One Night

Two Steps

Three On the toes of their

One Morning –

Three These

One Other

Two People

One On the street

Three Walking,

Two People who’ve slept and got up.

One The rain’s

Two Pouring,

Three You feel the guilt chasing you down,

One Your soul’s

Three Roaring

Two That there must be a way to be more than this.

Three Life in a city of awkwardness –

One We should have been monoliths,

Three Could have had everything,

Two We know we’ve got more to give.

One Our skin holds our bones in, our organs are moaning,

Three Coz it feels like

Two Nothing means nothing,

Three But we need to feel

All Something.

One Three friends, knee deep in the weekend,

Two In their own ways, they’re all steeped in pretence

One And what they want’s

Three More,

Two Something real they can

Three Touch –

One Well – you only know what’s enough,

Three When you know what’s more than enough. Scene Four Greasy spoon café. Ted reads the tabloids. Cups of tea or coffee in front of them. No food.

Ted You hear what that woman said when we got off the bus?

Danny What woman?

Ted She had her kid with her, and we walked past and the kid looked at me, and the woman put her hand over his eyes and said ‘don’t look at the man’.

Danny Fuck.

Ted We must look a right fright.

Danny You look lovely, babe.

Ted Prick.

Danny You think you could eat?

Ted Worth a try, ain’t it?

Danny Yeah. S’pose.

Ted I feel horrible.

Danny Me too.

Ted Was a good night, though, wa’n’it?

Danny Yeah, mate. Great night.

Ted I do feel horrible though. Pause. They drink their tea. Ted looks at menu. Danny picks up the paper, looks through it.

Ted What’s happening in the real world, then?

Danny (flicking through the pages) Oh, you know, war, dead civilians, fear-mongering about religious fundamentalism, footballer that cheated on his wife, someone’s tits, couple criminally insane school children. Parrot found in Putney²³ that can rap the first verse of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air²⁴ theme tune.

Ted Usual then.

Danny I hate reading the paper. Don’t matter where you go in the world, does it, everywhere’s fucked. Everything’s fucked.

Ted Pie ’n’ mash?²⁵ That be too much, you reckon?

Danny Makes you think though, dunnit? We might think we got it bad here, like, think we’re struggling, but we’re fine. Look at us. We’re fine. Compared to some of the shit going on. This is luxury, mate; you know what I mean?

Ted Probably is too much, innit?

Danny There’s always someone worse off than you though, ain’t there?

Ted Depends how big the portions are I s’pose.

Danny It’s always safer to look around and say, no matter how fucked I am, it could be worse.

Ted Look, that guy’s got a jacket potato. Maybe that’s what

I need. Beans though? Couldn’t manage beans.