Kid Stakes

Ray Lawler

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781925005523
• eBook ISBN: 9781925210958
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A joyful portrait of the summer of the first doll, in which a chance encounter brings Olive and Emma, Roo and Barney, into the shabby Carlton terrace to begin a seventeen-year journey of seasonal love and argument. Kid Stakes introduces the fun-loving Nancy, who has left the scene by the seventeenth summer, adding a new poignancy to the story.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

A Sunday afternoon in January, 1937.

DICKIE POUNCETT, in his best summer suit, is sitting carefully on the chaise longue, nursing a small, wrapped package. He is in his mid-twenties, city born and bred, with a conscious awareness of grooming and manners. The artistic streak that may have freed him from a too-conventional upbringing has never found true expression, and something of this inner stress of circumstances is indicated by a slight stammer. Physically he is personable enough, and a girl with a more conformist taste than OLIVE would welcome his attentions.

The French windows are open, and after a moment a child’s voice wafts drowsily in from the afternoon mid-distance.

BUBBA: O–o–l–l–y…! I got a bee-ee. I gotta bee, Olly…

EMMA’s voice is heard from the direction of the kitchen.

EMMA: That kid at it again? I’ll murder her. Tell her to get down off the fence, will you?

DICKIE: [a glance towards the French windows] Don’t think she’s on the fence anymore. She’s in her own yard now, I think.

EMMA: Little tinker.

BUBBA: Got a bee, Olly!

EMMA: What she sayin’?

DICKIE: I don’t know. I think she might want to go down the b-b-back.

EMMA: The where?

DICKIE: The—toilet.

EMMA: Oh, that’s nice. If she’s goin’ to start that. Askin’ people to hold her hand—

EMMA comes into view from the direction of the kitchen, carrying some freshly ironed clothes. EMMA is in her early fifties, a determined little figure tackling life on her own terms, and still expecting to get a stranglehold at some time or other. She proceeds to lay the ironed clothes over the banister rail, and calls up the stairs:

Olive—that kid next door. She’s makin’ a nuisance of herself.

OLIVE: [a voice from above] Tell her I’ll be down in a little while.

EMMA: A little while might be too late. [Adjusting garments] I’ve ironed your dress, and them things of Nancy’s. They’re at the bottom of the stairs.

OLIVE: Righto. We’ll get ’em.

EMMA: [suspiciously] You’re not smokin’ up there, are you?

OLIVE: Oh, Mum—

NANCY: [another voice from upstairs] Olive’s helpin’ me to clean my room.

EMMA: Emptyin’ the ashtrays out the window. I can tell, y’know.

She comes into the living room and DICKIE rises awkwardly.

They spray a bit of scent around, and come down suckin’ a couple of peppermints—

She waves DICKIE back to his seat, and starts to tidy a sprawl of books on the table, one of them left open and face downwards, the title of which she inspects.

Can’t do nothin’ ’bout Nance, of course. Law to herself. Only got to look at the books she reads—Tender is the Night—

She slams the open book shut, and places it with the others to one side.

Olive knows the way I feel, that sort of thing. Long as she’s my daughter, livin’ under my roof, she behaves herself. [Projecting her voice towards the upper regions] And that doesn’t mean keepin’ visitors waitin’, while she puffs her head off upstairs.

DICKIE: [apologetically] Maybe she didn’t understand that I was dropping in.

EMMA: She knew. ’Least, she didn’t say ‘sugar’ when I said you was here—which is the usual thing when fellers drop in unexpected.

DICKIE: It wasn’t any definite arrangement. I just mentioned at the store, if it was a nice afternoon—

BUBBA’s voice is heard again from the mid-distance.

BUBBA: O–o–l–l–y—!

EMMA: Oh, that kid. Never stops.

She moves to the French windows.

It’s them silly two she’s livin’ with, of course. [Calling] Bubba, you go in and tell your Auntie Dee or Auntie Maureen—you hear me?!

BUBBA: Want Olive.

EMMA: Olive isn’t comin’ out. So you nick off now. Or I’ll be down there with me big copper stick. [She turns back into the room.] Never should’ve took that kid. Real old maids. Always shovin’ her outside to play, while they pull down the blinds and have a snooze. No consideration in the world for anybody else.

OLIVE speaks from the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Playwright’s Biography
• First Production
• Characters / Setting
• Kid Stakes
• Copyright Details