Plays One Page 15

  ROWENA (lightly). Trev, please, not in front of the parents.

  RON. It’s all these girlie mags they bring in, playing on your nerves, aren’t they, love?

  ROWENA. Nothing’s changed, they used to snigger at them in the cloakroom when we were at school.

  JENNIFER. Same here, only in our day a nude ankle was enough to raise a snigger.

  RON. I wondered what you were going to say then.

  JENNIFER. Now, now, don’t encourage me.

  CLIVE (to JENNIFER). Darling, speak for yourself. I am not Victorian, I assure you, it takes more than an ankle …

  JENNIFER. Thank you, Clive.

  YVONNE. It’s much more open and explicit now.

  TREVOR. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

  YVONNE. When a boy holds up a picture in front of the class and says, ‘She’s got more up top than you, miss’, or ‘Can you do this, miss?’, yes it is.

  TREVOR. I can see that it would provide a distraction from Gerard Manley Hopkins.

  YVONNE. I teach history.

  TREVOR. Or even King Lud and the Luddites.

  ROWENA. What do you do?

  YVONNE. What can I do? If I had my way I’d burn the lot of it.

  TREVOR. Oh hang on, that’s really rightwing.

  YVONNE. Is it?

  ROWENA. I’ve never thought about it much. I suppose if women want to do it and men want to look at it, where’s the harm?

  RON. I keep telling her most men look at it, and the more upset she gets the more the lads will play up.

  ROWENA. Do they? (Silence.) Do you ever look at it, Trevor?

  TREVOR. No, but I have seen it, some of the blokes at work leave it lying around.

  ROWENA. You never told me.

  TREVOR. I didn’t tell you we had a digital thermometer or an electronic pencil sharpener either. So what?

  ROWENA. And do you have any true-life confessions, Clive?

  CLIVE. Is nothing sacred between stepfather and stepdaughter?

  JENNIFER (cheerfully). Don’t be modest, darling, you’ve got a video cassette library which could put the BFI out of business.

  CLIVE. Oh films, I thought you meant filthy magazines.

  JENNIFER. Playboy and May fair in the lav.

  CLIVE. Oh, and you read the interviews in those, but I would never look at the really hard stuff. God, I couldn’t bear the idea of children and animals used like that.

  JENNIFER. I suppose it depends what you mean by pornography.

  YVONNE. All of it, everything from adverts to …

  RON. Love, it’s totally innocuous.

  TREVOR. I’ve got nothing against it. Just wish I had a low enough IQ to enjoy it.

  ROWENA. Maybe it does have a positive side. To enable inadequate men to act out their fantasies, save them from attacking anyone on the street.

  YVONNE. Does social work for the child-batterer consist of showing them pictures of parents torturing their children, with the children appearing to enjoy it – as a preventative measure?

  ROWENA (unsure). No.

  TREVOR. Come on, there’s absolutely nothing to connect it with violence.

  YVONNE. It is violence, violence against women.

  RON. All right, darling. Thank you.

  YVONNE. I didn’t mean to bore you.

  JENNIFER. I’m glad you did. (The MEN laugh.) I mean, not bore us, not that you did but … What do the men on the staff think?

  YVONNE. They don’t give a damn. Even the local chip shop keeps a pile of magazines for the boys to browse through at lunchtimes.

  CLIVE. Business is business.

  YVONNE. It’s a bloody conspiracy.

  RON (lightly). Now love, don’t act paranoid, especially in front of a social worker.

  YVONNE. And who does the complaining about broken lights in corridors and lifts on estates? Is it a coincidence that they’re all women or are they all paranoid?

  TREVOR. What is it they say – ‘Just because you think you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not all out to get you’ or something?

  ROWENA. It’s very difficult for both sexes, boys have a lot of pressure on them to perform, you know.

  YVONNE. Aren’t we lucky to be living in a liberal society, next it’ll be poor little Hitler, wasn’t he a victim of epilepsy?

  ROWENA. You can’t be so one-sided, Yvonne.

  YVONNE. Crimes committed against women have never been credible, why change now?

  RON. Amen. Yes, my love, we don’t want to put Lord Longford out of a job, do we?

  JENNIFER. Very stimulating thought. Oh, Clive, darling, you’ve gone very quiet.

  CLIVE. I was contemplating getting my cheque book out. You know how that sends me into a frenzy of silence.

  RON. Yes, time to make a move.

  JENNIFER. Oh dear, I was just starting to enjoy myself. My main problem at the moment is …

  CLIVE. Not now, darling. Your daughter specialises in problems all day long.

  ROWENA. Unfortunately there is very little variation, unemployment or unemployment.

  RON. Hey, that’s what I meant to say to you, Row. There’s a job going at my place. Just photocopying and stuff. If anyone you know can fill it – it’s theirs.

  ROWENA. Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind.

  RON. A nice girl though please, no troublemakers, punks or glue-sniffers.

  ROWENA (slight edge). Even ‘nice’ people can’t get work these days, Ron.

  JENNIFER. It must be so boring for the poor devils.

  CLIVE. You should know. The last time you worked, Noah was still painting the ark.

  JENNIFER. With money life can be irksome, without it it must be tediously boring.

  CLIVE. Irksome?

  JENNIFER. Well, apart from my horticultural cohorts, of course.

  CLIVE. Oh God … the damn women’s flower arranging guild.

  JENNIFER. We are far from damned, Clive darling, thank you.

  TREVOR. What does it entail?

  JENNIFER. Wondrous things, my boy. Not suitable for your delicate earholes.

  RON. Does that apply to me as well?

  CLIVE. Don’t start her off.

  JENNIFER. It’s quite jolly really. We infiltrate exhibitions with our outrageous arrangements.

  RON. A line in suggestive cacti?

  JENNIFER. Oh no. Mine was a lovely dried number set in an oasis and for the base I used my diaphragm.

  ROWENA. Mother, really.

  JENNIFER. I have no use for it. It seemed a shame to think it was totally obsolete. And then Madeline grew mustard and cress in an empty pill packet.

  CLIVE (flatly). Yes, very funny.

  JENNIFER. Of course, not half as funny as your misogynist jokes.

  CLIVE. Misogynist? Me?

  JENNIFER. And then someone else grew these delightful little cultures – like ferns – on a sanitary towel.

  The men look embarrassed. YVONNE laughs.

  ROWENA. What on earth for? Why?

  JENNIFER. Boredom. Everyone else is so stuffy. When we reached the change of life you know, menopause – we all decided we were perfectly entitled to act mad. We took a collective decision to be mad, as you might say.

  CLIVE (mutters). I can’t see how a decision actually came into it.

  JENNIFER. On the contrary, it was a very intellectual discussion. We decided to get our revenge on society for writing us off. Mind you, we’re running out of ideas.

  ROWENA. If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself planting a daisy in the buttonhole of a man in a white coat.

  JENNIFER. Ah, what does the future hold for your batty mother? What will I be doing in a year’s time?

  CLIVE. Don’t tempt me.

  JENNIFER. I often wonder, if I had a way of looking into the future, whether I’d bother.

  YVONNE. I know I wouldn’t dare.

  TREVOR. See some terrible event and spend the time in between dreading it.

  ROWENA. You’re so pessimistic, Trevor, this time next year I reckon I’
ll have got promotion and you’ll have your Bang & Olufsen.

  CLIVE (looks at his watch). Unless we make a move, you won’t be fit for work tomorrow, let alone next year.

  CLIVE, JENNIFER, RON and TREVOR go off.

  The sounds of a courtroom. ROWENA moves to her court position. YVONNE watches her, then speaks directly to the audience.

  YVONNE. Rowena has this standing joke with me. Something along the lines of me being acutely aware of oppression from the day one of my brothers threw a copy of Biggles Flys West at me in my cot. Tch, that’s a gross exaggeration. In fact, I can’t remember seeing a book in our house. It was against considerable odds that I got to grammar school, let alone college. Not that it didn’t cost a lot of teasing, both at home and down our street, and not that it taught me a lot either … a different way of thinking … a different set of values. (Pause.) But I was twenty-six before I learnt that the words ‘I feel’ and ‘I think’ were neither synonymous nor interchangeable … and there’s no way I read that in any book.

  The endless hours I’ve spent rejecting and rebelling against my mum and her catatonic, cast-iron clichéd philosophy of life, only to find a sort of grim truth in the wretched phrase – ‘There’s only one way to learn things – the hard way.’

  Actually it was when I went away to college that I met Ron at a party. He was working for his dad at the time in a mini-cab firm and there was something I really liked about him. Looking back, I think it was his MG sports car.

  Exit YVONNE.

  Scene Two

  A crown court. ROWENA, JUDGE (a woman), POLICEMAN.

  CLERK (voice over). All stand.

  JUDGE. Rowena Stone, you are charged with the murder of Charles Williams. How do you plead – (Silence.) guilty or not guilty?

  ROWENA. Neither.

  JUDGE. Mrs Stone, as I’m sure you are well aware, this court does not have a procedure for neither. Are you guilty or not guilty?

  Silence.

  ROWENA. Not guilty.

  JUDGE. Officer, would you be good enough to describe the events to the court in a little more detail?

  POLICEMAN (reading from a notebook). On the seventeenth of this month I was proceeding in a westerly direction along Seven Sisters Road, when I noticed a commotion outside Finsbury Park Tube and the Inspector, I mean the ticket inspector …

  JUDGE. Constable, just the events if you please, not a blow by blow account of your diary, otherwise you won’t have anything new to say when you’re cross-examined, will you now?

  POLICEMAN. Madam. (He attempts to précis his notes by reading faster.) Anyway, when I got to the platform, I noticed a man, who was later identified as Mr Charles Williams, deceased, under the 10.15 p.m. from Walthamstow to Brixton tube train. An eyewitness who is prepared to testify to the fact said, ‘She pushed him’, whereupon I cautioned and questioned the accused who remained silent.

  JUDGE. Did anything strike you as odd, constable?

  POLICEMAN. Madam? (He tries to think of something which might be construed as odd.) Well, now you mention it, the tube driver kept jumping around shouting, ‘Not another one, how many more bloody suicides am I going to get?’ Obviously he wasn’t fully aware of the situation and I think he was in a state of shock.

  JUDGE. We are not assembled here to uncover the vagaries of your thought processes, constable.

  POLICEMAN. We are trained in shock treatment, madam.

  JUDGE. I meant anything peculiar in the manner of the accused?

  POLICEMAN. Oh no, madam, she was as cool as a cucumber.

  JUDGE (to ROWENA). Is this true?

  ROWENA. No, I was in a state of shock.

  JUDGE (impatient). Is the description accurate?

  ROWENA. For the most part.

  JUDGE. Specifically.

  ROWENA. I believe it is impossible to proceed in a westerly direction along Seven Sisters Road, but the rest is true.

  JUDGE. Mrs Stone, are you now changing your plea to guilty?

  ROWENA. No.

  JUDGE. I understand you have no defence lawyer.

  ROWENA. Correct.

  JUDGE. Mrs Stone, I propose to adjourn. To allow you time to reconsider your decision not to be represented and to give you time for legal aid to be arranged. Psychiatric reports will undoubtedly be called for.

  ROWENA. Do you think I’m mad?

  JUDGE. Fortunately, I do not have unlimited power. I am not in a position to label the sane insane or vice versa. I do feel obliged to say, however, how distressed I am to see you in front of me now, as I have always found your attitude to the law, in your professional capacity as a social worker, most sensitive and coherent.

  ROWENA. Pity the same may not be said for the law’s attitude to me.

  JUDGE. Adjourned.

  CLERK (voice over). All stand.

  Scene Three

  Playground sounds.

  A classroom. YVONNE, after school, sits there alone marking books. Voices off are those of a male teacher. Enter IRENE WADE.

  IRENE (timid). Mrs Hughes?

  YVONNE (looks up abruptly). Mrs Wade.

  TEACHER (off). Rogers, haven’t you got a home to go to? Then I suggest you go. Now. Pronto.

  IRENE. I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you like this.

  YVONNE. Is your husband with you?

  IRENE. No, I came on my own. He doesn’t know.

  YVONNE (relieved). Oh, I see. (Then:) I really don’t see how I can help you.

  TEACHER (off). Gregory, get out of there and stay out.

  IRENE. I’ve been very down lately, especially after I went to see Ian on Saturday.

  YVONNE. Mrs Wade, you are talking to the wrong person. I was responsible for your son’s conviction. If it hadn’t been for me the whole matter would have been dropped.

  IRENE. It’s just … I don’t know.

  YVONNE (abruptly). You think he’s been punished too severely?

  IRENE. Well, I don’t know.

  YVONNE. Mrs Wade …

  IRENE. Irene, please …

  TEACHER (off). What are you lads doing skulking about the cloakroom area? I don’t care, you shouldn’t be here. Vanish.

  YVONNE. Mrs … Irene … perhaps you should talk with the headmaster, you’d get a more sympathetic response.

  IRENE. I know, he says the same as the lawyer. She’d only been raped but was unharmed.

  YVONNE. I for one am not about to shout about how lucky she is, not today, or ever. If it hadn’t been for me, no one would have bothered even to talk to her.

  IRENE. Where is she?

  YVONNE. She had to get a transfer. As though she hadn’t been through enough and …

  TEACHER (off). No, you can’t go back and get it. It will have to wait until the morning.

  YVONNE. And the worst of it is your son has been made a cult hero.

  IRENE. If it had been my daughter I’d have wanted him hung from the nearest tree, but I don’t …

  TEACHER (off). Jamison, you disgusting brute, get out of here and report to the headmaster first thing in the morning. I can’t find anything to laugh at. And that includes the rest of you as well.

  YVONNE. Where were we?

  IRENE. I wouldn’t have your job for the world.

  YVONNE. I’m sorry, some days I feel sort of schizophrenic, a cross between Joyce Grenfell and Attila the Hun.

  IRENE. I understand. I won’t take up any more of your time, Mrs Hughes.

  YVONNE. No wait, Irene. I have no sympathy for your son. None. Not that I don’t have any for you, but I do understand if you feel it amounts to one and the same thing. (Pause.) And my name’s Yvonne.

  TEACHER (off). This is the last time, clear off home!

  IRENE. I … I just don’t know what to say, or do, or anything. I feel I could have stood by him over anything else … I’d rather he’d done anything else.

  YVONNE (softer). You feel he needs your support?

  IRENE. He had all my support before. I don’t know what I did or didn’t do wrong.
I might make all the same mistakes again. All those psychiatrists spent more time with me than they did with him. Where did I go wrong?

  YVONNE. You mustn’t blame yourself.

  TEACHER (off). I will not tell you again, Lawrence.

  IRENE. Why not? Why on earth not? Everyone else is.

  YVONNE. Nobody in their right mind – which doesn’t necessarily include the medical profession – is blaming you. I’m certainly not.

  IRENE. Yes they are. They all are. A normal healthy boy rapes a girl. Was I too prudish? Too open? Too domineering? Too weak? Too much of a nag? Did I discourage him too violently from playing with his genitals as a baby? Did I sit him too viciously on the potty? Did I smother him? Did I neglect him?

  YVONNE. For what it’s worth, I know it’s not your fault.

  IRENE. When I used to read of those things in the paper, I used to say castration was too good for them.

  Long pause.

  Can you tell me what I do with the love for my son?

  YVONNE (pause). I’m sorry, I don’t know.

  IRENE. Perhaps you know what to do with this. (She gives her a carrier bag stuffed with magazines.)

  YVONNE (pulls one out and looks at its cover). But these go back to seventy-eight.

  IRENE. I always made it a rule that children should have privacy, but now he’s away I thought, well, it would be wrong not to clean his room out – mind, they were well hidden. I suppose that was wrong as well.

  YVONNE. You and your husband had no idea?

  IRENE. I supposed all young boys looked at it. As for my husband, ha, it never bothered him.

  YVONNE. You think your husband encouraged him?

  IRENE. Didn’t have to. He has a drawerful of his own. Only difference is, he doesn’t have to hide it.

  A MALE TEACHER enters, crosses to the window and bangs his fist on it.

  TEACHER. Rogers, I told you to go home hours ago. Now get. (To YVONNE and IRENE:) Sorry.

  Scene Four

  HILARY’s flat. She is ironing.

  The day after the meal, ROWENA has some evening visits, one of whom is HILARY PETERS. ROWENA is trying to be bright and breezy without appearing to be trying too hard.

  ROWENA. Hello, I’m from the Social Services, can I come in?

  HILARY. If yer must.

  ROWENA (following HILARY). My name’s Rowena, can I call you Hilary?