After seventeen years, Molly is back living with her parents in Liverpool. (It is only temporary.) But there is not much in the way of comfort to be had there. As far as her mother is concerned, she is behaving just like a teenager again.
Finding an old set of keys in the cutlery drawer, she seeks some respite six doors down in a flat she knows very well; she used to look after it when the owners were away. This time she knows the owners are not coming back. All that remains now are the things they once possessed. Surrounded by these objects, Molly remembers their lives and hers.
In a lyrical requiem set in this cathedral of everyday things, Molly tells their story, while touching on peculiar feelings we all recognise, like the strangeness of other people’s homes or the odd sensation of revisiting places we knew as children. The couple who once lived in this place, who had these things, were people of no particular importance, and they have now gone, leaving no legacy. But their story is full of joy and passion as well as moments of great excitement and lingering disappointment – full of life.
Haunting and elegiac, this monologue weaves a sequence of beautifully described episodes to create a rounded and wholly convincing tale of two ordinary lives.
When Molly came back to live with her parents, there wasn’t much she could bring with her, not being able to drive. But maybe that was for the best; sometimes you just have to drop the keys back through the letterbox and fly like a child to the end of the road and beyond.
August 1-26 (not 2, 20) 19:25