My Little Fox (Scene for RIFT's Macbeth)

Structure:

The three sisters begin with a short scene together, where one says she has seen a fox. This short scene ends with the three sisters each leaving with a handful of audience members.

The following scene is the same for each sister.  As she tells the story, she ritually washes the audience. She wipes their sweat and washes their hands/arms.

After that scene, the three sisters come back together.

1 Three together

2 Three apart 

3 Three together

1.

Sister 1:                                What hast thou seen, sister?

Sister 2:                                I saw a fox.

Sister 1:                                Where didst thou see it, sister?

Sister 2:                                Along the corridor.

Sister 3:                                You didn’t see a thing.

Sister 2:                                I saw a fox. A fox, a fox. 

Sister 3:                                There was no fox.

                Sister 2 becomes sad at the thought. Sister 1 comforts 2.

Sister 2:                                My speech is weak. It’s falling down.

                Sister 3 removes 1 from 2.

Sister 3:                                Prop yourself up.

                Sister 2 pulls herself together.

                                            There’s more to come.

                                            There’s a ritual now that needs to be done.

                Sisters separate and take one third of the audience each with them.

2.

Please…Sit…

Take your time.

Sister sighs and visibly relaxes. She becomes more ‘natural’.

Are you tired?

Sister encourages the audience members to (briefly) speak to her on the subject of sleep. Her response to their speech is friendly yet cold.

The sister can admit that she is tired.

“Your eyes look heavy.”

“It’s the worst thing to be told you look tired, isn’t it?”

The sister fills a bowl with water from a bottle and dampens a towel. This will be used to ritualistically clean the audience members, ie, dampen their brow, clear their hands, wash their arms.

If an audience member asks the sister where she has been, then she continues with the following speech. Otherwise, she should manoeuvre the conversation to lead into the following speech.

I wandered through a forest, the trees dark…the soil wet…A fox, a fox. It ran between the trees…

    

            Sister moves to select a bottle of white wine and brings it to the centre.  

I wandered without my sisters. I pushed the branches away. My wrists were black and blue. I wandered home and where the trees all grouped together I waited and called but there was no sight, there was no sound.

Was I asleep? When the trees grew sparse…When I wandered towards the city lights? Was I sleeping when I walked by the road?

____

Do you know the place? Where the forest meets the city?

The trees stop when you lean against the barriers.

____

Only one car stopped as I stood beneath the streetlight. The window was spotless. I tapped at the glass.

                

           Sister drinks. She dampens the towel.

I sat in the leather seat. The air conditioning was cold.

           

           The Sister uses the wet towel to wash the brow of an audience member.

“Breathe. Calm down,” he said. “You’re breathing so quickly. Calm down.”

I could see the trees in the headlights. Lit up. The branches yellow. The bark brown.

“I can take you to the police,” he said. His voice was so calm. “I can take you there now.”

But I didn’t want to go to the police. He took me to a hospital. I didn’t go inside…I stood by the door and after he drove off I wandered out.

There was no-one else there.

____

Are you comfortable?

The Sister uses the wet towel to wash the hands of an audience member.

____

Was I sleeping in the forest still? The ground was wet beneath my head…A fox, a fox…That wandered against me lying there…I walked along the streets.

 I called for my sisters but no-one answered…I wandered past the shops. The lights were all turned off. I looked into the windows and I could see the clothing…The skirts and the dresses …Arms spread…black bird…There was a bird flying between the branches.

  

              The Sister uses the wet towel to wash the arms of an audience member.

 “Give me your arm,” he said. “Rest it here on the leaves.”          

I walked past the buildings. I looked at how high they were…I walked on my own, beside the river. I headed east. Something drew me back, I didn’t know where else to go...

The tower was the only place I knew.

____

Did you feel the same way? Did you feel like this was the only place you could’ve gone?

Sister drinks from the bottle of wine.

You must be so tired. You’ve been awake for so long.

____

I leant my back against the wall and rested for a moment. I caught my breath…A fox, a fox. I saw a fox beside the gates.

Was I sleeping still?

Was my head on the ground? Were my sister’s beside me?

I thought…I thought it was raining…the rain fell on my head…wet head…the little drops…he’d kept me dry…at least there was that…dry and clean… I thought it was raining…the rain was coming and there was only the gate to the tower…only the gate to go through.

I pushed the button to his floor and the lift took me up.  I went to his floor. I opened the door to this flat and he was waiting.

“Give me your arm,” he said. “Rest it on me.”

____

The Sister uses the wet towel to soak the hand of an audience member.

 “There’s Witchcraft in the way you kiss me,” he said.

____

I looked at the window, at the lights spread out...the buildings all lit…TVs on…the walls all blue…the people sat together…and there I watched as he called his friends…I watched their faces reflected as they walked through the door.   

“My little fox, you’re breathing so fast. Rest your head on the leaves.”

They came and stood around me….their boots…their heels...the trunks of the trees.

“My little fox, you’ve come to wash us clean.”

So I washed their hands and I washed their feet. I washed the dirt from their fingers and I cleaned the sweat from their necks. I peeled the dirt from the bark but…but the trees came down …I called for my sisters but there was no sight, there was no sound. The branches fell…they scratched at my skin.

“Rest your head on the leaves. Let them cover you.”

And they covered me. They covered me.

             The sister drinks from the bottle again. The sister slams the bottle down (smashes it?)

 This point should mark a change in the sister. She becomes intimidating in the way she    speaks.

But I pushed them away…I pushed at the fingers, the thorns…“Breathe and be still.” I would not be still. “Breathe. Calm down. You’re breathing so quickly. Calm down.” I would not calm. I stood up straight. I tore at the bark. “Your nails are sharp. There’s fire in your eyes.” And I tugged at the branches…I kicked at the brambles…I pulled at the roots ‘til they popped from their sockets.

____

All the toil that was piled on me. All the trouble I’d cause in return.

They called me a witch… They don’t like the look of me now… They choose that way to see me when I made this tower my home.

The eye of newt… tongue of dog… poison’d entrails… Swelter'd venom sleeping got…

 (Mournful) I just wanted to be with my sisters…I only want to be with them.

____

Sister pours gas into the bowl of water and lights it. She drips the audience’s sweat (from the towel) on the flames.

In my arms I collected the twigs and in a bonfire I burnt them. I emptied a can of petrol …I lit a match…The smoke went high into the air.

Was I sleeping still?

Was I sleeping when I saw a fox beside the flames…a fox who leapt and danced…who kicked its back and raised its jaw…

Was I sleeping?

                Knocking.

3.

The knocking keeps on ticking.

There is a change in mood. The ritual is over. The sister puts out the fire by draping the wet towel over the flames.

The sister walks back to the concourse where she is joined by the other sisters, each returning from their same scene.

Sister 2:                                A fox, a fox. I saw a fox.

Sister 3:                                There was no fox.  

Sister 2:                                I saw it in my room.

Sister 1:                                The foxes are all gone. They’ve long gone from here.

Sister 2:                                I saw it as I slept.

Sister 3:                                Macbeth hath murdered sleep.

Sister 2:                                Macbeth, Macbeth. Those knock keeps on coming.

Sister 3:                                The knocking won’t stop.

Sister 2:                                I called for you my sister…

Sister 1:                                I called for you my sister…

Sister 3:                                I called for you my sister…

Sister 2:                                But you wouldn’t come.

                Lead into the next scene.

Psyche

Originally part of an artist residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Summer 2013.

1.

Cupid:

I walked back from work along the beach that day. We’d not finished until later than expected, the sun was almost set on the pier and I’d always loved the sight of it there, cut in half by the old railings with the blue paint half peeled to dust.

I’d walked slowly past the stalls with cockles for sale, them on my right with the dying sun on the left. The reddish light bleeding into the water made the pier seem as if it had stabbed the sky. Hard to think then of the arcades and old ten-pence machines littered at the end.

I should’ve been home by then. There was dinner to pick up, TV to watch. She’d be sleeping beside me at night, her head turned against the pillow, her body unmoving. When we’d first married she’d always snored. Now she was always silent as she slept.

I took the time to walk off the street, over the beach with the pebbles felt under foot. The sea spread out, grew darker as the sun dipped below. There was time yet to enjoy it; shoes slid off, socks tucked away.

I felt the foam of the waves then, watched the pier stand on the sea.

2.

Psyche:

Look at your eyes drifting from place to place, hanging from one wall then another, grazing along the edges of the ceiling, waiting in the corners. I see you looking at all below; your strong legs, your arms, your chest. I see the skin between your shoulders and your neck. I see your lips. I’m happy that you are here.

I was born the most beautiful of three sisters. I say this not because of pride but because it’s what I was told. My beauty was so great that the Goddess of Love grew jealous and saw fit to claim that I was cursed. You above all know that love can forgive, it can forgive all things but jealousy. In punishment for my good looks I was cursed to wed not a man but a beast, a monster who would put his seed in me and the child that I bore him would be a monster also; a creature who would conquer nations, leave them turned to dust and ruin. All this I was told.

My father, he was not a brave man. When he heard the prophecy he would not let me stay.

He took me to a cliff, my two sisters stood behind, and there in the sight of the sea, in sight of the sun as it bowed behind the waves, he offered me up.

King:                           Whatever slithers out from between your legs will kill us all. The wind will take you now daughter.

Psyche:                       I’ll remember you all, my mother, my father, my sisters. I’ll remember you all, each face and smile.

King:                           Passive aggressiveness is not a virtue.

My toes were dug into the earth, a few inches further and my body would tumble to a heap of broken bones. I was stripped, my clothes taken, my skin soon turned to goose-bumps. In front of me the sea spread out, grew darker as the sun dipped below.

Sister 1:                       Are your nipples numb, sister?

Sister 2:                       Will the wind be able to carry away a stone statue?

Psyche:                       If I look down I can see the waves below coming one on one. The rocks look hard, sisters. If I fall I will smash to pieces.

King:                           Then close your eyes, my daughter. Shut them tight.

So I did. All was dark then.

So I waited…

(Wind builds)

And the wind came…

(Wind builds)

And it came…

(Wind builds)

And it blew me away.

I spiralled downwards. For how long I fell I do not know, but when I awoke I was in a different place. No cliff remained. No sea below. I was stood in a tower with columns piled one beside the other, each on a platform, each platform piled on another below.

By day I could walk the stairs of the tower as I chose, pass into alcoves and dine in the gallery. But at night I was to walk down, step by step, to the dark chamber below.

3.

Psyche:

And he found me there, splayed on the sheets with nothing on and legs akimbo.  My breasts were out to kiss the air but if you’d been in that room you’d see not a single thing, not an inch of flesh. Complete darkness was all that was lain out in front of me; a black silken sheet draped over every curve and sweep of me, light over my sockets, heavy in how it sat on my chest.

The way that darkness pressed down on my body, resting snuggly on the tips of fingers and toes, it was not until his fingers made themselves known that I jolted back to life.

And you can imagine it was a shock.

They’d whispered over and over, as I was led to the edge of the cliff, as I’d stood there naked with only seagulls cracking up at the sight of a woman waiting for the wind to take her away. They’d told me then that it would be a monster who would have me. With no light in that room it was the monster that I imagined. A great big heaving beast, mouth open, fangs wet at the sight of me there, a sight which even I couldn’t see in the darkness of the bedroom. I heard the springs through the mattress, the squeeze and release of them as he moved closer to me lain with a pillow against my head.

I’d planned to kick out. Whatever monsters may be like I was sure they’d all come down quick enough with a knee in the right location. My muscles tensed in the dark, without anything to see there it seemed they tensed even harder, coiled up in shaking rows, ready to spring out at whatever body-part came close enough.

But he has a hand on each ankle now, and I’ve not yet kicked.

He’d kissed me there and I had not yet kicked.

4.

Cupid:

The pier cut into the shore, my feet dug deep in the wet sand. I should have gone home by then, the time on my phone later than I had thought it would be, but I only stared deeper into the waves away on the shore.

In the dimness I’d lain on her but she felt unmoving.

She’d sighed and her dark eyes seemed so far away.

And it was such a good old pier. It was funny that I hadn’t noticed; that without knowing I’d begun to trace the path I’d always traced, as if it were the only possible direction to take: Down the boards above the sea.

The pier had been here when we’d first moved to the coast, it had been here long before that. In pictures before the war it was there, the last century it was there. The spread of it, the posts below all pressed in the shore. Each post was so ornate. Each one a tower that spiralled down.

I walked step by step towards the end, towards the sea ceaseless, unending.

5.

Psyche:

At first I’d not known what to do. I’d let him take me like I’d seen dogs do in the street. In the dark I could think of other things. I’d think of home, of food.

But as the days turned to weeks…

Soon I would wait impatiently for night to come, when I would be led down the stairs to the dark room with him there. On the veranda I’d watch the sun set into the sea below, my heart beating when it went out of sight.

A heavy dark

A whispered breath against my neck

A finger tip

I waited each night until I could feel his lips on my spine. When could feel him tracing downwards, step by step.

My father had told me that I would be with child, that whatever babe was to be born with my husband would eat me up. It would slip out of me like a terrible fish they’d said, snapping up at the mess, chewing and swallowing, filling its belly until my flesh was stripped from my bones.

I wouldn’t let it.  I’d told myself I’d smash its little head in as soon as it crowned. Bash it flat. My own child would not tear me piece to piece! I’d squeeze it and hit it and pull it out and swing it against the wall.

So scared so scared

Open up

And still his lips tracing downwards.

Open up

I wondered if there were others watching me. All looking in the dark from balconies far above where I lay.

6.

Cupid:

Peering over the edge I looked for my face in the waters below, but I was too high and the waves were too fast, they would not keep still. Any face in that water would taken apart and thrown in every direction; cut up and split between the reflected lights dancing one way then the other.

7.

Psyche:

I was not seeing things. There were two faces who looked down at me. Up I gazed and there, peering from above between the columns of my tower, were two women’s faces, my two sisters’ faces.

Sister 1:                      Sister, where is your husband?

Psyche:                       He’s waiting for me in the bedroom.

Sister 2:                     Oh sister, does he have big teeth?

Psyche:                      Yes sister, as big as a crocodile.

Sister 1:                     Does he have big claws?

Psyche:                      As big as an eagle.

Sister 2:                     Oh beautiful sister, what colour are his eyes?

Psyche:                      …I...I don’t know.

What colour would they be? As a wife I should know. Would they be as brown as a forest? As blue as the sky?

Look on his face and see the eyes of death.

And so, that night in the dark room my hand shook as I reached to light the candle. The box of matches hidden under the pillow, I’d been so careful for the striking not to make a sound.

8.

Cupid:

In the dimness I’d lain on her but she felt unmoving.

She’d sighed and her dark eyes seemed so far away.

9.

Psyche:

A heavy dark

A whispered breath against my neck

A finger tip

He traced his kisses down my spine. Step by step. Tracing the path he’d always taken, each time i’d lain with him; a path half remembered but always followed, a kiss followed a kiss, my ribs turned to arches, my limbs to columns, my spine to steps...

And suddenly I was afraid. If I lit the candle would it fall apart? Every sigh and ache, every arch of my back that i’d built on those sheets, crumbled to dust.

Would the light change me?

My lips parted and a moan passed into the air. His lips had spiralled from my back, step by step, falling once more down my front and I remembered tumbling all those months ago; the edge of the cliff above me, the rocks streaming upwards, the sea spread below.

I do not know how long I fell, but the light of the candle pricked the dark.

Gentle listener, I did exactly as i’d planned. I lit the candle and looked at what I could see. Through that gap in the blackness I saw my husband’s face.

It was no monster there. All the things I’d felt on him when he’d been on me, all the ridges of his spines, the teeth ready to strip, the legs of a beast, the snake between, none of that was there. All the things I’d used to make up a picture in my mind, things I’d felt with my own fingers in the dark, felt as they’d passed over…all that melted away.

In the faint candle-light there was only the face of a boy. 

10.

Cupid:

No-one else stood on the pier. A long time had passed before I’d looked for the time again.

She’d be asleep now. No missed calls.

I looked at the surface of the water peering through the gaps in the boardwalk. I was as far as I could go, as far as the pier went.

Where has my desire gone?

Please, God, help me find it.

And I’ve tried. I’d cooked us dinner and listened to her speak, tried my hardest to keep eye contact. But she’d known what I’d wanted, maybe that was what made it so pathetic.

We’d done it with the lights off. It didn’t take very long. It was over and she was soon sleep, her head turned towards the pillow.

Where has my desire gone?

I looked down from the edge of the pier, the waves darkly lit, each rise and fall barely seen and I thought I’d wait there a little longer.

even the bell, the namesake.

...

Another rumble is heard, it passes.

Greensides:                   I was supposed to see her tomorrow and give her the present then, maybe I should’ve waited until the morning.

                                                     

            Pause.

                                    I only give her things because she needs them. I hate seeing her upset.

                                   

            A distant explosion is heard.

            The dog whines and barks.

Greensides lights a cigarette and begins to smoke.

Silence.

Boyce:                         What was it like?

Greensides:                 What?

Boyce:                         Tonight, what was it like?

Greensides:                 Dark.

On the train I sat opposite a man with a dog...Collie I think. It had its black eyes on me the whole way, quiet and still as we sped past the estates near Bermondsey.

Charing Cross was packed to burst…a lot of people being moved by police back into the trains but the place was so busy and chaotic…

Outside there were horns, car horns of course but a brass band must’ve been there somewhere because I caught glimpses of men and women in red uniforms, all playing trumpets and trombones and tubas...God knows why they were there, but I followed them all down Whitehall to Parliament Square...and never in my life...the size of it all there, all those faces glowing in the light, all staring up at the clock-face and that music hanging in the air. People lined the statues, draped around Churchill and Mandela while the crowds pushed together on the grass. Blue lights flashed from the edges, a few faint sirens, but it felt like nothing, all of us anxiously watching the tower. My phone said five to ten.

A woman, must’ve been in her fifties, pressed up close to my side. I could feel the back of her hand against mine, her skin warm and I felt her move it up and down, just slightly but it was such a tender thing…so small in that place. 

                                    My lights gone out.

Boyce:                         Help yourself.

            Greensides helps himself to Boyce’s lighter, re-lighting his cigarette.

Greensides:                 It was a minute to ten; I could see people checking the time on their phones. I don’t know what we expected, nothing I guess.

Just a glowing circle up there with twelve numbers, no countdown, no movement, nothing. I could hear the woman next to me breathing, deep and low against my neck, her hand still pressed against my own…If I’m honest I felt myself get hard, just a little but hard nonetheless…all the blood down there tightening up like a knot….It was ten o’clock…and then, above our heads… the sound of it…The noise shot from the empty face…like thunder cracking amongst the sounds of its wound, split down the looming form; Big Ben’s open mouth choking on all that came from that hole.

            Greensides puts the cigarette out on the ashtray.

I tried to go back to the station, but it was too late then.

I didn’t see the woman again.                       

Boyce walks towards the floor and begins to pull up the boards with his hands.


Greensides moves to stop him.

...

Zip

Greensides:                   My friend Oscar, he won’t mind me telling the story, you know him /

Boyce:                          (From the hole) / No /

Greensides:                   / He’s a bit slow, was at school with us. You know Rita.

Boyce:                          Who’s Rita?

Greensides:                   His German girlfriend.

Boyce:                          Christ, are they still together?

Greensides:                   Yeah I know. Sickening isn’t it? She’s moved to Berlin now though, long distance thing.

Boyce:                          They not married yet?

Greensides:                   Not yet. They manage to keep it together though. He goes over there every few months and she comes over here every few months.

Boyce:                          Whatever works.

Greensides:                   Exactly, whatever works for them. And they’re a really nice couple, very much in love, you should see the way they stare at each other, there’s a definite intensity...Oscar does tend to stare a lot though.

Boyce:                          Lazy eye right?

Greensides:                   That’s it, lazy eye, always goes a-wandering in that head of his.

So it’s Oscar’s birthday and Rita gets him a nice new pair of trousers, very high quality, well fitting. She mails them over from Berlin, air mail, and, I don’t know if the cargo plane was uncharacteristically hot, or if they got wet, or whatever, but this lovely pair of trousers decides to shrink several sizes between Berlin and London. End up this big. (Greensides indicates around two feet using his hands)

Oscar on the morn of his birthday opens this soiled parcel and, the stupid fuck he is, thinks that these tiny trousers must be the latest German fashion.

God knows how he managed to squeeze himself into them, but he did, and, to be honest, it didn’t look that bad. It was generally more impressive than disgusting.

A whole week he managed in them, and people had kind of gotten used to it; the way he would waddle over with his belly just slightly folded over the top. Then, one day he’s queuing up in the post office, it’s Monday so it’s pretty busy, he’s there to post a small jar of toffees to Rita. She’d never eaten toffee before, can you believe that? Apparently she wasn’t allowed them as a child and fell into the habit of avoiding them for fear of tooth-rot. Oskar thought that was ridiculous, I mean nothing’s wrong with a moderate chew, and he came to the decision that a decorative jar of English toffee he’d spotted in Portobello road would make her rethink her childish fears and ergo she would build a stronger, deeper connection to Oskar, resulting in a bridge for the two of them that, although it was separated by the physical distance between London and Berlin, would transcend their previous adolescent lives and lead them to live solely in the present.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how things happened, but I do remember it was the first truly hot day of the year and Oskar is well known for his sweaty palms. When his time came to talk to the teller it seemed the act of both balancing the jar of toffee in one hand and pulling out his wallet from his back pocket with the other resulted in him dropping the wallet on the floor.

So he bent over.

            Beat.

Boyce:                          Yeah?

Greensides:                   I’ve never made a pair of trousers. I do not know the intricacies required to stitch the seams and I do not know how you attach a metal zip to the material. However, it seems that although an average trouser is adequately able to support a comfortable relationship between itself and an individual’s genitals, continuous close contact results in some tender consequences. According to the surgeon, when Oscar bent over it was like pressing a pastry cutter into a soft mound of dough.

            Beat.

And, now, he has a zip in his penis. 

                                   

            Pause.

Boyce:                          Is he okay?

Greensides:                   He’s fine...well, not really.

            Greensides finishes his apple.

                                    I don’t think he can have kids now.

            Greensides throws the apple core into the hole.

            The apple hits Boyce’s head.

Boyce:                          Help me up.   

            Greensides walks to the hole, crouches down next to it and after a few seconds

reaches down into it. 

He pulls up Boyce.

Boyce leans on his sledgehammer.

Greensides:                   This zip, in his manhood, what a thing.

I saw Rita not long ago; bumped into her down Oxford Street - funny how that happens, right? She was visiting Oskar. We ended up going for a drink and she told me all about his condition. I told her it sounded fucking mad, to have a zip like that down there. She swore to God that it was the truth. She admitted that, at first, it became a real issue in their relationship. I mean, can you imagine?

They’re both all right with it now; mostly forget it’s even there. But every so often…Rita said this after a few drinks…every so often when they’re in bed they open it up.

Normally Oskar doesn’t like it being touched…it’s very sensitive you see…he takes quite a bit of convincing. But if Rita lies him down just right, and if she gently pulls it open…

Greensides mimes opening a zip.

It’s like looking into a black hole.