PROLOGUE

The Glass house. Furniture covered in dustsheets, wind whistling through, swirling dead
leaves inside. A weather-beaten tricycle squeaks in a circle of its own accord. A strange
figure appears, wearing a zebra mask and playing the piano. He is DANNY. A ghostly piano
refrain haunts.

Music.- 'Poor Boy’.

BOY appears, engulfed by a universe pulsing with stars, wearing striped pyjamas and
dwarfed inside an overcoat. He forms a telescope with his hands, looking through it in
wonder and awe. DANNY slowly removes his mask.

BOY: How many stars in the sky?

DANNY: Could be a hundred billion in our galaxy alone. You can sail by them, boy. Celestial
navigation. Stars are your signposts on the sea. For all the lost souls to find their way home.

BOY: Do I have a soul...?

Music & lyrics: ’Poor Boy’.

DANNY: [sung] ‘My love is alien

I picked her up by chance
She speaks to me
With ultra high frequency
A radio band of gold
Gonna listen till I grow old
Ooh ooh ooh’

ALL: What more can a poor do

What more can a poor boy do
Ah, ah, ah, ah...’

DANNY removes the sheets, clouds of dust filling the air, to reveal.- Sol tying knots with a
rope, SADIE reading a book and VIV applying lipstick.

DANNY: The crackle of the radio

A message in the evening sky
You're looking at an interplanetary Romeo
I'll never see her face
Between us there's too much space

ALL: ‘What more can a poor boy do

What more can a poor boy do
Ah, ah, ah, ah...’

BOY slips out of the overcoat.

DANNY: ‘What more can a poor boy do

What more can a poor boy do, yeah’

ALL: ‘What more, what more’

The family push on a single bed and tuck BOY in. DANNY puts on the coat and the mask.
ALL: ‘What more can a poor boy do’

DANNY disappears into the darkness of the doorway. The sound of screeching tyres.

SCENE ONE
The Glass house. Bedroom.

BOY lays motionless in bed with a face washer on his brow. VIV and SOL

VIV: Straight through a zebra crossing...

SOL: But he wasn't hit...?

VIV: I reached out for his hand but he just stepped off the kerb...

SOL: Tell me the car didn't hit...

VIV: He fainted—like the times before.

SOL: Wh.at possessed him?

VIV: I took him to The Mercy. They said let him sleep.

SOL: Nobody saw the driver?

VIV: [shaking her head] I should've been holding his hand, Sol.

Silence.

SOL: I'll go take down those decorations.

He doesn't move.

VIV: You promised you'd put them up.

SOL: The fog swallowed me up out there. Sea turned to glass. Not a breath, Viv, not a soul.
Engine gave out, radio on the blink—I swear that old bathtub's barely seaworthy.

VIV: What sort or driver goes straight through a zebra crossing. ?

SOL: Is that what you were going to wear? To a little boy's birthday

VIV: Doesn't matter now.

He leaves. VIV watches over BOY.

Music & lyrics.- ’Into the Water ’.

VIV: [sung, softly] ‘Into the water

Into the water
We are born
With a smile on our face. ’

BOY: I can hear you.

VIV: There he is!

BOY: The bed's spinning, Mum. The whole room, like a top, like a whirlpool.

VIV: Slow down, I've got you.

BOY: Elephants are stomping up and down the stairs.

VIV: [feeling his brow] You have a fever.

BOY: They keep blowing Sadie's trumpet.

VIV: I'll tell the elephants to pipe down.

BOY: The toys are whispering. They're telling secrets on me.

VIV: They're worried about you.

BOY: The planets are bouncing on the ceiling.

VIV: Your mind's playing tricks, darling.

BOY: Mum? How come I never see zebras crossing the zebra crossing?

VIV: It's called camouflage. They disappear.

BOY: But if cars can't see the zebras they'll get squashed.

VIV: Jeremy, don't ever step out on the road like that again. You hear me?

Silence.

BOY: And mum

VIV: Yes, Jem?

BOY: He's here.

VIV: Your father? Yes, the boat came in. He's downstairs.

BOY: No, he's here. The man. There's a man inside.

Silence

BOY: He's in the radio.

VIV: It's an antique, Jem. Hasn't worked in years.

She kisses him.

VIV: Rest now. I'll leave a crack in the door.

BOY: Save me a piece of cake.

VIV nods and leaves. The radio glows. BOY stares.

BOY: Hello...? Are you there...?

The radio crackles to life. A voice reverberates.

DANNY: [voice-over] Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep...

BOY: Do I know you...?

DANNY: [voice-over] Time to cross the road now.

Suddenly DANNY appears in mask and coat, startling BOY.

DANNY: Look both ways, little man.

BOY: You're the zebra... from the crossing...

DANNY: Off to the Land of Nod.

BOY: [sleepily] You shouldn't be in my room...

DANNY pushes the bed away, disappearing into darkness.

DANNY: If I die before I wake...

DANNY & BOY: I pray the Lord my soul to take.

The Glass house. Downstairs.

Festoon lights glow, a wrapped gift on the table. UIK hangs sheets on the line. SADIE
perches on a chair, taking down a hanging banner.’ ‘Happy Birthday Jem’. SOL pats down
his shovel in the yard.

Music & lyrics.- ’Into the Water ’.

SOL: [sung] We're all at sea

Adrift in space and time
No longer sure
Of what is yours
And what is mine’

VIV puts down the washing basket.

VIV: The ghost of me

Is haunted by itself
And we belong to
Somebody else’

VIV & SOL: ‘Somebody else’

ALL: Into the water

Into the water
I am born
With a smile on my face’

VIV twirls, admiring her dress.

VIV: I was looking forward to that party. Show off my new dress.

SADIE: To seven-year-olds?

VIV: Sadie, when did this house last have a good time?

SADIE: Need to ask the previous owners.

VIV regards SADIE's mismatched clothes.

VIV: These are dead people's clothes, love. You don't want to look second-hand. You're only
young once.

SADIE clutches her book.

SADIE: [sung] I've never seen

The tide this high before
The warm embrace of
Uncertainty
Waits on the shore’

SOL: And now I stand

I stand upon the earth
A turning world
A water birth’

SOL & VIV: A water birth’

ALL: Into the water

Into the water
I am born
Into the water
We are born
With a smile on our face
Into the water
We are born
With a smile on our face
Into the water
We return
With a smile on our face’

SOL regards the old trumpet.

SOL: Remember our little marching band, Viv?

VIV: Trumpet girl with butterfly wings...

SOL: And her little drummer boy... Waiting at the font door, every anniversary, just to cheer
me up...

VIV: Playing their hearts out...

SOL: A man could thank his lucky stars coming home to a reception like that. ..
ALL: [sung] Into the water
Into the water
I am born
Into the water
Into the water
I am born
With a smile on my face
Part of the human race’

SOL stares out to the yard.

SADIE: Still working on the deep end, Dad?

VIV: The open wound...

SOL: Come summer, diving into that pool, this family won't know itself.

VIV: Yes, but which summer.

SADIE: You need an earthmover, Dad.

SOL: I have a perfectly good shovel. It'll be like that time by the seaside, remember? The
Summer of Mum's Famous Canary Yellow Bikini...

VIV: I did look good.

SOL: I swear it was painted on. Sadie with her shiny red Rudolph nose. Sand for skin.
Burying her old man up to his neck. Jem just a twinkle in his father's eye... Sun-kissed we
were, sun-kissed...

VIV looks up the stairs.

VIV: We haven't even sung ‘Happy Birthday’.

SOL: It's almost midnight.

SADIE: Just leave him.

VIV: He was born at midnight, on the stroke...

SADIE: When was I born?

SOL: We weren't sure which date was his birthday...

VIV: Which newspaper to keep as a memento...

SOL: So we kept both.

SADIE: [under her breath] Never kept mine.

VIV: Should we do the cake, Sol?

SOL: Go on, Viv, wake him.

VIV: He only turns seven once.

VIV disappears upstairs. SADIE regards the model boat.

SADIE: Dad? How deep is the deep end going to be?

SOL: Hard to say, love.

SADIE: [picking up the boat] How deep down do you think the Neptune is?

SOL: [returns the boat to the mantel] Go fetch your brother's cake.

The sound of distant bells.

SADIE disappears as VIV leads BOY downstairs in his pyjamas. SOL hands out party hats.

VIV: Here he is!

SOL: Happy birthday, sleepyhead!

BOY: Who are you?

VIV: He was dead to the world, didn't know where he was.

SOL: I’ll get the lights.

He switches off the lights. A glowing birthday cake appears out of the darkness, lit with
seven sparklers, carried by SADIE, also wearing a party hat.

Music.’ ’Poor Boy (reprise).

ALL: [sung] Ah, ah, ah, ah...

SADIE places the cake before BOY at the table. DANNY, in zebra mask, watches from the
landing.

SOL: Go on, boy, blow out your candles.

BOY: It's not my birthday.

VIV: Oh, it's your birthday alright. I was there.

SOL: We just got in on the stroke of midnight.

BOY: I'm not supposed to be here.

VIV: Come on., Jeremy, make a wish.

BOY stares coldly.

BOY: I wish I was with my family.

VIV: I think he's still half-asleep...

BOY: You're not my family!

Everyone is taken aback.

BOY & DANNY: My real family thinks I'm dead!

SADIE blows a party whistle.

Blackout.