The scene is set in a hospital waiting room. A woman is sitting in a blue plastic chair with harsh lighting and a child’s cuddly toy in her hand along with a bottle. She is nervous, on the edge of tears and alone.

Josie:

If I had a pound for every loaded question these nurses have asked me today that could mean they should take Fred into care… Honestly, I’m only little, he’s my only child, I’m hardly child clobbering material. Christ, I don’t even have scummy boyfriends kicking around. They look at me like I am a news story waiting to happen. I’m in here every other week practically. He chucks himself off shit, jumps into things, eats everything and is a total liability. He’s only bloody four, and I’m already ten minutes off a nervous breakdown as soon as I wake up in the morning.

You think I’m exaggerating? Oh I promise I’m not. Two months ago we rocked up here with a huge bruise on his scrawny little arse, he chucked himself down the stairs. Oh god and a few months before that he ate the dogs tranquillisers. We have a neurotic Labrador, yellow one, completely batshit. We had to get it tranquillisers so it didn’t completely crack and it started bloody spitting them out behind the sofa didn’t it… Fred found them in the cushions, ate them and started foaming at the mouth… He did the same with a packet of dishwasher tablets, you should’ve seen him… (laughs) He was burping bubbles for five hours.

He ruined his cousins sixth birthday party too, tied a balloon to his willy, cut off the circulation. It was purple by the time they cut it off. And now, jumped on the bloody washing line from the bins, he screamed Tarzan king of the jungle while doing it, nearly hung himself. The bruising on his neck is so awful, I had to bring him. Of course it had to happen at my mothers funeral… In her bloody back garden. (Looks over to someone next to her) Your boy the same then? Boys will be boys hey….