Humble Boy Read Online Free Page A

   I am not your son. Did you know my father well?
    George    In passing … Your father was a very decent man.
    Felix    Decent. Decent? Yes. I’m compiling a list of adjectives, you see. My father’s true nature is proving very difficult to pin down. Decent. Upright. Upstanding. Clean-living. Respectable. But not b–brave, no, we wouldn’t go as far as b–brave. No, brave doesn’t come into it. Just outside the spectrum. Although there is passion there, yes, give him his dues, he was passionate about his bees.
    Flora    Felix. I want you to stop this now. I am asking you nicely.
    George    Don’t worry, Flora. I must be on the road.
    Felix    The Egyptians believed the first bee was created from a teardrop of the sun god, Ra. Did you know that, George Pye?
    George    No, I didn’t. Thank you for the drink, Flora.
    Felix    The sun cried bees. I like that. One minute it’s raining cats and dogs. The next it’s shining bees. You could say it about today, couldn’t you? It’s shining bees. Except technically the bees have gone, banished by my mother. The bee-loud glade is suddenly beeless. Apparently sans bee.
    Flora    I don’t know why he’s suddenly so attached to the idea of the bees. You used to be more against them than me.
    Felix    No I didn’t.
    Flora    You hated the noise, the droning, while you were studying. And you point-blank refused to eat any more honey.
    George    I ought to be going. Just a ‘flying visit’.
    Flora    Yes. Yes. I’ll see you out, George. I’m sorry about this.
    Felix    Don’t forget your flower, Mother. It’s already beginning to wilt.
    Flora    Don’t push your luck, Felix Humble.
    Felix    I wasn’t aware I was lucky, Mother.
    Flora takes the rose and exits. George follows her.
    Fly, Mr Pye, fly.
    George turns round sharply. Flora has gone.
    George    I don’t give a shit if you piss your life away but you keep away from my daughter. You’ve fucked her life up once already and you’re not doing it again.
    Felix    ( quietly ) No.
    George exits. Felix walks upstage. There is a very quiet humming sound. He reacts to it, as if it were tinnitus in his ears.
    Oh no. Please.
    Flora comes back on.
    Ma.
    She sees that George has left his CD player behind. She tuts and picks it up, then sits and puts the headphones on and turns the CD player on. We hear music quietly: Glen Miller’s ‘Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree’. Perhaps she mouths the words to the song. There is a lighting change. It is as though time slows down for a moment. She cannot hear Felix.
    Ma, I keep dreaming that I am at home and I am a baby and you place me on the lawn. Ever so gently you place me down on my tummy. On the lush, green grass. And you are smiling and I am complete. And then suddenly it shifts and I am like I am now. And I lie myself down on the grass on my stomach and it is green and cool and it takes my weight. And I p–place a gun in my mouth. It stops the kickb–back this way. I know this. And I want to b–blow my b–brains into a thousand p–particles. I want to see the green lawn turn red. And I look at you standing there above me. And you are smiling.
    Suddenly Flora senses him still near her. She switches off the music. The humming continues quietly.
    Flora    Felix, don’t lurk.
    Felix    The grass is so green this year, isn’t it, Ma?
    Flora    I’m not speaking to you!
    Flora takes the CD player off and exits with it. Felix is left on his own. Slowly the humming sound builds. Now it is as though time is speeding up.
    Felix    No, please. I can’t b–bear it. I can’t –
    He goes upstage to where the hosepipe is snaked. He picks it up and