How My Light Is Spent (NHB Modern Plays)

Alan Harris

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781780019000
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Every Wednesday evening, Jimmy calls Kitty. For precisely nine minutes. At £1.20 a minute.

Jimmy is thirty-four, lives with his mum and works at Newport's only drive-through doughnut restaurant. Kitty is an adult chatline operator, living in the granny flat of a topiary enthusiast. Things were looking up for Jimmy, but then he loses his job and he begins to disappear, starting with his hands.

Will this unlikely duo succeed in turning each other's world upside down?

How My Light Is Spent is a funny, hopeful play about loneliness, longing and being left behind. Winner of the Judges' Award in the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, it premiered in 2017 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in a co-production with Sherman Theatre and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick.

Kitty, my hands have disappeared.

Pardon?

I woke up this morning and they were… In the night I could feel them seeping away. I woke up, held them up to the light shining through the blinds and there they weren’t.

But how are you holding the, you know, phone?

I can still touch. But they aren’t there. They’ve gone.

How do you feel?

Frightened.

And it’s just your hands?

Do you think they’ll come back?

Must admit, this is the first time, to be honest, you’ve thrown me a bit.

Not the reassuring answer I was hoping for.

You got to admit I’m not really qualified –

What’m I going to do?

Jimmy, no offence, but I’m a phone-sex worker –

But you’re going to be a psychologist, you said.

Maybe put the phone down and try calling one-one-one?

When did Jimmy start to disappear?

This isn’t just about Jimmy, there’s Kitty –

And there’s Mallary, altruism, robbery and losing your place in life and living with your mother, aspirations –

Turning invisible.

Fine. Okay. It started when Jimmy was at, uh, the start of it, I suppose, was at the drive-through doughnut –

No. Before that.

Getting the sack? Again.

Before that.

Ummm –

Masturbation.

Ahhh right. Fair enough, it goes back to that.

At precisely 7.30 p.m. on an unusually warm night in November, Jimmy picked up his Samsung Galaxy and –

Jimmy had considered having phone sex for a while.

In place of real sex?

Not really ‘in place of’ because the last time was, uh, a while ago.

He was, actually, quite nervous.

But quite erect.

A thirty-four-year-old man sitting in his mother’s house in Newport –

Rita, his mother, was out –

She goes to the Salvation Army on Stow Hill; you know, the one next to the pet shop that has lizards in the –

She’d often try to get Jimmy to go with her –

God serves up a taste of hope for needy souls, Jimmy; there’s free samples every Sunday.

Wednesday night was choir night at the Sally Army.

Jimmy was just glad to have the house to himself.

He set up the phone next to the bed.

Along with the business card he’d found in a phone box in Newport –

(One of the very few phone boxes in Newport town centre to still have a working phone in it.)

And a roll of toilet tissue.

Not exactly Andrex but soft enough and strong enough –

When Kitty answered the phone –

Good evening, this is Kitty –

He was already on the verge.

What should I call you?

Jimmy, the night before, had watched Troy on Film 4.

Umm, Hector.

From Kitty’s point of view what followed was all very typical. Little did she know this was the start of a story for her too.

What you wearing?

Um, underwear. Bra, panties, you know?

What colour are they?

Red.

Has the thong got a lace trim?

Uh, yeah, it’s very lacy.

You know I like those on you, right?

I knows it.

I need you to grab your titties.

Slow down, big –

Can you lick your own nipples?

I’ll give it a go –

My hands are gliding across your skin. Tell me how they feel.

They feel good, they feels so, so good.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Now, I need you to take your right hand and start playing with yourself. Can you do that for me, babe?

I’m doing it, I’m doing it.

You wet?

I got a lady boner.

Okay, I want you to –

Standard stuff.

Kitty was not wearing a thong.

She was, in fact, wearing sensible underwear.

The tracksuit she was wearing was not lacy.

She was definitely not ‘wet’.

She did not have a lady boner.

While clients thought of her, Kitty thought of the cash.

She hated being called ‘babe’.

Jimmy rang the sex line every Wednesday at 7.30 p.m.

The same line.

While his mother belted out ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ on Stow Hill –

Speaking to the same woman. Kitty.

I know, not a particularly seductive name.

Kitty.

She felt it sounded vaguely exotic without being too threatening.

Kitty had built up a regular clientele:

Dennis was a Thursday as his wife had joined a netball team in an attempt to recapture her school days.

Maxi had access to a phone line working nights on security at Tredegar House.

(He would eventually be sacked after they got a two thousand and seventy-eight pound phone bill for the quarter.)

Jimmy was every Wednesday at 7.30 p.m.

It always started the same way.

What you...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Original Production
• Note on Play
• How My Light Is Spent
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information