Alan Ayckbourn Plays 1

by Alan Ayckbourn

  Douglas Yes.

  Jill Truly happy?

  Douglas Yes.

  Jill No problems?

  Douglas No. Not really. I can’t think of any, offhand.

  Jill Despite the fact that she can’t face leaving the house?

  Douglas Well, that’s true, yes. But we’ve both learnt to live with that, you see …

  Jill Doesn’t it upset her?

  Douglas No. She doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t want to go anywhere.

  Jill Doesn’t she get lonely?

  Douglas No. She’s never said so.

  Jill What, all alone in that little house? Every day, while you’re out at work?

  Douglas She isn’t all alone. People come to visit her.

  Jill Who do?

  Douglas Friends, relations …

  Jill She has friends?

  Douglas Dozens of them. They’re always dropping in to see her. There are two of them staying there now.

  Jill Women?

  Douglas Yes, of course, women … And possibly her uncle Reg, if he can take the day off from the pet shop.

  Jill But surely, Douglas … Douglas, there must be more in life for you both than just sitting together day after day in that damp little house …?

  Douglas No, it’s not damp. That’s one of the good things about it …

  Jill But coming here – seeing all this – the pool, the villa, the sunshine … Wouldn’t you like this for Nerys, at least? Even if not for yourself? Doesn’t she deserve it after what she went through? Wouldn’t you both adore to have all this, in your heart of hearts?

  Douglas Frankly, no, I’m sorry, we wouldn’t. Neither of us swims, Nerys is allergic to sunlight and, personally, I can’t get on with Spanish food, not at all.

  Jill (growing desperate) Well, somewhere else. Italy?

  Douglas No.

  Jill Greece? Sweden?

  Douglas No, no. Not attracted, sorry. Despite their standard of living, they always look a rather glum sort of people, don’t you think? They certainly do on television.

  Jill Well, you can’t always go by everything – (She checks herself.) Possibly.

  Douglas You know, I have to say this, you’re making me feel rather guilty, Jill. I’m sorry if I’m being a disappointment. I’d have thought, though, that with all that misery you seem to meet up with in your job every day, a happy, contented couple might make a nice change for once. Wouldn’t you have thought?

  Jill (in exasperation) Sorry, Douglas, no. They wouldn’t. Not at all. Happy, contented couples – happy, contented, middle-aged couples especially – do not make exciting films, they do not make watchable plays or readable books. Nobody wants to hear about them. Nobody’s interested in them. Nobody even wants to look at paintings of them. And they certainly don’t want to sit down and watch them on television. Happy, contented people are box-office death, Douglas. Because they generally come over as excruciatingly boring. They come over as smug and self-satisfied and superior and they drive the rest of us up the bloody wall and we really don’t want to know about them. Not at all. All right?

  A pause. Douglas considers this calmly, seemingly unoffended.

  Douglas (quietly) How sad. That’s all I can say. How very sad.

  Jill (realizing that she has been very rude, even by her standards) I’m sorry.

  Douglas No …

  Jill If you and Nerys really are that rare and precious thing, a blissfully happy married couple, who am I to come between you …? (gathering up her things) Well, I must see how my crew are getting on …

  Douglas Good luck.

  Jill goes to leave but turns back again, just before she does so.

  Jill (incredulously) No, I’m sorry, I can’t believe it. You are both completely happy?

  Douglas (worriedly) Yes, I think we are. I was trying to think…

  Jill Excuse me, but – sexually, as well?

  Douglas (blankly) Sexually?

  Jill Sexually, you know. Sex? Long winter evenings? And so on?

  Douglas Well, no, we don’t – No.

  Jill You don’t?

  Douglas No.

  Jill You mean you don’t sleep together?

  Douglas Yes, we sleep together, we just don’t – No.

  Jill Ever?

  Douglas No. Not for some little while.

  Jill What do you mean by some little while?

  Douglas Er – probably about fifteen years, probably.

  Jill (stunned) Fifteen years.

  Douglas Yes, I should think – I should think about that, yes.

  Jill (appalled) My God, how have you both managed …?

  Douglas Oh, I don’t think it’s ever been a problem –

  Jill Fifteen years? I don’t believe it. Fifteen years? (Pause.) You’re joking. Fifteen years? Did you never try to talk to anyone about it?

  Douglas No, we never felt the need. Anyway, I don’t think anyone would be very interested. We – you know – we tried it for a couple of years when we first got married and – neither of us – found much to it, really – rather overrated, really – so we gave it up …

  Jill Sorry. I have to sit down. (She does so.)

  Douglas You all right?

  Jill (laughing weakly) Yes. I couldn’t include this in a programme, they wouldn’t believe it …

  Douglas Oh, I don’t know. It’s not that uncommon, you know. Nerys’s Uncle Reg told me he’d never tried it at all and he’s never missed it …

  Jill Maybe it’s genetic. (Slight pause.) Fifteen years? And you have never had it? Do you realize, Douglas, there are some of us, many of us, most of us, who spend all our waking hours thinking about having it and at night, if we’re not having it, we dream about having it? We spend most of our lives trying to work out how we can get someone to have it with us and then, once we’ve had it, how we can get rid of the person we’re having it with, so we can have it with somebody else? And you’ve never even bothered to have it … I don’t believe it. And Nerys feels the same? She doesn’t miss it either?

  Douglas She’s never said she has.

  Jill What about children? Did she never want children?

  Douglas (quickly) No. Never. She –

  Jill What?

  Douglas She never did. (Pause.) I think that maybe as a result of – her accident … she felt unable to cope with the responsibility of children.

  Jill And you?

  Douglas Oh, I quite understood why. I appreciated her decision.

  Jill But would you have liked children, if she’d been willing?

  Douglas Possibly.

  Jill You’d have liked them? In other circumstances?

  Douglas (cautiously) Yes …

  Jill If, for instance, she hadn’t been injured, you’d both probably have had them?

  Douglas (uncomfortably) Er – who can say? Possibly.

  Jill (seeing some light at last) Yes. Right. (moving into the house once more, briskly) We might talk further about children tomorrow, Douglas. In our interview. All right?

  Douglas (unhappily) Yes. Yes, if you like.

  Jill goes into the house. She seems rather triumphant. Douglas wanders out towards the pool. He is thoughtful. It is mid-afternoon, and very hot. Ruy comes through the garden gate with a block of rough stone, one of several such journeys he will make during the next.

  Hallo.

  Ruy, as always, doesn’t even acknowledge Douglas’s presence.

  Dried off, I hope? (He laughs.)

  A bird sings. A plane drones overhead. Douglas looks up again. Vic comes out on to the terrace, followed by Kenny. Vic has apparently had a bit to drink.

  Kenny She says they’re nearly ready.

  Vic Well, they know where I am if they want me, don’t they? It’s too hot to sit in there.

  He sits in the shade. Kenny does likewise.

  (calling to Douglas) Get sunstroke if you stand around out there too long, mate.

  Douglas (turning) Pardon?

  Vic I said, be careful in the su
n. If you’re not used to it.

  Douglas Oh, yes. Thank you. (returns to the terrace and sits with them) I thought you’d be doing your interview.

  Kenny They’re not quite ready.

  Douglas Oh.

  Pause.

  Do you think ours went all right? Our interview?

  Vic (without enthusiasm) It was all right.

  Douglas You were wonderful. Never stuck for an answer.

  Vic Well …

  Kenny He’s done it before. Once or twice.

  Douglas Yes, I’m afraid that showed, so far as I was concerned. I’m afraid she floored me once or twice. I was completely speechless. She said she’d be able to cut them out, though. My hesitations. Ah.

  Marta has come from the house with a freshly opened bottle of wine and some glasses on a tray. She places them beside Vic. During the next, Ruy returns empty-handed from the swimming pool and goes out through the gate.

  Marta Mr Vic …

  Vic Thank you, Marta. Is my wife coming out here, then?

  Marta Mrs Parks is doing washing up, Mr Vic.

  Vic Why is she doing the washing up?

  Marta I don’t know, Mr Vic …

  Vic You should be doing the bloody washing up, not her. That’s what you’re paid for.

  Marta I don’t know, Mr Vic …

  Vic You do the washing up, all right? Tell her to come out here.

  Marta (going back inside) Yes, Mr Vic …

  Vic pours himself a glass of wine.

  Vic I don’t know … (holding up the bottle rather belatedly) Anybody?

  Douglas No, thank you.

  Kenny (gently) Go steady, Vic.

  Vic (mimicking) Go steady. You sound like my auntie, you great fruit … (He drinks.) No, I’ll tell you something about interviews and being interviewed. The first thing you’ve got to remember is that, generally speaking, if you are the one being interviewed and feeling nervous, then the person interviewing you – nine times out of ten – he’s even more nervous than you are. Because if it all goes wrong, if you cock the whole thing up, all you stand to do is make a fool of yourself – whereas for him – well, it’s his job on the line, isn’t it? Know what I mean?

  Ruy returns through the gate with another piece of stone. He exits round the swimming pool.

  Douglas Yes, I see. That hadn’t occurred to me, I must say.

  Kenny (who has been watching Ruy) What’s he doing there?

  Vic Ruy? He’s building a bench – a little stone seat, the other end of the swimming pool …

  Douglas Clever.

  Vic Well, he’s really a stone mason. But he’s had a spot of bother with the local law … No, the other thing you’ve got to remember about an interview is that, normally, whoever’s interviewing you will know less about what you’re talking about than you do. Because nine times out of ten, he’ll be talking to you about you – which makes you the resident expert, doesn’t it? As far as you’re concerned, it’s a home game. He’ll be nervous just coming down the tunnel, even before he’s started. You see, there’s an art to being interviewed. First, you’ve got to be able to use an interview to your own advantage. I mean, after all, what is an interview? This guy is more often than not trying to get you to say one thing – usually incriminating. And you, on the other hand, are wanting to say something of your own, entirely different to what he wants you to say. So it’s a battle to the death, isn’t it? If you’re being interviewed, you have to turn it around, see? You say things like – that’s a very good question, John, and I’d like to answer it if I may – with a question of my own. That always throws them, because they can’t bear getting questions back at them. Because they’re not usually geared for answers. Only for questions. Because they’re interviewers, see, and not meant to have opinions. So they can’t answer, anyway. But when they don’t, that makes them look furtive. And when he does get a question in, if you don’t like the one he’s asked you, then give him an answer to another one … And when he interrupts you – which he will do, once he realizes that you’re giving him the wrong answer, you say to him, I really must be allowed to answer this question in my own way, John, please. And look a bit hurt whilst you’re saying it. ’Cause that’ll make him look a pushy bastard, too. And another tip, if you’re giving an answer and you do happen to know the answer and don’t mind giving it to him, talk as fast as you can while still making sense, but don’t whatever you do leave pauses. Because they’re looking for pauses, see, to edit you about and change your meaning. That’s when they put in those nodding bits, you’ve seen them, when the bloke’s nodding his head for dear life about bugger all and sitting in a different room. But if you don’t pause, they can’t get in to edit, can they? And if they can’t edit you, they’ve either got to leave the interview out altogether, which means they haven’t got a programme, which is generally disaster time, or they have to put in what you said in its entirety and not some version of what some monkey would have liked you to have said if he’d got the chance to edit you. And if you’re in full flow and you do run out and you do have to stop, stop suddenly. Just like that. (Quick pause.) OK? Because that throws him as well. Because nine out of ten, if it’s a long answer you’ve been giving him, he won’t be listening, anyway. He’ll either be looking at his notes or at the floor manager, or wondering how long’s this bleeder going on for? And if none of that works and you’re really up against it, have a choking fit, throw yourself on the floor, knock the mic over and call for water. That usually does the trick.

  A pause. Douglas digests this.

  Douglas There’s a lot more to it than you imagine, isn’t there?

  Kenny True, very true.

  Ruy crosses back to the garden gate, empty-handed again. They watch him. Vic pours himself another glass of wine. Sharon comes out of the house and walks through the men. She is still in her uniform and is evidently very hot. Her face is lobster-coloured and she is moving slowly and heavily. She ignores them as she passes through and heads towards the swimming pool. But there is something self-conscious in her walk that tells us she is aware of their eyes on her. She stoops to pick up one of the children’s toys.

  Douglas (as she does this) Yes, but I think for the layman, such as myself, it’s probably better just to answer the –

  Vic (watching Sharon) Dear, oh dear, oh dear …

  Douglas Pardon?

  Vic Just look at the ass on that girl …

  Kenny (less enthusiastically) Yes.

  Vic Look at it. Acres of it, isn’t there?

  Sharon goes off round the side of the swimming pool.

  (watching her go) Dear, oh dear … (to Douglas, who has been rather embarrassed) Sorry, Doug, you were saying … Sorry, I interrupted you.

  Douglas (who has forgotten what he was saying) No, I was – no, I was just saying, put like you were putting it, it all seems a bit like a game, doesn’t it?

  Vic What?

  Douglas Interviews. On television.

  Vic Well, they are. Most of them. That shock you, does it?

  Douglas No. Only occasionally, you know, people might genuinely be trying to say something, mightn’t they? That they felt deeply about?

  Kenny laughs drily. Ruy returns with another block of stone.

  I wouldn’t like to think it was all just nothing more than a game.

  Vic (pouring himself another glass of wine) We all play games, don’t we? One way or the other? We all do it.

  Douglas Do you think so?

  Vic Like – right now – I’m wondering what yours might be …

  Douglas (startled) What?

  Vic No, seriously. I’m very, very curious. What are you after, sunshine? Smiling away there. What are you after?

  Kenny Vic …

  Vic Well, don’t tell me he came out here just to tell me what a nice man I am. What a lovely place I’ve got. Don’t tell me he came all this way for that, because, frankly, I don’t believe him.

  Kenny He came to do the programme, Vic …

 
Vic Don’t kid me. The programme? You mean to tell me he did all this for a programme? Just so he could see himself on the telly? I don’t believe it …

  Douglas I’m sorry, but I did …

  Vic Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.

  Douglas I did. (Slight pause.) Well, and to – (He checks himself.)

  Vic What? And to what?

  Douglas And to – see you.

  Vic To see me?

  Douglas Yes.

  Vic I shouldn’t have thought you’d have wanted to see me again, would you?

  Douglas Well, when Jill first wrote to us, I must say I didn’t, no. But in the end – after Nerys and I had both talked about it – we decided I had to, really.

  Vic Why?

  Douglas You – you’re – This might sound peculiar, but … Because you’re still there. In our dreams, you see. After seventeen years. We still both dream about you. We wake up occasionally. In the night. Nerys has this terrible fear – it’s quite ridiculous, I’ve told her – that one night you’re going to break in downstairs and come up to get her. I’ve said to her, it’s ridiculous – I mean, there you are on the telly twice a week or something, helping the kids or telling the old folk to mind how they go – I said, he’s not going to want to break in here, Nerys – Not after seventeen years, is he? Still. You can’t always control your imagination, can you? No matter how hard you try. So, don’t take this wrong, but I was hoping this – meeting – might help to exorcize you. If you follow me. I told you it would sound peculiar.

  A silence. Kenny looks at Vic a little apprehensively. Suddenly Vic laughs. He laughs loud and long. The wine helps. Ruy returns during this and goes out through the garden gate.

  Vic Well, I … (He wipes his eyes.) Well, I’ve been called a … I’ve been called a lot of things … (controlling himself a little) Look. Listen, Doug. I promise. I promise – you tell Nerys – tell her I’ll never break in through her front window, all right? Tell her she’s perfectly safe. I mean, I’ve been called a lot of things. (to Kenny) That’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful?