Plays One Page 17

  YVONNE. I’d noticed.

  RON. Well, I can’t say I had, not lately anyway.

  YVONNE. What do you expect, eh? (She screams.) Shout at me all day, then expect me to make mad passionate love to you at bedtime?

  RON. Don’t give me that. I’ve tried every tack. Short of hanging myself, nothing but nothing I could do would please you.

  The phone rings. Pause. Neither of them is about to answer it then RON picks it up.

  RON (sharply). Hello. (Then nicely:) Oh hello, Rowena. (To YVONNE:) It’s for you. (He shoves the receiver towards her.)

  YVONNE (taking the receiver). Hello Row. (Pause.) Oh, fine, fine. Yes, right. Here you are. (She hands the phone back to RON.) She wants to speak to you.

  RON (to phone). Sorry, I automatically assumed … (Pause.) Yes, yes. It’s still vacant. How old is she? Fine, yes, that’ll be okay, as long as she’s not a terrorist, ha ha. (Pause.) Oh thanks very much. Great. Give us a ring then. Bye.

  YVONNE. What was that about?

  RON. She wanted to speak to me not you.

  YVONNE. About the job?

  RON. Amongst other things. She didn’t have much to say to you.

  YVONNE. Not a lot.

  RON. She obviously prefers to talk to me.

  YVONNE. Only to ask you a favour. Still, perhaps I should go round and apologise.

  RON. She reckons she’ll invite us over to dinner, so I wouldn’t bother. (He sits next to YVONNE who tries not to tense.) Don’t worry, you can patch it up. Can we though?

  YVONNE. Ron.

  RON (coaxing). Come on, what’s happened? Am I really that bad, eh? What’s the matter? What’s happened to us?

  YVONNE. You think it’s all my fault.

  RON. I said ‘we’ didn’t I? (He strokes her hair.) Let’s forget it, mmm.

  YVONNE. Umm.

  RON. Coming to bed?

  YVONNE. In a minute.

  RON. Don’t be long. (He gets up and kisses the top of her head.) You know I love you.

  He goes out.

  YVONNE (hands over face, quietly). I hate you.

  Scene Seven.

  HILARY. Monologue.

  HILARY. When I was young, what am I saying? I mean when I was about thirteen I used to look at the boys in our class looking at us, and think how odd that they wanted to stick their cocks in us. Straight up, I did. Seemed such a peculiar thing. Anyhow, then I learnt it was natural and didn’t think no more about it. Our school joined the grammar school that year and we was then comprehensive so all that meant was the grammar school lot done O levels and we, if we was really lucky, done CSEs. Also it meant like in the eyes of the boys that them lot were prudes and we was slags. I never figured out which ones were best to be in but I reckoned, looking back, we had the most laughs.

  I told the social worker I ain’t never had no qualifications but the truth of the matter is that’s rubbish. I ain’t entirely up shit creek ’cos I also got a CSE Grade 1 in Needlework – comes in handy sew to speak, ha ha. I weren’t much interested in anything else. Nothing else on the timetable that is, but I tell you I could’ve got an A level, a Ph.D. even, in contraceptives. It weren’t no fault of me own I fell for me kid.

  Me and me mate Shirl had it sussed, we read everything we could lay our hands on. Having bin stuck with the label ‘slag’ it seemed stupid not to live up to it. But, as Shirl remarked at the time, if they only knew we aren’t so much nymphomaniacs but contraceptomaniacs. I lost me virginity when I was nearly fifteen. I bunked off school. His parents were at work, not that it was a case of one thing led to another. No way. It was planned to the last letter – French letter. But them things are unreliable – the machine in the King’s Head pub got ‘British Made’ on it – some cleverdick had written underneath, ‘So was the Titanic’. So I made him get some of that Delfen foam stuff as well. I still think how brave he was going into the chemist to ask for it – but he must have thought it was worth it. What does I do though? Puts the applicator in the top of the bottle shaking on account of me nerves and the whole thing spurts all over the wall. Anyhow, we done it after we’d wiped it off. I don’t know what I was expecting. (She shrugs. Pause.) He kept his socks on.

  It was all getting a bit traumatised ’cos I don’t know if you’ve ever had it off up the back of Ilford Pallie, but with foam, applicator and packet of three to contend with you sort of lose track of why you wanted to do it in the first place, know what I mean?

  Anyhow, when me and Shirl was sixteen we decided enough was enough, and took ourselves off to the Family Planning. That was a real laugh only we was scared stiff at the time. We shuffled into the waiting room and grabbed a magazine and started to read it casual like. It was Shirl who had the nerve to look out, well, I don’t know if it was nerve or whether there weren’t much in the Horse and Hound what interested her. Anyhow we needn’t have worried ’cos all you could see was pairs of hands clutching magazines, not a face in sight.

  Then, oh my God, then we had this talk about all the different contraceptives. Me and Shirl reckoned we’d like to do that job, after all, that’s what we spent all day talking about. Mind you, we started giggling like mad ’cos on this like card table with a green felt top was everything in the way of contraceptive wear you could imagine, looking really decrepit, ’cos they was only for show. The funniest thing was this pink plaster model of your insides like, you know, that picture in the Tampax instructions. Only having never seen a cross-section of me insides it was difficult to make out what was what – the fact that it was chipped to buggery didn’t help matters none.

  Anyway, they did our blood pressure but the weighing machine was broke, so they had to guess that, and then all these questions. I don’t think they believed I was sixteen. Giggling in their faces couldn’t have helped matters much. And then I had to have an internal. Can’t tell you how much I’d been dreading it. There was some delay while I tried to figure out if I’d had sex in the last three days. ‘Because of the sperm count my dear.’ Then I said what did it matter ’cos we used a Johnnie anyway. They looked gobsmacked. I tell yer gobsmacked, like, ‘Oh she might have an IQ after all.’ What they thought of me, I’m amazed they never sterilised me on the spot. I told ’em, I did, straight. I said, ‘If I’d been doing it all this time with nothing I wouldn’t be here. I’d be up the maternity ward, my dear.’ I tell you I was so nervous when they told me to slip me lower garments off I took me socks off an’ all. Then this plastic bag on a hand looms towards me treading on me clothes in the process, I might add. Shirl, lucky beggar, got out of it by telling them she was on, she wasn’t but she’s always one step ahead that girl.

  Still it was easier, being on the Pill, like. Though didn’t make much difference, more messy in another sort of way, if you know what I mean. I remember the name of it: Minilyn. I thought if I ever get a little house with roses round the door I’d call it Minilyn. Still at sixteen I was old enough to know me life had been mapped out. Not that I wasn’t grateful to get this flat, I bloody was and it’s really nice inside now.

  So how did I get up the club? Well, Shirl cocked things up of her own accord, ’cos, like I told you, she never took no notice of what anyone else said. She figured out if you started to take one packet straight after another you didn’t have to worry about the week of the month when he didn’t want it. So of course they found out and thought it was ’cos she was thick and took her off of it. So then she had one of those loop things, God, who would credit a little bit of wire with causing so much pain. There was times when she fainted, but one thing about Shirl, she weren’t no coward. And as it turns out it wrecked her insides. She had it taken out last year and they reckoned she was probably infertile, tried to blame it on her getting VD or something – it weren’t true. It had fucked her insides more than any Hampton Wick had done.

  But they took me off it eventually ’cos of me blood pressure and I had to make an appointment for a cap fitting. Shirl made some stupid joke about inside leg measurements but I weren’t havin
g one of those coil things. Anyhow, I missed the appointment on account of me Nan’s funeral. I remember thinking in the dust to dust bit, yeah and me from foam and rubber back to … yeah well – the bloke I was with didn’t like going back to Johnnies much neither, that funny rubber smell really lingers on yer fingers. I discovered this stuff called ‘C’ Film. You have to insert it if you’re a woman and he has to fit it on his whatsername like a handkerchief on a head but then I finds out that it’s not effective until after an hour. S’ats okay fer a woman but have you ever known a bloke keep it up for an hour?

  So what happens – round the back of the multi-storey car park one day and we’d only got one Durex – I taken to persuading him to wear two but I thought oh well, it’s a chance in a million. And if I’m ever going to write me life story that’s what I think I’ll call it, A Chance in a Million but I wasn’t done for. No. I know about douching. I read somewhere that there was something in Coca Cola what kills sperm. I don’t know if it’s true now. I suspect they took it out when they took whatever it was out that acts with Codeine. Any rate, we runs all the way to the off-licence. And this over-helpful shop assistant tries to persuade us that a can’s cheaper than a bottle but we insisted on a bottle, then we had to buy a bottle opener, didn’t we? He must have thought we were nuts – come to think of it, he was right.

  Anyhow I douched meself with it – it seemed to have delayed reaction, it wasn’t till I got home did I suddenly feel uncomfortable when I sort of erupted like in me best beige trousers. When I missed me first period I persuaded meself it was just worry but I sat up every night and prayed to God, said I’d do anything – even join the Salvation Army – threw meself down the stairs for good measure, but I don’t reckon God took much to the idea of me with a tambourine. Me mum guessed, carted me off to the doctor’s, saying, ‘I didn’t expect anything else of yer,’ but the way she created it was kinda obvious she did. The doctor was a very nice, kind, moral man who thought abortion a sin. Bumbling sod. Still, I’m glad now ’cos I love my kid. That night me mum and dad had a set-to. He was carrying on at her: ‘It’s all your fault, you silly cow, you should have told her about precautions – you should have known that was the last thing she’d think about.’ I laughed meself all through morning sickness on that one.

  Scene Eight

  ROWENA is in her garden.

  YVONNE enters.

  YVONNE. Row.

  ROWENA. Christ, Yvonne, hello.

  YVONNE. Sorry am I disturbing you?

  ROWENA. No, no, come through. Trevor never does anything in this garden except mow the law.

  YVONNE. It’s just that I saw the car outside – and then there was no answer at the door.

  ROWENA. Oh hell, you can’t hear anything over this. Shall we go indoors?

  YVONNE. No, no, you carry on.

  ROWENA. Do you want a cup of coffee?

  YVONNE. No …

  ROWENA. Or a drink …?

  YVONNE. No thanks …

  ROWENA. Or something?

  YVONNE. It’s okay.

  Pause.

  ROWENA. Nothing wrong?

  YVONNE. No, no, I’m okay, fine. Fine.

  ROWENA. Good. Good.

  YVONNE. I only came round for a chat.

  ROWENA. That’s nice.

  YVONNE. Well, no, to apologise really.

  ROWENA. Don’t be silly.

  YVONNE. Last time we met I wasn’t exactly on top of the world, if you remember.

  ROWENA. Don’t worry. We can’t all be on top form all the time.

  YVONNE. Only I seem to be perpetually wingeing.

  ROWENA. You’re no happier then?

  YVONNE. You could say that.

  ROWENA. How do you mean?

  YVONNE (lightly). Oh, you know, waking up in the morning wishing you hadn’t.

  ROWENA. I’m sure it’s not that bad.

  YVONNE. I just wish moaning was a competitive sport. I’d be a world champ.

  ROWENA. A holiday maybe?

  YVONNE. I’m not a client you know.

  ROWENA. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.

  YVONNE. No. (She smiles.) I know.

  ROWENA. Did Ron tell you he’s fixed one of my clients up with a job?

  YVONNE (flatly). Wonderful.

  ROWENA. She’s really thrilled about it.

  YVONNE. How nice of him.

  ROWENA. Considering she’s totally unskilled, it was.

  YVONNE (flatly). Is she attractive?

  ROWENA (shrugs). Yes … yes I suppose so.

  YVONNE. That’s the only qualification she needs then.

  ROWENA. Oh, come on. You and I didn’t get our jobs because of what we looked like.

  YVONNE. We have the dubious benefit of a white man’s middle-class education coupled with the fact that my husband isn’t our boss.

  ROWENA. Jesus, you are bitter.

  YVONNE. Yes.

  ROWENA. What’s the matter?

  YVONNE. Nothing.

  ROWENA. I think the sooner you get out of that school the better.

  YVONNE. And I always thought the first principle of social work was to get the clients to suss out the main problem for themselves.

  ROWENA. I won’t say another word.

  Long pause.

  YVONNE. I hate Ron.

  ROWENA. Oh.

  YVONNE. I hate everything about him.

  ROWENA. Look, you have had a rough time lately, admittedly …

  YVONNE. Especially sex.

  ROWENA. But you can’t take it all out on him. (She pauses, awkward.) Umm, yes well, we all go through times …

  YVONNE. I don’t hate the mechanics so much … I just hate Ron.

  ROWENA. It’s a phase.

  YVONNE. Really.

  ROWENA. Look, what do you want me to say? I thought it was school that was bothering you.

  YVONNE. They’re all mixed up together.

  ROWENA. Oh Yvonne, I can’t see how.

  YVONNE. Men, it’s all to do with the way men are taught to view women.

  ROWENA. Now you’ve lost me.

  YVONNE (indicating her carrier bag). Every week I seem to be confiscating this stuff at school, and as if that’s not enough in itself, every week I get into trouble with the headmaster because the kids complain that it costs a lot of money.

  ROWENA. Actually I wanted Trev to bring those magazines at the office home with him, but he wasn’t too keen.

  YVONNE. I’m not surprised.

  ROWENA. Can I have a look at it?

  YVONNE. Only if you think you must.

  ROWENA looks at the magazines in such a way that the audience is not exposed to their contents.

  Female monologues. (Voices over on tape)

  1. I suppose it would be stupid to say I did it because I wanted to be good at something and yes, okay, it gave me money and status – status, ha bloody ha. I wasn’t dragged off to do it by the hair or anything but it was a different story when I wanted out. You don’t get promoted in this lark. Your value is your body, when it starts to go, you get into the rough stuff and can be threatened within inches of your life – to do the nasties with animals and that. I tell you, the animals get treated like they was the royal corgies, you get treated like dirt.

  2. When I was a little girl, I was always being shown off to relatives, made to sit on uncle’s knee. I learnt to flirt, was told that I was pretty and I liked the attention, I loved it. I still like my body being appreciated. When I was seven I was sexually interfered with by a male relative. I never told anyone. I’d learnt by then that I was dirty and it was my fault. I went into the business for money. I had no morals at that time, I was twenty and had a two-year-old daughter to support – sure the blokes assumed they could sleep with you whenever they wanted. I went to a meeting once where these women were talking about the links between violence and pornography. Huh, I told them it was a load of puritan bullshit. Makes me laugh now. It never occurred to me to take into consideration the abuse I’d suff
ered personally. All I ask is that my mother or daughter never find out.

  3. You’re supposed to do these pathetic antics, which would cause you permanent damage in real life, with ecstasy radiating off of your mug. Once in this game it’s harder than you would imagine to get out. And if I go for a proper job, what would I say at the interview? ‘Well, the last thing I did was a split beaver shot of me strapped naked to the front of an XJ6’. I also ‘starred’ in a film specially made by a television company for the Falklands lads who watched the stuff to get their bloodlust up. What could I give them, poor as I am? If I were a wife or a mother I could give my man. But I have the commodity of my body, and so they took that.

  ROWENA (closes book). I don’t want to look any more.

  YVONNE. I’m sorry, Row. I didn’t mean …

  Pause.

  ROWENA. How they must hate us.

  TREVOR enters. Pause. YVONNE starts to clear magazines.

  No. Can you leave them?

  YVONNE. I was going to burn them.

  TREVOR. That’s what the Nazis did with propaganda they didn’t like.

  YVONNE. I think I’d better go.

  TREVOR. Goodbye.

  YVONNE. See you Row.

  She goes out.

  ROWENA. Yes okay. (To TREVOR:) Did you have to be so rude?

  TREVOR. Me? Bloody hell. You set me up didn’t you?

  ROWENA. I what?

  TREVOR. Let’s see Clever Trevor’s face when he practically falls over the stuff. That’ll be a laugh.

  ROWENA. You must be joking. That’s rubbish, talking of which, just look at them.

  TREVOR. What sort of a wanky idea is that?

  ROWENA (picks up a magazine). Read that bit.

  TREVOR. Yes, yes … atrocious, very badly written. (Slight pause.) Rubbish.

  ROWENA. Badly written? Trevor? These things go into millions of homes.

  TREVOR. So does Crossroads, no need to get hysterical.

  ROWENA. Next you’ll be telling me to keep a stiff upper lip.

  TREVOR (calmly). Rowena, love …

  ROWENA. Don’t you ‘Rowena love’ me.