Hot Mess

Ella Hickson

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780015156
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A dark and lyrical tale about friendship, loss and loneliness.

Twins Polo and Twitch were born with only one heart between them: where Polo is not looking to be loved, Twitch can do nothing but.

Ella Hickson's play Hot Mess was first performed at the Hawke & Hunter Below Stairs Nightclub, Edinburgh, in August 2010, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Preset

The audience are made to queue outside of the club. On entry they pay or hand in prepaid tickets, and have their hands stamped by JACKS and POLO. A VIP cordon is removed by a bouncer and they are allowed into the club. The DJ plays a short set, contemporary club hits. The audience are free to buy drinks from the bar and seat themselves.

‘She Said’by Plan B plays from the DJ booth. TWITCH enters playing acoustic guitar, she sings an acoustic version of ‘She Said’. Slowly the club version sinks away, so that only TWITCH can be heard. TWITCH sings two choruses, on the second time she reaches ‘stop this crazy talk’, POLO enters, stares at her, smiles. TWITCH stops playing. Removes her guitar and places it at the side. The club lights turn totally blue; we can hear the sound of the sea. The twins are telling us a story.

One

POLO. The island is small; five miles by two, no more.

TWITCH. It sits tucked into the Solent. There is one way on and one way off.

POLO. When you come across the bridge you’ve got two choices:

TWITCH. Left for Northeny – the big houses, the posh bit –

POLO. Or straight on –

TWITCH. You head on the main road into the heart of the island, Mill Ryhthe, Sinah Warren, Mengham, the salon, The Hut. Take West Lane and you end up in West Town which, I suppose, makes sense and beyond all that –

POLO. Well, it’s an island.

Beat.

TWITCH. There’s the sea.

POLO. It comes in from every angle.

TWITCH. It keeps us calm, it holds us tight, it tucks us in.

People that live by the sea –

POLO. Walkers, talkers…

TWITCH. I used to sleep with the boat radio by my bed at night and tune it in to the coastguard. Right through the night, stories swam in from the sea, right into my ears. The great adventures of –

POLO. Mayday mayday, we’ve found a –

TWITCH. Lifeboat men trying to save boys that thought they were bigger than the waves.

POLO. Mayday – we’ve found a – off the coast of –

TWITCH. The sea. It keeps us calm, it holds us tight, it tucks us in.

POLO. She used to say –

TWITCH. That the island would sink with all those stories.

POLO. Like the one they’d always told –

TWITCH. About Polo and me.

POLO and TWITCH approach the DJ booth. They pick up a glass each; TWITCH a tumbler, POLO a martini glass. Both are half full with water. The water stands for the heart throughout the scene. They chink the glasses, the lights change, the sound of the sea stops. A new state. They take a step forward, smile warmly at the audience. Glasses in hands, narration begins again.

POLO. They didn’t know that they were in for a duo.

TWITCH. When they pulled him out, feet first, he bawled himself deathly ’til they cut the cord, ’til they wiped the mess and muck off him. From the second he was free: snip, wipe and wash him down – he simmered, he calmed, he sparkled – it was like the boy could only breathe when he was squeaky-clean.

POLO. They’d only banked on one; they said they’d only seen one.

TWITCH. They said I’d been hiding.

POLO. So they only got my grinner on the screen.

TWITCH. Polo was striking a pose for the ultrasound.

POLO. Sepia; even skin tone. Dream.

TWITCH. Two babies laid on scales.

POLO. A blip in the bureaucracy – there were two and they’d only planned on one.

TWITCH. Polo’s clean by now so he’s stopped crying.

POLO. But Twitch is still covered in –

POLO struggles to say it – he looks at the water in his glass with disgust.

TWITCH. – all that mess and muck. The red and the brown and the slime and the –

POLO. I’m silent and spotless.

TWITCH. I’m bawling and bloodied.

POLO. But there were two.

TWITCH. And nobody had told the heart department.

POLO. Nope.

TWITCH. Twins.

POLO. But only one heart had followed after.

POLO pours all the water from his glass into TWITCH’s glass.

TWITCH. It was the surgeon’s decision: one tiny beating fluttering thing.

TWITCH delves her hand into the water, flutters her fingers about, the water flies everywhere.

POLO. The surgeon, heart in hand, between his finger and his thumb, the little thing, flapping there – straining to break into one chest or another; big call.

POLO cleanly balances the martini glass between his finger and thumb.

TWITCH. He didn’t know what to do, the case was unprecedented.

POLO. Two of us there – gasping for breath –

They gasp.

– in the clean, cold white of the delivery room.

TWITCH. One was red and bawling.

POLO. The other white and silent. And the heart –

TWITCH. ‘The’ did you hear? ‘The heart’. Not his. Not Polo’s.

TWITCH looks longingly at the full glass of water.

Mine.

TWITCH gulps the water greedily, it spills, it dribbles down her chin. POLO, meanwhile, slowly rotates his empty martini glass, a final drip falls onto the floor.

POLO. Twitch’s. She was cup-f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication and Epigraph
• Author’s Note
• Production Note
• Acknowledgements
• Original Production
• Characters
• Hot Mess
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information