Supertitle: PRITI'S HOME. NIGHT.

(Priti and Linda enter together. Priti has a bottle of cheap whisky, but they are only slightly drunk – just enough to be off their guard.)

Linda: You live here alone?

Priti: This – only me. Nice?

Linda: Just one room?

Priti: Bathroom, cooking – outside. Here – under. Bites.

(She clambers under the net, where Linda joins her, taking off her rucksack. They're quite giggly about finding this "den" together.)

Safe.

Linda: Why did you ask me to come here?

Priti: Friend.

Linda: Right – so do we shake hands or do a thingy [=namaskar] or kiss or what?

Priti: Kiss air! Film stars!

(laughter as they camp it up)

Hey – hey!

(Priti impersonates the Man getting the blow job and getting violent and frustrated – use some of his words from previous scene. Linda laughing.)

Linda: How can you live this way? I mean – in toilets – doing that?

Priti: Money. My flat. I buy it.

Linda: Today has been a serious eye-opener for me.

(drinks)

Priti: No see Indian women do that? Happen a lot.

Linda:Yeah. In England too. Sometimes little boys and little girls.

Priti: I begin – I am thirteen. Bus driver.

Linda: And did no-one know?

Priti: Many do it.

Linda: Money?

Priti: No. Bus very crowded. Hot. He drop us last. No seat – you vomit. So we want seat – window seat. Touch driver - you get window seat.

(Beat)

Linda: Sometimes in England you see these guys outside the schools. They pretend to be the girls' boyfriends or something. But really they're getting them into drugs and stuff. Then, when the girls really want to buy the drugs, the boyfriend takes them to other men and they start doing it for money. And that's how it starts. Sometimes they're only twelve. Less.

(During this, Priti has started to stroke Linda's hair.)

Priti: My uncle. Amma's brother. In Amma's study – room with no door. Secret. After, he give me cigarette.

Linda: That's sad.

Priti: Sad? Why? Happen all the time. You?

Linda: Well…… my driving instructor had a go. That's not the same, is it?

(Beat)

Priti: Why you come in India?

Linda: Oh – I don't know. I had – a friend. In England. He left. And I think he's here. But I don't even know. He could be anywhere.

Priti: This city?

Linda:Maybe.

Priti:Big city.

Linda: Yeah.

(Beat)

I suppose. Here. I just feel closer to him. Breathing the same air he's breathing…..

(Priti laughs)

Priti: Like cinema!

(Linda laughs too, and shoves Priti playfully)

Nobody believe this.

Linda: I do. I believe it.

(Beat)

Have you ever been in love?

Priti: Maybe, maybe not.

Linda: I went to see his parents. I don't think I went down too well. (realising the unintentional pun) Oh -

Priti: ?

Linda: Your face is still really sore……. Hang on, I've got some cream maybe.

(searching in her rucksack)

Priti: Medicine.

Linda: Just to soothe it.

(She applies the cream. Slowly, and very gently.)

Radhakrishna Urala as A

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