Elephants (NHB Modern Plays)

Pound Family Home.’ Pictures of our holidays, years back – they’ll find a way to get hold of them. Whack them up on the website next to a picture of Kim Kardashian’s armpits. Slip Valerie and Dick a few hundred quid / for a quote.
DICK. Hey!
DAISY. They’re going to rip the rotting carcass of our family life apart, and they’re going to shit all over it. And, Mum – nice hair. Just had that done, did you? They’ll love that. Symptom of your total fucking wrongness. ‘Off at the salon as her junkie son lay dead.’ ‘Middle-class malaise.’ ‘Tip of the iceberg.’ Big think-piece. Editorial. We’re all on trial, the lot of us. And your little fairy-princess-castle-Jesus-hero story might be fooling everyone now, but come January, it’s over. And you need to fucking face up to that. (Running out of steam.) You have to face up to things. They – they say in the clinic… you have to – face it all. Or you get more hurt.

and took me outside and tried to make me feel better by giving me a Strepsil. Which was a bit weird.

Mum planted snowdrops in the garden for you. A whole bed of them.

Well, I said – it was quite hard. But I just said some words about you. Like, a sort of a free-association thing. Happy words, like ‘cricket’. ‘Fajitas.’ ‘Zorro.’ ‘Blond.’ ‘Snowboard.’ ‘Gentle.’ ‘Funny.’ ‘Weird.’ ‘Loving.’ ‘Peaceful.’ ‘Fun.’ Then some less happy words. Like ‘lonely’. ‘Space.’ ‘Edgy.’ ‘Oddity.’ ‘Oblivion.’ ‘Wild.’ ‘Crash.’ And then I sort of pre-empted people by saying that I know you’re not supposed to say the bad words at a funeral because you’re meant to be all sycophantic and stuff when someone’s died, but that you were all the good words and all the bad words mixed up, and you were still perfect. Just the way you were.

CHRISTOPHER likes this. Nods. He’s not really listening. Too busy looking round the room.

CHRISTOPHER. ‘Perfect.’ Love it.

DAISY. And then I said ‘fuck’ a few times then I said sorry for saying fuck in church. And then I said ‘no actually I’m not fucking sorry,’ and then I suddenly thought of loads more things I wanted to say, but Uncle Pete came up to the pulpit and got me