‘Outfit,’ a short play by Lisa Allan

CHARACTERS

Hat : Self-appointed head of The Outfit

Scarf : Paired with Hat, made at the same time

Leggings : Had a hole, it’s fixed now. Has seen things the others haven’t

Sock 1 : Self-centred due to a lifetime of being lumped in with Sock 2

Sock 2 : Stands in the shadow of Sock 1

Somewhere, at the top of a cupboard, in a cardboard box.

Hat | Hey, Scarfie. Wake up.

Scarf | I’m not asleep, I feel it too, you’re not the only sensitive one.

Hat | I am the head of the operation.

Scarf | Self appointed.

Hat | Who would you prefer? Smellie McGee over there?

Sock 1 | Hey, are you referring to me or him?

Sock 2 | Probably me.

Sock 1 | We have been lying here, freshly washed and discarded since last Winter. I smell slightly musty at worst. We all do. You too Hattie.

Hat | It’s Hettie. I’m trying something new this season.

Leggings | Ooh, I like that. Maybe I’ll try something new too. Lizzie? Leggings sounds so… functional. Hettie, you’ve given me a ‘leg up’ to a new life. Snap. So happy. Hashtag LeggingsNoMore.

Sock 1 | Did you get that hole darned Lizzie?

Leggings | Never! Never mention that again Smellie McGee!

Sock 1 | Are we claiming that name? Are we okay with that?

Sock 2 | Who are we kidding? If anyone’s getting smelly, it’s us.

Sock 1 | We’ve all had holes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Leggings | But… the location.

Sock 2 | Brother, stop. We all have things we’d rather not discuss. Remember the time Jenny-

All | Oh, Jenny! Our darling!

Hat | Yes, I remember. The family was camping in the back paddock. Jenny had just stuffed herself full of damper that she’d toasted on a stick over the fire. She took off her shoes because they were wet from crossing the creek.

Scarf | The best wood is always on the other side.

All giggle.

Sock 1 | [timidly] She stretched me out.

Sock 2 | And me, I was there too.

Sock 1 | I was wet, and the flames felt lovely.

Sock 2 | I was wet too. I liked the flames too.

Sock 1 | Steam started to rise from my body.

Sock 2 | And mine.

Sock 1 | Jenny was wriggling her toes.

Sock 2 | It tickled.

Sock 1 | It got hotter.

Leggings | It’s okay, you don’t have to.

Sock 1 | No. I need to.

A big breath.

Sock 1 | Jenny inched us closer and closer, it got hotter and hotter.

Sock 2 | I agree, hotter and hotter.

Sock 1 | She whipped me off and put me on a stick!

Sock 2 | Us, both of us.

Sock 1 | And dangled me.

Sock 2 | Us.

Sock 1 | Over the fire.

Sock 2 | And then her parents pointed out the stars-

Sock 1 | She spun around

Hat | You fell into the fire, lots of screams, she fished you out, you were a little singed but okay.

Sock 1 | You call this okay?!

All gasp.

Hat | I take it back. That is hideous.

Sock 2 | I was okay.

Scarf | If you hadn’t been a present from so far away…

Sock 1 | I would have been…

Sock 2 | Stop!

Leggings | We are all favourites. We need to remember that. Favourites stick around.

All murmur in agreement.

Hat | Now that I have you all here.

Scarf | Here in this box that we’ve all been in all year?

Hat | Tactically ignoring sarcasm. Now that I have you all here, I’m guessing you all heard the peals of delight.

Scarf | Yes! The first soft flakes of snow have arrived!

Leggings | It won’t be long.

Sock 1 | The chair will scrape along the wooden floor.

Sock 2 | I love that sound.

Hat | Those little fingers will grip the side of the box.

Scarf | We’ll see those brown eyes peep over the edge as she tips us towards her.

All | Jenny!

Hat | I remember when Jenny first got me. I came from so far away. I was knitted on the other side of the world. The first word I ever heard was, ‘finished.’ And Jenny’s Great Aunt Rose, my mother, held me up so proud.

Scarf | That’s not what you told me.

Hat | Let me have my moment.

Scarf | You said she pointed out all your flaws, sighed and said ‘this will have to do because I’m not getting any younger.’

Hat | She has arthritis and her eyesight is going. Be kind.

Scarf | Look. I’ve been there. We all have. Your origin story is ours too. We all have flaws. But we’re made of wool. We’ll endure. That’s our strength.

Hat | She packed us up together. We were a set.

Scarf | We are a set. Made for each other.

Hat | See, that’s nice. I like it when we’re nice. We were folded.

Scarf | Wrapped-

Hat | Loosely-

Scarf | In tissue paper.

Hat | Bound in thick brown paper-

Scarf | A string criss-crossing around it-

Leggings | How do you know?

Scarf | We were there.

Leggings | On the inside. How do you know there was string?

Hat | Oh, we knew. You didn’t have string?

Leggings | I wouldn’t know.

Scarf | Anyone who’s been tied up with string knows it.

Hat | There’s a distinctive tossing and turning.

Scarf | And squeezing and scrabbling.

They giggle

Hat | Quite delightful.

Scarf | Quite.

Hat | Then we were spirited away, into the unknown.

Scarf | Her face-

Hat | When she opened us.

Scarf | It was the day of the great toboggan fiasco.

Hat | Who remembers?

All | How could we forget/ Oh yes/ It is etched into my every fibre.

Leggings | If I might…

Hat/Scarf | Of course Lizzy.

Leggings | The toboggan was made of wood. Jenny’s Mother and Father had been secretly working on it all year. When they were sure Jenny was fast asleep, they would scurry down to the shed, turn on the tilly lamp and up tools. They chiselled and sawed and nailed and sanded and painted. It was a labour of love. I would have had no idea.

Sock 1 | None of us would have known.

Leggings | If Jenny hadn’t spilt her hot cocoa on me.

Sock 2 | And if that phone call from Aunt Rose hadn’t kept everyone inside until dark.

Leggings | They didn’t know I was still outside, alone, on the line. In the half lit room, through a dusty, smeared window, I saw their craft. And… over their tools, with wood shavings still adorning the air around them… I saw the kiss!

Sock 1 | You didn’t turn away?

Leggings | How could I? I was frozen solid! My eyes were locked in place. I saw everything.

Hat | You’re getting distracted. A few days later, as the rooster woke everyone up at the crack of dawn. It was time!

Scarf | Jenny had finally fallen asleep, hugging me tight.

Hat | She still had me on.

Leggings | And me.

Socks | And me.

Scarf | She had been trying to stay up because she wanted to ask Santa if he had anything spare.

Sock 1 | Oh yes, because she’d noticed.

Scarf | Last year.

Sock 1 | That her Mother and Father had delighted in her opening her presents.

Scarf | But had had none of their own.

Beat

Sock 1 | And she knew they couldn’t possibly be on the naughty list.

Scarf | Because every Sunday they took roast chicken to their elderly neighbour.

Sock 1 | And every Monday they took fresh baking to the new mummas.

Sock 2 | And every Tuesday they trimmed back Owen Hutchison’s hedge and Mary Rodgers rose bush and Tom Drexels weeds and took herbs to the butcher and eggs to the baker and lavender to the bookkeeper.

Hat | And every Wednesday they read to the sick.

Leggings | And every Thursday they delivered mail to the houses beyond the river where the postie refuses to go because of the dog that runs wild.

Scarf | And every Friday they did the dishes at the city mission.

Sock 1 | And every Saturday they drove old Mr Peters all the way to visit his wife in the nursing home far, far away. Together, always together.

Scarf | All the while running their little farm and making do with scraps and scrimpings themselves. So, she knew, she knew that they could only possibly be on the good list. Because if they weren’t, then why was she? But she’d fallen asleep. She was too young to stay up so late. And Santa had arrived and the cock was crowing and Jenny bolted up!

Sock 1 | She ran so fast, I thought we were going to slide across the wooden floor.

Sock 2 | I thought that too.

Sock 1 | The little tree, decorated with painted pinecones and flowers and baked flour ornaments, it was dwarfed by the toboggan under it.

Scarf | Jenny squealed with delight!

Hat | Her parents had dragged themselves out of bed and were in the doorway, rubbing their eyes and yawning and smiling. Their breath making white puffs in the air.

Leggings | They had to almost fling extra clothes onto her as she made for the door. And out she went into the early morning light, none of us knew what was just around the corner.

All | Sarah.

Sock 1 | It was hard to see because we were lying down on the toboggan. We were going fast, there was a lot of wind and Jenny was making a lot of bumpy noises. She was out of control but it was a big open space, so it didn’t matter, and so much soft snow all around.

Scarf | She came out of nowhere.

Leggings | On her own out-of-control journey.

All | Crash!

Leggings | Bodies

Hat | Snow

Scarf | Wood

Sock 1 | Flying

Sock 2 | I was there too. It was the day we lost Gloves.

All gasp

Hat | RIP friends, RIP.

Beat

All | Crash

Leggings | Bodies

Sock 2 | Gloves

All | RIP

Hat Snow

Scarf | Wood

Sock 1 | Flying

Leggings | The two girls untangled themselves from one another.

Scarf | But the friendship was carved out.

Hat | Nothing could truly untangle them from one another from that moment on.

Sock 1 | Least of all Sarah’s toffy Dad who forbade her from visiting the ‘poor girl.’

Hat | Or Jenny’s parents who tried to explain the way things were.

Scarf | They met in secret. Well, we knew.

Leggings | But we never told.

Sock 2 | I never told a soul.

Leggings | And they built forts and told stories and made presents for each other and shared their thoughts and dreams and fears and they rescued birds and climbed trees and spied on the bad kids smoking stolen cigarettes and they pretended they were this and that.

Scarf | Winter after Winter, we went on so many adventures. Just us, Jenny and Sarah. I’m all wrapped up in memories, beautiful memories.

Hat | We’ve been lucky, to have such a full life.

Sock 2 | But she left.

Hat | I think, Smellie McGee, I think we were going to miss that part.

Murmurs of agreement.

Sock 2 | But she was so sad, our Jenny. We were waiting, under the tree that was half dead and half alive. Sarah never came. Gone to school, far away. She’d known all along. But she’d never said. Our Jenny cried for days. We didn’t know what to do. We gave her lots of hugs. But when she put us away, back in the box, something was different. She seemed older. We all said.

Hat | Well, that was last year. This is this year. Things will be different. Things will be back to normal. You’ll see.

Scarf | She’s coming!

VO | I can’t reach.

Hat |She can’t reach? Pull the other one. She doesn’t even need the chair anymore.

VO | Get a chair.

Sound of a chair scraping across the floor.

Leggings | Wait for the fingers, wait for those peeping eyes!

All gasp

Sock 2 | [quietly] You’re not Jenny…

VO | Hello, I’m Scarlet! Jenny said I could have you when she went away to school.

Hat | Hold yourselves together knitwear, it’s Jenny’s little sister!

Leggings | Oh yes, the one that arrived after that kiss in the shed!

All | Lizzie!

Scarf | The one that was never old enough to come out and play.

Hat | She’s old enough now.

Sock 1 | Scarlet.

All | Scarlet.

Sock 2 | I think we’re going to like her.

All murmur in agreement. The box is quickly pulled down from the cupboard, the characters are whipped about. They come to stillness, adjust themselves, gain composure. Back to murmurs of agreement.

END

©Lisa Allan, 2021