Humble Boy (4 page)

Flora
   Felix. I want you to stop this now. I am asking you nicely.

George
   Don't worry, Flora. I must be on the road.

Felix
   The Egyptians believed the first bee was created from a teardrop of the sun god, Ra. Did you know that, George Pye?

George
   No, I didn't. Thank you for the drink, Flora.

Felix
   The sun cried bees. I like that. One minute it's raining cats and dogs. The next it's shining bees. You could say it about today, couldn't you? It's shining bees. Except technically the bees have gone, banished by my mother. The bee-loud glade is suddenly beeless. Apparently sans bee.

Flora
   I don't know why he's suddenly so attached to the idea of the bees. You used to be more against them than me.

Felix
   No I didn't.

Flora
   You hated the noise, the droning, while you were studying. And you point-blank refused to eat any more honey.

George
   I ought to be going. Just a ‘flying visit'.

Flora
   Yes. Yes. I'll see you out, George. I'm sorry about this.

Felix
   Don't forget your flower, Mother. It's already beginning to wilt.

Flora
   Don't push your luck, Felix Humble.

Felix
   I wasn't aware I was lucky, Mother.

Flora takes the rose and exits. George follows her.

Fly, Mr Pye, fly.

George turns round sharply. Flora has gone.

George
   I don't give a shit if you piss your life away but you keep away from my daughter. You've fucked her life up once already and you're not doing it again.

Felix
   (
quietly
) No.

George exits. Felix walks upstage. There is a very quiet humming sound. He reacts to it, as if it were tinnitus in his ears.

Oh no. Please.

Flora comes back on.

Ma.

She sees that George has left his CD player behind. She tuts and picks it up, then sits and puts the headphones on and turns the CD player on. We hear music quietly: Glen Miller's ‘Don't Sit under the Apple Tree'. Perhaps she mouths the words to the song. There is a lighting change. It is as though time slows down for a moment. She cannot hear Felix.

Ma, I keep dreaming that I am at home and I am a baby and you place me on the lawn. Ever so gently you place me down on my tummy. On the lush, green grass. And you are smiling and I am complete. And then suddenly it shifts and I am like I am now. And I lie myself down on the grass on my stomach and it is green and cool and it takes my weight. And I p–place a gun in my mouth. It stops the kickb–back this way. I know this. And I want to b–blow my b–brains into a thousand p–particles. I want to see the green lawn turn red. And I look at you standing there above me. And you are smiling.

Suddenly Flora senses him still near her. She switches off the music. The humming continues quietly.

Flora
   Felix, don't lurk.

Felix
   The grass is so green this year, isn't it, Ma?

Flora
   I'm not speaking to you!

Flora takes the CD player off and exits with it. Felix is left on his own. Slowly the humming sound builds. Now it is as though time is speeding up.

Felix
   No, please. I can't b–bear it. I can't –

He goes upstage to where the hosepipe is snaked. He picks it up and slowly he places it round his neck. The humming increases to a terrible pitch. He pulls the hose tight. He feels what this feels like. Time passes.

SCENE THREE

Mid-July.

Jim comes on. He is carrying a tray of seedlings and some compost, and a trowel. He proceeds during the scene to plant the seedlings in pots. He is whistling ‘Don't Sit under the Apple Tree'. He looks at Felix. Felix sees him. He is embarrassed. The humming stops. Felix looses the hose from around his neck.

Felix
   I'm sorry … I was just – I was experimenting …

Pause.

I often use a garden hose. As an analogy, I mean.

Jim
   Oh yes?

Felix
   Yes. Yes. With superstring theory there need to be six or seven extra dimensions. We can't see them but it's like with a garden hose. If you stretch it out between two posts in a field and then you walk half a mile away and look back, it just looks like a one-dimensional line.

Jim
   I'll take that off you, shall I? (
Jim takes the hose off him and starts to wind it up again.
)

Felix
   Yes. Yes. But if you look at the hose through binoculars, if you magnify it, a second dimension – one that is in the shape of a circle curled round the hose – becomes visible. So in the same way there could be extra dimensions in space but you can't see them because they're small and curled up, furled around one another. You see?

Jim
   Mmm … Well. Knowing my luck, they'll ban them soon anyway.

Felix
   What?

Jim
   Hosepipes. Last time we had a summer like this, by this time in July there was all sorts of rules.

Felix
   Yes.

Jim
   I know lots of people ignore a ban, but I'm not like that. I watched all the plants flounder. And then I go next door but one and they've got a symphony of sprinklers going off. Drowning the plants, they were. I wanted to report them.

Felix
   Garden rage.

Jim
   But then their plants got blight and died anyway. What goes around comes around.

Pause.

Felix
   I haven't seen any of the bees yet.

Jim
   The drones will be out and about soon. Buzzing round the queen. Seven or eight of them joining the mile-high club. Then after they've done their bit she flies away with their torn-off genitals still attached to her. That's women's lib for you.

Felix smiles.

Felix
   I'd like to see them. Before I go. I'd feel better, I think.

Jim
   You will.

Felix
   I just can't seem to – I can't seem to ask the right questions … I need to make a decision about what I should do next.

Jim
   You want to stop asking all the questions.

Felix
   But it's so hard – with my work, I must question everything. I must –

Jim stops what he's doing. He looks at Felix.

Jim
   Felix, you know, bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly. Aerodynamically they're too big, their wings are set up all wrong. They don't obey the laws of physics. But they fly anyway.

Mercy comes out into the garden. She looks around, although she does not address Jim directly.

Mercy
   Doesn't the garden look lovely?

Jim looks at Mercy. She smiles but does not look at him.

Jim
   Thank you.

Then he works on in the garden unheeded. Felix glances at him from time to time but he is absorbed in his work.

Mercy
   Such a beautiful day. I can't remember a summer like it. Mind you, I wish it would rain … Now I just popped round with those clothes for you. Jean says she doesn't want any money for them. I've put the bag in your room. But you know I don't think the jacket will fit you, dear. Unless you like a very snug fit.

Felix
   It'll be fine, Mercy, thank you.

Mercy
   Because we've just had another suit in. It's a bit worn round the seat region and the lapels are on the wide side, but apart from that –

Felix
   (
a little too sharply
) I don't want another suit. I want the suit you brought me.

Mercy
   Well, you know your own mind. (
absently looking at the garden
) Isn't that African lily marvellous?

Jim
   
Agapanthus umbellatus.

Mercy
   But then I love all the lilies. White lilies.

Jim
   
Lilium candidum.

Mercy
   Tiger lilies.

Jim
   
Lilium tigrinum.

Mercy
   And the sweet peas. I do love sweet peas.

Jim
   
Lathyrus odoratus.

Felix
   You know all the names.

Mercy
   Yes.

Jim
   I only know the right names for my little world.

Mercy
   Even from here, they smell heavenly, don't they? (
She stands awkwardly for a few moments.
)

Mercy
   So. What are your plans?

Felix
   What do you mean?

Mercy
   Your mother tells me you're not going back till the end of summer?

Felix
   Does she?

Mercy
   Have you fixed on an exact date?

Felix
   No.

Mercy
   Your mother says you're taking pills.

Felix
   Oh.

Mercy
   What are they for?

Felix doesn't reply.

Mercy
   Have you stopped taking them?

Felix
   Are you on a retainer?

Mercy
   What?

Felix
   Or do you just enjoy it, doing duties for her, carrying out her little schemes –

Mercy
   Felix –

Felix
   Of course she won't do anything that might chip her nail polish.

Mercy
   Your mother didn't ask me to do anything for her.

Felix
   Mercy. You are not a convincing liar.

Mercy
   It's only because she cares –

Felix
   How exactly do you fit into the equation, Mercy?

Mercy
   I've known you since you were born. Your mother and I would play with you here in this garden. I'm a very close, personal friend of your mother's.

Felix
   Ah yes. I see. You like to orbit round her?

Mercy
   Yes, no, I don't know.

Felix
   You should be careful. That's the problem with black holes. The gravitational attraction is so strong you can't resist. But they warp you, they pull you out of shape.

Mercy
   Please don't be sharp with me, Felix. I am of a very nervous disposition.

Felix
   I'm sorry.

Mercy
   It's beyond the pale, really it is.

Felix
   I'm sorry, Mercy.

Mercy
   Is it your work? Is everything all right with your studies?

Felix
   Fine.

Mercy
   Are you a professor yet, dear?

Felix
   No. Research fellow.

Mercy
   Really? Isn't that wonderful? And I remember when you failed your eleven-plus. What is it that you're looking for again?

Felix
   What?

Mercy
   In your studies?

Felix
   It's complicated.

Mercy
   Oh! I like hearing all those funny words.

Felix
   I'm working on M-theory – trying to unify the various strands of superstring theory.

Jim
   Go on.

Mercy
   Mmm.

Felix
   At the root of everything we believe, I believe – a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of the size of an atom, so many noughts it would dazzle you, the perfect Planck length – there is a loop or a filament of energy – what we call a string – which is the fundamental building block of the universe. And these strings are stretched like the strings on a violin and they're vibrating to and fro.

Mercy
   Really?

Felix
   I know they're there – the strings – the superstrings – and they will bring everything together into a perfect elegant supersymmetry – the jittery, frenzied world of quantum mechanics and the gentle curving geometry of gravity. You see we know the rules for the big things like the cosmos and we know the rules for the small things like the atom, but the rules don't agree – it's the superstrings that will bring the forces together. The superstrings will give us a quantum theory of gravity – that's what I want, what we all want … You know, I'm so close, I can hear them! I can hear the little vibrating strings inside my head. Even though I can't prove absolutely that they're there, I can hear the patterns they're making, like they're ringing in my ears.

Jim
   The music of the spheres.

Felix
   Mmm. I've just run out of the maths. The equations don't exist for what I can already sense. The excitation modes – the ringing has too many layers I can't – hold all the notes, all the variables, all the harmonies in my head. But one day soon, I hope, I'll have it, M-theory, the mother of all theories, a unified field theory. The theory of everything. And once I've done that – I'll be able to rest.

Jim
   Yes.

Mercy
   Well, isn't that something, Felix? I mean, if you had to research anything, everything would be the thing to research, wouldn't it? If my brain wasn't so puddled, I'd probably be after it too.