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PART 2

Five years later. Spring.

HOPE and MAGNUS are outside, playing a game. They are telling each other jokes. They have both heard them all before.

HOPE: Why did the chicken/

MAGNUS: Yeah yeah. Why did the duck cross the road?

HOPE: Because it thought it was a chicken.

…

Why did the fish cross the ocean?

MAGNUS: To get to the other tide.

…

Why did the rooster cross the road?

HOPE: To prove it wasn’t chicken.

…

Wait … why did the dinosaur cross the road?

MAGNUS: Because the chicken wasn’t around yet.

…

Which came first/ the chicken or

HOPE: The egg! By three hundred and twelve million years.

HOPE is tired. She sits.

MAGNUS is above her. He unfurls his whole body. He’s a head taller now. His neck is very long. With his arms extended to the sides he demonstrates scooping the air with his arms and shoulders.

MAGNUS: I’ll teach you to fly one day.

HOPE: You won’t. It’s not anatomically possible.

MAGNUS: Deep in everyone’s DNA there’s the possibility of flight.

HOPE: I do dream about flying sometimes.

MAGNUS: There you go then.

HOPE: It’s just symbolic or something.

MAGNUS: Bollocks. It’s your brain preparing for flight.

HOPE: Maybe.

MAGNUS: Birds were the only dinosaur to survive you know.

***

JOY at home. She is on the sofa with a goldfish in a bowl on her lap. She has a bundle of newspapers and a bag of crisps. She speaks to her goldfish (Pedro Dieciséis).

JOY reads the front page headlines aloud.

JOY: ‘Woman sues NHS over Uneggspected Pregnancy’

…

‘Quick Shag Takes on New Meaning for Coastal Holiday Makers – Lewd behaviour on Arran’s beautiful beaches.’

…

‘Woman gives birth to Albatross after Holiday of a Lifetime.’

…

Albatross? Must’ve had a bit of bother getting that one out.

…

What do you think? ‘Gone With the Wind’?

Pause.

JOY: I know. Too long. No point.

She opens the bag of crisps and crumbles a little into the goldfish bowl.

JOY: ¡Que aproveche!

…

Wait for it.

JOY’s mum does not bang from the next room.

A moment.

JOY: Mum.

It is very quiet. No sound from the next room. An absence of breathing.

***

MAGNUS has a razor. He has been trying to shave his legs. It’s messy. Enter HOPE.

HOPE: Magnus!

MAGNUS: Why do you never knock?

HOPE: What is this?

MAGNUS: What does it look like?

Beat.

HOPE: Why?

Pause.

MAGNUS: Melissa says I’m …

She says I’m … fluffier than normal.

Down there.

…

She laughed.

HOPE: She was probably just nervous.

I’m sure I laughed the first time.

MAGNUS: I don’t think it’s her first time Mum. She said, ‘Don’t you even wax?’

HOPE: Wax?

Down there?

MAGNUS: Everyone’s waxing.

And then we were learning how to prepare chicken and I felt sick so I / went to

HOPE: Wait a minute …

Melissa put her hand down your trousers in Food Tech?

MAGNUS: Don’t be stupid. That would be totally unhygienic. Food Tech’s straight after break.

HOPE: Right.

MAGNUS: I went to the school office and they tried to phone you but I had to go back to class.

HOPE: Shit!

…

Sorry Magnus.

MAGNUS: Do you know how they pluck birds?

They scald the carcass in hot water and put it in a rotating drum with spikes. Then they singe the skin to get the fluff off.

It smells terrible.

Like burning hair.

HOPE: Oh Magnus … you shouldn’t have to sit through that.

MAGNUS: Don’t do anything, Mum. Don’t go and complain or anything stupid like that.

HOPE: …

MAGNUS: It’s no big deal and the teachers’ll just laugh at me.

HOPE: The teachers laugh at you?

MAGNUS: They’re always laughing at me.

Pause.

MAGNUS: Please?

HOPE: OK.

MAGNUS: Promise?

Pause.

MAGNUS: Do you think I should wax?

HOPE: I have no idea. But if Melissa’s laughing at you then …

MAGNUS: I should wax.

HOPE: No. Maybe she’s not right for you.