Apples

Richard Milward, John Retallack

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849430982
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Britisches Drama

Adapted for stage, Apples is set on a Middlesbrough council estate, this astonishing piece of writing by 23 year old Richard Milward, is an electrifying collision of Irvine Welsh and Virginia Woolf. Streams of poetic, impassioned and often hilarious words pour from five fifteen year olds as they negotiate a world where the adults are absent, drugs are everywhere, sex is desperate and life is both terrifying and thrilling. A dazzling, tragicomic love story of adolescence based on the astonishing debut novel by Richard Milward. Shameless, ruthless and intensely poetic, Apples articulates what it is like to be young.
Apples was the winner of the coveted Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Award at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The prize is awarded for excellence in the Edinburgh Festival.

APPLES

SCENE 1 — THE BACK GARDEN OF EDEN

All in School Uniform

Cast on chairs

EVE
We found apples in Year Nine
Me and the girls started getting them every other week
from Fairhurst
to take round each other’s houses
and mess around
or hang around the street
All at once everything changed
we weren’t fighting any more
we kissed each other
we said we loved each other
and we had the best fun of our lives
The boys were that much sweeter
school was a lot easier to bear
and we knew something about being happy
that our mams and dads
and the other kids at school
wouldn’t understand

It was about a year back when I lost my pill virginity
I went and lost my other virginity and all
I remember Fairhurst picking me up early from Sydney
Close
I love the name Sydney
if I ever get pregnant, I’d call the baby that
I was meant to be in English with Miss Moore
He slung a clear teeny bag on the dashboard
I saw these tiny white pills with the picture of an apple on
the sides
He asked if I’d ever done ecstasy before
All I could think of was all those girls it had killed on the
news
but it was exciting too
We swallowed one down
Within ten minutes Fairhurst was parked up by Saltersgill
field
I was starting to feel a bit funny
so I got him to switch off the blowers

EVE begins grinding her jaw

In a bit I had the dry mouth and the tingles we learnt about
in Biology
It was exhilarating
Fairhurst stroked my skin and I shivered him up my spine
He turned down the music
for once I felt I could really talk to him
We joked about a load of crap
me getting all flustered and dreamy and open-mouthed
It was a beautiful school day
everything started to get more colourfuller
everything felt like kitten’s fur
Fairhurst looked so gorgeous I wanted to bite his face off
and I wasn’t afraid to
Oh
His hands got quite flirty with me
but he checked I was feeling alright

I started rambling how amazing it was
I think he agreed
He was almost foaming at the mouth
he popped another pill like they were Jelly Tots
I think he was showing off
He was beginning to go for my booby
I knew he wanted to go further
I started saying how amazing it was
and how we were meant for each other
and all that shite

I decided to take the bull by the horn
Which other girl in Brackenhoe
had ever lost her virginity on ecstasy?
I had a few nerves even though the pill was unreal
Then I just slid my legs open

SCENE 2 — ADAM’S HOUSE

Music: The Beatles – ‘Don’t Bother Me’

ADAM
I had to shut the door seven times or else my family dies
I also had to put With The Beatles on a couple of times
only because it’s a good one
Back then they were always crooning
about courting girls and twisting and shouting and that
but all I ever did on the weekends was sit around in a shit
mood

I had it full-blast
though you could still hear my dad
slamming the door on his way out

Every Friday he got lashed after work
He went over the Beechwood Easterside Social
I sat up and pondered if he’d left any drinks in his bedroom

I couldn’t stand being a boring cunt stuck at home
All the kids at school had started to boast about drinking
and doing sexual intercourse
the nearest I’d been was that brandy at Christmas
and wetdreaming myself over the girl with the boobies
at the end of Magical Mystery Tour

I watched out the window
Dad walking along then crossing Deighton Road
the sun lounging in the background and whacking off the
housetops
I had to shut the curtains six or seven times
or else he’d get struck by lightning

My mum wasn’t back yet from work
I spun softly into my parents’ room

It was always frightening going in there
That one time I saw my mum getting changed
was enough to scar me for life

She had yellow skin from smoking too much and tits like
potatoes

They hadn’t even made the bed since this morning
you could still sort of smell the smell

I tried to make it look like I hadn’t been snooping around
too much
but it was difficult having to shut everything five or six times

Delving a bit deeper in one of the drawers is when I found
Razzle magazine

It looked sick
the girl on the front was permed to the max
her teeny tits popping out of this Day-Glo top

Later on in the book
she was naked and all bent over like...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Director’s Note
• Characters
• Contents
• 1 The Back Garden of Eden