All the Way Home

By Ayub Khan Din

A deeply emotional comedy drama from the author of East is East, exploring the relationships we have with our roots, and with those that we love but don't always understand.
Bonfire Night. Salford, 2002. A disparate group of warring siblings gather at the family home under the shadow of impending loss.
Amidst the cut and thrust of spiky Salford banter, long harboured resentments rise to the surface, and loyalties are tested as family bonds unite and divide, unravel and unwind.
All the Way Home premiered at the Lowry in Salford in 2011.
'Khan-Din is writing from first-hand experience... he has plainly retained an ear for salty Salfordian speech... and there are some terrific one-liners' - Telegraph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Nov 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780015507

Book preview

ACT ONE

Scene One

Salford, Bonfire Night, present day.

The back kitchen of a terraced house. The set is a skeleton of a kitchen. We can see through it. Pipes, taps and wires should all be free-standing, with just the bare carcasses and shelves of cupboards. The only furniture, a mismatched fake Chippendale table, with six chairs, and a battered armchair. The armchair should bear the greasy stains from the head and hands of someone that has sat there regularly. This chair is never used by any of the characters.

There are bars on the outside of the windows. A door leads out to a backyard, another to the rest of the house. Various types of fireworks should go off intermittently throughout the play. From the back entry we hear kids singing.

KIDS (voice-over).

This way my lady oh!

That way my lady oh!

This way my lady oh!

All the way home.

JANET, forty-five, stands ironing clothes from a large basket of washing. A man’s shirts hang, ironed, on the cupboards behind her. She’s always on the go. Cleaning and tidying up. CAROL, forty-nine, sits at the table flicking through a newspaper. Both women smoke and drink tea.

On the table is a baby monitor. It has a big smiley clown’s face. The sound is turned down, but we can see lights moving in an arc across the face, lighting up the smile and indicating someone breathing. JANET and CAROL are both aware of this. A kettle is boiling on the stove.

Here comes a sailor!

And here comes another one.

Sexy as the other one,

All the way home.

CAROL walks over to the back door and opens it.

This way my lady oh!

That way my lady oh!

CAROL. Michaela, can you keep it down please?

KIDS (voice-over).

This way my lady oh!

All the way home.

CAROL. Michaela!… Could you keep it down, you know your Uncle Frankie’s not well.

MICHAELA (voice-over). Fuck off, you’re not me mam!

KIDS (voice-over).

Here comes a soldier!

And here comes another one!

Buggers all the other ones!

All the way home!

We hear the sound of breaking glass. Michaela screams, the others join in and we hear them run off. CAROL comes back, she and JANET shake their heads. JANET puts more water into the iron and lights a cigarette.

CAROL. Mouthy little cow.

JANET. I’ll do this lot and I’ll swing an ’oover round the front room…

CAROL. Yeah?

JANET. Yeah… Perhaps I should do the bathroom first… I meant to do it last night before I went to bed…

CAROL. I’ll do it later.

JANET. I don’t mind, I’ve gotta put some clean sheets on our Phillip’s bed, anyway.

Beat.

I don’t know how me mam managed with us lot.

CAROL. Me and Frankie used to look after you, Brian and Phillip. Sonia were still in a pram.

JANET. Still a lot though, eh?

CAROL. I said I don’t mind doing the bathroom.

JANET. No, leave it to me. I know what needs to be done, regarding Frankie’s sheets and that… He’s a bit funny about things like that now… You know… about ’em being handled by anyone else.

Pause.

I’ll stick some tea on first though, eh?… Yeah, that’s what I’ll do next. Are you stopping for your tea?

CAROL. Might do. What’re you doing?

JANET. Tater hash, I think… Our Phillip likes it.

CAROL. He likes it the way me mam cooked it.

JANET. I don’t use corned beef. I use mince.

CAROL. That’ll be it then… I always find it leaves a greasy aftertaste at the back of me tongue – mince.

JANET. It’s a different butcher you need. I get mine minced in front of me. I can see what I’m getting then.

CAROL. I won’t stop. I never liked tater hash.

JANET. Maybe I’ll ask Frankie what he fancies…

CAROL. Yeah?

JANET. I’ll ask him. He likes to be kept in the loop.

CAROL. He were asleep when I looked in before.

JANET. I’ll ask him later then. Give us a chance to tidy up his room. Give it a bit of an airing.

JANET gives the steamer button a press and it sends out a couple of jets of steam. CAROL goes back to reading the paper. She hums the tune sung by the kids.

CAROL. They found the head of that headless corpse.

JANET. I heard.

CAROL. Salford Precinct.

Pause.

JANET. Wonder what were it doing there?

CAROL looks at her incredulously.

CAROL. Shoppin’ at Tescos… How should I know?

Pause.

JANET. He were in our Sonia’s music class at school.

CAROL. Who?

JANET. That… headless-corpse bloke.

CAROL. She said that?

JANET. Yeah. ‘That head did music with me at school’ she said.

CAROL. Did he have a body then?

She laughs.

JANET (shocked). Orr, Carol, that’s terrible! That’s someone’s son you’re takin’ piss out of.

CAROL. So.

JANET. You shouldn’t mock the afflicted.

CAROL. I didn’t chop his head off, did I?

JANET. You can bring it back on yourself saying things like that. Think of your Reece.

CAROL. I’ll take an axe to his head myself one of these days.

JANET. Up to no good?

CAROL. You’d never think we live in Didsbury Village, the way he behaves. Might as well be back round here.

JANET. Thanks.

CAROL. You know what I mean.

JANET. Yeah… knocking about with a better class of scum there, is he?

CAROL. I didn’t mean it like that… It’s just that he’s…

JANET. What?

CAROL looks at JANET.

CAROL. Nowt.

JANET. Did you hear that?

JANET stops ironing. She goes over to the door.

Was that Frankie?

CAROL turns up the monitor. We can hear a man breathing with difficulty.

CAROL. Fast asleep.

JANET. I’ll go and check.

CAROL. Leave him, he’ll be fine.

CAROL turns the monitor down again. JANET is unsure, but decides against going to look.

JANET. Brew?

CAROL nods and JANET collects up her cup and walks over to the sink.

CAROL. Our Sonia played the cornet?

JANET. Me dad made her. Made our Phillip learn the recorder as well.

CAROL. I didn’t know me dad liked music.

JANET. He didn’t – it were some documentary he’d seen on telly about the rise of Acker Bilk.

Pause.

CAROL. Who did music with you at school?

JANET. Bummer Walsh.

CAROL. Was it Bummer Walsh? I thought he’d left by the time you got there.