The Awkward Years

Matthew Bulgo

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786826695
• eBook ISBN: 9781786826725
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Lily's like a lot of other 20-somethings - working a dead-end job, stuck in a cycle of one-night stands and not where they expected to be at the age of 27. Her friends all feel like their lives are falling apart…except Lily's really is. Can she stop the rot before she crumbles away to nothing? The Awkward Years will fuse a muscular text with frenetic movement and an evocative sound and lighting design to produce a breakneck-speed show about grief, hope and staying alive.

/SHIFT/

LILY

When it comes out, it’s just liquid and it burns.

Wipe my mouth and wait for the second wave…doesn’t come so I, I just sit on the toilet and I…

Let my head slump back against the wall and it’s only then I clock my ’phone buzzing against the porcelain.

Reach ’round, third time lucky and I –

Love?

Are you there, love?

Can you hear me?

beat, she looks around trying to work out where and when she is…

I keep her dangling there on the other end. Or maybe it’s me, maybe it’s, maybe I’m the one that’s dangling.

If you’re there love you don’t have to talk. Not if you don’t want to. We just wanted to know you were okay so…

…

Are you okay?

Mouth moves but the words get, they get caught, they never make it to the –

And what about work? Your dad’s still not sure you should’ve gone back so soon, neither am I to be honest, I mean if it’s money that’s a problem, you don’t need to worry, we can cover your rent, you just need to ask, you just need to say.

The tiles are cold. I lift my feet onto the seat.

We were thinking maybe we could come down and visit? Or you could? You could come up here, we’d like to see you, see how you are –

I scrape the nail varnish off my toes until there’s nothing left.

Is there anything you need, anything we can get for you, even if it’s just –

When the words arrive, they come in fits and starts:

Can I – can I call you back – it’s just – I can’t – I’ve only just woken up so –

I never get to the other end of that sentence –

It’s the afternoon, love. It’s 2 o’clock.

beat

I stop picking at my nails and I start picking at the paint flaking off the wall. I pick hard and the plaster comes with it too. I pick until there’s a hole the size of my fist and I imagine how it would feel to climb inside when it blindsides me –

Have you been to see Jamie?

beat

It might help if you went and talked to him, if you just did that.

/SHIFT/

Wake up shaking, ’phone still in my hand.

Dig my nails into my thighs and squeeze. Watch the marks fade and go.

See the stamp on my hand, another on my wrist, smudged, like bruises. Try and piece the night together but it comes apart before my mind has a chance to grip. Scrub myself under the hot water until my hand’s pink and raw but when I dry it off they’re still there, I can still see them.

Getting back to my room is a mission, bounce down the hallway, wall to wall, and when I open the door it smells like someone’s doused the place in cheap whiskey. I wish I had a match.

Take down a pint of water in one. Feel it cold inside me. Feel it move through all my tubes.

Flop down onto the bed and something stirs.

There’s a…there’s a penis poking out from under the sheets and it looks like a little, like a little…sweaty…acorn and that makes me feel a bit – so I – I cover it back up and I –

I try to remember his name, I’m not even kidding – Justin, Jason – something at the centre of my brain throbs harder and faster so I…just stop thinking.

He sorta stirs, sorta turns in his sleep, I pull back the covers and – from behind he could be…but he’s not…he’s –

/SHIFT/

When my eyes open he’s gone and I’m sort of grateful. Hear the TV in the living room.

See the condom box on the bedside table, see he’s written his number on the little flap. Classy.

Jackson? Jackson! Should’ve remembered that.

Dry-swallow ibuprofen with one hand, save his number with the other – (to herself) Jackson?!

beat

Out of, I don’t know, sheer boredom I text him. I get as far as ‘Hey’…and then I think fuck it so I just send that.

I think about standing up. I don’t. I just sit on the edge of the bed.

’phone vibrates, text, him.

It is…entirely made up of emojis. A small round face that’s either sweating or crying, three aliens, and a pair of hands that look like their doing Nazi salutes.

I just can’t help myself:

(texting) ’I’m – sorry – I – don’t – speak – moron.’

He texts straight back.

Another emoji. A small round face, laughing.

I delete his message. I delete both his messages. Then I delete him.

beat

Check Facebook, check Twitter, check Instagram.

I think about masturbating…but I really can’t be fucked so I check Facebook again.

I stalk school mates, uni friends, complete strangers, scroll through photos of meals, date nights, weddings, babies, first houses, blessed, just saying, so lucky, fuck you, fuck you all.

When I get up the blood pumps in my ears at a cool 200 beats per minute. I scooch up, smoke out the window. I smoke some more. I don’t smoke.

Get the guilts, do a couple of sun salutations, get winded pretty easy so I think fuck this for a game of soldiers and I just lay there face-down on the floor and feel the carpet, rough, against my cheek –

And that –

/SHIFT/

Smell wakes me up like a brick to the face – smoke and booze, mould and sex. Febreeze the shit out of…everything, makes it worse – obviously – so now I’ve got no choice but to get up, to just get up and get out.

Bills on the doormat. I step over them and pad into the living room.

You look like shit. She doesn’t take her eyes off the telly.

I think about saying…something. But she’s right, I do, so I don’t.

Kelly shifts her legs and I curl into one end of the sofa. She’s texting with one hand, eating a pizza crust with the other and then totally nails a question on Roman mythology before I’ve even had a chance to –

See her giving me side-eyes but she’s not saying anything. She knocks the telly off, walks across the room ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The Awkward Years