by Alan Bennett
LADY RUMPERS: Another doctor. Then I don’t want to hear another word. I’ve had a bellyful of doctors.
PURDUE: I want a doctor: I’m depressed.
MRS WICKSTEED: So would I be if I had my head in a noose.
PURDUE: I only want to put one foot in the grave.
LADY RUMPERS: Oh, this is intolerable. Felicity. It shouldn’t take all day for you to get your skirt on.
WICKSTEED: Can I help?
LADY RUMPERS: Don’t touch her.
WICKSTEED: (To DENNIS) No, get back. You’ve done enough damage.
DENNIS: Me?
WICKSTEED: Control yourself.
LADY RUMPERS: Daring so much as even to look at a girl like Felicity.
WICKSTEED: Yes.
MRS WICKSTEED: No.
LADY RUMPERS: You are dirt.
WICKSTEED: Dirt.
LADY RUMPERS: Filth.
WICKSTEED: Filth.
FELICITY: Mother. He’s sick.
WICKSTEED: Yes, sick; sick, sick. You toad.
SIR PERCY: If you’d allow me….
WICKSTEED: Shut your face.
DENNIS: Dad. Dad.
WICKSTEED: Don’t ‘Dad, Dad’ me.
LADY RUMPERS: To think we’ve only been in this country three weeks. Everywhere it’s the same. Sex, sex, sex. Well I’m not having any.
MRS SWABB: I’m not surprised.
LADY RUMPERS: When I get you back to our suite at the Claremont, you’re going straight into a hot bath and I shall personally scrub you all over with carbolic.
WICKSTEED: Ah, the privileges of motherhood.
LADY RUMPERS: Perhaps you will believe me now, Felicity. Men will touch you, rob you, rifle you of all you possess.
SIR PERCY: Flesh isn’t property, you know.
LADY RUMPERS: Yes it is. What is one’s body but property? What is one’s own flesh and figure but the most precious inheritance? When that is spent one is indeed bankrupt of everything. From this moment on I shall not let her out of my sight. Haile Selassie was right. We should never have left Addis Ababa.
(Exit LADY RUMPERS and FELICITY.)
MRS WICKSTEED: You slid out of that very well.
WICKSTEED: I did rather.
MRS WICKSTEED: I want you out of this house in half an hour.
WICKSTEED: Yes. I must collect my thoughts and pack.
MRS WICKSTEED: And we must have a little talk, Percy. About the future.
SIR PERCY: Yes.
MRS WICKSTEED: Our future.
(Exit SIR PERCY and MRS WICKSTEED.)
PURDUE: Has everybody gone?
MRS SWABB: Everybody of any consequence.
PURDUE: Marvellous!
MRS SWABB: It’s all self, self, self in this house. Locked in our tiny domestic tragedies only I, Amelia Swabb, can take the wider view. What seems to be the trouble?
PURDUE: I’m depressed.
MRS SWABB: Pisces is in the second quarter of Saturn: naturally you’re depressed.
PURDUE: (Getting down) I am Pisces.
MRS SWABB: Why don’t you look on the bright side? Next week the sun’ll be in Saturn and Pisceans will be laughing.
(Exit MRS SWABB and PURDUE.)
SIR PERCY: I have no sympathy with him at all. None.
MRS WICKSTEED: He is my husband.
SIR PERCY: I do not understand how he could betray such a fine body….
MRS WICKSTEED: Nor do I.
SIR PERCY: As the British Medical Association.
MRS WICKSTEED: What more does he want.
(Enter WICKSTEED.)
WICKSTEED: Not more. Different. (Exits.)
SIR PERCY: And a doctor. Entrusted with the bodies of his patients. Caught red-handed.
MRS WICKSTEED: Red-handed, yours so plump and white.
SIR PERCY: Please, Muriel. Of course we have all been tempted. Every doctor has. The lowliest locum in the back streets of Liverpool can take advantage of a patient, if he allows himself. Because the doctor-patient relationship is itself a kind of seduction. But one says, ‘No. No, body, I will not do this. No, hands, keep to your appointed task. No, eyes, stick to the affected part.’ That is what Professionalism means. Yes?
MRS WICKSTEED: Have you….
SIR PERCY: Never, NEVER. Though I’ve had my chances. Discerning women seem to find me attractive, God knows why….
MRS WICKSTEED: Yes.
SIR PERCY: Look, Muriel, there’s something I have to tell you. Walk tall, Percy.
MRS WICKSTEED: Yes?
SIR PERCY: This afternoon… I met the woman of my dreams.
MRS WICKSTEED: Oh Percy. (Kisses him.)
THROBBING: Good evening.
MRS WICKSTEED: Canon Throbbing! I want you to be the first to know, Arthur apart. And it will be Arthur apart. Separation City, I’m afraid. You must congratulate us.
THROBBING: You and him? I think you must be mistaken. This man is engaged to my fiancée, Miss Wicksteed.
MRS WICKSTEED: No, you are mistaken. You are engaged to your fiancée, Miss Wicksteed.
THROBBING: That’s what I thought until this afternoon.
MRS WICKSTEED: This afternoon. What happened this afternoon?
THROBBING: I was present when he proposed.
MRS WICKSTEED: Percy and Connie?
THROBBING: He proposed. She accepted. I protested. Then I had to get my skates on for Evensong.
(Enter WICKSTEED.)
WICKSTEED: Evensong on ice? The Church must be desperate. (Exits.)
MRS WICKSTEED: Percy. Are you or are you not engaged to my sister-in-law?
SIR PERCY: Is your sister-in-law a woman with a nondescript face, but an outstanding figure?
MRS WICKSTEED: Certainly not. She has a bust like a billiard table.
THROBBING: She is as slim and graceful as a boy. Perhaps that is what attracted me to her in the first place.
(Enter WICKSTEED.)
WICKSTEED: Sometimes I think Freud died in vain. (Exits.)
SIR PERCY: Certainly a person purporting to be Miss Wicksteed thrust herself on me this afternoon. I can still feel her urgent young body rippling beneath my fingers.
MRS WICKSTEED: It’s unlike Connie to thrust herself, even slightly.
THROBBING: He must have led her on.
SIR PERCY: It’s animal magic.
THROBBING: It’s being little. They have to assert themselves.
SIR PERCY: Watch it, Vicar. I gave your sister-in-law no encouragement at all.
THROBBING: Then kindly explain, Lofty, how you came to be without your trousers.
MRS WICKSTEED: Percy, is this true?
SIR PERCY: No. Yes. President of the BMA, physician to the Queen: I can have any girl I want.
MRS WICKSTEED: Connie. Come here this minute.
(connie enters, but without her appliance.)
CONNIE: Yes, Muriel.
MRS WICKSTEED: Don’t Muriel me, you minx. You seem to have been busy this afternoon. Now Percy. Is this the lady?
SIR PERCY: In some respects, yes. But what has happened to her urgent young body? I have been deceived. Terribly deceived. I don’t want her either.
MRS WICKSTEED: Now Connie. Perhaps you can throw some light on the proceedings. Canon Thing here has got it into his head that you are all washed up. Is this true?
CONNIE: Yes.
THROBBING: No. Oh Mowgli, my wild jungle child, say it’s not true.
CONNIE: It is true.
MRS WICKSTEED: Then who are you engaged to?
CONNIE: To this gentleman here. He proposed to me.
SIR PERCY: Lies. LIES, LIES, ALL LIES.
MRS WICKSTEED: Are you sure he proposed?
CONNIE: Quite sure: he took his trousers off.
SIR PERCY: May I speak. MAY I SPEAK.
MRS WICKSTEED: Percy.
SIR PERCY: MAY I?
THROBBING: No.
SIR PERCY: Look here. I am Sir Percy Shorter, FRCS, FRCP.
CONNIE: How do you do. I’m sure we’re going to be very happy.
SIR PERCY: We are not. WE ARE NOT. WE ARE NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY AT ALL. I deny it. I deny everything. And I will go on denying everything. You believe her? Her unsupported… and I mean unsupported word against mine. And you Muriel. Think of the times we’ve had together. Do they mean nothing to you? NOTHING? This cringing, flat-chested, dowdy little spinster. I am not going to throw myself away on that. It’s all fantasy. A fantasy of frustration and loneliness and sadness and despair. And as such entirely DESPICABLE. I think you owe me an apology.
MRS WICKSTEED: Percy. How could I have ever doubted your word.
SIR PERCY: And do you agree her talk was fantasy?
MRS WICKSTEED: A tissue of lies.
SIR PERCY: Very well. I am big enough to overlook it.
THROBBING: Just one moment. Am I right in thinking you deny anything untoward occurred this afternoon?
SIR PERCY: Absolutely. Absolutely.
THROBBING: What time did you come here this afternoon? (The next sequence must be like a cross examination, very gentle and slow, then gradually increasing in speed leading to the fatal slip of the tongue.)
SIR PERCY: About three.
THROBBING: About three?
SIR PERCY: About three.
THROBBING: About three. You came into this room?
SIR PERCY: I came into this room.
THROBBING: You’re sure of that?
SIR PERCY: Of course I’m sure. Look here….
THROBBING: Miss Wicksteed came in?
SIR PERCY: That is correct.
THROBBING: And you say you arrived about three?
SIR PERCY: That is correct.
THROBBING: And then you… what… talked?
SIR PERCY: Talked, chatted, made conversation.
THROBBING: She was wearing a blue dress, is that right?
SIR PERCY: That is correct.
THROBBING: So you arrived about three, came into this room, talked, chatted, made conversation….
SIR PERCY: Talked, chatted, made conversation….
THROBBING: And she was wearing a blue dress?
SIR PERCY: A blue dress.
THROBBING: She sat on the sofa?
SIR PERCY: She sat on the sofa.
THROBBING: You Stood?
SIR PERCY: That is correct.
THROBBING: And you say you arrived about three? And came into this room?
SIR PERCY: Arrived about three, came into this room.
THROBBING: Talked, chatted, made conversation?
SIR PERCY: Talked, chatted, made conversation.
THROBBING: And she was in her blue dress?
SIR PERCY: And she was in her blue dress.
THROBBING: And what colour were her knickers?
SIR PERCY: Blue … no pink. Argh!
THROBBING: Thank you Sir Percy. That’s all I wanted to know. I’m sorry Miss Wicksteed. Your witness.
MRS WICKSTEED: So. You big story.
SIR PERCY: Muriel.
MRS WICKSTEED: Don’t Muriel me, you four foot Casanova.
SIR PERCY: You see, you see. It always has to come back to that.
MRS WICKSTEED: All those years I’ve dreamed of you, the man I might have married.
SIR PERCY: All right, I wanted you once, but you spurned me and why? Because I was small. And your husband laughed. Well when I’ve finished with you you’ll both be laughing on the other side of your faces. Little, small. So I’m small am I? Well I’ll tell you something Muriel. You are not small. Not small at all. You are HUGE. ENORMOUS.
MRS WICKSTEED: Stop it.
SIR PERCY: You think I fancied you? You!
MRS WICKSTEED: You did, you did.
SIR PERCY: You great wardrobe. That model went out years ago.
MRS WICKSTEED: Stop it. I’m ageless, do you hear, ageless.
SIR PERCY: And don’t think you’re going to trundle back to your snivelling little husband, and live happily ever after in your nice little provincial backwater. Because I am going to break him. BREAK HIM, do you hear? I’ve broken bigger men than that. And I’ll do it again. Professional misconduct. Professional incompetence, interfering with patients … a list of charges as long as my arm.
THROBBING: Well that’s not very long.
SIR PERCY: Watch it, Vicar.
CONNIE: Please don’t do it. For my sake.
SIR PERCY: For your sake? What did you ever do for me, except pull the wool over my eyes?
CONNIE: It was nice while it lasted.
SIR PERCY: It was an illusion.
CONNIE: It always is.
SIR PERCY: No. I shall break him. He’s had his chips.
MRS WICKSTEED: No. No.
SIR PERCY: The party’s over, Doctor. Curtains. This is the end of the line for you, Arthur Wicksteed, a general practitioner from Brighton’s Hove.
MRS WICKSTEED: The shame! The disgrace! The POVERTY!
SIR PERCY: Finita La Commedia, Arturo.
(Exit SIR PERCY, followed by MRS WICKSTEED.)
CONNIE: So you see now, marriage is out of the question.
THROBBING: Is it?
CONNIE: Oh yes. What I have done, you can’t forgive. This foul, foul thing.
THROBBING: It was only kissing.
CONNIE: No. One kiss and he could have had anything. It would always lie between us. No I am Damaged Goods.
THROBBING: I forgive you.
CONNIE: You mustn’t. He mustn’t.
THROBBING: I must. It is my principles.
CONNIE: I am a harlot. A Jezebel.
THROBBING: I know, I know.
CONNIE: A whore.
CONNIE: Oh Connie, how infinitely more desirable you are now. Can’t you see, Connie, what vistas are opening up?
CONNIE: I think I can. Oh God.
THROBBING: Sin with him you can sin with me. I wanted you before. I want you twice as much now.
CONNIE: No, please, Harold, no.
THROBBING: Gently we can lead each other on as together we explore all the alleys and pathways of the body. Just think of it.
CONNIE: I’m trying not to.
throbbing: Together we shall be in the forefront of Anglican sexuality. Perhaps I might even write a frank and fearless account of our activities for the Church Times. Oh such sin. Only it won’t be sin because we shall be married, married and allowed to do what we want. Married and FREE.
CONNIE: Free?
THROBBING: (To the tune of ‘Shuffle off to Buffalo’) I must go and tell the verger That there’ll shortly be a merger And it’s some day soon.
CONNIE: No, no, no.
THROBBING: Can’t believe my luck. Because I’m going to break my duck Upon a honey, honey, honeymoon.
(They exit as MRS WICKSTEED and MRS SWABB enter.)
MRS SWABB: It’s kiss ‘n’ make up time. I’m glad to see somebody’s doing the sensible thing. (Exits.)
MRS WICKSTEED: Now, Muriel old girl. You’re going to have to play your cards pretty carefully, or you will end up on the discard pile. I don’t know. And me with the menopause just shoving its nose above the horizon. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate.
(Enter WICKSTEED, bags packed.)
WICKSTEED: I fold up my twenty-five years in the medical profession. I put in twenty-odd years of marriage, plus a slightly threadbare respectability. And that’s it. All in ten minutes. Ten minutes and the world turns. Our world. In Memphis, Tennessee, fourteen babies have been born since this play began. In Hobart, Tasmania, a flower turns to the sun. In Lima, Peru, an old man is dying, and in Birmingham, England, two lovers turn to each other in the silence of the night … and somewhere out there in the singing silence of space, a tin flag flutters. Our world. Somewhere between the loving and the lying and the kissing and the crying and the living and the dying and the fishing and the frying is that something we call life. Our world.
MRS WICKSTEED: All packed, I see.
WICKSTEED: A few things I’ve thrown together.
MRS WICKSTEED: Where are you going?
WICKSTEED:
Relatives.
MRS WICKSTEED: Close relatives?
WICKSTEED: Stevenage. I think I have an aunt there.
MRS WICKSTEED: You’re a stinker, Arthur Wicksteed. Do you know that?
WICKSTEED: Oh yes.
MRS WICKSTEED: A rotter.
WICKSTEED: It’s funny…. Having you I didn’t want you. Losing you, I want you again.
MRS WICKSTEED: Hard cheese.
WICKSTEED: ‘His wife has promised to stand by him.’
MRS WICKSTEED: What?
WICKSTEED: I was just thinking, it would look better if you stood by me. Maybe I wouldn’t be struck off.
MRS WICKSTEED: It would look better. Of course I should have to dress the part: one thing I’ve learned in life is that few right thinking people can withstand a really good twin-set and pearls. But what about my feelings?
WICKSTEED: I was forgetting those.
MRS WICKSTEED: As usual. After all she wasn’t just something on the side, was she? There’ve been others.
WICKSTEED: A few.
MRS WICKSTEED: A few?
WICKSTEED: Quite a few.
MRS WICKSTEED: I am fed up.
WICKSTEED: I think I am too. Muriel. I suppose it’s too late to start again.
MRS WICKSTEED: Much too late. All those women lie between us.
WICKSTEED: And in your life, no one?
MRS WICKSTEED: No one. Nothing. Never.
WICKSTEED: Percy?
MRS WICKSTEED: A dream. A fantasy. No one has ever laid a finger on me except you. And you it’s so long. I’ve almost forgotten. Suppose I were to overlook your disgraceful conduct.
WICKSTEED: My shameful, shameful conduct. Filthy conduct.
MRS WICKSTEED: Yes.
WICKSTEED: If only you could be big enough.
MRS WICKSTEED: Then there’d have to be a different going on.
WICKSTEED: How different?
MRS WICKSTEED: No more twin beds.
WICKSTEED: I sleep so badly.
MRS WICKSTEED: Then we shall sleep badly together.
WICKSTEED: Yes, Muriel.
MRS WICKSTEED: Perhaps in the long watches of the night I shall bring you comfort.
WICKSTEED: Perhaps you will.
MRS WICKSTEED: I will. There is no perhaps about it. You see, you have no rights, Arthur. They have been forfeited over the years. Whereas innocence has kept mine intact. Kiss me.
WICKSTEED: Here?
MRS WICKSTEED: Yes. No. Hard.
WICKSTEED: If you insist.
(WICKSTEED puts his arms round her and kisses her.)
MRS WICKSTEED: And that’s how it’s going to be. But I am not forcing you. You may take it or leave it.
