ACT ONE
Scene One
Near ROBIN and JENNYās house looking out to sea. Mid-morning.
ROBINās looking through a telescope of considerable power on a tripod.
Heās in shabby yet attractive cut-off jeans; a plaid shirt, ripped; glasses on a chain around his neck; on his feet, battered trainers. Heās wiry and weather-beaten and he moves fast. On a wind-up, battery-free stereo, a tape plays almost inaudibly Neil Youngās āOn the Beachā. ROBIN checks the telescope, humming.
He notes something in a notepad.
ROBIN. Jen. Itās back.
JENNY (off). What?
ROBIN. On the marsh. Jen!
JENNY (off). Where are you?
ROBIN. Down here. Itās clearly on the marsh.
JENNY appears, breathless. Sheās a sixty-year-old; face devoid of make-up bar a little eyeliner; snowy long hair, dishevelled, piled up on top and held with a bandanna.
JENNY. What are you talking about?
ROBIN. You see it? The cheek of it.
JENNY. I have no idea what youāre talking about.
ROBIN. Way out of its range.
JENNY. Why, why are you listening to this out here?
Why are you out here listening to this old rubbish?
JENNY silences the stereo. Immediately a wash of sound, the distant suck of surf, battling gulls, a dredger.
ROBIN. Look, look, out Brancaster way.
Governorās Point.
JENNY. I thought there was a trespasser or something.
ROBIN. You can see it. On Governorās Point.
JENNY reluctantly looks through the eyepiece of the telescope.
You see it now?
JENNY. No. Nothing.
ROBIN. You must see something.
JENNY. Nope.
ROBIN. See it now?
JENNY. No.
ROBIN refocuses it.
ROBIN. You surely see something.
JENNY. See my eyelashes.
ROBIN. Here then.
He adjusts the focus.
Lift it a little, a little.
You see Governorās Point, okay?
JENNY. Hang on. Okay. I see Governorās Point.
ROBIN. What do you notice about it?
JENNY. I notice as usual that Governorās Point is a great big lump of sand in the North Sea.
ROBIN. Ah. Maybe itāsā¦ maybe itās already ā can I see?
He moves her aside.
Couldnāt be a spoonbill.
JENNY. Okay. This is about birds.
ROBIN. Clearly not a grey heron.
JENNY. Up since God knows when because of a bird.
ROBIN. The phone woke me at five.
JENNY. And you didnāt answer it?
Have you even had any breakfast?
ROBIN. Little egret.
They sense the warming. We know that.
But also they come inland as the seas get more turbulent.
JENNY. I donāt have time for ornithology, Rob, I need to get to Lynn ā
ROBIN. Is he there already?
JENNY. He left a garbled message from RAF Lyneham saying he āmightā be there mid-morning, it being Will, nothing more forthcoming than that.
ROBIN. So heās finally here. Everythingās converging.
JENNY. Oh, Robin, Willās simply coming home for a refuel, it means nothing especially portentous, I doubt heāll stay longer than Monday.
ROBIN. Jenny, thereās an event coming; itās building in the Atlantic; probably be with us by the small hours.
JENNY. The forecastās a cloudless day.
ROBIN. That bird knows it. Blown several latitudes north looking for landfall.
When it leaves again, itāll be time.
JENNY. Robin, any storm tonightāll be the accidental meeting of hot and cold air fronts, and if a little egret decides to patronise our marsh, a little egret patronises our marsh and those two matters are entirely unrelated.
Iād better get off.
Could you get his bedroom ready?
Iāve laid out something for lunch and, please please, when he comes, please, no talk of storms and birds and phases.
She looks at ROBIN.
God, itāll be good to see him.
ROBIN. Mmm.
JENNY. Weāre incomplete. Without him.
And I worry about him.
Stuck on that base in the middle of that nothingness.
Never meeting anyone, never travelling anywhere. A man in his thirties.
ROBIN. He has his work.
JENNY. Oh, heās got that all right.
ROBIN. Work of that urgency is pitiless. God, when I was at that pitchā¦
JENNY. Were you really the best of role models?
ROBIN. What?
JENNY. I sometimes wonder whether we harmed him, bringing him up that way?
ROBIN. Oh, Jenny, donāt be daft. Heās a magnificent specimen.
JENNY. Given he was always so bloody biddable. If heād had a sibling at least.
ROBIN. Heās just focused. Full of purpose. From the start it was clear what he was. This is the lad who classified his toys into organic and inorganic matter ā right?
JENNY. Oh God. Fossils set out in the correct chronology. The egg museum.
ROBIN. Shaking me awake to look at the meteor shower.
JENNY. Had to take that telescope out of his bedroom, he barely slept.
ROBIN. If I said such things were God-given, Iād say he was God-given.
JENNY. I just feel his whole life, our whole life has been a preparation for an event that never arrives.
Pause.
ROBIN. Well. Okay. Maybe if Iād had half his tenacity, his application, letting nothing stand in the way of the work, nothing, weād not be where we are now.
JENNY. Oh. Sorry. Did Iā¦ stand in your way?
ROBIN. Oh, Jen. Come on.
JENNY. I hope I didnāt. Stand in your way.
ROBIN. You know you ā
JENNY. Because if I ever thought ā do you actually think that?
ROBIN. You donāt need me to answer that.
JENNY. Donāt I?
ROBIN. Jenny, heās coming home.
It can only mean one thing.
His workās complete.
And if his workās complete, then my workās complete.
JENNY. Right. What work is that, Rob?
ROBINās back at the telescope.
ROBIN. No, thatās no spoonbill, the beakās all wrong. Look at him, mincing across the tidal mud.
JENNY looks at him.
JENNY. Okay. Fine.
Iāll drive to Lynn. Pick up a few things.
You get his room ...