‘Around Midnight’ by Julie London plays and the lights come up slowly. The stage is lit so that the corners are dimly shadowed. However for now only the Narrator and Lily can be seen in a blurry circle of light each.
The Narrator is sat on a bar stool set stage right.
Centre stage is a bar table where Lily sits. She has a large dirty glass of white wine & an almost full wine bottle before her. There is an empty bottle on the table too. A silver fliptop mobile phone is on the table. Next to it is a packet of cigarettes. Strong ones. JP Blacks or Marlboro Reds.
Stage left nearer towards the front of the stage is another bar table with 2 chairs. Stage left at the back is a small darkened area with a small rostra block.
As the music continues Lily drinks. Looks at her watch. Plays with her cigarette packet. Drinks some more. The Narrator watches, passively. Lily is unaware of anyone around her and picks up her mobile. Flips it open. Checks its screen. Closes it with a snap.
The music begins to fade & the Narrator looks to the audience, beginning to speak to them. He looks back to Lily or the audience where feels natural for the actor unless stage directions dictate otherwise. Lily enacts some of his physical descriptions where appropriate, but not in a comic or obviously mimed way. Just naturally.
Lily never acknowledges the Narrator. Her words are always directed to the audience. She can punctuate his speeches with drinking or checking her mobile.
| Narrator |
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Lily places her mobile phone on the tatty battered table and tries to pretend she isn’t disappointed. Lies to herself that it was fine the last call was only from her friend. A friend who had already rung three times that day. Each call making Lily jump & grab the phone. Holding her breath to hear the caller’s voice.She rubs her throbbing temples and wonders what it is about Monday migraines. Sunday had been a sleepless night. She had lain there listening to her apprehension tick in time with the alarm clock.
Sunday morning had had its weekly ritual of extra shot lattes to chase away the previous night’s hangover. Followed by the inevitable boozy Sunday lunch to mourn the end of the weekend. A lunch that lasts until evening as Lily began to obsess about the week ahead. Starts to drown her approaching Monday blues in to large Merlot reds.
She tells herself it doesn’t matter none of today’s phone calls were from Owen. That it’s normal to constantly pick up her mobile to check its screen for precious texts or missed calls. |
The Narrator goes back to observing Lily in a casual manner.
| Lily |
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Owen hasn’t called. Not yesterday. Not today. Not yet….Not yet.I’m beginning to worry what that might mean, but I can’t risk calling him in case he may not be alone.
Pause….
It wasn’t always been like this. In the beginning he pursued me with zeal worthy of a medieval knight. Earnest late night discussions where he pleaded with me to listen to him. Begging me for a chance to prove his love, despite the odds.
Pause…
Yet lately, his contact has started to become more ……erratic………less….predictable. |
Lily checks her mobile then goes back to drinking.
The Narrator observes this then turns his attention back to the audience.
| Narrator |
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Lily hates feeling so needy but time is precious with Owen and she doesn’t get many second chances to respond to his texts or calls. He has to delete all evidence of them before he gets home. Erase Lily’s presence and any memory of their illicit communication.She often wonders how they would communicate if there were no mobiles.
Emails are strictly forbidden as Owen’s wife controls his account with the vigour of a government agent. She has the time and determination to crack any passwords he invents.
Lily often speculates whether Owen strays because he wants to or simply because after years of being faithful his wife’s paranoia has simply driven him to it. |
Lily raises her glass in a silent cheers to the audience as if making a toast.
| Lily |
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If you’re going to do the time, you may as well do the crime. Right? |
Then she exhales and continues to drink.
| Narrator |
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Lily feels guilty. Guilt. Lust. Guilt. Envy. Guilt. Loneliness. All possess a large majority of her days, and her nights. Sitting in this wine bar alone seems to occupy the other remaining slab of time. |
| Lily |
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It’s a shabby place but it’s private. Very private. Dark and dingy – lots of hidden corners. Us regulars – we don’t acknowledge each other. We just stand at the bar or sit in own worlds, picking at beer mats or our nicotine stained nails.I like the remoteness. I come every evening, after work, to wait. Wait to see if Owen will call – call in that last hour of opportunity when he leaves work to go home.
I take large gulps of warm cheap white wine from dirty chipped glasses and try not to look at my mobile lying on this broken splintered table. |
Lily drains the rest of her glass then looks at the wine bottle. Considers it for a moment then pours another large glass.
| Narrator |
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Lily always drinks white wine – purely for its quick hitting effects. She can easily consume a large vat of red wine and still pass as coherent but white wine shoots straight to her head. Zoooom.Pause….
And today – she is going to need that hit. That tumble into a hazy dazed world. |
Lily takes a deep drink from her glass.
The Narrator looks back to Lily and watches her check her mobile again then fiddle with her cigarette packet. She drinks again.
| Lily |
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I haven’t confided in anyone. Given over the gory details of this life of mine. Such as it is. This burden of being the mistress. The other woman. The harlot. The trash. The floozie…. I’ve decided it’s my penance. Not for me the pitying judgmental looks of friends. The lectures from smug marrieds or pep talks from strong confident singletons. No. Not that. Never that. Never. |
Lily reaches into her bag for a compact mirror and studies her crow’s feet. Then the lines around her mouth. She stops and stares at herself. Then suddenly snaps the compact shut tight and shoves it into her bag.
She goes back to drinking. And waiting.
| Narrator |
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Lily’s feelings of shame are strong. Choking in her throat – making her dread her own reflection in the mirror – every day – all night.Pause….
In need of small comfort, any comfort, Lily casts her mind back to when she first met Owen. A training course. Forty corporate strangers thrown together in the wilds of Scotland. Forced to bond on treks and hikes. Their smug superiors convinced they would return better qualified for their jobs.
Pause
Except Lily returned with more than she bargained for, not just a worthless completion certificate, but a married lover in her horizons. |
Owen steps on stage into the darkly lit back corner stage left. A gobo of long leaded windows comes up behind him. He leans against the wall in profile. Appearing to look out the window. He is not in real time and does not see the bar scene, other actors, or the audience. Lily does not acknowledge him either. Only the Narrator.
| Narrator |
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She noticed Owen on the first evening there. The delegates had been gathered to the main hall of the crumbling country estate and were expected to mingle and schmooze each other over cheap champagne and soggy, unidentifiable canapés. |
Lily does not acknowledge Owen yet – she continues to address the audience.
| Lily |
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I hate those events. Don’t you? They cripple me – socially – physically – mentally. Small talk flies out of my brain. My handshake gets clammy and damp. It’s disgusting. I get paranoid that my breath smells. Or that my suit is too crumpled. Too old. Too wrinkled.So I scan the borders of the room. Anywhere but where the main action is unfolding like a sad dance of politeness. Look anywhere but there to avoid eye contact and bland insincere introductions.
Pause…
I saw him in the corner. Looking bored. Distant. Sad even.
He had incredibly pale grey eyes. A broad masculine build. A cliché of all things good. And when he looked up and smiled at me. I was free. Free of my inhibitions. My chronic disabling shyness. |
Her light fades and Lily leaves her bar table to walk over towards Owen. They sit down on the rostra block facing each other as their light comes up, dimly. Their faces are close to each other. The shadow of the leaded window gobo still behind them. The bar area lighting has faded except for the Narrator’s light.
| Narrator |
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Hours later they are still in the main hall but alone this time. One by one the other delegates drift back to their tiny chilly rooms.But Lily and Owen continue to talk beneath those Tudor beams. Lean their heads close to each other beside that long impressive lead window. They take in the rolling hills and tumbling landscape, illuminated by inky surreal moonlight.
Narrator turns to watch them for a beat. Owen lifts a beautiful crystal whiskey tumbler with amber liquid in it. He drinks from it then tilts it to her lips so that she can drink. They never lose eye contact.
Owen introduces her to aged malt whiskey and they drink together. Sharing intimate sips as he tells her how he has never believed in instant attraction or even destiny until now. Confides that he regrets his life to this point and wishes he was free to love. Love her, be with her, forever.
It should sound so unbelievable shouldn’t it? A classic cheesy seduction routine. But Lily is lonely. Her judgement fuzzy from too much whiskey and too much undivided passionate attention.
Narrator watches them again. Shakes his head slowly.
Owen tells Lily all his deepest secrets. Says he has never shared or trusted these secrets with anyone else. Promises he will carry her presence with him for an eternity. |
The Narrator looks at the audience and raises one eyebrow. Then turns back to the couple and watches as Owen takes Lily’s hands in his own and kisses them. Then leans in to kiss her lips before pulling back to put her hair behind her ear.
| Narrator |
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Lily has fallen fast, much much faster than the dizzying effects of that strong intoxicating whiskey.A bond is formed between them that night. Formed whilst he talks and she listens. A bond that Lily has never experienced before. It’s alien to her and strange. But she likes it……..too much. |
Owen stands up and leaves the stage. Lily watches him go & her leaded window light fades as she walks back to her bar table to sit. Her light comes up and she is back in real time. She drinks and plays with her cigarette packet.
| Narrator |
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As the week draws to a close she begins to feel panic at the thought of leaving him. Tries to ignore the niggling feeling that this was more than just friendship.As the week ends they exchange mobile numbers and Lily tries to convince herself it was just a passing crush. That out of sight out of mind will set matters straight. Will bring back her sanity. Her morals. Her conscience. |
Lily goes checks her mobile then resumes drinking.
| Lily |
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Within hours of returning home I was miserable. Kicking myself for those wasted hours, those snatches of opportunity that I wasted. That we wasted. Why didn’t I even take a photograph of him? Its easy now with these….
She lifts her mobile. Studies it.
Surely friends are allowed to do that – aren’t they?
Then she smiles
But you know what? He texted me. That night. A long text. Full of apologies for what he was about to ask but pleading with me to meet with him – soon – so that he might talk to me. Casually suggesting some pub…
Lily stops smiling…
An obscure pub. A back street pub. Dingy. Dark. Hidden.
She looks around.
Like here I suppose. |
Lily looks down at the table, taps her cigarette packet a few times, then resumes drinking.
| Narrator |
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Lily thinks back to Owen’s persistent pursuit of her from that moment on. How he chipped away at her refusals and morals slowly but surely over time.Then a thought flashes through her mind – questioning this version of events. Is she transforming the memory – polishing it – sanitising it to ease her guilt? Her crime. Absolve herself of any blame?
He looks back and watches as Lily tops up her glass of wine from the second bottle.
Lily needs oblivion. From the guilt. The memory. The waiting. Always waiting – for a call or text that might not come. |
A dainty brunette walks onto the stage. She is very pretty and fresh-faced. Happy. Owen stands behind her holding a tumbler of liquid and a glass of orange juice. He smiles warmly at the brunette woman who turns back to face him. The woman reaches up on her toes and kisses him. Lily watches in numb shock.
| Narrator |
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Lily has never seen Owen’s wife in the flesh before. She is much prettier in person than Lily had imagined. Warmer. More delicate. Lily’s imagination had dreamed up a cold, plain woman. A woman designed to soothe Lily’s insecurities and make sense of Owen’s unhappiness and betrayals. |
The brunette laughs happily and places her hand on Owen’s chest. Lily swallows and looks away.
| Narrator |
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Lily takes a deep breath to steady her wobbly insides. To push down the feeling of nausea surging up her throat. |
| Lily |
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I should leave. Now. Unseen. Quietly. Without fuss. Drama. |
| Narrator |
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Instead Lily stays. Shrinking into her lonely table. To watch. And listen. Listen to the hum of their conversation. The jarring clang of their happy, natural, open laughter. |
Owen sits down with his back to Lily at the bar table stage left at the front of the stage. Lily had a clear view of his wife’s lovely features. A woman who looks excited and happy as she giggles, flirts, and touches Owen.
| Narrator |
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Lily watches as the brunette places her hand on Owen’s knee and leans over to kiss him on his lovely mouth. Then watches her stand up and gracefully weave her way through the regular drinkers towards the toilets. |
The brunette does as directed above and leaves the stage from where she first entered so that she does not pass by Lily or cause Owen to look behind him at Lily.
| Lily |
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I need to talk to him. Touch him. Breathe him in. Be close to his warm familiar body. I miss him. Waiting…it’s not an option..It’s just….just too hard. |
Lily makes a move towards Owen but freezes opens up his phone to make a call. Owen is smiling and leans forward looking sincere. We don’t hear his conversation but he is clearly on the phone to somebody who makes him happy.
| Narrator |
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Lily listens as Owen calls someone darling. Listens with a thudding heart as he apologises for being held up at the office – explains that he is working on a tiresome presentation. That he will be here all night. That he would much rather be at home. |
Owen ends the call and begins to text a message. After sending it he turns his phone off and slides it into his inside jacket pocket. Runs his hands through his hair and pulls the cuffs of his shirt down. Looks relaxed and waits for the brunette to return.
| Narrator |
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Lily sits in stunned confused silence, not even breathing. She stares intently at her mobile phone. Waiting. She knows with a throat full of thick bile it will now have a message on it. |
Lily opens her phone and reads the text out loud to the audience.
| Lily |
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I miss you. I wish I could call you. I’m home now. About to go indoors for dinner with the wife so must turn phone off. I’m sorry. So sorry. Will think of you all evening. All night. I love you. |
Lily watches tearfully as the brunette returns on stage and sits down close to Owen. Watches as Owen kisses her then hangs his head in confusion giving a heavy sigh. He follows the stage directions wordlessly as narrated.
| Narrator |
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Lily feels dizzying déjà vu as Owen raises a glass of malt whiskey to his mouth for a sensuous sip before passing it to the brunette’s pretty lips.She listens with a breaking heart as he tells the brunette about the instant connection he feels for her and how he regrets his life to this point and wishes he was free to love. Love her. Be with her, forever.
Lily watches the brunette fall fast. Much much faster than the dizzying effects of that strong intoxicating whiskey. Lily watches a bond form between them that night. As Owen talks and the brunette listens. A bond that Lily herself experienced. A bond that will haunt her now. Will leave the bitter taste of whiskey in her mouth, and in her memory for many, many years. |
Lights fade down on Owen, the brunette and the Narrator as ‘Around Midnight’ begins to play again. The stage dims except for the light on Lily. Who continues to drink. And cry. Silently.
