Playing in Traffic

Matt likes to keep a low profile in school, to be ‘walking mist’. Years of being bullied and victimised have taught him the value of insignificance. He has a foolproof system of compartmentalising emotional problems to strip them of their power, born of unwelcome surprises – the discovery that Katy, his beloved younger sister, is the product of an affair his mother had with a married man is a secret he keeps to protect her and the beginning of his emotional claustrophobia.

He seeks release from the suffocation of his system and when he is approached by Skye – hypnotically rebellious, reckless and promiscuous – he chooses to ignore the danger inherent in her damaged personality and sees only liberation in the dual role of saviour and sexual partner which she manipulates him into playing. She knows only too well that the heady combination of guilt, secrecy and sex will enslave him and enable her to have her revenge on all those she deludedly feels have destroyed her.

As Matt begins to discover the lies she has invented about the abuses of her parents to freshen his commitment to her, he is drawn into another social conspiracy – the college fraternity – which offers a superficially more wholesome route out of the social and sexual inadequacy he has endured for so long. His choice seems clear – his college future offers him status without emotional manipulation and complication – ‘totally testosterone’ – but this, too, is not what it seems.

Playing in Traffic explores the tensions and dilemmas which underpin young adulthood with a story which spirals its characters in and out of control and demonstrates with vivid and shocking clarity what happens when the need for trust and transparency is outweighed by the desire to play a significant role in the rites of passage from childhood to the amoral and manipulative world of adults.