Plays One Read online

  BETTY (innocently). I don’t see why anyone’s got to have them.

  JIM (weary). You silly born bitch. How stupid can you get – know all, know nothing. You’d have us all dancing about with bows and arrows, charging through the bushes, you would. Betty, we are living in a highly civilised age of technology, thank God.

  BETTY. Thank God? Well, I wouldn’t be thanking God if I was sitting under a table with you lot, four cans of baked beans and a plastic rubbish bag to put the dead bodies in.

  JIM. We wouldn’t have time, Betty, so don’t worry about it.

  BETTY (sarcastic). Oh that’s nice. What a relief, I’ll stop worrying then.

  CAROL. Actually, Darrel was talking about the possibility of getting a mortgage for a fall-out shelter.

  IVY. Oh that’s good, we’ll all come round on the big day.

  CAROL. Well, Nanny, we haven’t got a very big garden as you know.

  BETTY. What have we got?

  IVY. There’ll be a riot if the lift’s out of order.

  CAROL. Anyway, you only get a four-minute warning.

  BETTY. Oh, console us. Interesting to see what everyone will do with the last four minutes on earth.

  CAROL. Darrel says, ironically it would make a very interesting study of human nature.

  JIM. Maybe all those sociologist people could arrange a trial run.

  BETTY. And what are you planning to do in those four minutes Lord Jim?

  JIM (considers this). A bit of hanky panky with my wife.

  BETTY. And then what?

  CAROL. Mummy!

  BETTY. Well, that’s only two minutes gone. I tell you, Carol, I just have time to say, ‘You’ve left your socks on again’, and it’s all over.

  IVY laughs.

  JIM. What are you laughing at?

  IVY. David Hunter forgot his lines.

  CAROL. Mummy! Really!

  BETTY. What’s with this, ‘Mummy’ malarky bit? You’ll be saying ‘my husband and I’ next. You might have the lifestyle of Princess Margaret but let me remind you, you’re not related to royalty.

  CAROL. I don’t need any reminding, you’re so flippin’ crude.

  BETTY. Crude? Flippin’?? What sort of word is that, can you believe this, Mum, your granddaughter?

  IVY (flatly – still watching the telly). I told you Bet, I thought it was a miracle her getting up the club. Reminds me of the old song about God Almighty lifting up her nighty.

  CAROL. Do you have to be so vulgar, Nanny? Think of Joe-Joe.

  IVY. I was.

  BETTY (to CAROL). Oh and just where do you think you came from?

  JIM. Do you mind?! I’ve just eaten.

  BETTY (to CAROL). I suppose you think Harrods flew you here in a Tupperware picnic basket with gold-plated shark handles.

  CAROL. Frankly, sometimes I’d prefer to think that. Anyway, how many more times, it’s gold-plated dolphin toilet-roll holders. I think it’s time I was going. Darrel will be home soon and we’re going out tonight.

  BETTY (pleased). Oh Joe-Joe can stay here.

  CAROL. It’s okay. Thanks, but we’ve arranged for next door to babysit. Darrel says it’s reciprocal. They do it for us and I do it for them.

  BETTY. I’m not good enough then?

  CAROL. Don’t be like that, Mum. Mind you, I’m glad he’s playing outside. God alone knows how his vocabulary would be improved if he’d have picked up any of the conversation in here.

  BETTY. He’s got to know the facts of life, you can’t bring him up on a load of rubbish.

  CAROL. That’s a laugh coming from you. I had to leave home before I discovered Tampax doesn’t ruin your married life.

  BETTY. They can do if you keep them in.

  JIM. Just leave it out will ya?

  IVY. Don’t you bring your sanitary towel talk in here, madam, not in mixed company. Where are you off tonight, a husband-swapping party?

  CAROL. Theatre actually.

  IVY (disappointed). Oh. (Then.) What is it, No Sex Please We’re British?

  CAROL. No, The Importance of Being Earnest.

  IVY. You’ll like that. He was born in a handbag.

  CAROL. See you next week then.

  BETTY. I’ll come and say goodbye to Joe-Joe.

  CAROL. Oh Dad, when you see John, would you tell him that Darrel has found that old air rifle if he would like to call round for it.

  BETTY. He’ll do no such thing. Jim, do you hear me? Jim, I am not having that thing in the flat.

  IVY. Certainly not. Before I know where I am, I’ll have a jacksee full of lead. I’m a sitting target.

  JIM. Bit of luck he’ll aim fer yer boat. That’ll shut a few gobs round here.

  CAROL. Bye Dad, Nanny.

  CAROL and BETTY move out of the earshot of JIM and IVY.

  BETTY. You and Darrel haven’t decided yet on whether or not to go in for another little brother or sister for Joe-Joe?

  CAROL. Oh Mum, Darrel was really torn, so he tossed a coin and the Mini Metro came up heads.

  BETTY. Huh, as if British Leyland hasn’t got enough to answer for. Besides, I don’t think much of that as an idea to enforce population control.

  CAROL. Anyhow, Joe-Joe’s still young and we’ve got to get on our feet.

  BETTY. Can’t you arrange for an accident?

  CAROL. What on earth for? We can’t afford a fully comp. insurance policy.

  BETTY. Not to the car – to you. You know …

  CAROL. No, I couldn’t. God, Mum, that’s more than my life’s worth. Besides, there’s something to be said for taking responsibility.

  BETTY. For what?

  CAROL. For thinking what sort of world you’re bringing a child into.

  BETTY. Gawd help us, if everyone carried on like that there’d be more dodos running about than humans. (Pause.) Take care, love.

  CAROL. And you. (She kisses her.) See you soon.

  CAROL goes out. BETTY returns to the others.

  JIM. What was all that about?

  BETTY. Women’s talk.

  JIM. Oh Gawd, that only means one thing – trouble.

  BETTY. D’you think she’s okay?

  JIM. Yes. She’s fine. You always fuss too much.

  IVY (without looking up). She’s okay. It’s the bleedin’ chinless wonder she married what’s a pain in the bum.

  JIM. The fact that you don’t like him is enough recommendation for me.

  BETTY. Do you think she’s ashamed of us?

  JIM. Look, Betty, she wanted to better herself. You can’t blame her for that and she’s done all right by him. I for one am proud of that.

  BETTY. Umm …

  JIM. Darrel’s an all right bloke as it happens, he is. Think back, Betty, some of the potential son-in-laws we could’ve got landed wiv, it’s a wonder we ain’t on our knees thanking God every day.

  BETTY. Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Jim.

  JIM. Huh, one thing’s for sure, if she’d ave married that dead-head Ted she’d ave bin up Pentonville visiting him every other week. (Pause.) Come to think, that’s where I’ll be an all if the Social catch on about me job.

  BETTY. Don’t say that, Jim. Anyhow they can’t send you away for that; there’d be more in than out.

  JIM. At one time, Betty, I used to reckon the scrounging sods deserved all they got.

  BETTY. I remember.

  JIM. Makes you think don’t it.

  IVY (sighs). Can’t be all bad then.

  Scene Two

  FIONA and LINDA’s squat in Hackney. FIONA is ironing a dress. LINDA enters.

  LINDA. You’re early.

  FIONA. Yeah, but I’ve got to go to another bloody boring meeting in a minute.

  LINDA (noticing the dress). Oh no, not again.

  FIONA. ’Fraid so. I won’t have time to do it tomorrow morning.

  LINDA (picks up the dress by the sleeve and sniffs the armpits). Phew, when was the last time you washed it? It could stand up by itself. All you do is throw it in the bottom of the wardrobe
and iron it when duty calls.

  FIONA. Who cares?

  LINDA. I thought the whole point of social workers wearing a dress in court was to create a good impression.

  FIONA. Yeah.

  LINDA. Can’t imagine it going down too well you standing there stinking like a three-week-old meat pie.

  FIONA (laughs). There are no rules about what you smell like.

  LINDA. Just as well there’s no law against it. Although there probably will be one day.

  FIONA. I bloody hate it. Every time it’s such an ordeal.

  LINDA. Not half the ordeal it is for the poor bugger in the dock.

  FIONA (agreeing). Okay, but what difference should it make what I wear? Oh, moan, moan, moan. How was your day?

  LINDA. Bag of laughs.

  FIONA. You don’t stink none too healthy yourself.

  LINDA (sending FIONA up). Being the chief fish fryer at Littlewoods canteen is not without ordeal or responsibilities you know.

  FIONA. What responsibilities?

  LINDA. Making sure the oil’s hot enough, the batter’s thick enough, and that mad Annie doesn’t dice the fish and put them in the trifles.

  FIONA. She sounds wonderful.

  LINDA. Gets beyond a joke sometimes. Today right, she gets all the dish cloths, dips ’em in batter and they only get sent down as cod. (They both laugh.) I don’t know why I’m laughing, I nearly got the bleedin’ sack over it.

  FIONA. Gawd, how did you explain that away?

  LINDA. With a lot of difficulty. Still, certainly breaks the monotony working with someone with a run amok brain. Lucky she lives in this borough, otherwise you’d be her social worker.

  FIONA. Oh, that reminds me, I’ve got to see a family who live in the same block as your mum.

  LINDA. Never was a problem estate until our lot moved in, we set a trend.

  FIONA. No real derangements. The son was fast becoming a hardened glue-sniffer till we got him on a YOP’s course.

  LINDA. You fraud, pushing kids into those.

  FIONA (agreeing). Umm. (Then.) At least it keeps ’em off the streets and I s’pose carpentry is a practical skill.

  LINDA. Right. Now he can cement his nostrils together with Plasticwood to his lungs’ content.

  FIONA. I think they must live on the floor above yours.

  LINDA. The mother’s name’s not Betty?

  FIONA. I’m not sure. I think the grandmother’s name’s Ivy.

  LINDA. Gordon Bennett, I went to school with her daughter.

  FIONA. Don’t be daft, she must be pushing fifty.

  LINDA. Not Ivy’s, Betty’s, Carol.

  FIONA. Who?

  LINDA. Carol’s Mum is Betty. Betty’s Mum is Ivy. Carol is Betty’s daughter. Betty is …

  FIONA. Okay, Okay … but I don’t think the youngest, Carol? right? is living at home.

  LINDA. Na, she went through a very unfortunate phase at school and ended up marrying him.

  FIONA. Shame. Suburban maisonette job?

  LINDA. Worse. Stripped pine Islington job.

  FIONA. She’d know your mum then.

  LINDA. Doubt it. Betty does.

  FIONA. You haven’t told her you’re living with me?

  LINDA. No, I told her I was living with the Olympic women’s caber-tossing champion.

  FIONA. I mean where I work and that?

  LINDA. Don’t worry, I said you was the personnel manageress at Littlewoods.

  FIONA. Trust you.

  LINDA. Well, it pleased her that I had illusions of upward mobility. She worked her way up from knickers you know.

  FIONA. Pardon?

  LINDA. She started on the knicker counter and worked her way up.

  FIONA (laughs). Charming. (She has finished ironing and starts to throw things into a rucksack.)

  LINDA. You should be flattered, it’s a good job, lots of responsibility. You can determine how long someone can stay in the sick room if they have a period pain.

  FIONA. Power.

  LINDA. If she likes you, you can get anything up to four hours. If she don’t, ten minutes.

  FIONA. How long do you get?

  LINDA. I keep a bottle of Paracetamol in my locker just in case.

  FIONA (looking up from rucksack). You sure you can’t take tomorrow off?

  LINDA. Sorry. No.

  FIONA. You don’t want to go anyway though, do you?

  LINDA. What for?

  FIONA. Little thing like an interest in life.

  LINDA. Boring. (Pause.) The way I see it, there are more important things to get excited about.

  FIONA. Nothing will matter in the event of a nuclear war, I’m sure even NATO don’t care if sex shops go up.

  LINDA. Oh yeah? You try explaining that to the woman who’s raped and killed out there tonight. Shame you couldn’t stick around, love, and see the war what might or might not have bin.

  FIONA. So we sort it all out – then get blown sky high?

  LINDA. Oh, and so by some miracle we do stop it. Then we can all go back and not worry about anything ever again. Yip, yip, yippee.

  FIONA. Perhaps you start at the worse end of the scale.

  LINDA. But anyway, what has it got to do with women? That’s what I want ter know?

  FIONA. Apart from the fact that we’re fifty-two per cent of the population. Besides, it’s a way of reaching women.

  LINDA. Huh.

  FIONA. Huh? Huh nothing. It’s a household word.

  LINDA. Huh? Huh is a household word?

  FIONA. Greenham Common (She looks at her watch.) Shit is that the time? I must go.

  LINDA. You find me one woman that you see in your job who knows about it …

  FIONA. And you’ll go … (She crosses to the door.)

  LINDA. Who doesn’t think they’re a bunch of lunatics, then I might go …

  FIONA. Deal.

  LINDA. For a picnic.

  FIONA goes out. LINDA finishes ironing the dress.

  Scene Three

  ENID and BETTY. BETTY is ironing.

  BETTY. Took the best part of yesterday morning to do all this stuff. I had to lug it up to Cambridge Heath and all.

  ENID. What about the one round the corner?

  BETTY. You should see the two and eight it’s in. Nothing works.

  You can feel the tension between putting your money in and waiting for the light to come on.

  ENID. Gawd, I couldn’t have lugged that lot up there.

  BETTY (not nastily). Last time you did your washing in public was with a bar of soap and a scrubbing board.

  ENID. I’ve told you often enough you can use my machine.

  BETTY. Jim won’t hear of it. Anyhow the exercise done me good. I’ve put on about seven pounds in the last couple of months.

  ENID. Well, I didn’t like to say nothing but you really should start coming to Weightwatchers again.

  BETTY. No thanks, I can’t cope with it.

  ENID. It does work Betty, it does. You know together we give each other strength.

  BETTY. Enid, there are three things I believe you should do in private. Breast-feeding, going to the toilet and weighing yourself.

  ENID. Don’t be such a paradon of virtue, weighing yourself isn’t dirty.

  BETTY. No, but it’s embarrassing.

  ENID. That’s what gives you the insensitive though, don’t it? Besides, going there on Thursday means I’m out when money-grabbing Molly comes round with the poxy catalogue.

  BETTY. Here, John told me a joke about that.

  ENID. Think about it, Betty, you know you always tell the punchline first.

  BETTY. What lies in the grass and goes ding dong?

  ENID. A snake with a bell on its prick.

  BETTY. No, no, a dead Avon lady.

  ENID. Gawd, is that it? My answer was better than that.

  BETTY. Just count yerself lucky I didn’t say, ‘Heard about the dead Avon lady lying in the grass going ding dong’.

  ENID. I can just picture Molly rolling a
bout in her petunias gasping her last breath. (She laughs; then:) We mustn’t be nasty though.

  BETTY. They’re not petunias, they’re gladioli.

  ENID. Are they?

  BETTY. I only know ’cos my Carol told me.

  ENID. It’s all right for some, Molly got a ground-floor place and she hasn’t got no kids, or disabled in the family.

  BETTY. She always seems to know how to get everything.

  ENID. Got a lot of mouth, Betty. Where’s Ivy by the way?

  BETTY. Up Florrie’s. She’s making a special effort this time. Florrie’s got something to help her hear the telly better from the Social Services and Mum wants one.

  ENID. What? Nanny-radar-ears-Taylor, her hearing’s more sensitive than a bat’s.

  BETTY. It means you can still hear the telly when other people are talking in the room so I gather.

  ENID. I wouldn’t fancy them nosey do-gooders sniffing around.

  BETTY. Mum can handle them.

  ENID. Well, my Bob won’t stand for it. He won’t. I don’t know exactly what he earns so he ain’t going to relish the thought of blabbing it to someone else.

  BETTY. Now I don’t agree with that, Enid. We’re living in modern times, bin years since we got the vote.

  ENID. Oh he’s never kept me short, Betty, you know that. I’m sure if I really knew, it would only make for unpleasantness.

  BETTY. And they earn it. You can’t expect a man to flog his guts out for nothing, I s’pose. They’re entitled to their pleasure.

  ENID. Not that that costs them anything. Not now. Mind, was a time when a packet of three meant going without tea.

  BETTY. Don’t I know, risks I’ve taken.

  ENID. Me too.

  BETTY. For the pleasure of one tea and one F in the same evening, I have a sixteen-year-old son.

  ENID. Could’ve bin worse like me and had five kids.

  BETTY. Now that was bad luck.

  ENID. Bad luck?! I can tell you, Betty, if I’d ’ad me wits about me I’d ’ave sued Durex, I would. Featherweight and Gossamer my arse. I’d rather they were made outta bloody inner tube – safer.

  BETTY. Maybe Bob didn’t get the air outta them properly.

  ENID. Didn’t get the air outta them? Betty, they split so many times I threatened to take a pumice stone to his dong.

  BETTY. Enid! Really!

  ENID. Betty, it don’t matter, no one can hear us. You know how they was invented, don’t you? That John Wand used sheeps’ innards.