Colder than Here

Laura Wade

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849432931
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

"I walked in and she's sat in the coffin. In the middle of the living-room floor and she's - she's watching telly and laughing" Nobody can ignore the fact that Myra is dying but in the meantime life goes on. There are boilers to be fixed, cats to be fed and the perfect funeral to be planned. As a mother researches burial spots and bio-degradable coffins, her family are finally forced to communicate with her, and each other, as they face up to an unpredictable future. Laura Wade's beautifully poised family drama was first performed at Soho Theatre, London.

SCENE 1

A burial ground in the West Midlands. Midday. Mid-September – almost autumn but still warm enough not to wear a coat or carry an umbrella.

The site is young, the trees just a few years old and still spindly. There are no headstones – graves are marked by shrubs or trees with the occasional wooden plaque.

MYRA stands looking around her. She is noticeably thin but surprisingly energetic. She is suffering from advanced secondary bone cancer, but today has little pain.

JENNA, her daughter, aged 27, stands a little way off, a large picnic basket beside her. She wears mostly black, with a long stripy scarf.

MYRA: Here.

JENNA: Here?

MYRA: Yes, I think so. Don’t you think so?

JENNA: I’m not– I don’t know.

MYRA: I think here is good. Flattest bit. Under a tree– I like that, nice and shady. Let’s say here.

MYRA indicates an area on the ground.

JENNA: Fine.

MYRA looks at JENNA. JENNA doesn’t move.

MYRA: Yes?

JENNA: Fine.

JENNA looks around.

MYRA: Bring the basket over.

JENNA: You want to eat here?

MYRA: Yes.

JENNA: You want to eat. Here.

MYRA: Yes, let’s eat, you’ll eat here lots. It’s out of the sun, it’s...

JENNA: It’s morbid.

MYRA: It’s happening, Jen, come on.

JENNA brings the picnic basket over.

MYRA opens the basket and pulls out a large blanket, which she starts to shake out. JENNA looks away.

JENNA: Did you see the. Did you see the baby?

MYRA: No.

JENNA: There’s a baby. Under some holly, a holly bush.

MYRA: That’s lovely. Never dies, that’s lovely.

MYRA is struggling with the blanket.

Could you, um?

JENNA: Yeh.

They lay out the blanket together.

MYRA: Was there a marker?

JENNA: Two months old.

MYRA: Can’t say that’s a good innings, can you?

MYRA sits down and starts unpacking the picnic.

Now. Plates... Are you warm enough?

JENNA: Fine.

MYRA pulls out two plastic plates. She hands one to JENNA. JENNA holds it like it smells bad.

MYRA: Um, forks...

Hands a plastic fork to JENNA.

Napkins...

Hands a napkin to JENNA.

JENNA: Mum, I don’t need a–

MYRA: Have a napkin.

JENNA: I don’t want a / napkin

MYRA: Have a napkin.

JENNA takes it.

JENNA: Serviette.

A look.

Basket smells funny.

MYRA: Found it in the cellar.

JENNA looks at MYRA.

I wiped it, it’s fine. Everything’s in plastic it’ll taste fine.

MYRA looks into the basket.

I brought things you like.

JENNA: I don’t want anything.

MYRA: Sausage rolls, I’ve got sandwiches, posh crisps, Jaffa Cakes, quiche, you might turn your nose up at / that–

JENNA: Bloody hell, mum, this lot don’t eat anymore, you know.

MYRA: You’re picky. Lots of / options.

JENNA: You’re not supposed to be cooking and–

MYRA starts to pull food out of the hamper.

MYRA: I didn’t. Marks. Jaffa Cakes might be a bit own-brand. Lots of sandwiches.

JENNA: I don’t like sandwiches.

MYRA: You don’t– Since when?

JENNA: I woke up one morning and realised I’d been living a lie all my life.

MYRA: Oh for God’s / sake.

JENNA: I’m bored of them. They’re always soggy, people put too much stuff in them, they’re impossible to eat.

MYRA: Sausage roll?

JENNA raises her eyebrows.

Vegetarian sausage roll.

JENNA: Not a sausage roll, then, is it?

JENNA takes a sausage roll and starts to pick at it.

MYRA: Know what I hate about sandwiches? When people say the D. SANDwiches.

JENNA: SANDwiches. Samwidge.

MYRA: Exactly. Not SANDwich.

JENNA looks around her, eating her sausage roll.

There isn’t one.

JENNA: One what?

MYRA: Toilet. You’re looking for a toilet to go to after you eat that.

JENNA: I’m not. (A look.) I don’t. Mum, I don’t.

MYRA: How would I know?

JENNA: I don’t do that anymore.

MYRA opens a sandwich and starts to eat it.

There is one, anyway.

MYRA: Jen–

JENNA: What? Just a point of information – there’s one by the caretaker’s house. I happened to see it on the way in.

MYRA: You were looking.

JENNA: No, I just– we were driving in and I saw it and I though ‘oh, a toilet, you need a toilet, all the old biddies that come here’. It’s not a toilet I wa...