Free Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones Page B

who soldier on in the face of complete hopelessness, but it hasn’t made any difference –
    George    You’ve got nothing to cry about, little Mercy.
    Flora    Of course she has. She has never been married, she has no dress sense to speak of and she has always been in love with you, George.
    Rosie    You’re a bitch.
    Mercy    ( to Flora ) What?
    Flora    It’s true, Mercy.
    Mercy    ( terribly embarrassed ) No! No! No. I have not – I like George, but I have never really – you are very rude to me, Flora.
    Rosie    She thinks she’s too good for all of us.
    Mercy    And if you four are anything to go by I’m very glad I’ve kept myself to myself, thank you very much.
    George    Absolutely.
    Mercy    It’s people like you that give people who live in the countryside a bad name.
    George    Hear, hear.
    Mercy    I know that I am a negligible sort of person. But I won’t stand for it. I’ve always looked up to you. Always.
    Flora    You have no life of your own so you constantly leech off mine.
    George    Flora, stop it.
    Flora    I did not choose you to be my friend. It was an accident of geography. Because I am stuck in this bloody awful middle-England middle-class bloody rural bloody idyll.
    Felix    ( with sudden authority ) Stop it, Mother. ENOUGH! That is enough now. You have said enough. We have all said enough. It’s a beautiful day and … and I think we should eat now. Whatever our differences – I think we should eat.
    Pause.
    Perhaps you’d like to say grace for us, Mercy. Then we can eat your delicious soup.
    Mercy    I don’t know.
    Felix    Please. We are all going to be calm now. We have exhausted ourselves. See.
    Everyone is quiet round the table.
    Mercy    Very well. ( Mercy goes to stand up. She cannot quite look George in the eye. ) I don’t have those sort of feelings for you, George.
    George    No, of course not.
    Mercy    So long as you know that.
    George    I know that.
    She stands up a little shakily. They all bow their heads, except perhaps Flora.
    Mercy    For what we are about to receive, which none of you really want to eat but which I stayed up till two in the morning to make and I didn’t even have any pimentos and had to improvise round them, may the Lord, whether you believe in Him or not, I know you don’t, Felix, because you’re a scientist so you’re not allowed to and anyway I don’t know if I do, because of things like James dying in the way that he did and little Felicity not having an identifiable father and the terrible things that Flora has said to me and the little fat bumblebees just dropping down dead from the sky. And I know that what James said about the finite number of heartbeats should be a comfort, but it is not. And maybe I don’t have much of a life but up to now God has filled all the gaps but now there do seem to be holes that He can’t fill so perhaps you are right, Flora, because even though I still do the flowers in church and my various parish duties really I would say that I was unofficially on a sabbatical from God at the moment because everything is really so unsettling and I’m sick to my heart of trying all the time, trying, trying, trying, and I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all so may the Lord, even though we’re not on speaking terms, make us all, and I mean all of us, truly grateful. Amen.
    George    Amen.
    Felix    Very well put, Mercy.
    George    Let’s eat. I’m starving. ( He takes a mouthful. ) It’s bloody delicious.
    Rosie    It’s got a real zing to it.
    Mercy    There isn’t too much seasoning?
    Felix    No. It’s just right.
    They all eat, making