The Heretic

Richard Bean

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849433389
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"I'm a scientist. I don't 'believe' in anything." The study of climate science is the cool degree at the university where Dr Diane Cassell is a lead academic in Earth Sciences. At odds with the orthodoxy over the causes of climate change, she finds herself increasingly vilified and is forced to ask if the issue is becoming political as well as personal. Could the belief in anthropogenic global warming be the most attractive religion of the 21st century. What evidence do we need before deciding on policy? Winner of the 2011 Evening Standard Theatre Best New Play Award.

Act Four

SCENE ONE

(Boxing Day afternoon. Not yet dark. DIANE’s kitchen in the country. Main entrance door up stage centre, which is a stable door design ie: top half opens independently. Open stairs. The back wall has a big picture window, the old barn entrance, through which we see that although it is not snowing now, snow has fallen and drifted. PHOEBE and DIANE sit at the table staring at a Scrabble board. A laptop is plugged in and set beside PHOEBE.)

PHOEBE: Why did you invite that fucking insane racist Mrs. Boston over for Christmas dinner yesterday?

DIANE: Mrs Boston is my mother.

PHOEBE: I need alcohol.

DIANE: We have contracted with Maeve not to drink until it’s dark.

PHOEBE: Uurgh! I bet Boxing Day on a London sink estate isn’t this boring.

DIANE: What would you be doing Phoebe?

PHOEBE: I’d deal some skunk; stick fireworks through a paedophile’s letter box; organise a dog fight in a lock up; watch some porn; buy a gun; get drunk; superglue a tortoise to the railway lines; bomb some amphetamine; go home and have sex with my step dad. Yes! What a fucking brilliant Christmas! But no, I’m middle class, so I play Scrabble.

(PHOEBE lays four tiles to make LIONPERM. DIANE frowns.)

DIANE: Lionperm?

PHOEBE: Ya.

DIANE: What’s a lionperm?

PHOEBE: A hair do. Makes you look a bit like a lion.

DIANE: I challenge.

(PHOEBE opens the dictionary as if to look for lionperm.)

PHOEBE: Lingerie. Lion. Lioness. Lionperm. A hairstyle originating in South Shields remarkable for the mane-like ridge of hair matted with blood and excrement. Triple word. Thirty-nine.

DIANE: Take your tiles back.

PHOEBE: No! I refuse to conform to the rules of this quasi-educational, fascist mind fuck, wank fest.

DIANE: The snow on the tops is drifting.

PHOEBE: Why have we not gone on our walk to Wharram Percy?!

DIANE: It’s getting dark. It’s dangerous. We might die.

PHOEBE: I want to die. I wish your mother had aborted you. And I wish you’d aborted me. I’m never gonna have kids.

DIANE: We can’t recycle the dead.

PHOEBE: This planet cannot sustain an ever growing population.

DIANE: We can walk to Len’s. Give him his presents, pick up half a dozen eggs.

PHOEBE: Len’s is twenty yards?! That’s not a Boxing Day walk. Alright! Anything to get out of here.

(PHOEBE puts her coat and wellies on. Picks up Len’s present – a wrapped bottle of whisky.)

DIANE: If Len says come in for a cup of tea, I’m not going in, he’s filthy.

PHOEBE: Eighty-six-year-old Yorkshire farmers who live on their own don’t floss.

(DIANE puts her coat and wellies on. She picks up a present, a small wrapped block.)

DIANE: What did you get him?

PHOEBE: Whisky. You?

DIANE: Soap.

PHOEBE: Fascist! I hate you.

DIANE: The reasons why we hate each other are many and complex.

PHOEBE: No! I’m an active member of Greenpeace and you’re a gas guzzling planet rapist.

(They leave. DIANE makes a point of locking the door.)

(Off.) Why are you locking the door?!

DIANE: (Off.) Because I’m mad!

(We see them walk off in the direction of the road. Silence. Then the land line phone rings and rings, then off. Someone in ski mask and fatigues approaches the house, looks in the window. He unlocks the door with keys and enters. He closes the door behind him. He locks the door. He has a cursory look around. He takes off his ski mask. It is GEOFF. He is cold. He seeks out warmth. He goes in the fridge, finds something to eat, eats it. He takes all the knives from a knife block, wraps them in a tea towel and puts them inside his jacket. He is distracted by the Scrabble board, takes one look, looks away moves on, stops himself, looks back at it again. Picks up the dictionary, starts to check LIONPERM. The sound of PHOEBE’s voice in the garden.)

PHOEBE: (Off.) That’s what farmers smell like!

DIANE: (Off.) I’m not disputing that.

(Unlocking the door.)

GEOFF: Oh shit!

(GEOFF crouches and runs for the stairs. He disappears upstairs as DIANE is unlocking the door. DIANE and PHOEBE come in. DIANE is carrying a box of eggs.)

PHOEBE: Why can’t we go on our proper walk? You’re punishing me for last night.

DIANE: I will punish you for last night when I can think of something appropriately elegant.

PHOEBE: You deserved to be punched.

DIANE: You have contracted with Maeve to stop punching me.

PHOEBE: No! I have contracted to try to stop punching you. Semantic specificity. You – try to drop this wooden spoon.

(She gives DIANE a wooden spoon. DIANE lifts it up and drops it.)

PHOEBE: I didn’t ask you to drop it, I asked you to try and drop it.

DIANE: You hurt me. I’m your mother.

PHOEBE: When I punch you it is me trying to stop punching you. This is how you try to drop a spo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Epigraph page
• Character
• Set
• Contents
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four
• Act Five