Civic Duty

(The Police in the UK have received 200,000 phone calls reporting breakers of lockdown)

A one-act play for our times

Scene I

(A one-act play for our times)

Attic Flat in Middle-Class Area of the City. Lady in her seventies pacing up and down her immaculate room limping and with a hand on her haunch, mumbling to herself.

Lady: This blooming lockdown! Didn’t need this at me age. (Laughs bitterly) Not that I’d be going anywhere. Not with them legs… hunh! If that ain’t enough there’s them stairs. Seven of ’em. And to go where? Don’t know no one no more. All dropped dead. No one visits anyway. I’ve lived in lockdown not knowing it … (laughs bitterly)The girls now have perfect excuses … can’t pop in mum, the lockdown, you know. Before the virus there was no lockdown but you didn’t come either, did ya? Lockdown doesn’t mean you can’t phone … nobody cares.

She walks to the window and leans out.

At least the sun’s come out… I think the good lord is having a laugh … first he locks us in our house, then he makes the best sunny warm weather and … mocks us … (sees someone in the street below) … what’s she doing outside again? We can’t have that … she was out this morning … walking the dog my foot! No one gives a bean for the law… the law’s for other people … they don’t realise that they’re exposing themselves to the virus … irresponsible that is… as if they don’t know that once they catch it, they’ll give it to others … it’s criminal … I ain’t no busybody, but I need to report that … it’s my civic duty… I’ll call Gaywood Square …

Angrily she walks to the phone, sits down on an armchair and dials a number. Someone answers immediately.

Lady: Good morning to you sir, can I speak to the nice lady I spoke to yesterday … she was ever so kind …

We do not hear his response

Lady: No, I mean … I am a law-abiding citizen and I would like to report a … crime I suppose you’d call it … people breaking the lockdown …

We do not hear the other phone

Oh yes, I know her … she lives at number 81, fifth floor. Her name is Flo Newton … Florence really. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed her gallivanting all over the place like she’s on a charity run … no regard for the rules, for other people … you know one person infects two and two infect four and four infect eight and eight … infect eighteen … you must send someone to arrest her …

We do not hear the response

Lady: You are? Good, thank you. Remember me to the kind lady … I’ll be in touch again.

Scene II. Later

Lady is at the phone, finishing a conversation. Looks pleased.

Lady: If there were more people like me the virus would be gone in days! That’s seven lawbreakers who’ll need to think again.

She paces up and down the room mumbling to herself

Lady: Now I haven’t seen Ethel in days … she’s not one to do as she is told … I’ll bet my pension on her flouting the law… people like her have to be stopped … no it’s not malicious … it’s preventative … if the law comes breathe on her neck, it’ll be for her own good … if they fine her, well … she can afford it, she gets a bigger pension than me … then there’s Bill the retired teacher … he’s not one for rules and laws …