Abandonment (NHB Modern Plays)

ACT ONE
Scene 1
The living-room of a flat in a converted Victorian mansion. A large window. No carpet on the floor throughout. The place is in some disarray, packing-cases etc. A piano with old photographs on top of it and a candle. AGNES sits at the piano, playing ‘Home Sweet Home’. She stops abruptly, blows out the candle, and leaves.
ELIZABETH (offstage). No, I have everything I need, it’s okay.
ELIZABETH enters, carrying a cardboard box and switches on the light. SUSIE, also carrying a box, enters, followed by KITTY, carrying a bottle of champagne.
KITTY. God it’s wild out there.
SUSIE. I hope it’s not bad luck to flit in a storm.
ELIZABETH. Stormy weather.
SUSIE. Mother Nature’s in a stushie about something. You kept the curtains.
ELIZABETH. It would cost a fortune to put up new ones. It’s such a big window.
SUSIE. I do like big windows. It’s like . . . I don’t know, the outside world coming in.
ELIZABETH. Not the inside world getting out?
KITTY. You’re going to have to get double glazing. And central heating. And God knows what else. The place is a wreck. Has it had anything done to it in the past hundred years?
ELIZABETH. Not much. That’s why I liked it.
KITTY. It smells like someone died in here. They’re a strange colour, aren’t they? The curtains. What do you call that?
SUSIE. Yellow?
ELIZABETH. I think it’s chartreuse.
KITTY. Chartreuse?
ELIZABETH. Chartreuse.
SUSIE. Old lady’s curtains.
KITTY. What old lady?
SUSIE. The one who lived here. The one who died here.
ELIZABETH. The famous Miss Aurora