CONFESSION
Monologue for performance
by
Leni Sands
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 @ Leni Sands
Part One
[Setting: - fade into a bare, grey squared room with one small, barred window high on the facing wall, one small table and two chairs. A dark haired, middle-aged slim built woman with a pale complexion and grey eyes is slouched in the chair on the left, elbows on the table, rubbing her hands together in a washing motion. She is not quite facing the camera. She is wearing a long black jersey dress and black pumps. In front of her is an open packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Opposite her, on the table are a folder, some loose paper, a pen, and a tape recorder, which is switched on. The chair on the right is turned away from the table. She is talking to someone off screen…]
…I don’t know why I did it. I suppose I just snapped. I mean it’s been going on for so long now, since August last year…never ending. I begged, even pleaded with her, tried to appeal to her sense of compassion and consideration that apparently did not exist, then I complained to the authorities who had so much red tape it just seemed to go on forever. The whole thing was making me jumpy, I was irritable, my nerves completely shot.
I couldn’t sleep or eat. I’ve lost so much weight if I turn sideways I’ll disappear. My whole personality changed. I used to be a happy, go lucky, carefree person, smart and house-proud. Now look at me. I was doing a degree at university. I would have got it, too, but…well…you know…
[She shifts in her chair and rests her head on her right hand…she is using her left hand to fiddle with the cigarette packet]
We used to be friends, you know me, and my neighbour…it was just after the baby was born. She needed a bit of support and I was there to give it. I helped her out no end. She kept telling me how grateful she was and if there was ever anything she could for me, just to ask.
I never asked for anything until she started with the music.
The baby was just over a year old when she threw her boyfriend out. That’s when it all started. She’d done it previously, on the odd occasion before the baby was born and once or twice, I’d asked him to tell her to turn it down, turn the music down. When we eventually became friends, I thought I might be able to sort it out on more adult terms. That could never be. She is so immature.
Anyway, after he had gone, I asked her several times to turn the music down. At first, she apologised but moaned that now she was on her own, she only had the music for pleasure. I was completely taken in by her. I felt she was having difficulty coming to terms with single-parenthood, so I tolerated it.
Then she got in with a new group of friends. Block heads the lot of them. Out nearly every night. That baby, that poor child, rarely spent two nights together in his own cot. He’d stay with her ex. her mother, or at one of her friends whilst she went to raves…and the music, when she was in, it was on and it became intolerable.
One Wednesday I came home from uni, with a slitting headache. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before because of that damned music but I went round to give her a birthday card and ask her if she could turn the music down because the bass from the speakers was making my headache worse. She turned it down for a short while but then turned it back up when her favourite song came on. I had to go round again. I suppose I could tell then that she didn’t like it. She turned it off and went out.
The following morning, my headache had developed into a migraine so, once my son had left for school, I took some paracetamol and went back to bed. I fell asleep almost straight away only to be awakened by her stereo, again. My bedroom felt like a disco, the only thing missing were the flashing lights although the migraine produced enough of those…
As I was still in my night things, I picked up the telephone and rang her. “Please, I’ve been asking you nicely to show some consideration, please turn the music down.” She swore at me and told me to go to the bloody council. So that was that…we haven’t spoken since…I dressed quickly, didn’t bother hanging around waiting for a bus and arrived at the council offices at about 10am.
They were very sympathetic, as I cried with frustration and anger. I felt overwhelmingly guilty for ‘dobbing her in’. They told me that the process was a little long and drawn out but that the first stage was to write everything down recording the time she put the stereo on and how it affected it me. It was very tedious.
[She lifts her head and gazes into space]
It was always the same, intermittent, during the day and in the evening. Never at set times, except, when she was in, it was on, blasting out for her favourite songs. Sometimes it would blare out at three or four in the morning… The same monotonous beat, vibrating through the walls from the floorboards to the rafters, rave, and this modern pop music. You can’t imagine the annoyance, the headaches; enough to drive anyone round the twist.
We recorded it on my tape recorder. I took three tapes to the council. They agreed that there seemed to be a problem so they wrote to her asking her to contact them. Usually, they told me, just a letter arriving is enough to make them stop and turn it down. She didn’t contact them or turn it down. They installed recording equipment in my house so that they could measure the decibels. Two weeks later, they collected the equipment and telephoned to tell me it was one of the worst they had ever heard. At last, I thought, now something will be done to shut her up.
They kept calling round to try to catch her in but she became elusive. They popped cards through her letterbox asking her to contact them. Still nothing. So they popped another card through saying if she didn’t contact within so many days they would have to consider taking court action. She contacted them on the Monday, listened to the recordings, and agreed it was her music. She said that I must have had the microphone right up to the wall. How dare she? They set the equipment up, not me. All I had to do was press a button when she put her stereo on, say what day, and time it was. I felt a right bitch doing it but you can’t live like that, can you?