They sit on the bench, holding hands.
EDWARD
I like women.
VICTORIA
That should please Mother.
EDWARD
No listen Vicky. I’d rather be a woman. I wish I had breasts like that, I think they’re beautiful. Can I touch them?
VICTORIA
What, pretending they’re yours?
EDWARD
No, I know it’s you.
VICTORIA
I think I should warn you I’m enjoying this.
EDWARD
I’m sick of men.
VICTORIA
I’m sick of men.
EDWARD
I think I’m a lesbian.
Scene Three
The park. Summer night. VICTORIA, LIN and EDWARD drunk.
LIN
Where are you?
VICTORIA
Come on.
EDWARD
Do we sit in a circle?
VICTORIA
Sit in a triangle.
EDWARD
You’re good at mathematics. She’s good at mathematics.
VICTORIA
Give me your hand. We all hold hands.
EDWARD
Do you know what to do?
LIN
She’s making it up.
VICTORIA
We start off by being quiet.
EDWARD
What?
LIN
Hush.
EDWARD
Will something appear?
VICTORIA
It was your idea.
EDWARD
It wasn’t my idea. It was your book.
LIN
You said call up the goddess.
EDWARD
I don’t remember saying that.
LIN
We could have called her on the telephone.
EDWARD
Don’t be so silly, this is meant to be frightening.
LIN
Kiss me.
VICTORIA
Are we going to do it?
LIN
We’re doing it.
VICTORIA
A ceremony.
LIN
It’s very sexy, you said it is. You said the women were priests in the temples and fucked all the time. I’m just helping.
VICTORIA
As long as it’s sacred.
LIN
It’s very sacred.
VICTORIA
Innin, Innana, Nana, Nut, Anat, Anahita, Istar, Isis.
LIN
I can’t remember all that.
VICTORIA
Lin! Innin, Innana, Nana, Nut, Anat, Anahita, Istar, Isis.
LIN and EDWARD join in and continue the chant under VICTORIA’s speech.
Goddess of many names, oldest of the old, who walked in chaos and created life, hear us calling you back through time, before Jehovah, before Christ, before men drove you out and burnt your temples, hear us, Lady, give us back what we were, give us the history we haven’t had, make us the women we can’t be.
ALL
Innin, Innana, Nana, Nut, Anat, Anahita, Istar, Isis.
Chant continues under other speeches.
LIN
Come back, goddess.
VICTORIA
Goddess of the sun and the moon her brother, little goddess of Crete with snakes in your hands.
LIN
Goddess of breasts.
VICTORIA
Goddess of cunts.
LIN
Goddess of fat bellies and babies. And blood blood blood.
Chant continues.
I see her.
EDWARD
What?
They stop chanting.
LIN
I see her. Very tall. Snakes in her hands. Light light light – look out! Did I give you a fright?
EDWARD
I was terrified.
VICTORIA
Don’t spoil it Lin.
LIN
It’s all out of a book.
VICTORIA
Innin Innana – I can’t do it now. I was really enjoying myself.
LIN
She won’t appear with a man here.
VICTORIA
They had men, they had sons and lovers.
EDWARD
They had eunuchs.
LIN
Don’t give us ideas.
VICTORIA
There’s Attis and Tammuz, they’re torn to pieces.
EDWARD
Tear me to pieces, Lin.
VICTORIA
The priestess chose a lover for a year and he was king because she chose him and then he was killed at the end of the year.
EDWARD
Hurray.
VICTORIA
And the women had the children and nobody knew it was done by fucking so they didn’t know about their fathers and nobody cared who the father was and the property was passed down through the maternal line –
LIN
Don’t turn it into a lecture, Vicky, it’s meant to be an orgy.
VICTORIA
It never hurts to understand the theoretical background. You can’t separate fucking and economics.
LIN
Give us a kiss.
EDWARD
Shut up, listen.
LIN
What?
EDWARD
There’s somebody there.
LIN
Where?
EDWARD
There.
VICTORIA
The priestesses used to make love to total strangers.
LIN
Go on then, I dare you.
EDWARD
Go on, Vicky.
VICTORIA
He won’t know it’s a sacred rite in honour of the goddess.
EDWARD
We’ll know.
LIN
We can tell him.
EDWARD
It’s not what he thinks, it’s what we think.
LIN
Don’t tell him till after, he’ll run a mile.
VICTORIA
Hello. We’re having an orgy. Do you want me to suck your cock?
The stranger approaches. It is MARTIN.
MARTIN
There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere. What the hell are you doing. Do you know what the time is? You’re all pissed out of your minds.
They leap on MARTIN, and pull him down and start to make love to him.
Well that’s all right. If all we’re talking about is having a lot of sex there’s no problem. I was all for the sixties when liberation just meant fucking.Another stranger approaches.
LIN
Hey you, come here. Come and have sex with us.
VICTORIA
Who is it?
The stranger is a SOLDIER.
LIN
It’s my brother.
EDWARD
Lin, don’t.
LIN
It’s my brother.
VICTORIA
It’s her sense of humour, you get used to it.
LIN
Shut up Vicky, it’s my brother. Isn’t it? Bill?
SOLDIER
Yes it’s me.
LIN
And you are dead.
SOLDIER
Fucking dead all right yeah.
LIN
Have you come back to tell us something?
SOLDIER
No I’ve come for a fuck. That was the worst thing in the fucking army. Never fucking let out. Can’t fucking talk to Irish girls. Fucking bored out of my fucking head. That or shit scared. For five minutes I’d be glad I wasn’t bored, then I was fucking scared. Then we’d come in and I’d be glad I wasn’t scared and then I was fucking bored. Spend the day reading fucking porn and the fucking night wanking. Man’s fucking life in the fucking army? No fun when the fucking kids hate you. I got so I fucking wanted to kill someone and I got fucking killed myself and I want a fuck.
LIN
&nbs
p; I miss you. Bill. Bill.
LIN collapses. SOLDIER goes. VICTORIA comforts LIN.
EDWARD
Let’s go home.
LIN
Victoria, come home with us. Victoria’s coming to live with me and Edward.
MARTIN
Tell me about it in the morning.
LIN
It’s true.
VICTORIA
It is true.
MARTIN
Tell me when you’re sober.
EDWARD, LIN, VICTORIA go off together. MARTIN goes off alone. GERRY comes on.
GERRY
I come here sometimes at night and pick somebody up. Sometimes I come here at night and don’t pick anybody up. I do also enjoy walking about at night. There’s never any trouble finding someone. I can have sex any time. You might not find the type you most fancy every day of the week, but there’s plenty of people about who just enjoy having a good time. I quite like living alone. If I live with someone I get annoyed with them. Edward always put on Capital Radio when he got up. The silence gets wasted. I wake up at four o’clock sometimes. Birds. Silence. If I bring somebody home I never let them stay the night. Edward! Edward!
EDWARD from Act One comes on.
EDWARD
Gerry, I love you.
GERRY
Yes, I know. I love you, too.
EDWARD
You know what we did? I want to do it again. I think about it all the time. Don’t you want to any more?
GERRY
Yes, of course.
ALL (sing ‘Cloud Nine’).
It’ll be fine when you reach Cloud Nine.
Mist was rising and the night was dark.
Me and my baby took a walk in the park.
He said Be mine and you’re on Cloud Nine.
Better watch out when you’re on Cloud Nine.
Smoked some dope on the playground swings
Higher and higher on true love’s wings
He said Be mine and you’re on Cloud Nine.
Twenty-five years on the same Cloud Nine.
Who did she meet on her first blind date?
The guys were no surprise but the lady was great
They were women in love, they were on Cloud Nine.
Two the same, they were on Cloud Nine.
The bride was sixty-five, the groom was seventeen,
They fucked in the back of the black limousine.
It was divine in the silver Cloud Nine.
Simply divine in their silver Cloud Nine.
The wife’s lover’s children and my lover’s wife,
Cooking in my kitchen, confusing my life.
And it’s upside down when you reach Cloud Nine.
Upside down when you reach Cloud Nine.
Scene Four
The park. Afternoon in late summer. MARTIN, CATHY, EDWARD.
CATHY
Under the bramble bushes,
Under the sea boom boom boom,
True love for you my darling,
True love for me my darling,
When we are married,
We’ll raise a family.
Boy for you, girl for me,
Boom tiddley oom boom.
SEXY.
EDWARD
You’ll have Tommy and Cathy tonight then OK? Tommy’s still on antibiotics, do make him finish the bottle, he takes it in Ribena. It’s no good in orange, he spits it out. Remind me to give you Cathy’s swimming things.
CATHY
I did six strokes, didn’t I Martin? Did I do a width? How many strokes is a length? How many miles is a swimming pool? I’m going to take my bronze and silver and gold and diamond.
MARTIN
Is Tommy still wetting the bed?
EDWARD
Don’t get angry with him about it.
MARTIN
I just need to go to the launderette so I’ve got a spare sheet. Of course I don’t get fucking angry, Eddy, for God’s sake. I don’t like to say he is my son but he is my son. I’m surprised I’m not wetting the bed myself.
CATHY
I don’t wet the bed ever. Do you wet the bed Martin?
MARTIN
No.
CATHY
You said you did.
BETTY comes.
BETTY
I do miss the sun living in England but today couldn’t be more beautiful. You appreciate the weekend when you’re working. Betty’s been at work this week, Cathy. It’s terribly tiring, Martin, I don’t know how you’ve done it all these years. And the money, I feel like a child with money, Clive always paid everything but I do understand it perfectly well. Look, Cathy, let me show you my money.
CATHY
I’ll count it. Let me count it. What’s that?
BETTY
Five pounds. Five and five is –?
CATHY
One two three –
BETTY
Five and five is ten, and five –
CATHY
If I get it right can I have one?
EDWARD
No you can’t.
CATHY goes on counting the money.
BETTY
I never like to say anything, Martin, or you’ll think I’m being a mother-in-law.
EDWARD
Which you are.
BETTY
Thank you, Edward, I’m not talking to you. Martin, I think you’re being wonderful. Vicky will come back. Just let her stay with Lin till she sorts herself out. It’s very nice for a girl to have a friend, I had friends at school, that was very nice. But I’m sure Lin and Edward don’t want her with them all the time. I’m not at all shocked that Lin and Edward aren’t married and she already has a child, we all know first marriages don’t always work out. But really Vicky must be in the way. And poor little Tommy. I hear he doesn’t sleep properly and he’s had a cough.
MARTIN
No, he’s fine, Betty, thank you.
CATHY
My bed’s horrible. I want to sleep in the big bed with Lin and Vicky and Eddy and I do get in if I’ve got a bad dream, and my bed’s got a bump right in my back. I want to sleep in a tent.
BETTY
Well Tommy has got a nasty cough, Martin, whatever you say.
EDWARD
He’s over that. He’s got some medicine.
MARTIN
He takes it in Ribena.
BETTY
Well I’m glad to hear it. Look what a lot of money, Cathy, and I sit behind a desk on my own and I answer the telephone and keep the doctor’s appointment book and it really is great fun.
CATHY
Can we go camping, Martin, in a tent? We could take the Dead Hand Gang.
BETTY
Not those big boys, Cathy? They’re far too big and rough for you. They climb back into the park after dark. I’m sure Mummy doesn’t let you play with them, does she Edward? Well I don’t know.
Ice-cream bells.
CATHY
Ice cream. Martin you promised. I’ll have a double ninety-nine. No I’ll have a shandy lolly. Betty, you have a shandy lolly and I’ll have a lick. No, you have a double ninety-nine and I’ll have the chocolate.
MARTIN, CATHY and BETTY go, leaving EDWARD. GERRY comes.
GERRY
Hello, Eddy. Thought I might find you here.
EDWARD
Gerry.
GERRY
Not working today then?
EDWARD
I don’t work here any more.
GERRY
Your mum got you into a dark suit?
EDWARD
No of course not. I’m on the dole. I am working, though, I do housework.
Cloud Nine Page 9
