The Trick

Eve Leigh

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786827302
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gerontology
• Index: Social Sciences

Mira's husband, Jonah, died seven months ago, but that doesn't mean that either of them are ready to let him go. For most of her life Jonah has been Mira's reason to get out of bed in the morning. So when he does his final disappearing act, Mira can't quite believe her eyes. She knows she should be moving on. And yet, Mira finds herself caring less and less about the world outside. The Trick is a magic show about the parts of life we don't talk about – the realities of getting older and coming to terms with loss. Ghosts, goldfish, mediums, and sleight-of-hand collide in this unpredictable exploration of ageing and grief by Eve Leigh

A stage, empty apart from a goldfish in a goldfish bowl, on a low bench.

1 enters.

She acknowledges the audience.

She feeds the fish.

She is delighted by its gobbling little face.

She plays with it, a bit.

She scoops it out of the water with her bare hands.

She cradles it in her hands.

She drops it on the floor with a little splash.

We watch it die.

It takes as long as it takes.

It is gasping.

It is dead.

She scoops it off the floor.

She puts it back in the bowl.

She waits for it to move.

It doesn’t.

She taps the side of the glass.

Nothing.

Again.

And again nothing.

She taps the side again, peering into the bowl, staring intently at the goldfish.

The goldfish comes back to life. It swims around happily.

It’s obviously a toy of some sort.

She grins at the audience.

She inclines her head modestly. She encourages the audience to applaud.

A beat.

1 : I must be honest, I’m not sure I can tell you when it started.

The other actors enter. At first only the women speak.

1: It could have started with the fire, but that’s obviously too late.

2: Maybe when I started wearing reading glasses, but that’s early, that’s – that doesn’t really feel like when it began.

1: No, that’s, just, reading glasses, that’s just a part of life, isn’t it?

3: First grey hairs?

No, too early.

1: For me I believe it started when men stopped offering to buy me drinks in public places.

2: When I started being nervous on the stairs.

3: When I came out the womb I started getting older.

2: No, no, well, I suppose menopause is an obvious place to start.

3: When my dad’s spunk hit my mum’s egg and my first cells started dividing, yeah, that’s when it started, ever since I’ve just been getting older.

1: When I saw him again after he had been dead for seven months.

2: When it hurt to get out of bed in the morning, no, too early,

1: I think it’s probably hurt to get out of bed in the morning since I was a teenager, no.

3: When I started receiving my pension? No, that’s stupid.

2: Free bus fare?

3: Oh, please be quiet, you’re embarrassing me.

1: Maybe it was when I started to be able to say what I thought and I knew no one would –

2: not mind –

1: no, it’s not that they wouldn’t mind, it’s just that they’d think I was… “feisty” or…

2: Or an arsehole, or…

1: Yes, an arsehole, but not relevant enough –

3: not important enough, not meaningful enough

2: to be rude to.

1: It was the way people started speaking to me at work. The way they’d be polite to me.

2: Maybe it was once I had children, maybe that was the beginning.

3: Maybe it was after the divorce.

2: Maybe it was once we bought the house and I had to – I’m very lucky obviously, I’m incredibly lucky, but you just start needing to make different decisions once you have a mortgage to keep up, I know it sounds stupid but I think, if I’m honest, yes, you could start there as well as anywhere else.

The only man speaks.

4: For me –

Everyone waits.

4: For me it was a conversation I had with,

a delicate – conversation –

with this very young, junior doctor,

who was explaining the decision not to treat my prostate cancer.

…

She said it grows very slowly,

the treatment, is,

awful, the treatment is really painful,

and often it doesn...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Chapter 1