Humble Boy (5 page)

Felix
   I'm just waiting for my moment of intuition. My Eureka moment.

Mercy
   I'm sure it will come.

Jim
   It will.

Felix
   Einstein called his moment the happiest thought of his life.

Jim
   You'd better try and have some more happy thoughts then, hadn't you?

Jim moves further away. Felix smiles as he exits.

Mercy
   Divine inspiration, that's what you need. Even when I'm arranging the flowers in church I pray for a bit of that.

Felix
   I can already sense what it would feel like.

Mercy
   Can you?

Felix
   I don't mind if it's a quiet moment.

Mercy
   No. Quiet moments can be very agreeable.

Felix
   Stephen Hawking had his breakthrough when he was getting into bed. But because of his motor neurone disease it took him an age. Throwing back the sheets, plugging in the electric blanket, hauling himself up, tucking himself in, required a gargantuan effort. The nerve cells in his spinal cord were disintegrating, his muscles were playing tricks on him, but all the while his brain was buzzing with complex equations. They went showering through him, like Shakespearean sonnets. By the time he set his alarm clock he'd cracked it.

Mercy
   He should have had a duvet. I resisted for a long time, but they're so easy. You just throw them on.

Felix
   Mercy, you are an original.

Mercy
   What a lovely thing to say!

Felix
   It's true.

Mercy
   You'll have your moment, Felix. Probably when you least expect it. Bingo! There it'll be: ‘Humble's unified theory of everything.'

Felix
   I have a terrible fear that I will go through life just missing it. Walking past the love of my life.

Mercy
   Well, we've all done that.

Felix
   Have you ever seen an apple fall? Actually fall?

Mercy
   I don't know. I must have done, mustn't I?

Felix goes over to the apple tree.

During this Flora comes out and listens. She carries a gift. Felix and Mercy do not see her.

Felix
   I've never seen it. I once sat out here, I was ten, I must have just learned about Newton and the force of gravity and I thought I'd watch an apple fall from a tree – I wanted to see that moment – well, what would it be, say, the half second that it takes an apple to drop four metres. I sat out here for eight hours. Nothing. In the end my mother made me go in for my tea. I wasn't even hungry – I nearly choked the food down. I came back out after half an hour and there were three of them on the floor.

Mercy
   Well, Newton just got lucky.

Felix
   And he didn't have my mother.

Mercy
   I'm sure she didn't mean it.

Flora
   On no, it was clearly my fault.

Mercy
   (
jumping
) Flora!

Flora
   You don't know this, Mercy, because you have never been blessed with children, but ultimately everything that goes wrong in your child's life can be laid squarely at your feet. It's what they call chaos theory, isn't it, Felix? I sneezed in public in 1968 and as a result my son found it difficult to connect in social situations for the rest of his life.

Mercy
   He's just shy.

Flora
   I picked up a sweet wrapper that he dropped when he was three and consequently he's a total failure with women.

Mercy
   He went out with Rosie Pye.

Felix
   This is not chaos theory, Mother.

Flora
   Oh well, pardon me for failing in my use of scientific terminology. I didn't have the benefit of your very expensive private education. Mercy, do you mind leaving us for a minute? I want to talk to my son alone.

Mercy
   Of course. (
Mercy exits.
)

Felix
   (
to the exiting Mercy
) End of your commission. Report back for duty later on.

Flora
   Felix –

Felix
   You've got her well-trained, Mother. She's like a very earnest springer spaniel. She flushes the wild fowl off the water so you can come and take a pop at them.

Flora
   She has precious little else to keep her occupied.

Felix
   I hope she gets rewarded.

Flora
   Of course. She gets to bask in my reflected glory … You know, paranoia is very unattractive in a man, Felix.

Felix
   What do you expect with my education? I have been taught to apply the uncertainty principle to every p–problem.

Flora
   Do you know how utterly bored I am by all this science? I have been doubly unlucky in my life. To marry a biologist and give birth to a physicist. Who on earth said God didn't play dice?

Felix
   Do you want me to go?

Flora
   If I had been Marie Curie I would have used my bunsen burner to make
crème brûlée.

Felix
   Just tell me to go.

Flora
   I found three more grey hairs this morning. They were not there a week ago.

Felix
   What do you want me to do about that?

Flora
   I want you to – you are always welcome, this is your home but I can't bear to see you lolling about out here –

Felix
   Lolling? Is that what I am doing?

Flora
   I don't know. I have no idea what you are doing. You never speak to me properly.

Felix
   You never listen.

Flora
   Stop it! Stop this! I can't bear it! Your father would have hated this. (
Pause. She touches him lightly.
) Do you remember the first time we took you to prep school? I didn't want to leave you there, you seemed so small, but your father said I had to be strong. And I stood and waved to you while you walked up the long driveway and James was telling me that we ought to go but I didn't stop waving. I wanted you to know that I wouldn't go away that easily. And you got smaller and smaller and further away until you were nothing but a black dot, but I kept on waving. Even when you'd stopped being a black dot, I kept on waving.

Pause.

Flora
   (
handing him the gift
) This is for you.

Felix
   It's not my b–birthday.

Flora
   No, well. It's not a birthday present.

Felix
   I don't need presents.

Flora
   No, well you don't need to need it. That is the appeal of gifts.

Felix
   What is it?

Flora
   Why are you always so analytical? Really, you were like this when you were a child. Why don't you open it?

He opens it. Flora smiles a little. He takes out a smallish earthenware pot with a lid on it. He is obviously a little baffled by the gift.

Felix
   What –?

Flora
   It's a copy of an ancient honey-pot. Etruscan or Egyptian or something. It's not really to my taste. But your father bought it for me. I thought you would like it.

Felix
   Thank you. (
Felix smiles a little, he takes off the lid.
)

Flora
   Careful!

He inadvertently spills a little of the contents – a fine powdery ash.

It's filled quite full.

Felix
   Oh, Jesus.

Flora
   What?

Felix
   Is this what I think it is?

Flora
   I didn't like the other receptacle they sent them in.

Felix
   You mean
the urn?

Flora
   It was a very ugly, horrible vulgar tinny thing. I thought a honey-pot would be much more appropriate.

Felix
   This is him?

Flora
   The ashes, yes.

Felix
   Oh, Jesus.

Flora
   You criticised me for throwing his belongings out.

Felix
   I just spilled some! I just lost a bit of his nose or something.

Flora
   I lost more transferring it to the new pot. I had to use a funnel.

Felix
   Jesus Christ.

Flora
   They got stuck to the sides and I had to rinse them out.

Felix
   I don't believe this.

Flora
   I've thrown the funnel away.

Felix
   I think you're psychotic.

Flora
   Oh well, I can't do anything right.

Felix
   This is my father. You have just handed me my father in a pot.

Flora
   Don't be so melodramatic.

Felix
   You wrapped him up, for God's sake.

Flora
   I … I … thought it would make it more formal – more precious.

Felix
   You wrapped him up in ‘Happy Birthday' paper.

Flora
   Well, it was all I had to hand … I thought this would help. I thought you could say the words that you were going to say. I thought that was what was making you so miserable. I thought that we could have a little ceremony. And that then you could scatter him.

Felix
   What's left of him. You tipped half of him down the sink.

Flora
   Of course there's no guarantee that this is your father. These crematorium places are often very slipshod in their arrangements. And let's face it, one man's ashes is … another man's ashes.

Felix
   What are you saying?

Flora
   I am saying that your father is gone. I am trying to help you come to terms with this fact.

Felix
   Well, I'm sorry, Mother. I am very sorry that I do not have the same facility as you for letting go –

Flora
   I said my goodbyes at his funeral like any sane person would.

Felix
   You spent nearly forty years of your life with him –

Flora
   You are a selfish, selfish boy. I know what this is about. I know why you couldn't speak about your father. Because you think that you are better than him. What on earth could you have said? He was only a teacher, after all. Head of Biology. And at a girl's school, of all places! Oh, and he dabbled in bees. Some might call it a pathetically small life. What did he ever achieve, compared to you?

Felix
   Mother –

Flora
   So you look down on him and me and this place. It's all too middling for you with your grand ideas and your big life.

Felix
   That's not true.

Flora
   Well, you don't have to say anything. I know what you think. Just scatter the ashes and be on your way. That can be an end to it. Your father's car is out there, I'll give you the keys.

Felix
   I'm not ready to scatter them.

Flora
   Well, give them to me then, and I'll scatter them.

She tries to grab the ashes off him. There is a small kerfuffle.

Felix
   Mother, please. Stop it. I'm not ready yet. Just give him b–b–back. Let him b–b–b–be.

Flora
   All right. All right. This is so undignified. And mind my nose. I've just paid hundreds of pounds for it.

There is the noise of a car horn off. Flora breaks off. She takes a small compact out and checks her appearance.

Felix
   What are you doing?

Flora
   I'm going out now. I'm leaving you to your own devices.

Felix
   Is it George P–pye?

Flora
   He has been a very good friend to me since James died but he is afraid to even come near the house for fear of encountering you.

Felix
   Don't go.

She puts lipstick on.

Flora
   He's taking me out of myself.

Felix
   Stay here with me.

Flora
   Don't begrudge me my little bit of pleasure. At least I'm making an effort.

Felix
   P–please, Ma. Don't.

Flora
   Felix? What is it? Why ever not?

Felix
   I don't like him.

Flora
   No, well, I'm sure the feeling is mutual. After what you did to his daughter.

The car horn goes off again.

Felix
   I didn't do anything – it was –

Flora
   Felix. Must you always have the last word? Do you not realise that the last word is my prerogative?

Felix goes to speak and thinks better of it. Flora smoothes down her dress.

I'm going to have a lunch party later on in the summer. Just a small group of people. I hope you will be able to come. But if you are going to be in one of your moods then I would rather you didn't. (
She goes to exit. As she does:
) And you should be wearing a hat in this sun.