LIGHTS UP.

BRENDA STANDS ALONE – A WOMAN IN HER SIXTIES.

Brenda:                        

So, I met this man on Tinder, right?

(pause)

See?

(beat)

Right away I can feel you judging me. Like you have some inalienable right to look down on me because I ventured onto a dating app to see what was what and what was I thinking at my time of life? Even though I wouldn’t do something like that just for the sake of it or even very often.

(pause)

Well, not really.

(beat)

So maybe more than once but not like every week or something, like I’m some sort of serial window shopper ogling the merchandise because I’ve got nothing better to do with my time and, frankly, screw you for being Mother Theresa and not having any inclination to see what’s out there in the big wide world, just because I’ve got the guts, and you haven’t.

(beat)

Sorry.

(beat)

It’s just that I spend so much time having to explain myself these days that before I know where I am an explanation becomes a defence and I feel like I have to fight for what I want to think, never mind what I want to say. What with all these politically correct things to remember and who to say what to and what to call them and not to stare and…

Well, you know what I mean, I’m sure.

(pause)

Anyway...

(takes a breath)

I found his profile on Tindr or Grindr or Facebook or X or Insta or something – well, you’ve got to spread your bets, haven’t you? I mean you don’t just go to Sainsbury’s for fish when Asda might have something fresher or with more meat on the bone, though I wouldn’t bother with Lidl because nothing’s very reliable and consistent and one week they’ve got a nice bit of salmon and the next it’s pollock or nothing and lord knows why settle for pollock if you can afford not to, right?

(beat)

Anyway...

(beat)

I had a good look and I thought, my God but he’s a bit of alright this one. Fit as a butcher’s dog, as my dad used to say, though I don’t think anyone says that sort of thing any more, do they? And why would a butcher’s dog be fit anyway? From eating offal and scraps? Not sure that vegan girl down the road would call that a recipe for fitness. Not that we talk, you understand. She’s not really my cup of tea. I mean I don’t mind a few piercings and tattoos, but it’s all that holier-than-thou attitude because I like a nice piece of lamb on a Sunday, and she wants to know how I can sit down and tuck into that with my roasties and cauliflower cheese when I know that a mother’s baby has been stolen and killed so it can lie there next to the mint sauce?

(beat)

I mean if you want to spend your life seeing everyone as Hannibal Lecter or something then that’s your lookout, but don’t keep spouting it all to me. Live and let live is my motto. And I’m sure I learned in Sunday School that God granted man – or woman, obviously! Suffragettes and girl power and all that, so yes he – or she – granted us dominion over the animals and birds and fish and everything, meaning it’s basically up to us what we want to do with them, no?

(beat)

Not that I’m religious or anything, you understand. I mean I’ll let those Jehovah’s witnesses stand at the front door and prattle on about the end times and judgement day (if at least one of them’s dishy, of course, otherwise there’s just no point) but my point is that knowing the odd bible verse can be a useful tool when you’re dealing with these WOKE wastrels.

(pause)

Course, even the bible’s not good enough for the vegan girl, who says that (impersonates her) organised religion is just a societal construct invented by a patriarchal system to manipulate the masses and utilise their fear of the unknowable as a method of control and conditioning to thereby subjugate the majority to further the interests and ambitions of a tiny minority.

(beat)

Or something like that – not that I really listen, you understand – too many words to waste time over when there’s plenty of other things to be getting on with than learning about life from Twitter and TikTok instead of thinking for yourself and deciding what to think based on facts and experience rather than opinion and innuendo – not that I don’t enjoy a good inuendo myself, though I do prefer a decent double entendre, if you know what I mean, and I know you do.

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

His photo was really quite something and I thought, well that’s worth a second look if ever anything was, and he reminded me of someone I went to school with – though obviously this was a picture of a grown man rather than a post-pubescent Stephen Blight, who thought he looked good with a smoking JPS dangling from his bottom lip while he was still waiting for his acne to clear up and to have enough hair to be able to shave all the way across his top lip, bless him.

(beat)

But I thought, well, there’s no harm in looking at this handsome specimen in the photo and having a think about it, and then I thought if there’s no harm in thinking about it then it’s not that much more of a thing to actually do something about it and send a message, is it? I mean, there’s no point to standing at the window and looking in if you’re not really interested in what’s being displayed, is there? And then, if you take an interest, you might at least go into the shop and see if there’s anything in your size. And then, once you’re in, you have to try it on, otherwise there’s really no point to any of it. Now I’m not saying you should go ahead and whip out your credit card to buy, obviously. No. Making an actual purchase is a very last resort and only worth doing once you’ve tried it on for size, checked how it makes you look and feel, and then imagined the looks on your friends’ faces when they see it. Alright, it might be that the actuality is far less exciting than the imagined outcome, but how will you know without trying?

(beat)

So I sent a message.

(beat)

Well, an emoji, anyway. One you can send after you swipe right or flick up or click on or double dip or whatever you call it.

(beat)

I mean, there are so many to choose from and I do wonder at some of them. The love heart makes sense and so does the face with hearts in the eyes, and probably the flames being something to do with burning passion – though how you could know that from seeing one picture of  someone wearing a tight tee-shirt and jeans and leaning against a sports car is beyond me, even with my vivid imagination – but what can you do? So I had a proper look through them to find something I thought would be complimentary, as you would, but none of the faces were really saying what I wanted to say so I kept scrolling – I think that’s what you call it – and I went through all the smileys and people and animals and nature, and then it got to the food and drink and I was about to give up to be honest when I saw the veg and remembered Cora Braithwaite at this year’s summer fete and her prize-winning aubergine – I mean it was quite the thing and, although, to be frank, I’m not a big fan of her and her tee-total husband with his silver-tipped walking cane, you had to be impressed with their gardening skills – so I thought that’s the ticket, because the chap in the photo’s a prize-winner in my opinion and I could show my appreciation for his clean tee-shirt, tattooed muscles and that devil-may-care five o’clock shadow. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a compliment now and again, is there?

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

I clicked on the aubergine in reply to his picture and off that went.

(pause)

You know, I think that vegan girl could get a lot more people agreeing with her if she said something nice about them once in a while, instead of constantly telling them their shoes are smeared in animal blood or their warm coat reminds her of a dead cow or somesuch. You get far more with honey than you do with vinegar, my dad used to say. Though of course she says we shouldn’t get anything with honey because we’re depriving the bees of the food they need when the flowers are gone. Poor dear. Perhaps she’s had no honey and too much vinegar in her life, and this is what’s come of it. Sad really.

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

I didn’t hear back from him right away – the chap in the photo, I mean. Not that I was actively sitting and waiting for anything, although can you actively sit and wait? Isn’t that one of those oxymoron things? (shrugs) Well, I certainly didn’t imagine that he would get back to me. I mean, my profile picture on that app – whichever app it was because I use the same for all of them, except Facebook which is what I call my Sunday face because the ladies at the Women’s Institute can be quite sniffy if you’re not all frosting and sensible shoes, bless them. But that non-Facebook picture is definitely a better version of me, not actually me perhaps, but a me that I feel that best reflects my personality more than just my appearance. You should surely put your best side out there, no? I mean, I knew he had. There was definitely some of that “touching up” and “editing” that had gone on for him to look quite that good. There had to be. Something to do with other apps that let you make yourself look better. Filters – that’s the word I was looking for. Never really been my thing, to be honest. Very complicated and fiddly, and I’d probably end up making myself completely ridiculous if I started messing about with them. Look like a frog with bunny ears or something. Much better to use a picture that at least gives an idea of the person you are and how you hope to be perceived, rather than some sort of a cartoon cock-up, right? But at the end of the day, if he could do it on his picture – and I was sure he had – then I felt more than comfortable knowing that I’d done the same. If nothing else, that would surely give us something in common.

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

I wasn’t expecting any immediate response, like I said, so it was quite a surprise when I got a message back from him. Nothing complicated, you understand. Not some sweep-you-off-your-feet poetry or over-flattering compliments, I grant you, but it wasn’t one of those cheap pick-up lines either.

(beat)

(impersonates deep male voice) Wanna meet?

(beat)

(normal voice) Short and to the point, no? Said what he needed to say and nothing more. Not exactly Shakespeare but not a time waster, in my book. Promising, I thought. So then I had that moment of indecision where I had to say just the right thing not to seem too needy, but also something that wouldn’t come across as cold or indifferent – like this sort of thing happened to me all the time or something.

So, I thought it through and gave him the most fitting answer I could come up with.

(beat)

And I replied, Yeah. Sounds good to me.

(beat)

Though I did worry that sounds good to me might have come across as a bit clingy perhaps, but I’d sent it by the time I started to have doubts, so then it was too late! But it didn’t matter because after a bit more back and forth like that, we’d arranged a place and a time. He asked if we shouldn’t both have something with us so we’d know each other when we saw each other – which of course confirmed my suspicions that he’d done a bit of filtering or what have you to his photo just like I’d done with mine – so I jokingly suggested we both have a folded newspaper or a red carnation like in the old spy films, like we were on a secret rendezvous or something, and blow me if he didn’t say he loved the idea. Well, I thought, that’s sweet of him and it told me a bit more, although it’s not like I knew much beyond the picture and his brief and simple responses in our back and forth, so it was nice to get another clue, I suppose.

(beat)

But let’s face it, that’s what meeting someone is all about – finding out about each other. Not knowing too much at the beginning adds to the mystery and all that, right? I like surprises. Always have. Birthday parties I don’t know about, get-togethers with people I haven’t seen for a long time, little gifts for no reason at all. I love all of them. Some people accuse me of being immature for liking things like that. And apparently for the way I talk and go on. But who wants to be all serious and boring? My goodness, I’ve got the gardening club and Women’s Institute for all that palaver, haven’t I?

And I remember spending all my early years praying to be a teenager, with all the physical attributes and legal permissions I could get without the responsibilities of being a grown-up – which lasts literally only two or three years at best – before actual adulthood came along far too quickly and stole the fun out of everything and replaced it with responsibility and pessimism, and it was time to settle down and be mature, and I wasn’t really up for it, so I never really did. Of course, plenty of people still witter on about what I wear and what I do and where I drink and who I hang around with, but why should it matter to them what I do with my life? Am I hurting anyone? I mean, other than their fragile egos because they really do want to do the things I do but are too afraid of what “other people” might think – which makes no sense because if they stopped and thought about it they’d realise that they are “other people”!

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

Then I had to go through that thing of deciding what to wear and how to do my make-up and which way to do my hair and which shoes to put on. It isn’t easy dealing with that problem of looking not too slutty but not too uptight, not too classy that they think they can’t afford you and not too cheap that they see you as a charity case. That’s the bit that takes so long about getting ready and anyone who tells you different has clearly never made the effort. So, I took my time and made sure I got it right, and I also made sure I had plenty of time to take because I am that sort of organised person when it’s for something that matters to me. When it’s something that doesn’t, I’m quite forgetful and all over the place – you can ask anyone! So, it was a good couple of hours before I got the exact look I wanted. Just enough but not too much. I avoided the leather that I normally love, in case he thought I was a dominatrix or something – which happened once and was all a bit complicated until he back got up off his knees and stopped asking to call me Mrs T, and we both saw the funny side, I suppose. So this time I went for a white blouse over a black tee-shirt, some boot-cut jeans and my DM boots. I thought that would complement his pseudo-biker vibe from the photo without looking like I was trying too hard, obviously.

(beat)

Anyway...

(pause)

I headed out to the club he’d suggested, and it was a place I knew but I’d never been in because I go to places on the other side of town where I think it’s more fun and I’m less likely to bump into anyone I know, if you know what I mean, but I was willing to give it a try because you have to try something new and each to their own and all that.

(beat)

And I got there at ten twenty because he’d said around ten but I don’t like to be on time for anything because it looks like you have no life when you do things like that, but then again I don’t like to be too late because then it looks like you don’t care at all and that’s just rude. But that’s by the by, and I get there and get let in by the bouncers, who did their usual thing of giving me the once over and frowning but then shrugging, smiling and nodding – and sometimes even winking – before letting me in. All part of the fun, no?

(beat)

Anyway...

(beat)

I walked in and went to the bar, and we saw each other straight away and we both know that we were there to meet each other because we were both holding a folded newspaper, and I knew for sure we weren’t what either of us expected and I think we both realised at the same time that we needed to use photos that were a bit closer to the truth, because the poor love froze right where he was standing and I watched the emotions going across his face like a TV screen, and I saw confusion then shock then fear and then panic and all before he finally found his voice and said, Nan?

LIGHTS DOWN.

Written by Sebastian Wolff