i will still be whole (when you rip me in half)

Ava Wong Davies

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786829269
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

"A tender little green shoot of a piece" Lyn Gardner 1996. A young mother walks out of a small house in Shepherd's Bush and doesn't look back. 2019. A daughter lies in a bath and stares at a crack in the ceiling. Joy and EJ prepare for their first meeting in twenty-two years. They run, they bathe, they inhale, they wait. i will still be whole (when you rip me in half) is the debut play by acclaimed theatre critic Ava Wong Davies: a lyrical interlinking of monologues devoted to blood ties, the cycle of trauma, and what we inherit from our parents.

PART ONE

EJ She kisses like a cannibal.

Her hair is rough. Straw-like through fingers.

There’s a cut on her bottom lip.

I feel it under my tongue.

It is shockingly hot in here.

Skin radiating.

Air close.

It’s difficult to breathe deeply.

I wonder what she does for a living.

When she’s not in basement clubs at four thirty-two a.m. on Thursday nights I wonder what she does with herself.

Slide my tongue under hers.

Fits perfectly.

The room throbs around us.

Pulsing underwater.

Flashes of skin under blue lights.

Teeth bright and white, bared.

Air hot in throats.

Eyes heavy-lidded.

Bodies twist into one.

Small hands knot at the base of my neck.

She’s blonde.

She’s probably in PR.

She has blue eyes.

Bright, bright blue eyes.

Bright, bright blonde hair.

She has the look of a girl who’d be good at baking apple crumbles for her family on the weekend.

Hands grasp the top of my shoulders.

Skin scalds.

When I walked in she gave me a look from across the room.

The first person I saw.

There was a line of sweat on her lip and I thought about wiping it off with the tip of my finger and there was a tug –

Just –

Here.

She gestures to the bottom of her abdomen.

She tucked straw-like hair behind her ears and smiled at me and I –

Just –

Smiled –

Back.

These kisses are volcanic.

She told me her name –

Something like

Lara –

Or –

Anna –

Or –

Alice.

I unstick my body from hers.

Bruises bloom under my lips.

She stares at me.

Blue eyes blazing.

She’s saying something.

I tilt my head.

Her mouth a soft pink smudge.

I want to put my index finger on her bottom lip.

‘

Sometimes I feel like my head is floating two inches above my body.

Sometimes I think there’s a metre between my skin and my organs.

‘

And then all these blurred bodies snap back into crisp-cut lines and sound rushes in like it’s been squeezed out of a vacuum.

She wants me to go home with her.

JOY The egg hits the pan with a hot crack and the edges, milky clear, start to thicken.

A fox screams somewhere and I turn.

My kitchen sink faces onto a window.

And my window faces onto a small garden.

My garden.

Mostly weeds and brambles.

Wildflowers peering through the chaos.

I like it that way.

I like the feeling of thorns raking my ankles.

The perimeter of the sky is a curdled blue. Slightly hazed just above the trees.

It is still dark enough that I can see my face in the glass.

It’s ghostly.

Swimming distorted in frame.

Slightly sickly under the eyes.

That’s genetic.

It doesn’t matter how much sleep I get.

There is a soft, tired ache embedded deep in my temples.

I gently press my middle and index fingers into the blue hollows.

The egg splutters and coughs on the stove.

I unstick it.

It grumbles.

My mother made me fried eggs when I couldn’t sleep.

Just one.

Perfectly formed, every time.

Slipped into a china bowl, dripped with soy sauce, eaten with a spoon.

Salty soft.

When I had to pump in the middle of the night I’d make them.

I can crack an egg with one hand without even looking.

That’s my party trick.

The yolk quivers.

I think about bursting it.

The pan spits oil onto my thumb.

EJ Wrists plunged under the tap.

Face hot.

Feverish.

Splashing water onto cheeks like they do in films.

Music bubbles from underneath the door.

Bathroom lights are cold.

Flattening...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Characters
• Prelude
• Part One
• Part Two