Harm

Phoebe Eclair-Powell

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781848429932
• eBook ISBN: 9781788503617
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

When an unhappy estate agent sells a house to charismatic social-media influencer Alice, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. But as her obsession with Alice's seemingly perfect world intensifies, the lines between online and reality become dangerously blurred.

Harm is a thrilling, twisted and razor-sharp comedy on the corrosive effects of social media and isolation. It was first performed on stage at the Bush Theatre, London, in May 2021, directed by Atri Banerjee, with a screen version broadcast as part of BBC Four's Lights Up season.

I am thirty-nine years old

There are these pigeons that have sex on my windowsill and I watch them a little too long sometimes. Trying to remember that feeling – coo – coo.

Breakfast is a Ryvita, not because I’m on a diet but because that’s what’s in my cupboard, that and a tin of tuna, which is just frankly antisocial of a morning. You might as well eat a can of Whiskas.

The bus to work is busy – heaving – and I try to count like the app told me to count as I scroll through photos of other people’s weekends on Instagram – wedding in a field – wild swimming in Shadwell – sourdough – kitten – kitten – heavily filtered selfie – kitten… and breathe…

I tell the WhatsApp group about the rush to work and no one replies – which is fine because they’re mostly all teachers and they’ve been at work for two hours already – dick’eads.

The office is your classic estate agent on a mini high street – next to other estate agents that are posher or crapper – and everything is roughly overpriced or quite frankly a brothel with damp. And we sit and we type and we tell people that this area is becoming very sought after – transport links et cetera et cetera and then we go home. On repeat. And sometimes, sometimes there is a birthday card to sign. My boss Barry – doesn’t even tell me off for the lateness today. He likes me. I once gave him a handjob at a Christmas party because well… It was Christmas and it’s served me really well ever since. Probably more than the degree.

Morning Barry –

See Barry does this thing where he winks and whistles a lot when he’s about to share something exciting, sort of like a party trick but shit – and he’s doing it for ages today – like really going for it, wink whistle wink whistle.

Until finally he parks his sweaty arse on the corner of my desk and says – got a big fucker – got a two-point-one mill – and I think okay… okay Barry good for you – and he says but I’m at the agency expo in Brussels – so it’s all yours –

All fucking yours…

He leans in and says pay me back later.

Wink whistle wink whistle.

And he sends me the details –

And the pictures are… beautiful – the house for sale is a dream house, like a drawing of a house, like a little kid’s idea of the perfect house, there’s a swing and a porch and a rockery and a tasteful little balcony and these rose bushes and I am starting to fall in love with this house…

Thing is – it’s in West Norwood – and before you sniff, Norwood is becoming the new sort of Forest Hill which is like the boring cousin of Brockley – which is the new Nunhead, which itself is like a mini Camberwell – which is the sadder sister of Peckham. Basically it’s leafy and full of smug middle-class couples who care about the environment so open up plastic-free shops but have multiple kids and the average plan on a Saturday night is to eat a very large vegan pizza – and that’s it.

I invite Barry for a drink after work to say thank you – but he has fucking football

Please.

I could do that, there’s an all-women’s team near me called Bend It Like Peckham, fucking fabulous, they stride round Peckham Rye in tiny shorts and large thighs and they’re crap at football, but I watch them having a post-match drink at the local pub, me and my phone, and they look muddy and ruddy and really, really… happy.

When I get home – to my tiny ground-floor flat off the Old Kent Road – I spend all night watching YouTube videos of car accidents. I check up on Reddit, best cheese, worst cheese, foot cheese, people who look like cheese, knob cheese… I am thirty- nine years old.

I send a picture of a wheel of cheese with Jesus’s face on it to my WhatsApp group… and no one replies. I scroll through and realise that I am the only one to have posted anything for the past six weeks. Which is fine… because everyone is very, very busy. I’m busy. We all have very busy lives.

I’m bored so I text Barry

How was football did you lose?

Two little blue ticks

He doesn’t reply

Whatever.

Sometimes… sometimes I don’t brush my teeth before bed and I enjoy the fact that there’s no one there to tell me I smell.

Alice

I show people the house. The beautiful two-point-one-million- pound house.

I stand on the porch by the wisteria which is so very, very in and show shiny beautiful couples around the shiny beautiful house and I smile and they smile – and when I tell them the asking price… they stop smiling – and leave…

But not her – no, she’s special. I know it the second she closes the car door of her expensively shit vintage Mini – it’s yours.

She glides towards me – with her just-fashionable maxi dress and her actual leather jacket – she’s beautiful in a natural, very natural, oh-so-very-engineered-to-be-natural way and she glows like her name might be Honeysuckle, or Tuppence… I bet she owns Kilner Jars.

And I want her immediately.

To suffer something unfortunate.

To be friends with me

Both

I don’t know

I’m shaking her hand

I’m Alice she says

I forget to tell her my name.

The house is a warren of tall ceiling after even taller ceiling and s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Original Production Details
• Thanks
• Harm
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information