Gasping - the Play (11 page)

CHIEF:
Small wonder the world remembers him.

PHILIP:
Well quite. Anyway, as I was saying,
Seattle has talked to his people and they have made a policy decision that
(refers
to letter)
‘Every part of the Earth is sacred’ ... and now he is memo-ing
the US Government on the issue. He continues ...
(reads)
... ‘Every
shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every
clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people’ ...

CHIEF:
Holy insects?

PHILIP:
Gripping stuff eh?
(he reads)
...
‘We know that the white man doesn’t understand our ways. One portion of land is
the same to him as the next for he is a stranger who comes in the night and
takes from the land whatever he needs. The Earth is not his brother but his
enemy’ ...

CHIEF: I
must confess Philip I have little
patience with this fellow so far. The earth isn’t a man’s brother or his enemy,
it’s just the earth I’m afraid.

PHILIP: Oh I
think it’s more complicated
than that Sir, hear him out, you’ll find it’s worth it ...
(he reads)
‘The
sight of your cities pains the eyes of the Red man. There is no quiet place, no
place to hear the unfurling of the leaves in Spring or the rustle of the
insects’ wings’ ...

CHIEF:
I can’t say as how I’ve ever heard a
leaf unfurl, have you Philip?

PHILIP:
Incredibly acute hearing these
Redskins, Chief. Just by putting their ears to the ground they could say how
many riders were coming, how heavily they were armed and what they’d all had
for dinner. Hearing leaves would have been junior stuff to them. Anyway,
Seattle sticks with the theme
(carrying on reading)
... ‘The clatter of
your cities insults our ears, and what is there to life if a man cannot hear
the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond
at night? If we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place
where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the
meadow’s flowers’ ...

CHIEF:
In which case there wouldn’t be an
awful lot of point in buying it would there? Look Philip, I’m sorry, but I
simply don’t see the relevance of all this to the air industry.

PHILIP
(pacing about):
Well Sir, as I originally saw it, the real excitement of our sucking
operations was that we had found a way to tame the final element for the good of
mankind, just as land and food and power and water and the very land itself had
once been tamed.

CHIEF:
Well I think that’s a fair, if
perhaps rather fanciful way of describing raking in a wadge of cash.

PHILIP:
Then, when people started wandering
around going purple and gasping for breath I thought, ‘Whoops, hang on, hullo ...
I wasn’t under the impression that going purple and gasping for breath was
particularly high up on the list of things that are for the good of mankind.’ ...
It struck me that it wasn’t awfully long since everybody had had enough to
breathe, and now, bugger me, but for the good of mankind, they hadn’t any more ...
I mean old Seattle saw it coming with the land ...

CHIEF:
My dear Philip, I’m sure you’ll
forgive me but this fellow Seattle strikes me as being a bit of a turd.
Throughout history there has always been some environmental luddite standing in
the way of the natural development of a free-market economy.

PHILIP:
Yes but ...

CHIEF:
If the United States legislature had
so far shirked their responsibilities as to listen to this Seattle fellow where
would the world’s greatest democracy be now? Sniffing wind, listening to leaves
and having arguments with the frogs, that’s where.

PHILIP:
You’re right of course Chief ... I just
thought it might form the basis for a memo on policy development ... After all,
we do want our industry to be a valuable part of society don’t we?

CHIEF:
Of course we do Philip, as valuable
as it can possibly be but there’s only so much we can do to force up the price ...
(steam)
You know Philip, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking as well.

PHILIP:
Nothing like it eh?

CHIEF:
Philip, you’re my best man and I’m
going to be perfectly straight. I think you’re tired, you’ve headed up the
whole operation from the beginning and you deserve a break. I want you to take
a break, so what do you say? Change of air?

PHILIP:
I can get that at the chemist Sir.

CHIEF:
I want you to take some leave Philip.

PHILIP:
Well, I suppose ... I don’t know ...
I just hate to see people go breathless, that’s all.

CHIEF:
Philip, it’s a small portion of the
population, the vast majority are breathing cleaner, healthier air ... besides,
the whole thing is a political issue. It has nothing to do with us, we just
provide a service.

SCENE FIVE

Steam fills the stage, it clears.
THE
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
is making a speech.

MINISTER:
Of course we recognize that there
is suffering and we will continue to seek out the truly deserving cases and
provide them with all the help that they require ... However, we believe that
the onus lies partly with the less well off themselves to alleviate the
problem. As with poor diet, we believe the main enemy is ignorance. In 1988 the
Government issued detailed advice to the hungry on how best to gain sustenance.
They advised in a leaflet issued through the Department of Health and Social
Security that people should avoid treats and impulse buys, that they should not
go shopping for food when they were hungry since this would lead them into unwise
purchases. I feel that similar commonsense measures will help the less well off
with their breathing. The plain facts are that some people are simply not
breathing
properly.
For instance, is it really necessary for people to
breathe quite so much? If you find yourselves in difficulties surely it would
be possible to take shorter breaths. In the home, if your income requires you
to have your blower on minimal output, try to move about less; silly and wasted
movements just use up precious energy ... Lie down on your bed and take slow,
well-spaced breaths ... perhaps you could time them. Avoid activities that you
know will consume air, keep family discussion to a minimum, don’t go upstairs
if you can possibly avoid it, the lavatory is a key danger, go only when you
know it’s coming, any straining will throw your meter sky high. Obviously love
making is a very irresponsible activity when the air is thin, definitely to be
avoided. Ask Grandma not to knit so vigorously and get rid of the dog ...

(His voice is
drowned by the roar of a jet.)

SCENE SIX

Huge jet engine noises.

Front stage,
KIRSTEN
and
SANDY
in two business-class British Airways seats.

SANDY:
Well darling, what could be more
perfect, a combined honeymoon and business trip.

KIRSTEN:
I couldn’t believe it when Chief
gave me the International Portfolio.

SANDY:
Kirsten, the Chief knows I don’t
marry turkeys ...

KIRSTEN:
And he knows I don’t marry men who
marry turkeys.

SANDY:
Touché Lady ... tell you what, five
hours fingering my lap top’s put a right ruddy firework in my jocks.
(lap
top down)
What say we bog up and join the Five Mile High Club?

KIRSTEN:
Been there Sandy, believe me there
just isn’t room. I was 18, doing Europe, ended up with some Frenchman having to
prise me off one of the taps. Maybe if your secretary had put us in first.

SANDY:
Yes well she won’t make that mistake
again.

KIRSTEN:
Good.

SANDY:
No chance, I sacked her by fax from
Heathrow. But either way, first or business flying is just a chore to me. I’ve
cloud hopped a deal too many flights to be spending my time saying, ‘Oh look
how clever, they’ve managed to get the cod mornay and the strawberry cream
dessert into the same container.’

KIRSTEN:
Absolutely, anyway, it will be the
best of everything for us once we clinch the African deal. Lucky for us Philip
took leave, or he’d be heading it up.

SANDY:
Luck darling? Twelve types of hardly.
The guy needed a break. Some people bend, some people snap, personally I’m a
bender.

KIRSTEN:
He had a good dream.

SANDY
(looking out of window):
Well it’s certainly going to come true for these African fellahs, I
reckon they’ll strike a hard bargain. They’ve got a phenomenal natural resource
just waiting to be sucked, I mean it’ll be worth billions to their economy. The
Chiefs told me to bid top dollar. Incoming Third World air could totally
undercut European stockpiles.
(phone rings)
Sorry darling, it’s the new
Foton Satellite System, quite superb ...
(takes out portable)
... Yo
Chief! ! Well this is a pleasure Sir
(adjusting tie)
... Marvellous Sir ...
What? Uhm cod mornay and strawberry cream dessert ... Yes it is clever how they
do that isn’t it ... sorry? With all due respect Sir ...
(to
KIRSTEN) Pen,
pen, pen ...
(into phone)
Fire away Sir ...
(he takes down something)
Right you are Sir ... What? Sadly no Sir, Kirsten says the taps get in the
way ... Goodbye then Sir ... Kind regards to Lady Chiffley ...
(phones of])
Sod
it.

KIRSTEN:
So what was that about?

SANDY:
Said he thought I might need Philip’s
advice on the African suck up ... gave me the bloke’s bloody number on the
Costa Del Lager Lout ... Well that’s what I think of that!
(Screws it up
...
about to throw away, then slips in pocket.)

KIRSTEN:
Bloody cheek ...
(film flicker)
Oh
God the bloody awful movie ...

SANDY:
Crocodile Dundee Four,
this is the one where he becomes President of the Soviet Union ...
It’s great ...

(Plane off)

SCENE SIX (A)

Lights up on
PHILIP
to side of stage in shorts and a sombrero, he takes a sip of wine
and clicks a TV remote
...
There is a very low bluish flicker, as if he is watching TV
...

SCENE SEVEN

We hear a terrible buzzing of flies, people wailing, oxen snorting.
BBC reporter with microphone wanders across front of stage. She has a backpack
which feeds a tube to a big plastic bubble on her head.

REPORTER:
These people are quite literally
suffocating. The air is so thin that they find it difficult to find the energy
to move ...
(she appears to pick her way over something)
Of course there
was a time when this region possessed oxygen in abundance. It still would have,
were it not for the fact that the rulers of this tortured, divided country,
both on the left and right, have systematically sold its resources for arms.
Western developers, with the connivance of a corrupt administration, have
sucked far beyond agreed international quotas. Now this region is all but
uninhabitable.
(stops wandering about)
While this tiny child gulps
painfully at the near empty and useless air, the oxygen that should be her
rightful birthright lies unbreathed, far far away, stockpiled in order to
protect the international gulp price. That she should be in such desperate
straits whilst the means for her survival lies silent, invisible, useless,
compacted down into the huge Western Suck and Blowers, is vivid testimony of
man’s inhumanity to man.
(she stops again)
This goat did not die
naturally, it was slaughtered by the very people whose survival depends on its
milk and meat. The need for air supersedes even the need for food and as the
air thins animals are slaughtered in order to stop them breathing and consuming
what little oxygen remains.
(motioning around her)
This relief camp,
jointly run by Oxfam and War on Want, is currently supplying breathing space
for about four and a half thousand refugees. They have struggled here, gasping
for breath from their homes in the outlying hills where the air is now too thin
for survival. The scene is biblical in its horror. The relief workers are
operating three dilapidated Mark One Lockheart Blowers at the centre of the
camp and people scramble desperately trying to find a place near one of the
outlets for themselves and their children. The further away one is, of course,
the less chance there is of a really good lungful. Added to this is the
terrible uncertainty that a sudden gust of empty wind will carry off and
dissipate the precious pumpings, leaving the entire camp momentarily without
the means to live. Whenever even the slightest breeze is felt, a great moan
goes up and people huddle closer, breathing deeply, bracing themselves for the
possibility of two or three minutes with nothing to breathe at all ... So far
in this present crisis over four million people have been terminally suffocated
or ‘died’ from the associated problems of hunger and rioting ...
(she
addresses the imaginary cameraman, brisk professional tone)
Did you get the
baby in Barry? The shot won’t work without the baby.