A Voyage Round My Father

by John Mortimer

  FIRST JUDGE

  SECOND JUDGE

  CHIPPY

  DOCTOR

  SECOND ATS GIRL Tilly Tremayne

  REIGATE’S FATHER

  ROBING ROOM MAN

  Directed by Ronald Eyre

  Act One

  The stage is bare except for a table and three chairs, downstage left, which are either indoor or outdoor furniture, and a bench downstage right. There is also some foliage downstage, suggestive of a garden: in particular, inverted flowerpots on sticks to act as earwig traps. This setting is permanent: changes of lighting only indicate the changes of place. The FATHER and the SON (grown up) enter.

  FATHER. Roses … not much of a show of roses.

  SON (grown up). Not bad.

  FATHER. Onions … hardly a bumper crop would you say?

  SON (grown up). I suppose not.

  The FATHER, a man in his sixties, wearing a darned tweed suit, a damaged straw hat and carrying a clouded malacca walking stick is, with blind eyes, inspecting his garden. His hand is on the arm of the SON. They move together about the garden during the following dialogue.

  FATHER. Earwigs at the dahlias. You remember, when you were a boy, you remember our great slaughter of earwigs?

  SON. I remember.

  FATHER. You see the dahlias?

  SON. Yes.

  FATHER. Describe them for me. Paint me the picture …

  SON. Well, they’re red … and yellow. And blowsy …

  FATHER (puzzled). Blowsy?

  SON. They look sort of over-ripe. Middle-aged …

  FATHER. Earwig traps in place, are they?

  SON. They’re in place.

  He leaves the FATHER, fetches a camp stool, puts it up, guides the FATHER to sit down on it beside a plant.

  FATHER. When you were a boy, we often bagged a hundred earwigs in a single foray! Do you remember?

  SON. I remember.

  The SON moves away from the FATHER and speaks to the audience.

  My father wasn’t always blind …

  The FATHER starts to tie up the plant, expertly and with neat fingers. He can obviously see.

  The three of us lived in a small house surrounded, as if for protection, by an enormous garden.

  The MOTHER enters carrying a camp stool. She puts it down beside the FATHER and starts to help him tie up the plant.

  He was driven to the station, where he caught a train to London and the Law Courts, to his work as a barrister in a great hearse-like motor which he would no more have thought of replacing every year than he would have accepted a different kind of suit or a new gardening hat. As soon as possible he returned to the safety of the dahlias, the ritual of the evening earwig hunt.

  A LADY VISITOR appears on the side of the stage, waves to the FATHER who goes into hiding, moving his stool behind the plant he is tending, peers out anxiously.

  SON. Visitors were rare and, if spotted – calling from the gate – my father would move deeper into the foliage until the danger was past.

  The LADY VISITOR, frustrated, withdraws. During the following speech, the FATHER moves his stool back into its former position.

  Those were the days when my father could see … before I went away to school. When it was always a hot afternoon and a girl called Iris taught me to whistle.

  FATHER. Where’s the boy got to?

  MOTHER. Disappeared, apparently.

  The SON (as a boy) and a small girl, IRIS, come running on chasing each other. In a corner the SON (as a boy) kneels in front of IRIS who is sitting neatly as she gives him a whistling lesson. The BOY is blowing but no sound emerges.

  FATHER. He’s running wild!

  IRIS. Stick out your lips. Stick them out far. Go on. Further than that. Much further. Now blow. Not too hard. Blow gently. Gently now. Don’t laugh. Take it seriously. Blow!

  Sound of a whistle.

  BOY. What was that?

  IRIS. What do you mean – what was that?

  BOY. Someone whistled.

  IRIS. It was you.

  BOY. Me?

  IRIS. It was you whistling!

  BOY. I can do it! I know how to do it!

  IRIS. Well, you’ve learnt something …

  FATHER. I said – the boy’s probably running wild.

  MOTHER. Oh, I don’t think so.

  In his corner with IRIS the BOY manages another whistle. They chatter quietly together during the following scene.

  FATHER. Oh yes he is. And a good thing too. When I was a young boy in Africa, they sent me off – all by myself – to a small hotel up country to run wild for three months. I took my birthday cake with me and kept it under my bed. I well remember … (He laughs.) . . when my birthday came round I took the cake out, sat on my bed, and ate it. That was my celebration!

  MOTHER. He’ll soon be going away to school …

  FATHER. What did you say?

  MOTHER. He’ll be going away to school … We can’t expect him to stay here … for ever …

  She gets up, folds her camp stool and leaves with it.

  A light change. Bright sun through leaves. The FATHER gets a step ladder and starts to walk up it, singing to himself.

  FATHER (singing).

  ‘She was as bee … eautiful as a butterfly

  And as proud as a queen

  Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington

  Green …’

  SON (grown up). One day he bought a ladder for pruning the apple trees. He hit his head on the branch of a tree and the retinas left the balls of his eyes.

  Sudden, total BLACKOUT in which we hear the SON’S voice.

  SON’S VOICE (grown up). That’s the way I looked to my father from childhood upwards. That’s how my wife and his grandchildren looked … My father was blind but we never mentioned it.

  The lights fade up slowly to reveal the FATHER, MOTHER and SON (as a boy) sitting round a breakfast table. The FATHER is clearly totally blind, the MOTHER is helping him cut up his toast, guiding his hand as he eats a boiled egg.

  SON (grown up). He had a great disinclination to mention anything unpleasant. What was that? Courage, cowardice, indifference or caring too completely? Why didn’t he blaspheme, beat his brains against the pitch-black sitting room walls? Why didn’t he curse God? He had a great capacity for rage – but never at the Universe.

  The SON (grown up) goes. The family eat in silence until the FATHER suddenly bursts out.

  FATHER. Take it away! This plate’s stone cold! My egg! It’s bloody runny! It’s in a nauseating condition! What do you want to do? Choke me to death? (Shouts.) Have you all gone mad? Am I totally surrounded by cretins?

  Another silence while they go on eating.

  FATHER (singing).

  ‘He asked her for to marry him

  She said “You’re very kind”

  But to marry of a milkman

  She didn’t feel inclined.

  But when she got married,

  That hard-hearted girl,

  It wasn’t to a Viscount,

  It wasn’t to an Earl,

  It wasn’t to a Marquis,

  But a shade or two WUS!

  ’Twas to the bow-legged conductor

  Of a twopenny bus!’

  MOTHER. Marmalade, dear?

  FATHER. Thank you.

  Silence.

  The evolution of the horse was certainly a most tortuous process. None of your seven day nonsense! Seven days’ labour wouldn’t evolve one primitive earthworm.

  Nobody says anything.

  FATHER (singing very loudly).

  ‘She was as beautiful as a butterfly,

  and as proud as a queen

  Was pretty little Polly Perkins of

  Paddington Green!’

  Silence.

  Is the boy still here?

  MOTHER. Please, dear. Don’t be tactless …

  FATHER. I thought he’d gone away to school.

  MOTHER. Pas avant le garçon.

  FATHER. What?

  MO
THER. He doesn’t like it mentioned.

  FATHER. Well he’s either going away or he’s not. I’m entitled to know. If he’s here this evening he can help me out with the earwigs.

  MOTHER (confidential whisper to the FATHER). Mr Lean’s going to drive him. À trois heures et demi.

  FATHER. Half past three, eh?

  MOTHER. Yes, dear. Mr. Lean’s going to drive him.

  FATHER (to BOY). You’ll learn to construct an equilateral triangle and the Latin word for parsley. Totally useless information …

  MOTHER. We really ought not to depress the boy. (To the BOY.) You’ll find the French very useful.

  FATHER. What on earth for?

  MOTHER. Going to France.

  FATHER. What’s he want to go to France for? There’s plenty to do in the garden.

  As she guides his hand to the coffee.

  The coffee’s frozen! (Drinks.) Like arctic mud!

  MOTHER, takes no notice, pours him some more coffee, meanwhile trying to cheer the BOY up.

  MOTHER. The school’s very modern. It seems that some of the older boys do sketching at weekends. From nature! I used to bicycle out with my sketching pad, from the college of art … I enjoyed it so much.

  FATHER. All education’s perfectly useless. But it fills in the time! The boy can’t sit around here all day until he gets old enough for marriage. He can’t sit around – doing the crossword.

  MOTHER (laughing). Married! Plenty of time to think of that when he’s learned to keep his bedroom tidy. (Pause.) The headmaster seemed rather charming.

  FATHER. No one ever got a word of sense out of a schoolmaster! If they knew anything they’d be out doing it. (To the BOY.) That’ll be your misfortune for the next ten years. To be constantly rubbing up against second-rate minds.

  MOTHER. At the start of each term apparently the new boys get a little speech of welcome.

  FATHER. Ignore that! Particularly if they offer you advice on the subject of life. At a pinch you may take their word on equilateral hexagons … but remember! Life’s a closed book to schoolmasters.

  MOTHER. We’ll finish your trunk this afternoon.

  FATHER. You won’t expect any advice from me, will you? All advice’s perfectly useless …

  MOTHER. I’ve still got to mark your hockey stick.

  FATHER. You’re alone in the world, remember. No one can tell you what to do about it.

  The BOY starts to cry.

  What’s the matter with the boy?

  MOTHER (apparently incredulous). He’s not crying!

  FATHER (coming out with some advice at last). Say the word ‘rats’. No one can cry when they’re saying the word ‘rats’. (Pause.) It has to do with the muscles of the face.

  BOY (trying to stop himself crying). Rats.

  The lights fade on the breakfast table. The FATHER, MOTHER and BOY go. The SON (grown up) comes to the edge of the stage.

  SON (grown up). Mr Ringer Lean was an ex-jockey who drove my father’s antique Morris Oxford. He treated it as though it were a nervous stallion.

  RINGER LEAN enters downstage right, carrying a school trunk on his shoulder.

  RINGER. Car’s lazy today. Going don’t suit her. Shit scared are you? Being sent away …

  The SON (as a boy) comes on to the stage. He is wearing school uniform, carrying a suitcase and looking extremely depressed.

  SON (grown up). I was to be prepared for life. Complete with house shoes, gym shoes, football boots, shirts grey, shirts white, Bulldog Drummond, mint humbugs, boxing gloves, sponge bags, and my seating plans for all the London Theatres …

  BOY. Yes.

  He puts down the trunk, rests on it.

  RINGER. They sent me away when I was your age. Newmarket Heath. Bound as a stable lad. Bloody terrified I was, at your age …

  BOY. Were you?

  RINGER. They shouldn’t send you away. You’re going to develop too tall for a jockey.

  BOY. I don’t think they want me to be a jockey …

  RINGER. Broke a few bones, I did – first they sent me away. Ribs fractured. Collar bone smashed. Pelvis pounded to pieces. Bad mounts … Bad Governors … When a Governor gets after you, you want to know …

  BOY. What?

  RINGER. Get to the hay loft, and pull the ladder up after you. They can’t climb. Recall that. Governors can’t climb. Often I’ve hid up the hay loft one, two, three hours sometimes. Till the Governor got a winner, and change of heart. Slept up there often. All right when the rats don’t nip you.

  BOY. Thanks.

  RINGER. Only advice I got to give you … never avoid a mount. Lad at our stable avoided a half-broken two-year-old. Nasty-tempered one with a duff eye. This lad was so shit scared to ride it that you know what he did?

  BOY. No …

  RINGER. Nobbled himself with a blunt razor blade. Severed a tendon. Then gangrene. Lad had to kiss his leg goodbye.

  RINGER LEAN picks up the trunk. He and the SON (as a boy) walk off down-stage left.

  The light changes, coming up upstage where the HEADMASTER, with long white hair, a gown and a stiff collar, is standing ready to address the boys – beside him is the school MATRON in uniform, and a young master, JAPHET, with a tie tied in a wide knot and an elegant, man-of-the world appearance.

  RINGER LEAN and the SON (as a boy) re-enter downstage right with luggage, and cross the stage.

  BOY. It’s not really a stable …

  RINGER. So never try and nobble yourself. That’s my advice. Or sterilize the blade. Hold it in a flame. Kill the germs on it!

  BOY. It’s more a school than a stable …

  RINGER. Wherever there’s lads, I expect it’s much the same …

  SON (grown up). My father had warned me – But this was a great deal worse than I’d expected.

  RINGER LEAN and the SON (as a boy) go off.

  HEADMASTER. Now, new boys. Stand up now. Let me look at you. Some day, some long distant day, you will be one-yearers, and then two-yearers, and then three-yearers. You will go away, and you will write letters, and I shall try hard to remember you. Then you’ll be old boys. Old Cliffhangers. O.C.’s you shall become, and the fruit of your loins shall attend the School by the Water. Leave the room the boy who laughed. The fruit of your loins shall return and stand here, even as you stand here. And we shall teach them. We shall give them sound advice. So the hungry generations of boys shall learn not to eat peas with their knives, or butter their hair, or clean their fingernails with bus tickets. You shall be taught to wash and bowl straight and wipe your dirty noses. When you are in the sixth form you shall see something of golf. You will look on the staff as your friends. At all times you will call us by nick-names. I am Noah. My wife is Mrs Noah. You are the animals. My son Lance is Shem. Mr Pearce and Mr Box are Ham and Japhet. Matey is Matey. Mr Bingo Ollard is Mr Bingo Ollard. These mysteries have I expounded to you, oh litter of runts.

  Pause. The lights change as the HEADMASTER, MATEY and JAPHET leave. HAM moves to where a blackboard and a desk are set at a corner of the stage, together with two classroom chairs. He starts drawing a right-angled triangle on the blackboard.

  SON (grown up, to the audience). The masters who taught us still suffered from shell shock and battle fatigue. Some had shrapnel lodged in their bodies and the classroom would turn, only too easily, into another Passchendaele.

  The SON (as a boy) and another boy of his own age, named REIGATE, cross the stage and sit on the chairs in front of HAM’S blackboard, watching him complete his drawing of Pythagoras’ theorem.

  HAM. The square on the longest side of a right-angled bloody triangle is … is what, Boy?

  Standing up in front of the desk, the BOY says.

  BOY. I don’t know …

  HAM (suddenly yells). Straff you, Boy. Bomb and howitzer and straff the living daylights out of you. God bomb you to hell!

  HAM picks up the first pile of books and starts to throw them at the BOY one by one, shouting.

  Get your tin hat on … ! It’s co
ming over now! (Throws a book.) It’s equal to the square … What square, you unfortunate cretin?! (Throws a book.) On the other two sides. (Throws a book.) Right-angled triangle! (Throws a book.) All night. Straff you all night. (Throws a book.) Shell and howitzer you! (Throws a book.) Bomb you to hell!

  Throws a duster. He sits down, suddenly deflated. Smiles nervously and gets out a small cash book.

  All right. All right. War’s over … Armistice Day. Demob. I suppose you want … compensation?

  BOY. If you like, sir.

  HAM. How many books did I throw?

  BOY. Six, sir. Not counting the duster.

  HAM. Threepence a book and say a penny the duster. Is that fair?

  BOY. I’d say so, sir.

  HAM. Is that one and six?

  BOY. I think it’s one and sevenpence, sir.

  SON (grown up). From Ham I learnt the healing power of money.

  At one side of the stage, sitting on a bench, robed in his wig and gown and carrying his walking stick, the FATHER is lit dictating a letter to the MOTHER who, wearing a hat, is sitting beside him. The FATHER speaks as HAM puts his hand in his pocket, pulls out money and counts it out and gives it to the BOY.

  FATHER. I am writing to you waiting outside the President’s Court to start a Divorce Case. Like all divorce cases, this one is concerned with sex, which you will find to be a subject filled with comic relief. The best part of divorce is that it is filled with comic relief …

  JAPHET, strumming a ukelele, appears upstage. The BOY, having collected his money, moves from the class towards JAPHET. HAM and REIGATE go off in different directions.