

ROSA I’m imagining one of those guys who sell dodgy white-goods off a market stall. “I’m not asking twenty, I’m not asking ten, all I want from you today is five pounds and this beautiful hair-dryer cum food-mixer cum toaster is yours to take away. You sir, five pounds and it’s yours.”

DAVID He’s a lawyer.

ROSA No! Really? What sort?

DAVID Solicitor. Biggish firm in Chingford. Don’t know much about it but I think he’s quite good.

Gary on.

GARY Who’s quite good?

DAVID You. Rosa was asking what you did.

GARY I’m a lawyer.

ROSA That’s what he said. What sort?

GARY Solicitor. Intellectual property. I represent lots of people in the music business.

ROSA Bands or management?

GARY Oh, management. I like getting paid, see. Why so interested? Is it because I is black? Or do you fancy me?

ROSA Really not.

GARY Because I wouldn’t mind. I don’t even care if you just want me for my body. If you have me and cast me aside like an old sock after you’ve had your way with me. I think I could survive that.

ROSA Good. Really, really not.

GARY You say that now, but you’ve only ever seen me indoors; the artificial light makes me all pasty. I’m much prettier in daylight, aren’t I Dave? Tell her.

DAVID Probably best in the dark, though. I think, all things considered, pitch black is the best light to appreciate you in properly.

GARY I am officially wounded. I shall lie here on my back, nursing the mental wounds yous have inflicted.

DAVID Actually, lying on your back is a dead good way of looking at the - there’s one - sky.

GARY Also a dead good way of looking up Rosa’s skirt.

ROSA If I was wearing a skirt, I’d be quite cross. But since I’m wearing jeans I just think you’re weird.

GARY In my head, you’re wearing a skirt. One of those white cheese-clothy ones, that let your knickers shine through, and then I wonder: “Does she know that I can see her red pants? Is she trying to entice me? Or has she never looked at someone else in a skirt like hers and thought: ‘Hang on, I can see her pants.’ ” Anyway, that’s what you’re wearing in my head. And a thong.

ROSA I don’t have a thong.

GARY In my head you do. It’s black, red’s vulgar and you’re much more tasteful than that. The little whale-tail bit sticks up over the waist-band of your skirt, then there’s three or four inches of beautiful brown back before I get to your top. In my head.

ROSA I don’t know, it seems a bit unfair; that I can trigger these erotic flights just by sticking on an old pair of jeans and a Guillemots tee-shirt.

GARY That’s only what you’re wearing. What I see is something else again. Plus it’s because you’re a girl, not ‘cos you’re special. Any girl would do.

DAVID I’d never looked at the sky properly, you know? I mean, I knew it was there. And Patrick Moore and stuff. But looking… it’s really big, and it’s full of stuff you’ve seen, of course you’ve seen it, everyone’s seen it, but you’ve never really… looked? And it’s brilliant. And I sit under it thinking “What does it all mean? What’s it all for?” All that old malarkey. “Is there a god? Was it all made?” You have to think that stuff when you’re sitting in the back-garden contemplating the heavens, that’s the rules. And then I thought, or I read somewhere.. random assembly of atoms. Them, you, me, this hill, Rosa’s underwear, all random assemblies of atoms, and that’s what it means, right? It means we’re random assemblies of atoms, and that’s wonderful, and what makes us, thinking people, or even people who don’t think they think but they do really, what makes us special is we know it. Some of us sort of pretend we don’t, we make up stories to get away from the scary random, but really we know. Us. We know.

ROSA Yes.

GARY So no god then? He’s out of the picture?

DAVID Yes.

GARY And also no thong?

ROSA No.

GARY Except in my head. Which is, I can tell you, full of thongs. Crawling with them. And the good thing about old Dave’s revelation there, no more god, all that, is I’ve got loads more room for thongs. Delete god, I free up gigs and gigs of memory, and now I’ve got room for cupboards full of thongs. Plus quite a few cars, and lots of episodes of The Mighty Boosh and Top Gear, and a whole area for the Chelsea. Most of it for thongs, though. Look, one of those star thingys.

DAVID And there. There. There. Dozens of them. Wow.

ROSA I’m a bit cold.

DAVID Let’s go back to the car then.

ROSA If you wanted, we could come back with dad’s telescope. If you wanted.

DAVID With your dad?

ROSA If you wanted. Or not.

DAVID Just us?

ROSA If you wanted.

DAVID We might have to bring Gary.

GARY Not me, mate. One night at such a high pitch of excitement and I’m quite worn out.

DAVID Tomorrow? Where’s your dad’s telescope?

ROSA He lives up by Archway. Pick me up at fourish, we can collect the telescope and drive fifty miles into Buckinghamshire.

GARY Fifty? You said twenty.

DAVID I lied. Coming?

GARY You two bugger off to the car, I’ll be down in a minute. I need another slash.

DAVID OK. See you in a minute.

David and Rosa off, Gary alone lying on his back, looking at the sky.

GARY See you... there’s another one. And another. And another. Fuck me.

When you wish upon a star,

Makes no difference who you are,

Anything your heart desires

Will come to you.

Goodnight, Johnboy.

Fade to black, with the meteors doing their meteor thing all over the stage.

Christopher Lilly, June 12^th 2008.