the next best thing after cannabis. And probably better for you in the long run.
HOPE: How do you relax?
JOY: Give my mum a sleeping tablet, open a bottle of beer and watch ‘So You Want to Be a Midwife’.
HOPE: ‘So You Want to Be a Midwife’? Is that a thing?
JOY: It’s like ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ meets ‘The Apprentice’ meets ‘DIY NHS’.
‘I liked the way Team A handled the ventouse, but let’s face it, they really fucked up on the stitches.’
HOPE: Ouch.
JOY: It sounds better on the telly.
HOPE: You should go on. You’d be great.
JOY: Pedro’s not keen. He thinks I should have stuck in at school and been a real midwife.
HOPE: It’s never too late.
JOY: I thought about it, but you need Higher English.
HOPE: You should go for it. You show Pedro it’s never too late.
Pause.
HOPE: They want to do tests.
JOY: What for?
HOPE: I don’t know. I don’t think they know.
JOY: They’ll probably all want a bit of him right enough. To prove how clever they are.
The room is suddenly too small for HOPE.
A moment.
JOY: Here … give me that knitting.
Exit JOY.
***
JOY at home. Her goldfish is beside her. Her mother is in the next room. She reads a letter.
JOY: Dear Service User, in line with the government’s independent living reforms, we are reducing your mother’s care package from seven minutes to four minutes a day. This does not apply at weekends or on public holidays when no service is provided.
JOY puts the letter in her pocket.
JOY: (To goldfish.): ¿Qué vamos a hacer?
JOY picks up the knitting.
Banging on the wall from the next room.
***
The egg hatches.
***
The hospital room. The next morning. Enter JOY.
JOY: So … ?
HOPE: So?
JOY: So … what is it?
HOPE: It’s got wings.
Webbed toes.
Slight fusion of the nose and jaw, but not so you’d notice.
JOY: Is it a girl or a boy?
JOY looks in the incubator.
HOPE: Boy.
JOY: Oh my! Look at you! You are GORGEOUS!
(To the baby.) You are gorgeous. Yes you are. Aren’t you gorgeous? Did you tap your way out? Did you? Did you?
HOPE: The tapping thing is a myth. They uncurl.
JOY: (To the baby.) Aw that is cute. Isn’t that cute?
HOPE: It’s actually quite messy.
JOY: Can I hold him?
HOPE: If you like.
JOY lifts the baby.
JOY: (To the baby) You are lovely. Aren’t you?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What is your name?
JOY looks to HOPE.
HOPE: I thought maybe Magnus?
JOY: (To the baby.) You look like a Magnus. Yes you do. You look like a Magnus.
HOPE: He looks like an alien.
Pause.
JOY: (To HOPE.) Are you OK?
HOPE: It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?
Pause.
JOY: Here.
JOY gives HOPE the baby to hold.
HOPE holds the baby.
JOY: Look at you.
You will both be grand.
Trust me.
A moment.
The baby starts crying. A miauling cry – like a cat. Or a seagull.
HOPE: He’s hardly stopped crying since he hatched.
JOY: Have you tried a dummy?
HOPE: They said it’s not good for him.
JOY: If it’s good for you, it’s good for him.
She takes a dummy out of her pocket and puts it in the baby’s mouth.
He stops crying.
HOPE: How long will he cry for?
JOY: Ear plugs are good. Industrial ear protectors are better.
HOPE: I can’t even hold him right.
JOY: New babies are hard to hold.
JOY takes the baby.
JOY: Especially when they’ve got wings.
HOPE: He looks like a pterosaurus. Hundreds of thousands years of human evolution and I get a pterosaurus.
JOY: Aye. Hundreds of thousands years and look where it got us!
(To the baby.) You are lovely. Aren’t you? Yes you are.
HOPE: They won’t let me out till they’ve done the tests. But they don’t know when they can do the tests. I don’t think they even know what they’re testing for.
JOY: Has anyone even asked about his father?
HOPE
