A Breakfast of Eels (NHB Modern Plays)

shy I am. When I’m not with you I hardly say boo to a goose.

A slight pause.

I must seem naive when I have to ask you how to use a condom. I know it appears as if I flit over the surface of things. Why do people think I’m everything I’m not?

He offers FRANCIS a chocolate. FRANCIS eats one.

A slight pause.

What do I do?

I care too much what people think.

He holds out the box.

It’s a worry.

FRANCIS. You have the rest of them.

PENROSE. I worry all the time most people won’t like me. I know I’m too easily bruised. I know I seem quite young.

FRANCIS. I was young for my age.

PENROSE. You still are.

FRANCIS. I looked young.

PENROSE. You still do.

A slight pause.

You’re far cleverer than you realise, which is a wonderful thing.

A slight pause.

I don’t know where my confidence went, but it’s gone somewhere. I’m definitely a boy and not a man. I know I don’t help. I learnt to play silly at school when everyone presumed I was gay. I’ve been doing silly ever since.

A slight pause.

It hurts, Francis. I can’t get over myself somehow that I’m so unattractive.

FRANCIS takes a step or two towards him.

So unsexy and plain. I’m negligible. Who likes a boy?

A slight pause.

Cordelia tells me I’m attractive, but she tells me in a very unsexy way. She said I’m frightened of responsibility. It wasn’t a seductive conversation. It hasn’t been me somehow to love a girl in a sexy way, which is why I’m baffled and confused.

A slight pause.

We have good fun together.

He holds out the box. FRANCIS takes a chocolate and eats it.

It’s courage I’m looking for… I don’t know where it went… the trust I once had in myself. It’s not you, Francis, in case you’re thinking it is. I went through puberty too late, and there’s the rub of the problem. I was mocked because of it. And shy because of it. You’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t realise how

I’m not a man, whatever a man is.

A slight pause.

I’m too intimidated to be a man.

He holds out the box.

Too horrified.

A slight pause.