Sand - A Short Stage Play

Copyright: Amy Macpherson 1997

an old woman is seated on a chair centre stage with a young girl kneeling beside her. The woman holds a large book open in her lap.

WOMAN: Remember my darling, not all the stories I tell you are true. Sometimes we believe things simply because other people tell us them. One day you will know the difference. Sometimes I forget.

She turns the page

Screen: a shell, pressed into the sand
Voice:
Once I was like the ocean
crabbed into a fine lattice of shell
and held to the world's ear

WOMAN: In these pictures the sun is always shining! That's how I remember it of course. And I always remember the silly things. Like there was a long, pebbly road we had to walk down to get to the beach, and one or two pebbles would always lodge themselves in my shoes, I had these funny open sandals you see, and when we got to the beach I would kick them off straight away...
Mother didn't like it, she thought sand was unhealthy.
Which was odd, in those days.
My sisters all had beautiful legs, but I had legs like fenceposts...

GIRL: Did you go there a lot?

WOMAN: Only once. Once... for weeks after that holiday I kept finding sand in the strangest places. Clothes, that is, and furniture. Sometimes food. Except - I did find one tiny grain under my thumbnail. Just one little grain! At least three weeks later. I knew there was something there by the irritation. Just enough to notice. That's how pearls are made, isn't it - some sand gets into an oyster and the poor thing tries and tries to get it out, and eventually it gets built up into a pearl. It used to worry me, that something so pretty was the result of so much annoyance.

She turns the page.

Screen: a hairbrush lying on some sand
Voice: (in the style of a '50s radio ad)
Now is the time to flaunt your blonde ambition! Golden hair means summer flair. Perfect for sun, sand and sea.

GIRL: Did you like to dress up?

WOMAN: Of course! no make up though, we had to pinch our cheeks to give them a rose... and make our own clothes. Well, a lot of them. The biggest treat I remember was when Father brought a little bottle of scent back from abroad. Foreign scent! it didn't smell very nice, but oh...
I used to curl my hair in rags, the girls helped because it took an age. And afterwards you couldn't move your head much. Shame. I wanted to be like the girls in the pictures, all curls blowing about in the wind, running through the sand dunes.
We didn't have any jewellery to speak of.
For a while I thought I could grow a pearl under my thumb.
Mother said oysters don't feel pain.

She turns the page.

Screen: a painted wooden bird, lying on sand.
Voice:
am I awake? (sound of gulls calling, in the distance).
No, I am still in the tower.
The clouds move quickly when you are among them.
I can escape. i will climb out of this window and fall
until the soft sand rushes up to fold my bony legs and wings and face into its soft skin like a paper bird.
I will wake up.

WOMAN: Do you remember my bird Charlie? No of course you don't. I didn't have him very long. Now he was a funny thing, never used to sing much except at night when we were trying to sleep. Eventually I realised that if you covered his cage up he wouldn't sing at all. We had peace and quiet for a while, but then I started to have bad dreams about it. Got to worrying that he was unhappy...
So one day I let him go. He flew straight upwards.
Mother didn't mind, apart from all the feed we had left over.
She sprinkled it on the garden. It reminded me of the beach.

GIRL: Tell me about the accident! They said -

WOMAN: It was nothing really.

She turns the page

Screen: a bottle of pink pills lying on the sand. Some have fallen out.
Voice: breathing noises.

WOMAN: I was much younger then. Of course, I was always told that they weren't lollies, but children forget so easily, don't they? They were very colourful.
Don't worry, I didn't swallow many, but ooh, the fuss! I quite enjoyed it all.
Only that part, mind.
pause

I was very lucky.
You must promise NEVER to do that.

She turns the page

Screen: a wooden buzzy-bee toy, lying on sand
Voice: (singing)
I'm squishing up a baby bumble bee
won't my mummy be so proud of me
I'm squishing up a baby bumble bee
ow! it stung me...

WOMAN: Ah, that's right. When my first one came along I took her to the beach, luckily we had a car then. She slept most of the way, thank goodness.
I think she liked it. The beach, I mean.
It was a different colour to what I remembered, not as yellow.
The sand, I mean.
Not as yellow.
Never mind.

She turns the page

Screen: blank
Voice: silent

WOMAN: Now where's my favourite one. Oh, it's not here, what did i do with it now?

pause

Never mind. Listen my darling, I can see it if I close my eyes. I'll tell you about it.

Both close their eyes

Screen: blank
Voice:
I see a girl running away from me along a beach, her face is turned back to me and she is smiling. The wind is whipping her hair back over her face, it is brown, soft brown hair.
Her mouth is open but if she is laughing I cannot hear it.

GIRL: That's us, isn't it?

WOMAN:smiles

GIRL: I can. I can hear it.

Screen: sand, with the imprint of a shell
Sound: wind noises

END.