[SAM stands in muddy jeans, with a spade. JANE, GREY and DARIN stand around, waiting to be introduced.]
-I’m halfway through digging a hole in the back garden. Our dog, Wexler, is lying, splayed out on the lawn covered by tarpaulin from the back of the shed. It’s raining quite heavily and I’m not wearing the right clothes. The water creeps up the side of my jeans – I’m slowly drenched and covered in mud, burying myself further and further into the hole. Each shovel-slap cracking into the ground, recalling the night before – the foot on the brake pedal as I turn into the street on the wrong side of the road. I’m still drunk from the night before
I’m panicking. I can’t breathe.
My friend Jane took me out for lessons in her car. She’s a year older than me, and incredibly self-righteous.
This is Jane by the way
She’s well annoying, in a big sister kinda way.
She thinks she’s better than you because she is older.
-That’s not really the question I asked, Sam, and you can’t just say that you don’t care about the unjustified actions of a rogue state; you have to have an opinion.
-Sam. That’s me she’s getting at. Jane’s the kinda girl who couldn’t care less if your opinion is wrong, she just wants you to have one, so she can tell you that you’re probably wrong and how I should have questioned the semantics.
It’s annoying, but she’s a good driving instructor and the reason I passed. You always wanted to be better and work hard around her. She made you prove yourself. No that she never make you pay for petrol.
TO BE CONTINUED
PHILIPPA MANNION 