Stories Read online

  Nina Raine

  STORIES

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Original Production

  Dedication

  Characters

  Stories

  About the Author

  Copyright and Performing Rights Information

  Stories was first performed in the Dorfman auditorium of the National Theatre, London, on 18 October 2018 (previews from 10 October). The cast was as follows:

  ANNA

  Claudie Blakley

  FELIX/TOM/LACHLAN/

  DANNY/CORIN/RUPERT

  Sam Troughton

  JOE/PETE/JAMES

  Brian Vernel

  PAUL/DAD

  Stephen Boxer

  BETH/JULIE

  Thusitha Jayasundera

  MOTHER/NATASHA/JENNY

  Margot Leicester

  GIRL

  Sylvie Erskine

  Beau Gadsdon

  Katie Simons

  Director

  Nina Raine

  Designer

  Jeremy Herbert

  Lighting Designer

  Bruno Poet

  Music and Sound

  Alex Baranowski

  Movement Director

  Jane Gibson

  Voice and Dialect Coach

  Charmian Hoare

  Staff Director

  Piers Black

  To Misha, Jack and Mo

  Characters

  ANNA, late thirties

  FELIX, late thirties. Art dealer

  JOSEPH, late twenties. Anna’s brother

  DAD, Anna’s dad

  MOTHER, Anna’s mother

  TOM, middling twenties. Anna’s ex-boyfriend

  GIRL, between six and ten years old

  LACHLAN, Irish. An actor. Late thirties

  DANNY, London. A DJ and musician. Late thirties

  CORIN, a film director. Fifties

  JULIE, an acquaintance of Anna’s. Australian. Fifties

  BETH, Anna’s close friend. Early forties

  PAUL, a house-husband. Thirties

  RUPERT, a graphic novelist

  JENNY, a counsellor

  PETE, Rupert’s boyfriend

  JAMES, thirties. Nondescript accent

  NATASHA, Russian. Eighties

  Plus, voice of ZACH, Anna’s brother

  Many of the characters are doubled – and this is partly the point.

  This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

  Scene One

  40

  A slightly bare kitchen with lots of pieces of modern art, but rather than being hung on the walls, it is mainly stacked in piles against the skirting. A few sculptures placed here and there.

  ANNA wanders around looking at them, unsure whether to sit down or not, while FELIX watches her. ANNA looks up, taking in the height of the room.

  ANNA. Yes. It is quite batch, isn’t it?

  FELIX. Mm. It’s not really my style, but it belonged to some banker who did it up and… he wanted a bachelor pad… so…

  ANNA. Hence the polished concrete.

  FELIX. And LED lights, and…

  ANNA. Fridges…

  FELIX.…Yes… But then almost immediately he met a woman, had a baby and… not a bachelor any more. So he put it on the market.

  ANNA looks a bit at the art.

  ANNA (kindly). The art warms it up a lot.

  FELIX. Oh good.

  ANNA. These…

  She indicates some copper containers.

  Are they art?

  FELIX. Not really, I got them at auction, you just end up buying stuff. They’re for petrol I think, to tell you you really are buying a gallon and so on.

  Beat.

  At least someone like Paul Mellon had a cultural intelligence. Some of these Russian oligarchs it’s really, it’s very depressing, it’s, let’s just buy another fifty Damien Hirsts kind of thing. They’re just plundering. Oil in Russia, a Damien Hirst, it doesn’t matter to them.

  ANNA is producing a small Carluccio’s bag. She takes some gingerbread men out.

  ANNA. Well, I bought these from Carluccio’s to give a festive feel.

  They laugh.

  FELIX. Oh, gingerbread men, lovely… Do you want a cup of tea?

  ANNA. Oh yes.

  Are you having one?

  FELIX busies himself with the kettle.

  FELIX. No.

  ANNA. I don’t really need one…

  FELIX. No, no…

  FELIX gets a cup, teabag, etc.

  It was good, actually, going to get tested, apparently my hep-C vaccination’s about to expire. Anyway I’m fine for anything up to the last six weeks.

  Beat.

  ANNA (curiously).…Have you had action in the last six weeks?

  FELIX. I have, but very very safe.

  ANNA. Wow, action in the last six weeks, well done, you!

  FELIX. Well…

  ANNA. I haven’t had action in the past year.

  ANNA gets a newspaper out of her bag.

  I bought something to read…

  Pause.

  …Um, Felix – where do you want me to go?

  FELIX galvanises himself.

  FELIX. Yes. What I thought was, I’ll go in the bathroom, with some porn. And you can… the bedroom’s just here.

  He indicates a door, off.

  ANNA. Oh great. So I’ll just lie down and read the paper sort of thing?

  FELIX. Grand. And then I’ll bring it in and… you do your stuff. I’ve got to head out actually. So I’ll just leave you there.

  Take all the time you want.

  ANNA. That’s brilliant.

  …Actually, could I have a towel?

  FELIX. Yes, yes of course…

  Let me go and…

  He goes off, speaks from off.

  Sorry, the room’s a bit of a mess…

  …My friend was staying… I have changed the sheets…

  ANNA (half to herself, she is busy looking through her bag again).…Oh, thank you…

  FELIX (from off). Actually, I got some flowers. Daffodils.

  ANNA. Oh, how lovely.

  FELIX comes back in. She turns to him questioningly with some syringes in plastic packaging.

  I don’t know what size…?

  Syringe?

  How much do you normally…?

  FELIX. Well it depends, really, on how turned on I am.

  ANNA picks up one of the metal containers.

  ANNA. Not a gallon then.

  FELIX (remembering).…Your tea!

  He makes to resume tea-making, ANNA looks at her watch.

  ANNA. Actually, Felix – I’m a bit worried, actually, about time – do you think we ought to just – ? I can skip the tea.

  FELIX abandons tea-making.

  FELIX. Yes, yes of course. Of course! I’ll go in there.

  ANNA. I don’t mean to be bossy…

  FELIX. No no. I’ll get on with it.

  As he goes out.

  Help yourself to anything you want.

  ANNA. Thank you.

  We hear the fan turn on as he goes into the bathroom and switches the light on, closes the door.

  ANNA is left on her own. She looks around at the art a bit more. Looks off towards the bathroom. Surreptitiously listens to see if she can hear any noises. She can’t. Then she hesitantly goes off into the spare bedroom with her bag and newspaper. The room is left empty.

  Scene Two

  39

  ANNA sits with her brother, JOSEPH. They are scrolling through a website on a laptop which they pass between one another. When ANNA taps away, JOSEPH cranes over her shoulder.

  Their DAD sits nearby, sim
ultaneously engrossed in his own laptop and an open book beside him. Occasionally he throws comments into the mix but largely stays focused on his work.

  JOSEPH. Fucking hell, that’s a bit expensive.

  ANNA. Well there’s no point doing the cheap one because then you don’t get to see their photos.

  JOSEPH. Right. So you do a search…

  ANNA. Yeah… ‘UK-compliant’ because it’s based in America… (Filling in details.) Any height, you think, right?

  JOSEPH. Well. Beggars can’t be choosers.

  ANNA. No, I think it’s when you’re a beggar that you should get really choosy.

  DAD (half to himself). It’s when you’re selling the Big Issue you should turn vegan.

  ANNA. Race… what should I put?

  JOSEPH. ‘Any’? ‘All’?

  ANNA. Well what I’d like, in an ideal world, to maximise the genetic pool, is go for a Nigerian or something but apparently you’re not allowed.

  JOSEPH. Seriously? Not allowed to go black?

  ANNA. No. If you’re white Caucasian you can’t go for black, Asian, Chinese…

  DAD. This is fucking racist.

  ANNA. They think the kid would be fucked up because it would be looking at you thinking, ‘Why am I black when Mummy is white?’

  DAD. Most people on the bus are thinking that.

  JOSEPH. That’s life, isn’t it? ‘Why am I thin when Mummy is fat, why am I thick when Daddy is clever…’ It’s crazy… I mean, I don’t look anything like Mum or Dad.

  ANNA. Yes you do.

  You look like Dad.

  DAD. / He looks nothing like me.

  JOSEPH. /… So unfair! Fuck you.

  ANNA. You’ve got his jaw.

  JOSEPH. / Fuck off!

  DAD. / Fuck you!

  JOSEPH feels his jaw.

  ANNA. Anyway. I’m going to do a search on all races.

  She taps at the laptop.

  The more the merrier.

  She taps away busily.

  I mean how can they check that I’m white? If I just buy the sperm, who’s going to be checking?

  JOSEPH. That’s the first white thing you’ve done. You’ve bought the sperm.

  Some results come up with a ping.

  ANNA.…Christ…

  JOSEPH. What?

  Beat.

  ANNA. Only thirty matches.

  That are UK-compliant and open-identity.

  JOSEPH. Open-identity?

  ANNA. Willing to be contacted by the child.

  JOSEPH looks.

  (Winded.) Fucking hell. Only thirty. Jeez.

  JOSEPH. Maybe that’s because not many want to be contacted…

  DAD looks up from his laptop.

  DAD. Have you taken Daisy out yet?

  ANNA. No.

  DAD. Well someone needs to take her out for a pee. Are you staying for supper?

  JOSEPH. No. We’ve got to get back to London.

  ANNA (still engrossed in the laptop). Some of these have good intelligence scores…

  DAD. Piss. Who believes ‘intelligence scores’? Philip Tate got a first-class degree – thick as shit! – and a cunt.

  ANNA. Well, that’s what I’ve got to go on.

  DAD (rousing himself). Look. Isn’t the whole point to do it with someone interesting? Interesting genes? At least Tom was bright.

  ANNA. But he left me.

  DAD. I know, so fuck him. (Gestures at her laptop.) The trouble with this is, you don’t know what you’re getting. What kind of genes. How are you going to know what these people are like from a website? You can’t meet them, can you?

  ANNA. No.

  ANNA is already deep in the profiles. JOSEPH looks over her shoulder. The list that comes up does not show any photos – you have to click on a folder to open the photos.

  DAD. You need to see what people look like –

  ANNA. There are photos.

  DAD. – looks can give you a very approximate, not foolproof, but good indicator of what you’re getting –

  JOSEPH. Dad, there are photos –

  DAD (obliviously). There’s a reason that murderers are cross-eyed and have low brows, it’s nature’s way of warning you, and then of course you get Picasso, little and delicious with piercing sexy eyes – but with a sperm bank, it’s a spunk in the dark.

  ANNA and JOSEPH (in unison). There are photos!!

  ANNA. – I mean, some of these are fantastic racial mixes… This one’s Chinese, Cherokee, Afro-Caribbean. Sounds gorgeous. Maybe the baby’ll just be a bit tanned.

  She clicks on the photo folder. Beat.

  JOSEPH. / Definitely black.

  ANNA. / That is a very black man.

  ANNA gets up in frustration.

  The crazy thing is, in life, who’s going to stop me going to a barber shop in New Cross and having a one-night stand with a Nigerian?

  JOSEPH. The dudes in the barber shops are picky…

  ANNA.…And yet, this way, you’ve got to choose someone with the same fucking eye colour and do therapy and counselling to show you’re not fucking mad…!

  JOSEPH has gone back to the list.

  JOSEPH. Well, you are fucking mad…

  What about six-foot-four, / Welsh –

  DAD. / Too tall. Won’t be clever. Tall people aren’t clever.

  JOSEPH. – Welsh, German, Israeli, twenty-two years old.

  ANNA. Mm, sounds good.

  JOSEPH clicks on the photo folder. They crane. Pause. He clicks again, through a few photos.

  (Grudgingly.) Well – he’s white…

  …look at his T-shirts…

  JOSEPH.…He must really like Nirvana…

  ANNA. Why is he by a dumpster?

  JOSEPH. You’ve got to ask questions when someone’s best photo is them by a skip.

  ANNA. I suppose he is only twenty-two.

  He carries on clicking.

  JOSEPH. Look. You can look at their letter to the child.

  ANNA takes over, clicks.

  ANNA. ‘A letter from Donor 21420.

  When you read this I hope it will help you know a bit more about who I am and answer some questions you may have.

  JOSEPH nods, un-judgementally.

  First of all you might want to know why I did this. I believe the gift of life is the best gift one person can give to another. My mother is the most important person in my life to me and if I can help someone become a mother I feel I’m giving something back to her.’

  ANNA has become tearful.

  Oh my God.

  JOSEPH. Yeah…

  ANNA struggles with herself, then –

  ANNA. Oh my God… It’s so amazing that this… twenty-two-year-old can…

  DAD. Write so badly?

  ANNA. No!! Do this amazing thing, take this leap into the dark… they have no idea where their sperm’s going to end up…

  DAD. Typical twenty-two-year-old. Irresponsible.

  ANNA. And Tom…

  JOSEPH.…Fucking twat, goes out with you for three years, and hasn’t got the fucking balls… literally…

  DAD. Fair enough. I don’t blame him. I didn’t want a child when I was Tom’s age. I didn’t want a child when we had you, Anna.

  ANNA blinks the tears back, carries on reading…

  ANNA. ‘I am proud to say I was captain of the baseball team for two years in high school, physical exercise has always been important to me and I go kayaking every other day.’

  Her tone has shifted from tearful to uncertain.

  JOSEPH. Hmmm.

  ANNA.…It’s sort of turning into a UCAS form, isn’t it?

  JOSEPH. What’s his IQ?

  ANNA.…I don’t think he’s got a very high IQ, Joe.

  DAD. I told you. Too tall.

  ANNA clicks and scrolls.

  ANNA. Why do they all go on about sport? What is it about sport and sperm donors? Can’t any of them read a book??

  DAD. No. They’re all wanking into cups.

  JOSEPH (reading off the screen). ‘M
y all-time favourite book is The World According to Garp.’ Maybe Mum would be good to help choose…

  ANNA. Mum? Why Mum? Mum thinks everyone is wonderful. Even when I was twenty-five and I had all the time in the world – you say I’m going out with Jugsy and I’ve found out he’s a cokehead and he’s been cheating on me and he’s massively in debt and she says Anna are you sure you’re not just being picky now?

  DAD. She’d marry you off to a serial killer.

  JOSEPH (trills). ‘Mmm, he’s so nice, he’s got a beautiful cellar.’

  DAD gets up.

  DAD. Look. What about asking a real person. What about Nico? Intelligent, good-looking –

  ANNA. Oh, God, Dad, no, not Nico – !!

  DAD. Why not?

  ANNA. He’s so obviously fucked up.

  DAD. I like him. He’s a smoker.

  JOSEPH. He’s toxic!

  ANNA. Complete philanderer, must be over fifty –

  DAD. So what?

  ANNA. Well I read that the sperms – the chances of autism and Asperger’s, there’s a link, over forty –

  DAD. Bollocks! Are you saying my sperm wouldn’t be up to it?

  JOSEPH. Your sperm is dust, people could snort it.

  DAD. I’m always trying to give my sperm out at cocktail parties. What are you saying, all my sperm have grey pubic hair, need a Stannah Stairlift?

  ANNA. Just google it. There’s a definite link.

  …I mean, if anyone, I was thinking, what about Patrick?

  DAD. Patrick?? Christ, no! Why?

  ANNA. Well, come on, Dad, he’s a talented composer.

  DAD. He’s not a talented composer –

  ANNA. The kid might be musical –

  DAD. The kid will be bald! You can’t do it with a bald man! I’ve seen Patrick without his top on. Seems to be tearing all that hair off his head and putting it on his back. Plus, he’s my age! What about his autistic sperm?

  JOSEPH. Worth it for the musical genes?

  DAD. He could die tomorrow! Or he could carry on writing terrible operas for the next twenty years!

  ANNA. But what they miss, these kids, is the balance of two parents. Even if we’re both insane, we’ll be insane in different ways –

  DAD. Nah, and he’s one of those puffy-eyed Scots – why would you do it with him?