All the Way Down by Gordon Hunt

This Play is the copyright of the Author, and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent

All the Way Down was first performed at the East Kilbride Rep Festival 2001 by Gadabout Theatre Company with the following cast:

DOCTOR/JIM Dave Bennet
PEG Glynis Poole
MARY/SALLY Michelle Clarke

Directed by Ashley Hope Ross

ACT ONE

Desk and chair right, desk and two chairs left, both angled so that they form a v shape. Lighting should be in three areas, covering each desk and down centre, with a tight spotlight front centre to hit the faces of the actors during their monologues. Projected onto the cyc, the outline of a window.

DOCTOR enters to centre stage.

DOCTOR: You want to escape so you close your eyes. You close your eyes and you keep them closed. Tight. Closed. There are colours on your eyelids. Shapes. Twisting in the dark. You hear noise so you put your hands over your ears. The outside noise sinks down into the roar of your blood flowing. You're escaping. You're cut off. Alone. But it's still there. Nagging. The movement. The sense of air, rushing past you, hitting you in the face. Intruding. Filling your mouth, because your mouth is open, your mouth is open because of the screaming, the screaming that you covered your ears to hide, your screaming. The air is rushing faster, faster, forcing the scream back into your mouth and then you open your eyes you open your eyes and you see it, reach out to touch it then it touches you.

Snap blackout.

Come up on MARY at her desk right, PEG enters.

PEG: Good morning.

MARY: Yes.

PEG: Ah.

MARY: It is.

PEG: What?

MARY: A good one.

PEG: Yes.

MARY: Very.

PEG: I wondered

MARY: Yes?

PEG: The Doctor?

MARY: In many ways a lovely man but you wouldn't want to work for him, well, I mean I would obviously but you wouldn't is what I'm saying, a great bloke but you wouldn't want to sleep with him, well I wouldn't but you might is what I mean, a smashing terrific guy but you wouldn't want to clean his house or feed his cat or walk his dog, well, what I'm saying is I don't think either of us would want that or am I wrong what do you think?

PEG: I

MARY: Too right, I couldn't agree more, well, more or less.

PEG: It's just

The phone rings. MARY picks it up.

MARY: A moment, s'il vous plait, signora. The Tower Road Surgery how may I help yo Jackie, what's up? Yeah, well he always did move a bit fast for my liking slipped on the what? I hope you didn't laugh or he'll never take it out in public again love no problem kid, I'll raid the drugs cabinet later on and bring him something for the pain ta-ra for now.

She puts the phone down and looks at her nails. Pause.

PEG: Miss

MARY: Or Mrs, who can say really, I mean how can you tell, it could be Ms, or even Dr, well, no, not Dr or I wouldn't be sat out here would I, I'd be in there and you'd be asking me to examine your strange and interesting rash or poke your

PEG: Is he in?

MARY: In?

PEG: The Doctor, I was hoping to see the Doctor.

MARY: Can you?

PEG: Can I what?

MARY: See him, I mean, your not blind are you? I mean, he's a Doctor not an optician.

PEG: But I'm not

MARY: You'll excuse me for saying but it's a bit rich you coming in here with an eye problem when there's sick patients waiting, well not actually waiting at this precise moment of course but there will be soon and here's you blind as a bat taking up his time or not taking up his time because I haven't let you in, how can I do that I mean I don't even know your name do I?

PEG: Peg Maloney.

MARY: What?

PEG: Peg Maloney is my name.

MARY: Mary Block.

PEG: I'm sorry?

MARY: My name. Mary Block. Nice to meet you Peggy.

PEG: Peg.

MARY: That's right.

PEG: No, I mean I'm Peg, not Peggy, I don't like Peggy.

MARY: Why, what's she ever done to you?

PEG: No, I mean, look, can I just see the Doctor please?

MARY: Emergency, is it?

PEG: Well, in a way. I have this headache you see

MARY: Stop!

PEG: What?

MARY: Don't tell me your symptoms. I don't like to hear symptoms. Makes me ill to hear about symptoms. Your getting headaches because of your eye problems is all I need to know.

She presses the button on an intercom.

PEG: But I don't have eye

MARY: Patient for you doc, a Peggy McLonely, blind with a possible brain hemorrhage. Sending her in now. Coffee in ten, no sugar today, it's snowing.

PEG: But

MARY: That way.

PEG: I don't

MARY: He hasn't got all day you know.

PEG: Well, thanks.

MARY: Charmed.

As PEG crosses to left the lights fade on MARY and come up on the DOCTOR.

DOCTOR: Good morning, Peggy is it?

PEG: Peg, just Peg.

DOCTOR: Peg. And this is about your eyes?

PEG: No.

DOCTOR: Ah, I thought Mary said

PEG: Yes, but she got the wrong end of the stick, so to speak, Doctor ?

DOCTOR: Tower. John Tower.

PEG: Dr Tower, it's my headaches, that's what I wanted to talk about, my headaches.

DOCTOR: Well yes, Peg, I'm sure it is. You get a pain, right between the eyes, and you focus on that, to the exclusion of everything else, so naturally that's what you want to talk about, naturally. But is that the real problem? Really? Or is there, I ask myself, something more, something deeper? That's what I ask myself, Peg.

PEG: You do?

DOCTOR: Oh yes, I do. Is there a deeper cause, something that nags away at you, something that makes you grit your teeth quite unconsciously I mean, you unconsciously grit your teeth at this deeper problem. If I were a dentist I would examine your back teeth for signs of wear but I'm not a dentist and so we pass on from the teeth gritting to the tension it causes in the jaw, and that tension passes through the jaw past the ears and into the temples and there it becomes an ache, a pain, a throbbing in the blood vessels and it's that throbbing that brings you here to me and you tell me you have a headache, and undeniably you do but tell me Peg, is that the whole story? Is it? Follow that trail back, back down the jaw to the teeth and from the teeth into the nerves and from the nerves into the brain and there we divide our efforts is it the future or the past?

PEG: I don't

DOCTOR: Future or past? Is it about anticipation or reflection? Something you've done or something you will do? Something that's happened or something that will happen? We have to decide, Peg, we have to examine the options.

PEG: I thought maybe some codeine

DOCTOR: I dare say you did. So many people these days reach straight for the drugs. Got a pain? Swallow a couple of these and away it goes. Swallow a bottle and away it goes for ever. I don't deny, they treat the surface problem. But I've never worried too much about the surface problem. Treat the cause, the root cause. I remember a patient once, lost his arm in an accident. Wanted it sewn back on. Right, I said, but before we treat the obvious problem let's delve into the root. Losing an arm. It's so suggestive. Of course it turned out that he'd put his arm into the threshing machine because he was distracted by the affair his wife was having with the milkman and so we delved further into why his wife was having the affair and they were able to get counselling for their intimate problems, and all was well between them. Of course by then it was too late to sew the arm back on

PEG: The pain is making me nauseous.

DOCTOR: Nausea. I see.

PEG: I just want the pain to stop.

DOCTOR: Of course you do.

PEG: So I thought, a Doctor could prescribe

DOCTOR: Oh, we can, we can. We can always prescribe.

PEG: Just something for the pain.

DOCTOR: You see, Peg, you're too linear. You have a pain, you take a drug. You don't see the shadings. The story behind the story. The way everything's connected. To the past and the future. To reaction and anticipation. What are you anticipating, Peg? What is there in the future? Or is it the past?

PEG: I can't imagine.

DOCTOR: I think perhaps you can. (He takes her chin in his hand and looks at her closely) Perhaps you can perhaps you can

PEG: I'm sorry, look, maybe I came to the wrong place but I don't understand what you mean, I can't see what you want from me. All I know is that I have this pain and it won't go away. For days now it hasn't gone away. It's always with me. And when I sleep, when I can actually sleep, there are the dreams

DOCTOR: I've found it necessary on occasions to hypnotize patients in order to get at the cause of their problems. I don't see that being necessary with you.

PEG: Hypnotism?

DOCTOR: Not in this case.

PEG: I just need the pain to stop.

DOCTOR: It will. It will and it will never come back, trust me.

Pause.

PEG: Past.

DOCTOR: I'm sorry?

PEG: You said, was the problem in the past or the future. It's the past. It's done. I can't undo it, it's over and done and I just need the drugs I just need the pain to stop my head to clear I don't need to sort myself out for the future because there is no future, there can't be not now. I just need the pain to stop.

DOCTOR: Ah. I don't take any pleasure in being right, please understand that.

PEG: You'll give me something?

DOCTOR: I'll release you.

PEG: From the pain?

DOCTOR: Oh yes. But you have to tell me.

PEG: The whole story?

DOCTOR: A Doctor is like a priest, Peg. You can tell me anything. It will go no further. It stops here. Your past stops here. Tell me.

PEG: Do you have a child.

DOCTOR: Not to my knowledge although there have been shall we say more than some opportunities for accidents to occur but up to this point a DNA test has not been necessary so no, I do not have a child.

PEG: I do.

DOCTOR: You do?

PEG: I did.

DOCTOR: Ah. Yes. It's as well to be precise, Peg. Be precise about the facts and let the shadows take care of themselves.

PEG: The shadows?

DOCTOR: The shadows that lie behind the facts. That make sense of the facts. That tell us what they mean. Fact you have a headache. Fact you walked into my surgery. Shadows you have a confession to make and I am to be the catalyst. I'm suitably honoured, you know. You had a child.

PEG: Yes.

DOCTOR: I'm guessing here a daughter?

PEG: Yes. How

DOCTOR: A 50-50 chance and I got lucky. There's nothing special about it, no special powers, no magic tricks, nothing up my sleeves.

PEG: My daughter. Sally. Sal. My husband called her Sal. She was fifteen. Not very bright. Not very pretty. Plain, I suppose you'd say. A bit dumpy, maybe. Puppy fat. Popular at school though. My husband, my husband Jim, he adored her.

PEG has moved centre. The lighting fades on the desk and covers centre stage. MARY enters from right she is now SALLY. The DOCTOR enters from left he is now JIM. They bring on chairs which they arrange to form a 'sofa' and they sit on it as if watching television.

JIM: Alright, princess?

SALLY: Yes, Dad.

JIM: How's school?

SALLY: Alright.

JIM: What did you have today?

SALLY: Nothing much.

JIM: Go on, what did you have?

SALLY: Geography. Test.

JIM: Test on what?

SALLY: Countries. Countries and capital cities. General knowledge, y'know.

JIM: How d'you do?

Pause.

JIM: I said how d'you do?

SALLY: Bad. Twenty percent. An 'E' I can't remember 'em, all those names, those foreign names, they won't stay in my head. I'm stupid about names.

JIM: You're not stupid, it's a stupid test. I mean, who cares about names of countries and capital cities, who needs to know that stuff? Don't you worry about it. I'll tell them at that parents' evening, I'll tell them what to do with their stupid tests.

SALLY: Dad

JIM: They just don't know what you can do, they don't know. You can do anything my love, anything at all.

They go back to watching television.

PEG: And he really believed it. She was going to do all the things he hadn't done university, matters of life and death, air sea rescue, brain surgery, prime minister he couldn't see that she wasn't bright. She was a good girl, she just wasn't bright. She wasn't what we used to call remedial you understand, just slow on the uptake. Got there in the end. Teachers had her PEGged down as someone's secretary, receptionist, booking office clerk, definitely something in the clerical bracket. He didn't see it, not at all.

JIM: There's a programme on tonight about airline pilots.

SALLY: So?

JIM: So you could watch it. Might give you some ideas. Good job, that.

SALLY: I don't want to be an airline pilot. Yesterday you wanted me to be a doctor, when we were watching 'ER'.

JIM: Well, that's a good job too. You'd really be somebody with a job like that.

SALLY: Dad?

JIM: What?

SALLY: I know what I want to be.

JIM: You do?

SALLY: Yeah.

JIM: What?

SALLY: Don't laugh.

JIM: What?

SALLY: A mother.

JIM: Eh?

SALLY: Just that. A mother. I want to have kids. Babies. More than one. Two or three, at least. Babies, a family, kids to bring up. That's what I want.

JIM: Well yeah, of course, eventually you'll have to have kids, I mean, your mother and me, we want to be grandparents you know that, but you'll be something else first, you'll go to college, get a good job, like, get some money.

SALLY: But I just want to be a mother. I just want kids.

JIM: After you get a job.

SALLY: But

JIM: After you go to college.

SALLY: Dad

JIM: After.

SALLY: But

JIM: Turn over to Sky, that programme's just starting. About airline pilots. Good job, that is. Pays well. Travel a lot. Good job.

SALLY: Right. Yeah. Travel.

They go back to watching television.

PEG: We didn't even know she had a boyfriend. There was flu going around. We put the sickness down to that. It was me she told. Couldn't face her father. Me. Said it was all she ever wanted. I said how do you think we're going to cope with it, living in a two bedroom flat on the tenth floor of a tower block, how? I don't think she cared. I said to her don't talk to me, (she turns to SALLY) tell your father, tell him now.

SALLY: But Mum

PEG: Just tell him.

JIM: Tell me what, Peg?

[end of extract]

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