Plays One Page 10

  BETTY. What she say to that?

  ENID. Told me not to go over the top with the Alf Garnett act.

  BETTY. She’s not married yet then?

  ENID. You’re joking. Goes round wrecking marriages more like. I tell you, she’s probably been more responsible for the divorce rate in this country than the Marriage Guidance Council. I haven’t seen her since Christmas. Takes me six months to calm Bob down after she’s bin. Just get him settled and what happens? The other one starts up. Anyhow what’s bin going on with you?

  BETTY. Nothing, nothing. Jim might be getting a proper job but otherwise nothing.

  ENID. I wish our Dennis would do that. Gawd knows what he does but he gets paid a lot.

  BETTY. Haven’t you any idea?

  ENID. Well, seems to be something to do with rollies.

  BETTY. Cigarettes?

  ENID. Yeah, every now and then he gives me a few and reckons save it and give yerself a treat. I kept ’em in me bag.

  BETTY. You’d think if he earned that much he could buy his mum some decent cigarettes.

  ENID. They’re all right, as it happens. (ENID takes out a couple of fags from an otherwise empty pocket – they are joints.) Here, try one.

  BETTY. No thanks. Let’s have a look.

  ENID. Smell a bit funny and they really ketch the back of your throat, but yer know beggars can’t be choosers.

  BETTY. Enid, I think these are drugs.

  ENID. Naw, ther’s no harm in them.

  BETTY. I think this is pot.

  ENID. No, Dennis wouldn’t have nothing to do with that. He fainted when he had his smallpox injection.

  BETTY. These are illegal.

  ENID. Oh Gawd, I smoked one in the doctor’s surgery.

  BETTY. Enid, I can’t believe this. You’ve really let yourself go.

  ENID. Oh I have, Betty, I have. These last few weeks.

  She lights a joint.

  BETTY. ’Ere you not going to smoke that in here?

  ENID. Why not?

  BETTY. S’pose the police bust in?

  ENID. Betty, in all the years you’ve been alive have the police ever bust in to your front-room?

  BETTY. But it’s drugs.

  ENID. It’s nothing – try it, one puff.

  BETTY. I think I should watch you in case you see purple elephants, or try to fly out of the window.

  ENID. Don’t be ridiculous. If I could cook tea the day after me youngest was born, still shot through the eyeballs with pethidine, then a few dried tea leaves in a Rizla paper ain’t going to bother me none. Come off it, Betty. Dennis would rip his own mother off. Sure as hell if it was proper drugs he wouldn’t give me any. Try it.

  BETTY. I’d rather not.

  ENID. All right, don’t. Never taken a risk in your life, Betty. Why start now?

  BETTY (grudgingly takes it). You’d lead me to the gallows, you would.

  ENID. Well?

  BETTY. Don’t feel any different.

  ENID. Told you.

  BETTY. What’s that?

  ENID. Where?

  BETTY. I can see a big spider.

  ENID. That’s cos there is one. (She bangs it with fag packet.) Daft bat.

  BETTY. Shame, I s’pose I wanted it to work and all.

  ENID. Have you got anything to drink?

  BETTY. Only some ginger wine left over from Christmas.

  ENID. Get it out. Leave all the chores. Let’s ’ave a game of cards, turn this place into a real den of Equity.

  Lights change. There is a time lapse of about one hour.

  BETTY and ENID are playing cards. Although they don’t realise it they are slightly stoned.

  BETTY. I bet you my electric cake knife.

  ENID. You haven’t got one.

  BETTY. Well, I’m not going to lose.

  ENID. Let’s not play any more.

  BETTY (pushes cards aside). Boring. Enid?

  ENID. Come in Betty, I hear you.

  BETTY. Enid, I want to tell you something.

  ENID (face lights up). You’ve never had an organism.

  BETTY. No. Something important.

  ENID. Go on Betty. I’m receiving you loud and clear. Over.

  BETTY. I’m bored.

  ENID. Thanks a bundle. You don’t exactly qualify as this estate’s answer to Chas and Dave.

  BETTY. Not you. I’m bored with my life, everything.

  ENID. Buck up, wrestling on Saturday.

  BETTY. That makes me more bored. Sometimes I don’t feel I’ve done nothing with my life.

  ENID. You haven’t done nothing, you’ve taken drugs.

  BETTY. As John would say ‘big fucking deal’.

  ENID. Yeah, no wonder Dennis is in so much trouble, selling things under false pretences. If I’d paid for this I’d sue him.

  BETTY. I s’pose I feel a bit dizzy.

  ENID. Same as smoking your first Woodbine. Let’s face it, we’ve been spoilt by the filter tip.

  BETTY. D’you think our mothers was bored?

  ENID. ’Course not. Never had time. I blame machines, we got it easy, we got time to think …

  BETTY. How bored we are.

  ENID. Anyhow, we’ve done a lot. At least your kids are normal, look at me, my daughters seem to have lost their trollies years ago and we moved from crappy Freedaman Street to modern places, that’s not nothing.

  BETTY. I wish we’d stayed now.

  ENID. What, standing in a pile of rubble?

  BETTY. No, like Beryl fought with the others in their street and they kept their places. Council put in all mod cons and all.

  ENID. Spent years without hot water though, when we had that, and baths and indoor lavs.

  BETTY. And every day, every day, what have we got to show, eh? Just different foods to wash off the plates.

  ENID. Get paper plates?

  BETTY. Enid, sometimes I give up on you.

  ENID (sarcastic). Oh hello, Bob.

  BETTY (stands up). Can I show you something?

  ENID. Well? As long as it’s not your operation scar.

  BETTY (gets out old cereal packet and spills its contents of news cuttings on the table). I’m collecting them.

  ENID. What are they? Blimey, don’t tell me you’re the secretary to Errol Flynn’s fan club all these years?

  BETTY. No, look at them.

  ENID (glances at a couple). Betty? These are about those silly women.

  BETTY. I don’t think it’s that silly. Look, look, one woman has left her husband and five kids.

  ENID. That’s news?

  BETTY. Says here, somewhere, that we’re used to seeing men go off to war but we should get used to women going off for peace. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

  ENID. Does it?

  BETTY (collects them up, puts them back in the box). Well, it made me think. If we’re not going to use these weapons what’s the point of having them?

  ENID. They’re a detergent against those who got ’em.

  BETTY. Enid, you know the difference between a deterrent and a detergent.

  ENID. In someone’s face it would amount to the same thing.

  BETTY. Aren’t you worried at all?

  ENID. Ain’t bothered.

  BETTY. Enid, sometimes you strike me as being as interesting as a piece of wet fish.

  ENID. Oh do I? do I? Really? Well, I could tell you things that would make your hair curl.

  BETTY. Oh yeah, you couldn’t make a corkscrew curl.

  ENID. Oh couldn’t I? I’ll show you, I tell you. I could make the hair in your nostrils curl.

  BETTY. Go on then.

  ENID. Oh no, you ain’t getting anything to use on me.

  BETTY. That’s because the most daring thing you ever did was pinch a packet of fish fingers.

  ENID. They was in a Hotpoint multi-freeze at the time though, don’t forget. Tell you what we’ll do – a phisological experiment.

  BETTY. Pardon?

  ENID. I saw it on telly just before Maidenhead Unvisited. G
ive us here that bit of that paper. Now, write down on it something you’ve never told no one.

  BETTY. Enid, there was always something about your brain I couldn’t fathom. That’s because there’s no depth to it.

  ENID. Piss off and write it down. Go on.

  Both write something on a bit of paper.

  ENID. Now swap. (BETTY looks at her paper again.) What’s the matter?

  BETTY. Just checking the spelling. Okay.

  They swap and read.

  ENID. Betty!!

  BETTY. Enid!!

  ENID. God Almighty, I’ll never be able to look her in the face again.

  BETTY. Come to think, he don’t look like the rest.

  Both look at the papers again and start roaring with laughter.

  JIM enters.

  BETTY. Jim? Jim? Is that you Jim? Oh hello, Jim? Mum with you, Jim?

  JIM. She’s hanging her coat up, Bet. Bet. What’s for tea?

  ENID. Hot pot. (She laughs.)

  JIM. If I was going to employ an au pair, Enid, you missed the boat by about forty years.

  BETTY. Don’t be ridiculous, Jim, child labour is against the law.

  IVY enters.

  ENID (who, like BETTY, has been trying to control her giggles, bursts into laughter). Oh hello, Mrs Taylor.

  IVY. What’s the matter, Enid, you just laid an egg?

  She sits down and switches the telly on.

  ENID. I ain’t laid nothing lately except the table.

  BETTY (hisses). Enid, Enid.

  JIM. You’re half cut.

  BETTY. No, Jim, no we just finished off the bottle of Stones Ginger Wine, wasn’t even half, was it, Enid?

  ENID. Quarter, if that.

  BETTY. Not even that, eggcup full, thimble.

  ENID. It was off but it was a pity to waste it.

  JIM. You never touch drink, what’s the matter with you?

  ENID. Celebration, Jim, anniversary, my Walter was divorced ten years ago today.

  JIM. You celebrating that?

  ENID. Celebration? Did I say celebration? I mean commiseration, you know me, always getting words wrong.

  JIM. Silly great mare.

  ENID. Broke my heart, we was drowning our sorrows.

  Both women giggle.

  JIM. You don’t look too miserable to me. (Pause.) What’s that smell?

  BETTY. Shush.

  JIM. Like burnt compost.

  ENID. Indoor fireworks. I had them left over from Christmas.

  JIM. Oh great, let’s have a look. Is there a little gun?

  BETTY. Chute.

  JIM. Well they usually go puff puff. I haven’t seen those since I was a boy.

  BETTY. They’re down the chute.

  JIM. Betty, my dearest wife, the chute has been blocked for the past eighteen months.

  ENID. Bin. They’re in. The bin.

  JIM. Hey, let’s have a look, we can get ’em to work again with a couple of matches. John and I saw it on Magpie.

  BETTY. No, no. Don’t go rooting around in the bin, they’re dead.

  JIM. State you’re in I’m surprised you can tell. (He makes for the door.)

  BETTY. No, no, you wouldn’t want to go down there. I emptied the commode in it.

  JIM. You silly born bitch. What a stewpid thing to do. What you want to go and do a thing like that for? We’ll have to treat the dustmen to take it away.

  ENID. It will be a treat and all.

  JIM. Are you going home or what?

  ENID. On my way. Now remember Betty, you mustn’t empty the pot in the bin again.

  BETTY. You don’t mind if I don’t get up, do you?

  ENID. No dear, you’ve had a nasty shock.

  ENID goes out.

  JIM. Shock? Pot? Crackpot? She is. Living with her must be like hell with the lid off.

  BETTY. Jim, I’ve bin thinking.

  JIM. State you’re in, I find that a bit hard to swallow.

  BETTY. Maybe I’ll go down the chippy and get us tea.

  JIM. Have you lost your head, it’s not Friday.

  BETTY. Make a change. Now what d’you want?

  JIM. You’re not going in that state.

  BETTY. Mum, pop down the chip shop, will ya, I’ll have a pie, saveloy and chips and an apple pie and perhaps a Mars Bar.

  IVY. How can I? I’m housebound.

  BETTY. Housebound? You’re out so much you’re practically a claustrophobic.

  IVY. Yeah, well I might meet the social worker down there.

  BETTY. Didn’t see her playing bingo then?

  CAROL enters.

  JIM. I’ll go but for goodness’ sakes, pull yourself together woman. (To CAROL:) Hello love, I’m just going down the chip shop, d’you want anything?

  CAROL. No thanks, Dad, I can’t stop long, I’ve left Joe-Joe with Darrel.

  JIM. Plaice for you, Nan?

  IVY. And chips.

  BETTY. You can’t have chips, you know full well they play havoc with your tracts.

  JIM. Won’t be long. (He goes out.)

  CAROL. Hello, Nanny, Mummy.

  BETTY. How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not bloody Tutankhamun reincarnated.

  CAROL. Sorry, Mum.

  BETTY. Nan, come on. You better have your bath while Blue Peter is on otherwise you’ll leave it once you get stuck in front of the telly.

  IVY. I hope you never get old, Carol. (She gets up.) Just as you look forward to a bit of peace and quiet the whole world gangs up and closes in on you.

  IVY goes out. CAROL sits next to BETTY who is staring out of the window. Silence.

  BETTY. Doesn’t the sky look beautiful.

  CAROL (unnerved). Yes, very pleasing to the eye, Mum, I’m sure.

  BETTY. You know something a Sunday School teacher once told us?

  CAROL. I never knew you went to Sunday School.

  BETTY. Oh yes, your nan wanted us kids outta the house on Sunday afternoons. She had no more dignity or respect for the day of rest than a common streetwalker.

  CAROL. Is that what the Sunday School teacher told you?

  BETTY. No. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if he was knocking her off.

  CAROL. Mummy! Sorry, Mum! but really!

  BETTY. No. This. Now tell me, can you imagine perfection?

  CAROL (pause). Er, yes.

  BETTY. What?

  CAROL. Darrel’s prize roses.

  BETTY. Now can you imagine a man being able to make something perfect like a rose?

  CAROL. No.

  BETTY. Well, that’s the theory. That logically there must be a God or at least something more capable than man.

  CAROL. Must there? (Silence.) Well, if you say so.

  BETTY. Though all these years I’ve bin thinking that there’s got to be a flaw in it somewhere. If yer Nan had let me stay on and do my matric I was going to try and suss it out. (Silence.) Mind you, sometimes I look at the sky and think it’s boring.

  CAROL. Sometimes I look at Darrel’s prize roses and think they’re boring.

  BETTY. Are you bored?

  CAROL. ’Course not. I’ve got a beautiful home and little boy and a lovely husband.

  BETTY. Huh, lovely husband. Which one is the little boy? I never forget when you came crying to me the first week back from your honeymoon, when Darrel had thrown a tin of tomatoes at your head.

  CAROL. Well they didn’t actually hit my head, and it was my fault. I didn’t know he hated tinned tomatoes. And you were right. You sent me straight back and told me to make it work and I have but I’ll always be grateful to you for that.

  BETTY. ‘No use crying over spilt milk Betty’, that’s what they should call me.

  CAROL. Don’t be silly. From that day to this, he’s never so much as thrown a tin of baby food at me. Well, not so long ago, he threw a hair brush, but that was when McEnroe lost the Men’s Open to Connors, and there again I shouldn’t have left it lying around on the settee.

  BETTY. I mean some things get patched up and patched up
but maybe we’re all terrified of admitting that they’re useless.

  CAROL. Mum, what is the matter with you? I can’t follow your train.

  BETTY. Like you don’t see old cars today that were around twenty years ago. Why? Because they don’t work.

  CAROL. Ah, but like you said, cars are manmade. Marriages are made in heaven.

  BETTY. Marriages are made uneven.

  CAROL. Don’t say that, Mum.

  BETTY. We don’t even talk any more like we used to.

  CAROL. What am I doing then? Singing La Traviata?

  BETTY. And you try and speak posh all the time.

  CAROL. Well, you know Darrel and his friends …

  BETTY. Matter more than we do.

  CAROL. No, but a silly thing of how you talk matters more to them than it does to you.

  BETTY. And all those stupid parties you go to, Carol. They’re just so boring and rubbishy.

  CAROL. Oh, coming from you. They’re no more boring than looking after Nanny, or scheming with Enid all day on how to avoid the Avon lady. Sorry, sorry!

  BETTY (kindly). Okay, nuff said. I’ll put the kettle on. (She gets up.)

  CAROL. Good idea. (She picks up the notes on the table and proceeds to read them aloud whilst BETTY tries to conceal her panic.) Dennis’s real father is Mick the Masher of Bow Common Lane who’s now serving time with the Kray Twins (?) (Then:) I married Jim on the rebound after I discovered my fiancé in bed with mum (?) Mother! What’s this?

  BETTY. Ah, not what you think. Ah, it was a silly game and not what you think at all. No. Enid and I were just saying how silly those stories were in Woman’s Weekly and how we could write something better. Then we realised that we had such boring lives we couldn’t. So we made up the most unlikely totally ridiculous thing possible. Pathetic, isn’t it pathetic?

  CAROL. Pathetic? It’s macabre.

  BETTY. It was dreadful, sick, fancy writing such a slanderous thing against your nan, even though it was a joke. If anything happens to her now I’ll never forgive myself.

  JIM enters.

  BETTY. Ah, you’re back. There you are, Jim. Nice to see you.

  JIM (sarcastic). It’s been so long my darling, have you missed me? Where’s the old rooster?

  BETTY. In the bath. Here, I’ll put hers in the oven.

  CAROL. Mum was just saying how fed up she is.

  BETTY. Not now, Carol.