Love in Idleness / Less Than Kind

by Terence Rattigan

  JOHN. When’s his birthday?

  OLIVIA. You have a horrible statistical mind. May the fourteenth.

  JOHN. Then he’s exactly seventeen and eight months.

  OLIVIA. Oh – is that all? Oh, then he’s still quite a baby.

  JOHN. I doubt if he’ll think so.

  OLIVIA. You know what Polton said when I told her how old he was? She said she simply didn’t believe it.

  JOHN. I don’t believe it, either. But, as the papers say, we must face facts, and the facts are these: you have a grown-up son –

  OLIVIA. Oh! (Opens her mouth to speak.)

  JOHN. Or nearly a grown-up son, about to descend on you at any moment to face a situation which I gather you have not yet had the courage to tell him in any of your letters.

  OLIVIA (protestingly). Darling, it’s not the kind of thing you can write about in a letter. The censor wouldn’t have passed it –

  JOHN. There seems to be some confusion in your mind between the Department of War Censorship and the Lord Chamberlain. Anyway, whatever your excuse is, it is true, isn’t it – you’ve told him nothing whatever about me?

  OLIVIA. Oh, yes, I have told him something.

  JOHN. What?

  OLIVIA. That I’d met you, and that you were very nice.

  JOHN. Thank you. When did you tell him that?

  OLIVIA. Well – when I did meet you – about two years ago.

  JOHN. Three years ago. Anything since?

  OLIVIA. Well, I occasionally told him I’d been to a theatre with you, or something – or that I’d had dinner with you – or something.

  JOHN. I see. In this case ‘or something’ appears to cover quite a wide field.

  OLIVIA. Darling – he’s only a little boy. How could I tell him things he wouldn’t understand?

  JOHN. Olivia, darling, he is not a little boy –

  OLIVIA. Yes, he is. Just because he’s seventeen doesn’t mean he’s grown up. I’ll show you his letters – they’re absolutely crammed with ‘corking’ and ‘top-hole’ and – white mice and catapults. He’s just a little boy and he wouldn’t understand.

  JOHN. Well, then – what are you going to tell him?

  OLIVIA. The truth, I suppose.

  JOHN. But you’ve just said he’s too occupied with white mice and catapults to understand the truth.

  OLIVIA. Then I’ll tell him as much of the truth as he can understand. JOHN. And how much is that?

  OLIVIA. Oh, you are maddening! You know perfectly well what I mean.

  JOHN. I’m sorry to catechise you like this, Olivia, but this is a crisis in your life that’s arisen – in my life, too, come to that – and I haven’t lived with you for three years without realising that, if left to deal with it yourself, the chances are a hundred to one on your making an awful muck of it. Darling, be fair now. Isn’t that true?

  OLIVIA. No, it isn’t. Not this time. After all, he is my own son and I know exactly how to deal with him.

  JOHN. Well, all I’m asking is that you give me some indication of how you intend to deal with him. Come on, now – have a little rehearsal. What are you going to tell him?

  OLIVIA (at length). Well – I’ll say: ‘Three years ago your father died, and I went to live in St John’s Wood.’

  JOHN. Four years ago, and Swiss Cottage.

  OLIVIA. Don’t interrupt.

  JOHN. I was being Michael. We can assume that, unlike his mother, he has some slight idea of space and time. By the way, was he very fond of his father?

  OLIVIA. No, I don’t think he was awfully. Anyway, he was always much fonder of me –

  JOHN. Oh, well, that’s better. Go on, go on.

  OLIVIA. Well, don’t be so cross!

  JOHN. I’m not cross. I always sound cross when I’m worried.

  OLIVIA. Put your feet up and be comfortable.

  JOHN. Go on, now!

  OLIVIA (pushes him back, picks up his legs). Well, then, I’ll say: ‘One day I went to a cocktail party given by your Aunt Ethel who married the Gas Light and Coke Company, and lives in Park Lane, and there I met a man called John Fletcher whom I didn’t know was the John Fletcher, in spite of his Canadian accent, because he seemed too amusing and young to be a Captain of Industry and a Cabinet Minister and all the rest of it, and who seemed to like me.’

  JOHN. You understate. However, go on.

  OLIVIA. ‘Well – I went to lunch with him a couple of times and then one night I had dinner with him – ’

  JOHN. Or something.

  OLIVIA. Shut up. ‘And he told me he was in love with me.’

  JOHN. He said nothing of the kind. He was much too cautious for that.

  OLIVIA. ‘Well – in a sort of underhand, roundabout politician’s way he gave me to understand that he didn’t find me altogether repulsive, but that he was unable to proceed any further in the matter because he already had a wife from whom he was separated and who anyway was a bit of a bitch – ’

  JOHN. Tell me, darling, what’s that?

  OLIVIA. ‘He already had a wife who didn’t understand him, but whom he couldn’t divorce until after the war, on account of Dr Goebbels. So –

  JOHN. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re skating over the crux of the whole thing. I think Michael would want you to expand this Goebbels theme –

  OLIVIA. ‘Well – he couldn’t divorce his wife – who, God knows, had given him every reason for it, because meanwhile he’d been called into the Government to make tanks – and a nice juicy divorce case involving a British Cabinet Minister wouldn’t look too well on the front pages of the Berlin newspapers and might lead to tales of Babylonian orgies in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street.’ How’s that?

  JOHN. Better. Go on.

  OLIVIA. ‘Well, then he asked me – very comme il faut – whether I would wait until after the war when he would be free to ask for my hand in marriage and I said no, that’s silly. After all, we’re neither of us getting any younger and the war might go on for years and years and years’ – and it certainly looked as if it would then, do you remember.

  JOHN (drowsily). I do. I do. I do. I do.

  OLIVIA. ‘So then he said – again very comme il faut – in that case he would resign from the Cabinet and go ahead with his divorce and I said, oh, no, you’re far too useful making tanks, and anyway that would make me a sort of femme fatale, and I’m far too much in love with you to want to be that – ’

  JOHN. Did you say that? (Takes her cheeks in his hands.)

  OLIVIA. Of course I said it, and it made you more –

  JOHN and OLIVIA (together). – comme il faut than ever.

  OLIVIA (proceeding). You said you would exert every endeavour to find a formula to suit everyone, so I just packed my things and moved in that night. Since then not a ripple has stirred the calm surface of our domestic bliss – as Celia Wentworth would say.

  JOHN. Who’s Celia Wentworth?

  OLIVIA. The novelist. She’s dining here on Thursday. So’s Tom Markham. (Hands him list from table.) There’s the list. I’ve got the Randalls, too.

  JOHN. Oh, who are the Randalls?

  OLIVIA. John, really! They’re only the most famous theatrical couple in the world, that’s all. They never, never, never dine out. JOHN. They’re dining here on Thursday.

  OLIVIA (proudly). I know.

  JOHN. How do you do it?

  OLIVIA. It’s a gift.

  JOHN. And what would you say if I ask you – why do you do it?

  OLIVIA. Oh, fun, I suppose. Or is it, perhaps, because I’m a bit of a snob?

  JOHN. No. I don’t think it’s that.

  OLIVIA. No. I don’t think it’s that, either. Or perhaps it is because subconsciously I resent a little not being Lady Fletcher, so perhaps I’m a bit too eager to anticipate my wifely privileges. Do you understand what I mean?

  JOHN. I understand perfectly. I’m sorry I asked. (Kisses the top of her head.) It was stupid of me to ask, I’m sorry.

  OLIVIA. That’s all right. I know
it must seem awfully silly – this ambition of mine to ‘found a salon’. I laugh at myself sometimes.

  JOHN. Nothing to laugh at in this list. Pretty damn good.

  OLIVIA. It’s not bad, is it? Darling, do you forgive me for being a snob?

  JOHN. I’ll forgive you for anything.

  OLIVIA. No, no, seriously – I mean it.

  JOHN. Darling, seriously – anything in the world that gives you pleasure gives me as much for just that same reason. If that sounds pompous and sentimental, I’m sorry, but I mean it.

  OLIVIA. I’m quite fond of you, Sir John, do you know that?

  JOHN. I’m quite fond of you, Mrs Brown.

  OLIVIA. Another whisky?

  JOHN. No, thanks. I’d love a little more water in this, if you don’t mind.

  OLIVIA rises and takes glass to drink table.

  OLIVIA. Just your slave girl, that’s all I am.

  JOHN (drowsily). Slave girl, slave girl –

  OLIVA. Well – what do you think about my story for Michael? Do you think it will do?

  JOHN. It’ll have to do. It’s the truth.

  OLIVIA. Of course, I shan’t tell him anything like that at all.

  JOHN. Oh, dear God above! (Opens his eyes, starts up with jerk.)

  OLIVIA. All right, John dear, go to sleep if you want to.

  JOHN. How can I go to sleep when you say things calculated to give me heart failure?

  OLVIA. What would be the use of going through all that rigmarole?

  JOHN. Well, then, what, might I ask, was the idea of that rehearsal just now?

  OLIVIA. Oh, because you asked me to. I shall just say that you’re a very old friend, and that we’re going to be married after the war.

  JOHN. That’s true. But what about – (Sweeps his hand round the room.) all this?

  OLIVIA. Oh, I shall say that you’ve made me a present of one of your houses. (Crosses to sofa with drink.)

  JOHN. Well, that’s very generous of me.

  OLIVIA. Oh, yes. For an old friend you’re very generous.

  JOHN. Thank you. Don’t you think it’s rather odd my giving you a house and then coming and sleeping in it myself.

  OLIVA. Not odd at all. You’ll be here as my guest.

  JOHN. Thank you.

  OLIVIA. Not at all. Stay as long as you like.

  JOHN. Very kind of you.

  OLIVIA (thoughtfully). Or on second thoughts, how would it be if I were your confidential secretary? What do you think of that, John?

  JOHN. You know perfectly well what I think. I think that anything less than the full unvarnished truth is likely to prove fatal.

  OLIVIA. I see. Confidential secretary no good?

  JOHN (rising). Confidential secretary no good.

  OLIVIA. And the generous friend?

  JOHN. And the generous friend.

  OLIVIA. Then I don’t see what’s left.

  JOHN. The truth, woman. The truth.

  OLIVIA. But surely the truth is not the kind of thing one should tell one’s sixteen-year-old boy?

  JOHN. Madam, your son is nearly eighteen, and I think it better that he hear the truth from his mother’s lips than from one of his bar cronies.

  OLIVIA. Oh, John, I feel quite embarrassed. I’ve never been embarrassed by the situation before, and now I find myself blushing whenever I think of it. I feel like a bad, bad woman. (Stands in a corner in an attitude suggesting intense shame.)

  JOHN. Well, in the eyes of many people, that’s just what you are.

  OLIVIA. Oh, surely not, in this day and age.

  JOHN. In this day and age.

  OLIVIA. In that case you must be a bad, bad man.

  JOHN. A vile seducer.

  OLIVIA. You – a vile seducer! (Laughing.)

  JOHN. What’s so funny about that?

  OLIVIA. You couldn’t seduce a fly.

  JOHN. Is that so? I was a devil when I was a young man.

  OLIVIA. I know you were a devil. The madcap of the Toronto Elks.

  JOHN. Never mind. You’d be surprised. I’ve seduced hundreds of women in my time.

  OLIVIA. Just name me one. That’s all I ask. Just one.

  JOHN. Well, anyway, I seduced you.

  OLIVIA. Oh no, you didn’t. If there was any seducing to be done, I was the one that did it.

  JOHN (thoughtfully). Yes, I think that’s true.

  OLIVIA. You bet it’s true. Go on, go to sleep.

  JOHN (defiantly). Not until you’ve promised to tell Michael the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  OLIVIA (embracing him). I promise, you vile seducer.

  JOHN. But can I trust you?

  OLIVIA. Not an inch.

  POLTON comes in. Neither OLIVIA nor JOHN relaxes their very intimate position.

  POLTON. I’ve packed your bag, sir.

  JOHN. What? Oh, yes. Thank you, Polton. (To OLIVIA.) Damn!

  OLIVIA. I know, darling and I’m very sorry, but it’s only for tonight.

  POLTON. Did you want me to put in any papers, sir?

  JOHN. No, they won’t be here until later – I’ll put them in myself. All right, Polton; thank you.

  OLIVIA. Oh, Polton. I was too excited just now to tell you. I’ve managed to make up the table for Thursday. There’s the plan… you see I’ve put – oh well, you can read it yourself.

  POLTON. There’ll be twelve, madam?

  OLIVIA. Yes. We’d better start saving up rations… So Sir John and I will be dining out tonight.

  JOHN. Are we dining out?

  OLIVIA. Yes, dear. Only tonight. Saving up for Thursday.

  POLTON. Shall I ring up The Savoy and book a table, madam?

  OLIVIA. Yes, do. Ask for our usual table, will you, Polton?

  POLTON. Very good, madam.

  She goes out, JOHN yawns.

  OLIVIA (turning out the lights). Did you have a very tiring day?

  JOHN. Pretty tiring. I was bullied at Question Time.

  OLIVIA. Badly?

  JOHN. Very badly. All about the new tank. At least ten of them were screaming for my blood.

  OLIVIA. I’ll have them here and bully them.

  JOHN. I wish you would.

  OLIVIA. Don’t they know what a terrific job you’ve done?

  JOHN is lying on the sofa; OLIVIA is standing behind him – both dimly seen in the firelight.

  JOHN. I don’t know that I’ve done such a terrific job, Olivia. Certainly you wouldn’t have thought so if you could have heard them this afternoon. At the end of it I knew that if one more of them got up and was unkind, I’d have burst into tears there and then on the Speaker’s lap.

  OLIVIA (angrily). Joan says the new tank is a miracle.

  JOHN. Joan, for once, is right. At the moment, I can’t say so.

  OLIVIA. I don’t care. I’d have told them straight out.

  JOHN. I’m sure you would. Still, the curse is, some details are still on the secret list.

  OLIVIA. Well, if you can keep a secret, why can’t they?

  JOHN. I don’t know. Olivia, if you love me, don’t mention the words ‘new tank’ again.

  OLIVIA. No, no, I promise. (Looks down at him.) Go on, sleep away, you great baby! I’ll write some letters.

  JOHN. Don’t go too far away.

  OLIVIA. Why not?

  JOHN (sleepily). Because I adore you.

  OLIVIA goes to a chair and sits. At the same time Big Ben is heard chiming three-quarters of the hour. In the middle of the chimes POLTON enters in some agitation.

  POLTON (entering). Madam!

  MICHAEL comes in.

  MICHAEL. Hullo, Mum.

  OLIVIA (with a shriek). Michael, darling! (Runs across and embraces him.) Your telegram said late tonight. I wasn’t expecting you for hours.

  JOHN sits up abruptly.

  MICHAEL. I didn’t see why I should wait all day for a train. I got a lift from a pilot chap I know. He was taking an Anson down to Reading and I came on from there.

  OLIVIA (embraces
him again). You don’t look so much older, but you’re much thinner. Didn’t they give you enough to eat over there?

  MICHAEL. Of course they did.

  OLIVIA. Oh, it’s wonderful to see you, Michael –

  OLIVIA puts on the lights. Michael has become conscious of JOHN who is now unobtrusively trying to change from his slippers back to his shoes. He has just succeeded in putting on one shoe, as MICHAEL turns towards him and waits to be introduced.

  (Without embarrassment.) Oh, I’m sorry. This is Sir John Fletcher – my son Michael.

  JOHN. How do you do?

  MICHAEL. How do you do, sir?

  OLIVIA (quickly). Poor man, his shoes were hurting him.

  MICHAEL. Oh, really?

  OLIVIA (with a gay laugh). So I told him to take them off if they were hurting him.

  MICHA. Yes, I see.

  JOHN (with another gay laugh). Well, they’ve stopped hurting me now, so, if you don’t mind, I’ll put them on again.

  OLIVIA. Oh, yes, do. ( Crossing with MICHAEL.) You remember? I told you all about him in my letters. I want you to be particularly nice to him, Michael – because he’s a very old friend of mine – that’s to say, anyway, I want you to get on – (Tails off.)

  MICHAEL (stiffly). Oh, yes.

  JOHN. Did you have a good trip?

  MICHAEL. Yes, thank you, sir.

  OLIVIA. Oh, don’t call him ‘sir’, Michael. Call him – I know – call him ‘Uncle John’.

  MICHAEL. Why?

  OLIVIA. Well – because it would – well – be nice.

  JOHN (quickly). I agree with Michael. I don’t see why he should call me ‘Uncle John’ when I’m not his Uncle John.

  OLIVIA (unhappily). Yes – but you’re such a very old friend.

  JOHN. Quite so, but that’s hardly the point. (Glares at her.)

  MICHAEL is looking round the room, taking it in for the first time.

  OLIVIA. How do you like it here, Michael? ( Crosses to MICHAEL.)

  MICHAEL. It’s not bad. Did you get it furnished?

  OLIVIA. Well – yes – in a sort of way.

  MICHAEL (noticing a picture over the mantelpiece). Hullo – you’ve still got the Sickert, I see.

  OLIVIA. Yes, darling. It looks well there, don’t you think?

  MICHAEL (doubtfully). Yes. I think it looked better in Barons Court, somehow.

  OLIVIA. Oh.

  MICHAEL. I know what it is, you’ve changed the frame, haven’t you?