MARTIN MCDONAGH

A Very Very Very Dark Matter

Contents

1. Title Page

2. Characters

3. First performance

4. A Very Very Very Dark Matter

5. Part One

6. Scene One

7. Scene Two

8. Scene Three

9. Scene Four

10. Scene Five

11. Scene Six

12. Part Two

13. Scene Seven

14. Scene Eight

15. Scene Nine

16. Scene Ten

17. Scene Eleven

18. By the Same Author

19. Copyright

Characters

in order of appearance

Narrator

Marjory

Hans Christian Andersen

Edvard Collin

Ingrid

Press Man

Dirk and
Barry

Ogechi

Charles Dickens

Catherine

Kate, Walter and
Charles Jnr

First performance

A Very Very Very Dark Matter
was first performed at the Bridge Theatre, London, on 12 October 2018. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

Narrator
Tom Waits

Marjory
Johnetta Eula’Mae Ackles

Hans
Jim Broadbent

Edvard
Lee Knight

Ingrid
Audrey Hayhurst / Amelia Walter / Annabelle Westenholz-Smith

Press Man
Paul Bradley

Dirk
Ryan Pope

Barry
Graeme Hawley

Ogechi
Kundai Kanyama

Dickens
Phil Daniels

Catherine
Elizabeth Berrington

Kate
Audrey Hayhurst / Amelia Walter / Annabelle Westenholz-Smith

Walter
Regan Garcia / Leo Hart / Austin Taylor

Charles Jnr
Alistair Benson / Noah Brignull / James Roberts

Crowd
Jamie McKie, Alice Selwyn, Anthony Taylor

Other parts played by members of the company

Director
Matthew Dunster

Designer
Anna Fleischle

Music
James Maloney

Lighting Designer
Philip Gladwell

Sound Designer
George Dennis

Illusions
Chris Fisher

Video Designer
Finn Ross

Wigs and Prosthetic Designer
Susanna Peretz

Fight Directors
Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown, RC Annie Ltd

Assistant Director
Nimmo Ismail

Associate Designer
Liam Bunster

Illusions Associate
John Bulleid

Video Associate
Ash Woodward

Casting Director
Amy Ball

US Casting by
Telsey & Company / William Cantler, CSA; Karyn Casl, CSA; and Adam Caldwell, CSA

Costume Supervisor
Ilona Karas

Props Supervisor
s  Marcus Hall Props

A VERY VERY VERY DARK MATTER

Part One

SCENE ONE

An attic in Copenhagen in the late 1800
s. Various beautifully crafted but peculiar marionettes hang across the dark wooden walls, or are strewn across the dirty floor; puppets such as tarantulas, crabs, a scarecrow, a woodsman, as well as more ordinary animals such as a kitten, seahorses, pigeons, hummingbirds, etc., all very colourful. There’s also a large concertina hanging on the back wall. A high window is in the back wall stage right, with a very poorly made wooden ladder beneath it. Outside the window is a view of the low rooftops and waterways of Copenhagen at dusk.

As the play begins, a three-foot by three-foot mahogany box, suspended by a thick rope from an unseen roof beam, slowly and theatrically swings into view and, like a pendulum, swings back and forth from left to right, but does so as if in slow motion. There is a circular hole near the top of the front of the box, and a thin slot at the bottom of the same side, just enough for a few sheets of paper to be slid into or out of. We do not see the back side of the box as yet, nor properly through the hole or the slot, but from the shifts of the shadows and light, we know that there is something alive and moving inside. The gravel-voiced narrator coughs to clear his throat, then speaks …

Narrator

You could call it a puzzle, or you could call it a poem. I
wouldn’t call it either
, really, but you could. I mean, a person
could, y’know …?

The fingers of a small black female hand appear in the circular hole, gently holding on to its edges for a

couple of pendulum swings, then the eye of a very small black woman appears behind it.

If you were a Congolese pygmy, imprisoned for sixteen years in a three-foot by three-foot mahogany box, with just some paper and a pencil for company … how would you go about hanging yourself?

Some sheaves of parchment, written on in a beautiful hand, are slid out through the slot and gently flutter down to the attic floor.

You’ve got no rope. You’ve got no shoelaces. You’ve only got one foot left in fact. So how would you go about hanging yourself? It’s been on your mind for a while now.

As the Narrator continues, the box gently turns and the swinging slows, to reveal that its back wall is made of glass, with a hole and a slot in identical positions to the other side, and, inside the box, striking a match to throw a little light on the subject, is, as we have described, a tiny black woman, elegantly dressed, a small black muslin bag covering her missing left foot.

You’re smart. You’re one of the most iconic writers of your generation, in fact, aside from your sister. But you’re a pygmy, and you’re a woman, and you were born in the Congo in 1869, the worst time for anybody to be born anywhere ever, let alone a black dwarf. So no one may know that you even existed, let alone astonished the fifteen generations that are left to come after you. So what are you going to do?

She sits down, and behind her we can make out that the entire interior of the box is covered in the writings and notes and formulae of a tiny hand.

Your husband’s dead so he can’t help you, and your children are dead so they can’t help you. Your sister’s got
her own troubles, in her own shoelaceless box in nineteenth-century fucking England. So what are you going to do?

She lights a small cigar and sits there, gazing out as she quietly smokes, the match still lit.

But maybe you aren’t going to hang yourself at all. Maybe that’s being a little too defeatist. Maybe you’re going to write your way out of it? (Pause.
) Yeah, that’s it. Maybe you’re going to write your way out of it.

She looks at us a moment, then blows the match out, and the lights fade on the box, then on the attic, till only the blue in the dark skies outside the window remain. Fireworks begin to pop in those same distant skies.

SCENE TWO

A fancy open-air Copenagen garden party, following on in time from the last scene. Numerous guests, including Edvard Collin, his eight-year-old daughter Ingrid, a Press Man with the word ‘Press’ on a card in his hat band, and a few other dignitaries and their well-dressed children, stand and listen to the gangly and peculiarly dressed Hans Christian Andersen, on a raised dais at a lecturn, reading out, for the very first time, ‘The Little Mermaid’, just as those same fireworks start going off in the skies behind.

Hans

‘And the little mermaid lifted her glorified eyes heavenward, and felt them, for the first time, filling with tears …’ Fireworks?! For me?! For Hans Christian Andersen?! (Pause.
) I said ‘Fireworks? For me? For Hans Christian …’ (Quietly.
) Say yes …

Edvard

Yes!

The guests all clap.

Hans

Fireworks?! And clapping?! For the lowly Hans Christian Andersen? I might cry! I knew my new story was wonderful and one for the ages but fireworks! Gosh! Invented by Chinamen, fireworks, a little known fact. Fireworks and walls
, they invented. And who could live without either? No one! That said, as my old mum used to point out, another little known fact, the Chinese? Absolute savages. They eat the puppies that belong to their children and then, if they’re still hungry, they eat their children! (To the Press Man.
) Don’t write that down you, you old ‘Write-that-downer’! For small normal children might get frightened of that savage image and small normal children are both the lifeblood of Denmark and my core fan base so, y’know? Lovely Edvard Collin? Where was I?

Edvard

The little mermaid has refused to kill the prince and now it appears that she may die.

Hans

Die? Really? Of course, ‘Really’! It’s my story, isn’t it? (Reading again.
) ‘Glorified eyes heavenward … filled with tears …’ Ah yes. ‘On the ship in which she had left her beautiful prince, she saw him and his beautiful bride searching for her …’

Two ‘red men’ have appeared: naked to the waist, heads and torsos totally covered in what looks like blood, strange stitches down their arms and sides and with a handgun in the backs of each of their belts, they slowly enter and stand staring at Hans, who’s a little disconcerted by their strange presence.

What’s all this? Bloody men! Or what is that, jam? That’d be sticky!

Various guests look around, but none seem to see what Hans is seeing.

Oh, other people can’t see the blood-covered men … What blood-covered men?! Exactly! All part of a new story I am making up but which I will save for another day. ‘The Blood-covered Men who Came to Tea’. See, I have so many stories they just keep popping out all over the place, don’t they? Like an octopus in a straitjacket! Why a straitjacket popped into my mind at this moment, I do not know. Although my mum went mental! Yes, quite mental. She was a lowly, drunken washerwoman, and then she went mental. Not a great life-arc, but it’s Denmark so, y’know? Edvard?!

Edvard

‘Searching for her …’

Hans

Searching for her?!

Hans notices one of the red men clear his throat and fold his arms.

Edvard

The story …

Hans

Ah yes! ‘Searching for her … as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves!’ But then, guess what, ‘Up she floated, with the other children of the air, to a rosy cloud that floated through the … aether …? Eva? Either? Ether …? ‘And after three hundred years,’ the sprite-lady says, ‘thus shall we
float into the Kingdom of Heaven. And we may even get there sooner, for every day we meet a good child …’ Listen to this, you lot … ‘Every day we meet a good child who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. But whenever we see a naughty or a wicked child …’

He points at a fat kid.

‘We shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear shed, a day is added to our time of trial.’ A bit downbeat at the end, but ‘The Little Mermaid’ everybody, by me, Hans Christian Andersen!

A thunderous ovation, flowers thrown etc., as Hans comes down from the dais and shakes hands with all and sundry, keeping an eye on the bloody men, who are not applauding. In fact they gesture to the Press Man, who goes over to them, which strikes Hans as doubly strange, as he receives the approbation of Edvard and his daughter.

Edvard

Oh my dear Hans! Oh it’s your best, Hans! I think it’s your best!

Hans

Edvard Collin, you are just so gorgeous! Aren’t you?! Look at you! Gorgeous! As a person
, I mean. Not gorgeous
. You have great taste as a person
. I’m not in love with you or anything!

Edvard

It appears as if you shall never run out of stories, Hans. How is it even possible?

Hans

Well, it’s just makey-uppy, isn’t it? It’s just what I do, I makey-uppy things. Is this your sickly daughter? Hello!

Ingrid

Yes, Ingrid. We’ve met before.

Hans

Have we?

Ingrid

About a hundred times, yes.

Hans

Well, I meet a lot of people, don’t I, I’m very famous. Sandwiches, Edvard? (To her.
) You can come too, Ingmar …

Hans leads Edvard off, arm in arm, taking a final look back at the red men who whisper something to the Press Man while pointing at Hans, which startles the Press Man immensely, and he is the last to leave the stage. Disturbed.

Blackout.

SCENE THREE

Night in the puppet attic. The box is resting on a wide shelf that runs most of the way across the room, and inside ‘Marjory’, the pygmy lady, sits writing. A couple of pages slip out through the paper slot and gently glide to the floor, as Hans swaggers in, slightly drunk.

Hans

Thunderous
applause! He exited to thunderous
applause! What was the applause like what he exited to? Fucking thunderous
!

Marjory

Did the children like it?

Hans

Like it? They loved
it, mate. Even the thick ones. And there were loads of them, it was all rich kids.

Marjory

They loved it? They loved ‘The Little Black Mermaid’?

Hans

Um … everybody
loved it, reallly. Yeah. Although, y’know, I had to make a couple of changes. Minor changes.

Marjory

Changes?

Hans

Just to the title … and some bits about, y’know, the lead character.

Worried, Marjory comes to the front of the glass.

There’s no such thing as black mermaids! Everybody knows that!

Marjory

But …

Hans

But what?!

Marjory

There’s no such thing as mermaids!

Hans

Splitting hairs! At least I kept your stupid downbeat ending. I thought she should’ve married the prince! Not floated about in the aether/either for three
hundred years. Next story, upbeat
. We’ve had enough death in the snow. Kids like a bit
of dark, but seriously, send ’em to beddy-byes smiling. Like in real life. Unless they’re chimney sweeps. I mean, I’ve had loads of sad stints in my life, I was a mental washerwoman’s son, but now look at me. Lauded
. Worshipped
. The best writer about, and yet it all comes so easy to me.

Marjory quietly starts to cry, crumpling down.

Alright, to us
. To us
. Oh we’re not having crying again this year, are we?

Marjory

You can’t
!

Hans

I can and I have, haven’t I? Forever. ‘The Little Mermaid’. No colour specified. Which means she’s white, so suck it up. (Pause.
) Come on, Marjory. I did get you a sausage!

He offers her the sausage through the hole. She takes it.

Marjory

Can’t you call me by my African name just once?

Hans

No, I can’t. It’s too hard to remember. Too many ‘M’s and too many ‘B’s. ‘Mbubba bububbaba’. No
. ‘Marjory’
. I like
‘Marjory’. It’s kind of like an ugly English princess! ‘Is there any other kind?’ cry the chorus!

Marjory

Then can’t I at least come out of the box for an evening? I’m sure our stories would be much less downbeat if I had a view of the birds and the trees and the rooftops to hold on to.

Hans

They’re pretty good already with just the things you can see from a two-inch sausage-hole.

She looks crestfallen again.

But … I suppose …

She brightens.

You remember what the payment was the last time
I let you out, of course …

Marjory

No! You’re not having another foot! I’ve only got one left!

Hans

Ah, I don’t feel like sawing tonight anyway. Too splashy. And I’m a bit tired from all the plaudits. Fucking thunderous
it was!

Marjory thinks for a moment.

Marjory

‘And each night he would let her out of the box, because he wasn’t such a bad man. Yet each morning, when he put her back inside, he would have made the box one inch smaller
, because I was lying before when I said he wasn’t such a bad man, he was terrible, actually.’

Hans thinks about it.

Hans

Ooh, I like that, making the box smaller, cos it plays into my other thing I am brilliant at …

He waves at the terribly made ladder under the window …

Carpentry!

He undoes the heavy screws holding the glass in place.

Three
inches smaller …

Marjory

One
inch smaller, for fuck’s sake!

Hans

Alright! Grumpy.

He slides the glass side down, allowing her to step out, stretch and idle along the shelf on her poorly made crutch, checking out the puppets she passes …

Marjory

(singing
)

‘One day my Prince shall come.

One day my Prince shall come.

He’ll call me by my name.

He’ll free me from the ring

Of Hell I’m dwelling in.

He’ll bring a gun.

He’ll bring a gun.

‘And all the world will rue

And all the world will rue

What Europe did to you.

Ten million skulls will bring

A dreadful reckoning

From Hell to you

From Hell to you.’

Hans takes the saw and the slide-rule that are attached to the top of the box and starts sawing into it.

Hans

(gleefully
) You’ll get crushed to bits if we do this too many times!

Marjory

Yes. Did the children really like ‘The Little Mermaid’?

Hans

Fucking loved
it, mate! My agent said it was ‘one for the ages’!

Marjory

That’s agents though, ain’t it? Bullshitters.

Hans

Oy! Ah, look at the little crutch I made ya. See, you can’t say I’m all bad! You’re like a tinier Tiny Tim! But African and not as funny.

Marjory

I liked Tiny Tim. I like doomed cripples in stories who die. I was sorry he came back alive at the end. Even if it was
Christmas.

Hans

That, right there, is everything that’s wrong with your attitude. Our new mantra is ‘Upbeat, yes
…’

Marjory

‘Upbeat, yes
…’

Hans

‘Doomed cripples who die at Christmas …

Marjory

(smiling, same time as ‘No’
) ‘Maybe
…’

Hans

No, not ‘maybe’. No
. Which reminds me! Charles Darwin has just invited me to come and stay at his house in London …!

Marjory

Charles Dickens
…

Hans

Charles Dickens
has just invited me to come and stay at his house in London because he thinks I’m totally fantastic! I think he’s quite good too, although I haven’t read any of his things, they’re all too long, but he was very nice to me ten years ago when I met him at a party for what looked like a lot of high-class prostitutes in Dorset. We’ve been corresponding ever since. Well, I
have. He’s too busy. But it seems like we’ve got so much in common.

Marjory

Like what?

Hans

I dunno. He’s
a writer, we’re
a writer. He
likes the poor, you
like the poor. All our charity works for Africa. I think his mum might’ve died mental too but I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask him.

Marjory

Just remember to leave food
this time.

Hans

Yeah, yeah. Talking of remembering things …!

He takes out a bunch of letters from his jacket.

I just remembered my fan mail! Yay!

He starts going through the envelopes.

What’ve we got … poor kids, poor kids, poor kids …

He tosses all those away behind him.

Ooh, what’s this! A letter from the King of the Spaniards! My gosh! A proper seal
too, look. Classy!

Marjory comes and sits beside him, playing with a spider puppet.

Marjory

I’d
like to get a letter from a proper seal.

He gives her a look.

Hans

As I say, a letter from the King of the Spaniards! ‘Dear Hans Christian Andersen …’ Ooh, a little formal, but that’s okay. ‘Your one about the duckies, it was great …’ He must mean ‘The Ugly Duckling’. ‘Duckies!’ Sweet King! ‘And we at the Palace are usually
quite delighted at all your new stories …’ There’s a ‘usually’ in there I’m not keen on. ‘However …’ Ooh, a ‘however’ too, even worse. ‘However, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” has us quite perplexed.’ ‘Perplexed’ is alright, just means he’s
thick. ‘I don’t know nothing about emperors
, but, as a king
, which is like
an emperor, no way would I go around with my cock and my balls out for all the world to see. No way would I do that, even if it was
fashionable. And surely people would notice my cock and my balls out, and mention it, not just some little girl? And is that right anyway, to be showing my cock and my balls to some little girl in a children’s story? She must be only about seven years old, this girl. Surely there are some moral implications to my cock and my balls right there in her face? In this little girl’s face? Or am I reading it wrong? Yours sincerely, the King of the Spaniards.’ (Pause.
) Well, I think he’s missed the satirical aspects entirely.

Marjory

He’s missed the satirical aspects, yes …

Hans

He’s reading it too literal, isn’t he? A positive letter though, overall! And from a King, no less! Brilliant to get a letter from a King, isn’t it? Even if it is just Spain.

Marjory

A day will come when there are no kings and there are no queens. People still won’t love each other quite as they ought to, it won’t solve everything, but at least there’ll be a few less cunts in the world we’re paying through the teeth for.

Hans

Do you want to go back in the box?

Marjory

King Leopold the Second of Belgium, for instance.

Hans

The Belgian Congo King? Your bête noir
?

Marjory

Now there was a cunt.

Hans

You’re just jealous cos he’s rich and you’re poor, and he killed nine million people in Africa and you didn’t.

She gets up and wanders again.

Marjory

Ten
million people in Africa.

Hans

Nine, ten, it’s hard to remember when the numbers get that big, isn’t it? Let’s just say ‘lots’. But I bet there’ll still be statues up to him in Belgium in a hundred years’ time. There won’t be none to you. People like
kings. African dwarfs they can take or leave.

Marjory

We had kings and queens in Africa.

Hans

Did ya?

Marjory

Yeah. They were cunts there too.

Hans

Let’s have no more of the C-word, please. Ooh, a letter all the way from Oireland. From little Maureen, aged eight. Sure, we’ll give her a go! Appalling handwriting, but I suppose it is
Ireland.

Marjory wanders up the ladder to the window with some pigeon puppets.

Perhaps Maureen was using a little potato, dipped in ink?! Aren’t I mean?!

Marjory

If she’s writing from Ireland in the 1850s, and if she could find a potato, I doubt if she’d be dipping it in ink.

Hans

What’s that, current affairs? Way over my head.

Marjory

They don’t have any potatoes there now.

Hans

How sad! When it’s what they’re famous for. ‘Dear Hans …’ A little informal! ‘I did read …’ I’ll do it in my Irish voice … ‘I did read your wonderful story, “The Little Match Girl”, and it brought a tear to me eye, so it did. For didn’t it remind me of me own harsh life …’ Here we go, begging letter … ‘Me own harsh life, orphaned and destitute at the age of eight …’ Hang on, she’s eight and she’s using big words like ‘destitute’? I don’t think so, Maureen! Her mum probably wrote this … Blah blah blah ‘Had to bury the youngest in a Connemara peat bog …’ blah blah blah … ‘Yet all I could ever wish for …’ Here we go … ‘Would be a photograph from Hans Christian Andersen …’ Oh … ‘The man who taught children the world o’er how to dream again. Yours sincerely, Maureen … Currflurrrgghh …’ I’m not even going to try
to pronounce that! It’s worse than yours! (Pause.
) Hmm. Turned out not so irritating by the end. Poor Maureen. But come on, a signed photo all the way from Denmark? I’m not made of stamps, Maureen!

He tosses the letter away.

Marjory

They’ll be alright. They’ll be free soon.

Hans

Don’t get any funny window ideas, by the way. That reinforced glass cost shitloads.

Marjory

If I’d wanted to escape, I’d’ve escaped years ago.

Hans

Says you.

Marjory

I can’t leave until it arrives, anyway.

Hans

Until what arrives?

Marjory

My future.

Hans

Gobbledygook was the first signpost on my mum’s flightpath to the nuthouse, so you just watch yourself.

Marjory

What did you do with my foot, by the way?

Hans

Your little foot? I sold it to gypsies for a haunted concertina. Well, they said
it was haunted. I’ve been too scared to play it!

He gestures to the concertina on the wall and makes a scared face.

Marjory

Yes, I hate haunted musical instruments. The bagpipes especially.

Hans

And my final fan mail for this week comes from … Ooh, ‘Anonymous’. Jerk! ‘Dear Andersen …’ Well, that’s a bit, I don’t know what
that is …

Marjory

Abrupt?

Hans

Abrupt, yes. ‘Dear Andersen, how come all your stories seem like they could have been written by a black midget imprisoned in a three-foot box?’

They exchange a look, then Marjory comes back down the ladder to sit beside him again. As she listens she plays with a kitten puppet, along with the pigeon ones.

‘“Thumbelina”, for instance. A tiny woman, befriended by bugs, and rescued by a bird. Or “The Shadow”. A writer, after a strange trip to Africa, becomes haunted by his own shadow, a shadow that turns out to be smarter than the writer, takes over his entire life, and then executes him. All things that, most likely, only a very clever pygmy woman … chained up in a three-foot box … with one glass side and a two-inch sausage hole …
might dream up. You heard me, Andersen. A pygmy woman chained up in a three-foot box.’

They look at each other, then he gestures to the pigeon and kitten puppets she’s playing with.

Well, that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons! (Pause.
) He was wrong about the chains
, at least. Him or her.

Marjory

Or them
.

Hans

Or them
.

Marjory

(pause
) There wasn’t anyone unusual at the reading today, was there?

Hans

Unusual? No. No one that springs to mi—Unusual how?

Marjory

Foreign, perhaps? Or covered in blood?

Hans

Not that I noticed. (Pause.
) But there were a lot of people there, y’know? I’m very famous. (Pause.
) What else might they have looked like? These non-existent people.

Marjory

Carrying guns, perhaps? Or Belgian-sounding?

Hans

Belgian-sounding? Well, they didn’t say anything.

Marjory

Who didn’t say anything?

Hans

(pause
) Quite.

They both stare out front.

Blackout.

SCENE FOUR

The bloody Belgians, Dirk and Barry, in a spotlight or somesuch.

Barry

Bicycles!

Dirk

You won’t believe us!

Barry

It was bicycles, wasn’t it?

Dirk

It seems so innocuous now, but yes!

Barry

Everybody loves bicycles, don’t they? But because of bicycles …

Dirk

We had to kill ten million people in the Congo.

Barry

Incongruous! That was what I
said!

Dirk

It was the rubber, you see?

Barry

For the tyres.

Dirk

They had rubber down there …

Barry

And we didn’t have any rubber in Belgium, so …

Dirk

Market forces, isn’t it?

Barry

King Leopold the Second …

Dirk

The one with the beard …

Barry

He liked bicycles and he felt like having a colony in Africa, so …

Dirk

Everybody else had a colony in Africa! Why shouldn’t Belgium have a colony in Africa?!

Barry

Hard to argue with that logic.

Dirk

So we’d go into the villages where the rubber quotas weren’t met …

Barry

And you’d lop a few hands off, it made sense at the start …

Dirk

You’d’ve thought it would’ve concentrated their minds!

Barry

I’d
collect more rubber if I knew my
hand or hands, or my children’s
hand or hands, were going to be chopped off, wouldn’t you?

Dirk

In retrospect we can see it’s harder to work the less hands you have.

Barry

Also, you would usually die.

Dirk

So it just became a vicious circle, didn’t it?

Barry

Yes, like a massive spinning bicycle wheel that never … stopped … killing … blacks.

Dirk

There’d be buckets of fucking hands all over the fucking place.

Barry

There’d be villages massacred, willy-nilly.

Dirk

That was Lieutenant
Willy Nilly from Antwerp. He was a bad ’un!

Barry

But not all of us liked killing men, women and children …

Dirk

It would leave a terrible taste …

Barry

That’s why we’d go into the pygmy villages and kill them
instead.

Dirk

Yes, it felt more palatable when everybody was the same height.

Barry

And you wouldn’t have to run about so quick.

Dirk

In retrospect, again, possibly unsound reasoning.

Pause.

Barry

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
was inspired by the Belgian Congo …

Dirk

So you can’t say the Congo didn’t get anything out of it.

Barry

That’d be the positives of your import/export trade.

Dirk

Anyway, that’s where we first met Marjory.

Barry

Or Mbute, or whatever her name is …

Dirk

In one of the pygmy villages.

Barry

That was where she killed us.

Pause.

Dirk

The cow!

Barry

Of course, none of this has happened yet …

Dirk

None of this will happen for twenty-seven years …

Barry

That’s why we’ve come back.

Dirk

To nip it in the bud.

Barry

She thinks she can stop it ever happening.

Dirk

That’s why she
came back.

Barry

She can’t stop it ever happening! It happened!

Dirk

She’s clever, but she’s not that
fucking clever!

Barry

She can’t stop it ever happening, can she?

They look at each other a moment. Worried. Then look back out front.

Dirk

Ten million people!

Barry

That’s a lot of fucking people!

Dirk

If you think about it.

Blackout.

SCENE FIVE

In the blackout, sounds of chopping and sawing, then lights up on Hans making the box an inch
(or so
) smaller, as Marjory, or the Narrator, recites her new story, possibly through a megaphone.

Marjory / Narrator

He grew up in a church basement in Tennessee and he didn’t get along well with his seven older brothers. They would beat and bully him about how much he loved the gentle words of Jesus that’d filter down through the church’s floorboards and fill his rebel heart with peace and love and all that type of stuff. But then this one day, boy, he went and did it! He set free all the little bugs and tiny creatures his brothers had caught in their traps down there, like he thought Jesus would’ve if He
lived down there and cared about bugs. But when his brothers found out, oh boy was that the final straw! So they caught him and they held him up by his eight little arms and they nailed them to a block of wood, and they left him to die down there. And he died down there …

Marjory takes out the spider marionette from behind her back, makes it flutter gently …

But his soul didn’t die. His soul rose up; it rose up past the cobwebs, past the floorboards, past the priests and the congregation. It rose all the way up to Heaven, in fact. But the man at the gates said they didn’t let spiders into Heaven, cos ‘It’d just scare the little kids.’ And he floated back down. And he doesn’t know where he is now. He doesn’t know where he is. He just knows it’s very very very very dark.

Hans has finished crafting the smaller box. Marjory turns to face it, shoulders slumped.

Hans

What was it I said before?

Marjory

Upbeat?

Hans

We’re getting somewhere now.

He gestures with a lazy thumb for her to get in the box. She indicates the spider puppet.

Marjory

Can I keep this?

Hans

I want to say no … so I’m going to say no.

He takes it from her. She gets into the box.

Puppet strings and pygmy necks … do … not … mix. As they say in Sweden.

He slides the glass up and locks her in. He gives the box a little push and it gently swings from side to side, as he moves away.

How’s your new little box? Cosy?

Marjory

Feels like more than a fucking inch.

Hans

It could be two, I’m not very good at measuring, but maybe it’ll concentrate your mind on something a little more upbeat
. Brand new mantra, Marjory – Upbeat, yes. Crucified spiders who can’t get into Heaven, less so.

He turns the box so the glass side faces away from us, the circular hole to us. He takes out a long string of sausages from inside his jacket.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m, uh, going on a little trip to England. For a couple of weeks.

Marjory’s eye appears at the hole.

Marjory

For a couple of weeks?

Hans

This Charles Darwin invite …

Marjory

Dickens …

Hans

This Charles Dickens invite. But I’ve got you fourteen sausages, one for every evening I’m away. Fingers crossed the boat don’t sink or we’ll both be fucked! Don’t stuff yourself!

He hands her one end of the string of sausages, letting the rest hang limp across the floor. He exits, and we hear the sound of him locking the attic door and his footsteps away downstairs. We see Marjory’s eye and hand holding on to the sausages through the hole for a moment. Then she tosses them away and on to the floor, out of reach. Her eye backs away from the hole and disappears in the darkness there.

Blackout.

SCENE SIX

The box is still on the platform, back to us, the sausages still on the floor where Marjory tossed them. All the puppets on the back walls are more or less in their same positions, though the scarecrow puppet may have slumped a little, unbeknownst to us. The attic door is tried, then the lock is picked, and the Press Man from Scene Two quietly enters. He strikes a match and looks over the puppets, the sausages, then sees the box, and slowly walks over to it. He peers in through the circular hole, and as he does so the scarecrow puppet creepily stirs and lifts its head to reveal Hans, who watches all, as the grandfather clock beside him strikes seven. The Press Man, still not having seen Hans, slowly rotates the box so that the glass side faces him and us, as Hans quietly takes down a puppet of a woodsman, and takes the real-life axe from its hands. The Press Man strikes another match to see more clearly, and taps on the glass. There’s a crumpled blanket but not much more inside it. Hans coughs, to finally get his attention.

Press Man

Oh. Shit. Hello again.

Hans scratches his nose with the axe.

What’s the axe for?

Hans

For axing things. Don’t axe stupid questions.

Marjory’s disembodied snort is heard from somewhere, maybe even amplified, but the Press Man can’t work out from where, though nothing has stirred in the box.

Press Man

For axing what?

Hans

For axing whom
.

Marjory

For axing who
.

Hans

Oh, I thought it was ‘whom’ when we don’t know whom we’re axing.

Marjory

We do
know whom we’re axing.

Hans

We
do. He
doesn’t.

Press Man

Well I do now
!

Hans

Oh, he does now.

Press Man

(whispered, but amplified
) Tell him you’re only kidding about killing him.

Hans

I’m only kidding about killing you.

Press Man

(whispered
) To reassure him.

Hans

To reassure you.

Marjory

No, don’t tell him
you’re reassuring him!

Hans

No, I don’t tell you
I’m reassuring you!

Press Man

You come closer I’ll smash this glass, and that’s two of us you’ll have to take on.

Hans

There’s no one in there, fuckhead.

He indicates a ‘puppet’ hanging on a crucifix on the back wall. It raises its head to reveal it’s Marjory hanging there. She gives a little wave.

I saw you coming up the stairs, fool! You call that creeping? Fucking elephant feet!

Press Man

You do
keep a pygmy in your attic.

Hans

Who says I do? Alright, yes I do. But saying that isn’t going to make it less
likely that you’re going to get killed, is it? It’s going to make it more
likely.

Marjory

But yes, who says
he keeps a pygmy in his attic?

He turns to her.

Press Man

Oh … well, a good journalist never reveals his sources, does he …?

Hans thwacks the Press Man across the head with the axe. He slumps down, bleeding …

Hans

A good journalist?! You’re a burgular!

Marjory

Burglar
.

Hans

Burglar
. An elephant-footed burgular!

Marjory

Who told you?!

Press Man

The red men …!

Marjory gets down off the cross. She and Hans exchange a look.

Marjory

How did they know?

Press Man

I don’t know! I swear I don’t!

Marjory

Were they Belgian?

Press Man

Yes, I think so. They had dark hair and a massive inferiority complex.

Hans

That’s Belgians alright! And was it blood or was it jam?

Marjory

Hans, for Christ’s sake! Of course it was blood. It was thirty-year-old Congo blood.

Hans

That doesn’t sound very hygienic.

Press Man

I’m bleeding …

Hans

Course you’re bleeding. What did you think it was, axe-grease?

Press Man

What’s the greatest writer in all of Denmark doing with a pygmy in his attic?

Marjory

What’s the greatest writer in all of Denmark doing with a Hans Christian Andersen living downstairs from her?

Press Man

(pause
) She writes your stories?

Hans

No. Sort of. We co-write them. I just don’t do any of the writing. I change the bits I don’t like and then erase all the rest from history. I’m more like a German theatre director. Or, y’know, a German generally.

Press Man

This is something of a scoop.

Hans

The scoop of a dead man, unfortunately.

Marjory

Ooh, I quite like that, ‘The scoop of a dead man.’

Hans

Did you like that? See, I’m not a complete knobhead, am I?

Press Man

Please. I’ve got my blind mother to look after.

Hans

(yawning
) Do ya?

Press Man

I’m all she’s got.

Hans

Where’s that whiny violin coming from? Oh yes, your mouth!

Press Man

She’s not just blind, she’s deaf and dumb too, the poor thing.

Hans

She’s blind, deaf and dumb? She’ll hardly notice you’re gone!

Press Man

(to Marjory
) Please, Miss … They told me about your sister
, too, the Belgians.

Marjory

What about my sister?

Hans

Now now …!

Marjory

My sister’s dead.

Press Man

No, no. She’s in a box in Charles Dickens’s house in London.

Hans grabs the Press Man and, with his back to us, slits his throat with the axe, blood splattering across the glass of the box. Hans lets his dead body slump to the floor, then stands there, picking his fingers guiltily.

Hans

‘Charles Dickens’s house in London’! Like someone that famous would have a … pygmy in a …

Marjory looks at him, dumbfounded. Hans checks his watch.

Anyway, like I said, I’m off to Charles Dickens’s house in London. There’s a lot we have to catch up on. You’d better get back in the box.

Marjory

She’s alive?

Hans

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Box, please.

She gets back in the box. He locks it up.

Hans

And do
you want your sausages or don’t
you want your sausages, cos I’m aware of that sausage hissy-fit from earlier?

Marjory

Is she alive, Hans?

Hans

Maybe. I did say we had a lot in common, didn’t I? (Pause.
) Do you want me to pass on a message?

She goes to speak.

No, I’m only mucking about. I’m not some kinda ‘message-passer-onner’ am I? I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, Marjory. Fingers crossed!

He puts the string of sausages back in through the hole, and exits … then comes back in again and turns down the gas lamp by the door.

I’ll turn the lights off, eh? Save a bit of gas, I’m not made of money.

The lights dim and he exits again, his footsteps echoing away downstairs, leaving Marjory moonlit.

Marjory

She’s alive!

Smiling, she lays down under her blanket, and starts eating a sausage. The Narrator coughs, then speaks.

Narrator

I’m jumping way ahead of myself here … but time travel allows that, so, y’know … (Pause.
) Eighteen years after the events of Part One, and ten years before the horrors in the Congo were to begin, the esteemed Danish short-story writer, Hans Christian Andersen, died in Copenhagen of natural causes, following complications that arose from a fall out of bed … I swear to God, look it up! (Pause.
) Amongst his belongings when he died, which mainly consisted of unsent love letters to both men and women and an attic-full of puppets made of materials that hadn’t been invented yet, a very small mahogany
box was found. Inside the box lay a tiny skeleton. It, too, was strung like a marionette: seventeen strings drilled into its arm bones and sixteen strings drilled into its skull …

As we hear this description we see, suspended inside the glass of the box above Marjory, the pygmy skeleton as described, neck and arms hanging from puppet strings …

It only had one foot left on it and it only had one hand left on it, and I’m not sure how
Hans Christian Andersen is going to come out of this story cleanly
, but remember children, it is only a story, and right now the story is only half over. So kick your shoes off and settle in, for the far more cheery and more or less upbeat Part Two.

As the narration ends, the skeleton slowly raises its skull, its vacant black eye sockets staring straight out at us.

Blackout.

End of Part One.

Part Two

SCENE SEVEN

Narrator

In place of a cryptic death threat, there now follows a hummingbird interlude.

Hungry and weak, Marjory huddles up under blankets in the box, on the outside glass of which, and possibly across the room too, slow-motion hummingbirds are projected.

‘In far-off Mesopotamia there dwelt

a club-foot Arabian beggar-girl who dreamt

of training a hummingbird army to fight

the armies of Africa’s oppressors.

‘For as tiny as hummingbirds are

And as massive as the armies they face may be –’

Marjory

‘All they’d have to do would be

to get ’em right in the fucking eyes.’

Narrator

‘The menfolk scoffed, as menfolk are wont to.

“How could a bird beat an army?”

She said …’

Marjory

‘I seen a lotta hummingbirds lately.

I ain’t seen a Roman in a long time, boys.

I ain’t seen a Roman in a long time.’

Lights fade on the hummingbird interlude, then rise again on Scene Seven proper.

A pygmy woman stands on the shelf, back to us, playing the haunted concertina – a creepy, vaguely

Chinese melody. She turns to us, and we see that she is blind, her eyes gouged out some time ago, just as, inside the box, Marjory awakes, startled, and it’s clear for the first time that the other pygmy isn’t her …

Marjory

Ogechi?! Ogechi?! Sister, is it you?! Look at me, Ogechi!

Ogechi laughs a creepy high-pitched laugh, and continues playing.

Put down the haunted concertina, Ogechi. It’s making you sound creepy.

Ogechi stops playing.

Can you reach the locks on the box, Ogechi?

Ogechi

Chinese!

Marjory

What?

Ogechi

Chinese!
You should have made the mermaid Chinese
. Those are the scariest mermaids. Chinese!

Marjory

I didn’t want her to be scary. I wanted the children to like her.

Ogechi

Chinese ghosts are the scariest ghosts, and Chinese mermaids are the scariest mermaids. I don’t know why. Chinese children are cute, but dead
Chinese children are fucking terrifying
. Even the Chinese agree!

Marjory

Oh Jesus, it’s a dream sequence.

Ogechi

I’ll tell you a creepy Chinese story now. Keep your hopes up!

Marjory

This will not be good.

Ogechi gently plays the concertina as background to her creepy story.

Ogechi

A Chinese Siamese twin had his throat slit …

Marjory

Knew it!

Ogechi

But his conjoined twin brother knew nothing about it, for his conjoined twin brother was deaf and blind, you see …

Marjory

It gets worse!

Ogechi

The slit-throat brother died there and then in their Shanghai hovel but his brother didn’t die there and then. He just couldn’t work out why they weren’t walking any more, or talking any more, or eating any more. He thought he’d done something wrong, but he couldn’t work out what. How cruel the world can be to the sensitive. To kill one half of a Siamese twin, and leave the other half not knowing, in a room with no food and no heat, and in the wintertime too. That’s a box it’d be hard to write yourself out of, and he didn’t, the poor sap. He died five days later, and some said he starved, and some say it was the cold that got him. Some even said he died of a broken heart, but no. He died of his brother’s rigor-mortis. The first person ever to die of someone else’s rigor-mortis. It crept up his sides, it crept up his insides, it crept up his lungs and his arms and it crept up his jawbone. The final thing it crept up was his left eyeball, just as a last tear fell from it, on to a cheek that had already gone cold. So, thinking it over, if he was still crying at that stage, maybe it was
the sadness that got him. Maybe it was
the sadness. (Pause.
) That story is over now.

She finishes the tune and hangs the concertina on the wall where it was previously.

I’d best get back to London. They’ll be missing me.

She laughs her creepy laugh again.

Marjory

(tearfully
) Ogechi …!

Ogechi

Don’t forget where I’ve hung the haunted concertina. It might come in handy someday. If you ever wanna play some creepy Chinese shit.

She goes to the door.

Marjory

Are you dead, Ogechi? Is that what this is?

Ogechi looks down at the ground sadly.

This isn’t a dream sequence, is it? It’s a ghost
sequence.

Ogechi sadly exits, pulling the door closed behind her.

Goodbye, Ogechi.

Blackout.

SCENE EIGHT

A big dinner table at Charles Dickens’s house. Dickens, his wife Catherine, and three of their children, Kate, Walter and Charles Jnr towards one side of the table, Hans to the other. Dickens is already apoplectic …

Hans

Scusi, no, no, but in quite seriously, Mr Darwin …

Dickens

Dickens! Mr Dickens! Mr Charles fucking Dickens! I’ve only been telling you that for five fucking weeks!

Hans

Dickens, I know! Over and over, don’t I …?!

Dickens

How many more times?!

Hans

I know, isn’t it …?

Dickens

I’m
the Christmas Cripples! He’s
the Origin of the Fucking Species!

Hans

Pero, again, my Dickie, you will have to speak far more slowwwly et preciiisely if you wish a poor gangly
fellow from the Danish lands to follow what it is you are talking, see?

Dickens

I’ll be precise, I’ll be precise. When are you going to fucking leave?! It’s been five fucking weeks, mate! You said it’d be two when you first turned up, and I nearly choked at two! But five!

Hans

No, it’s … I love the sound of your talking but it’s, oh, it’s so going over my head, do you see?

Kate

Daddy says he doesn’t like you and he wishes you would leave.

Catherine

Katie, dear, that’s not what he said.

Walter

Fucking
leave, he said.

Catherine

Walter …

Dickens

It’s not that I don’t like him. He’s just doing my fucking head in!

Hans

All I am hearing is something about an orchard. Which is wonderful, for I love orchards. For that is where one will find … (To Charles Jnr.
) Charles?

Charles Jnr

(moodily
) Apples.

Hans

Bravo! And the Danish word for apples?

Charles

Aeble.

Hans

Aeble, wonderful! What a clever urch! Can I squeeze you?

Charles Jnr

No.

Hans

Perfect!

Dickens

Five weeks of this shit! I mean … it’s not like I don’t have other things to do!

Catherine

And who’s the lucky lady this
week, Charles?

Dickens

Oh don’t you
fucking start. I’ve had enough shit from lanky to last me a lifetime. I don’t need you in me fucking earhole an’ all.

Catherine

Come, children. As your father is being a cock, I believe it is time for your bedtimes.

Walter

Cock!

Hans

The bedtimes of the little children. Delightful. Soap!

Kate

Is Daddy banging the broads again, Mummy?

Catherine

‘Again’ suggests there was a time when Daddy wasn’t
banging the broads, that he then restarted
banging the broads, so your terminology, Kate, isn’t quite on the button, is it, darling?

Walter

‘Terminology’, class!

Hans

The talk of the little children, it is like music, the Handel water music, no?

Walter

Arsehole.

Charles Jnr

Cretin.

Kate

Leave!! Leave!!

The children file out, their mother close behind.

Catherine

Goodnight, Mister Andersen. I’m quite sure we’ll see you again in the morning and the following morning, and every morning until I and the children are all quite dead, I daresay.

Hans

Bon jeurney! Up the stairs. So true!

Catherine exits too, giving Dickens a dirty look on the way.

The nicest children I ever met and, boy, have I met a shitload of children. Some Swiss!

Dickens gets up and pours himself a scotch.

Dickens

It’s all just senseless nonsense, everything you say. Just senseless fucking nonsense.

Hans

No, none for me, Charles.

Dickens

I didn’t ask.

Hans

Yes. My mama was always a mad one for the booze. And then she became a mad one for the everything. I wonder if one precipped the other? Nothing to do with me, so I don’t care. What happened your
old mum, Chuck?

Dickens

Yes, I get half a word every ten words and the rest is just nonsense.

Hans gets a little conspiritorial now, ushering Dickens over, placing his words a little more …

Hans

I not been able to ask you so far, what with the skank, but … how ees the writeeng? (Mimes.
) The writeeng?

Dickens

The writing? Oh. So so, Hans. So so.

Hans

So so? Malo? Gloomy face? No good?

Dickens

Malo, indeed. ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’. Fucked
.

Hans

Miserere Drooge fucked?

Dickens

I’m sorry I’ve been short-tempered, Hans. I have
been fucking around behind Catherine’s back, but it’s not just that.

Hans

No? Yes? The sky, perhaps?

Dickens

The sky?

Hans

(pointing upwards
) Mothers?

Dickens

Mothers? Upstairs mothers? I’ll just go on with what I was saying while ignoring you, Hans. It seems to work better that way.

Hans

Certainly. Post-bacon!

Dickens

I feel like I’m a spent force, Hans. I’m not sure if I’ll write another word, to be honest with you.

Hans

I will try clear to make my talky, while the wife fuck orff upstairs.

Dickens

While the wife fuck orff upstairs, I’m with you, Hans. I don’t know how long I’ll be with you, but for now I’m with you.

Hans

Where ees Charles Dickens … Not Darwin! Dickens!

Dickens

Not Darwin, that’s right. Dickens
!

Hans

Dickens. Where ees Charles Dickens … Marjory
?

Dickens

I don’t follow. ‘Where is Charles Dickens Marjory?’ That makes as little sense as everything you’ve been saying for five weeks.

Hans

Scusi. (Slowly.
) You have …

Dickens

‘I have …’

Hans

A …

Dickens

‘I have a …’ Good.

Hans

Very little …

Dickens

‘Very little.’ This is good. ‘I have a very little …’ Don’t say cock!

Hans

You have a …

Dickens

‘I have a …’ We’ve been through this bit, ‘I have a …’

Hans

Very little …

Dickens

‘I have a very little …’ We’re getting somewhere, slowly …

Hans

Pygmy …

Dickens

‘Pygmy’?

Hans

Lidy …

Dickens

‘Pygmy lidy?’

Hans

In …

Dickens

‘In …’

Hans

A …

Dickens

‘A …’

Hans

Box
.

He mimes a box.

Dickens

‘I …’ Let me repeat, just to make … ‘I have a … pygmy lady
…’ Are you sure about that bit so far?

Hans

Pygmy lidy!

Dickens

Pygmy lidy! ‘I have a pygmy lady …’

Hans

Pygmy lidy …

Dickens

‘Pygmy lidy … in a box.’

Hans

Claro. It is clear now.

Dickens

I have a pygmy lady in a box.

Hans

Like-a me, Dickie.

Dickens

The sentence itself is clear and concise, it’s just that it makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. ‘I have a pygmy lady in a box.’

Hans

You
have a pygmy lidy … (Mimes a pygmy lady.
) I
have a pygmy lidy … (Mimes another pygmy lady.
)

Dickens

Ohh
… I see
…

Hans

You see?! Claro?! Pygmy lidy?

Dickens

It hasn’t just been an issue of the language barrier these past weeks, has it? No, on top of that, Hans Christian Andersen has gone stark raving mental. Just like his mother did. Stark raving mental. I see
!

Hans

My
mother mental! Your
mother mental!

Dickens

My
mother wasn’t mental …

Hans

Your
…

Dickens

Yours
was.

Hans

Your
pygmy lidy normal, my
pygmy lidy normal. My pygmy writey very good. Your pygmy writey …? Question merk! You
say.

Dickens

Hans … why won’t you just go home?!

Hans

And orso …

Dickens

Here we go … ‘And also …’?

Hans

Did you, Dickie …?

Dickens

‘Did I, Dickie …?’

Hans

Sen …

Dickens

Sen? Send? ‘Did I send …?’

Hans

Me …

Dickens

‘Did I send you …?’

Hans

The …

Dickens

‘The …?’

Hans

Red men.

Dickens

‘The red men’? ‘Did I send you the red men?’
People don’t send people red men, Hans! And I know Denmark is a whole different culture, but people don’t send people red men in Denmark either! I’m quite sure it’s some kind of frontal lobe dysfunction, Hans. Maybe there’s something that can be done with the right medication.

Hans

No red men? L’hommes rouge, non?

Dickens

There’ll be people to look after you when you go back to Denmark, Hans. I bet your health system is way
better than our health system.

Hans

(crestfallen
) No red men?

Dickens

You’ve got to go home now, Hans.

Hans

(pointing
) Upstairs?

Dickens

No
. Home
. It’s been five weeks, mate.

Hans

(realising
) Five weeks?!

Dickens

Five fucking
weeks, I meant to say.

Hans

Oh Marjory!

Dickens

Oh Jesus!

Blackout.

SCENE NINE

The puppet attic. Sounds of footsteps stomping up the stairs. Marjory awakes in the box – gaunt, weak, thin. She comes to the glass to listen as the door is tried, then kicked open, and the shadows of two men fill the room. She backs away to the rear of the box as the red men enter, slowly, singing a creepy Elizabethan roundelay. While singing, and slowly approaching the box, one picks up and plays with the spider puppet, the other takes out his gun, an old Webley …

Barry and
Dirk

‘Hey ho, nobody home.

Meat nor drink nor money have we none

Still I will be merry …

‘Rose, rose, rose, rose,

Will I ever see thee wed?

I will marry at thy will, sire

At thy will.

‘Ding dong, ding dong

Wedding bells on an April morn

Carve my name on a moss-covered stone

On a moss-covered stone.

‘Ah poor bird!

Take thy flight!

Fly above the sorrows

Of this sad night.’

The song over, Dirk taps on the glass with his gun as Barry takes his gun out too. Marjory takes off the blanket she’d hidden herself in and comes to the front of the box.

Barry

Hello again.

Marjory

Hello again.

Dirk

Fancy seeing you after all these years.

Marjory

Yes. You haven’t got any food, have you? I’m fucking starved.

They stare at her a moment, then Barry takes out a bag of chips with mayonnaise and gives it to her through the hole.

Barry

I have, actually, I’ve got some chips with mayonnaise.

Marjory

Thanks! (She eats.
) Unusual.

Dirk

We came here to execute her, Barry, not to feed her chips.

Barry

We can be nice about it, can’t we?

Dirk

Wasted that whole creepy song now. Christ, it stinks in here.

Marjory indicates the dead, rotting Press Man with a chip.

Barry

That nice newspaper man? Throat slit? Who did that?

Marjory

Hans Christian Andersen.

Barry

Fucking Hell! And everyone thinks he’s so nice!

Marjory

Tell me about it!

Dirk

Where’s your foot gone?

Marjory

Andersen cut it off. Sold it to gypsies for a haunted concertina.

Barry

What a fucking rotter!

Dirk

I dunno. Maybe he did it so she wouldn’t miss the old country, y’know? (Smirks.
)

Barry

Alright, Dirk. There’s no need for that.

Dirk

She stabbed my eye out with a bamboo stick!

Barry

That’s all in the past, isn’t it? I mean, the future
, isn’t it?

Marjory hands the remainder of the chips back.

Marjory

Not sure about the mayonnaise, to be honest.

Barry

It’ll catch on.

Marjory

I dunno …

Barry

No
. It will
.

Dirk

Alright, enough about chips, let’s just get this over with …

Dirk raises his gun to shoot her, but Barry pushes it back down …

Barry

I am not shooting a pygmy in a box, Dirk. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel, but with a pygmy. We’ll let her out in the fresh air and stand her up against something. Y’know, like her husband and kids!

Barry starts undoing the glass panel as Dirk keeps his gun trained on Marjory.

Dirk

Don’t try anything clever.

Marjory

It’s hard for me not to.

Dirk

Smartarse. Shorty smartarse.

Marjory

Where’s your other brother, by the way?

Barry

We don’t have another brother.

Marjory

Yeah, you do. You were triplets the last time I killed you. Siamese triplets. You must’ve lost him in the time travel.

Barry is perturbed by this. He looks over the stitches that run up their arms and their sides.

Dirk

Don’t listen to her, Barry. She’s just trying to mess with your head.

Barry

It’s fucking working, Dirk!

Dirk

That’s just what she does, isn’t it? She makes things up.

Marjory

He’s right. Don’t even think about it.

But Barry is still perturbed.

Dirk

Have you always written, Marjory?

Marjory

Yes. Since before I was a baby.

They look confused.

I’ve a thousand and two stories at this point. But I never had any paper, so they’re all …

She taps her head.

Barry

Wow. She’s not just good at writing, she’s also good at remembering!

Dirk

Shame they’ll all be lost then.

Marjory

The story ain’t over yet though, is it, boys?

She gives them a wink.

Barry

She’s very self-assured for a midget who’s about to be executed.

Marjory

It’s the mayonnaise!

Dirk

Shorty smartarse. Stand over there and shut up.

Marjory

Are you going to do a countdown from ten or something, like in the duels?

Barry

Well, it isn’t a duel, is it?

Dirk

We’re Belgian, not French!

Barry

We were
going to just shoot you. There wasn’t going to be any counting involved.

Marjory

It would be more dramatic though, wouldn’t it, a nice countdown? And I could play a little tune of farewell to my loved ones. It’ll be a creepy tune, and slightly Chinese, but it’ll be atmospheric!

Dirk

I vote no.

Barry

I vote it’s the least we can do if you take the Congo into consideration.

Dirk

I suppose we have come all this way.

Marjory

Thank you.

She takes the concertina from the wall, and starts playing a haunted tune. They raise their guns as she does so, cock them, and aim at her …

Marjory

Well, start then!

Barry and
Dirk

Oh! We
start! I thought you
started! Ten …!

The tune continues throughout.

Marjory

All I ever wanted …

Both Men

Nine!

Marjory

Was to go asleep beside my husband and my babies …

Both Men

Eight!

Marjory

And let the stories inside my head …

Both Men

Seven!

Marjory

Rest in silence …

Both Men

Six!

Marjory

But then you killed my husband …

Both Men

Five!

Marjory

And then you killed my babies …

Both Men

Four!

Marjory

And my stories were all I had left to me …

Both Men

Three!

Marjory

And now you’ve killed them too.

Both Men

Two!

Marjory

And now you’ve killed them too.

Both Men

One!

Marjory takes a deep breath shutting her eyes tight, the concertina is at its widest note, and just as the red men are about to shoot, we freeze this image in a Goya-like tableau …

Blackout.

SCENE TEN

The Dickens house. Hans’s travel bag is on the table, and Dickens is hurriedly helping him put his large overcoat and hat on, as Catherine comes back in.

Hans

I don’t … Hah! I don’t understand so quite so well …

Dickens

That’s alright! It’s good not to understand things sometimes, isn’t it? It leaves so much to explore in the future … (To Catherine.
) I think I’ve got him to go …

Catherine

You’re shitting me!

Dickens

Don’t do or say anything that’ll make him change his mind!

Hans

There no red men?

Dickens

There no red men, no … Buttons, that’s it … He wasn’t just Danish, Catherine, he was mental too!

Hans

Orso and no pygmy? No pygmy in a box?

Dickens

No, no pygmy in a box, Hans. No pygmies at all in London, a little known fact, eh, Catherine?

Catherine

Yes, that’s right. She died last year, the poor thing.

Dickens forces a smile, continuing to help with Hans’s buttons.

Dickens

No, that’s … not helping, Catherine …

Hans

Die, you say?

Dickens

She didn’t say anything like
die!

Catherine

Yes, she died on Christmas Day. The children were heartbroken until we gave them the train set.

Hans

Your pygmy lidy die?

Dickens

No, no, no, no, no …

Catherine

Yes, didn’t Charles tell you?

Dickens

What did I just … Now he’s never gonna fucking go!!

Hans

Mister Darwin say …

Dickens

Dickens!!

Hans

Mister Darwin say you got no pygmy not nor never have have have have had no pygmy.

Catherine

We have
have had a pygmy. What are you talking about, Charles? Who else has been writing all this stuff while you’ve been fucking everything that moves?

Dickens

(sitting
) I don’t need this. Do I need this? No, I don’t need this!

Catherine

So now you even lie about the women you haven’t
been sleeping with, let alone the ones you have, is that it?

Dickens looks away sheepishly.

Charles? I said, ‘Now you even …’ Oh Charles, you didn’t …

Dickens

Of course I didn’t! What kind of a man do you take me for?

Catherine

Oh God …

Knowing he’s lying, Catherine sits at the table, drained.

Hans

Little pygmy lidy die? And Mister Dickens lie? And Mister Andersen not mental?

Dickens

Two of those three statements have an accuracy to them, I’ll grant you.

He sadly gets up and, from a cupboard, takes out the skeleton of a pygmy woman that’s been made into a marionette: seventeen strings attached to her arm bones and sixteen strings attached to her cranium. It has one hand and one foot missing.

The children sort of missed her, so we made her corpse into a marionette. But it’s not the same. I can’t finish ‘Drood’ now, and the house has felt so dreadfully empty since Christmastide. You don’t really notice the sound of all that typing … until it’s gone forever.

Hans

Skeleton? From da cupboard?

Dickens

Yes. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere, but I don’t know what it is!

Catherine

Yes, you’d need someone to write it for you, wouldn’t you, Charles?

Dickens

Catherine, please!

Hans takes the skeleton.

Hans

How your little Marjory go die?

Dickens

How did my Marjory go die?

Hans

Die, yes! Die, liar Dickie! Die!

Dickens

Yes, I’m sorry I lied, Hans. I am
sorry. It’s just hard to admit, isn’t it, that your whole life’s work has been written by a tiny African woman you’ve imprisoned in a box. She didn’t write it all
though, in my defence …

Catherine

Bollocks!

Dickens

She just wrote the plots, and the characters … and the dialogue. And all the describing bits. I helped with the titles! ‘Bleak House’, that was mine. The one about the house … that was a bit bleak. (Pause.
) ‘Little Dorrit’ … the one about … well, that’s kind of selfexplanatory. (Pause.
) ‘Medium-Sized Expectations’ … No, she changed that one back, didn’t she, so no.

Catherine

I’m leaving you, Charles.

Dickens

Catherine, stop it …

Catherine

And I’m taking one of the children with me.

Dickens

One
of the children?

Catherine

Yes, Katie. The others are annoying. Especially the slow one.

Dickens

Which one’s the slow one?

Catherine

Exactly!

Hans

How your little Marjory go die?

Dickens

Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but we know you’ve got the time.

Hans

Yes …

He sits at the table, takes his hat off and undoes his buttons again. Dickens sighs.

Dickens

Well, apparently, gypsies … Do you have that word in Danish, ‘gypsies’?

Hans

Gypos, yep.

Dickens

Gypos, yes, gypsies … Apparently, gypsies – and I didn’t know this at the time – but, apparently, gypsies are from the future come back in time to tell us that work is pointless and we should all get out in the fresh air a lot more, and I must say I concur with the concept, I just don’t think they they go around explaining it in quite the right way. Anyway, somehow my
Marjory … we actually called her ‘Pamela’, after Catherine’s late aunt in Rochester … somehow Pamela got word to our local gypsy contingent to bring something back from the future for her, something she hoped she might one day find of use in the Congo. If she ever got up the money to go there, or, I suppose, survived
. And so the gypsies came knocking at Christmas, as they do. I gave them her foot and one of her little hands, and they gave me what they called a haunted concertina, one of two they said they’d gotten ahold of. So I took it up to Pamela, didn’t I, darling? And gave it to her, and for the first time in many many years her eyes lit up … her beautiful little eyes lit up …

Catherine gives him a sad look.

But it turns out the concertina wasn’t haunted, they never are, it was just the best place to hide the machine gun they’d brought for her. And then, as you can imagine, all Hell broke loose …!

Blackout on the Dickens house and instant lights up on …

SCENE ELEVEN

The attic, as again the Belgians count down to –

Both Men

One!

– whereupon Marjory lets rip with the machine gun hidden in her concertina, an insane deafening volley

of gunfire that tears the Belgians to horrifying pieces, bloody squibs bursting out of them, Peckinpah-like in their awful death dance, arterial spray splattering the walls behind them, till they finally collapse to the blood-strewn floor in clumpen fucked-up heaps and, as they’re lying there, Marjory gives them another burst of machine-gun fire for good measure. She steps back to observe her handiwork – Dirk dead, Barry almost …

Marjory

Fucking Belgians!

Barry

(pause
) Well, that
was a bit of a surprise!

His head lolls to the side as if dead. Marjory takes the two guns from their hands or wherever they’ve fallen and places them on top of the concertina that she’s put on the shelf …

Marjory

Webleys, nice. Old-fashioned. Or is it new
-fashioned, I get mixed up! But you can’t have too many guns when you’re off to save the Congo!

She looks around to figure out her next plan of action but is startled by Barry …

Barry

Marjory?

Marjory

Ooh, alive, hello …

She grabs a Webley again …

Barry

Did we … did we really have another brother? A Siamese triplet brother that we lost while time-travelling?

Marjory

Oh! No, no, I was just fucking around! You didn’t believe me, did you?

Barry

That was a bit mean, Marjory.

Marjory

Me name’s Mbute, bitch.

She kicks him in the head, and he dies. She puts the gun down on the concertina, does up her shirt and tucks it into her trousers, ready for action, grabs her wooden crutch …

Got me little crutch!

And limps over to something she’s spotted on top of the box and picks up it up, happily – the spider marionette!

Not so dark now, is it, Spider? Not so dark now!

Just then, the shadow of Hans appears in the doorway and he enters. Marjory hurries towards the guns and the concertina but he’s already beside them. He picks up the guns, and puts the concertina on. They stand looking at each other for quite some time.

Hans

You will not believe the gall of that Charles fucking Dickens!

Marjory

Oh no?

Hans

He only tried to make me think that I’d gone bonkers!

Marjory

Bonkers?! You?! Never!

Hans

That’s what I
said! (Pause.
) Ooh, I see the red men turned up.

Marjory

Mm. I had to kill ’em and that.

Hans

I can see! (Pause.
) I expect they deserved it.

Marjory

They will.

Hans

Yeah, I get a bit confused with a lot of this time-travelling stuff!

Marjory

How’s my sister?

Hans

(pause
) Well …

Marjory

(hopefully
) Well?!

Hans

No, not ‘well
’! Christ no, not ‘well’. ‘Well
’ … dot dot dot … ‘she’s
’ … dot dot dot … ‘dead
’. Dot.

Marjory

Oh. I knew she was.

Hans

Did you? Pygmies’ intuition?

Marjory

No. I just knew.

She sits down, sadly.

Hans

I’m sorry, Marjory. Honest.

From a bag he pulls out Pamela’s skeleton, strung up by puppet strings …

But I did bring her back for you.

Marjory

What?! I knew she was dead! I didn’t know she’d had a load of puppet strings stuck into her fucking head!

Hans

Well I
didn’t do it! Don’t shoot the messenger! It was that Charles Dickens fucker! That’s what he’s like!

She takes her sister in her arms.

You could tell he was a knob just from his beard. I am never going to that shitty little country again. The ugliest children in the world. We shouldn’t have called it ‘The Ugly Duckling’, we should’ve called it ‘The Ugly English Kid’, be more believable. Except they wouldn’t’ve grown out of it.

Marjory caresses the skeleton, lovingly, tearful …

Poor old … whatever her name was.

Marjory

Ogechi.

Hans

Ogechi?! Sounds Jap!

Marjory

It means ‘Time Spirit’.

Hans

Oh yeah? And you go on about me
being bad, at least I didn’t take your foot and
your hand off.

He lifts up Ogechi’s missing part.

So in terms of who’s the best looker-afterer, it’s me, isn’t it, really? I
win.

Marjory

No, she was already missing a hand and a foot. From the Congo.

Hans

Oh really? That’s weird. Well he’s just a non-stop fucking liar, isn’t he, that Dickens? I bet they’ll still bury him in Poets’ Corner. With all the other twats. (Pause
.) He definitely slept with her, though. At least I never did that.

Marjory

(tearfully
) What?!

Hans

Oh. Nothing!

Marjory

What did you tell me that
for?!

Hans

Well … cos it happened, y’know. Cos it’s true. Like the Congo. (Pause.
) Which hasn’t happened yet, it will
happen, won’t it … I told you I get confused.

Marjory

It won’t happen. I won’t let it.

Hans

Good for you. (Pause.
) Dunno how you’ll do that from a box in an attic in Copenhagen.

Pause.

I do
win over Dickens then, don’t I? At least I never did any of that funny business. I didn’t even try!

Marjory

That’s just because you prefer men.

Hans

I do not prefer men! Who says I prefer men?! Just because I do embroidery?

Marjory

No. Just because you’re in love with Edvard Collin.

Hans

Am I? Who is? I
am? Am I? (Pause.
) He is
nice though, isn’t he?

Marjory

I don’t know. I’ve never met him. I’ve been in a box.

Hans

Oh! I just got a letter from Edvard Collin on my way over, I completely forgot! In my haste to stop you executing half of Denmark. Perhaps he likes me too? ‘Dear Hans …’ Good start, bodes well … (Reads.
) Oh. Nope. Just a loada stuff about … one of his daughters has died, apparently. How many is that
now?! Glad I never met her! (Reads.
) No, not a word about me. Selfish, some people. (Folds the letter away.
) I still like him, though! Those eyes!

Marjory stands, and gently places the skeleton on to a shelf. They look at each other.

Well, I … I suppose it’s about time you got back in the box, isn’t it? (Pause.
) In fact, how long have you been out of the box? I suppose we’ll have to adjust it accordingly, if we’re being fair.

Marjory

Yes. Of course. But perhaps I could play you a little tune, Hans? Before the carpentry starts?

Hans

You know I find haunted concertinas frightening.

Marjory

You’ll be fine after the first few notes.

Hans

(pause
) That’s how I envisaged the story ending, you know? The box gets smaller and smaller, you get sadder and sadder, until, one day … pop! (Pause.
) That’s your head exploding, that pop.

Marjory

That’s a shit ending.

Hans

Is it?

Marjory

What’s our mantra? Upbeat, yes
. Sad pygmy lady getting squashed to bits until her head explodes … no
!

Hans

(same time
) Maybe
… I said maybe
at the same time!

They smile. Pause. He hands her the concertina. They exchange a look.

Safe travels.

She gently hangs it around her neck. He hands her the two Webleys too.

I haven’t read up on it … because it’s impossible to, it hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, the Congo in the late 1800s.

Marjory

It’ll be different this time.

Hans

Ten million people. That’s a lot of fucking people! It’ll probably define the century.

Marjory

It won’t.

Hans

Won’t it?

Marjory

Cos it won’t happen. Coupla hundred dead Belgians, then everybody shuts the fuck up and goes the fuck home.

Hans

Fingers crossed, eh? (Pause.
) Talking of dead Belgians, who’s going to clear up all these dead Belgians?

She looks at them.

Marjory

Well it’s not my
fucking house, is it?

Hans

Oy! Jerk!

Pause.

Marjory

Well, I’ll be off now then!

Hans

Off to Africa then, yeah? Alright.

Marjory

Yeah. No point putting it off, eh?

Hans

Are you going to time-travel down there?

Marjory

Nah, I’ll probably just get the bus.

Hans

Yes, I like the Danish Transport System, it’s very clean and it’s very efficient, although I’m pretty sure they don’t go all the way to Africa. You’ll at least have to change.

Marjory

That’s alright. I’ve got time.

They look at each other a moment … then shake hands.

Hans

Yes. Very clean, Danish buses. (Pause.
) Unlike Italian buses! My God! It’s like they only let lepers use ’em! Which can’t be right, can it, demographically, Italy, all just lepers? (Pause.
) That’d be more Jerusalem.

Pause.

I’ll miss you. (Pause.
) Will you miss me?

Marjory

No.

Pause. He nods. She turns to go. Finding the concertina a little clunky, she breaks it open to reveal the spanking new sub-machine gun inside it, tosses away the excess concertina –

Hans

That’s better. Less bulky on the bus.

– and, machine gun in hand, a Webley in each pocket, she prepares to go. She looks down at the dead red men, dips her hands in their blood and smears it all over her face and her clothes …

Ooh, they won’t take kindly to that on the 176!

Marjory takes out a cigar, clenching it between her teeth.

Where’d you get that from?!

Marjory

Cuba!

Hans

You clever minx!

Marjory

Fare thee well, Hans Christian Andersen.

Hans

Oh. Fare thee well … Marjory … Christian Andersen.

She gives him a look of disdain.

Hans

Fare thee well … Mbute Masakele.

Marjory

It wasn’t that
fucking hard, was it?

Hans

It was a bit
hard, with the ‘M’s.

Marjory stands in the light of the doorway and lights the cigar …

Narrator

And she lit a cigar. And she holstered her guns, and she strode out of the puppet attic, to go and save the Congo.

Time freezes strangely on stage.

Whether she succeeded or whether she failed, only time will tell us, really. It is a truth, though, a sad and sorry truth, that to this very day, all over Belgium –

Perhaps … blown-up photographs appear on the back wall, to illuminate the following …

Statues still
stand to King Leopold the Second … always with a beard … often with a sword in his hands … never with blood on them … and as Marjory herself might say …

Marjory

I ain’t seen a statue to a pygmy in a long time, boys.

The photographs end.

Narrator

But, as Mbute might also say …

Marjory

The story isn’t over yet. Is it?

She winks at us … and exits to save the Congo. Hans watches her go, her long shadow very slowly disappearing out of the doorway. Hans stands, picks up Ogechi’s skeleton, gently hangs it inside the mahogany box, closes up its glass side, and leaves it hanging there, creepily lit, as he sits on the shelf beside it. He surveys the room a moment: the skeleton, the rotting Press Man, the dead Belgians and their bloodstained walls, the doorway that Marjory departed through. Then he looks out front, nodding slightly.

Hans

Upbeat!
More or less. (Pause.
) Be good if she did it though, wouldn’t it?

He nods slightly, as the lights fade, to a creepy accordion tune, last lights lingering on Hans and the skeleton, then …

Blackout.

End.

By the Same Author

THE PILLOWMAN

IN BRUGES

HANGMEN

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

published by Methuen

THE LEENANE TRILOGY

(The Beauty Queen of Leenane,

A Skull in Connemara, The Lonesome West
)

THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN

THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE

Copyright

First published in 2018

by Faber and Faber Limited

74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2018

All rights reserved

© Martin McDonagh, 2018

The right of Martin McDonagh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever including performance rights must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Knight Hall Agency Ltd, Lower Ground Floor, 7 Mallow Street. London EC1Y 8RQ (email: office@knighthallagency.com). No performance maybe given or announced unless a licence has first been obtained

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ISBN 978–0–571–34692–9